RFK Jr. prepares to end presidential campaign, endorse Trump: sources

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. prepares to end its 2024 campaign and support Donald Trump for the president, sources told Mediaite.

This week, a series of signs began to point to the end of his quixotic, independent bid for the presidency, which has done surprisingly well in the polls and threatened to siphon off support from Trump and Kamala Harris campaigns — although most saw the campaign as a particularly serious threat to the Republican ticket.

A source familiar with the conversations between Trump and Kennedy said support was imminent. The talks, she said, “have been going on for a week, so I expect it to happen any minute now.”

In an email sent to campaign staff and obtained by Mediaite, the campaign manager Amaryllis Kennedy responded to the chatter.

While Kennedy has presented his campaign as a serious attempt with a chance of winning the election, the email portrays it as a small but influential movement that could decide the race between Trump and Harris.

“Any forward movement changes the outcome,” she wrote. “With calcified support on both sides of the aisle, that 10+ percent of the electorate is the only coalescing force in the race.”

Amaryllis Kennedy tacitly admitted that Kennedy’s campaign was limited to its effect on the two frontrunners, strongly suggesting that Kennedy would support Trump, whose assassination attempt she compared to the successful assassination of Kennedy’s father.

“What I can tell you is that Bobby has gone through a period of deep discernment,” she said. “So please wait to hear from him directly.”

She added that Kennedy would provide an update on the fate of his campaign by Friday. A Kennedy campaign official who spoke to Mediaite suggested the candidate could announce the end of his campaign during a speech he is scheduled to deliver Friday in Phoenix, Arizona. Trump is also holding a rally in Arizona on Friday, near Glendale.

The email came two days after Kennedy’s running mate Nicole Shanahan They suggested they might drop out of the race to support Trump in an effort to secure a position in a possible Trump administration.

The Kennedy insider declined to confirm whether Kennedy would withdraw from the race, but suggested the political scion would do so in order to prevent Harris from beating Trump.

“If, in a selfless act of putting country above personal goals (which is Bobby’s hallmark and why he is such a phenomenal leader), Bobby makes the difficult decision to drop out of the race so that his medical freedom and autism mom base of about 3-5% of the vote in almost every state (more in some) ensures that Democrats don’t take the White House, then that would be very patriotic of him,” they said.

The insider suggested that Trump offer Kennedy a senior position in his administration, potentially at the Department of Health and Human Services or as attorney general: “If, down the road, Trump had the good sense to recognize that no one could help him drain the swamp better than Bobby, in a position at HHS or attorney general for example, and he decided to offer him that… then that would be very patriotic of him as well.”

The insider added that the “smartest” way for Kennedy to exit the race would be to announce it “within the next 48 hours” in order to avoid the end of the Democratic National Convention and end the legal and financial burdens the campaign is currently facing due to its fight for ballot access.

“The financially overburdened campaign faces legal and judicial challenges that will continue to snowball, combined with the fact that the only states it is not facing challenges in are swing states, giving the Kamala ticket a serious advantage,” the insider said.

“Bobby went into this with a goal and a mission. He can still achieve that goal, even if it won’t be in the way he originally hoped, but he can make a real difference if he’s strategic about his next moves and the timing of those moves,” the insider added. “If I were you, I’d announce it before the weekend.”

Trump and Kennedy have previously discussed working together. Mediaite reported last month that Kennedy drafted a unity pledge after meeting with Trump at the Republican National Convention, during which the two discussed the possibility of Kennedy stepping down to support Trump. In the pledge, Kennedy offered to serve as secretary of Health and Human Security in a potential Trump administration.

When asked whether Kennedy would step down and endorse Trump, a spokesperson simply sent Mediaite a link to his speech Friday. Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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