Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on Friday he would suspend his campaign, and endorsed Republican Donald Trump, likely ending a presidential bid that he began as a Democrat trading on one of the most famous names in American politics.

His campaign indicated that he feared staying in the race would siphon support from former President Trump, who is locked in a tight contest with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of the Nov. 5 election.

An environmental lawyer, anti-vaccine activist and son and nephew of two titans of Democratic politics who were assassinated during the turbulent 1960s, Kennedy entered the race in April 2023 as a challenger to President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination.

With voters at the time turned off by both the aging Biden and the legally embattled Trump, interest in Kennedy soared. He shifted his plans and decided to run as an independent, and a November 2023 Reuters/Ipsos poll showed Kennedy drawing the support of 20% of Americans in a three-way race with Biden and Trump.

He ran a high-profile advertisement during the February 2024 Super Bowl that invoked his father, US Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and uncle, US President John F. Kennedy, and drew outrage from much of his high-profile family, who condemned his campaign.

For a time, both the Biden and Trump campaigns showed signs they were worried that Kennedy could draw enough support to change the election outcome. He faced an uphill battle in winning spots on the ballot as an independent but secured key positions including in Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota and North Carolina — half of the competitive swing states expected to determine the election’s outcome.

But as the race changed quickly in the last two months — with Trump surviving an assassination attempt and the 81-year-old Biden bowing to pressure from his own party and passing the campaign torch to Harris — voter interest in Kennedy, 70, waned. 

An Ipsos poll early this month showed his national support had fallen to 4%, a tiny number, but one that could still be meaningful in a tight race such as the current Trump-Harris matchup.

His campaign had signaled over the past few days that a change was coming, as Kennedy set his Phoenix address. His running mate Nicole Shanahan said in an interview earlier that if the pair stayed in the race as independents, they could ultimate boost Harris’ chances.

In exchange for endorsing Trump, Kennedy was hoping for a job in a potential Trump administration, a super PAC supporting Kennedy told Reuters on Wednesday. He also wanted Trump to allow his political movement to continue in some fashion, which could include staying on the ballot in some states.

Kennedy painted himself as a political outsider. He told Reuters in an interview in March that if elected president he would not restrict abortion, would repeal many provisions of Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act and would seek to close down the southern border to immigrants entering the US illegally. He also offered staunch support for Israel.

Trump mega-donor Timothy Mellon, an 82-year-old banking heir, has given millions of dollars this election cycle in support of Kennedy, and given $75 million in support of Trump, according to Federal Election Commission filings through July 31.

Shanahan has donated over $15 million to the Kennedy campaign, FEC filings showed. 

In a video of a phone call posted online last month, Trump suggested to Kennedy that the independent candidate could do something to support the Trump campaign. Soon after, both candidates spoke a day apart from each other at a bitcoin conference in Nashville, trying to court votes.

BEAR, BRAIN WORMS  

Kennedy said this month in a video posted online that he dumped a dead bear in New York City’s Central Park a decade ago and staged it to look like a bike had hit it. He proclaimed he had “so many skeletons in my closet” after a former family babysitter accused him of sexual assault. He denied that a picture of him posing with the barbecued carcass of a large animal belonged to a canine.

And then there was the brain worm. Kennedy had a parasite in his brain more than a decade ago, but has since fully recovered, a fact unearthed by the New York Times and confirmed by the campaign. 

Those stories prompted ridicule from late-night talk show hosts.

The Democratic Party especially has been ruthless in their opposition to Kennedy’s candidacy including waging legal challenges against his ballot access, as concern grew that Kennedy could hurt the party’s chances in November. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

FILE PHOTO: As a VP, Harris has been particularly outspoken on artificial intelligence (AI). 
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is potentially poised to become the Democratic presidential nominee in the November election. As VP, Harris has been particularly outspoken on artificial intelligence (AI). She warned against the “existential” threat of AI and said it could “endanger the very existence of humanity,” in a November 2023 address.

Also read | U.S. Presidential Elections 2024 LIVE updates: Joe Biden withdraws from presidential race

In a meeting with tech execs like Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, Harris warned that they have a “moral” obligation to guard against AI’s possible dangers. She backed an AI executive order from President Joe Biden that sought stronger protections for consumers, singling out AI-generated scam calls and the impacts of unlabelled AI-generated content.

