Former President Donald Trump plans to name his former rival, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Tulsi Gabbard, a one-time Democrat, as honorary co-chairs of a presidential transition team that will help him select the policies and personnel of any second Trump administration, according to a campaign senior adviser.

Kennedy Speaks on Transition Role

Kennedy, who ended his independent campaign for president and endorsed Trump on Friday, described his transition role briefly in an interview that aired Monday.

“I’ve been asked to go on the transition team, you know, and to help pick the people who will be running the government,” Kennedy told Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, in an interview posted on the social platform X.

Both Kennedy and Gabbard spent most of their public life as progressive Democrats. Only four months ago, Trump was calling Kennedy a “Radical Left Lunatic” who was “far more LIBERAL than anyone running as a Democrat.” Trump allies pushed stories about Kennedy’s record of supporting abortion rights and far-left environmentalism as they tried to make his independent candidacy less appealing to Trump voters.

Gabbard — a former member of Congress who represented Hawaii and left the Democratic Party after her 2020 presidential run — endorsed Trump on Monday and has been helping him with informal debate preparation sessions in recent weeks. Gabbard has rebranded herself as a celebrity among Trump’s base, and she has long been friendly with Trump and was briefly considered as a potential running mate.

It’s unclear what exactly she and Kennedy will do in their transition roles, but they will join Trump’s sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, as well as his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, as honorary chairs of the transition team.

Related Story: Special Counsel Urges Appeals Court to Reinstate Classified Documents Case ...

Trump Campaign Senior Adviser Is ‘Proud’

Brian Hughes, a Trump campaign senior adviser, said they are “proud that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard have been added to the Trump/Vance Transition team. We look forward to having their powerful voices on the team as we work to restore America’s greatness.”

Kennedy and Gabbard did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

Marc Short, a Republican strategist who served as chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence, said the involvement of Kennedy and Gabbard in the Trump transition was a blow to the conservative movement.

“From the convention platform to the transition team, free-market, limited-government and social conservatives have been kicked to the curb,” Short said Tuesday. “Doubling down on big-government populists will not energize turnout among traditional conservatives.”

Related Story: Tulsi Gabbard, Who Ran for 2020 Democratic Nomination, Endorses Trump

When Kennedy announced Friday that he was suspending his campaign and backing Trump, he had said that the former president had “asked to enlist me” in a second Trump administration, later elaborating that his role would involve health care and food and drug policy.

On Monday, Trump told reporters that he had not talked with Kennedy about making him his Health and Human Services secretary, but added that he “knows a lot about the subject and has been very well received by the party.” Advisers close to Trump and Kennedy acknowledge that Kennedy would face an uphill battle to pass Senate confirmation for any job and might be better suited for a role that does not require Senate confirmation.

Kennedy had also discussed a role in the first Trump administration.

In early January 2017, Kennedy met in Trump Tower in New York City with Trump, who was at the time president-elect and had expressed skepticism of vaccines during his campaign. After the meeting, Kennedy told reporters waiting in the lobby of the building that Trump had asked him to chair a “commission on vaccine safety and scientific integrity.”

There was an immediate backlash. Kennedy has a long history of spreading disproved theories imputing harm to childhood vaccines, including falsely linking them to autism. After concerns were raised, Trump’s aides talked Trump out of the idea and the Kennedy vaccine committee never materialized.

Since 2020, Kennedy has gained a significant right-wing following by railing against COVID-19 vaccines and public health bureaucracy, and making sweeping claims of censorship by tech companies that he claims are doing the bidding of Democratic Party leadership.

In the months before his withdrawal, Kennedy’s campaign suffered a series of setbacks and unflattering news stories about Kennedy, including an accusation of sexual assault and a confession that he had left a dead bear cub in Central Park in New York in 2014 because he thought it would be “amusing.” His support in polls, once between 15% and 20%, fell to about 5% by the end of August as the campaign struggled financially.

Related Story: Vance Defends Tariffs, Claims Trump Would Veto a National Abortion Ban

–

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan and Rebecca Davis O’Brien/Uli Seit
c. 2024 The New York Times Company