Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr abandoned on Friday his campaign and endorsed Republican candidate and former US president Donald Trump, ending a run that he began as a Democrat trading on one of the most famous names in US politics.
Hours after announcing the endorsement at a news conference, Kennedy joined Trump at a campaign event in Arizona, where the crowd cheered the independent.
“His candidacy has inspired millions and millions of Americans, raised critical issues that have been too long ignored in this country,” Trump said of Kennedy.
Photo: AFP
Strategists said it was unclear whether Kennedy’s endorsement would help Trump, who is in a tight contest with Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
Kennedy, 70, told the news conference that he met with Trump and his aides several times and learned they agreed on issues such as border security, free speech and ending wars.
“There are still many issues and approaches on which we continue to have very serious differences, but we are aligned on other key issues,” he told reporters.
He reiterated much of that when he joined Trump at the rally and repeated positions on his core issues of combating chronic illness, and ridding the environment and food supply of hazardous chemicals.
Trump said that if he regained the White House, he would create a presidential commission on assassination attempts and release files related to the assassination of former US president John F. Kennedy in 1963.
An environmental lawyer, anti-vaccine advocate and son and nephew of two titans of Democratic politics who were assassinated during the turbulent 1960s, Robert Kennedy entered the race in April last year as a challenger to US President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination.
He ran a high-profile advertisement during the Super Bowl in February that invoked his father, former US senator Robert F. Kennedy, and uncle, John F. Kennedy, and drew outrage from much of his high-profile family.
His sister, Kerry Kennedy, on Friday said that his decision to endorse Trump betrayed the family’s values.
“It is a sad ending to a sad story,” she wrote on social media.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr this month said in a video posted online that he dumped a dead bear in New York City’s Central Park a decade ago and staged it to look like a bike had hit it.
He has proclaimed he had “so many skeletons in my closet” after a former family babysitter accused him of sexual assault, and denied that a picture of him posing with the barbecued carcass of a large animal belonged to a canine.
His campaign also confirmed that he had a parasite in his brain more than a decade ago, but has since fully recovered, drawing widespread ridicule.
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