Donald Trump welcomed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. onstage during his rally in Arizona on Friday night, saying the independent ran an "extraordinary campaign" hours after Kennedy endorsed the former president.
"With all those votes he was getting, he has a lot of votes that he could have gotten ... I think he's going to have a huge influence on this campaign," Trump said near the beginning of his event in Glendale, a suburb of Phoenix.
Trump went on to say that if elected, he would establish a commission on assassination attempts in honor of Kennedy. Kennedy’s father, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy Sr., and uncle, President John F. Kennedy, were both assassinated. The commission, Trump said, would be tasked with releasing remaining documents on the 1963 presidential assassination — records that Trump didn't release when he was in office.
In his remarks, Kennedy recounted having talked with Trump about issues that he said "bind us together," including "having safe food and ending the chronic disease epidemic."
"Don't you want a president that's going to make America healthy again?" asked Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine advocate who suspended his presidential campaign Friday.
The alliance between the Trump and Kennedy marks a new phase in their relationship after years of criticizing each other.
Trump has called Kennedy a "phony radical left fool," a "Democratic 'plant,'" and a "liberal lunatic," despite many of Kennedy's views conflicting with those of Democrats.
Kennedy said in a 2018 Newsweek op-ed that the Trump "presidency has not just discredited our nation, but the entire American experiment in self government."
In a separate op-ed that year published by NBC News, Kennedy called Trump's policies a "discredit to democracy."
"President Trump’s policies have been not to actively encourage democracy abroad, but to reach out to some of the most tyrannical governments in the world and to give them sustenance and encouragement," he wrote at the time.
Those views appeared to take a back seat on Friday when Kennedy endorsed Trump at an event in Phoenix. Kennedy said he would remove his name from the ballot in "about 10 battleground states where my presence would be a spoiler." However, he encouraged voters in states where he remains on the ballot to still vote for him this fall.
Some Kennedy supporters in Arizona who spoke with NBC News said they're throwing their support behind Trump.
Bruce Brimacombe, a resident of Scottsdale, said that he now plans to vote for Trump because of Kennedy's involvement.
"It’s not that I’m not going to vote for Trump for being Trump," said Brimacombe. "I’m going to vote for Trump because if Bobby is able to do what he’s been asked to do, I’ll be behind it. Because that’s going to build a platform."
Casey Westerman, a Trump voter in 2016 and 2020 who was going to back Kennedy in November, now plans to support Trump. The Chandler resident is going to back Trump again because "I trust Bobby."
