RFK Jr. suspends presidential campaign, endorses Trump

By Steve Herman

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent U.S. presidential candidate with a famous political background but whose candidacy was overshadowed by a brain worm and a dead bear, has announced that he is suspending his campaign in support of the Republican Party nominee, former President Donald Trump.

“In my heart of hearts, I no longer believe that I have a realistic path to election victory,” Kennedy told a crowd of reporters and supporters in Phoenix. “I’m not ending my campaign. I’m just suspending it,” he added, explaining that he did not want to help Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party nominee.

In 10 states where he could disrupt the election, Kennedy said his name would be removed from the ballot. In other states, however, his name would remain on the ballot, he said. There, their supporters could safely vote for him without the risk of supporting the Democrats.

Kennedy filed papers Thursday saying he would withdraw from the vote in Arizona, one of the states likely to determine the outcome of November’s presidential election.

“My participation in the Trump campaign will be a difficult sacrifice,” Kennedy said in Phoenix, adding that it would be worth it if, in a Republican administration, he had the chance to end what he called a wave of chronic diseases among American children.

“In a fair system, I think I would have won the election,” Kennedy said, claiming that the mainstream media censored him and that the Democratic Party blocked him from voting in several states.

He said Trump’s promise to negotiate an end to Russia’s war on Ukraine “would alone justify my support for his campaign.”

Kennedy left the stage after 50 minutes and took no questions.

Later that day, he appeared at a Trump rally in nearby Glendale.

“Bobby has run an extraordinary campaign for president of the United States over the last 16 months,” Trump said. “I know because he’s gone after me a couple of times.”

Famous name

Kennedy, a 70-year-old environmental lawyer, has called himself a political outsider despite his background. He entered the presidential race as a hopeless Democratic Party candidate, but dropped that bid in October and announced he would run as an independent.

With a last name nearly synonymous with the Democratic Party (he is the nephew of President John F. Kennedy and the son of former U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, both of whom were assassinated in the 1960s), RFK Jr. began his campaign polling low in double digits in some states.

Trump said at his political rally Friday night that when he returns to the White House, he will appoint an independent commission to investigate the assassination attempts and release all government documents related to the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy.

Siblings of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. criticize their brother’s support for Trump.

“Our brother Bobby’s decision to endorse Trump today is a betrayal of the values ​​our father and our family hold most dear. It is a sad ending to a sad story,” Kerry Kennedy wrote in a statement, along with three of her sisters and two of her brothers.

The extended Kennedy family had previously expressed shame and condemned their relative’s campaign after he withdrew from the Democratic Party, choosing instead to support the re-election of President Joe Biden, who withdrew from the race last month and was replaced by Harris.

The shift in Democratic alignment further eroded Kennedy’s support, which had benefited from those unenthusiastic about a Biden-Trump rematch in the 2020 election.

“The more voters learned about RFK Jr., the less they liked him. Donald Trump does not deserve an endorsement that will help build support; he inherits the baggage of a failed fringe candidate. It’s good to be rid of it,” Mary Beth Cahill, senior counsel to the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement after Kennedy’s announcement.

Fringe appeal

Kennedy, branded a conspiracy theorist by his critics, appealed to anti-establishment voters drawn by his contrarian foreign policy and longstanding campaign against vaccines. But he faced scorn and even ridicule from the mainstream.

In May, Kennedy said the “brain fog” he suffered from a decade ago was caused by a parasitic worm that had eaten part of his brain.

Kennedy has recently been the target of TV comedians and social media satire after revealing that he dumped a dead bear cub in New York City’s Central Park as a prank in 2014.

A magazine article in July alleged that Kennedy had abused a family nanny decades ago. Asked about the allegation in a podcast, he said he was “not a church boy” and had “a lot of skeletons” in his closet.

“Third-party candidates often lose steam as the election approaches, but Kennedy’s trajectory is particularly shameful,” Nate Silver, a statistician and leading election forecaster, said in a post on Substack on Thursday.

“In three-way polls against Biden and Trump, he started out at 10 or 11 percent, but then gradually fell to 8 (except for a surge just after Biden’s terrible debate). In the Trump-Harris matchup, however, he’s fallen to around 4 percent.”

Trump has offered to “recruit” him for a second administration, Kennedy said Friday.

Trump had acknowledged the day before that he had spoken to Kennedy several times, but that he had not done so recently.

Trump told CNN on Tuesday that he would be “open” to Kennedy playing a role in his administration if Kennedy dropped his presidential bid and supported the Republican nominee.

Kennedy’s running mate, Nicole Shanahan, said in an interview Tuesday that Kennedy would do an “incredible job” as secretary of Health and Human Services.

Kennedy alleged that agencies under HHS, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, and the National Institutes of Health, have fallen into corporate hands, turning them into predators that attack the American people.

“I think it’s a great idea to put him in some big organization or whatever and have him blow things up,” the son of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump Jr. told a conservative radio talk show on Wednesday.

‘Spoiler’ for MAGA?

Ramsey Reid, a consultant to the Democratic National Committee, argued in a memo released Friday that Kennedy’s role from the beginning was to act as a “spoiler” who would help Trump by drawing votes away from the Democratic nominee.

“He was recruited into the race by MAGA Republicans like Steve Bannon, his candidacy was supported by Trump’s biggest donor, and he repeated MAGA attacks on President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris,” Reid said.

On Thursday, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, some delegates looked forward to Kennedy’s withdrawal from the race.

Montana Rep. Mary Jo O’Rourke, whose father worked for RFK Jr.’s father at the Justice Department, told VOA that she is a great lover of the Kennedy family, but that it is time for the former Democrat “to go home and enjoy the rest of his life.”

Kennedy was initially thought to take more votes from Biden than from Trump, but recent polls have shown that he appears to be attracting more voters who might otherwise be inclined to vote for the Republican candidate.

Of those who supported Kennedy in July, 4 in 10 switched to Harris (compared with 2 in 10 who switched to Trump), according to a Pew Research Center poll released last week.

Most voters, as Election Day approaches, “are going back to their parties. They’re not looking for an independent candidate. They’re looking to vote for one of the two likely winners,” John Fortier, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told VOA.

In a close election in the six or so swing states that will decide the electoral vote count, the presence or absence of a third party or independent candidate on the ballot could determine the final outcome.

The winner of the U.S. presidential race must win 270 electoral votes, with each state’s allocation equal to the number of senators and representatives it has in Congress. It is possible for a candidate to win the most votes but lose the electoral vote count and thus the presidency.

Kennedy told reporters Friday that he could still win if the Electoral College votes for Trump and Harris ended up tied at 269. In that case, members of the new Congress would choose the president in early January.

Kim Lewis, Katherine Gypson in Chicago and Carolyn Presutti in Phoenix contributed to this story.