Third-party presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr has suspended his long-shot bid for the White Home, throwing his weight as a substitute behind the Republican candidate, former United States President Donald Trump.
Friday’s announcement was the end result of weeks of speculation, as Kennedy receded within the polls. Nonetheless, he supplied a message of defiance, denouncing his marketing campaign’s “naysayers”.
“We proved them improper,” Kennedy mentioned at a marketing campaign cease in Phoenix, Arizona. “Beneath the radar of mainstream media organs, we impressed an enormous unbiased political motion.”
“In an trustworthy system, I imagine I might have received the election,” he later added.
Nonetheless, he acknowledged his odds have been dim. “I can’t in good conscience ask my employees and volunteers to maintain working their lengthy hours or ask my donors to maintain giving once I can’t truthfully inform them that I’ve an actual path to the White Home.”
Kennedy emphasised he was “not terminating” his marketing campaign, solely suspending it. However he mentioned he could be eradicating his identify from the poll in states the place he feared drawing votes away from Trump.
“In about 10 battleground states, the place my presence could be a spoiler, I’m going to take away my identify. And I’ve already began that course of and urge voters to not vote for me,” he mentioned.
He defined that he and Trump shared considerations about “free speech, the warfare in Ukraine and the warfare on our youngsters”.
Within the lead-up to Kennedy’s remarks, his marketing campaign teased that his Arizona speech would handle “the current historic second and his path ahead”.
The hypothesis of a attainable Kennedy-Trump alliance was amplified by the speech’s location. Trump himself was set to reach in Arizona for a rally within the Phoenix suburb of Glendale, simply three hours after Kennedy’s remarks.
On Thursday, Kennedy filed paperwork withdrawing his candidacy in Arizona, in preparation for Friday’s speech.
Who’s Robert F Kennedy Jr?
A former environmental lawyer, Kennedy launched his presidential marketing campaign in April 2023, initially getting into the race as a Democrat.
“My mission over the following 18 months of this marketing campaign and all through my presidency will likely be to finish the corrupt merger of state and company energy,” he mentioned at his marketing campaign launch.
His choice to run despatched shockwaves throughout the political neighborhood. Kennedy is the scion of a storied political household with robust ties to the Democratic Celebration: His uncle John F Kennedy was a president within the Nineteen Sixties, and his father, Robert F Kennedy, was a US senator and legal professional common.
Each have been assassinated, the previous whereas in workplace and the latter whereas campaigning for the presidency.
The youthful Kennedy’s choice to mount a bid for the presidency in 2024 instantly put him in a match-up towards President Joe Biden, a fellow Democrat who was, on the time, searching for re-election.
It additionally put him at odds with members of his circle of relatives, who denounced his choice to problem Biden.
Kennedy’s youngest sibling, Rory Kennedy, voiced opposition even earlier than he introduced his presidential bid in April.
“I love his previous work as an environmentalist,” Rory advised the information outlet CNN. “However resulting from a variety of Bobby’s positions, I’m supporting President Biden.”
Kennedy has confronted widespread criticism, together with from his household, for sharing vaccine-related conspiracy theories and selling baseless therapies in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. He has additionally unfold false assertions concerning the origins of HIV and the well being results of Wi-Fi web.
Going through stress from Democrats, Kennedy finally switched tactic, relaunching his marketing campaign as an unbiased, third-party ticket in October 2023.
Nonetheless, that didn’t allay Democratic criticism, as some feared he could be a “spoiler candidate” peeling voters away from the get together within the common election.
What occurred to his marketing campaign?
Kennedy’s campaigned in the end did not generate a lot traction. An ABC Information ballot launched earlier this month discovered that his voter assist dwindled to five %, down from a excessive of 12 % in April.
That was effectively under the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Trump, each of whom have been polling between 45 and 50 % assist.
His marketing campaign has additionally generated unfavorable publicity for weird revelations over the course of Kennedy’s run.
