Surprising no one after he suspended his own hopeless campaign for president and endorsed the former president, RFK, Jr. joined Donald Trump at an Arizona rally.
Kennedy acknowledged he and Trump don’t agree on everything, but he shared a desire to change the dynamics of behind-the-scenes power in Washington, in an echo of Trump’s own “drain the swamp” rhetoric.
“He told me he wanted to end the grip of the neocons on U.S. foreign policy,” Kennedy said to cheers. “He said he didn’t want any more $200 billion wars in Ukraine and we could use that money back here in the United States.”
Moments later, Kennedy may have incorrectly implied that Americans are fighting in foreign wars.
“Don’t you want a president who’s going to get us out of the wars and rebuild the middle class in this country?” he rhetorically asked.
U.S. troops are not fighting in Ukraine or in Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
It was, in most respects, a conventional rally for Trump that took on new urgency after Harris replaced President Joe Biden last month and has overtaken Trump in some polling in Arizona and other swing states.
The rally completed a two-day swing in Arizona and Nevada that took him to the U.S.-Mexican border in Cochise County and Las Vegas before his 65-minute speech in Glendale.
Trump’s speech was shorter than many of his previous remarks in Arizona, which often topped 90 minutes. He did so after social media critics have taken notice in recent months that enough supporters were leaving during his speeches to leave large sections of his arenas nearly barren while he was speaking.
Before Trump took the stage, Kennedy suspended his independent presidential campaign, blaming the media and what he cast as a corrupt Democratic Party for his shift to backing Trump.
Kennedy said the media suppressed his views while pushing Democratic talking points. He accused Democrats of joining forces with the military-industrial complex to prolong a war in Ukraine that he said Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to avoid. And he said Democrats had allowed the “systematic poisoning” of the nation’s children by pharmaceutical companies that had created rampant obesity.
“The mainstream media was once the guardian of the First Amendment and democratic principles, and it has joined this systemic attack on democracy,” Kennedy said at a news conference in Phoenix.
Kennedy, whom the Trump campaign teased as an unnamed “special guest,” received thunderous applause and chants of “Bobby!, Bobby!” when he spoke. The warm reception for Kennedy stood in contrast to Trump notably failing to mention his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, even once during his remarks.
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