A court filing preceded that of Robert F. Kennedy.
In Pennsylvania, the independent candidate said he planned to endorse the Republican candidate, former President Donald Trump, according to the Associated Press.
The news came as reporters waited for the candidate to speak Friday in Phoenix, where RFK Jr. was expected to drop out of the race after withdrawing from the Arizona ballot Thursday night.
Trump will speak in nearby Glendale later on Friday and his campaign announced that a “special guest” would join him on stage.
That guest is believed to have been Kennedy, as Trump has sought the independent’s endorsement for weeks.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (left) and his wife Cheryl Hines (right) during the launch of his independent presidential bid in Philadelphia in October. Kennedy is expected to drop out of the race on Friday, but news of his endorsement broke before his event.
Kennedy’s running mate, Nicole Shanahan, raised some doubts Friday about whether that would happen, telling podcast host Adam Carolla that Trump needed to apologize for his response to COVID-19.
“The hesitation we have now in joining forces with Trump is that he has not apologized or said publicly that Operation Warp Speed was my fault, it was a failure and I let it happen,” Shanahan said.
Operation Warp Speed was Trump’s public-private partnership for the rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines.
Trump rightly took credit for Operation Warp Speed, and he and his allies expressed dismay when the fruits of that labor — Pfizer’s announcement that the vaccine prevented more than 90 percent of infections — did not come to light until after Election Day 2020.
Since then, amid rising vaccine skepticism on the political right, Trump has distanced himself from the COVID vaccine.
Shanahan said Trump needed to apologize for the COVID lockdowns and for keeping Dr. Anthony Fauci as a senior adviser as well.
“A lot of things happened under Donald Trump that shouldn’t have happened and can’t happen again,” he told Carolla. “And if we’re going to bet on him – and we haven’t, we haven’t confirmed anything – we need absolute guarantees.”
