Robert F. Kennedy Jr. got right to work defending Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again movement after endorsing the former president at a rally in Arizona on Friday.
On Sunday, Kennedy titled an X post, “What ‘MAGA’ really means.”
“The phrase has troubled liberals who think it is a call for a return to an America before civil rights, gay rights, and women’s rights. But I have a more generous interpretation, one that is truer to my experience of Donald Trump as he is today,” the former Democrat began.
“‘Make America Great Again’ recalls a nation brimming with vitality, with a can-do spirit, with hope and a belief in itself. It was an America that was beginning to confront its darker shadows, could acknowledge the injustice in its past and present, yet at the same time could celebrate its successes,” Kennedy continued.
“It was a nation of broad prosperity, the world’s most vibrant middle class, and [an] idealistic belief (though not consistently applied) in freedom, justice, and democracy. It was a nation that led the world in innovation, productivity, and technology.”
Kennedy concluded, “And it was the healthiest country in the world. I have talked to many Trump supporters. I have talked with his inner circle. I have talked to the man himself. This is the America they want to restore.”
What “MAGA” really means
The phrase has troubled liberals who think it is a call for a return to an America before civil rights, gay rights, and women’s rights. But I have a more generous interpretation, one that is truer to my experience of Donald Trump as he is today. “Make…
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) August 25, 2024
His post received over 291,000 likes on X as of Monday morning.
Does RFK Jr.’s endorsement greatly improve Trump’s chances in November?
At a news conference in Phoenix on Friday, Kennedy announced that he was suspending his campaign and would be pulling his name off the ballot in 10 key swing states where a vote for him could have helped Vice President Kamala Harris win in November.
The independent presidential candidate further stated, he was endorsing Trump for three primary reasons: his support for free speech, ending the war in Ukraine and taking on the nation’s childhood health epidemic.
During a “Fox News Sunday” interview over the weekend, Kennedy recounted that after speaking by phone and meeting with Trump following last month’s assassination attempt his views on the 45th president began to change.
“The broad issues that were most important to me, the ones that brought me into the campaign, which was ending the Ukraine war, ending the censorship and protecting children’s health, reforming our food supply, all the things we need to do to make our children healthy again, those are all things that President Trump also wanted to work on,” he said.
Kennedy said that Trump wanted to form a “unity government” and that the two agreed they would be free to continue to criticize each other on matters they do not agree on.
There has been no commitment from Trump that RFK Jr. would be in his administration should the Republican win, Kennedy said, but just an agreement to work together on these issues.
The Real Clear Polling average shows Harris with a 2 percentage point lead nationally over Trump (46.4 to 44.4 percent), with RFK Jr. pulling 5 percent of the vote.
Kennedy’s nationwide support dropped by about 3 points after President Joe Biden left the race and Vice President Kamala Harris took over the top of the Democratic ticket last month.
Of RFK’s remaining supporters, Newsweek reported, despite his liberal views on some issues like the environment and abortion, he was drawing more voters from Trump than Harris based on recent surveys conducted by New York Times/Siena College and Emerson College.
In the Times survey, 41 percent of RFK supporters said they would back Trump, and 27 percent said they would vote for Harris in a two-way race.
Emerson College reportedly found the breakdown was 64 percent for Trump and 36 percent for Harris in a two-way contest.
Meaning, Trump will likely get a net 1 or 2 percent bump with RFK Jr.’s endorsement, which could be race determinative in some battleground states.
