In my heart, I no longer believe that I have a realistic path to electoral victory in the face of this relentless, systematic censorship and media control. So I cannot in good conscience ask my staff and volunteers [00:00:16] 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. Earlier today, independent candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr has suspended his [00:00:31] campaign for president in an announcement. Now, he clarified that he doesn't mean he terminated his campaign and is still in the race. Technically, he explains that if he stayed in completely, he would likely hand the election over to Democrats. Take a look. [00:00:47] I want everyone to know that I am not terminating my campaign. I am simply suspending it and not not ending it. My name. My name will remain on the ballot in most states. [00:01:05] If you live in a blue state, you can vote for me without harming or helping President Trump or or or Vice President Harris and Red states. The same will apply. I encourage you to vote for me. And if enough of you do vote for me, and neither of the major party candidates [00:01:25] win 270 votes, which is quite possible. In fact, today our polling shows them tying it to 69 to 269. And I could conceivably still end up in the white House in a contingent election. [00:01:41] But. In about ten 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. But in addition to suspending his campaign, RFK Jr also threw his support [00:02:01] behind Donald Trump. - Take a look. - At 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 Democratic Party and and run as an independent. [00:02:18] And now to throw my support to President Trump. The the causes were free speech, the war in Ukraine and the war on our children. President Trump says that he will reopen negotiations with President Putin [00:02:36] and end the war overnight, as soon as he becomes president. This alone would justify my support for his campaign. And he discussed the potential of a cabinet position in a hypothetical [00:02:51] Donald Trump administration. Take a look. Last summer, it looked like no candidate was willing to negotiate a quick end to the Ukraine war to tackle chronic disease epidemic to protect free speech, our constitutional freedoms, to clean corporate influence out of our government, [00:03:10] or to defy the neocons and their agenda of endless military adventurism. But now one of the two candidates has adopted these issues as his own, to the point where he has asked to enlist me in his administration. [00:03:27] I'm speaking, of course, of Donald Trump. In a series of long, intense discussions, I was surprised to discover that we are aligned on many key issues. In those meetings, he suggested that we join forces as a unity party. [00:03:43] We talked about Abraham Lincoln's team of rivals. That arrangement would allow us to disagree publicly and privately and fiercely, if need be, on issues over which we differ. While working together on the existential issues upon which we are in concordance. [00:04:04] There's a lot there. Sharon and Yaz, do you think this is going to make a difference? And if so, which candidate that remains in the race, do you think it'll benefit more? - Sharon, do you want to take a start? - Hey, don't scroll away. Come back, come back. [00:04:20] Because before the video continues, we just want to urge you to lend your support to TYT. You power our honest reporting. You do it at t.com/team and we love you for it. I don't think it matters one bit. I don't even know why he had this press conference today [00:04:36] instead of, I don't know, tweeting it out or sending out a letter snail mail I it's it's just not going to matter in my view. And I don't mean to be flip, but I mean, come on, he's not going to take away from Kamala Harris in my opinion. [00:04:53] I don't even know if they actually fielded a phone call or if they were going to meet with him at all. It's just it's just silly. I think it's silly at this point and he has a very, Self-important ego and inflated ego, if you will, but he's more unserious than ever. [00:05:11] We could have said that after the bear situation in Central Park, but this takes the cake. - Thanks, but no thanks. - Yeah, I feel similarly. I thought it was very funny whenever he said that he was going to address the American people. [00:05:26] He's going to address the public. And it's like, bro, like you could have just sent out a tweet. Everyone was expecting you to drop out. It was only ever a matter of time. Then there were all the rumors that he was, you know, courting both candidates, both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, to see who he could maybe finagle [00:05:44] a cabinet position out of. And then we very shortly later afterwards heard that he was going to be dropping out and supporting Donald Trump. So really, none of this is surprising. This whole thing ended in a way that so many of us thought it would, [00:05:59] with him trying to earn public influence without the public having granted that influence to him. And that's a popular path to follow. There are elected positions in government and there are appointed positions, and that inherently isn't a problem. But usually, for example, with Pete Buttigieg and the Biden administration, [00:06:17] that made sense because he was still popular as a presidential candidate. His, you know, his policies and his ideals still were very much in alignment with the Biden campaign. And there was some commonality there, and there was a place where they could find some way to work together. [00:06:32] But with Kennedy and Trump and Harris, really, you know, he he set himself up as an independent. He said, I'm not either of these parties. I don't like either of these parties. And now here he is courting allegedly both parties. [00:06:49] Yeah. And previous polling before Biden dropped out showed that he was pulling significantly from Trump. And then that that problem got worse and was exacerbated after Biden dropped out. You saw more of the undecideds or even people in his camp go toward Harris, [00:07:06] so what remains of his base will probably just end up in Trump's camp. It is marginal, but it could make a difference. We're talking about a president and a 2020 race that was decided by a very, very slim [00:07:23] margin and a handful of swing states. So if he's off the race there, where those voters go will be interesting and you'll see. Yeah. And you and I talked about this earlier on on the damage report. Harris should try to make a play for them. There's a case to be made. [00:07:39] It might be difficult when dealing with those supporters, but we'll see. Now, it isn't exactly surprising that he endorsed Trump. You know, RFK Jr's son leaked a video, a few weeks ago of both of them talking about a potential role in a Trump administration. [00:07:56] And Rfk's running mate, Nicole Shanahan, also discussed the plan earlier this week while appearing on the impact Theory podcast. Take a look. Anyway, I would be. I would love you to do so. And I think it would be so good for you and. So good for you. And we're going