When I Confronted RFK Jr. About Trump
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s backing of the Republican presidential candidate and disloyalty to the Democrats, the party his family has been so closely identified with for decades, came on the 85th anniversary of one of history’s most shocking acts of backstabbing. But the astute observer could see Kennedy’s Benedict Arnold-like perfidy coming from a mile away.
A year ago, during a press opportunity at a rally, I asked RFK Jr. a question that clearly struck a nerve with the putative presidential contender. So much so that after he answered my inquiry and the news conference moved on to other reporters, he actually reversed course during the questioning and returned to my inquiry.
I had attended what was billed as a “press conference” at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills on August 3, 2023, because, as a journalist, I have learned that first-hand coverage is the best form of reportage. Kennedy had been disparaged and dismissed as a kooky conspiracy theorist and anti-vaxxer by MSM, but I wanted to hear for myself what RFK Jr. had to say. So, after receiving a “Media Advisory” from the campaign for Kennedy—who at that time was running for the White House as a Democrat—I attended the event. While RFK Jr. was widely derided as a wacky spoiler, he contended he was a fresh alternative for “double haters” who disdained the Biden-Trump rematch, a “free-speech” champion and opponent of “endless wars” in the supposedly hallowed tradition of his slain father and uncle; to make up my own mind, I accepted the invitation to the candidate’s mass meeting.
At their best the Kennedy brothers had a reformist aura, burnished by measures such as President Kennedy’s June 1963 commencement speech at American University entitled “A Strategy of Peace” that, among other things, called for détente with the Soviet Union and a nuclear test ban treaty, which would have greatly relaxed tensions during the Cold War. When Robert F. Kennedy Sr. was a U.S. senator and presidential aspirant, he toured poverty-stricken Appalachia in February 1968 and a month later, during the United Farm Workers’ grape boycott, “Bobby” visited Latino labor leader Cesar Chávez at Delano, California, on the day Chávez ended his 25-day fast, which called attention to the conditions of migrant workers and their unionization drive for UFW recognition.
I went with great anticipation to the Saban Theatre to hear what RFK Jr., who purported himself to be the scion of this legendary political dynasty, stood for, to get it directly from the proverbial horse’s mouth. What a colossal letdown this experience was—it was more like the horse’s ass. In addition to booster speeches from some of RFK Jr.’s flacks and hacks, the event consisted mostly of the world premiere of a truly cringeworthy 19-minute video ominously entitled Midnight at the Border and his speaking (in that strangely disconcerting voice which sounds like the squawks of a deeply distressed trauma victim) about the short’s subject.
And what was the main topic of Midnight at the Border? Whereas his father had rallied support for Hispanic workers when he went to Delano, Kennedy the Lesser traveled down to the Arizona-California border with Mexico. And what did the great-grandson of a family rather famously descended from Irish immigrants have to say about his trip to Yuma? I won’t belabor the point—to make a long story short, RFK Jr. attacked the migrants.
This was the “alternative”—the new politics—that the presidential hopeful was hopelessly offering? The same old thing, the tired immigrant-bashing we had been hearing non-stop for years spewed—albeit more venomously—from the foul mouth of Donald Trump. It was clear to me that RFK Jr. was really running as a “Trump-lite” candidate, which made me question what his endgame really was. When the short was over and he was finished speechifying, the floor was opened for questions from the press—not from Kennedy’s disappointed acolytes, who were seated toward the front of the Saban Theatre, while members of the media had been relegated further back in the auditorium. I walked up to a microphone placed roughly in the middle of the 874-seat venue and, following some colleagues, I asked:
“It seems…you’re making border issues and migration a cornerstone of your campaign which, in some ways, is similar to what Trump did in 2016. Rumors have been bandied about in media that you may end up running on a ticket with Donald Trump as his vice president. What is your response to those rumors? And do you definitively say you will never run on a ticket for the White House with Donald Trump” (who, BTW, was at that exact moment en route to a Washington, D.C., courthouse to be federally indicted for attempting to overturn the 2020 election).
In his raspy voice RFK Jr. replied: “I experience a lot of the stuff repeated in the mainstream news, the corporate news, as what I’d call ‘conspiracy theories.’” This jibe prompted laughter and applause from supporters, considering that Kennedy Jr. is widely ridiculed by MSM as a fringe figure spouting controversial hypotheses about vaccines, etc. He continued: “There’s an entire industry made up of conspiracy theorists and a direct answer to your question: No, I will not be Donald Trump’s vice president.”
As the press conference continued, following the next reporter’s inquiry, Kennedy returned to my question, saying: “Let me… add an addendum to the previous question, the previous questioner started out with an observation that I—that the border was some sort of Trump issue… It should not be a partisan issue. [Applause.]…I went down to the border feeling that Trump made a mistake on the wall. But people need to be able to recalibrate their worldview when they’re confronted with evidence…When I’m president, what I’m going to do is bring in Republicans and Democrats, get the best Republican ideas and the best Democratic ideas and put everything on the table…[applause] and avoid the ideological pettiness that has been so damaging to our country. What we’re seeing on the border today is the outcome of that…and not branding Republican issue or Democrat issue, just say let’s deal with this, it’s an existential threat to our country…”
Well, after experiencing Kennedy up close and personal, upon being confronted with this “evidence,” I “recalibrated” my “worldview.” Whereas beforehand I had been willing to accept RFK Jr. on his own terms as an alleged “alternative” to establishment candidates, after encountering him for about 90-plus minutes, I came to my own conclusion that he was running as a Trump-wannabe, and lost all interest in him and his candidacy. Even after he withdrew from the Democratic Party primaries and re-tossed his hat into the ring as an independent candidate, I did not try to cover his run for the White House, realizing that, unlike the Cornel West/Melina Abdullah independent campaign, it was not a serious challenge to the two-party system which has a stranglehold over American democracy.
