Robert F. Kennedy Jr. by Gage Skidmore / Flickr
CV NEWS FEED // Democrat-turned-independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced on Friday afternoon that he was ending his 2024 presidential bid and endorsing Republican nominee former President Donald Trump.
Kennedy told reporters in Phoenix that he will “now throw my support to President Trump.”
He made the announcement one day after Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris accepted her party’s nomination on the final day of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Kennedy said that he and Trump are aligned on various issues, including border security and “ending the forever wars.”
In addition, he said that while he had previously approached Harris for a discussion, she “declined to meet or even to speak with me.”
“I am not terminating my campaign,” Kennedy stated. “I am simply suspending it. Not ending it.”
He clarified that while his “name will remain on the ballot in most states,” he will remove it from what he said were the ten most hotly-contested battleground states.
Kennedy implied that by exiting the race and backing Trump, he was following up an earlier promise that he would withdraw if he became a “spoiler” candidate.
“Our polling consistently showed that by staying on the ballot in the battleground states, I would likely hand the election over to the Democrats,” he explained.
>> RFK JR: HARRIS’ DEMOCRATIC PARTY WOULD BE ‘UNRECOGNIZABLE’ TO JFK AND RFK <<
Kennedy also thoroughly reputed the Democratic Party, of which he had been a member for decades, up until late last year.
A member of a prominent Democratic political family, he is a son of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, and the nephew of President John F. Kennedy’s.
He said he had pledged his allegiance to the party “long before I was old enough to vote.”
“I attended my first Democratic Convention at the age of six in 1960,” he added. That year, his uncle was the party’s successful presidential nominee.
“And back then,” he added, “the Democrats were the champions of the Constitution, of civil rights. The Democrats stood against authoritarianism, against censorship, against colonialism, imperialism, and unjust wars.”
Kennedy noted that the Democratic Party he grew up supporting was the party of the working class and government transparency.
“True to its name, it was the party of democracy,” he said.
Kennedy emphasized that he decided to leave his family’s party when it was clear it had “departed so dramatically from the core values that I grew up with.”
“It had become the party of war, censorship, corruption, Big Pharma, Big Tech, Big Ag[riculture], and big money” he lamented.
“In the name of saving democracy, the Democratic Party has set itself to dismantling it,” Kennedy later added.
He was referring to the party’s controversial nomination of Harris without her receiving any support from primary voters, as well as its earlier attempts to double down on the struggling re-election bid of President Joe Biden.
Furthermore, Kennedy accused the Democrats for prioritizing their opposition to Trump over advancing their own policy agenda.
Kennedy pointed out that at the recently-concluded DNC, “a string of Democratic speakers mentioned Donald Trump 147 times just on the first day.”
Kennedy noted that at last month’s four-day-long Republican National Convention the name of then-presumptive Democratic nominee incumbent President Joe Biden was mentioned a total of twice.
“Who needs a policy when you have Trump to hate,” Kennedy quipped.
“We changed the national political conversation forever,” Kennedy said, reflecting on his campaign.
On Friday night, Kennedy joined Trump on stage at a campaign rally in Glendale, Arizona.
Trump introduced his now-ally: “For the past 16 months, Bobby has run an extraordinary campaign for President of the United States. I know, because he also went after me a couple of times.”
The former president went on to praise Kennedy:
His candidacy has inspired millions and millions of Americans, raised critical issues that have been too long ignored in this country, and brought together people from across the political spectrum in a positive campaign grounded in the American values of his father, Robert Kennedy, a great man, and his uncle, President John F. Kennedy.
“I don’t think I’ve ever introduced anyone who got applause like [Kennedy] just got,” Trump observed. “It’s amazing.”
While Kennedy was still a Democrat, he was at one point widely thought to be a likely future candidate for state or federal office. He was considered a frontrunner to win the New York State attorney general election in 2006.
Two years later, his name was mentioned among possible candidates to replace Hillary Clinton in the U.S. Senate and fill a New York seat once held by his father.
However, Kennedy ultimately decided to not seek either position.
Prior to announcing his run for president as an independent last October, the attorney was challenging Biden – who was then seeking re-election – in the Democratic primaries.
Readers can find Kennedy’s full remarks here. He begins speaking at 1:02:30.
