 "Robert F Kennedy Jr")
Robert F Kennedy Jr | (Photo: Wikipedia)
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he is suspending his presidential race and is now supporting Republican nominee Donald Trump, ending a long-shot campaign that had sought to offer voters an alternative to the major party candidates.
Kennedy’s speech saw him assail the Democratic Party at length for what he said was a political system he claimed is tilted unfairly against independent candidates.
“In my heart, I no longer believe that I have a realistic path to electoral victory in the face of this relentless systematic censorship,” Kennedy said Friday in an address from swing-state Arizona.
Kennedy went on to praise the Republican nominee, saying they had met personally twice in recent weeks and that Trump had offered him a position in his administration. Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, Kennedy said, refused to engage in similar bartering.
The announcement comes one day after Harris officially accepted the Democratic nomination, and culminates a week in which Trump has sought to blunt her momentum with a series of splashy campaign events and media engagements.
Kennedy later Friday joined Trump on the stage at the former president’s rally in Glendale, Arizona, where he was met with a standing ovation and shouts of “Bobby.”
Trump pledged that if reelected, he would create a new presidential commission on assassination attempts, including the one on him in July, and release all of the remaining documents pertaining to the assassination of Kennedy’s uncle, then-President John F. Kennedy, in 1963. The National Archives has said that nearly all of the records are available.
“Bobby and I will fight together to defeat the corrupt political establishment and return control of this country to the people and all who supported Bobby’s campaign, I very simply ask you join us in building this coalition,” Trump said.
Trump said to him that he would “end the censorship,” Kennedy told the crowd, and that the nominee too wanted “regulatory agencies to be free from corporate corruption.”
While Trump at the rally predicted Kennedy’s endorsement will have a “huge influence” on his bid, the unorthodox nature of Kennedy’s campaign, which he started as a Democrat and then shifted as an independent, and support that has dwindled since President Joe Biden’s exit from the race make his impact on the contest uncertain.
Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio claimed in a memo that his internal polling showed the Republican picking up the majority of Kennedy supporters in seven swing states. But many public polls, including the Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll, showed any Trump advantage to be well within the margin of error.
Democratic National Committee Senior Adviser Mary Beth Cahill discounted the impact of the endorsement in a statement.
“The more voters learned about RFK Jr. the less they liked him,” Cahill said. “Donald Trump isn’t earning an endorsement that’s going to help build support, he’s inheriting the baggage of a failed fringe candidate. Good riddance.”
Kennedy’s announcement was shrouded in the same chaos that defined his campaign. A Pennsylvania attorney for his campaign revealed his endorsement of Trump shortly before Kennedy spoke — prompting his campaign spokesperson to disavow the filing.
Minutes later, Kennedy began a lengthy speech lambasting Democrats for legal efforts that sought to keep him off the ballot in some states — only to then mention his support of the Republican candidate in an aside.
“I was a ferocious critic of many of the policies during his first administration, and there are still issues and approaches upon which we continue to have very serious differences. But we are aligned with each other on other key issues,” Kennedy said of Trump.
His political journey from unorthodox Democrat to Trump supporter dismayed members of his storied Democratic family. His siblings in a post on X called his decision “a betrayal of the values that our father and our family hold dear.”
Jen O’Malley Dillon, the chairwoman of Harris’ campaign, issued a statement to Kennedy supporters saying the Democratic nominee knew “there is more that unites us than divides us.”
“For any American out there who is tired of Donald Trump and looking for a new way forward, ours is a campaign for you,” O’Malley Dillon said. “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.”
At a Las Vegas event earlier Friday, Trump celebrated the endorsement and sidestepped reporters’ questions about what position he had offered him in his administration.
First Published: Aug 24 2024 | 8:07 AM IST
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