Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. suspends campaign

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on Friday dropped his White House bid and announced support for former President Donald Trump, issuing broadsides against the Democratic Party's handling of the primary election and media censorship.

"…I've made the heart-wrenching decision to suspend my campaign and to support President Trump. This decision is agonizing for me because of the difficulties it causes me, and my children and my friends," said Kennedy.

Kennedy charged in an event in Phoenix, Arizona that the Democratic Party "waged continual legal warfare against both President Trump and myself," and "ran a sham primary."

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"In an honest system, I believe I would have won the election," he argued. "I no longer believe that I have a realistic past of electoral victory in the face of this relentless, systematic censorship and media control."

Kennedy's campaign is asking swing states to remove his name from the ballot because he does not want to be a "spoiler," he said. He will remain on the ballot in states that he considers "red" or "blue," he said. "If you live in a blue state, you can vote for me without harming or helping President Trump or or Vice President Harris," Kennedy said. "In red states, the same will apply."

The former Democrat spoke a couple of hours before Trump was scheduled to hold a campaign event in nearby Glendale, Arizona. The Trump campaign on Thursday advertised that the former president would be joined by a "special guest," which further sparked speculation of a Kennedy endorsement of the Republican 2024 presidential nominee.

The announcement ends the presidential run by the longtime environmental activist and high-profile vaccine skeptic, who is the scion of the nation's most storied political dynasty.

Kennedy launched his long-shot campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in April of last year, but last October the 70-year-old candidate switched to an independent run for the White House.

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While Kennedy had long identified as a Democrat and repeatedly invoked his late father Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, who were both assassinated in the 1960s, Kennedy in recent years has built relationships with leaders on the right. Kennedy repeatedly invoked his father and uncle Friday in Phoenix.

President Biden's campaign and the Democratic National Committee for months repeatedly slammed Kennedy as a potential spoiler whose supporters could hand Trump a presidential election victory in November.

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But Kennedy remained a thorn in Biden's side from last year through the president's announcement last month that he was ending his re-election bid and endorsing Harris.

According to Kennedy, "Vice President Harris declined to meet or even to speak with me."

The Trump campaign, which had cheered on Kennedy when he was running against Biden as a Democrat, also started taking aim at him after he switched to an independent run, labeling him a member of the "radical left," and criticizing him for his environmental activism.

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Kennedy described the modern Democratic Party as "the party of war, censorship, corruption, big pharma, big tech, big ag, and big money."

"The DNC waged continual legal warfare against both President Trump and myself," said Kennedy. "Each time that our volunteers turned in those towering boxes of signatures needed to get on the ballot, the DNC dragged us into court, state after state, attempting to erase their work and disappear with the will of the voters, which signed those petitions." 

"It deployed DNC-aligned judges to throw me and other candidates off the ballot, and to throw President Trump in jail."

The Kennedy-Shanahan ticket has faced uphill battles nationwide to earn a spot on the presidential ballot in November. New York State recently blocked ballot access to the independent campaign altogether on August 12.

According to running mate Nicole Shanahan, the campaign is facing no fewer than nine lawsuits from the Democratic Party. The campaign faces uphill legal climbs with suits in Nevada, North Carolina, Delaware and New Jersey. Trump, Shanahan said, faces 6 legal battles brought on by Democrats at the same time. 

And the DNC battled Kennedy and his supporters at nearly every step as he worked to place his name on the ballot in all 50 states. "What the Democrats consider common course to win elections is the kind of ‘normalcy’ that leads to famine, sickness, and civil war. The country is ready for an administration that represents unity," Shanahan said in a social media post.

Democrats consistently have attacked both Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as anti-democracy candidates, for which RFK Jr. lambasted them in his remarks Thursday.

"….Trump won’t hold autocrats accountable — because he wants to be an autocrat," said Vice President Harris at the DNC in Chicago.

Following criticisms of Biden's "bullseye" commentary after the assassination attempt on former President Trump, which the president admitted he should not have said, he claimed "I’m not the guy that said, ‘I want to be a dictator on day one.’ I’m not the guy that refused to accept the outcome of the election." Biden was referring to a comment in which Trump joked to Fox News' Sean Hannity that he would be a "dictator for one day" to close the border and "drill, baby, drill" to rebuild America's energy leadership. Biden enacted dozens of executive orders during his first days in office on both the border and energy. 

The relationship between Kennedy and Trump started warming earlier this year, and the two spoke last month after the assassination attempt against Trump and met in person the following day. 

"In a series of long, intense discussions, I was surprised to discover that we are aligned on many key issues and those meetings," said Kennedy of the meetings.

Earlier this week, Kennedy running mate Nicole Shanahan sparked headlines by saying in a podcast interview that the campaign was considering whether to "join forces" with Trump to prevent the possibility of Vice President Kamala Harris winning the 2024 election.

"If he endorsed me, I would be honored by it. I would be very honored by it. He really has his heart in the right place," Trump said on Thursday in an interview on "Fox & Friends."

And the former president's running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, said Wednesday in an interview on "Fox & Friends" that he hoped Kennedy "endorses the president, gets on the team, because this is about saving the country."

Kennedy's departure from the race comes as his campaign was cratering.

The last public event put on by his campaign came on July 9, in Freeport, Maine. But even before that, his poll numbers – which once stood in the teens – had faded.

The most recent Fox News national poll, conducted August 9-12, indicated Kennedy at 6% support. 

His fundraising was also in a free fall, with campaign finance reports indicating he had just $3.9 million cash on hand as of the start of July, with nearly $3.5 million in debt.

"The more voters learned about RFK Jr. the less they liked him. Donald Trump isn’t earning an endorsement that’s going to help build support, he’s inheriting the baggage of a failed fringe candidate. Good riddance," said DNC Senior Advisor Mary Beth Cahill following Kennedy's speech.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

In light of Kennedy's campaign modifications made Friday, the Harris-Walz campaign released a statement.

"For any American out there who is tired of Donald Trump and looking for a new way forward, ours is a campaign for you. In order to deliver for working people and those who feel left behind, we need a leader who will fight for you, not just for themselves, and bring us together, not tear us apart. Vice President Harris wants to earn your support," said Harris-Walz 2024 Campaign Chair Jen O’Malley Dillon.