Top Democratic strategist and Clinton insider David Axelrod expressed strong disapproval on Sunday over Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to suspend his presidential campaign and endorse former President Donald Trump. Axelrod suggested that Kennedy’s father, Robert F. Kennedy Sr., would have been deeply disappointed by his son’s actions.
“Robert F. Kennedy was my political hero. He battled fiercely & eloquently against poverty, injustice, and for economic fairness. Sadly, RFK Jr., who made a rambling exit from the race today, proves that sometimes an apple DOES fall far from the tree…in this case, down a hill and over a cliff,” Axelrod wrote on X.
He further added, “Robert F. Kennedy Sr. would have been appalled to see his son cut a deal to drop out of the race and endorse Trump.”
Kennedy announced the suspension of his campaign during a news conference on Friday in Arizona, where he argued that it was the Democratic Party that had abandoned him, rather than the other way around.
“Sixteen months ago, in April of 2023, I launched my campaign for president of the United States. I began this journey as a Democrat, the party of my father, my uncle, the party which I pledged my own allegiance to long before I was old enough to vote,” Kennedy said.
Reflecting on his early experiences with the Democratic Party, Kennedy recalled attending his first Democratic convention at the age of six in 1960, when he believed the party stood as champions of the Constitution, civil rights, and opposition to authoritarianism, censorship, colonialism, imperialism, and unjust wars. “We were the party of labor, of the working class,” he continued.
Kennedy lamented that the party had strayed from these “core values,” arguing that it had become “the party of war, censorship, corruption, big pharma, big tech, big [agriculture], and big money.”
Kennedy formally joined forces with Trump at a campaign rally in Arizona, where Trump welcomed his endorsement, praising Kennedy’s “extraordinary campaign.” Kennedy made a direct appeal for Trump, asking, “Don’t you want a president who is going to protect America’s freedoms and who is going to protect us against totalitarianism?”
Kennedy’s decision to endorse Trump follows the Democratic Party’s efforts to prevent him from running in the primaries against President Joe Biden and attempts to remove his name from the presidential ballot in several states.