RFK Jr. endorses Trump after weeks of back-channel courtship

PHOENIX — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. endorsed former President Donald Trump Friday afternoon during a lengthy speech putting to rest his tumultuous independent presidential campaign.

Kennedy's campaign first confirmed the endorsement in a court filing in Pennsylvania before he took the stage for the speech in battleground Arizona. Trump has his own event in nearby Glendale later Friday, where Kennedy will speak, according to three sources familiar with the planning — the culmination of weeks of talks.

Kennedy, who gained prominence as an environmental lawyer and then as a leading anti-vaccine advocate, opened his remarks Friday blasting the Democratic Party for "abandon[ing] democracy," lambasting his "naysayers" for not believing his campaign could be successful, and accusing both the media and Democrats of a conspiracy that kept him from being competitive. Then, Kennedy made it official.

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"Many months ago I promised the American people I would withdraw from the race if I became a spoiler. ... In my heart, I no longer believe I have a realistic path to electoral victory," he said.

Framing both Trump and himself as victims of the "continual legal warfare" by Democrats, Kennedy criticized Vice President Kamala Harris for not having won "a single delegate" during her 2020 race and accused her of ignoring the press and scuttling a policy platform for what he called a campaign focused exclusively on opposing Trump. And he compared Biden's, and then Harris', grip on the Democratic Party to the autocracy of Russia under President Vladimir Putin.

By contrast, Kennedy made clear that in Trump, he sees a partner — and a fellow victim.

"These are the principled causes that persuaded me to leave the Democratic Party