A top campaign aide for Sen. Ed Markey apologized for having retweeted an insensitive comment about Rep. Joe Kennedy’s family.
Rumors swirled that the two Massachusetts Democrats could be facing off in a primary campaign for Markey’s Senate seat, something Kennedy is expected to decide on in the coming weeks.
Twitter users therefore took notice when Markey’s aide, Paul Tencher, disseminated a tweet that said, “@EdMarkey, co-author of the green new deal, is a great Senator. @joekennedy should focus on his family’s considerable mental health issues.”
@paultencher is @edmarkey‘s top campaign aide. He needs to apologize for this. This retweet is disgraceful. The Senator should condemn this immediately. @jessbidgood @annielinskey @jmartnyt @vgmac @stephmurr_jour @dbernstein @tednesi @bostonjonas #mapoli pic.twitter.com/M3EBSeaTnb
— Val Frias (@FriasVal) August 20, 2019
The comment was an apparent reference to the recent death of Kennedy’s 22-year-old cousin, Saoirse Kennedy Hill, who died of an apparent drug overdose at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port earlier this month.
Hill, whose grandfather was the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, had written of her struggles with mental illness. In a 2016 column, she encouraged others to remember that “just because the illness may not be outwardly visible doesn’t mean the person suffering from it isn’t struggling.”
The swift and negative backlash to Tencher’s retweet moved him to apologize and the tweet’s original author to delete it. Kennedy himself was reportedly “livid about it,” according to the Boston Globe.
“I absolutely take it back. It was a mistake. My apologies,” Tencher said. “That tweet was despicable and abhorrent. This person should be banned from twitter.”
Hello it seemed you deleted my apology on your tweet. Thank you alerting me to my mistake. Again: I absolutely take it back. It was a mistake. My apologies. That tweet was despicable and abhorrent. This person should be banned from twitter.
— Paul Tencher (@paultencher) August 20, 2019
Markey called Kennedy on Tuesday afternoon to apologize, and the junior senator released a statement that read, “To show such insensitivity for those experiencing mental health issues is extremely offensive to me. This action by a member of my campaign is unacceptable. It in no way reflects my commitment to the issue of mental heath treatment and the eradication of stigma that so many families suffer. I deeply apologize to Congressman Kennedy and his entire family.”
