Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a scion of the Kennedy political dynasty whose independent presidential bid was bankrolled by his running mate and dogged by humiliating personal revelations, will drop out of the race and endorse Donald Trump for president, NBC News reports.
Two sources familiar with the plans told NBC News that talks between the two campaigns are underway. Kennedy announced earlier that he will hold a news conference in Phoenix on Friday. Trump is scheduled to hold a rally outside Phoenix the same day.
Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance told NBC News on Wednesday that there has been “a lot of communication back and forth” between Kennedy and the GOP campaign.
The end of Kennedy’s bid for president, culminating in an endorsement for Trump, is not entirely unexpected. His running mate, Nicole Shanahan, said in a podcast interview released Tuesday that their campaign was considering exiting the race to help Trump. Later that day, Trump said he would be open to offering Kennedy a role in his administration, though Vance separately suggested that a potential Cabinet position would not be contingent on Kennedy backing the former president.
Despite his long odds from the outset, Kennedy had worked hard to be seen as a serious contender. He fought to get his name on state ballots (though his methods have drawn scrutiny) and to appear onstage at the June debate. To voters unhappy with the major-party options, he pitched himself as a leader who would reject corporate influence on politics, a position buttressed by his conspiratorial view of the world.
Yet his campaign never really took off. He consistently flailed in the polls and struggled to raise money, relying heavily on Shanahan, a philanthropist and former Silicon Valley lawyer, to fund his campaign. His political agenda also had little impact: As a third-party contender, he put forward a platform that was too haphazard for him to be a movement candidate, and his campaign was too weak for him to be a spoiler. What Kennedy’s candidacy did do was raise his national profile — and deeply damage his already questionable reputation in the public eye. What Kennedy’s candidacy did do was raise his national profile — and deeply damage his already questionable reputation in the public eye. His conspiracy beliefs gained intense scrutiny, and he was publicly snubbed by other Kennedys, with 15 of his family members — including six of his 10 siblings — publicly endorsing Joe Biden before the president dropped out. There were also a series of disturbing disclosures from his past. Kennedy told The New York Times that he had bounced back from the cognitive effects of a parasitic worm eating part of his brain. After a woman who used to babysit his children accused him of sexual assault, saying he had groped her and touched her inappropriately on separate occasions, Kennedy said in response: “I am who I am.” Asked by The Boston Globe whether more women would come forward with sexual misconduct allegations, he said: “We’ll see what happens.” Kennedy also had to deny to Vanity Fair that he once ate a dog and, most recently, revealed that he once dumped a dead bear cub in Central Park as a bizarre joke.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
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