• Conspiracy theorist and all-round weird guy RFK Jr. folded up his campaign tent on Friday, officially suspending one of the quirkiest presidential bids in recent memory. His quixotic candidacy will perhaps be best remembered for a series of downright bizarre episodes featuring special guests from the animal kingdom. The Kennedy family scion revealed that a worm ate part of his brain and died there, and that he once staged the death of a bear cub in Central Park. He posed for the camera covered in bugs. In another image, he posed enthusiastically eating what appeared to be a roasted dog carcass (he insisted it was a goat). He claimed to have once had an entire freezer full of roadkill meat. Somehow, to everyone’s great surprise, these very relatable moments did not translate into momentum on the campaign trail! Kennedy sank from double-digit support to mid-low single-digit. His numbers really tanked after President Biden left the race and Vice President Kamala Harris surged.

• RFK Jr. threw his support behind disgraced former President Trump in a rambling speech in Arizona on Friday afternoon, attacking Democrats and complaining that he was never given a fair chance. He said he would pull his name off the ballot in “about ten” battleground states where he might be a spoiler. As of Friday, he had filed paperwork to remove his name from the ballot in the swing states of Pennsylvania and Arizona. 

• Polls suggested that RFK Jr. seemed to be taking a bit more from Trump than Harris. But there’s reason to think that his departure may not help Trump that much. First, Harris still leads Trump in many national and battleground state polls, whether RFK Jr.’s name is included or not. Second, the guy’s endorsement comes with drawbacks. Harris’ team has joyfully branded Trump and his veep pick, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), “weird.” Adding RFK Jr. to their entourage only reinforces that message, thanks to his long history of doing decidedly weird stuff. 

• There is also plenty of evidence that RFK Jr.’s alliance with Trump amounts to a brazen case of mercenary self-promotion. Before he backed out of the race, RFK Jr. reached out to the Harris camp and reportedly offered to swap his support for a job in her future administration. The Harris team slammed the door in his face. Trump, however, who speaks the language of graft and corruption, was a lot more receptive to a quid-pro-quo. Other members of the Kennedy family blasted RFK Jr.’s endorsement of Trump as a “betrayal” in a statement on Friday afternoon. 

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