to win. [00:08:14] - We're going to. - Win. You know, we're way ahead of the guy. You know, there's. Two options that we're looking at. And one is staying in forming that new party. But we run the risk of a Kamala Harris Kamala Harris and and waltz, [00:08:30] presidency because we draw votes from Trump or we draw somehow more votes from Trump, or we walk away right now and join forces with with Donald Trump. And, you know, we walk away from that and we explain to our base [00:08:50] why we're making this decision. So Trump and his team have been very supportive of RFK Jr and the prospect of having him on their side. Now here's what Trump and Trump Jr had to say. Take a look. [00:09:06] Reporting that RFK Jr. Is getting ready to endorse you. What does he bring to you? What have your conversations been like? What role would he have either with your campaign or in your administration? Well, I don't want to get too much into it because you're telling me something I don't know, other than I've always been friendly with him. I've had a lot of respect for him. I think he respects me. [00:09:23] We've had a good relationship for a long time. If he were going to endorse me, I would consider it a great honor. I think we're leading now in the polls. We're leading in the swing states. We're leading in the polls. A couple of great polls came out just now, but I would love to have his endorsement. That would be a great honor. [00:09:39] That's despite all the things he said about vaccine nine over 11 conspiracies that that reflect on you if you put him in your administration. No, it doesn't mean administration, but certainly having his endorsement because things that he agrees on. I also agree on. - The. - Endorsement from RFK. [00:09:56] - Do you think that's coming? - Listen, I hope so. You know, I think RFK, I think he's a smart guy. I think he's actually got very good views on certain things. I think there's some other things, you know, we're going to disagree with him on, but I think it shows sort of a a unity. I love the idea. [00:10:12] I love the idea of, you know, giving him, you know, some sort of role and some sort of, you know, major, you know, three letter entity or whatever it may be, and let them blow it up. So, to be clear, you know, he was at Trump was asked by Garrett Hake about Rfk's comments on vaccines and his stances on vaccines. [00:10:28] Trump appointed RFK Jr in 2017 to run a commission on vaccine safety and integrity, so there isn't really too much of a disagreement there between those two. But J.D. Vance was also supportive of RFK in an administrative role. [00:10:46] - Take a look. - I think RFK really could could do a lot for us on questions of, you know, we had 8000 veterans, I believe, maybe more that we kicked out of the military because they refused to take a vaccine. I would love for RFK to take a look at that, but I haven't talked to him. [00:11:03] I don't know what he's interested in. I think the best signal that RFK can send is, look, the Kennedy Democratic Party has transformed into the open borders, high inflation. Kamala Harris, Democratic Party. And if you're like my grandparents, I mean, I was raised by Blue Dog, [00:11:20] socially conservative Democrats. Glenn, if you're like my grandparents, the Kennedy Democrats are now going for Donald J. Trump and the Republicans. And I think that's a powerful message to send to the American people that the old Democratic Party was a great thing, a great institution. [00:11:35] We didn't have to agree with it all the time, but they were patriotic people. They are no longer welcome in this crazy new thing that Kamala Harris is in charge of. Of course, the. Kennedy Democrats getting behind Trump is a lie. All of RFK Junior's siblings put out a collective statement today [00:11:51] denouncing this move. But yes, I want to bring you in here. Trump's team is celebrating it. There are people who who are obviously pointing out this comes with a lot of baggage. Will this have any negative impact on Trump or is his base just too far gone? [00:12:07] I mean, I do think generally that his base is too far gone. They're just going to spin this as a victory. But really, how much is an RFK Jr endorsement worth? Especially I know we were talking about this earlier and Sharon also mentioned it just now. But RFK Jr was never a serious presidential candidate. [00:12:24] Yes, he had a lot of opinions and he liked to say them very loudly. And he was an option for people to vote for people who were disillusioned by both parties. And there are plenty of people who are currently disillusioned for a good reason with both parties. So now him abandoning that whole premise and joining forces with Donald Trump [00:12:44] is not surprising, but it is going to be disappointing to the people who did support him to a certain extent. And the idea that the Republicans are trying to sell this as, oh, the Kennedy Democrats are going for Trump. No, the Kennedy Democrats are not going for Trump. [00:12:59] It's not a signal that the Republicans are trying to spin it as there's one in every family, right? RFK Jr is that one. He's the exception to the Kennedy dynasty, not the rule. I mean, I. May be the one in my family, but my sisters wouldn't hold a press conference saying, don't, don't do anything with her. [00:13:18] Okay? They might text it to each other, but they're not going to go and tell the world that. I just think it's silly at this point. His his campaign, his candidacy jumped the shark some time ago, and he proved himself to be ultimately unserious, [00:13:35] even though he had some serious people who were considering him at this point to be this whole thing where Shanahan talks about joining forces, you have to be a force first. And he's not that right now, and I don't know if he will regain that. [00:13:50] It seems unlikely. What would what position would they do? You know junior talks about some three letter entity and then blowing it up. It's they could create a new one. You know, he could be the single cat lady czar or something and monitor these people [00:14:07] throughout the country or, you know, give them something to do. But it's just silly. I just find it very, very silly. - Yeah. - I mean, when that. Story came out that they were in negotiations about a position for RFK Jr. The topics and the portfolio of issues that were mentioned were Health [00:14:26] and Human Services, something like that. So if it is HHS, if it is the FDA, God forbid. I mean, there's certainly problems within our federal bureaucracy putting RFK Jr in charge of something like that and blowing it up. Like you point out, Sharon isn't the solution. [00:14:43] It would only make matters worse. But RFK Jr is not somebody who is seemingly sane or rational or well equipped to handle those challenges as complex as they are. So let's hope he is not in a position of power. [00:14:59] And one thing you got to point out when you're dealing with Trump, this is a man who famously goes back on his word, does not hold up his end of the bargain, and has stiffed people before. So he could just be using RFK Jr. Time will tell.