After suspending his presidential campaign and endorsing former President Donald Trump last week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was in Portland on Monday, a day before taping an interview with conservative media personality Tucker Carlson.
Kennedy, the son of the late Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of slain President John F. Kennedy, is the scion of the country’s most famous Democrat family but was running as an independent for the presidency. He cited the war in Ukraine, free speech and other issues for his endorsement of Trump, a Republican, at a Friday rally in Arizona.
On Monday, Kennedy posted a video to X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, showing himself at Widgery Wharf in Portland. He said he was in Maine to be interviewed by Carlson, a former Fox News host who now runs his own online network and often works from his home in the Bryant Pond village of the Oxford County town of Woodstock.
“I love being here. I love Maine,” Kennedy said. “I spent a lot of my childhood in this state.”
Kennedy grew up in Washington, D.C., and his family’s home state of Massachusetts. In the video, he said his family often sailed to Maine and that he and his brothers ran a whitewater rafting camp on the upper Kennebec River.
That hobby was a prominent part of a controversy featuring Kennedy’s brother, Michael L. Kennedy, who was investigated in Massachusetts for an alleged affair with his underage babysitter. Maine state records that emerged in 1997 showed that the girl went on Kennebec rafting trips with Michael Kennedy three times in preceding years.
The case was dropped by prosecutors. Michael Kennedy died in a Colorado skiing accident that year. His cousin, John F. Kennedy Jr., had called Michael Kennedy and his older brother, Joe, “poster boys for bad behavior.” John F. Kennedy Jr. died in a 1999 plane crash.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s endorsement of Trump has also opened up a rift in the famous family. Five of his siblings signed a letter calling it “a betrayal of the values” of their family and praising Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee. Carlson was among the Republicans who lobbied Kennedy to back Trump, NBC News reported.
“Been saying it for over a year — RFKjr is for sale, works for Trump. Bedfellows and loving it,” cousin Jack Schlossberg posted on X. “Kamala Harris is for the people — the easiest decision of all time just got easier.”
It is unclear whether Kennedy, an environmental lawyer long known for his anti-vaccine views, will leave the Maine ballot by a Tuesday deadline. Last week, he said he would take his name off the ballot in swing states where his presence could harm Trump. Maine has ranked-choice voting in presidential elections, so he could stay on the ballot and have only limited effects.
