A leaked phone call between former President Donald Trump and independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy has revealed new details about the shooting and the Republican presidential candidate’s views on vaccines.
“It felt like the biggest mosquito in the world,” Trump said of the bullet that whizzed past and struck his ear in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday. He called the AR-15 a “great weapon.”
Before Trump talks about what it feels like to be shot, he tries to persuade RFK Jr. to join his team, suggesting the independent and vaccine skeptic could do something about vaccinations in a second Trump administration.
“And we’re going to win, we’ve got a big lead on that guy,” Trump is heard saying, as the video shows Kennedy, a former Democrat, saying “yes.”
Trump then moves on to the phone call he had with President Joe Biden, in which the president contacted his political rival in the hours after Saturday’s assassination attempt.
A video has been leaked of independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. showing his Monday phone call with former President Donald Trump. In the video, Trump discusses the shooting and disparages vaccines
“He was actually very nice. He called and said, ‘How did you decide to go right?'” Trump said.
The Republican candidate noted that he was “looking straight ahead.”
“I said, ‘I just showed you a chart,'” he told Kennedy he told Biden. “I didn’t have to show him the chart, it was about all the people coming into our country, right?” Trump added, laughing.
“But I turned my head to look at the chart and something grabbed me,” Trump continued, then compared it to a giant mosquito.
At the top of the conversation, Trump is heard agonizing over whether vaccine doses for babies are too high.
“There’s something wrong with that whole system,” Trump said, calling Kennedy “Bobby.”
“Remember I said I wanted small doses, small doses,” he continued, adding that children will instead receive “38 different vaccines.”
“And it looks like it’s meant for a horse, not a 10- or 20-pound baby,” Trump continued. “And then you see the baby change radically, I’ve seen it too many times, and you hear it doesn’t have an impact, right?”
Trump then pointed out to Kennedy that they had had a similar conversation years ago.
“I would love for you to do things,” the Republican candidate also offered. “And I think it would be very important to you.”
Trump has tried to play it both ways with vaccines. He has glorified his administration’s Operation Warp Speed, which accelerated the development of COVID-19 vaccines, but has also played on vaccine skepticism, a belief held by many in the modern Republican Party.
The video clip was originally posted by Kennedy’s son, Robert F. Kennedy III, in a post that has since been deleted.
The younger Kennedy said he wanted the public to know what Trump was saying behind closed doors about vaccines.
“I’m a great believer that these conversations should be had in public,” RFK III said. “Here’s Trump giving his real opinion to my father about vaccinating children — this was the day after the assassination attempt.”
“If I have broken any law by posting this, my only wish is that Dr. Anthony Fauci be my cellmate,” the candidate’s son said.
On Tuesday, Kennedy confirmed the authenticity of the video by apologizing for the leak.
“When President Trump called me, I was recording with an in-house videographer. I should have immediately ordered the videographer to stop recording. I am ashamed that this was posted. I apologize to the President,” RFK Jr. posted on X Tuesday morning.
Democrats were shocked by the apparent collaboration between Trump and the independent Kennedy, who came from a prominent Democratic political family, most of whose members supported Biden.
“RFK Jr. was recruited by MAGA Republicans, his candidacy is funded by MAGA’s largest donor, and now we find out he is colluding with MAGA to help Donald Trump win,” said DNC Communications Advisor Lis Smith. “He has no path to victory in this race and is nothing more than a spoiler for Trump.”