Five Kennedy siblings denounced Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s endorsement of Donald Trump as a betrayal of family values on Friday.
“We want an America filled with hope and bound together by a shared vision of a brighter future, a future defined by individual freedom, economic promise and national pride. We believe in Harris and Walz. Our brother Bobby’s decision to endorse Trump today is a betrayal of the values that our father and our family hold most dear. It is a sad ending to a sad story,” Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Courtney Kennedy, Kerry Kennedy, Chris Kennedy and Rory Kennedy said in a joint statement.
The statement comes after Kennedy announced he was ending his independent bid for the presidency.
Kennedy said he would remove his name from the ballot in swing states, but his name will remain on the ballot in states that are solidly Democratic or Republican.
“In my heart, I no longer believe that I have a realistic path to electoral victory in the face of this relentless, systematic censorship and media control,” he said during a press conference Friday. “So I cannot in good conscience ask my staff and volunteers to keep working their long hours, or ask my donor to keep giving when I cannot honestly, tell them, that I have a real path to the White House.”
Kennedy also endorsed Trump, who he portrays as victims of the “continual legal warfare” by Democrats.
“These are the principled causes that persuaded me to leave the Democratic Party and run as an independent, and now to throw my support to President Trump. The causes were: Free speech, the war in Ukraine, and the war on our children,” he said.
“One of the two candidates has adopted these issues as his own to the point where he has asked to enlist me in his administration. I’m speaking, of course, of Donald Trump,” he added.
