RFK Jr. Is Finally Going to Drop Out—and May Give Trump a Helping Hand

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has decided to end his quixotic independent campaign for president, ABC News reported Wednesday, citing anonymous sources.

The move will come by the end of this week, with Kennedy leaning toward endorsing Donald Trump for president, but that has not been finalized and could still change, according to ABC. One source said that Kennedy hopes to make things final fast in order to put a damper on Democrats’ momentum from their convention in Chicago.

Kennedy plans to speak to the nation on Friday about “his path forward,” his campaign announced earlier Wednesday.

Kennedy reached out to both the Kamala Harris and Trump campaigns in the past few weeks in the hope of trading an endorsement for a cabinet position, but only received a response from Trump, albeit with no agreement. In recent days, Kennedy’s wealthy running mate, Nicole Shanahan, has floated the idea of either dropping out and joining forces with Trump, or staying in the race and laying the groundwork for a stronger presidential run in 2028.

Kennedy’s campaign was always on the margins, but had no shortage of dull moments, particularly with revelations from the political scion’s life. He was found to have once had a worm in his brain, he dumped a bear carcass in Central Park a decade ago, and he faces allegations of sexual assault and serial womanizing. His famous family as well as his fellow environmentalists disavowed his candidacy, which was backed by many right-wing donors hoping to hurt the Democratic ticket. Until October, Kennedy was still flirting with challenging President Biden as a Democratic primary candidate.

In the end, Kennedy’s small support base of environmentalists, fans of the Kennedy family dynasty, and wealthy new age hippies doesn’t seem to be enough to keep his campaign going. Not to mention the fact that even after cutting back on events, the campaign is still losing a lot of money.

This story has been updated.

Before his explosive political career and unsuccessful nomination to speaker of the House, Ohio Representative Jim Jordan worked as an assistant coach to Ohio State University’s wrestling team from 1986 to 1994. His tenure overlapped with that of Richard Strauss, a team doctor accused of abusing at least 177 male student-patients. Former athletes, as well as multiple investigations that don’t directly name Jordan, argue that the congressman knew of the rampant abuse but failed to do anything about it. In fact, his former athletes have testified that Jordan worked overtime to cover the whole scandal up.

Three of those former athletes, Rocky Ratliff, Matt Reed, and Will Knight, appeared at the Democratic National Convention this week in a show of force behind Jordan’s liberal challenger for Ohio’s 4th congressional district, Tamie Wilson.

Waving placards that spelled out “FIRE JIM JORDAN,” the trio was joined in solidarity by former University of Michigan student wrestler Tad Deluca, who blew the whistle on similar abuse at the hands of his athletic department doctor, Robert Anderson. Anderson’s rampant abuse was the subject of a $490 million settlement by the school to 1,050 victims in 2022, one of the largest such settlements over campus sexual misconduct in U.S. history.

Together with Wilson, the sexual abuse victims have become advocates, fighting for stronger national protections for youth athletes around the country. They have spoken and gained the support of members in Congress, including Representative Jamie Raskin, and have plans to meet with more Democrats in the Senate in an effort to advance a bill that they believe would prevent future instances of child sexual assault.

“We’re all people with lives, and we’re just ordinary people trying to make a difference,” Ratliff told The New Republic Tuesday evening. “And [Wilson’s] the only one that’s basically taking the bull by the horns and getting us those meetings and not letting them forget what happened at Ohio State, because everybody wants to forget it, including Ohio State.”

Some studies suggest that student athletes may be at even greater risk of sexual abuse than nonathletes their age. More than one in four college-aged athletes reported being sexually assaulted or harassed by someone in a position of power over them on campus, according to a 2021 survey by educational nonprofit Lauren’s Kids. A 2023 report by the sexual assault prevention group It’s On Us found that out of 710 male college athletes, 41 percent reported hearing about instances of sexual or domestic abuse, but were not aware of the school’s procedures, policies, or even their Title IX officer.

And student athletes below college age appear to be similarly at risk. A Canadian study published in Frontiers in Psychology in 2022 found that 42 percent of surveyed varsity athletes had been victims of sexual violence, compared to 26 percent of the general population.

