Now, another candidate is in the hot seat.
The tumultuous 2024 presidential campaign took another bizarre turn Tuesday that had independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. apologizing after a dirty move against former President Donald Trump.
And it has the RFK Jr. camp scrambling.
Kennedy’s son, Bobby Kennedy III, used the social media platform X to post a recording of what was supposed to be a private conversation between his father and Trump on Sunday, the day after Trump barely survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, and the day before Trump announced Republican Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate.
For context, here is the now deleted post that includes the phone call between Robert F Kennedy & Donald Trump: https://t.co/CWnrAM00YO pic.twitter.com/bhEiWnpxSu
— (@KaraKryptonite) July 16, 2024
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In the call, Trump shared his concerns about vaccines for very young children, discussed his post-shooting phone call with President Joe Biden, and appeared to urge RFK Jr. to drop out of the race — and possible join Trump’s campaign.
“I would love you to do something,” Trump said in the recording. “And I think it’ll be so good for you and so big for you. And we’re going to win.”
What exactly Trump was referring to isn’t explicit in the portion of the recording that was leaked, but it can be inferred from the context that it involves supporting Trump’s effort.
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What’s crystal clear, though, is that recording what is apparently supposed to be a private conversation is the kind of dirty move that normal Americans find repugnant.
RJK Jr. admitted as much when he issued an apology on social media, claiming the recording was inadvertent.
When President Trump called me I was taping with an in-house videographer. I should have ordered the videographer to stop recording immediately. I am mortified that this was posted. I apologize to the president.
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) July 16, 2024
“When President Trump called me I was taping with an in-house videographer. I should have ordered the videographer to stop recording immediately,” he wrote.
“I am mortified that this was posted. I apologize to the president.”
The part about him being “mortified that this was posted” is probably true. But what’s interesting is that Kennedy never makes the claim that he wasn’t aware that he was being recorded — but that Trump was.
Just his body language alone indicates he knew the camera was running. His monosyllabic answers do, too. Maybe he was doing it for his memoirs. Maybe he was doing it to build up video he could use in the campaign at a later date.
Whatever the reason, it’s not making RFK Jr. look good.
And he’s coming under fire on social media.
As one user wrote: “RFK should drop out of the race now … Unacceptable.”
NEW: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. apologizes after footage was released of his conversation with Donald Trump.
In the footage, Trump described how the bullet felt ripping through his ear and talked about his call with Biden.
“I just turned my head to show the chart And something… pic.twitter.com/jRugGele22
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) July 16, 2024
RFK should drop out of the race now… Unacceptable.
— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) July 16, 2024
What state was RFK Jr. in when this call was recorded?
Some states require two-party consent to record a phone call.
Besides being inexusable on a common courtesy level, this recording might also have been illegal.
— Brick Suit (@Brick_Suit) July 16, 2024
I’m not sure I believe this was accidental.
Regardless … a rookie mistake.
He’s not qualified to be POTUS.— Sheri™ (@FFT1776) July 16, 2024
What’s interesting here to Trump supporters is the only difference between how Trump sounds in what he apparently considered a private conversation and how he sounds at his campaign rallies seems to be a question of volume.
His description of his concerns about vaccines sound like those of a man who’s watched five children through their infancy. (As an aside, note how responsible and productive Trump’s offspring have been in adulthood compared to the Biden clan — and not just Hunter.)
His evident amazement at his own near death comes through loud and clear.
“Something rapped me. It felt like a giant, like the world’s largest mosquito. And it was … It was a bullet. What did they call that? An AR-15 or something? That was a big gun. Those are pretty tough guns, right?”
He sounds like a normal person, in other words.
The only one who looks bad here is Kennedy, who maintains a stoic expression, clearly aware of the camera recording — though one would think a guy with Kennedy’s family history might be more empathetic when it comes to assassinations.
Kennedy comes across as exactly the kind of calculating politician who’s listening to a man describe a near-death experience but who’s thinking of nothing other than how it might or might not benefit his own political future.
Whatever Bobby Kennedy III thought he was going to accomplish by leaking the video, unless it was to make his father look the kind of snake-in-the-grass politician normal people loathe, it was a failure.
