Though Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. — nephew to John F. Kennedy — is running for president this year as an independent, a significant share of his family members are supporting incumbent President Joe Biden instead.
Biden long since reached the necessary level of support among Democrats to secure the party’s nomination again this year, an expected outcome — even though RFK Jr. briefly ran in the Democratic primary before dropping that partisan affiliation. Kerry Kennedy, a sister of RFK Jr., appeared this week on CNN to share a message of support for Biden.
“I’m endorsing President Biden,” she said on the air. “And in fact, nearly every member of Joe and Rose Kennedy’s grandchildren are endorsing President Biden today, for one reason. We are in the most important presidential election of our lifetime.”
Trump “poses an existential threat to our country,” she added. “He’s said he’s proud of packing the Supreme Court and overturning Roe v. Wade. He said he’s going to be a dictator on day one. He said he wants to change the Constitution so he can go after his enemies, members of the press, the fourth estate in our country, which keeps our democracy going. […] It would be a complete disaster if he is elected.”
Another prominent figure recently speaking out against Trump — this time from his own partisan side — was Mark Esper, who served for a time as Secretary of Defense in the Trump administration, putting him on the then-president’s Cabinet.
“I think he’s unfit for the presidency,” Esper told Christiane Amanpour. “What I look for in a candidate is somebody who puts country first. Somebody who has character and integrity, somebody that can unify the country and somebody that can lead. And in my estimation Donald Trump doesn’t check any of those boxes.” Still, whether it’s Esper, Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Liz Cheney, or a similarly outspoken conservative, Republicans remain largely behind Trump, who faced nearly no real difficulty in coasting to the level of support from inside the party necessary for securing its presidential nomination this year.
