The independent presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr reportedly held recent talks with Donald Trump about endorsing his campaign for a second presidency and – if successful – taking a job in his administration.
The talks, first reported Monday by the Washington Post, come days after Kennedy publicly apologized for a video posted online that showed part of a private phone call between him and Trump. The clip included Trump sharing his thoughts about childhood vaccines and being in broad agreement with Kennedy, a noted vaccine sceptic. In the video, Trump seemingly invited Kennedy to endorse his campaign.
But the Post reported that it was Kennedy – a Democratic candidate who became independent in October last year – who later sought a post overseeing health and medical issues under any new Trump administration in exchange for his support.
At a meeting in Milwaukee early last week, the outlet said, discussions between the two included possible jobs that Kennedy could be given at the cabinet level – or posts that do not require Senate confirmation. The talks also explored the possibility of Kennedy dropping out and endorsing the former president.
Trump advisers were reportedly concerned that such an agreement could be problematic – but they did not rule out the idea.
The idea surfaced after Kennedy, with about 9% voter approval in the presidential race and both major parties fearing he could win vital independent votes, was denied the opportunity to debate Joe Biden and Trump in June.
That encounter between Trump and the president – who performed poorly – set the stage for the latter man to announce Sunday that he would not seek re-election.
Kennedy told the Post on Monday that Trump campaign had been more open to him than the Democratic party apparatus. His uncle, President John F Kennedy Jr, was assassinated in 1963 and his and father, Senator Robert F Kennedy, was assassinated in 1968.
“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 Jr said, adding that he had “a lot of respect for president Trump for reaching out”.
Kennedy added: “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.”
The reported exchange comes despite Trump’s comments in April when he said Kennedy is “far more LIBERAL than anyone running as a Democrat”. Trump also said Kennedy had been pushed out of the Democratic party “because he was taking primary votes away” from Biden, among other things.
Kennedy, in turn, called Trump’s vice-presidential pick JD Vance – a US senator and retired marine – “a salute to the CIA, to the intelligence community and to the military industrial complex”. Kennedy said on CNN in April that “there are many things President Trump has done that are appalling” – and that the former president had overseen “the greatest restriction on individual liberties this country has ever known”.
Trump campaign spokeswoman Danielle Alvarez told the Post: “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.”
