RFK Jr. campaign eyes joining forces with Trump, Nicole Shanahan says

The independent presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is considering abandoning his quest for the White House to “join forces” with Republican nominee Donald Trump, Kennedy’s running mate Nicole Shanahan says in a new interview posted online Tuesday.

Shanahan said the campaign is also considering remaining in the contest to try to win more than 5% of the popular vote and “establish ourselves” as a third-party alternative to the Republican and Democratic parties, and build on that ballot access for the 2028 election.

“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 votes from Trump, or we draw somehow more votes from Trump,” Shanahan said in the interview on the “Impact Theory” podcast.

“Or we walk away right now and join forces with … Donald Trump and you know, we walk away from that and explain to our base why we’re making this decision,” Shanahan told interviewer Tom Bilyeu.

“Not easy, not an easy decision,” the attorney and entrepreneur added.

Asked by Bilyeu if she would run for governor of California, where she lives, if Kennedy and she end their campaign, Shanahan said, “I would consider running as well.”

“I want to be involved in California,” she said.

If Kennedy and Shanahan quit the election contest, it is not clear if their would-be voters would necessarily go to Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio.

But some polls suggest that the Democratic nominee, Vice President Harris, would be stronger against Trump in swing states when Kennedy is included as a candidate, as opposed to when Kennedy is not an option.

Earlier in the interview, Shanahan said, “I did not put in tens of millions of dollars to be a spoiler candidate.”

“I put in tens of millions of dollars to win, to fix this country, to do the right thing,” she said. “We don’t want to be a spoiler.”

“We wanted to win. We wanted a fair shot,” Shanahan added.

Bilyeu in a post on X said the interview was filmed Monday.

Kennedy’s campaign, when asked for comment on Shanahan’s interview, referred CNBC to a new tweet by Kennedy.

“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 wrote.

“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,” Kennedy said.

Lis Smith, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Party, in a statement, said, “Nicole Shanahan isn’t even pretending to be a serious VP candidate anymore.”

“In one interview alone, she floated RFK Jr. for HHS [Health and Human Services Department] 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,” Smith said.

“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.”

Shanahan’s interview comes days before Harris is set to formally accept the Democratic presidential nomination in Chicago with her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

Kennedy last year abandoned his efforts to win the Democratic nomination.

His late father, New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, was assassinated in June 1968 after winning the Democratic presidential primary in California.

Kennedy’s campaign claims it has collected enough signatures to secure a ballot line on all 50 states. But a judge last week ruled that he cannot appear on the ballot in New York because his claim of residency in the state was a “sham.”

Kennedy is appealing that ruling, but at the same time is fighting efforts in the key swing states of Georgia and Pennsylvania, as well as several other states, to remove him from ballots there.