Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former President Donald Trump. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images, Bill Pugliano/Getty Images hide caption
toggle caption
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images, Bill Pugliano/Getty Images
For more updates from the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, head to theNPR Network's live updates page.
A leaked video of a phone call between independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Donald Trump shows the former president expressing doubt about vaccines and recounting the attempt on his life and his subsequent phone call with President Biden.
Kennedy's son, Bobby Kennedy III, appears to have posted the nearly two-minute clip on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday morning. Kennedy's son has since deleted his post, but not before several other accounts reposted the video, which he said was taken on Sunday, the day after the attempted assassination of Trump.
— End Tribalism in Politics (@EndTribalism) July 16, 2024Trump after the assassination attempt discussed how he agrees with RFK Jr. on vaccines:
“I agree with you, man. Something's wrong with that whole system, and it's the doctors you find.
Remember I said I want to do small doses. Small doses. When you feed a baby, Bobby, a… pic.twitter.com/gDpYUuNTjQ
Kennedy has centered his political campaign on a conspiratorial view of the world, including promoting the misleading claim that vaccines are harmful. Trump, on the other hand, oversaw the initial U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the federal government's development of the first vaccines against the coronavirus that causes the disease COVID-19.
The video shows Kennedy standing in a room with an American flag while holding up an iPhone and listening intently as Trump talks on speakerphone.
As the recording starts, Trump can be heard saying: "I agree with you, man. Something's wrong with that whole system, and it's the doctors you find."
"Remember I said, 'I want to do small doses. Small doses,'" Trump added, echoing childhood vaccine-related comments he made on the debate stage in 2015.
"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 referenced previous such conversations with Kennedy — against whom he has regularly leveled personal attacks this election season — saying, "You and I talked about that a long time ago." Kennedy said, "Yup" — the only time he spoke in the video.
Trump also appeared to appeal to Kennedy, though it's unclear for what exactly. "I would love you to do something," Trump said, without offering further context. "And I think it'll be so good for you and so big for you. And we're going to win."
Trump and Kennedy met in Milwaukee on Monday, hours before Trump officially became the Republican presidential nominee. The meeting sparked plenty of rumors, which Kennedy sought to quell in an X post later that day.
Loading...
"Our main topic was national unity, and I hope to meet with Democratic leaders about that as well," he wrote. "No, I am not dropping out of the race."
The Biden administration announced on Monday that Biden had directed the U.S. Secret Service to provide protection to Kennedy in light of the attempt on Trump's life, something Trump also urged in social media posts that day.
Trump also talked about his near-death experience in the phone call with Kennedy, saying the bullet felt "like the world's largest mosquito."
"It was a, what do they call that, an AR-15 or something — that's a big gun," added Trump, who made his first public appearance at the convention on Monday night with a large white bandage covering his ear.
Trump also recounted his phone call with Biden after the shooting, saying, "It was very nice, actually."
He said he told the president that he had turned his head at the right time at the rally while showing a chart about immigration numbers, adding: "I didn't have to tell him the chart was about all the people pouring into our country."
The video started circulating on social media on Tuesday morning, prompting Kennedy to apologize in an X post.
"When President Trump called me I was taping with an in-house videographer," he wrote. "I should have ordered the videographer to stop recording immediately. I am mortified that this was posted. I apologize to the president."
Elements of this reporting originally appeared as part of the NPR Network'slive coverage of the RNC.