Wilson’s Comprehensive Sexual Abuse Prevention and Accountability Act aims to prevent instances of sexual abuse and harassment by nationalizing protections, which currently vary from state to state. This would include removing the statute of limitations to prosecute sexual abuse cases, implementing mandatory safety measures such as annual student safety classes focused on reinforcing reporting protocols, and expanding background checks on medical staff employed by educational institutions, which could include psychological exams with yearly requalification requirements based on student approval ratings.

The bill also threatens to rescind federal funding from any school caught covering up sexual abuse or harassment scandals.

Knight, now a high school wrestling coach himself, related that he couldn’t imagine how anyone could believe that the House Judiciary Committee chairman would defend and represent the interests of everyday Ohioans when he failed to protect the safety of his own athletes.

“All I do is try to tell the truth about Jim,” Knight said. “He could have been a hero.”

Jordan was once someone he could debate healthily with, even if their politics differed, said Knight, “but something happened to him after 2008,” one year after Jordan assumed office.

Once he obtained power in Washington, the Ohio Republican turned his influence on the wrestling victims, working to flip everyone from former school officials to the family members of victims in an effort to discredit their stories and brush the ordeal under the rug, according to several of the former athletes.

“Being a coach, I couldn’t imagine letting my high school wrestlers down,” Knight continued. “It doesn’t even compute in my brain.”

Jordan has repeatedly denied knowing about the decades-long abuse scandal and has accused the victims’ accounts of being “sequenced and choreographed,” going so far as to suggest that the misconduct was a left-wing conspiracy.

“I knew of no abuse. Never heard of it. Never had any reported to me. If I had, I’d have dealt with it. Every single coach has said the same thing I have,” Jordan told Fox News in 2018. (The head coach Jordan worked for, Russ Hellickson, has admitted to knowing of the abuse but claimed he never discussed the issue with Jordan. In a 2018 interview with CNN, Hellickson lamented the fact that Jordan was being torn apart by “semantics.”)

Wilson’s odds of winning the historically Republican district are slim to none, according to polling data aggregated by The Hill, but Wilson believes that Jordan has simply been “elected by default” and sees a definite path forward for her campaign, which has raised more than $1 million to date.

“If every parent knew what was going on, the alarm bells would be sounding. There would be such a huge movement,” Wilson, a self-advertised “boy mom,” told TNR. “It is so important that we protect our children, and parents need to know that they need to get more involved, and that is why I’m running for office.”

There are plentiful reasons why Ohioans might be upset with the job Jordan has done in the House, regardless of his spotted personal history. In 16 years in Congress, the Republican firebrand has failed to pass a single bill, with former Speaker John Boehner labeling him as a “legislative terrorist.” He has consistently ranked near the bottom of the House in terms of effectiveness, according to the Center for Effective Lawmaking, a joint project of Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia.

Jordan was accused in an Ohio Capital Journal opinion piece of “betraying America” for his actions surrounding the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and was reportedly heavily involved in former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, even going on to insist this year that the election was “stolen.”

“Jim Jordan knew more about what Donald Trump had planned for January 6th than any other member of the House of Representatives,” former Representative Liz Cheney said in October, when Jordan threw in his hat for the chaotically overturned speakership.

Apart from that, Jordan spent the better part of the last year forcing a baseless impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, ignoring warnings that the story sold by the probe’s primary witness, Alexander Smirnov, was full of holes, earning him the ire of members in his own party. Smirnov reportedly admitted to law enforcement that top Russian intelligence officials were involved in the smear campaign against the sitting president. Jordan later conceded that “maybe the guy did lie.”

Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo has repeatedly been saying this week that Democrats have been pushing to register “massive lines of illegals” to vote in Texas. As it turns out, she never did any actual reporting on the topic.

The Texas Department of Public Safety debunked Bartiromo’s claims, with Sergeant William Lockridge, a spokesperson for the department, calling the claims “simply false” and “kind of racist” in a statement Tuesday to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Brady Gray, the chairman of the Parker County GOP, also said such reports were “erroneous” after investigating Bartiromo’s claims.

Bartiromo first brought up the alleged voter registration in an X post on Sunday, citing a “friend of mine’s wife.” It turns out that this was all the sourcing that the Fox anchor needed to repeat the claim ad nauseum on TV.

