WASHINGTON (April 19, 2024) – As Robert F. Kennedy Jr. uses Earth Day to invoke his past environmental connections, current and former presidents of the NRDC Action Fund joined by Action Fund board members, founders and former colleagues of presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. are denouncing his claim to be the environmental candidate in the 2024 presidential race, and calling for him to end his campaign in an open letter set to run as advertisements in battleground states across the country starting Sunday. The NRDC Action Fund-sponsored ads amplify the voices of dozens of well-known environmental leaders and former Kennedy colleagues who are expressing concerns both about his anti-science positions and the potential that his candidacy could help elect Donald Trump.
“We have spent our careers fighting to protect the planet and its people. As current and former leadership and board members of the NRDC Action Fund, as well as former colleagues of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., we have one message for him: Honor our planet, drop out,” read the ads which express serious concerns about Kennedy’s embrace by the Trump campaign, and seeming climate denial on his Web site and by staffers in advance of Earth Day.
“Kennedy is playing a dangerous spoiler role that could benefit Trump,” said Manish Bapna, president and CEO of the NRDC Action Fund. “Joe Biden is the real environmental candidate in this race. He has taken more climate action than any US President in history. Meanwhile Kennedy’s campaign staffers have made clear they are trying to syphon votes away from the President. Polling shows he has no path to the White House, so if Kennedy is serious about protecting the planet, the time to drop out is now.”
“The RFK, Jr. I knew as a colleague is not the same person I see today,” said Liz Barratt-Brown, a former colleague of Kennedy’s who signed the open letter. “We feel betrayed by him and what he is espousing. He is using his environmental credentials to sell a dark and conspiratorial brand of politics. It’s heartbreaking. If he loves the planet the way he did as my former colleague, he cannot open the door to another Trump Administration.”
Full-page ads are running in the following papers Sunday:
- Atlanta Journal-Constitution
- Milwaukee Sentinel
- Charlotte Observer
- Detroit Free Press
- Las Vegas Review Journal
- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
A sample of the ad creative and full list of signers is available at www.nrdcactionfund.org/rfkjr.
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About the NRDC Action Fund
The NRDC Action Fund is a national environmental advocacy and political organization that is affiliated with but separate from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The two organizations’ names may not be used interchangeably. News and information released by the NRDC Action Fund should be identified as from “the NRDC Action Fund,” and not from NRDC. Learn more at www.nrdcactionfund.org.
Paid for by NRDC Action Fund, Inc. (nrdcactionfund.org). Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
