An adviser to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is stepping down from her role in his campaign, criticizing an “increasingly hateful and divisive atmosphere” that “no longer aligns” with her values.
Angela Stanton King, the campaign’s Black voter outreach director and a key figure in the drama surrounding Kennedy’s shifting position on abortion, said in a statement posted on X that she had “decided to step away from the political theatre.” Stanton King said she would nevertheless “continue to advise RFK Jr. on key community issues.”
Stanton King later told The New York Times she had “switched to an informal role” but did not elaborate on the reasons for the switch beyond making reference to her X post. She also confirmed to CNN that she is leaving her current role in the campaign but plans to continue informally advising Kennedy on certain issues.
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On Wednesday, she wrote in another post on the site that reports suggesting she had “been let go” from the campaign “for ANY reason are 100% ABSOLUTELY FALSE.”
Her departure comes after Kennedy walked back comments he made on a podcast saying he opposed government limits on abortion and that he supported keeping terminations legal “even if it’s full term.” His remarks appeared to contradict what his running mate, Nicole Shanahan, said was her understanding of his position, and he ultimately released a statement saying he did support legal restrictions after all.
That clarification came after Stanton King, an anti-abortion activist, put out a video saying people on Kennedy’s campaign had “all come to the agreement that late-term abortion is not something that this campaign is going to support.”
Before joining the Kennedy campaign payroll in December, Stanton King had previously made an unsuccessful bid for a House seat in 2020 running as a Republican in Georgia. Her race for Congress came just weeks after then-President Donald Trump pardoned her following a 2004 conviction for her part in a car theft conspiracy.
During her congressional run, Stanton King expressed belief in a QAnon-related conspiracy theory and, in 2021, she implied that she backed the idea of a military coup in the U.S. in a tweet which was later deleted.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect that Stanton King is stepping away from her role in the RFK Jr. campaign but plans to continue informally advising the candidate on certain issues. It has also been updated to clarify that Stanton King has previously expressed belief in a QAnon-related conspiracy theory and that she implied in a tweet that was later deleted that she backed the idea of a military coup in the U.S.
