Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. dropped his bid for the White House Friday and announced support for former President Donald Trump, issuing criticisms against the Democratic Party’s media censorship and handling of the primary election.
“… I’ve made the heart-wrenching decision to suspend my campaign and to support President Trump. This decision is agonizing for me because of the difficulties it causes me, and my children and my friends,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy said in Phoenix that the Democratic Party “waged continual legal warfare against both President Trump and myself” and “ran a sham primary.”
“In an honest system, I believe I would have won the election,” said Kennedy. “I no longer believe that I have a realistic path of electoral victory in the face of this relentless, systematic censorship and media control.”
RFK Jr.’s campaign asks swing states to remove his name from the ballot because he doesn’t want to be a “spoiler,” he said. Kennedy will remain on the ballot in states that he considers “red” or “blue,” he said. “If you live in a blue state, you can vote for me without harming or helping President Trump or Vice President Harris,” said Kennedy. “In red states, the same will apply.”
The former Democratic senator spoke a couple of hours before Trump’s scheduled campaign event in nearby Glendale, Arizona. On Thursday, the Trump campaign advertised that the former president would be joined by a “special guest,” which sparked further speculation of Kennedy’s endorsement of the GOP 2024 presidential nominee.
The announcement ends the presidential run of a high-profile vaccine skeptic and environmental activist, the progeny of the nation’s most storied political dynasty.
Kennedy launched his long-shot campaign for the Democratic nomination for president in April of 2023, but last October, the 70-year-old switched to an independent to run for the White House.
Although Kennedy had repeatedly invoked his late father, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, both who were assassinated in the 1960s and long identified as a Democrat, in recent years, Kennedy has built relationships with leaders on the right. In Phoenix Friday, he repeatedly invoked his uncle and father.
The Democratic National Committee and President Joe Biden’s campaign has repeatedly slammed Kennedy for months as a possible spoiler whose supporters could hand Trump a presidential election victory in November.
“Vice President Harris declined to meet or even to speak with me,” said Kennedy.
However, Kennedy remained a thorn in Biden’s side from last year until his announcement last month that he was discontinuing his re-election bid and endorsing Harris.
Trump’s campaign had cheered on Kennedy when he ran against Biden as a Democrat. It began to target him after he switched to running as an independent, labeling him a “radical left” member and criticizing him for his environmental activism.
For his part, Kennedy described the modern Democratic Party as “the party of war, censorship, corruption, big pharma, big tech, big ag, and big money.”
“The DNC waged continual legal warfare against both President Trump and myself,” Kennedy said. “Each time that our volunteers turned in those towering boxes of signatures needed to get on the ballot, the DNC dragged us into court, state after state, attempting to erase their work and disappear with the will of the voters, which signed those petitions.”
“It deployed DNC-aligned judges to throw me and other candidates off the ballot and to throw President Trump in jail.”
The Kennedy-Shanahan ticket has faced nationwide uphill battles to earn a spot on the November presidential ballot. On August 12, New York State blocked the independent campaign’s access to the ballot.
According to Nicole Shanahan, Kennedy’s running mate, the campaign faces no fewer than nine Democratic Party lawsuits. The campaign faces uphill legal battles with suits in New Jersey, Nevada, Delaware, and North Carolina. Shanahan said Trump faces six legal battles brought forward by Democrats at the same time.
The DNC fought Kennedy and his supporters at almost every step as he attempted to get his name on the ballot in all 50 states. “What the Democrats consider a common course to win elections is the kind of ‘normalcy’ that leads to famine, sickness, and civil war. The country is ready for an administration that represents unity,” said Shanahan in a post on social media.
Democrats have attacked Trump, Kennedy as anti-democracy candidates
Democrats have attacked both Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Donald Trump consistently as anti-democracy candidates, for which RFK Jr. blasted them in his Thursday remarks.
“…Trump won’t hold autocrats accountable — because he wants to be an autocrat,” said VP President Harris at the Chicago DNC.
After criticisms of Joe Biden’s “bullseye” commentary after the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, which the president admitted he should not have said, he claimed, “I’m not the guy that said, ‘I want to be a dictator on day one.’ I’m not the guy that refused to accept the outcome of the election.” President Biden was referring to a comment in which Trump joked to Sean Hannity on Fox News that he would be a “dictator for one day” to “drill, baby, drill” and close the border to rebuild America’s energy leadership. Joe Biden enacted dozens of executive orders during his first days in office on both energy and the border.
The relationship between Trump and Kennedy began warming earlier in the year, and the two spoke last month after the assassination attempt against Trump, meeting in person the next day.
“In a series of long, intense discussions, I was surprised to discover that we are aligned on many key issues and those meetings,” stated Kennedy.
Earlier in the week, Nicole Shanahan, Kennedy’s running mate, ignited headlines by saying in a podcast interview that the campaign was considering whether to “join forces” with former President Trump to prevent Vice President Kamala Harris from winning the 2024 election.
“If he endorsed me, I would be honored by it. I would be very honored by it. He really has his heart in the right place,” said Trump Thursday in an interview on “Fox & Friends.”
J.D. Vance, the former president’s running mate, said Wednesday in an interview, also on Fox & Friends, that he hoped Kennedy “endorses the president, gets on the team because this is about saving the country.”
Kennedy’s departure from the race came as his campaign was bottoming out.
His campaign last held a public event on July 9 in Freeport, Maine. Even prior to that, his poll numbers—which were once in the teens—had faded.
The most recent Fox News national poll, conducted August 9-12, indicated that Kennedy still held 6% support.
The former candidate’s fundraising also nosedived. Campaign finance reports showed he had only $3.9 million in cash on hand at the beginning of July and almost $3.5 million in debt.
“The more voters learned about RFK Jr., the less they liked him. Donald Trump isn’t earning an endorsement that will help build support; he’s inheriting the baggage of a failed fringe candidate. Good riddance,” said Mary Beth Cahill, DNC Senior Advisor after Kennedy’s speech.
In light of the modifications made by Kennedy’s campaign Friday, the Harris-Walz campaign released a statement.
“For any American out there who is tired of Donald Trump and looking for a new way forward, ours is a campaign for you. In order to deliver for working people and those who feel left behind, we need a leader who will fight for you, not just for themselves, and bring us together, not tear us apart. Vice President Harris wants to earn your support,” said Jen O’Malley Dillon, Harris-Walz 2024 Campaign Chair.