Fox doesn’t seem to care much about the egregious lapse in journalistic practice, with a network spokesperson telling Zeteo media columnist Jason Baragona that Bartiromo was citing one of her sources but never said that she confirmed the story. And, as if to excuse repeating a claim without any proof, the spokesperson added that Republicans have repeatedly mentioned noncitizens voting in recent months.

That seems to be the only true statement from either Bartiromo or Fox: Republicans keep repeating that undocumented immigrants or noncitizens are illegally voting in the U.S. Several members of Congress and Republican candidates repeated the false claim at the Republican National Convention, where it made its way into the party platform. House Speaker Mike Johnson has even proposed a bill to tackle it based on bogus data.

It’s pretty obvious that the GOP is using the claim to appear even tougher on immigration and garner more votes in November. But, they have yet to offer any proof, and right-wing media is following their lead. Perhaps Fox and other conservative media outlets should remember all of the hefty legal settlements they’ve had to pay for peddling false information, especially when it comes to elections.

It’s been a tough month financially for the Republican Party, which may signal trouble for its presidential candidate, Donald Trump.

The RNC reported that it had raised nearly $31 million in July, nearly half of the $61 million it reported raising the month before, according to its most recent FEC filing. The party’s disbursements over the same period were more than $33 million, meaning that the party ended the month of its convention slightly more cash-poor than it started.

Trump’s campaign has said that it, and the Republican Party, had raised a combined $138 million in July.

Meanwhile, Kamala Harris’s historic fundraising surge has officially dwarfed the moneymaking efforts of Trump and the GOP. Since entering the race nearly one month ago, Harris has raised a staggering $500 million, across her campaign and other political entities, according to CNBC.

Harris raised $204 million in July alone—a whopping four times as much as the $48 million raised by Trump’s main fundraising group, Reuters reported.

Harris’s political operation and the Democratic Party’s main fundraising group were able to raise a combined $310 million in July, with more than $200 million raised within the first week of her candidacy, following President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race. Harris’s team entered August with $377 million cash on hand, exceeding the $327 million held by Trump’s operation.

Donald Trump was an easy mark for Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to Trump’s former national security adviser.

H.R. McMaster writes in his upcoming book, At War With Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House, that Putin used Trump’s “ego and insecurities” to influence Trump as president. The Guardian obtained an advance copy of the book, due to be released on August 27.

Trump infamously praised Putin throughout his presidential term, dismissed criticism from his staff of the Russian autocrat, and would fire McMaster as a result in 2018. The now-retired general spoke about Trump’s incomprehensible defenses of Putin in the book.

“After over a year in this job, I cannot understand Putin’s hold on Trump,” McMaster recalls telling his wife Katie in 2018 after the news that Putin’s agents had poisoned a Russian dissident in the United Kingdom, Sergei Skripal, along with his daughter. 

After the assassination attempt, as other world leaders sought to make a strong response to Putin, Trump was especially happy with a New York Post article headlined “Putin heaps praise on Trump, pans US politics,” writing a friendly note to the Russian president with a black Sharpie and asking McMaster “to get the clipping to Putin.”

“I was certain that Putin would use Trump’s annotated clipping to embarrass him and provide cover for the attack,” McMaster wrote in the book, adding that he handed the note over to a White House office that handles communications from the president.

“Later, as evidence mounted that the Kremlin, and very likely Putin himself had ordered the nerve agent attack on Skripal, I told them not to send it,” McMaster wrote.

McMaster wrote that “Putin, a ruthless former KGB operator, played to Trump’s ego and insecurities with flattery,” trying to drive a wedge between Trump and his staffers seeking a tougher stance against Russia.

“Putin had described Trump as ‘a very outstanding person, talented, without any doubt’, and Trump had revealed his vulnerability to this approach, his affinity for strongmen, and his belief that he alone could forge a good relationship with Putin,” wrote McMaster. “The fact that most foreign policy experts in Washington advocated for a tough approach to the Kremlin seemed only to drive the president to the opposite approach.”

Many of the generals and national security officials who served under Trump have had a falling out with the Republican presidential nominee. His former chief of staff, General John Kelly, said that Trump praised Adolf Hitler and made disparaging comments about veterans, calling them suckers and losers. Another former national security adviser, John Bolton, has said that Trump “can’t tell the difference between what’s true and what’s false.” If Trump is elected again, it’s all but guaranteed that he’ll put America’s safety and security at risk.

