Kennedy, who is running against President Joe Biden in 2024, met with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach at the New York Society for Ethical Culture in New York on Tuesday, during which he explained his controversial comments and touted his efforts to fight antisemitism and champion Israel.
"I understand the pain of antisemitism to those people, and I do not want to contribute to that vein," he said. "And I don't want people who have suffered in that way and whose lives have been touched by suffering to suspect that I, in some way, approve or endorse their suffering, and that's why it hurts me."
Boteach asked Kennedy if he realized why his comments about Jews being more resistant to COVID-19 were harmful, drawing a parallel with accusations against Jewish people during the Black Death during the Middle Ages.
"Absolutely," Kennedy said, adding that he wouldn't have talked about the issue if it was a public event.
"I was describing an article that I had nothing to do with. It was an NIH-funded article that was published in 2021 and one of the 10 top high gravitas journals, and it was done by the Cleveland Clinic. ... It's not something that I would have talked about at a public event because I'm aware of the history of blood libels," he continued. "And how that kind of information is used by malicious people — to just drum up hatred of Jews. I talked about it at an event that I was told was Chatham House rules."
He added that the context was a larger discussion on ethnic bioweapons and that Jewish people wouldn't have had a part in its production, as most gain-of-function research was carried out in China.
The discussion then moved to Israel and the two's wider concerns about the direction of the Democratic Party in turning against Israel. Kennedy pledged to be a strongly pro-Israel president, saying how he had grown up deeply admiring the Middle Eastern nation and wants to fully rehabilitate the state's image in the minds of Americans.
"A major part of my campaign ... will be explaining to the American people why that [anti-Israel] view is wrong," Kennedy said.
Kennedy's comments reflect his previous defenses over his comments on COVID-19, during which he suggested that Ashkenazi Jews, along with Chinese people, appeared to be less affected than some other races.
Earlier this month, he tweeted, "I have never, ever suggested that the COVID-19 virus was targeted to spare Jews." Instead, he said he was pointing out that COVID-19 served as "proof of concept for ethnically targeted bioweapons" because of its disproportionate effect on certain races and ethnicities.