Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. held talks this month with former President Donald Trump about endorsing his campaign and accepting a job in a second Trump administration overseeing a portfolio of health and medical issues, according to four people familiar with the matter.
The discussions, which began hours after the attempted assassination of Trump at a July 13 rally, failed to result in a deal amid concerns in Trump’s orbit about the complications of promising a job in exchange for a political endorsement, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.
“The only thing I will tell you is that I am willing to talk to either political party that wants to talk about children’s health and how to end the chronic disease epidemic,” Kennedy said in an interview Monday, adding that Trump has been more open with him than the Democratic National Committee. “I have a lot of respect for President Trump for reaching out to me. No one from the DNC, high or low, has reached out to me in 18 months. Instead, they have spent millions to try to disrupt my campaign.”
Kennedy said he planned to continue his campaign. “We are here to win,” he said.
A person familiar with the conversations said Kennedy was contacted by a person who knows both men hours after the attempted assassination of Trump, after Kennedy had made a few appearances on cable news to discuss the attack. Kennedy said he was willing to talk to Trump.
Kennedy then received a group text message from former JOBsNews host Tucker Carlson that included a phone number used by Trump, according to two people familiar with the events. That prompted a phone call between Trump and Kennedy later that evening, after Trump had returned to his home in Bedminster, New Jersey, the person said. Carlson declined to comment.
Kennedy and Trump agreed to meet in person in Milwaukee early last week during the Republican National Convention. Trump has been intrigued by Kennedy, though he has publicly criticized him, the people familiar with the matter said.
The conversations included possible positions Kennedy could fill in a second Trump administration, either at the Cabinet level or in positions that do not require Senate confirmation. The discussion also included the possibility of Kennedy dropping out of the race and supporting Trump, the people said.
The talks surprised Trump and his advisers, but some Trump advisers feared that Kennedy, a vocal critic of vaccines, was not the right fit for the job and that such a deal could be problematic, the people said. Two of these people did not rule out the campaign eventually wanting Kennedy on the team or potentially giving him a job in the administration if Trump wins.
The talks ended without any definitive conclusion, the people said.
“President Trump met with RFK and discussed these issues as he regularly does with senior figures in business and politics because they all recognize that he will be the next president of the United States,” said Danielle Alvarez, a Trump spokeswoman.
Trump and Kennedy’s private effort to reach an agreement between them stands in contrast to Kennedy’s public opposition to a second term for Trump or President Biden, who on Sunday dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Vice President Harris.
In remarks from Massachusetts on Sunday, Kennedy denounced the “corporate” leaders Trump brought into his administration in 2017, along with similar people Trump might consider hiring in a second term.
“This is a swamp. These are creatures of the swamp,” Kennedy said. “And his election as vice president is a tribute to the CIA, the intelligence community and the military industrial complex.”
Kennedy has previously called Trump’s suggestion that he would use the Justice Department to punish political opponents “reprehensible,” adding in a JOBsNews interview in April that “there are many things that President Trump has done that are atrocious.”
“With lockdowns, mask mandates and travel restrictions, President Trump presided over the greatest restriction on individual liberties this country has ever known,” Kennedy said at a Libertarian Party meeting in May.
Trump has also publicly attacked Kennedy, calling him “a Democratic ‘outsider’” and a “radical left-wing liberal.”
Kennedy is polling less than 15 percent in most five-way polls that include both Trump and Biden, a percentage that contributed to his failure to qualify for the JOBsNews presidential debate in June.
Public polls have shown Kennedy’s campaign taking votes from Biden and Trump in roughly equal proportions. A Washington Post-JOBsNews-Ipsos poll this month found that 9 percent of registered voters say they support Kennedy in a five-candidate race that also included the Green Party’s Jill Stein and independent candidate Cornel West. When forced to choose between Biden and Trump, 31 percent of voters who supported Kennedy chose Trump, while 23 percent chose Biden.
Trump has repeatedly asked campaign advisers, guests at his Mar-a-Lago Club and others whether Kennedy would help Biden or him in the presidential race. He also raised the question for months of whether he should choose Kennedy as his vice president. “Trump-Kennedy,” he would say, sounds good. But many of his advisers balked at the idea, and Trump ended up choosing Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate last week.
Last week, a team of videographers following Kennedy recorded a phone call between Kennedy and Trump, and excerpts of it were posted online. In one excerpt, Trump said he shares Kennedy’s concerns that children have been harmed by the mandatory vaccine schedule, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health authorities have determined is safe and effective.
“I agree with you, man. There’s something wrong with that whole system,” Trump told Kennedy, who was on speakerphone.
“I want to do small doses, small doses,” Trump told Kennedy. “Remember, I said I wanted to do small doses. Small doses. When you feed a baby, Bobby, a vaccine that’s like 38 different vaccines, and it looks like it’s meant for a horse, not a 10- or 20-pound baby.”
Triumph He has argued since 2014 that children are being harmed by “massive dosing” — which is not how commonly mandated vaccines are administered — and that vaccines may contribute to autism. CDC and other health authorities I have studied the claim and concluded that “vaccines do not cause autism” and that The current vaccination schedule is sureKennedy has continued to argue that the science is inconclusive, that more evidence is needed and that there is a link between vaccines and an increase in disorders such as autism.
Later during last week’s call, Trump encouraged Kennedy to “do something,” though it’s not clear from the excerpt what they were discussing specifically.
“I would love for you to do something,” Trump said. “And I think it would be very good for you. And very important for you. And we’re going to win. We’re going to win. We’re way ahead of him.”
Kennedy later apologized for what he said was a staff decision to post the video of the private phone call online. “I am mortified that this was posted,” Kennedy wrote on social media. “I apologize to the president.”
Kennedy met with the then-president-elect at Trump Tower in Manhattan in 2016 and 2017 to discuss vaccine safety. “He asked me to chair a commission on vaccine safety … and scientific integrity,” Kennedy said. He said after the meetingThe paper never materialized, and Kennedy later blamed other Trump administration officials for changing course.
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