RFK Jr. reflects on JFK, RFK assassinations following Trump rally shooting

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reflected on his experience around the assassinations of his father, Robert F. Kennedy, and his uncle, former President John F. Kennedy, during an interview Saturday following the shooting at former President Donald Trump’s rally.

Kennedy said in an interview with NewsNation that he understands the impact of the incident at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, “probably as well as anyone does” and that he hopes people will condemn the violent attack on the former president.

Kennedy witnessed his father’s assassination at a campaign event in Los Angeles when he was 14.  

“I’ve been through this before with my own family. I was with my dad when he died in Los Angeles. … My message to people is we need to all renounce violence. We need to renounce not just violence, but the hatred and vitriol,” he said.

Kennedy said he believes there are similarities between the current political moment and the 1960s, when his father, his uncle and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. were killed amid heightened political and racial turmoil. 

“When my uncle was killed in 1963, there was this kind of division,” he said. “When my father was killed, it was amidst of a time that was probably the most divisive in American history at that time since the American Civil War. And we’re back into that kind of milieu today.” 

Kennedy said he sympathizes with Trump’s family and offered condolences to the family of the rally attendee who died on Saturday.