Kennedy family members endorse President Biden, in rebuke to RFK Jr. - The Boston Globe (2024)

In their sharpest rebuke yet of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., several prominent members of the Kennedy political dynasty are endorsing President Biden for reelection on Thursday, standing with the Democratic incumbent even as their relative seeks the White House this fall in a campaign that has traded on the family name.

A black sheep of the powerful family for years, RFK Jr. has drawn even more explicit criticism from his relatives in the year since he launched his campaign for president, running first as a “Kennedy Democrat,” and now as a third-party candidate fighting for ballot access across the country.

In March, dozens of Kennedy family members posed with Biden for a St. Patrick’s Day celebration at the White House, in a pointed snub of their relative, who has long promoted discredited anti-vaccine theories. That large family gathering came after a number of public interviews and critiques, including a column in Politico in 2019 in which three Kennedy family members wrote that “he has helped to spread dangerous misinformation over social media and is complicit in sowing distrust of the science behind vaccines.”

But the distance between RFK Jr. and much of the rest of the family became yet greater this week, as relatives formally backed and even planned to campaign for Biden on Thursday, knocking on doors and calling voters in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania.

At a Biden campaign stop, Kerry Kennedy, sister of RFK Jr., is expected to introduce the president and call him “a champion for all the rights and freedoms that my father and uncles stood for,” according to prepared remarks provided by the campaign.

“We all need to come together in a campaign that should unite not only Democrats, but all Americans, including Republicans, and independents, who believe in what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature,” Kerry Kennedy was set to say Thursday.

The selected remarks provided by the Biden campaign did not include any explicit mentions of her brother and his long-shot bid for the White House. But the appearance nonetheless sends a powerful message. Democrats fear that Kennedy’s third-party bid could siphon votes away from Biden and boost Republican Donald Trump in key swing states.

In his presidential campaign, RFK Jr. has often invoked the Kennedy legacy even as many members of his family distance themselves from him. A controversial Super Bowl ad paid for by an outside group that supports RFK Jr. featured the candidate superimposed over his uncle, John F. Kennedy, in a remake of one of the nation’s most famous political ads that some critics said misappropriated the family name. For some of Kennedy’s motley group of supporters, the dynasty is a draw; other supporters, meanwhile, lionize Kennedy as an anti-establishment outsider.

Not the entire family has rejected Kennedy’s bid for the White House. Campaign manager Amaryllis Fox is his daughter-in-law.

RFK Jr. responded to the endorsem*nts on the platform X Thursday, saying that “we are divided in our opinions but united in our love for each other.”

“I hold this as a possibility for America too,” he wrote. “Can we disagree without hating our opponents? Can we restore civility and respect to public discourse? I think we can.”

The Kennedy family legacy also carries important resonance for Biden, who has a bust of former US attorney general Robert F. Kennedy — the father of RFK Jr. — in the Oval Office and has described the man as one of his political heroes.

Joe Kennedy III, the former Massachusetts congressman who now serves as Biden’s special envoy to Northern Ireland, is expected to introduce Biden at an organizing event on Thursday.

Biden campaign officials listed more than a dozen family members who are endorsing the president, which they said represented only some of the family members backing Biden this fall.

They include: Rory Kennedy, Kerry Kennedy, Joe Kennedy II, Beth Kennedy, Joe Kennedy III, Christopher Kennedy, Maxwell Taylor Kennedy, Vicki Strauss Kennedy, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Kerry Kennedy Meltzer, Max Meltzer, Ted Kennedy Jr., Stephen Kennedy Smith, Peter McKelvy, and Rebeca McKelvy.

An earlier version of this story misidentified Maxwell Taylor Kennedy because of incorrect information provided to the Globe.

Emma Platoff can be reached at emma.platoff@globe.com. Follow her @emmaplatoff.