by John Solomon
When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. formally divorced the party his family once ruled as kingmakers, he opened the door for more Democrats to follow in his footsteps, endorse Donald Trump in 2024, and create a “unity party” where Americans can disagree and debate without tearing each other down.
“At the age of six, in 1960, I attended my first Democratic Convention” Kennedy recalled with fondness Friday, when his uncle John and father Robert Sr. ruled the Democratic establishment. “Back then, Democrats were defenders of the Constitution and civil rights. Democrats opposed authoritarianism, censorship, colonialism, imperialism and unjust wars.”
“We were the party of labor, of the working class,” he added. “Democrats were the party of government transparency and environmentalism. Our party was a bulwark against big money and corporate power. True to its name, it was the party of democracy,” he said during a nationally televised news conference Friday, where he announced he was suspending his independent presidential campaign and endorsing Trump.
Kennedy claimed that he had not left the Democratic Party, but rather that “the party had departed so drastically from the core values I was raised with” that it had abandoned him and other conventional Democrats like him.
“It has become the party of war, censorship, corruption, Big Pharma, Big Tech, Big Agriculture and big money,” he declared.
With this political impeachment, Kennedy has opened an unprecedented political door to defection. And two other celebrity defectors are standing on the doorstep: billionaire tech innovator Elon Musk and former presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard.
Even Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, expressed a similar opinionsaying on X that “We may disagree with RFK Jr. on many issues, but he is right about how the Democratic Party uses legal battles and dirty tricks to suppress democratic competition and voter choice. Democrats preach about ‘saving democracy,’ but in reality they are working overtime to eradicate it.”
Senior Trump aides and outside advisers are emboldened by the once-unimaginable possibilities it creates:
- Musk would lend his massive social media platform X to historic intelligence and fund a Super PAC to support Trump;
- Gabbard was supposed to lend a hand prepare the Republican Party candidate for a debate with Kamala Harris and make the case for women to return to the Republican Party;
- Kennedy was eager to apply his celebrated family name and political capital to attract defectors, especially youthful and first-time voters, who flocked to his independent campaign.
“We now have three Power Rangers who can walk right into the middle of a rival party and convince traditional Democrats that it’s OK to leave the party that left them,” said one senior Trump adviser, who asked not to be identified.
Aides have praised Trump’s willingness to put aside potential grievances — Musk is running a rival to Trump’s Truth Social platform, and Kennedy criticized Trump during his campaign — and his willingness to reach out behind the scenes and recruit high-profile Democrats to his side.
Likewise, Trump agreed to end four years of vitriolic exchanges with Brian Kemp and velvety things over with the popular Georgia governor, who controls a powerful political machine in the swing state.
Experts say the fact that Trump has three high-profile former Democrats at his disposal opens up entirely modern strategic possibilities for him.
“I think the Trump people should put Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. together, and they — as joint former Democratic witnesses on the corruption of the system — would be devastating,” said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Georgia Republican. ““John Solomon Reports” podcast.
Gingrich also appreciated that Trump put aside long-standing anger at Kemp over the disputed 2020 election and corrected his mistakes for the good of the Republican Party.
“Look, Brian Kemp is by far the most powerful politician in Georgia. He was an incredibly effective governor, and the fact that he’s now, you know, all in is a huge step in the right direction,” he explained. “And the fact that Trump has loosened up and accepted that having him as an ally really matters is very, very healthy, and I think it’s just dramatically increased the likelihood that we’ll win Georgia,” Gingrich said.
The former speaker said Kennedy in particular could play a disproportionately enormous role in drawing youthful voters to Trump’s team, who joined his independent campaign after endorsing Joe Biden in 2020. The former speaker noted that the retaliation and censorship that Democrats have repeatedly tried to impose on Kennedy has made him genuinely likeable.
Kennedy’s defection “is affecting young people in particular because they have a very well-known name here, historically a thoroughly Democratic one, that tells them that the Democratic Party has become a party of thugs and bosses and bullies, that it is corrupt and no longer responsive to the needs of the American people,” Gingrich said.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley said Only news the fact that Kennedy followed Musk and Gabbard and left the Democratic camp is crucial “on two levels,”
“First, it shows that today’s Democratic Party is leaving these people behind. Today’s Democratic Party is so radical, so dangerous, so progressive that millions of Democrats are leaving the party every single day,” Whatley he said ““John Solomon Reports” podcast“We see thousands of them heading our way. Just look at the voter registration numbers in places like Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan and all over the country. It’s a huge deal that people are leaving the Democratic Party. Because, quite frankly, the Democratic Party has abandoned them.
“The flip side of that is the Republican Party is very quickly becoming a big-tent party,” the GOP leader added. “Donald Trump is willing to work with anyone who wants to make America great again, and he’s willing to sit down with unconventional platforms. He’s willing to meet with unconventional groups.”
RFK Jr. acknowledged Friday that it was Trump’s willingness to connect with people who didn’t always agree with him, and to signal that debate and dissent were okay, that helped accelerate his decision to run as the Republican Party nominee.
Kennedy, Gabbard and Musk did not fail to notice that Harris was appointed, not elected, to lead the Democratic ticket. She did not receive a single vote in the primary and never held an open debate. Critics like JD Vance said that she “lied for nearly four years about Biden’s mental capacity — burdening the nation with a president who can’t do the job.” After Biden’s disastrous debate performance, Harris continued to defend Biden’s mental acuity.
The Kennedy descendant said Trump’s invitation gave him hope that he could create a “unity party” that would “allow us to express our different opinions publicly, privately and seriously” while working for a better America.
– – –
John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist, author, and digital media entrepreneur who serves as CEO and editor-in-chief of Just the News. Before founding Just the News, Solomon held key reporting and executive positions at some of America’s most crucial journalistic institutions, including The Associated Press, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Newsweek, The Daily Beast, and The Hill.
