“Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough torched Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during an emotional Wednesday morning commentary following the health secretary’s racist attacks against Arab people at a rally in Michigan.
“Bobby Kennedy was the reason I got involved in politics,” Scarborough said about the health secretary’s father. “I told Junior that as well. And the remarkable thing about Bobby Kennedy was that he threw up in his arms for all Americans, and he understood the importance of America as a, that we were stronger, as we were more diverse, and he took chances.”
“It’s hard to even imagine how ashamed he would be of his son for denigrating over a billion people because of their faith,” he continued.
RFK Jr. is facing intense backlash over his comments while campaigning in Michigan for Republican Reps. Mike Rogers, who is running for Senate, and John James, the GOP candidate for governor. He told the crowd that Arab people “don’t produce science.”
“They don’t win the Nobel Prize. They don’t win the Fields Prize. They don’t win the Wolf Prize. They don’t produce literature,” he said.
Kennedy’s remarks were not only appalling to many, but also false. Several Arab people have won the Nobel Prize in science, and five have been honored with the Nobel Peace Prize.
Scarborough, who spoke highly about Kennedy’s father, said his comments were “one of the most asinine things” he’d ever heard. He went on to point out the disappointment Kerry Kennedy, the health secretary’s sister, expressed after her brother’s attack.
“A person’s race, religion, ethnicity or socioeconomic background does not determine their intellect, creativity or capacity to contribute to humanity. My thoughts are with all those hurt by my brother’s false, cruel and derogatory words,” she wrote on X.
Scarborough told the panel, “He is gone. And for what? 30 pieces of silver? What has he sacrificed his extraordinary legacy for?”
“So many good things, and yet they get down in the gutter with Donald Trump, for what?” he continued.
The MS Now host compared Kennedy’s anti-Arab remarks to his father’s historic speech in 1968 in Indianapolis, where he called for peace following Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.
He told the panel “the cowardice” that the health secretary “showed by lurching to bigotry and what he considered to be a safe space is the opposite of what his father did.”
“That night, Indianapolis went to bed in peace, and it’s because of Bobby Kennedy’s courage, and that is why I got involved in politics,” Scarborough said. “’Cause I saw a man who made a difference, who had the courage to make the difference.”
“And now I see a son — and I take no pride in this, I like Bobby, personally. What I’ve known of him in the past — he disgraces his father’s name. He disgraces his father’s memory, and I pray for him. I pray that he will reconnect with the legacy of his extraordinary father,” he continued.