Donald Trump has reportedly added two of his recent endorsees as advisers on a potential second presidential term: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard.
Kennedy broke the news himself during an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s podcast that was released Monday. “I’m working with the campaign. We’re working on policy issues together. I’ve been asked to go onto the transition team to help pick the people who will be running the government, and I’m looking forward to that,” he said.
Brian Hughes, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, officially confirmed the staffing news on Tuesday in a statement. “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,” he said, per CBS News. “We look forward to having their powerful voices on the team as we work to restore America’s greatness.”
Kennedy, who first launched his conspiracy-laden presidential campaign in 2023, initially sought the Democratic nomination but later ran as an independent candidate. Although Kennedy has criticized Trump at times in the past, his Friday endorsement in Arizona appeared inevitable as his campaign lagged in the polls and faced ballot challenges in multiple states. “These are the principled causes that persuaded me to leave the Democratic Party and run as an independent and now to throw my support to President Trump. The causes were: free speech, the war in Ukraine, and the war on our children,” he said during the press conference where he suspended his campaign.
Gabbard threw her support behind Trump on Monday, joining him on the campaign trail in the key battleground state of Michigan. “This administration has us facing multiple wars on multiple fronts and regions around the world, and closer to the brink of nuclear war than we ever have been before,” she said, per USA Today. “This is one of the main reasons why I’m committed to doing all that I can to send President Trump back to the White House.”
The former Hawaii congresswoman first came to prominence in 2016 after she resigned from her role of vice-chair of the Democratic National Committee to endorse Bernie Sanders for president. After an unsuccessful run for president in 2020, Gabbard remained at odds with the Democratic Party, and her views became increasingly aligned with the Trumpist faction of the GOP. She would go to announce she was leaving the Democratic Party in 2022 on social media, denouncing it as an “elitist cabal of warmongers.”
Kennedy and Gabbard will join Trump’s running mate, Senator J.D. Vance, as well as his eldest sons Donald Jr. and Eric as honorary co-chairs of the transition team. The Trump campaign previously announced that top donors Linda McMahon and Howard Lutnick will serve as chairs of the team.
The Harris transition team is coming together as well. NBC News reported last week that the campaign had selected Yohannes Abraham, the current U.S. ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, to play a key role on the team. Covington & Burling, LLP, the law firm of former U.S. attorney general Eric Holder, which assisted in the vice-presidential vetting process, will also assist the transition process, per the Associated Press.
