In early August, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., then an independent presidential candidate, posted a video of himself on X telling Roseanne Barr about how he once picked up a dead bear on the street about a decade ago. He had planned to skin it and put it in the refrigerator, so he put it in the trunk of his car and left it there during a dinner at Peter Luger Steak House in Brooklyn. Afterward, he had to head to the airport and decided to detour through Manhattan’s Central Park to dump the carcass next to an old bicycle. The video only made sense if Kennedy was trying to preempt my profile of him, which was due to appear the next day and featured an admittedly less detailed version of Kennedy’s bear antics.
By that time, Vice President Kamala Harris had officially secured the Democratic presidential nomination, and polls showed support for Kennedy, which had hovered around 10 percent over the summer, slipping to single digits. Kennedy had initially positioned himself as an alternative to two historically unpopular candidates, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, and talked about moving beyond the issues that polarized Americans — immigration, abortion, trans rights — to focus on “existential” threats like the country’s chronic disease crisis. But what had drawn him into electoral politics in the first place was his role as a prominent vaccine skeptic. For more than a decade, he has espoused the view that common childhood vaccines can cause autism and other developmental disorders. More recently, he directed his ire at various media outlets and social media platforms, claiming they were “censoring” him after one of his accounts and the accounts of his anti-vaccine organization were deactivated for spreading misinformation. (His Instagram account was restored after he announced his candidacy.)
Last Friday, Kennedy stepped onto a podium sandwiched between two American flags in a dark suit and skinny tie and announced that he was suspending his campaign. “In an honest system, I would have won the election,” he said. Instead, he had decided to “support President Trump.” He would remove his name from the ballot in 10 states so as not to harm Trump’s chances, but in other states his name would remain on the ballot. In return, Kennedy said, Trump “asked if he could put me in his administration.” A few hours later, he joined Trump at a rally in Arizona, walking onto a red-carpeted stage lit with sparklers. Trump had told the crowd that in a second Trump administration, Kennedy would serve on a panel that would study “the decades-long rise in chronic health problems, including autoimmune diseases, autism, obesity, infertility and many more.” Trump will also, he said, release “all remaining documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.”
Kennedy had originally entered the race as a Democrat in April 2023, but after it became clear he would not do well in the primaries, he ran as an independent instead. This required him to collect petition signatures to get his name on the ballot in every state. It proved to be a costly mission, especially given that the campaign was facing numerous lawsuits from Democratic groups. A few months ago, the Kennedy campaign’s financial filings showed it was struggling with debt.
Days after his bear reveal, Kennedy was in court in New York state, dealing with a residency challenge that would jeopardize his place on the state’s ballot. Kennedy, who moved to California a decade ago when he married his third wife, actress Cheryl Hines, had claimed he had a New York state residence — a room he rented in a friend’s house. Kennedy had lived in New York for years, and his father was a state senator, so his reasons for calling it his official residence may have been nostalgic. But there may have been a more practical consideration, too: The Twelfth Amendment prohibits a president and vice president from the same state from receiving that state’s electoral votes. Nicole Shanahan, Kennedy’s billionaire running mate and ex-wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, lives in California. The judge ruled against Kennedy, calling it “a ‘sham address’ that he had adopted to maintain his voter registration and further his own political ambitions in this state.”
As the case developed regarding the residence, post reported that Kennedy’s team had approached Harris’ campaign about possibly serving in her cabinet. According to the article, both Hollywood mogul Ari Emanuel and director Rob Reiner approached Democrats on Kennedy’s behalf, but their efforts never came to fruition. (Emanuel is the agent of Hines’ “Cut It, Larry!” co-star Larry David, and Hines once worked as Reiner’s personal assistant.) Kennedy’s team had already been in talks with the Trump campaign about a similar deal the week of the Republican National Convention in July — despite Kennedy telling one person in a text message that Trump was “a terrible human being. The worst president ever and barely human. He’s probably a sociopath.”
Some in Kennedy’s base were unsettled by the news that he had sought a meeting with Harris. Substack blogger Jessica Reed Kraus, who usually writes positively about Trump and Kennedy, lamented the move in a post titled “What the hell is Bobby thinking?” The idea that Kennedy might endorse Trump, however, was met with far fewer fears. In a video podcast this week, Shanahan, looking as though he were sitting in a gamer’s swivel chair against a backdrop of blue laser lights, said there are “two options we’re looking at. One is to stay in and start this new party, but we risk a Kamala Harris and Walz presidency because we’re taking votes away from Trump… Or we resign immediately and align ourselves with Donald Trump.” Kraus’ popular Instagram feed was abuzz with anticipation at the news, though not every Kennedy supporter was so pleased; NBC’s Brandy Zadrozny reported that during a Zoom meeting with Kennedy and volunteers, there was discussion about sending the campaign a “cash bomb” to convince him to stay in the race.
Hines opposed supporting Trump, a position she made clear in at least one joint appearance with Kennedy. “You were asked if you would accept a spot on the ballot if Trump asked you, and I believe your response was, ‘Um, that would be devastating to my marriage,'” TMZ’s Harvey Levin said in a February interview with Kennedy and Hines. Kennedy laughed and shifted in his seat. Hines chimed in, “I think Bobby knows me very well.” On Friday, after his announcement that he was ending his campaign, Kennedy posted a statement on X from Hines that thanked her husband’s campaign supporters and conspicuously avoided any mention of Trump. “I am so grateful to my wonderful wife Cheryl for her unconditional love as I made a political decision that she is very uncomfortable with,” Kennedy wrote. Five of Kennedy’s siblings signed a joint statement calling the endorsement a “sad end to a sad story.”
Kennedy’s former campaign manager Dennis Kucinich argued on Fox Business on Wednesday that Kennedy could help Trump win the majority in certain key swing states. “Early on in Kennedy’s campaign, I saw that the people who were drawn to his campaign seemed to be coming from the Trump Republican camp,” he said. On Thursday, Kennedy filed to withdraw his candidacy from the ballot in Arizona, one of those swing states, and did the same shortly thereafter in Pennsylvania. But according to an AP report, officials in Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin have said he will likely remain on the ballot in November.
Kennedy’s mercenary drive to capitalize on his withdrawal is a fascinating subplot in this presidential campaign, especially given his slide in the polls, which has only undermined his bargaining power. Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, his campaign manager and daughter-in-law, told me that the campaign was particularly interested in appointing a Secretary of Health and Human Services given Kennedy’s pronounced vaccine skepticism. But it may be unwise for Kennedy to trust that Trump will honor a quid pro quo. In January 2017, Kennedy met with Trump, then president-elect, at Trump Tower and told reporters after the meeting that Trump had asked him to chair a commission on vaccine safety. The Trump campaign soon told the press that no such promise had been made.
Last week, Trump was cautious when rumors of Kennedy’s endorsement surfaced, appearing to want to avoid the subject of a Cabinet post. On Tuesday, he told CNN that he has known Kennedy for years and would “be happy to have that endorsement.” Trump said he would “probably” consider Kennedy for a role in his administration if Kennedy dropped out of the race and endorsed him. At a press conference on Thursday, Trump called Kennedy “very smart, a little different,” but said he had not spoken to him in recent days (maybe that’s true, although Kennedy said he and Kennedy recently met in Florida). An endorsement “would be a great honor for me,” Trump said. He made a similar comment on Fox News the same day: “I would be honored. He really has his heart in the right place.”
Kennedy, for his part, seemed aware of the relative likelihood of betrayal by Trump. If Trump “keeps his word,” Kennedy once said during his press conference, Kennedy could do important work. “I believe he will follow through this time.” ♦
