Aug. 20 (UPI) — Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent campaign for president is considering dropping its bid for the White House to “join forces” with Republican nominee Donald Trump, Kennedy’s running mate Nicole Shanahan revealed Tuesday in a new interview.
“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 and Walz presidency because we draw votes from Trump,” Shanahan told the Impact Theory podcast.
“Or we walk away right now and join forces with Donald Trump and we explain to our base why we’re making this decision,” she added. “Not an easy decision.”
Shanahan’s comments to interviewer Tom Bilyeu come as Kennedy’s independent presidential campaign is losing money and facing legal challenges as it works to gain ballot access.
The interview also comes one week after a judge ruled against Kennedy’s petition to appear on New York’s general election ballot, citing the address he gave as a “sham.” The lawsuit against Kennedy’s third-party bid was filed by Clear Choice Action, a Democrat Party-aligned Super PAC.
“Clear Choice PAC — the most undemocratic, anti-American PAC in the game — has been suing our campaign in nearly every major jurisdiction with frivolous lawsuits to get us removed from the ballots,” Shanahan wrote Tuesday in a post on X.
“They were created specifically to take us out,” Shanahan added during her interview. “We wanted a fair shot.”
“The DNC 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. They’ve even planted insiders into our campaign to disrupt it and to create legal issues for us,” Shanahan claimed Tuesday.
“The sabotage they’ve unleashed upon us is mind-blowing,” she told Bilyeu. “I really wanted a fair shot in this election.”
Shanahan’s comments come just days before Vice President Kamala Harris is scheduled to accept the Democratic presidential nomination in Chicago.
“I did not put tens of millions of dollars to be a spoiler candidate,” Shanahan said. “I put in tens of millions of dollars to win, to fix this country, to do the right thing.”
While not naming Trump, Kennedy said Tuesday he would consider “any political party” to further his goals for the United States.
“As always, I am willing to talk with leaders of any political party to further the goals I have served for 40 years in my career and in this campaign. These are: reversing the chronic disease epidemic, ending the war machine, cleaning corporate influence out of government and toxic pollution out of the environment, protecting freedom of speech and ending politicization of enforcement agencies,” Kennedy wrote in a post on X.
If Kennedy and Shanahan remain in the race and win more than 5% of the popular vote, they would establish themselves as a third-party alternative to the Republican and Democratic parties and could build on that for the 2028 election.
“I still would love to see in the last 80 days of this election some miracle play out where we get a chance to debate,” Shanahan said. “I don’t think they’re going to let us.”
“We are taking a very serious look at making sure that the people who have corrupted our fair and free democracy do not end up in office in November,” Shanahan said. “It’s really hard to say these words, because it’s also acknowledging how bad things are.”