RFK Jr.’s campaign considers dropping out of race to ‘join forces’ with Trump, says running mate

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s (I) running mate, Nicole Shanahan, recently stated that their 2024 presidential campaign is weighing two options, one of which includes “join[ing] forces” with former president and Republican nominee Donald Trump.

During an interview on the “Impact Theory” podcast with Tom Bilyeu that was published Tuesday, Shanahan said the campaign is also considering remaining in the race to earn more than 5% of the popular vote to “establish ourselves” as a third-party alternative.

Shanahan stated, “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 or we draw somehow more votes from Trump.”

“Or, we walk away right now and join forces with Donald Trump,” she continued. “We walk away from that, and we explain to our base why we’re making this decision.”

“Not easy. Not an easy decision,” Shanahan added.

Earlier in the interview, Shanahan stated that she believes Trump’s “Achilles heel” in his first presidential term was “Big Pharma.”

“I don’t think he understood that it would cripple his entire reputation and legacy as much as it did,” she said. However, Shanahan added that what she has heard from the Trump campaign recently has been “very positive.”

Bilyeu then pressed Shanahan about concerns that RFK Jr. is just a “spoiler candidate” for Trump.

“We did not start this campaign — I did not put in tens of millions of dollars to be a spoiler candidate. I put in tens of million of dollars to win, to fix this country, to do the right thing,” Shanahan responded.

She accused a Democratic National Committee PAC of targeting the Kennedy-Shanahan ticket and “turn[ing] us into a spoiler.”

“We don’t want to be a spoiler. We wanted to win. We wanted a fair shot. The DNC made that impossible for us,” Shanahan responded. “They have banned us, shadow banned us, kept us off stages, manipulated polls, used lawfare against us, sued us in every possible state. They even planted insiders into our campaign to disrupt it and to create actual legal issues for us.”

“The extent by which the sabotage they’ve unleashed upon us, it’s mind-blowing. I mean, we’re still learning new ways that they have sabotaged us,” she added. “I really wanted a fair shot at this election. And I believed in the America that I, [as] a little girl, pledged allegiance to and that is not where we are today. And it’s not because of the Republican Party taking us out. It is exclusively because of the Democratic Party taking us out, and I am so disappointed I ever helped them.”

Kennedy released a statement following the podcast episode’s release, saying, “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 added.

During the interview, Bilyeu also asked Shanahan, a California attorney, whether she would consider running for governor of California if they ended the presidential campaign.

“I don’t know yet,” she responded. “I think I’d be happy to support somebody great to run for California governor so that we can nip this dynastic lineage in the butt.”

“I would consider running as well,” Shanahan continued. “I want to be involved in California.”

“I think that we could model California brilliantly as the shining example of how to bail out the catastrophic state the nation is in right now. We just model California for the rest of the federal government,” she noted.

Lis Smith, a spokesperson for the Democratic Party, released a statement addressing Shanahan’s recent interview.

“Nicole Shanahan isn’t even pretending to be a serious VP candidate anymore,” Smith stated, according to CNBC. “In one interview alone, she floated RFK Jr. for HHS [Health and Human Services Department] Secretary in a Trump administration, discussed her interest in running for governor of California in 2026, admitted that the Kennedy-Shanahan campaign has no path to victory, and raised the possibility of joining forces with Trump to defeat Vice President Harris.”

“From the beginning of this race, we’ve said that RFK Jr. is nothing more than a spoiler for Donald Trump, and we’re glad that his running mate is finally admitting it,” Smith stated.

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