Other folks are zeroing in on the part of the Donald Trump–Robert F. Kennedy Jr. phone call in which Trump goes nuclear on vaccinations.
To me, the bigger story is, if it wasn’t obvious that Trump and Kennedy are working together, it is now.
“I would love you to do stuff, and I think it would be so good for you and so big for you,” Trump told Kennedy on the call, which was recorded by an in-house videographer on the Kennedy campaign, and released on the socials by Kennedy’s son, Bobby Kennedy III, who indicated that he went public with the contents of the call because he isn’t a fan of Trump’s choice for VP, JD Vance.
Kennedy III referred to Vance in a social media post as “JD ‘fire all the unvaccinated nurses’ Vance,” bringing up a comment that Vance, now an Ohio senator, made at the height of the COVID pandemic, back when Vance was still just a run-of-the-mill Never Trumper.
Kennedy Jr., for his part, said in a statement that he was “mortified” that the audio of the call with Trump was made public.
You undoubtedly already know why. Kennedy has been doing a half-decent job pretending to be a third-party alternative to Trump and Joe Biden, though it has long since been public knowledge that Trump has reached out to Kennedy about the guy with the family name serving in his administration should he win in November.
Then it emerged on Monday that Trump and Kennedy met in Milwaukee, the site of the Republican National Convention, to discuss the possibility of Kennedy giving his endorsement to Trump.
A Kennedy campaign spokesperson told Politico that Kennedy does not plan to drop out of the race, with a line about how Kennedy is “is the only pro-environment, pro-choice, anti-war candidate who beats Donald Trump in head-to-head polls.”
Kennedy is currently at 9.1 percent in the FiveThirtyEight.com national polling average, a distant third to Trump (at 42.4 percent) and Biden (40.4 percent).
Trump, being Trump, is already measuring the drapes in the Oval Office.
“We’re going to win. We’re way ahead of the guy,” Trump told Kennedy on the call.