Prior to joining the Biden administration, as California attorney general, Harris sued eBay over the ecommerce company’s anticompetitive hiring practices surrounding a no-poaching agreement with Intuit. The lawsuit led to a nearly $4 million settlement in 2014. 

In a different lawsuit against Houzz, she compelled the startup to hire a chief privacy officer after allegations that the home design app had recorded sales calls without proper notification and consent.

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She has also been at the forefront of curtailing distribution of pornography on social media, particularly “revenge porn,” a practice involving the posting of explicit photos without the subject’s consent. She took credit for a pressure campaign that led to Facebook, Google, Microsoft and others taking measures to remove certain explicit images.

(with inputs from Reuters)

Former United States President Donald Trump has spoken about his wife Melania’s absence from the 2024 presidential campaign. She was recently spotted on Easter Sunday at Mar-a-Lago with her son Barron Trump, where the entire family had gathered for brunch. However, she has been absent from the former US President’s campaign events and multiple court trials.

Her husband’s vote-casting in the Florida primary in February was their last election-related event together, as per a report in the Independent. When asked if was going to campaign with him for the November 2024 elections, she said, “Stay tuned”.

When her husband was campaigning in 2016 and 2020, Mrs Trump frequently stayed at home. She clarified that she wanted to be present for Barron, who was nine at the time, in an interview with 20/20 in 2015. Even after Mr Trump won in 2016, she did not move from the New York penthouse until June 2017.

Discussing her absence from the events, the 45th US President said that Melania Trump would return at an appropriate time. “She’s a private person, a great person, a very confident person, and she loves our country very much. She’ll be – at the appropriate time – she’ll be out there,” Mr Trump said during an interview with Meet the Press in September. Notably, Mr Trump also said that his wife “doesn’t need to be out there”.

Mr Trump had also suggested that keeping Melania out of the limelight during election campaigning was his decision. He said he wanted to “keep her away” from the campaign. “It’s so nasty and so mean,” he said.

In late March, a close aide to the first lady told CNN that Mrs Trump chooses when and how to show up to political functions. On the other hand, it seems that she will become more noticeable as the election approaches. She and her husband will also be hosting a fundraiser on Saturday in West Palm Beach. She will also be present on April 20 at a Mar-a-Lago event for the Log Cabin Republicans.

Her absence sparked “missing” posters to be posted online around the time of the Iowa caucuses. A picture of Mrs Trump with the words, “Have you seen this woman?  Where is our First Lady? Why is Donald Trump hiding her? We miss her. Please call 561-832-2600 if found” was shared widely. 

After a poll revealed that Michelle Obama, former First Lady of the United States, was the leading choice to replace President Joe Biden as the Democratic party’s candidate for the presidential elections, her office has revealed her stand regarding the upcoming presidential elections, as per a report in NBC News.

Michelle Obama has no intentions to run for President, even though many of her supporters are looking forward to this development. She is actively supporting the reelection campaigns of Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden.

In a statement to NBC News, the former first lady’s office made it clear that her plans do not include running for the post of President. Crystal Carson, Director of Communications for her office, said “As former First Lady Michelle Obama has expressed several times over the years, she will not be running for president. Mrs. Obama supports President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ re-election campaign.”

Meanwhile, Obama’s adviser cited her conversation with Oprah Winfrey from last year as evidence of her way of thinking and the reason she would probably never run for office. In a Netflix special, she said, “Politics is hard. And the people who get into it … you’ve got to want it. It’s got to be in your soul, because it is so important. It is not in my soul.”

Last month, she expressed deep fear about the upcoming elections, saying it “haunts” her. “The fact that people think that government-‘eh,, does it really even do anything?’ – and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, does government do everything for us, and we cannot take this democracy for granted.’ And I worry sometimes that we do. Those are the things that keep me up,” she had said.

It is to be noted nearly half of the Democrats who voted in the Rasmussen Reports polls, expressed their choice for someone other than Biden to fight the US Presidential elections. About 48 per cent of the Democrats polled said they approve of the party “finding another candidate to replace Joe Biden before the election in November,” compared to 38 per cent who disapprove.

Michelle Obama got about 20 per cent of votes among other options to replace 81-year-old Joe Biden. The other contenders were Vice President Kamala Harris, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, California Governor Gavin Newsom and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.