Robert F. Kennedy Jr., running for president as an independent, announced on Thursday his decision not to “endorse” Vice President Kamala Harris in the upcoming presidential elections. He had previously expressed a desire to negotiate possibly endorsing Harris if he could secure a cabinet position, as first reported by The Washington Post, referencing sources from Kennedy’s campaign team.
Kennedy disclosed, through a text on Wednesday night featured in the New York Times, his attempts at communication: “We’ve reached out repeatedly through the highest level intermediaries. We’ve been told that they have no interest in talking with me.”
In a statement on X on Thursday, Kennedy criticized what he perceives as the transformation of the Democratic Party under Harris, compared to the era of his father, former U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy, and his uncle, former President John F. Kennedy. He lamented, “The Democratic Party of RFK and JFK was the party of civil liberties and free speech. VP Harris‘s is the party of censorship, lockdowns, and medical coercion.”
He went on to detail the differences:
Kennedy highlighted the pro-peace stance of Democrats during RFK and JFK’s time, contrasting it with what he sees as Harris’s party being dominated by “neocon warmongers.”
He noted the traditional Democratic support for “Main Street, cops, firefighters, and working people,” which he argues has shifted under Harris to favor “Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Wall Street.”
Kennedy accused Harris’s Democratic Party of engaging in “lawfare, disenfranchisement, and the coronation of its candidates by corporate donors and party elites,” a far cry from his father and uncle’s commitment to voting rights and fair elections.
He criticized Harris’s lack of debate skills and reliance on what he calls “middleschool tactics” like memes, “forged headlines, infantile slogans (Joy!)” and name-calling (“‘Republicans are weird’”).
Kennedy’s concluding remark was clear: though he does not “plan to endorse” Harris, his intention is to “defeat her.”
