Former President Donald Trump says he will appoint Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to a new federal panel on chronic disease should he win reelection, Trump announced during an Aug. 23 rally featuring the independent candidate.
“I want to salute Bobby’s decades of work as an advocate for the health of our families and our children. Nobody’s done more,” Trump said during the rally in Glendale, Arizona, referencing Kennedy’s decades of work for Children’s Health Defense.
In recognition of some of the issues most emphasized by Kennedy’s campaign, Trump said he would “establish a panel of top experts working with Bobby to investigate what is causing the decades-long increase in chronic health problems and childhood diseases, including autoimmune disorders, autism, obesity, infertility, and many more.”
Trump also vowed that should he be reelected, he would release all currently classified files pertaining to the assassination of Kennedy’s uncle, President John F. Kennedy.
After a brief introduction by Trump, Kennedy walked onstage to thunderous applause as the song “My Hero” by the Foo Fighters played in the background. Trump commented later that he had never introduced a guest to such applause.
Addressing the crowd in his first appearance since leaving the election, Kennedy revealed that he and Trump had been in communication since the failed attempt on the former president’s life in mid-July.
Kennedy conceded that “we don’t agree on everything,” but emphasized issues they did agree on that he considered key: rooting out corruption in federal medicine and food regulation agencies, ending “the grip of neocons on U.S. foreign policy,” and combating government censorship.
“Don’t you want a president who is going to protect America’s freedoms and who is going to protect us against totalitarianism?” Kennedy said.
“Don’t you want healthy children? And don’t you want the chemicals out of our food and don’t you want the regulatory agencies to be free from corporate corruption? That’s what President Trump told me that he wanted.”
Kennedy’s announcement marks the latest development in an already unusually chaotic election season—but it hardly came as a surprise.
After strong, double-digit showings in earlier polls, Kennedy’s support has dropped in recent months to between 3 and 7 percent.
“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,” Kennedy said in an Aug. 23 speech from Phoenix, Arizona. “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.”
While polling does not yet show what impact Kennedy’s departure will have on the race, there are some indications that it could benefit Trump.
It suggests a slight lead for Trump among voters looking at alternatives, but the poll also found that 45 percent of these voters were unsure or refused to answer—leaving ambiguous whether Kennedy dropping out will benefit Trump or Harris more.
Additionally, internal polling by the Trump campaign has found that Trump enjoys a lead over Harris among Kennedy supporters in seven crucial swing-states—Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
But that poll too found that around 15 to 20 percent of voters in those critical states are unsure.
