Donald Trump cheered Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on stage during a rally in Arizona on Friday night, saying he ran an “extraordinary campaign” hours after the independent Kennedy. supported the former president.
“With all the votes he’s gotten, there’s a lot of votes he can get … I think he’s going to have a big impact on this campaign,” Trump said at the start of an event in suburban Glendale. Phoenix.
Trump later said that if elected, he would create an assassination attempt commission in Kennedy’s honor. Kennedy’s father, Senator Robert F. Kennedy Sr. and his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, were both assassinated. According to Trump, the commission will be ordered to publish the remaining documents related to the assassination of the president in 1963. notes Trump did not release while in office.
Kennedy recalled talking to Trump in his speech On issues he says “unite us,” including “having safe food and ending the chronic disease epidemic.”
“Don’t you want a president who will make America healthy again?” asked Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine advocate who suspended his presidential campaign on Friday.
The alliance between Trump and Kennedy marks a new phase in their relationship after years of mutual criticism.
Trump called Kennedy a “fake radical left idiot,” a “Democratic ‘factory'” and a “liberal lunatic,” despite the fact that many of Kennedy’s views conflicted with those of Democrats.
Kennedy said in 2018 Newsweek publication Trump’s “presidency has discredited not only our nation, but the entire American experience of self-governance.”
In a separate place op-ed that year Posted by NBC NewsKennedy called Trump’s policy “discrediting democracy.”
“President Trump’s policy has not been to actively promote democracy abroad, but to engage with and feed and inspire some of the world’s most tyrannical governments,” he wrote at the time.
Those thoughts faded into the background on Friday when Kennedy endorsed Trump at an event in Phoenix. Kennedy said he would remove his name from the ballot in “about 10 battleground states where my presence would be a spoiler.” However, he encouraged voters in states where he remains on the ballot to vote for him again this fall.
Some Kennedy supporters in Arizona who spoke to NBC News said they were throwing their support behind Trump.
Scottsdale resident Bruce Brimacombe said he now plans to vote for Trump because of Kennedy’s involvement.
“It’s not me not voting for Trump because he’s Trump,” Brimacombe said. “I’m going to vote for Trump because if Bobby can do what’s asked of him, I’m going to be behind it. Because it’s going to build a platform.”
Casey Westerman, who was a Trump voter in 2016 and 2020 and will support Kennedy in November, now plans to support Trump. Chandler resident will back Trump again, saying ‘I trust Bobby’.