Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may be asking himself who needs enemies when you have family.
On Friday, August 23, Kennedy did what seemed unthinkable for a Kennedy: he endorsed Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump. Kennedy suspended his own campaign, which he was running as an independent. He said the machinations of the Democratic National Committee had put up impossible obstacles to candidates like him.
He is, of course, Democrat royalty, as the son of the late Robert F. Kennedy who was killed by an assassin in June of 1968, and the nephew of President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in Dallas in 1963.
In an emotional address to the nation last Friday, Kennedy said the most pressing problem facing America was its health crisis. The rate of obesity, chronic disease, and early death is higher than it ever has been. Children, Kennedy said, are being failed and he wants to come together with the Trump campaign to save the health of the nation’s youth as a legacy both men can leave.
While it is not unexpected that the Democratic Kennedy clan would be displeased with his choice, many are surprised at the open vitriol aimed at RFK by his immediate family. His sister Kerry Kennedy has been strident, accusing her brother of despoiling their father’s legacy. In a statement she released that was signed by four other family members, she said her brother’s endorsement of Trump was a “betrayal” of their father’s legacy.
She was even more direct during a recent MSNBC interview with anchor (and former White House Press Secretary) Jen Psaki. During the show, she accused her brother of deliberately trying to tarnish their father’s legacy. She called RFK’s Trump endorsement a “gaudy and obscene embrace of Donald Trump,” and said she was “outraged and disgusted” by her brothers. In highly melodramatic language, Kerry Kennedy said she aimed to dissociate herself from RFK and his attempt to “desecrate and trample and set fire to my father’s memory.”
