Biden gains support from Kennedy family, seeking to shore up support against Trump and RFK Jr.

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will accept endorsements from at least 15 members of the Kennedy political family during a campaign stop in Philadelphia on Thursday, as he aims to undermine former President Donald Trump and sideline the candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Kerry Kennedy, daughter of former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, niece of former President John F. Kennedy and sister of the current presidential candidate, will deliver endorsements to Biden, her campaign said.

The decision to highlight the Kennedy family’s support more than six months after Election Day is an indication of how seriously Biden’s team is taking the threat of a long-term bid by potentially using the lingering Democratic magic of its last name to siphon support from the president.

Both Democrats and Republicans fear that Kennedy’s candidacy could spoil the campaign of their respective presumptive nominees. Biden was using the event, which caps a three-day campaign in a battleground state critical to his re-election effort, to also keep pressure on Trump.

“I can only imagine how Donald Trump’s lies and outrageous behavior would have horrified my father, Robert F. Kennedy, who proudly served as Attorney General of the United States and honored his promise to uphold law and protect the country,” Kerry Kennedy said. will say, according to prepared remarks. “Dad stood for equal justice, human rights and freedom from want and fear. Just like President Biden is doing today.

The endorsement came as no surprise, as the prominent Democratic family has made clear that it disagrees politically with Robert Kennedy Jr., who began as Biden’s primary protest challenger within the party Democrat and is now running as a candidate. independent. Biden hosted more than 30 members of Kennedy’s extended family at the White House for St. Patrick’s Day last month, with family members posing with the president in the Rose Garden and Oval Office.

After the formal endorsement, Biden and members of the Kennedy family were scheduled to meet with supporters at a campaign event, and members of the Kennedy clan planned to call voters and knock on doors on Biden’s behalf.

Several notable family members did not approve, including U.S. Ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy and nonprofit executive Maria Shriver, which the Biden campaign explained was due to their apolitical professional roles.

Robert Kennedy Jr. has spoken publicly in the past about disagreeing with his family on many issues, but maintains it can be done in an “amicable” manner. After a Super PAC supporting his campaign produced a television ad during the Super Bowl that relied heavily on footage from John F. Kennedy’s 1960 presidential campaign, Robert Kennedy Jr. apologized to those close to him on social media platform X, saying he was sorry if the spot “caused pain to any member of my family.”

The Democratic National Committee separately hired a communications team to combat the appeal of third-party candidates, with Kennedy chief among them. The DNC also recently filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against Kennedy’s campaign, accusing it of coordinating too closely with an affiliated Super PAC to get his name on the presidential ballot in some states.

Kennedy is also viewed with suspicion by the Trump campaign, which fears he could also attract the Republican voters they need to defeat Biden in November. While Trump recently released a video saying, “If I were a Democrat, I’d vote for RFK Jr. every time over Biden,” he has also sometimes criticized Kennedy, including suggesting he was more “radical left » than the outgoing president.

Support from the Kennedy family is the cornerstone of three days of campaigning in Pennsylvania.

It was an opportunity for Biden to reconnect with his roots, starting Tuesday in Scranton, where he lived until the age of 10. He passed by his childhood home, a three-story colonial building his family had rented, and remembered attending mass in St. Paul.

He seemed reluctant to leave town the next day, stopping for coffee before heading to the airport. “It’s good to be back in Scranton,” the president said when a customer greeted him.

Biden’s next stop was Pittsburgh, where he called for higher tariffs on steel and aluminum from China to protect U.S. industry from what he called unfair competition.

But even that event involved some nostalgia, as Biden recalled support from steelworkers when he was “a 29-year-old kid” from Delaware running for U.S. Senate.

“It changed everything,” he said.