Leaked video shows Trump criticizing vaccines on phone with RFK Jr. : NPR

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A leaked video of a phone call between third-party 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 tweet, but not before several other accounts reposted the video, which he said was taken on Sunday, the day after Trump’s attempted assassination.

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 virus.

The video shows Kennedy standing in a room with an American flag, 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 not clear 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 nominee. The meeting sparked plenty of rumors, which Kennedy sought to quell in a tweet later that day.

“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 while showing off a chart about immigration numbers at the rally, 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 via tweet.

“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 NPR Network live coverage of the RNC.