Trump megadonor is now throwing cash at RFK Jr.: report
Although 69-year-old Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is a member of Massachusetts' most famous Democratic family, his 2024 presidential campaign has been applauded by some far-right MAGA Republicans — including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, both of whom appreciate his disdain for vaccines and love of conspiracy theories. DeSantis has even said that if he were elected president, he would consider Kennedy for a position in his administration.
Another RFK Jr. cheerleader on the MAGA right, according to The Guardian's Mary Yang, is 81-year-old businessman and Donald Trump megadonor Timothy Mellon. Yang reports that American Values 2024, an RFK Jr.-associated super-PAC, received a $5 million donation from him.
Mellon also comes from a well-known family. His grandfather was Andrew W. Mellon, who served as U.S. Treasury secretary under three Republican presidents: Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. Although Timothy Mellon is in Wyoming, his family has a strong Pennsylvania connection.
Andrew W. Mellon was born in Pittsburgh in 1855, passing away at 82 in 1937. His family is the "Mellon" in Mellon Financial Corporation (founded in 1870) and Carnegie Mellon University. The Mellons were so symbolic of wealth and privilege in Pennsylvania that in 1975, the O'Jays (an iconic R&B group that recorded many of its big hits in Philadelphia) referenced "the Mellons, the Gettys, the Duponts, the Rockefellers" in their song "Rich Get Richer" — a blistering commentary on income inequality in the United States.
Republican members of the Mellon family aren't known for supporting Democrats. But Timothy Mellon has high praise for RFK Jr., who is challenging President Joe Biden in the 2024 Democratic presidential primary.
In an American Values 2024 press release, Timothy Mellon said, "The fact that Kennedy gets so much bipartisan support tells me two things: that he's the one candidate who can unite the country and root out corruption, and that he's the one Democrat who can win in the general election."
Timothy Mellon has drawn criticism for racist comments he made in his self-published autobiography, "My Name Is Timothy Mellon. Please Call Me Tim," in 2016. Mellon wrote that African-Americans became "even more belligerent" in the 1960s and 1970s because of Democratic social programs and wrote, "For delivering their votes in the Federal Elections, they are awarded with yet more and more freebies: food stamps, cell phones, WIC payments, Obamacare, and on, and on, and on. The largess is funded by the hardworking folks, fewer and fewer in number, who are too honest or too proud to allow themselves to sink into this morass."