Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will speak Friday “about the present historical moment and his path forward,” his campaign announced Wednesday, fueling growing speculation that Kennedy could drop out and support Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Kennedy’s running mate openly discussed the possibility on a podcast this week, saying the campaign was considering a move to “join forces” with Trump to limit the election chance of Kamala Harris, whose Democratic convention winds up Thursday night in Chicago.
The move would have once seemed unthinkable for Kennedy, a Democrat for most of his life and — as the nephew of President John F. Kennedy and the son of Robert F. Kennedy — a member of a beloved Democratic dynasty.
Last month, during the Republican National Convention, Kennedy’s son posted and then quickly deleted a video showing a phone call between Kennedy and Trump, in which the former president appeared to try to talk Kennedy into siding with him.
Kennedy will give a speech in Phoenix, hours before Trump is scheduled to hold a rally in neighboring Glendale. A spokesperson for Kennedy, Stefanie Spear, declined to say whether he planned to drop out or why he chose Arizona for his speech.
After leaving the Democratic primary to run as an independent, Kennedy built an unusually strong base of support for someone running without the backing of a major party. It was unclear exactly where his support was coming from, which worried Republicans and Democrats alike.
But since President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign and Democrats coalesced around Vice President Harris as their nominee, Kennedy’s rise has been stunted. It looks increasingly unlikely that he will be able to make the debate stage when Trump and Harris face off next month, a moment Kennedy counted on for momentum and legitimacy. His campaign finances have also been strained.
The news comes a little over a week since a New York judge ruled that Kennedy should not appear on the ballot in the state because he listed a “sham” address on nominating petitions. Kennedy has appealed, but has faced several similar challenges around the country.
On Wednesday, he was in a courtroom in a suburb of New York City, testifying in a trial for another ballot suit in the state, this one backed by the Democratic National Committee, that challenges the signatures collected by his campaign.
During a break in the court proceedings, Kennedy declined to answer questions from reporters about whether he was dropping out.
He’s also facing a likely legal challenge in Arizona, where last week he submitted signatures that may have been collected by a super PAC that supports him, which Kennedy’s critics say is illegal coordination between a candidate and an independent political group.
(AP)
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5 Responses
Sad had how the Dems sued this decent mentch in many states simultaneously, but it worked. Although he would won on appeal in light of the Supreme Court’s previous ruling, his mounting legal costs can no longer carry him through.
Yup. We’re back to our corrupt one party system, consisting of the Democins & Repubricrats, controlled by a handful of wealthy white elitist pigs. A majority of disenfranchised voters in every poll stated, they can’t stomach the annointed ones currently on display, so let’s screw them over and destroy any other legitimate choices. We’ll just blindly trust our beloved government and all of it’s pure clean as the wind driven snow agencies. Oh, yeh. We have Jill (recount) Stein and Cornel West. Yeh. Goodbye America. We’re done as a nation.
“The Dems sued this decent mentch….”
Decent mentch??? He lied about being a NY resident in his filing papers even though he owns a home in California and has lived there for several years, told the judge he was living in a spare bedroom in a new york apartment owned by “a friend”, couldn’t remember the address, etc…
While he was once an effective environmental advocate, the “worms in his brain” have obviously done their job well. Even aside from this vaccination meshugaas that has probably resulted in hundreds of thousands of young kids going unvaccinated against multiple diseases with undisputedly safe vaccines, he has gone down every rabbit hole on conspiracy theories ranging from the CIA and 9/11, UFOs causing global warming to Biden being behind the attempted Trump assassination.
If my memory serves me well I remember that in addition to buying into all the crazy conspiracy theories, RFK jr. is also outspoken against sending military aid to Israel.
Anyone who listened to his rambling and profoundly incoherent speech in Arizona Friday pm and still thinks this guy isn’t a nutcase obviously is suffering from the same brain worms as RFK Jr. He jumps from one grievance to another, some borrowed from Trump, some of his own creation. He has consistently opposed military aid to EY, wants the U.S. to force Zelensky to surrender 1/3 of Ukraine to Putin to “end the war overnight”, and suspend early childhood vaccinations for all diseases until a Commission he would appoint studied the “chronic disease genocide” linked to vaccines.
He and Trump make a wonderful shidduch.