I was not surprised when Kennedy dropped—or “suspended”—his ill-advised presidential bid on August 23 and kissed Trump’s ring at a rally in Arizona (the same state where RFK Jr. had appeared in his anti-immigration video). A little more than a year after Kennedy insisted he would not be Trump’s running mate, there he was, trying to leverage whatever political capital (if any) his campaign had accumulated to win a cabinet post or high-level position in a second Trump administration (call it “Sham-a-lot”) if he takes power again, in exchange for an endorsement. It is notable that Kennedy’s turn toward Trump came after the Democrats replaced Biden at the top of their ticket with V.P. Kamala Harris, when Kennedy’s candidacy threatened to take more votes from the Republicans than the Democratic Party.
Bobby the Judas also did it the day after the DNC – which had received higher ratings than the Republican National Convention and was widely hailed by the punditocracy – as part of an effort to steal the spotlight from the Harris campaign and refocus it on Trump, who with Biden’s departure had suddenly become the race’s old man. (BTW, RFK Jr. is about a decade older than both Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz.)
In throwing his support behind Trump, RFK Jr. showed that he is indeed in line with certain aspects of the Kennedy legacy. Early in his uncle’s presidency, JFK didn’t stop the CIA plot hatched under the Eisenhower administration to invade revolutionary Cuba, allowing 1961’s Bay of Pigs debacle to go forward (arguably triggering the Cuban Missile Crisis the following year). In 1953, RFK Sr. served as assistant counsel to the Senate committee chaired by the notorious Red Scare fanatic Sen. Joe McCarthy (like Trump, Bobby also worked with the odious Roy Cohn). As U.S. Attorney General, RFK Sr. played a major role in “Operation Mongoose,” a large-scale terrorist operation that included efforts to enlist the mafia to assassinate Fidel Castro.
Kennedy has a background as an environmentalist, while Trump passed many laws to gut environmental regulations and considers climate change to be a hoax. He was a skeptic of the COVID-19 vaccines and questioned their safety, while Trump spurred development of the Covid vaccine through Operation Warp Speed (the craziest thing about the credit-hungry Trump is that he does not publicly take credit for the only good thing in my opinion that he ever did).
Explaining his decision to side with Trump, RFK Jr. rather hilariously said he did so to oppose “vitriol,” “polarization” and “censorship.” But what major U.S. political figure has been more vitriolic and polarizing than Trump (who can dish it out, but can’t take it), an inciter of violence and NRA ass-kisser? How transparently and blatantly bizarre, especially coming from someone whose own father and uncle were felled by politically motivated gun violence.
As for Kennedy’s opposition to censorship, he is—laughably—lauding the thin-skinned Trump as a defender of free speech, despite his relentless attacks on the news media as “the enemy of the people,” his attempts to quash the publication of books critical of him by former associates Michael Cohen and John Bolton, and his lashing out at podcaster Joe Rogan after he had praised RFK Jr. on his program. Furthermore, the notoriously litigious Trump has been attempting to block U.S. distribution of the new movie about him, The Apprentice. (Hey Bobby, tell Donald this film critic wants to review The Apprentice!) Ad infinitum.
Press reports claim that the Democratic presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, refused to discuss the same endorsement deal with RFK Jr., and after months of trading barbs and insults with Trump, he threw his lot in with the GOP contender. It was interesting watching the Arizona endorsement live on C-SPAN, with Trump’s thinly veiled digs at the former Democrat. It reminded me of the famous “Rendezvous” cartoon by David Low after the Non-Aggression Pact between Nazi Germany and the USSR was announced, depicting Hitler and Stalin cordially doffing their caps and bowing to one another, saying: “The scum of the Earth, I believe,” and the Soviet leader replying: “The bloody assassin of the workers, I presume?” Incidentally, the Nazi-Soviet Pact was signed on another August 23, in 1939.
Of course, the defection to the GOP of a son of one of the nation’s leading Democratic clans on the precise 85th anniversary of the Hitler-Stalin Pact is another act of historic treachery. In particular, it is a libel that smears the much-ballyhooed Kennedy “Camelot” legacy. Kerry Kennedy and other siblings reacted to their brother’s decision in an open letter, insisting: “Bobby’s decision to endorse Trump today is a betrayal of the values that our father and family hold most dear.”
Given Trump and Kennedy’s records of fidelity, who knows how long these lovebirds will stay together in their ill-starred marriage of convenience? In any case, Bobby and Donald do have some things in common (besides immigrant bashing): They were both born as charter members of the capitalist class, heirs from elite families, accustomed to power and wealth and are accused of sexual misbehavior. Both have strange speaking styles, and seem to live in sheer terror that five minutes will pass by wherein they are not the center of attention. Both have ties to Roy Cohn. And both have raised weirdness to the level of a high art form. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Donald J. Trump are birds of a feather—and birds of a feather go together.
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About the Author
Ed Rampell is an L.A.-based film historian and critic who also reviews culture, foreign affairs and current events.
Ed can be reached at edrampel@gte.net.
What Garbage. Did you forget to mention that The DNCIA FORCED RFK Jr. to leave the party, by essentially overseeing a coronation of Genocide Joe Biden, and now Kop-Mala Harris? Who writes Kerry Kennedy’s paychecks.
There’s NOTHING Controversial about investigating the dangers of vaccines and vaccine injuries.
I hope Narc Couper’s protegée, Mr. Rampell, will stay “up to date” on his Experimental Synthetic ModRNA Gene Therapy Injections – until they work as they were designed-to, by the Pentagon and CIA’s BioWarfare programs.