White House condemns Robert Kennedy Jr’s Covid claims as ‘vile’ – live

Close Kennedy family members weighing in reflects the growing outrage at Democratic presidential hopeful Robert Kennedy Jr’s words, which he tried to disavow on Monday in a statement sent to the Guardian by his campaign staff.

The statement reads:

The New York Post story is mistaken. I have never, ever suggested that the Covid-19 virus was engineered to ‘spare Jews,’ and I unequivocally reject this disgusting and outlandish conspiracy theory.

New York Post reporter Jon Levine exploited this off-the-record conversation to smear me as an antisemite. This cynical maneuver is consistent with the mainstream media playbook to discredit me as a crank – and by association, to discredit revelations of genuine corruption and collusion.

Separate messages sent to the Guardian purportedly from Kennedy’s personal email address cite Wikipedia links to press articles about the plausibility of ethnically-targeted bioweapons.

“The study is solid, and not at all controversial,” one of the messages says of a research paper by the British Medical Association, reported by the Guardian in 2004, that “rogue scientists” could develop bioweapons designed to target certain ethnic groups based on their genetic differences.

An Iowa judge has temporarily blocked the state’s new abortion ban from taking effect on Monday, just days after Governor Kim Reynolds signed the measure into law.

Polk County District Court Judge Joseph Seidlin ruled that a lawsuit by abortion providers is likely to succeed, and the temporary injunction will remain in place for the duration of the lawsuit.

The move restores access to abortion in Iowa for up to 20 weeks of pregnancy while the courts assess the new law’s constitutionality.

Last week, Iowa lawmakers passed a six-week ban on abortion in a rare special legislative session, called by Governor Reynolds, who signed the bill on Friday afternoon.

The law would ban almost all abortions once cardiac activity can be detected, which is usually six weeks into a pregnancy and before many women know they are pregnant. Prior to the law, abortion was legal in the state up to 22 weeks of pregnancy.

West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin is speaking at an event hosted by the moderate group No Labels, fueling speculation that he could run on a third-party ticket for the presidency.

Manchin has not declared whether he will run, but it’s difficult to see how his flirtation with No Labels would amount to a serious candidacy, according to a Vox report.

It’s true that many Democrats don’t want Biden to run again, and many Republicans say the same of Trump, who is the current GOP frontrunner. But while 2024 may shape up to be the rematch no one asked for, third-party candidates don’t have a successful track record in the US, and there’s no indication a third-party candidate would be able to launch a credible challenge to either party’s nominee this time. If Manchin or another third-party candidate runs, they would probably lose badly.

They might, however, get enough support among moderates to derail Biden in states that he narrowly won in 2020, despite No Labels co-chair Joe Lieberman’s assurances that his group is not looking to get in the race for a “spoiler.”

The White House’s press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, described Robert F Kennedy’s comments that Covid-19 was “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people as false” and “vile”.

“The claims made on that tape is false,” she said during a press briefing earlier this afternoon.

It is vile, and they put our fellow Americans in danger.

She declined to discuss Kennedy directly, citing the legal constraints on the administration’s ability to address campaign matters. But she warned that the presidential candidate’s remarks amounted to encouraging racist theories around the virus.

If you think about the racist and antisemitic conspiracy theories that come out of saying those type of things, it’s an attack on our fellow citizens.

And so it’s important that we essentially speak out when we hear those claims more broadly.

She also cited a statement from the American Jewish Committee that called Kennedy’s claims “deeply offensive” and reflective of “some of the most abhorrent antisemitic conspiracy theories throughout history.” Jean-Pierre added:

This is something that this president, and this whole administration, is going to stand against.

Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman, who is due to speak at this evening’s No Labels event in New Hampshire, has insisted it is “not a campaign”.

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds dodged a question about whether she would be Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s running mate if he won the Republican presidential primary.

DeSantis, at a fundraising event on Saturday, told reporters that he would consider Reynolds as a pick for vice president if he won the GOP nomination.

Asked about DeSantis’s comments, Reynolds told Fox’s Ainsley Earhardt:

I appreciate the comments. But look, I’m so focused. We are implementing a boldest universal school choice plan in the country. I just called a special session last week. This last week we passed the fetal heartbeat bill, and I actually cut state government and I cut 21 agencies from my Cabinet and we’re implementing our alignment bill.

She added:

So I’m busy working on being governor of the great state of Iowa and I’m already working on cutting taxes again next year. So that’s my focus right now.

Donald Trump last week expressed his frustration with Reynolds for declining to endorse a candidate early in the race. In a post to Truth Social, Trump wrote:

I opened up the Governor position for Kim Reynolds, & when she fell behind, I ENDORSED her, did big Rallies, & she won. Now, she wants to remain ‘NEUTRAL.’ I don’t invite her to events! DeSanctus down 45 points!

