In what is sure to be a controversial, and yet highly consequential, move, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has officially suspended his presidential campaign, will remove his name off the ballot in ten battleground states, and has announced his endorsement of Donald Trump.

RFK Jr. certainly has an axe to grind with the current leadership of the Democrat party. As we covered, he was quite literally blocked by the Democrats from mounting a credible challenge to Joe Biden, and ended up running as an independent. (Given how things developed, I wonder if they regret that decision now.) RFK Jr. was also shunned by the mainstream media, and there are campaigns taking place to remove him off state ballots. There were rumors that RFK Jr. was reaching out to both the Trump campaign, and the newly-constituted Harris campaign. Today, in a speech that was announced earlier in the week, RFK Jr. finally laid all his cards on the table, and announced that he did not want to play “spoiler” in the swing states, and backed Donald Trump.

His full speech can be seen here:

RFK Jr. mentioned that he was working to remove his name off ballots in certain states, but mentioned that he will remain on others where his presence would not play “spoiler” in a presidential election.

In Pennsylvania, court records showed Kennedy making the move to remove his name and his intended backing of Trump just before he took to a podium. Earlier Friday, Kennedy moved to remove his name from Arizona’s ballot.

But Kennedy insisted this wasn’t the end of his campaign entirely, despite the support for Trump and the removal of his name from the ballot in states key to securing a win in November.

“I want everyone to know that I am not terminating my campaign,” Kennedy said in his rally. “I am simply suspending it and not ending it. My name will remain on the ballot in most states.”

The Hill was the first to report ahead of Kennedy’s Arizona appearance that he would suspend his campaign in key swing states, but will not drop out completely.

Just before Kennedy spoke in Arizona, court filings surfaced showing Kennedy’s attorney asking a judge to dismiss Kennedy and Nicole Shanahan’s nomination papers so they would not appear on Pennsylvania’s general election ballot, citing their endorsement of Trump for president.

The first large part of the speech was spent by RFK Jr. absolutely ripping Democrats and the media for rigging the entire primary for Joe Biden, when it was clear that a competitive race would have been better – and necessary – for the party.

This speech from RFK Jr. will go down in the history books:

“The DNC and its media organs engineered a surge of popularity for VP Harris based upon nothing. No policies, no interviews, no debates. Only smoke and mirrors.” pic.twitter.com/B0ilERBIEF

— Steve Cortes (@CortesSteve) August 23, 2024

Which, of course, the media did not appreciate.
https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1827058565212721407
RFK Jr. pointed out that he reached out to both campaigns, and Donald Trump was the one who stopped to listen to him.

According to Kennedy, “Vice President Harris declined to meet or even to speak with me.”

But Kennedy remained a thorn in Biden’s side from last year through the president’s announcement last month that he was ending his re-election bid and endorsing Harris.

The Trump campaign, which had cheered on Kennedy when he was running against Biden as a Democrat, also started taking aim at him after he switched to an independent run, labeling him a member of the “radical left,” and criticizing him for his environmental activism.

The relationship between Kennedy and Trump started warming earlier this year, and the two spoke last month after the assassination attempt against Trump and met in person the following day.

“In a series of long, intense discussions, I was surprised to discover that we are aligned on many key issues and those meetings,” said Kennedy of the meetings.

Apparently, the decision was to let Donald Trump and RFK Jr. to be “a team of rivals” in order to move forward as a “unity ticket.” Kennedy was quite open that they will not and do not agree on everything, but that Trump has promised him a place in a future administration. RFK Jr.’s passion has always been health-related issues (which has led him deep into, let us charitably say, alternative perspectives). But, we have all seen the disaster that COVID-19 revealed within the FDA, NIH, NIAID, and other “science” bureaucracies. And I think that they are in need of actual reform. Heck, if RFK Jr. only focuses on childhood obesity – as he talked about – and gets THAT to drop in the United States, I think the trade-off will have been a pretty good deal for Donald Trump.

Naturally, the Kennedy clan – RFK’s own siblings – are not tolerating his dissent very well.

Kennedys that leave women to drown in rivers are apparently not as bad to the family as Kennedys that endorse Donald Trump. https://t.co/mJJNITH7sg

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) August 23, 2024

God forbid anyone ever goes against the family, apparently.

The race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris is very tight. In the swing states, a percentage point or two may decide the race in November. Will RFK’s endorsement swing the momentum in those states back towards Trump? Will his criticisms of Kamala Harris and the media resonate with voters? I guess we will find out when the next set of poll numbers taken after today’s announcement are revealed.

Featured image: Gage Skidmore/flickr.com/cropped/Creative Commons