Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Saturday called for prayers for Donald Trump after an apparent assassination attempt on the former president.
"It's time for us all, every American, to take a step back, take a breath to understand that this moment is insane, that we're all complicit in it," Kennedy Jr. said during an appearance on Newsmax's "Prime News."
"That all of us who fed into the vitriol, the hatred, the anger, that this is the ultimate culmination of that. And we need to all step back and start seeing each other once again as Americans, as part of a community, understand that America is better than this, and we now have the exemplary nation again, and that we need to come together in a spirit of love, of forgiveness, of reconciliation. And let's start healing our country again and use this terrible, terrible event, to start unifying again.
"And of course, to pray at this moment for President Trump and for his family, which are all going through an ordeal with which I'm very familiar," he added.
Kennedy has been denied Secret Service protection by the Biden administration despite multiple threats, but declined to compare his situation to Trump's when asked by Newsmax.
"I don't want to make this about me. I, you know, I think we need to focus on larger issues," he said. "There's a lot more important issues than, than my than that, debate with the administration."
Kennedy, whose uncle, former President John Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 as he rode in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas also said an incident like this "affects everyone in our country."
"And we have to understand again that it's linked in one way or another to the vitriol, to the anger, you know, to the disunity that many of us have contributed to. And you know, when my uncle died, it was at a time of great division as well.
"And when my uncle landed in Dallas in November 22nd, 1963, there were posters all around Dallas that said, Wanted Dead or Alive.' And they — the Dallas newspapers — were printing very, very poisonous articles about him. And his death in some ways was linked to that wave of hatred," he continued.
"And the same was true with my dad. My dad was running in 1968, which was the most polarized, divisive time in American history since the American Civil War. You know, there was terrible anger on both sides, on all sides and part of the eruption of that anger was not only the riots we were seeing in the cities that year. ... We also saw Martin Luther King's assassination that year. And then two months later, my father's assassination and all of it is connected, and it's connected to each of us, and each of us needs to take responsibility for our own behavior. And you know, hopefully we can we can make something good of this."
Almost five years after his older brother John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Robert Kennedy was making his own run for the White House when he was shot by Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador hotel in Los Angeles. He was pronounced dead the following day.
President Joe Biden and Trump, said Kennedy, have the chance to "change the tone of this campaign dramatically."
"Stop empowering people who are filled with hatred and marginalized who are capable of taking these kinds of actions ..."
"We all have an opportunity now to do what God wants us to do and turn evil into good and use this terrible tragic incident to make something better for our country."
The Secret Service and Trump released statements saying that the Republican presidential candidate was safe following the incident.
"An incident occurred the evening of July 13 at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania. The Secret Service has implemented protective measures, and the former President is safe. This is now an active Secret Service investigation and further information will be released when available," Secret Service spokesman Anthony Gugliemi said on X.
Kennedy had his Secret Service protections denied.
"Since the assassination of my father in 1968, candidates for president are provided Secret Service protection. But not me," Kennedy previously said on X.
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Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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