Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the independent presidential candidate scion of assassinated president John F. Kennedy, expressed sympathy with Donald Trump in his first interview after a shooting at a Trump rally left the former president bleeding.
Trump was only a few minutes into his speech at a rally on Saturday in Pennsylvania when the sound of gunshots rang out, and Secret Service agents raced to protect him.
The former president is “fine and is being checked out at a local medical facility,” his spokesperson Steven Cheung told The Daily Beast shortly after the shooting. Trump later spoke out about the potential assassination attempt in a post on Truth Social, where he said that he felt a bullet piercing the upper part of his right ear and “ripping through my skin.”
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Officials confirmed they have launched an investigation into the incident and are treating it as an attempt to kill the former president.
Kennedy, speaking in an interview on NewsNation after the incident, said he could relate to the chaotic scene.
“Of course, I’ve been through this before with my own family,” Kennedy added, referencing his own father’s assassination in 1968.
“I was with my dad when he died in Los Angeles. I understand the implications that this has for our country, probably as well as anybody does.”
Kennedy went on to say the assassination attempt on his father, Robert F. Kennedy, occurred during the most divisive era in American politics since “the American civil war” and blamed both the left and the right for the return of an “atmosphere of violence.”
“I think we all need to take a breathe now and step back and see that this is the product of so much vitriol and anger and that when we release that anger into the universe it inevitable comes back and reverberates with these kinds of consequences,” he said.
President Joe Biden has spoken to Trump following the shooting, and condemned all political violence during a press conference held the same night.
In the interview, Kennedy also side-stepped a question about if he intended to renew his calls for Secret Service protection, which the White House has repeatedly denied.
