Kennedy Family Members Snub RFK Jr. with Powerful Endorsement of Joe Biden: 'A Vote to Save Our Democracy'

Several Kennedy family members, including most of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s siblings, are joining President Joe Biden on the campaign trail on Thursday, April 18, to make the case for another four years under his leadership and start knocking on voters' doors.

Though many Kennedys have previously praised Biden, their decision to formally endorse him as a unit deals a heavy blow to RFK Jr.'s independent presidential campaign, which has unnerved Democrats in a nail-biter of an election year.

Fifteen Kennedys are expected to join Biden in Philadelphia in person on Thursday afternoon to announce their support and reach out to voters directly via phone calls and door knocking. The Biden campaign says that additional family members will offer endorsements from afar.

Kerry Kennedy, who manages the human rights organization named after her late father, Robert F. Kennedy, is set to take the stage at the endorsement event to draw a contrast between Biden and his challengers.

Though her remarks will largely focus on dismantling Donald Trump, it stands out that — as the modern-day mouthpiece of her father — she will withhold praise for her older brother, who carries the RFK name.

"I can only imagine how Donald Trump’s outrageous lies and behavior would have horrified my father, Robert F. Kennedy, who proudly served as attorney general of the United States, and honored his pledge to uphold the law and protect the country," Kerry is expected to say, according to prepared remarks shared by the Biden campaign. "Daddy stood for equal justice, human rights, and freedom from want and fear. Just as President Biden does today."

"We can say today, with no less urgency, that our rights and freedoms are once again in peril. That is why we all need to come together in a campaign that should unite not only Democrats, but all Americans, including Republicans, and independents, who believe in what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature," she will continue.

"A vote for Joe Biden is a vote to save our democracy and our decency. It is a vote for what my father called for, in his own presidential announcement in 1968 … 'our right to the moral leadership of this planet.'"

In April 2023, a source predicted to PEOPLE that the Kennedys would rally behind Biden, even as RFK Jr. ramped up a White House bid of his own.

"President Biden is hugely popular in the Kennedy family," the source said, noting that they've connected for decades over their Catholic faith and familiarity with loss. Biden has credited John F. Kennedy — the only other Irish Catholic president — for sparking his interest in politics, and relied on Sen. Ted Kennedy as a mentor and friend throughout their Senate tenure.

Present at Thursday's campaign event in Philadelphia will be six of RFK Jr.'s eight surviving siblings: Kerry, Kathleen, Joe, Christopher, Maxwell and Rory.

Others in attendance will include Beth Kennedy, Joe Kennedy III, Vicki Strauss Kennedy, Kerry Kennedy Meltzer, Max Meltzer, Ted Kennedy Jr., Stephen Kennedy Smith, Peter McKelvy and Rebeca McKelvy.

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