A segment of a phone call between independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Donald Trump was leaked on social media early Tuesday, revealing just how much the two men support each other, despite Kennedy’s repeated insistence that he wants to offer voters a different option.
In one section, Trump can be heard tying vaccines to autism.
“When you feed a baby, Bobby, a vaccination that is like 38 different vaccines, and it looks like it’s meant for a horse, not a … you know, 10-pound or 20-pound baby,” Trump said on the call. “And then you see the baby all of a sudden starting to change radically. I’ve seen it too many times. And then you hear that it doesn’t have an impact, right? But you and I talked about that a long time ago.”
Trump appeared to suggest to Kennedy that the two should combine their efforts in some way, telling Kennedy that doing so would be “so good” and “so big” for the independent candidate. At one point, Trump said, “We’re gonna win.”
“Yeah,” Kennedy agreed.
Trump can also be heard describing the moment he was struck by a bullet on Friday at his Pennsylvania rally.
“I just turned my head to show the chart,” Trump said on the call. “And something rapped me. It felt like a giant … like the world’s largest mosquito. And it was. It was a bullet going around. You know, what do they call that, an AR-15 or something? That was a big gun. That was a pretty tough gun, right?”
In a since-deleted post, the apparent originator of the leak—Kennedy’s son, Bobby Kennedy III—wrote that “these sorts of conversations should be had in public.”
“Here’s Trump giving his real opinion to my dad about vaccinating kids—this was the day after the assassination attempt,” the younger Kennedy wrote. “This is not a cheapfake or somebody doing a Trump voice. This is the real deal.”
Kennedy’s campaign has since come out and apologized for the leak, claiming that he had erred by failing to stop a “videographer” from filming him after Trump rang.
“I should have ordered the videographer to stop recording immediately,” Kennedy wrote on X (formerly Twitter.) “I am mortified that this was posted. I apologize to the president.”
Watch the full clip of the call below:
A video of Trump’s call with RFK Jr. was leaked - Trump talks about vaccines, tells RFK Jr. doing something with him would be “big,” mentioned his call with Biden and said the bullet was like “the world’s largest mosquito.”
— Meridith McGraw (@meridithmcgraw) July 16, 2024
RFK Jr apologized for the leak. pic.twitter.com/Z6DQ955P6W
