In 2016, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. crapped throughout Donald Trump and his supporters, agreeing that they have been racist idiots too silly to succeed, in line with a trove of radio clips unearthed by CNN.
CNN reported that Kennedy—Trump’s choose to steer the Division of Well being and Human Companies—made the feedback on his radio present “Ring of Fire,” the place he commonly criticized Trump and people who backed him.
For instance, in an episode that aired in March 2016, Kennedy praised journalist Matt Taibbi’s criticism of Trump and his base.
“One of the things that you write so beautifully, and your stuff is so fun to read, but you write about Trump, quote, ‘The way that you build a truly vicious nationalist movement is to wed a relatively small core of belligerent idiots to a much larger group of opportunists and spineless fellow travelers whose primary function is to turn a blind eye to things,’” Kennedy stated, quoting Taibbi’s writing. “‘We may not have that many outright Nazis in America, but we have plenty of cowards and bootlickers, and once those fleshy dominoes start tumbling into the Trump camp, the game is up.’”
Kennedy went on to say that Trump is a racist demagogue however isn’t sensible sufficient to be efficient like Adolf Hitler as a result of Hitler had a “plan” and “was interested in policy,” whereas Trump is “non compos mentis”—Latin for “of unsound mind.”
CNN reported that Kennedy additionally in contrast Trump to different previous autocrats, like Benito Mussolini and Francisco Franco.
“And you can see that every statement that Donald Trump makes is fear-based,” Kennedy stated in an episode that aired in December 2016, in line with CNN. “Every statement he makes. You know, we have to be fear of the Muslims. We have to be fear of the black people, and particularly the big Black guy Obama, who’s destroying this country, who’s making everybody miserable.”
Kennedy went on: “And only one person has the genius and the capacity to solve these things. And I’m not gonna tell you how I’m gonna do it. Just trust in me, vote for me and everything will be great again. And of course, that whole thing is like a carnival barker.”
He additionally referred to as Trump racist and in contrast him with former Alabama Gov. George Wallace, an notorious segregationist.
“Wallace’s appeal … was to White middle-class men who had experienced the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s as a social demotion, and who found their lives in turmoil,” Kennedy stated, in line with CNN. “And that kind of insecurity, I think, is the target of the summons that Donald Trump has sent out to the American public.”
After all, Kennedy has now modified his tune, blaming his previous feedback on—you guessed it—the “mainstream media.”
“Like many Americans, I allowed myself to believe the mainstream media’s distorted, dystopian portrait of President Trump. I no longer hold this belief and now regret having made those statements,” he advised CNN.
“There’s apparently nothing that can’t be blamed on the mainstream media, even one’s own very public criticisms,” CNN reporter Jim Sciutto wrote in a put up on X.
In the end, Kennedy is considered one of a lot of folks now in Trump’s orbit who slammed the president-elect prior to now however have since retracted their statements in an effort to amass energy.
Vice President-elect JD Vance infamously referred to as Trump “America’s Hitler.”
“I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler,” Vance wrote to an affiliate in 2016.
Vance additionally was appalled by the “Access Hollywood” tape that surfaced in October 2016, wherein Trump was caught on tape bragging about grabbing ladies “by the pussy” with out their consent.
“Fellow Christians, everyone is watching us when we apologize for this man,” Vance tweeted on the time. “Lord help us.”
And he even referred to as Trump “reprehensible, writing in an October 2016 tweet: “Trump makes people I care about afraid. Immigrants, Muslims, etc. Because of this I find him reprehensible. God wants better of us.”
Proper-wing billionaire Elon Musk—Trump’s shadow president who appears to rapidly be sporting out his welcome in Trump’s inside circle—as soon as stated Trump should not run for president once more.
“I don’t hate the man, but it’s time for Trump to hang up his hat & sail into the sunset,” Musk wrote on Twitter (now X) in 2022. “Dems should also call off the attack—don’t make it so that Trump’s only way to survive is to regain the Presidency.”
Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Trump’s choose for secretary of state, as soon as referred to as Trump a “con artist“
“He runs on this concept he’s preventing for the little man, however he has spent his whole profession sticking it to the little man—his whole profession,” Rubio stated in 2016, when he was working in opposition to Trump for the GOP presidential nomination.
“He’s going to Americans that are struggling, that are hurting, and he’s implying, ‘I’m fighting for you because I’m a tough guy,’ A tough guy?” Rubio added. “This guy inherited $200 million. He’s never faced any struggle.”
And former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii—the Vladimir Putin apologist whom Trump picked to steer the USA’ intelligence—as soon as stated Trump was “unfit to be commander in chief.“
‘“He’s essentially pimping out our men and women in uniform to a foreign power who’s the highest bidder,” Gabbard stated when she was working for the 2020 Democratic nomination for president.
With buddies like these, who wants enemies?
