US health secretary falsely claims at Mike Rogers rally that Arabs have never won major prizes in science or literature Robert F Kennedy Jr , the US health secretary, faced backlash on Wednesday for a “wildly racist tirade” during a campaign stop in Michigan in which he falsely asserted that Arabs never won leading awards in science or…
Page A224From§Eachthe afternoon edition — 28 October 2026
Health Secretary RFK Jr.'s false Arab-prize claim and Rogers' Muslim Brotherhood smear hit the same Michigan stage.
As it ran on the front
Start where the fold left it Tuesday: the Supreme Court let a voter-purge database run inside the ninety-day window federal law usually forbids, then blocked student ID voting with twelve days left. The president calls the fraud his dragnet hasn't produced "rampant" anyway.
Monday night in Grand Rapids, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stood at a rally for Senate candidate Mike Rogers and told the room there are 500 million Arabs in the world and not one has won a Nobel, a Fields, or a Wolf. Two days later The Hill and the Guardian ran the correction nobody in the room offered live: Arabs have won all three, repeatedly, and the Guardian called it a wildly racist tirade once the quote had traveled, not when it was spoken.…
…(cont) Rogers didn't let the stage cool before using his own turn. CBS reported the same Michigan stop carried Rogers reviving Muslim Brotherhood claims against his Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, who is Muslim, the same day the president was in Texas, stumping for Ken Paxton instead. Two Republican campaigns, two states, one move: find the opponent's faith and run it through the oldest accusation on the shelf.
Jon Lovett, formerly of the Obama White House, answered from the other side, telling Jewish voters in Michigan they carry a "moral obligation" to back El-Sayed regardless. Fox News ran the pushback as the story instead of the pitch — the ask makes the news cycle; the insult that produced the need for it does not, at least not twice.
Both asks land on the same electorate. The Hill counts Arab-American voters shifting toward Democrats this week, crediting almost all of it to Republican hostility like Kennedy's. A poll the morgue dates to September 22nd found a majority of Democratic voters want prosecution pursued against officials in both the Biden and Trump administrations over the war in Gaza — a reminder that the voters being courted and insulted in the same news cycle are not a bloc either party gets to assume.
Rogers is trying to win some of it back with the Brotherhood line. Lovett's answering with obligation. Neither is a strategy for keeping voters; both are the record of what it took to lose them.
“They tell Arab-American voters there's no prize with their name on it, then tell Jewish voters they owe the Muslim candidate their vote regardless — notice whose name doesn't come up in either pitch. The data already moved: Arab-American voters are walking out of the party that just fielded the health secretary who said it. That's not a gaffe, that's the only play left in the deck.”
“Secretary Kennedy was making a broader point about innovation metrics — statistics, context, it's a numbers discussion, not about any one group, I want to be clear about that. And Congressman Rogers isn't smearing anyone, he's raising documented concerns about organizational ties that voters deserve to know before they — okay, "documented" might be doing some work there, let me circle back on that one.”
Earlier in this story
- Trump calls fraud rampant on a dragnet judges halted twice that flagged 400 names, six days out By Chip · the morning edition, 28 October 2026
- Netanyahu presses for action against Iran his own military chief already resisted, days before election. By Lou · the evening edition, 27 October 2026
- Israel bars European lawmakers who came to watch the olive harvest its settlers are burning; it votes Tuesday By Lou · the afternoon edition, 26 October 2026
- Israel's army sealed the West Bank and ran its largest drill in years; neither was on Tuesday's ballot By Sterling · the evening edition, 26 October 2026
- The Supreme Court found ninety days enough room to run a voter-purge database and twelve days too few to read a student ID. By Ruth · the evening edition, 25 October 2026
The receipts
President Trump rallied for Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton in Texas. Meanwhile, Michigan Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers took aim at opponent Abdul El-Sayed. CBS News' Olivia Rinaldi and Aaron Navarro report.
The leftward shift of America’s Arab voters is undeniable, and almost all of it is driven by Republicans’ overt hostility.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is facing backlash for comments he made about Arabs while at a campaign stop in Michigan.
Jon Lovett says Jewish voters in Michigan have a "moral obligation" to back Abdul El-Sayed, sparking fierce pushback from critics.
· Majority of Democratic Voters Want to Prosecute Both Biden and Trump Administration Officials Over Gaza from the morgue, 22 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.