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RFK Jr joins Trump on stage at Arizona rally following endorsement

RFK Jr joins Trump on stage at Arizona rally following endorsement

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. joined former President Trump on stage at his Friday rally in Glendale, Arizona, hours after the third-party candidate announced he was suspending his presidential campaign and endorsing the Republican nominee.  “We are both in this to do what’s right for the country,” Trump told the large crowd inside the Desert Diamond Arena with RFK Jr. standing beside him, adding that if he wins the presidency, he would establish an independent presidential commission on assassination attempts that would also be tasked with releasing all the remaining documents related to the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy, RFK Jr.’s uncle, who was killed in 1963.  “He is a phenomenal person, a phenomenal man who loves the people of this country,” Trump added of RFK Jr. The former long-shot candidate said he had more than one meeting with Trump starting last month, in which they “talked not about the things that separate us because we don’t agree on everything, but on the values and the issues that bind us together. And one of the issues that he talked about was having safe food and ending the chronic disease epidemic.”  ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR. LAMBASTS ‘DNC-ALIGNED MAINSTREAM MEDIA,’ ACCUSES THEM OF ENGINEERING HARRIS’ RISE He added of Trump: “Don’t you want a president who’s going to protect America’s freedoms and who is going to protect us against totalitarianism? … Don’t you want a safe environment for your children? Don’t you want to know that the food that you’re feeding them is not filled with chemicals that are going to give them cancer and chronic disease? And don’t you want a president that’s going to make America healthy again?”  Trump added that RFK Jr. “did well in the polls” but the two-party system made it “very tough” for his candidacy.  He also pitched to RFK Jr.’s supporters.  “And all who supported Bobby’s campaign, I very simply ask you to join us in building this coalition,” Trump said. “It’s a beautiful coalition in defense of liberty and safety, prosperity and peace. It’s going to be an incredible coalition, and the relationship has been so good for so long. I have no doubt it’s going to work and work well, but we have to win. We have to take our country away from these people that are going to destroy our country.”  Trump and RFK Jr. rallied a capacity crowd in the same arena where Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Gov. Tim Walz held a rally earlier this month.  RFK Jr. endorsed Trump earlier Friday, saying that he planned to stay off the ballot in red and blue states, so people could vote for him there, but remove his name from battleground states. “Three causes drove me to enter this race in the first place. 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 at President Trump,” RFK said. “The causes were free speech, war in Ukraine and the war on our children.”  Kennedy said that the Democratic National Committee “waged continued legal war” on both Trump and himself while also accusing the DNC of running a “sham primary” that prevented a serious primary challenge to President Biden before he secured the Democratic nomination and dropped out in July, endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris.  TRUMP THANKS RFK JR FOR ENDORSEMENT AFTER THIRD-PARTY CANDIDATE SUSPENDS HIS CAMPAIGN: ‘THAT’S BIG’ Harris’ campaign reached out to RFK Jr. supporters in a statement to Fox News on Friday.  “For any American out there who is tired of Donald Trump and looking for a new way forward, ours is a campaign for you. In order to deliver for working people and those who feel left behind, we need a leader who will fight for you, not just for themselves, and bring us together, not tear us apart. Vice President Harris wants to earn your support. Even if we do not agree on every issue, Kamala Harris knows there is more that unites us than divides us: respect for our rights, public safety, protecting our freedoms, and opportunity for all.” DNC senior advisor Mary Beth Cahill said “good riddance.”  CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP “The more voters learned about RFK Jr. the less they liked him. Donald Trump isn’t earning an endorsement that’s going to help build support, he’s inheriting the baggage of a failed fringe candidate. Good riddance,” she said. 

Third-party candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr suspends US presidential bid

Third-party candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr suspends US presidential bid

