Former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who suspended his campaign on Friday and endorsed Republican nominee Donald Trump, has a long history of criticizing the man he now supports, including calling Trump a “threat to democracy,” and, as recently as July, a “terrible president.”
For years, Kennedy has repeatedly condemned Trump, referring to him as a “bully,” who appealed to “bigotry,” “hatred,” “xenophobia” and “prejudice.” Among the chief attacks Kennedy has leveled at Trump through the 2024 campaign is to accuse him of corruption for turning his administration over to corporate lobbyists and special interests and failing to “drain the swamp” as he’d promised.
But on Friday, Kennedy was full of praise for Trump, saying that while he and the former president “don’t agree on everything,” they do share similar isolationist views on US foreign policy, government censorship, and the need to address chronic disease in America.
“Don’t you want a president who’s gonna protect America’s freedom? And is gonna protect us from totalitarianism?” Kennedy said at a Trump campaign event in Glendale, Arizona, as part of his endorsement.
For his part, Trump has a history of disparaging Kennedy, calling him “the dumbest member of the Kennedy clan” and “Democratic plant” and “radical left liberal,” in posts on Truth Social.
But on Friday, Trump had only nice things to say about Kennedy, calling him “an incredible champion for so many of these values that we all share.” Never one to forget a slight though, Trump did note on Friday that Kennedy “also went after me a couple of times, I didn’t like it.”
A Kennedy campaign spokesperson did not return CNN’s request for comment.
Read more about RFK Jr.’s history of attacking Trump