Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared in Phoenix on Friday to announce he is suspending his presidential campaign and backing former President Donald Trump.
Kennedy said internal polling showed his campaign would hurt Trump and benefit Vice President Harris.
“In about 10 battleground states where my presence would be a spoiler, I'm going to remove my name and I've already started that process and urge voters not to vote for me,” he said, encouraging his supporters to vote for him in non-competitive red and blue states where those ballots likely won’t affect the outcome of the election.
The Kennedy campaign filed paperwork with the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office on Thursday to withdraw his name from the ballot, just a day after he qualified to appear as a candidate in the state.
The Associated Press reported that Kennedy’s campaign also filed paperwork to remove his name from ballots in Pennsylvania but that it is too late to remove his name in several other battleground states, including Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin.
Kennedy said Trump is the better candidate to address key issues important to his supporters, including free speech, ending U.S. support for the war in Ukraine and addressing what Kennedy calls “a war on our children.”
“These are the principal causes that persuaded me to leave the Democratic Party and run as an independent and now to throw my support to President Trump,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy railed against an increase in certain chronic medical conditions in children, including diabetes and obesity, and blamed government agencies like the National Institutes of Health and Food and Drug Administration for failing to address what he claims are the root causes of those issues.
Kennedy indicated that he and Trump have had multiple discussions about a possible public health-related role for him in a future administration, though he did not specify the nature of that role.
“If President Trump is elected and honors his word, the vast burden of chronic disease that now demoralizes and bankrupts the country will disappear,” Kennedy said.
CNN reported that Trump said he would be open to including Kennedy in his administration if Kennedy dropped out of the race and endorsed him.
Kennedy said his attempts to discuss similar issues with Harris went unanswered.
Kennedy spent much of his speech criticizing the press, Democrats and Vice President Harris, blaming them for sinking his campaign, which had polled in the teens earlier this year but saw that number drop closer to 5% recently.
“In an honest system, I believe that I would have won the election,” he said.