DeSantis, speaking on Saturday, also dismissed Trump’s criticism of Reynolds, saying:

I thought the attacks on her were totally, totally out of hand and totally unnecessary.

Joe Kennedy III, a former congressman from Massachusetts and nephew of Robert F Kennedy Jr, has publicly distanced himself from his uncle’s latest comments.

Robert F Kennedy’s sister, Kerry Kennedy, has also sharply criticised his remarks about Covid.

A leading environmental group has hit out at US climate envoy John Kerry over comments he made rejecting calls for the US to pay climate reparations to developing countries affected by climate-change fueled disasters.

On Friday, at a congressional hearing on the state department’s climate agenda, Kerry said that “under no circumstances” would the US meet reparations demands. However, the US has previously committed to contributing to a “loss and damages” fund for developing countries that does not involve statements of liability.

“We are disappointed and angered by this news, but not surprised, because John Kerry’s words are just the latest example of Kerry and the US refusing to back up their vague claims for US support in global climate progress with real, substantive action,” said Jeff Ordower, North America director of the climate advocacy group 350.0rg.

Ordower added that Kerry and president Biden “have tried to walk a tightrope of limited culpability: they talk a big game about “interconnected nations” and “the need for a fossil fuel phasedown,” but shied away “when it comes to “put their words into practice.”

The criticism comes as Kerry met with Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua in Beijing to urge joint action to cut methane emissions and coal-fired power.

“In the next three days we hope we can begin taking some big steps that will send a signal to the world about the serious purpose of China and the United States to address a common risk, threat, challenge to all of humanity created by humans themselves,” Kerry said, according to Reuters.

“It is toxic for both Chinese and for Americans and for people in every country on the planet.”

The US climate envoy’s comments came as temperature records in the US, Europe and China are coming close to being broken this week, alongside intense rain and flooding in other areas that are collectively pushing climate change issue to the top of the global political agenda.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has taken the chance to condemn remarks made by presidential hopeful Robert F Kennedy Jr after a video surfaced of him making false claims that Covid-19 was “ethnically targeted” to attack certain ethnic groups.

Kennedy, the infamous conspiracy theorist, famous scion and rogue candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination hit the headlines at the weekend after it emerged that he said at a press event in New York City last week that the coronavirus is a genetically engineered bioweapon that may have been “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people, the New York Post reported at the weekend.

Kennedy is garnering loud and swift criticism, including from members of his own family. The White House was asked about it during the press briefing today and Jean-Pierry called Kennedy’s remarks not just “false” but also “vile”.

The briefing is ongoing. Oh! It just wrapped up.

The US is not in a position to attribute the overnight attack that damaged the road bridge linking Crimea to southern Russia, the White House has stated on Monday.

The White House daily media briefing is still underway and press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is taking questions now. But a little earlier, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby was at the podium and his part of the briefing mainly focused on foreign policy and overseas news.

Kirby was not prepared to commit to naming the perpetrator of the attack on the bridge. We’ve been covering this topic in our Ukraine war live blog, but that is closing now. It will be back on Tuesday.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has attributed the overnight attack to Ukraine and said that his forces are preparing a response.

You can read the Guardian’s full report on this topic here.

Robert F Kennedy’s sister is among those who have sharply criticised his remarks about Covid.

Kerry Kennedy wrote on Twitter: “I strongly condemn my brother’s deplorable and untruthful remarks last week about Covid being engineered for ethnic targeting.”

Democrats were quick to distance themselves from presidential hopeful Robert F Kennedy Jr after a video surfaced of him making false claims that Covid-19 was “ethnically targeted” to attack certain ethnic groups.

Kennedy’s comments included “reprehensible anti-semitic and anti-Asian comments aimed at perpetuating harmful and debunked racist tropes, the Democratic congressional campaign committee said in a statement.

The Democratic presidential candidate’s attempt to repurpose fringe-right conspiracy theories is not new for his candidacy, the Washington Post reported. The paper compares Kennedy’s remarks to how Donald Trump offered a conspiratorial right-wing worldview to Republican primary voters in 2015.

It’s not surprising that the party’s institutions and leaders would take this tack; the Democratic Party is keenly attuned to racist stereotypes and antisemitism. But it is also not much of a burden. Kennedy’s support in the primary is not particularly robust relative to the incumbent president, and his long-standing conspiratorial rhetoric has not been effective at building a constituency. The party is certainly eager that it doesn’t.

Compare the response here with the Republican Party’s response to Donald Trump in 2015. The chairman of the party then, Reince Priebus, didn’t excoriate Trump’s repeated rhetoric about criminal immigrants on social media. The party doesn’t appear to have done so either […] For the GOP, Trump’s controversial comments were already accepted by a large segment of its base, which is why his candidacy quickly gained traction.

