“In my heart, I no longer believe that I have a realistic path of electoral victory in the face of this relentless, systematic censorship and media control,” he said.
“So I cannot, in good conscience, ask my staff and volunteers to keep working their long hours, or ask my donors to keep giving when I cannot honestly tell them that I have a real path to the White House.”
Kennedy then said he will now “throw my support to President Trump”.
“Three great causes drove me to enter this race in the first place, primarily, and these are the principal causes that persuaded me to leave the Democratic Party and run as an independent, and now to throw my support to President Trump,” he said.
His announcement came shortly after a court filing in Pennsylvania said he was withdrawing from a ballot access challenge in the state “as a result of today’s endorsement” of former president Donald Trump.
“Respondents Robert F Kennedy Junior and Nicole Shanahan as the We The People candidates for President and Vice President of the United States, as a result of today’s endorsement of Donald Trump for the office of President of the United States hereby withdraw their opposition to the Petition of Alexander Reber and Janneken Smucker’s,” the filing stated.
Earlier today, Kennedy’s campaign said he hadn’t endorsed Trump, and the attorney who made the filing, Paul Rossi, said that he had “misstated” Kennedy’s plans.
But his support for Trump was clear this afternoon.
He noted during his today speech, that the former president had asked to “enlist him in his administration”.
Kennedy said the offer came in two meetings with Trump, first in the days after the assassination attempt on the former president in July, and a second meeting weeks later.
“In those meetings, he suggested that we join forces as a unity party,” he said.
“We talked about Abraham Lincoln’s team of rivals, that arrangement would allow us to disagree publicly and privately and furiously, if need be on issues over which we differ, while working together on the existential issues upon which we are in concordance.”
Trump is also holding a rally in Arizona today, where the campaign has teased the appearance of a “special guest”.
Five of Kennedy’s family members issued a statement calling his support for Trump “a sad ending to a sad story” and reiterating their support for Harris.
“Our brother Bobby’s decision to endorse Trump today is a betrayal of the values that our father and our family hold most dear,” read the statement, which his sister Kerry Kennedy posted on X.
Kennedy Jr., the son of the late Attorney General and Sen. Robert Kennedy and the nephew of President John F. Kennedy, acknowledged his decision to endorse Trump had caused tension with his immediate family.
He is married to actor Cheryl Hines, who wrote on X that she deeply respects her husband’s decision to drop out but did not address the Trump endorsement.
The grandson of John F Kennedy Jack Schlossberg was even more scathing in his criticism.
“Never been less surprised in my life. Been saying it for over a year — RFK Jr is for sale, works for Trump,” Schlossberg said.
“Bedfellows and loving it.”
-with Associated Press
