Democratic presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told Newsmax host Greta Van Susteren that both China and the United States were developing “ethnic bio-weapons” that could target people based on racial types — the Pentagon has since denied that claim.
Kennedy, who has garnered a bit of a reputation as a “conspiracy theorist,” has previously lobbied against state laws requiring vaccinations and vocally opposed the push to force Americans to get vaccinated against COVID, saying that he was not against the vaccines themselves, but the fact that people were being forced into taking them.
During Kennedy’s recent appearance on “The Record With Greta Van Susteren,” he took things in a different direction when he argued that China and the U.S. were already developing bio-weapons that could target specific ethnicities.
WATCH:
On Newsmax, RFK Jr. claims that "the Chinese are developing ethnic bioweapons … that are designed to attack people of certain racial types" pic.twitter.com/BynWB5nkRF
— aliciasadowski (@aliciasadowski6) June 20, 2023
Van Susteren prompted Kennedy with a comment about the danger of a virus — potentially one created using gain-of-function research — that could be used as a weapon of mass destruction.
“I see that as the next big fight … those viruses don’t see any borders,” she said, adding, “That’s what I worry about more than the big hardware.”
“Yes, you’re exactly right,” Kennedy agreed. “And we know that the Chinese are developing ethnic bio-weapons — bio-weapons that are designed to attack people of certain racial types, and we’re doing the same thing.”
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Kennedy did not provide much context to support his claim, but RollingStone speculated it was loosely based on comments made by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin in recent weeks.
“We’re also concerned by reports of the spread of mass DNA collection to Tibet as an additional form of control and surveillance over the Tibetan population,” Blinken said in early May.
“These claims do not hold water and mean nothing except manufacturing sensational news items,” Wang Wenbin said in response during a news conference held the following day. “The US widely collects and uses genomic information. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Pentagon has formulated R&D plans for hitting opponents with genetically engineered weapons. Those involved disclosed that the genomic data of Asian Chinese, European Aryans and Middle Eastern Arabs are all being collected by the US military … It’s pretty clear who exactly is using genomic information for secret purposes.”
The Pentagon responded to the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman at the time, saying that the United States “is not developing bioweapons and strongly refutes the assertion that we are.”