Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. held talks this month with former president Donald Trump about endorsing his campaign and taking 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 rally on July 13, did not result in an agreement amid concerns in Trump’s orbit about the complications about promising a job in exchange for a political endorsement, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.
“All I will say to you is I am willing to talk to anybody from either political party who wants to talk about children’s health and how to end the chronic disease epidemic,” Kennedy said Monday in an interview, adding that Trump has been more open to him than the Democratic National Committee. “I have a lot of respect for president Trump for reaching out to me. Nobody from the DNC, high or low, has ever reached out to me in 18 months. Instead they have allocated millions to try to disrupt my campaign.”
Kennedy said he planned to continue his campaign. “We are in it to win it,” he said.
A person familiar with the conversations said a person who knows both men reached out to Kennedy Saturday night, hours after the assassination attempt on Trump, after Kennedy had done a series of cable news appearances to talk about the attack. Kennedy said he was open to speaking with Trump.
Kennedy then received a group text that included a phone number used by Trump, prompting a phone call between the two men later that night after Trump had returned to his Bedminster, N.J., home, the person said.
Kennedy and Trump agreed to meet in person in Milwaukee early last week during the Republican National Convention. Trump has been intrigued by Kennedy even as he publicly criticized him, the people familiar with the matter said.
Their discussions included possible jobs that Kennedy could be given in a second Trump administration, either at the Cabinet level or posts that do not require Senate confirmation. The discussion also included Kennedy potentially leaving the race and endorsing Trump, the people said.
The discussions surprised Trump and his aides. But there were concerns among some Trump advisers that Kennedy — a fervent critic of vaccines — would not be appropriate in such a job and that such an agreement could be problematic, the people said. Two of these people did not rule out the campaign eventually wanting Kennedy in the fold or potentially giving him a job in the administration if Trump wins.
The conversations ended without any definitive conclusion, the people said.
“President Trump met with RFK and they had a conversation about the issues just as he does regularly with important figures in business and politics because they all recognize he will be the next president of the United States,’ said Danielle Alvarez, a Trump spokeswoman.
Trump and Kennedy’s private effort to cut a deal with each other contrasts with Kennedy’s public opposition to a second term for Trump or President Biden, who on Sunday bowed out of the presidential race and endorsed Vice President Harris.
In comments from Massachusetts on Sunday, Kennedy denounced the “corporate” leaders that Trump included in his administration in 2017, along with similar people that Trump may consider to hire for a second term.
“This is the swamp. These are swamp creatures,” Kennedy said. “And his pick as vice president is a salute to the CIA, to the intelligence community and to 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 an April CNN interview that “there are many things President Trump has done that are appalling.”
“With the lockdown, the mask mandates, the travel restrictions, President Trump presided over the greatest restriction on individual liberties this country has ever known,” Kennedy said in May at a Libertarian Party meeting.
Trump has also attacked Kennedy publicly, calling him a “Democrat ‘Plant’” and a “Radical Left Liberal.’
Kennedy is polling below 15 percent in most five-way surveys of the presidential contest that includes both Trump and Biden, a cutoff that contributed to his failure to qualify for the CNN presidential debate in June.
Public polls have shown Kennedy’s campaign currently takes votes from both Biden and Trump in roughly equal measures. A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll this month found 9 percent of registered voters saying they supported Kennedy in a five-way 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 if Kennedy would help Biden or him in the presidential contest. He also posed the question for months if he should pick Kennedy as his vice president. “Trump-Kennedy,” he would say, has a nice ring to it. But many of his advisers were against the idea and Trump ended up choosing Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate last week.
One call last week between Kennedy and Trump was recorded by a videographer team following Kennedy, with portions posted online. In one excerpt, Trump says he shares Kennedy’s concerns that children have been harmed by the current mandated schedule of vaccines, which has been found safe and effective by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health authorities
“I agree with you, man. Something’s wrong with that whole system,” Trump said to Kennedy, who has the call on speakerphone.
“I want to do small doses, small doses,” Trump tells Kennedy. “Remember, I said you want to do small doses. Small doses. 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 has argued as far back as 2014 that children are being harmed by “1 massive dose’ — which is not the way that commonly mandated vaccines are administered — and that vaccines may contribute to autism. The CDC and other health authorities have studied the claim and concluded that “vaccines do not cause autism,” and that the current vaccination schedule is safe. Kennedy has continued to argue that the current science is not conclusive, that more testing is required and that there is a link between vaccines and a rise in chronic diseases like autism.
Later during last week’s call, Trump encouraged Kennedy to “do something,” though it is not clear from the excerpt what they are specifically discussing.
‘I would love you to do something,” Trump said. “And I think it would be so good for you. And so big for you. And we’re going to win. We’re going to win. We’re way ahead of the guy.”
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 in 2016 with the then-president-elect in Trump Tower in Manhattan to discuss vaccine safety. “He asked me to chair a commission on vaccine safety. . . and scientific integrity,” Kennedy said after the meeting. The role never materialized, and Kennedy later blamed other officials in the Trump administration for shifting course.