There is an interesting question inherent to the Kennedy situation for the Democratic Party: How accountable is it for the espoused views of one of its candidates for the presidential nomination? What is it about Kennedy that demands a response at all? Is it his name? Because he’s getting more than zero percent in polls? Is it simply that Kennedy affords Democrats an opportunity to reinforce who they are relative to what he presents?

West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, who is set to headline the No Labels event in New Hampshire later today, is arguably the most conservative Democratic senator.

Manchin has not declared yet whether he will run for reelection to his Senate seat. He has told reporters that he will wait until late this year before announcing whether he will run.

Should Manchin seek another term, he would face a serious challenge from Governor Jim Justice, who is seeking the Republican nomination in the Senate race. West Virginia has been leaning heavily Republican, having overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020.

Manchin has at times complicated legislative initiatives being pushed by his party leaders, Reuters reported. But Democratic leaders have treaded softly as Manchin also has been key to the party holding on to its Senate majority.

Democratic presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr faced widespread criticism over the weekend after a video surfaced of him making false claims that Covid-19 was “ethnically targeted” to attack certain ethnic groups while sparing Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people.

The New York Post on Saturday originally published a clip of Kennedy’s conspiracy theory comments, made during a recent dinner in New York City. In the recording, Kennedy can be heard making a series of false and misleading claims, including saying:

Covid-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.

Kennedy is also heard saying:

We don’t know whether it was deliberately targeted or not but there are papers out there that show the racial or ethnic differential and impact.

Ted Deutch, CEO of the American Jewish Committee, said Kennedy’s comments are “deeply offensive and incredibly dangerous” in a tweet on Saturday.

The Anti-Defamation League told multiple outlets that Kennedy’s comment “feeds into sinophobic and antisemitic conspiracy theories about Covid-19 that we have seen evolve over the last three years.”

Democratic national committee chair Jaime Harrison condemned Kennedy’s remarks and said they do not reflect the views of the party.

Joe Biden has invited Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to Washington for an official visit, according to a statement from Netanyahu’s office.

The two leaders shared a “long and warm” conversation where they discussed curbing threats from Iran and its proxies and strengthening the alliance between the two countries, the Israeli statement said.

The invitation comes more than seven months after Netanyahu was sworn in as prime minister. The delay was viewed as a major snub from Biden, as most Israeli prime ministers had already received an invitation to the White House this far into their terms.

The phone call between the two leaders took place as Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, is traveling to Washington for meetings with Biden and to address a joint address to Congress.

Ohio secretary of state Frank LaRose formally announced his candidacy for US Senate today, becoming the third prominent Republican hoping to challenge Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown in 2024.

“It’s official: I’m running,” LaRose said on Twitter.

I’m on a mission to give back to the state that has given me so much. To continue to serve the country I love and fight to protect the values we share. That’s why I’m running to serve as your next United States senator.

LaRose, Ohio’s secretary of state since 2019, is the third major candidate to jump into the primary to take on Brown. He follows Bernie Moreno, a businessman running with Donald Trump’s encouragement, and state senator Matt Dolan, whose family owns the Cleveland Guardians baseball team.

Ohio’s Senate race looks to be one of the most competitive in the country next year, alongside races in Arizona, Montana and West Virginia. The state backed Trump in the 2016 and 2020 elections.

New York mayor Eric Adams has appointed Edward Caban as the first Hispanic officer to lead the city’s police department in its 178-year history.

Adams announced the appointment of Caban, 55, in a morning news conference outside the 40th Precinct in the South Bronx, where Caban began his career as an officer in 1991.

Caban had been instrumental to the NYPD’s efforts to decrease crime after the Covid-19 pandemic, Mayor Adams said, noting that major crimes are down across the city this summer. He added:

Commissioner Caban is truly one of New York’s finest, a leader who understands the importance of both safety and justice.

Caban stepped in as acting police chief after the surprise resignation of Keechant Sewell, the first woman to lead the department, last month.

Florida governor and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has reduced campaign staff as his campaign has struggled to meet fundraising goals.

Fewer than 10 staffers were laid off, according to an anonymous staffer, reported Politico. The staffers were involved in event planning and may be picked up by the pro-DeSantis super Pac Never Back Down. Two senior campaign advisers, Dave Abrams and Tucker Obenshain, left the campaign this past week to assist a pro-DeSantis nonprofit group.

Sources within the campaign reported an internal assessment that the campaign hired too many staffers too early.

“They never should have brought so many people on; the burn rate was way too high,” said one Republican source familiar with the campaign’s thought process to NBC News. “People warned the campaign manager but she wanted to hear none of it.”

More shake-ups within the campaign are expected in the coming weeks after two months on the presidential campaign, with DeSantis still lagging substantially in second place behind former president Donald Trump.

Even in DeSantis’s home state of Florida, Trump still has a 20-point lead over the governor, according to a recent Florida Atlantic University poll.