In early August, as an illustration, Kennedy appeared in a video with the comic Roseanne Barr by which he recounted how he left a lifeless bear cub in New York Metropolis’s Central Park, staged to look as if it had been run over by a motorcycle.
Kennedy insisted he had not killed the bear himself however fairly scooped it off the street after it had been hit by a automobile in upstate New York.
As his ballot numbers wobbled, rumours of a possible alliance with Trump grew louder.
In July, Kennedy’s son Bobby Kennedy III briefly posted a video on social media displaying his father on the telephone with Trump. Within the name, Trump recounts surviving an assassination try at a Pennsylvania rally and seems to court docket the unbiased candidate’s backing.
“I might love you to do stuff,” Trump is heard on speakerphone, telling Kennedy. “I believe it could be so good for you, and we’re going to win.”
That video was later deleted, and Kennedy apologised to Trump for the leak of the non-public dialog.
Kennedy’s operating mate, lawyer Nicole Shanahan, additionally appeared on a podcast, Influence Idea, earlier this week to speak about potential avenues for the way forward for their marketing campaign.
One path, she mentioned, could be to discovered a brand new get together. The opposite could be to affix forces with Trump.
“We stroll away proper now and be part of forces with Donald Trump,” Shanahan mentioned, providing that as a attainable avenue. “We stroll away from that, and we clarify to our base why we’re making this choice.”
On Thursday, Trump himself advised the information programme Fox & Buddies that he would gladly settle for Kennedy’s endorsement.
“If he endorsed me, I might be honoured by it,” Trump mentioned.
What did Kennedy say in his speech?
When Kennedy lastly did announce his marketing campaign’s suspension on Friday, he started with a broadside towards the Democratic Celebration.
“I started this journey as a Democrat, the get together of my father, my uncle, the get together I pledged my very own allegiance to, lengthy earlier than I used to be sufficiently old to vote,” Kennedy mentioned.
“Again then, the Democrats have been the champions of the structure, of civil rights. The Democrats stood towards authoritarianism, towards censorship, towards colonialism, imperialism and unjust wars. We have been the get together of labour, of the working class.”
However occasions had modified, Kennedy defined, and his get together allegiance had modified with them.
“I left that get together in October as a result of it had departed so dramatically from the core values I grew up with,” he mentioned. He additionally devoted a stretch of his speech to slamming the mainstream media for “systematic censorship”.
“Are we actually nonetheless a job mannequin for democracy on this nation? Or have we made it sort of a joke?” he requested, alleging he and Trump had confronted media censorship and “continuous authorized warfare” in the course of the race.
Kennedy additionally took direct goal at Harris, calling her speech on Thursday evening accepting the Democratic Celebration nomination “bellicose” and “belligerent”.
In contrast, Kennedy praised Trump for his need to distance the US from Ukraine, an ally that’s attemping to fend off a full-scale Russian invasion.
“I used to be a ferocious critic of lots of the insurance policies throughout his first administration, and there are nonetheless points and approaches upon which we proceed to have very severe variations,” he mentioned.
“However we’re aligned with one another on different key points, like ending the without end wars, ending the childhood illness epidemic, securing the border.”
Kennedy mentioned Harris rebuffed his request for a gathering, however Trump, against this, “requested to enlist me in his administration” and “be part of forces as a unity get together”.
“Suspending my candidacy is a heart-rending choice for me, however I’m satisfied it’s the perfect hope for ending the Ukraine warfare and ending the persistent illness epidemic that’s eroding our nation’s vitality from the within,” he mentioned, pointing to widespread well being considerations like diabetes and weight problems.
However whereas Kennedy mentioned he felt “inside peace” about his choice, his household as soon as once more denounced his political manoeuvring.
“We would like an America full of hope and certain collectively by a shared imaginative and prescient of a brighter future,” 5 of his siblings, together with Rory, wrote in a statement on Friday.
“Our brother Bobby’s choice to endorse Trump immediately is a betrayal of the values that our father and our household maintain most pricey. It’s a unhappy ending to a tragic story.”