The Kennedy family has hit out at their sibling Robert F Kennedy Jr for endorsing Donald Trump in the US presidential race, calling it a “betrayal” of their values.
Mr Kennedy, also known as RFK Jr, announced he was suspending his independent campaign for the presidency to lend his support to the Republican candidate in certain states.
“In about 10 battleground states where my presence would be a spoiler, I’m going to remove my name, and I’ve already started the process,” Mr Kennedy said during a news conference in Phoenix.
RFK Jr, whose father Bobby Kennedy was assassinated as he ran for president back in 1968, said the Democratic Party was no longer “champions of the constitution” and had departed “dramatically” from the “core values” he grew up with.
Mr Kennedy, 70, cited free speech, the war in Ukraine and “a war on our children” as among the reasons he would try to remove his name from the ballot in battleground states.
“These are the principal causes that persuaded me to leave the Democratic Party and run as an independent, and now to throw my support to President Trump,” he said.
Mr Kennedy is also the nephew of former Democratic US president John F Kennedy, who was killed in 1963.
RFK Jr was 14 when his father, the former US attorney general Robert F Kennedy, JFK’s brother, was killed.
In response to RFK Jr’s announcement, his brothers and sisters shared a statement, saying: “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.
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“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.”
‘In an honest system, I would have won’
RFK Jr hit out at the media and the Democrats during his announcement, while saying his campaign team had “pulled off a miracle” by making him a presidential candidate.
“You showed everyone democracy is still possible here,” he said. “Today I’m here to tell you I will not allow your efforts to go to waste.”
Mr Kennedy added he believed that in an “honest system” he would have won the election.
He criticised the Democratic Party, saying it had waged “legal warfare” against him and Mr Trump, who is running against vice president Kamala Harris to be elected in the presidential vote on 5 November.
He also said of Democrats: “Who needs a policy when you have Trump to hate?”
According to Sky News’ partner network NBC, Mr Kennedy will be speaking at a Trump rally later today.
News of him endorsing the 78-year-old former Republican leader comes after Mr Trump appeared to try and woo Mr Kennedy last month.
In footage shared by Mr Kennedy’s son, Mr Trump says: “I would love you to do something – and I think it would be so good for you and so big for you,” apparently referring to the 2024 election race.
Mr Trump added: “We’re gonna win,” to which Mr Kennedy said: “Yeah.”
Reports of Mr Kennedy’s decision emerged earlier in court documents filed by the 70-year-old’s campaign team.
A Pennsylvania court filing asked to remove him from the state’s ballot, according to the AP.
And on Thursday, Arizona officials said Mr Kennedy filed paperwork to remove himself from the presidential ballot there.
Anti-vax views and turn against Democrats
Despite his family’s history with the Democratic Party, RFK Jr was running as an independent, after leaving the Democrats in October.
Mr Kennedy has made a name for himself as an anti-vaxxer during the pandemic – and beforehand.
As well as sharing disinformation online, Mr Kennedy became a regular on the anti-mandate rally circuit during the coronavirus response.
At one event, he compared the US government’s use of vaccine mandates to laws in Nazi Germany.
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“Even in Hitler’s Germany, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland, you could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did,” he told the crowd at a march in January 2022.
“Today, the mechanisms are being put in place that will make it so none of us can run, and none of us can hide.”
Donald Trump says a meeting is being set up between himself and Vladimir Putin – and that he and Barack Obama “probably” like each other.
Republican US president-elect Mr Trump spoke to reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Thursday, saying Russian president Mr Putin “wants to meet, and we are setting it up”.
“He has said that even publicly and we have to get that war over with. That’s a bloody mess,” Mr Trump said.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Friday there was a “mutual desire” to set up a meeting – but added no details had been confirmed yet and that there may be progress once Mr Trump is inaugurated on 20 January.
“Moscow has repeatedly declared its openness to contacts with international leaders, including the US president, including Donald Trump,” Mr Peskov added.
“What is required is a mutual desire and political will to conduct dialogue and resolve existing problems through dialogue. We see that Mr Trump also declares his readiness to resolve problems through dialogue. We welcome this. There are still no specifics, we proceed from the mutual readiness for the meeting.”
More on Barack Obama
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Trump on Obama: ‘We just got along’
Mr Trump also made some lighter remarks regarding a viral exchange between himself and former Democrat President Barack Obamaat Jimmy Carter’s funeral on Thursday.
The pairsat together for the late president’s service in Washington DC on Thursday, and could be seen speaking for several minutes as the remaining mourners filed in before it began.
Mr Obama was seen nodding as his successor spoke before breaking into a grin.
Asked about the exchange, Mr Trump said: “I didn’t realise how friendly it looked.
“I said, ‘boy, they look like two people that like each other’. And we probably do.
“We have a little different philosophies, right? But we probably do. I don’t know. We just got along. But I got along with just about everybody.”
The amicable exchange comes after years of criticising each other in the public eye; it was Mr Trump who spread the so-called “birther” conspiracy theory about Mr Obama in 2011, falsely asserting that he was not born in the United States.
Mr Trump has repeatedly attacked the Obamas, saying the former president was “ineffective” and “terrible” and calling former first lady Michelle Obama “nasty” as recently as October last year.
On Kamala Harris’s campaign trail last year, Mr Obama said Mr Trump was a “78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago”, while the former first lady said that “the consequences of him ever being president again are brutally serious.”
The US Supreme Court has rejected a last-ditch attempt by Donald Trump to delay sentencing in the Stormy Daniels hush money case.
The president-elect was convicted on 34 counts last May in New York of falsifying business records relating to payments made to Ms Daniels before the 2016 presidential election.
Prosecutors claimed he had paid her $130,000 (£105,300) in hush money to not reveal details of what Ms Daniels said was a sexual relationship in 2006.
Mr Trump has denied any liaison with Ms Daniels or any wrongdoing.
By a majority, the Supreme Court found his sentencing would not be an insurmountable burden during the presidential transition since the presiding judge, Juan M Merchan, has indicated he will not give Mr Trump jail time, fines or probation.
Mr Trump’s attorneys argued that evidence used in the Manhattan trial violated last summer’s Supreme Court ruling giving Mr Trump broad immunity from prosecution over acts he took as president.
At the least, they said, the sentencing should be delayed while their appeals play out to avoid distracting Mr Trump during the presidential transition.
Mr Trump’s attorneys went to the justices after New York courts refused to postpone sentencing.
Judges in New York found that the convictions related to personal matters rather than Mr Trump’s official acts as president.
Mr Trump’s attorneys called the case politically motivated, and they said sentencing him now would be a “grave injustice” that threatens to disrupt the presidential transition as the Republican prepares to return to the White House.
Mr Trump has said he will appeal again: “I respect the court’s opinion – I think it was actually a very good opinion for us because you saw what they said, but they invited the appeal and the appeal is on the bigger issue. So, we’ll see how it works out,” he said at a dinner with Republican governors at his private club in Florida.
Because the New York case was a state, rather than federal crime, Mr Trump will not be able to pardon himself when he takes office on 20 January.