PHOENIX, Aug 24, (AP): Robert F. Kennedy Jr suspended his independent campaign for the White House and endorsed Donald Trump on Friday, a late-stage shakeup of the race that could give the former president a modest boost from Kennedy’s supporters. Hours later, Kennedy joined Trump onstage at an Arizona rally, where the crowd burst into "Bobby!” cheers.

Kennedy said his internal polls had shown that his presence in the race would hurt Trump and help Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, though recent public polls don’t provide a clear indication that he is having an outsize impact on support for either major-party candidate. Kennedy cited free speech, the war in Ukraine and "a war on our children” as among the reasons he would try to remove his name from the ballot in battleground states. "These are the principal causes that persuaded me to leave the Democratic Party and run as an independent, and now to throw my support to President Trump,” Kennedy said at his event in Phoenix.

However, he made clear that he wasn’t formally ending his bid and said his supporters could continue to back him in the majority of states where they are unlikely to sway the outcome. Kennedy took steps to withdraw his candidacy in at least two states late this week, Arizona and Pennsylvania, but election officials in the battlegrounds of Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin said it would be too late for him to take his name off the ballot even if he wants to do so. Kennedy said his actions followed conversations with Trump over the past few weeks.

He cast their alliance as "a unity party," an arrangement that would "allow us to disagree publicly and privately and seriously.” Kennedy suggested Trump offered him a job if he returns to the White House, but neither he nor Trump offered details. Kennedy’s running mate, Nicole Shanahan, this week entertained the idea that Kennedy could join Trump’s administration as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. The announcement ended days of speculation and landed with heaps of confusion and contradictions from Kennedy's aides and allies, an emblematic cap for a quixotic campaign.