Unbiased White Home candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr has joined the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, on stage at a rally in Arizona after dropping out of the race and endorsing the previous US president.
Mr Kennedy, 70, a Democrat for many of his life and the scion of the Kennedy dynasty, stated the ideas that had led him to depart the celebration had now compelled him “to throw my help to President Trump”.
He stated in a press convention in Phoenix, Arizona, on Friday that he would search to take away his title from the poll in 10 battleground states.
Earlier than welcoming RFK Jr to the stage on Friday, Trump promised, if elected, to launch all remaining paperwork referring to the 1963 assassination of President John F Kennedy.
Trump praised Mr Kennedy as “phenomenal” and “sensible” on the rally later in Glendale. Democratic rival Kamala Harris stated she would attempt to “earn” the help of Kennedy voters.
With November’s election looming, Mr Kennedy’s polling has slumped from a excessive of double figures as funds and nationwide protection dried up.
The son of US Senator Robert F Kennedy and nephew of President John F Kennedy, he’s from essentially the most famed household in Democratic politics.
Mr Kennedy’s determination to again a Republican for the White Home has outraged his family, who beforehand condemned his invocation of the household title in a Tremendous Bowl advert again in February.
Kerry Kennedy, his sister, stated his help for Trump was a “betrayal of the values that our father and our household maintain most pricey. It’s a unhappy ending to a tragic story.”
“This determination is agonising for me due to the difficulties it causes my spouse and my youngsters and my mates,” Mr Kennedy stated on Friday.
“However I’ve the knowledge that that is what I’m meant to do. And that certainty provides me inner peace, even in storms.”
He’s married to Cheryl Hines, the star of HBO comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm. She posted on X, previously Twitter, that she deeply revered her husband’s determination to droop his marketing campaign. She didn’t touch upon his endorsement of Trump.
Mr Kennedy advised reporters on Friday that Trump’s insistence he might finish the battle in Ukraine by negotiating with Russia “alone would justify my help for his marketing campaign”.
“There are nonetheless many points and approaches on which we proceed to have very critical variations. However we’re aligned on different key points.”
He stated he would take away his title from 10 states the place his presence can be a “spoiler” to Trump’s effort. He has already withdrawn from the battleground states of Arizona and Pennsylvania.
However it’s too late for him to tug out from the swing states of Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin, election officers advised AP information company.
Mr Kennedy stated he had launched his marketing campaign in April 2023 “as a Democrat, the celebration of my father, my uncle… the champions of the Structure”.
However he left as a result of “it had turn out to be the celebration of battle, censorship, corruption, large pharma, large tech, large cash”.
He blamed his determination to droop his marketing campaign on “media management” and his former celebration’s efforts to thwart his run, including: “In my coronary heart I now not consider I’ve a sensible path to victory within the face of relentless and systematic censorship.”
ReutersMr Kennedy hovered round 14% – 16% in polls at his hottest. Nevertheless, his rankings have slumped to single digits since Ms Harris turned the Democratic nominee.
He stated in his press convention that he had supplied to work with Ms Harris and her bid for the White Home.
Democrats sounded unfazed by his announcement.
“Donald Trump is not incomes an endorsement that is going to assist construct help, he is inheriting the luggage of a failed fringe candidate. Good riddance,” Democratic Nationwide Committee senior adviser Mary Beth Cahill stated in an announcement.
Mr Kennedy’s marketing campaign turned synonymous with the anti-vaccine motion as he often touted his management of the Youngsters’s Well being Protection organisation, previously generally known as the World Mercury Undertaking.
In latest weeks, Mr Kennedy recounted how he dumped a lifeless bear cub that had been hit by a automobile in New York’s Central Park in 2014 as a joke.
Earlier in his marketing campaign, it was revealed that he had suffered from a mind parasite over a decade in the past which brought about extreme reminiscence loss and mind fog.
His announcement capped days of hearsay that Mr Kennedy supplied to endorse Trump to safe a task in his subsequent administration.
Trump advised CNN earlier this week he would “definitely be open” to Mr Kennedy taking part in a task, whereas Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr, stated he can be suited to “blow up” a federal division.
Merrill Matthews, a resident scholar with the conservative Institute for Coverage Innovation, advised the BBC that Mr Kennedy’s determination highlighted the two-party system within the US and “how tough it’s to get new concepts and contemporary individuals into the method”.
Mike Wendling additionally contributed to this report.
