In a stunning reversal, independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.) has suspended his campaign for president and endorsed Donald Trump. Kennedy announced the news at an Arizona press conference. Kennedy stressed his campaign was suspended and not terminated, and said he would remain on the ballot in some states.
“Three great causes drove me to enter this race in the first place, primarily, and these are the principal causes that persuaded me to leave the Democratic Party and run as an independent, and now to throw my support to President Trump,” RFK Jr. said at the press conference in Arizona. “I could conceivably still end up in the White House in a contingent election,” Kennedy added. Trump would also speak that night in Glendale, Arizona with a “special guest” who many expected might be Kennedy.
Behind RFK Jr.’s decision
RFK Jr., son of assassinated politician Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of John F. Kennedy, famously shot and killed by an assassin in 1963, announced his 2024 candidacy as a Democrat but switched to independent in Oct. 2023, along with his vice presidential running mate Nicole Shanahan.
Kennedy-Shanahan’s 2024 candidacy was never on the ballot in all 50 states. At one time, it polled in the double-digits, but after President Biden announced he would not seek reelection, making Vice President Kamala Harris the Democratic nominee, Kennedy’s numbers shrank as his campaign funding dwindled. Kennedy’s campaign had long faced criticisms it had no real chance of winning, and would effectively help Trump retake the White House by siphoning votes away from the Democratic party.
RFK made overtures to both major party candidates
Before Kennedy announced he would drop out of the race and endorse Trump through court filings, Kennedy’s son posted and then deleted footage on X of a phone conversation between Trump and Kennedy in which Trump tried to convince Kennedy to endorse him, according to PBS. According to CBS News, RFK Jr. also contacted the Harris campaign to discuss a similar matter, but they declined to meet with him.
Kennedy controversies
A troubled scion of one of America’s most storied political families, RFK Jr.’s career as an environmental lawyer is generally well-respected. But in recent years, Kennedy has adopted extreme views of vaccines, especially surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. Among other controversial views, Kennedy has also suggested antidepressants contribute to school shootings, and that chemicals in the water make people transgender, according to The Guardian.
RFK Jr.’s presidential campaign has also seen several embarrassing revelations from Kennedy’s past, including a medical situation involving “a brain worm that ate a portion of my brain and then died,” and allegations he once ate a barbequed dog. Kennedy said the animal on the spit was a goat. Kennedy also made a bizarre admission he once dumped a dead baby bear carcass in New York’s Central Park with a bike to make it appear that the animal had been struck and killed by a cyclist.
RFK Jr.’s has changed his mind on Trump
RFK Jr. has criticized Trump in the past, calling him “a terrible human being” and “probably a sociopath” who “filled his administration with swamp creatures” and “torpedoed the Constitution,” according to Forbes. Trump, meanwhile, called Kennedy a “Radical Left Lunatic.” Trump also wrote on social media that a vote for Kennedy would be a “WASTED PROTEST VOTE.”
On a podcast, Kennedy’s vice presidential candidate, Nicole Shanahan suggested that RFK Jr. could become secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services in a second Trump administration, but claimed to have no insider information.