Donald Trump has been trying for weeks to boost his campaign in light of the great moment his rivals, Democrats Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, are experiencing. The Republican had one of those moments on Friday afternoon in Arizona. He invited Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nonpartisan candidate and nephew of John F. Kennedy, who had dropped out of the race just a few hours earlier, onto the stage. In his farewell speech, Kennedy said that he made the decision to help Trump return to the White House. “We have been on opposite sides of the equation, but he is a phenomenal guy,” said the former president before lending the microphone to Kennedy for a few minutes.
The son of Bobby Kennedy, the charismatic former attorney general assassinated in 1968 in Los Angeles after a rally, jumped into the Trumpist arena to a standing ovation from the Make America Great Again family and shouts of “Bobby! Bobby!” Fireworks underscored the importance of the moment. The song “Bobby!” was played over the speakers at Glendale’s Desert Diamond Stadium. My Hero (my hero)by the Foo Fighters. “Wow! He deserves it (…) I don’t think I’ve ever introduced anyone who has been applauded like this,” Trump said. As recently as April, the former president was harshly criticizing him. “I even prefer Biden over Junior, because our country would last a year or two before collapsing… His positions on vaccines are completely false, as is his entire candidacy,” he wrote on Truth Social.
Kennedy, 70, suspended his campaign in Arizona on Thursday night. This morning he announced that he had done the same in nine other states, all of them swing territories, where his appearance on the ballot could cost Trump votes. The environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine activist says he was a “fierce critic” of some of the policies implemented by the Republican in his first administration, but that they agree on several points. “One of these is the importance of good nutrition, the need to end the Pandemic of chronic diseases and to end the reign of the neoconservatives in our international policy,” said Kennedy, who had never addressed such a large audience in the 16 months he was campaigning. His brothers have repudiated his change of side and consider him a traitor to the Kennedy family values.
“His candidacy has inspired millions of people, spoken out on issues that have been ignored, and united people from both sides of the political spectrum in a positive campaign based on the values of his father and his uncle, John F. Kennedy. I know that both of them are very proud of Bobby. I am proud of him, too,” said Trump, who recalled the importance of Arizona in the Electoral College puzzle (11 votes).
“If we win here, we win the presidency,” said the candidate, who is in a technical tie in the polls or even slightly behind Harris in some of them. The former president lost the state to Joe Biden in 2020 by just 10,000 votes. Now he hopes that Kennedy can be the difference. “I think she will have an enormous influence on this campaign. Much greater than the polls reflected. We will make an incredible alliance,” said Trump. Kennedy, who reached double digits in some polls at the beginning of the cycle, has a voting intention of between 3.9% and 5% according to Real Clear Politics and Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin.
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The Republican campaign had not experienced such a moment of jubilation since the Milwaukee convention, when Trump introduced Ohio Senator JD Vance as his running mate. Vance was not present in Arizona on Friday, which allowed Kennedy to savour the limelight at the rally. “Do you want a president who will protect America’s freedoms? And protect us from authoritarianism? Don’t you want a president who will make America healthy again?” RFK said at the end of his speech.
Just over a year ago, Kennedy assured in X that “under no circumstances” would he join Trump. “Our positions on fundamental issues could not be more different,” he wrote in May 2023. The environmental lawyer is now joining a campaign that promotes the fracking and considers climate change a farce.
Trump took advantage of his presence on stage to announce that if he comes to power he will create an independent commission to investigate assassination attempts on American politicians, including the one he survived in Pennsylvania last month. “I will order the release of all confidential documents on the assassination of John F. Kennedy,” said the candidate who, like Kennedy, says he is fighting against the systems that operate in the sewers of the State, the Deep State.
Kennedy applauded the proposal. The lawyer is a fervent believer in several conspiracy theories. One of them has to do with the death of his father. RFK Jr. doubts that Sirhan Sirhan, the confessed assassin of Bobby Kennedy and who is serving a life sentence, is responsible for the assassination that ended Kennedy’s presidential aspirations. That ambition died again this Friday. But this time it was because of his own decision: to side with Donald Trump.
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