Third-party presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr has suspended his long-shot bid for the White House, throwing his weight instead behind the Republican candidate, former United States President Donald Trump. Friday’s announcement was the culmination of weeks of speculation, as Kennedy receded in the polls. Still, he offered a message of defiance, denouncing his campaign’s “naysayers”. “We proved them wrong,” Kennedy said at a campaign stop in Phoenix, Arizona. “Beneath the radar of mainstream media organs, we inspired a massive independent political movement.” “In an honest system, I believe I would have won the election,” he later added. Still, he acknowledged his odds were dim. “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 emphasised he was “not terminating” his campaign, only suspending it. But he said he would be removing his name from the ballot in states where he feared drawing votes away from Trump. “In about 10 battleground states, where my presence would be a spoiler, I’m going to remove my name. And I’ve already started that process and urge voters not to vote for me,” he said. He explained that he and Trump shared concerns about “free speech, the war in Ukraine and the war on our children”. In the lead-up to Kennedy’s remarks, his campaign teased that his Arizona speech would address “the present historical moment and his path forward”. The speculation of a possible Kennedy-Trump alliance was amplified by the speech’s location. Trump himself was set to arrive in Arizona for a rally in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale, just three hours after Kennedy’s remarks. On Thursday, Kennedy filed paperwork withdrawing his candidacy in Arizona, in preparation for Friday’s speech. Who is Robert F Kennedy Jr? A former environmental lawyer, Kennedy launched his presidential campaign in April 2023, initially entering the race as a Democrat. “My mission over the next 18 months of this campaign and throughout my presidency will be to end the corrupt merger of state and corporate power,” he said at his campaign launch. His decision to run sent shockwaves across the political community. Kennedy is the scion of a storied political family with strong ties to the Democratic Party: His uncle John F Kennedy was a president in the 1960s, and his father, Robert F Kennedy, was a US senator and attorney general. Both were assassinated, the former while in office and the latter while campaigning for the presidency. The younger Kennedy’s decision to mount a bid for the presidency in 2024 immediately put him in a match-up against President Joe Biden, a fellow Democrat who was, at the time, seeking re-election. It also put him at odds with members of his own family, who denounced his decision to challenge Biden. Kennedy’s youngest sibling, Rory Kennedy, voiced opposition even before he announced his presidential bid in April. “I admire his past work as an environmentalist,” Rory told the news outlet CNN. “But due to a wide range of Bobby’s positions, I’m supporting President Biden.” Kennedy has faced widespread criticism, including from his family, for sharing vaccine-related conspiracy theories and promoting baseless treatments during the COVID-19 pandemic. He has also spread false assertions about the origins of HIV and the health effects of Wi-Fi internet. Facing pressure from Democrats, Kennedy eventually switched tactic, relaunching his campaign as an independent, third-party ticket in October 2023. Still, that did not allay Democratic criticism, as some feared he would be a “spoiler candidate” peeling voters away from the party in the general election. What happened to his campaign? Kennedy’s campaigned ultimately failed to generate much traction. An ABC News poll released earlier this month found that his voter support dwindled to 5 percent, down from a high of 12 percent in April. That was well below the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Trump, both of whom were polling between 45 and 50 percent support. His campaign has also generated negative publicity for bizarre revelations over the course of Kennedy’s run. In early August, for instance, Kennedy appeared in a video with the comedian Roseanne Barr in which he recounted how he left a dead bear cub in New York City’s Central Park, staged to look as if it had been run over by a bike. Kennedy insisted he had not killed the bear himself but rather scooped it off the road after it had been hit by a car in upstate New York. As his poll numbers wobbled, rumours of a potential alliance with Trump grew louder. In July, Kennedy’s son Bobby Kennedy III briefly posted a video on social media showing his father on the phone with Trump. In the call, Trump recounts surviving an assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally and appears to court the independent candidate’s backing. “I would love you to do stuff,” Trump is heard on speakerphone, telling Kennedy. “I think it would be so good for you, and we’re going to win.” That video was later deleted, and Kennedy apologised to Trump for the leak of the private conversation. Kennedy’s running mate, lawyer Nicole Shanahan, also appeared on a podcast, Impact Theory, earlier this week to talk about potential avenues for the future of their campaign. One path, she said, would be to found a new party. The other would be to join forces with Trump. “We walk away right now and join forces with Donald Trump,” Shanahan said, offering that as a possible avenue. “We walk away from that, and we explain to our base why we’re making this decision.” On Thursday, Trump himself told the news programme Fox & Friends that he would gladly accept Kennedy’s endorsement. “If he endorsed me, I would be honoured by it,” Trump said. What did Kennedy say in his speech? When Kennedy finally did announce his campaign’s suspension on Friday, he began with a broadside against the

