Independent US presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is expected to make a speech in Phoenix on Friday as he considers whether to drop out of the race and endorse former President Donald Trump.
According to CNN, Kennedy’s campaign said he will “address the nation” Friday morning, without sharing details of what he will be speaking about.
Meanwhile, two sources familiar with Kennedy’s plans told NBC News that he intends to end his independent presidential campaign and endorse Trump by the end of the week.
Kennedy’s speech will come days after his running mate, Nicole Shanahan, said in a podcast interview on Tuesday that the campaign is considering whether to “join forces” with Trump to prevent the “risk” of Vice President Kamala Harris winning the election.
The speech on Friday will be the Kennedy campaign’s first public event since early July. It comes as Kennedy has struggled to gain traction since Harris took over the top of the Democratic ticket. A Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted earlier this month found Harris at 47% support, Trump at 44% and Kennedy at 5%.
Kennedy and Trump have grown warmer toward each other in recent months after initial attacks earlier in the campaign. Kennedy has frequently criticized Trump for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and his implementation of Operation Warp Speed, the program to accelerate the manufacturing of vaccines. Trump previously labeled Kennedy a member of the “radical left” and attacked Kennedy for his environmental activism.
In July, however, Trump and Kennedy spoke on the phone in the days after the assassination attempt against Trump. The day after the call, Kennedy and Trump met in person in Milwaukee on the first day of the Republican National Convention.
In those conversations, the candidates first discussed the possibility of Kennedy dropping out of the race and endorsing Trump in exchange for a role in his administration, according to CNN. Following those conversations, Kennedy said he would not drop out of the race.
Earlier this month, the report said, Kennedy’s campaign approached Harris’ campaign about arranging a meeting to discuss endorsing her in exchange for a future role in her administration. That meeting never materialized.
In March, Kennedy offered staunch support for Israel in an interview with Reuters, calling the country a "moral nation" that was justly responding to Hamas provocations with its attacks on Gaza.
Kennedy pointed out that Israel did not choose this war and added that Hamas was to blame for Gaza's destruction for failing to embrace a two-state solution and for firing thousands of missiles into Israeli cities.
"Any other nation that was adjacent to a neighboring nation that was bombing it with rockets, sending commandos over to murder its citizens, pledging itself to murder every person in that nation and annihilate it, would go and level it with aerial bombardment," he told Reuters.
"But Israel is a moral nation. So it didn't do that. Instead, it built an iron dome to protect itself so it would not have to go into Gaza," he added.