Robert F. Kennedy Jr. To Drop Out Of Presidential Race

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will drop his independent presidential bid and endorse Republican nominee Donald Trump on Friday, a day after Kennedy withdrew from the ballot in Arizona.

Kennedy was expected to make the announcement at a speech in Phoenix on Friday afternoon, but a Pennsylvania court filing earlier in the day confirmed he would withdraw and endorse Trump.

Rumors about the campaign had swirled since Tuesday, when RFK Jr.’s running mate, Nicole Shanahan, said on a podcast that the two were exploring their options for the race.

“One is staying in, forming that new party but we run the risk of a Kamala Harris and [Tim] Walz presidency because we draw votes from Trump or we draw somehow more votes from Trump,” Shanahan told Tom Bilyeu, the host of “Impact Theory.”

“Or we walk away right now and join forces with Donald Trump, and we walk away from that, and we explain to our base why we’re making this decision,” she continued.

The Washington Post previously reported that Kennedy asked for a high-level role in the Trump administration in exchange for his endorsement. Trump signaled an openness to the possibility in a CNN interview earlier this week.

Kennedy tried to negotiate a similar agreement with Democratic nominee Kamala Harris but the vice president’s team showed no interest, he told The New York Times.

The long-shot candidate saw national polling numbers as high as 16% this spring, though they’ve fallen below 5% in recent months as the campaign failed to find purchase.

Kennedy’s campaign wasn’t helped by numerous reports of past behavior that led him to respond to accusations of sexual assault from the family’s former nanny, deny a Vanity Fair story about having eaten a dog (he says it was a goat), breathe life