Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. suspended his 2024 presidential campaign Friday afternoon and threw his support behind former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee.

Kennedy — who has been polling around 5% nationally — made the announcement in a news conference in Phoenix, Arizona, just a few hours before a scheduled Trump campaign rally in the state.

At the news conference, Kennedy said he intends to remove his name from the ballot in 10 swing states, and urged his supporters to vote for Trump in those competitive states. He said his name would remain on the ballot in noncompetitive states.

Kennedy said Trump has promised him a role in helping staff the administration in a way that will fight against the “chronic disease epidemic.”

“I have the certainty that this is what I’m meant to do and that certainty gives me internal peace even in storms,” Kennedy said. “If I’m given the chance to fix the chronic disease crisis and reform our food production, I promise that within two years, we will watch chronic disease lift dramatically.” 

“We will make Americans healthy again,” he added. “Within four years, America will be a healthy country.”

Kennedy then described his mission as rooted in his religious faith.

“Ultimately, the future, however it happens, is in God's hands and in the hands of the American voters, and those of President Trump. If President Trump is elected and honors his word, the vast burden of chronic disease that now demoralizes and bankrupts the country will disappear,” Kennedy said.

A decision made ‘through deep prayer’

“This is a spiritual journey for me. I reached my decision through deep prayer, through hard-nosed logic, and I asked myself, ‘What choices must I make to maximize my chances to save America's children and restore national health?’” he said.

“Suspending my candidacy is a heart-rending decision for me, but I’m convinced that it’s the best hope for ending the Ukraine war and ending the chronic disease epidemic that is eroding our nation’s vitality from the inside, and for finally protecting free speech,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy disclosed that he had met with Trump to discuss three key issues: war, free speech, and chronic diseases in children. He said he tried to meet with the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, but she refused. Although Kennedy said he still disagrees with Trump on some issues, he said the two are aligned in many important areas.

“We are aligned with each other on … key issues, like ending the forever wars, ending the childhood disease epidemic, securing the border, protecting freedom of speech, unraveling the corporate capture of our regulatory agencies, getting the U.S. intelligence agencies out of the business of propagandizing and censoring and surveilling Americans, and interfering with our elections,” Kennedy said.

Alternatively, Kennedy said the Democratic Party has “departed so dramatically on the core values that I grew up with.”

“It [has] become the party of war, censorship, corruption, big pharma, big tech, big [agriculture], and big money,” Kennedy said. 

Kennedy accused the modern Democratic Party of becoming undemocratic by trying to keep him and other third-party candidates off the ballot and for trying to throw Trump in prison. He further criticized Democratic leadership for staging a “coup against President Biden” and appointing Harris as his successor “without an election.”

“In the name of saving democracy, the Democratic Party set itself to dismantling it,” Kennedy said. “Lacking confidence … that its candidate could win in a fair election at the voting booth, the [Democratic Party] waged continual legal warfare against President Trump and myself.” 

Kennedy filed paperwork Thursday to end his request to appear on the Arizona ballot in November. Arizona is a major swing state for the 2024 presidential election, with polls showing Trump behind Harris by less than two points, and Kennedy polling around 6%.

When he first announced his 2024 presidential ambitions, Kennedy initially sought the Democratic Party’s nomination in a challenge to President Joe Biden in the primary. His campaign struggled to gain traction and he switched to an independent candidacy challenging the two major parties. 

Kennedy’s vice presidential candidate Nicole Shanahan first suggested that Kennedy might suspend his campaign and endorse Trump on the Impact Theory podcast earlier this week. She cited one of the primary reasons as “the risk of a Harris-Walz presidency.” She also heavily criticized efforts from the Democratic Party to stifle Kennedy’s campaign.

“We wanted to win,” Shanahan said in the interview that aired on Tuesday. “We wanted a fair shot. The [Democratic Party] made that impossible for us.”

“They have banned us, shadow banned us, kept us off stages, manipulated polls, used lawfare against us, sued us in every possible state,” Shanahan continued. “They‘ve even planted insiders into our campaign to disrupt it and to create actual legal issues for us. I mean, the extent by which the sabotage they’ve unleashed upon us, it's mind-blowing.”

Prior to shifting independent and subsequently endorsing a Republican, Kennedy had been a lifelong Democrat. He is the son of former Democratic Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and the nephew of former Democratic President John F. Kennedy. For much of his career, he worked as an environmental lawyer.

Kennedy deviates from the Democratic Party on certain issues, such as certain aspects of gender ideology. In an interview on EWTN in April, Kennedy told “The World Over” host Raymond Arroyo that biological males should not play in women’s sports: “I don’t think it’s fair if a boy can walk off a neighboring playing field and say, I’m a girl now.” 

The former candidate also said he wanted to reduce abortions because “every abortion is a tragedy,” but said those decisions “should be up to the mother.” In early May, he said abortion should be legal “even if it’s full term” but changed his position less than a week later, saying he  “would allow appropriate restrictions on abortion in the final months of pregnancy.” He supports a “massive subsidized day care” plan to reduce abortions.

Kennedy supports efforts to reduce pollution and has sued several big businesses over pollution. He was critical of the COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccination mandates. He also opposes United States military intervention, particularly in Ukraine.

Two other third-party presidential candidates have been included in numerous polls: Green Party nominee Jill Stein and People's Party nominee Cornel West. Both candidates are polling below 1% in most polls. Both candidates are campaigning to the political left of Harris.

The election is on Nov. 5, 2024, but early voting in some states will begin in September and, in some others, October.