RFK Jr. running mate mulling whether campaign should join Trump or risk Harris presidency

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s running mate is debating whether the campaign should “join forces” with former President Donald Trump or stay in and risk Vice President Kamala Harris taking office.

“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 more votes from Trump,” Nicole Shanahan said on Tom Bilyeu’s Impact Theory podcast. “Or we walk away right now and join forces with Donald Trump and explain to our base why we’re making this decision.”

While RFK Jr. assisted Trump when President Joe Biden was running, siphoning votes away from him in key states, since Harris took the Democratic mantle, he has hurt the Republican nominee. He also hasn’t appeared to have posed as much of a threat as he once did as the parties continue to coalesce around their nominees.

Joining with Trump could help solidify his base of Republican-leaning independents, which the RFK Jr. campaign has been successful at drawing away. But Shanahan said there’s something left to fight for.

“I need to focus on a vision that goes beyond November,” Shanahan said. “If that means that we stay in, there’s benefits to staying in. If we get over 5% of the vote, we establish ourselves as a party.

She also said they would be granted millions of dollars of useful funding that would help them to launch a more successful challenge in 2028, when they wouldn’t have to fight the same ballot access battles they did this cycle.

Shanahan’s comments align with recent reporting that RFK Jr. has sought out both the Harris and Trump campaigns in order to ask them if he could have a role in their administrations if he dropped out and endorsed them.

The Harris campaign rebuffed Kennedy, while the Trump campaign had talks with him during the Republican National Convention that didn’t come to a concrete conclusion but showed he may be closer to them than Harris.

Kennedy posted on X soon after many of his supporters blasted the campaign for Shanahan’s frank comments, one saying he felt “abandoned” and another saying she was “disappointed to hear this.”

“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,” Kennedy said. “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.”

The Kennedy campaign has grown increasingly financially desperate as support dries up. The independent candidate was left with just $3.9 million in the bank at the end of last month while owing nearly $3.5 million, according to a report filed on Monday with the Federal Election Commission. 

Much of his funding continues to come from Shanahan, who has donated just under $13 million to his campaign in total. That’s just over a fifth of the $57.5 million the Kennedy campaign has raised this election cycle.

Kennedy has largely stopped campaigning in public since early July, instead going on various podcasts and online platforms to get his message out as he has done for most of the presidential race.

DNC communications adviser Lis Smith blasted the Kennedy campaign in a statement released on Tuesday, also referencing Shanahan’s remark that she’s considering running for California governor in 2026.

“Nicole Shanahan isn’t even pretending to be a serious VP candidate anymore,” Smith said. “In one interview alone, she floated RFK Jr. for HHS 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.”

The Trump campaign did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment. The RFK Jr. campaign referred to Kennedy’s tweet as its comment.

Decision Desk HQ has Kennedy polling at 3.2% support nationally, with Trump at 43.8% and Harris at 47.9%.