RFK’s daughter says he would have been ‘distressed’ over Trump presidency

Robert F. Kennedy’s daughter, Kerry Kennedy, says the former attorney general and New York senator would have been “very distressed” about the state of the U.S. under President Trump. 

“I think that he would have been very distressed about Donald Trump,” Kennedy told The Guardian on the eve of the 50th anniversary of her father’s death. “My father spent most of the ’68 campaign focused on healing the divisions within our country and he saw that this can get a lot worse than it was. Donald Trump came to power as somebody exploiting those divisions, and he has led through exploiting divisions, and that’s extremely harmful to our country.”

{mosads}“Daddy loved our country, he loved our history. He was always talking about American history and telling us stories from American history, and loved our most treasured values of freedom, democracy, justice,” she continued. 

“So I think that having Donald Trump as president of our country, and also his impact around the world, would have left my father in dismay.”

Kennedy went on to discuss the political and social turbulence in the U.S. during the late 1960s and said the country will eventually recover from Trump’s presidency.

“So when people say how horrible it is that Donald Trump is president, well, yeah, but we’ve faced a lot worse than this and our country went on to go from the world of ‘Mad Men’ to the world it is today, and that’s what’s going to happen now. That’s what’s going to happen in the next 50 years. We’re going to be fine,” she said. 

Robert F. Kennedy, the younger brother of former President Kennedy was assassinated on June 6, 1968, hours after he won the California Democratic presidential primary.

Former President Clinton and Robert Kennedy’s grandson, Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.), will address an event at Arlington National Cemetery on Wednesday honoring him.