Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will address the country on Aug. 23 amid mounting speculation that the candidate will drop out.
On Aug. 21, the principal campaign committee, Team Kennedy, announced that Kennedy would speak to the nation live on Aug. 23 about the “present historical moment and his path forward.”
The announcement of the address was made a day after his running mate, Nicole Shanahan, said the campaign is considering dropping out and endorsing former President Donald Trump.
According to a statement, Kennedy will speak at an as-yet-unannounced location in Phoenix at 2 p.m. Eastern time. The event will be live-streamed on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, and other social channels.
In an interview with the podcast Impact Theory published on Aug. 20, Shanahan said the independent campaign has not gotten a fair chance at winning the election. Now, she said, Kennedy is considering either forming a new party or joining forces with Trump.
Sources close to Kennedy and representatives of the campaign declined to share further details about the Aug. 23 announcement with The Epoch Times.
External signs show that the Kennedy campaign is facing severe financial difficulties and trouble gaining traction in public opinion polling.
National Polling
The latest poll conducted and published by The Economist and YouGov on Aug. 21 shows Kennedy winning only 3 percent of likely voters’ support. By comparison, Democratic Party candidate Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump have 46 percent and 43 percent support, respectively.In her podcast appearance, Shanahan specifically mentioned that the issue the campaign faces is that it draws more votes away from Trump than from Harris, running “the risk of a Kamala Harris and [Tim] Walz presidency.”
For months, Democratic partisans have called Kennedy a spoiler, running only to pull votes away from their party’s candidates. Kennedy and Shanahan have denied that the independent candidate is running as a spoiler.
However, Kennedy and Trump share an important financial backer in Timothy Mellon. Both the key allies of the campaigns, American Values and Trump-aligned super PAC Make America Great Again Inc., received millions of dollars in donations from the heir to the Mellon family fortune between 2023 and 2024. On Aug. 20, MAGA Inc. disclosed it received another $50 million check from Mellon on July 15.
Trump also plans to be in the Phoenix area on Aug. 23. He is expected to speak at an event in Glendale, Arizona, at 6 p.m. Eastern Time.