Oh, brother.

At an event Tuesday night, professional wrestler Hulk Hogan threatened Kamala Harris while making fun of her biracial background.

“Want me to body-slam Kamala Harris?” a noticeably drunk Hogan asked the crowd at an Ohio event promoting his new beer. “Want me to drop the weight on Kamala?”

Threatening the sitting vice president with violence wasn’t enough for the WWE star as he then moved to racist comments. “Is Kamala a chameleon? Is she Indian?” he asked.

Hogan, though famous for his body slam moves, is more well known recently in political circles for his legal battle with Gawker and for ripping his shirt off at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last month.

Imagine if someone who spoke at the Democratic National Convention hit Trump with the same threat.

Hogan’s comments are also further proof that all of MAGA seems to have a problem recognizing biracial people. During Trump’s interview with the National Association of Black Journalists last month, the former president stated that for years, Harris “was Indian all the way, and then suddenly she made a turn and she became a Black person.”

Before blaming the beers on his outrageous comments, Hogan took the time to get one last racist jab in, shouting “how” and doing a stereotypical Native American greeting. Doing so, Hogan was trying to invoke tropes about Native American “Indians” to poke fun at Harris.

“I’m going to get heat for that one, brother,” said the wrestler, who was fired from the WWE after he was caught on tape using the N-word.

When it comes to support from young voters, Kamala Harris is absolutely pummeling former President Donald Trump, according to new polling.

Harris has surpassed Trump by a whopping 32 points among 18- to 29-years-olds living in seven battleground states as of Tuesday, according to polling from Voters of Tomorrow.

The poll surveyed more than 1,500 young voters in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, and Wisconsin between August 16 and August 20.

When deciding which candidate to support, the majority of respondents said they cared most about jobs, the economy, and the cost of living. When asked which candidate they trusted more to address this issue, the gap between the candidates significantly narrowed, with 38 percent saying Harris and 33 percent saying Trump.

Early on in her campaign, the vice president was able to establish an edge over her opponent, and a boost over her predecessor President Joe Biden. In a Biden-Trump race, the split among 18- to 34-year-olds was far more even, with 53 percent for Biden and 47 for Trump.

In a Harris-Trump race, the same group was split 60 percent for Harris and 40 for Trump, giving Harris a 20-point lead, according to an Axios/Generation Lab poll published last month. Since then, the gap between Harris and Trump has only grown.

Online, grassroots enthusiasm for Harris’s campaign began before she was even announced as the candidate, propelled by memes and fan edits created and disseminated by young internet users, who had begun urging Joe Biden to drop out of the race. Harris has been able to build her momentum among this group, which could translate into a surge at the polls—if Harris is able to address their policy concerns.

Voters of Tomorrow found that two-thirds of their poll respondents said that they were very likely or certain to vote in November’s election.

Donald Trump has been bleeding support since Vice President Kamala Harris entered the race, as some of his most loyal supporters turn the page on him. White supremacists have taken to Truth Social to brand the Republican nominee as a “coward” for initially backing out of a debate against Harris, while others have claimed that the Trump campaign is headed toward a “catastrophic loss” this November.

So, in an apparent effort to regain the attention and possibly the favor of younger generations, Trump opted for an interview with one of the most unexpected personalities: comedian Theo Von. The combination came with the recommendation of Barron Trump, who the Republican nominee said at the top of the show is a “big fan” of Von’s, describing the podcaster as “a big one.”

Over the course of an hour on Von’s podcast This Past Weekend, the pair discussed the attempt on Trump’s life, UFC fighting, health care, the border, and Trump’s teetotaler reputation and supposed sobriety.

During one particular exchange on drugs, Trump poked Von on his knowledge of cocaine, describing the stimulant as “down and dirty.”

“Some of the stuff started to get a real rattle in it, too,” Von said. “I don’t know where we were even getting it from in this country, but yeah, it started to make me feel like I was a mechanic or something. So the thing you go back to then is alcohol for the most part. “

“Is cocaine a stronger up?” Trump asked.

“Yeah,” Von said. “So you’re way up with cocaine more than anything else you can think of. Cocaine will turn you into a damn owl, homie. You know what I’m saying? You’ll be out on your own porch. You’ll be your own street lamp. You’re freaking—”

“And is that a good feeling?” Trump interjected.

