Robert F Kennedy Jr apologizes for Super Bowl ad that referenced JFK
Robert F Kennedy Jr apologized for a presidential campaign commercial during Sunday’s Super Bowl that alluded to his uncle John F Kennedy’s successful 1960 White House run.
“I’m so sorry if the Super Bowl advertisement caused anyone in my family pain,” Kennedy wrote on social media late on Sunday. He said the ad was created by American Values 2024, a pro-Kennedy political action committee (Pac), “without any involvement or approval” from his presidential campaign.
Nonetheless, the commercial remained pinned to the top of his X page, directly above his apology.
The commercial – which cost $7m – was criticized by many observers. It featured the same lyrics of “Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy for me” that JFK’s campaign used in a commercial ahead of his victory over Richard Nixon.
A speechwriter for another of Kennedy’s late uncles – the former US senator Ted Kennedy – said the ad constituted intellectual theft.
“This RFK Jr Super ad is a straight out plagiarism,” Bob Shrum wrote in part. “What a fraud.”
Kennedy’s cousin, Bobby Shriver, posted that his mother – JFK’s sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver – would be “appalled” that the commercial used images of her and her brother. While Robert F Kennedy Jr is a vaccination skeptic and conspiracy theorist, Shriver said of his mother that “respect for science, vaccines … [was] in her DNA”.
Shriver’s brother, Mark, added in a separate post: “I agree with my brother … simple as that.”
Sunday’s ad, which also described its subject as “a man who’s old enough to know and young enough to do”, aired two days after the Democratic National Committee filed a Federal Election Commission complaint accusing the American Values fund of colluding with Kennedy’s campaign.
The DNC alleged Kennedy’s campaign had accepted up to $15m worth of in-kind contributions from American Values, and that the Pac coordinated
activities with the Kennedy campaign “in a way that violates federal campaign finance laws”.
Kennedy’s campaign has denied wrongdoing.
A DNC adviser on Friday reiterated accusations that Kennedy’s campaign was being propped up by supporters of Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, who is seeking a second presidency.
American Values has received $15m from Tim Mellon, who is also a Trump donor.
Kennedy, 70, is the son of the former US attorney general Robert F Kennedy, who was assassinated while running for president in 1968, five years after the assassination of his brother and fellow Democrat JFK.
Kennedy’s status as an independent means he is not guaranteed a spot on any state ballot, and as of Sunday was still fighting to be included by at least 10 states.