Democrats are shaken by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s endorsement of Donald Trump less than 24 hours after the Democratic National Convention ended with a whimper.
Loyal party members and the official party apparatus sprung into damage control Friday, a day they would have preferred to spend touting a successful convention just 75 days out from Election Day.
“Trump isn’t earning an endorsement that’s going to help build support, he’s inheriting the baggage of a failed fringe candidate,” Democrat National Committee Senior Advisor Mary Beth Cahill said in a statement.
“Good riddance,” she added.
That statement ignored the significant support Kennedy received as a third party candidate, as well as the shot of momentum his endorsement gives Trump at a critical moment in the campaign.
David Axelrod, Barack Obama’s campaign and White House adviser and now a CNN contributor, took to social media to express his disappointment.
“Robert F. Kennedy was my political hero,” Axelrod said. “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.”
Harris’s campaign tried to keep a brave face to hide the taste in its mouth.
Her campaign chair, Jen O’Malley Dillon – a holdover from President Joe Biden’s aborted reelection campaign – said in a statement on Friday that “any American out there who is tired of Donald Trump and looking for a new way forward, ours is a campaign for you.”
Kennedy joined Trump Friday night in Arizona to thunderous applause and chants of “Bobby!”
Bradley Jaye is a Capitol Hill Correspondent for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter at @BradleyAJaye.