“Well, it’s a miserable feeling, but you do it anyway, just like the guy you’re saying with the scotch,” Von replied, referring to a story Trump had shared about one of his former alcoholic friends.

Whether or not Trump actively uses drugs doesn’t change the fact that he practically endorsed their rampant abuse in the White House during his administration. Under Donald Trump’s leadership, the West Wing operated more like a pill mill than the White House, according to a January report by the Department of Defense inspector general, which capped a six-year investigation into the administration’s medical practices.

Common pills included modafinil, Adderall, fentanyl, morphine, and ketamine, according to the Pentagon report. But other, unlisted drugs—such as Xanax—were equally easy to come by from the White House medical unit, according to sources that spoke to Rolling Stone.

At least two senior staffers would regularly mix the depressant with alcohol, a potentially life-threatening combo, to deal with the stress of working with a highly erratic boss.

“You try working for him and not chasing pills with alcohol,” one source told Rolling Stone.

Amazingly, Trump wasn’t Von’s only major political booking in recent days. Last week, the down-to-earth comedian spoke with practically the opposite end of the political spectrum from Trump: Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

As Donald Trump returned to Michigan to speak about crime, he deliberately ignored the truth: Crime is down. 

Standing under a banner that read “Make America Safe Again” on Tuesday, Trump spoke about law and order and a so-called “Kamala crime wave” occurring at levels “nobody has ever seen before.” But when journalists tried to ask him about that claim, he got scared.

According to The Detroit News, the Trump team had originally agreed to sit down for an interview with their newspaper Tuesday. However, after reporters pushed the former president about spreading lies about Michigan’s crime data, “a campaign aide said the presidential candidate no longer had time for an interview after the speech.”

Data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation doesn’t show any crime wave phenomenon. In the two years since the former president left office, violent crime has continued to drop and return to pre-pandemic levels.

Michigan specific data also fails to show any spike in violent crime under a Democratic administration. Homicides in Detroit are down to their lowest total since 1966, according to police data reviewed by The Detroit News. But Trump doesn’t want to talk about that. So much so that he’s dodging interviews with local journalists about crime.

“Facts don’t matter when it comes to him,” Democratic state Representative Tyrone Carter, a former sheriff, told The Detroit News. “It’s about telling a story that benefits you.”

Far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer made shallow attacks against former Donald Trump aide Stephanie Grisham, who called the former president out at the Democratic National Convention Tuesday night for mocking his base. But the failed politician couldn’t deny the truth of what Grisham was saying.

Grisham, a former White House press secretary, revealed that Trump “mocks his supporters behind closed doors,” and claimed that Melania Trump had refused to call for peaceful protests as the January 6 riot was unfolding. Grisham also voiced her support for Vice President Kamala Harris at the Democratic National Convention.

Loomer, ever the pro-Trump hate-poster, didn’t like that one bit.

“Another traitor who got rich off Donald Trump and then turned on him on J6,” Loomer wrote in a post on X. “I guess she started eating uncontrollably ever since she quit Trump. She must have gained about 75 pounds since she ‘resigned.’”

“Now she’s voting for @KamalaHarris. That’s what happens when you hit the wall,” Loomer wrote.

It’s not unusual for Loomer’s criticisms to take on a personal, substanceless approach to their subjects. Last month, she landed in hot water for calling former Representative Gabby Giffords, who survived an assassination attempt, “brain dead.”

But Grisham held her ground, hitting back against Loomer’s attack. “I’ve actually hit menopause, which sucks a ton & yes it’s a weight struggle,” Grisham wrote on X. “Def not rich either—I run a non-profit animal sanctuary & could barely afford the blazer I wore tonight. BUT…I told the truth & plan to keep doing so.”

Mercedes Schlapp, Trump’s former White House Director of Strategic Communications, also failed to refute Grisham’s damning claims about Trump, similarly opting to attack Grisham personally. On stage, Grisham had said she hadn’t held a briefing at the White House because, “Unlike my boss, I never wanted to stand at the podium and lie.”

“Grisham is lying,” Schlapp wrote in a post on X. “No one in the White House had the confidence in her to effectively answer reporters’ questions at the podium.”