Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s address to the nation on 24 August 2024

Excerpt (the last minutes of his speech)

… I got involved with chronic disease 20 years ago, not because I chose to or wanted to. It was essentially thrust upon me. It was an issue that should have been essential to the environmental movement, in which I was essentially a leader at that time. But it was widely ignored by all the institutions including the NGOs that should have been protecting our kids against toxins. It was an orphan issue, and I had a weakness for orphans. I watched generations of children get sicker and sicker. I had 11 siblings and I have seven kids myself. I was conscious of what was happening in their classrooms and to their friends. And I watched these sick kids, these damaged kids, in that generation almost all of them are damaged and nobody in power seemed to care or even notice. 19 years, I prayed every morning that God would put me in a position to end this calamity. The chronic disease crisis was one of the primary reasons for my running for president along with ending the censorship and the Ukraine war.

It’s the reason I’ve made the heart wrenching decision to suspend my campaign and to support President Trump. This decision is agonizing for me because of the difficulties it causes my wife and my children my friends. But I have certainty that this is what I’m meant to do, and that certainty gives me internal peace even in storms. If I’m given the chance to fix the chronic disease crisis and reform our food production, I promise that within two years we will watch chronic disease burden lift dramatically. We will make Americans healthy again, within four years, America will be stronger, more resilient, more optimistic and happier. I won’t fail in doing this. Ultimately, the future, however it happens, is in God’s hands and in the hands of the American voters and those of President Trump. If President Trump is elected and honors his word, the vast burden of chronic disease that now demoralizes and bankrupts the country will disappear.

This is a spiritual journey for me. I reached my decision through deep prayer, through the heart-knows logic, and I asked myself what choices must I make to maximize my chances to save America’s children and restore national health? I felt that if I refused this opportunity, I would not be able to look myself in the mirror knowing that I could have saved lives of countless children and reverse this country’s chronic disease epidemic.

I’m 70 years old and may have a decade to be effective. I can’t imagine that President Harris… “a President Harris” – would allow me or anyone to solve these dire problems. After 8 years of President Harris, any opportunity for me to fix the problem, will be out of my hands forever. President Trump has told me that he wants this to be his legacy. I’m choosing to believe that this time he will follow through. His son, his biggest donors and his closest friends, all support this objective.

My joining the Trump campaign will be a difficult sacrifice for my wife and children, but worthwhile if there is even the smallest chance of saving these kids. Ultimately, the only thing that will save our country and our children is if we choose to love our kids more that we hate each other. That is why I want my campaign to unify America. My dad and uncle made such an enduring mark on the character of our nation not so much because of any particular policies that they promoted, but because they were able to inspire profound love for our country and to fortify our sense of ourselves as a national community held together by ideals. They were able to put their love into the intentions and hearts of ordinary Americans and to unify a national Populist movement of Americans, blacks and whites and Hispanics, urban and rural Americans, and inspired affection and love and high hopes and a culture of kindness that continue to radiate among Americans from their memory. That is the spirit in which I ran my campaign and that I intend to bring into the campaign of President Trump.

Instead of vitriol and polarization, I will wield the values that unite us and the goals that we can achieve if only we were not at each other’s throats. The most unifying theme for all Americans is that we all love our children. If we all unite around that issue now, we can finally give them the protection and health and the future that they deserve. Thank you all very much…