Parties and grief: A stark contrast at the Democratic National Convention

Parties and grief: A stark contrast at the Democratic National Convention

Chicago, Illinois – As balloons dropped from the ceiling of a packed United Center in Chicago, row upon row of Democratic Party faithful rose to their feet, clapping and shouting out with joy. It was Thursday night, and Kamala Harris had just delivered the closing speech of this year’s Democratic National Convention. The atmosphere was ecstatic: The Democrats in the audience were fired up, and many credited Harris with reinvigorating the party in the weeks after President Joe Biden ended his faltering re-election bid. But while jubilant faces stretched out as far as the eye could see — and red, white and blue balloons spilled out into the halls — the mood took a markedly different turn outside of the arena. There, a small group of people wearing Palestinian keffiyehs stood almost motionless, looking exhausted and bereaved. The convention’s “uncommitted” delegates, who had been calling for an arms embargo against Israel amid its devastating war on Gaza, were dealt a blow after Harris said — in no uncertain terms — that she would continue to provide weapons to the US ally. Asma Mohammed, a delegate from Minnesota, summed up how they were feeling as the convention concluded. “There are balloons raining down on the Democrats in our party, and there are bombs raining down on children and families and people I love,” Mohammed told Al Jazeera, tears streaming down her cheeks. “That’s what I was thinking.” Protesters in Chicago denounced Kamala Harris’s support for Israel [Ali Harb/Al Jazeera] Another activist rubbed her shoulder to comfort her as they both cried. Meanwhile, overjoyed attendees walked past with their “Harris-Walz” signs and American flags. Two radically contrasting realities ultimately emerged from the four-day convention in Chicago. On one side, there was happiness and excitement. But for Palestinian rights supporters, the convention brought further pain and disappointment. More than 40,200 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza as the United States sends billions of dollars in aid to Israel, which continues to bombard the besieged Palestinian territory. Many of the activists who arrived outside the convention to protest were grieving: After all, Cook County, which encompasses Chicago, has the largest Palestinian American community of any county in the US. Those working within the Democratic Party, including the “uncommitted” delegates, had to carry that grief into the festive atmosphere of the convention. They told horrific stories of the carnage, displacement and despair in Gaza — all facilitated by US tax money. But inside the convention hall, the party went on uninterrupted, except for a few shouts of “Free Palestine” on Thursday night as Harris spoke. Those chants were ultimately drowned out by the cheering crowd. As the uncommitted delegates tried to put pressure on the Democratic Party from the inside, protesters outside the convention rallied daily to denounce Harris and Biden for their support for Israel. The demonstrators were diverse, energetic and angry. They gathered with Palestinian flags and chanted against the Israeli occupation and the Democratic Party. “DNC, your hands are red! Over 40,000 dead,” a diminutive young woman in a hijab shouted on a megaphone on Wednesday. Thousands at the march echoed her chant. However, some feared the city would descend into chaos as it did in 1968 when it held a Democratic convention amid the civil rights movement and the unpopular Vietnam War. Back then, police violently cracked down on antiwar protesters. This time, no crackdown materialised. There were a few skirmishes, but the protests were peaceful, and the demonstrators were never allowed to get too close to the convention centre, which was protected by a security perimeter with multiple layers of checkpoints. Still, the 1968 parallels were there in the minds of many protesters, who viewed the Gaza war as this generation’s Vietnam. “Just like 1968, there’s nothing to celebrate,” the protesters chanted. For four days, the protesters and the uncommitted delegates marched, chanted and even begged to be heard and recognised. But it appears that the protesters’ voices did not move the party’s leadership. The Harris campaign and event organisers ultimately rejected the “uncommitted” movement’s request to feature a Palestinian speaker during the convention. And while Harris and Biden have called for a ceasefire in Gaza, Palestinian rights advocates said their statements fall short. Several activists this week argued that there can be no ceasefire as long as the US continues to provide Israel with the weapons to fuel the war. Al Jazeera spoke to many Harris supporters at the convention; they were either sympathetic or indifferent to the protesters. Convention speakers who mentioned Palestinians and called for a ceasefire received thunderous cheers from the crowd. Still, the Democrats were eager for the show to go on as they rallied around Harris. Palestine, for them, did not appear to be a priority. The war on Gaza and those bringing the issue to the convention seemed an afterthought, if not a nuisance. The convention is now over. But the stark divide between glee and agony in Chicago may plague the Democratic Party for years to come. Virtually every pro-Palestinian advocate and protester Al Jazeera spoke to at the convention had the same message: “We are not going away.” Adblock test (Why?)