By Kanishka Singh and Katharine Jackson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Donald Trump has added former White House hopefuls Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard to his transition team if he wins November’s U.S. presidential election, his campaign said on Tuesday.
Kennedy and Gabbard hail from outside the Republican party sphere where former President Trump draws most of his support.
“As President Trump’s broad coalition of supporters and endorsers expands across partisan lines, we are proud that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard have been added to the Trump/Vance Transition team,” Trump campaign senior advisor Brian Hughes said in a statement.
Kennedy, 70, an environmental lawyer, anti-vaccine activist and descendent of a Democratic political dynasty, was running as an independent presidential candidate until he suspended his campaign last week and endorsed Trump. He joined the race for the White House as a Democratic challenger to Biden before switching to run as an independent.
A former Democratic congresswoman, Gabbard ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020. She left the party in 2022 to become an independent. Increasingly critical of Biden and his administration, she is now popular among conservatives, frequently appearing as a guest on far-right TV and radio shows.
In an interview posted on X on Monday, Kennedy told former Fox News host Tucker Carlson he had been asked to join Trump’s transition team “to help pick the people who will be running the government.”
In exchange for endorsing Trump, Kennedy is hoping for a job in a potential Trump administration, a super PAC supporting Kennedy told Reuters last week.
Strategists have said it was unclear how Kennedy’s endorsement would help Trump, who is in a tight contest with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
Voter interest in Kennedy waned this summer as Trump survived an assassination attempt and Biden passed the campaign torch to Harris.
(Reporting by Katharine Jackson and Kanishka Singh; Editing by Rod Nickel)
