Donald Trump appoints Robert Kennedy Jr to presidential transition team

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Donald Trump has tapped Robert F Kennedy Jr, his onetime campaign rival, and Tulsi Gabbard, a former congresswoman from Hawaii, to serve on his presidential transition team, after the two ex-Democrats endorsed him in the race for the White House. 

Trump’s embrace of Kennedy and Gabbard comes as he is struggling to respond to Kamala Harris’s entry into the presidential race last month, which has recast the contest and erased his previous polling advantage heading into the last two months of the campaign. 

While the Trump campaign cast the appointments as a sign of the Republican’s cross-party appeal, the two are more known for being on the fringe of American politics, rather than in tune with the moderate swing voters that are likely to decide the November election.

Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist, had been running as an independent until Friday, when he dropped out of the contest and endorsed Trump. The son of the late attorney-general Robert Kennedy and a scion of the powerful Democratic political dynasty, he had been rapidly losing support after Harris replaced President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket.

Gabbard ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, campaigning from the far left of the party. But she abandoned the party two years later and is now better known for her sympathetic views of Vladimir Putin’s leadership in Russia, having defended his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the Syrian regime under Bashar al-Assad. She is expected to play a role in preparing Trump for the televised debate against Harris in Philadelphia on September 10.

The Trump campaign, which has reportedly named both “honorary co-chairs” of the transition team, did not specify what roles the two would play. Transition teams traditionally play a critical role in making early personnel and policy decisions for an incoming presidential administration.

“We look forward to having their powerful voices on the team as we work to restore America’s greatness,” said Brian Hughes, a senior adviser to Trump.