Texts sent earlier this year by independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. revealed how he really feels about former President Donald Trump.
In a text exchange reported Monday by The New Yorker, Mr. Kennedy called Mr. Trump “a terrible human being. The worse [sic] president ever and barely human. He is probably a sociopath.”
The texts were sent just after Mr. Kennedy had attended the Republican National Convention. But, Mr. Kennedy also spoke with Mr. Trump ahead of the convention, where they discussed vaccine skepticism and the possibility of a spot for Mr. Kennedy in a Trump administration.
But Mr. Kennedy also attacked President Biden in the same text exchange, calling him “more dangerous to the Republic and the planet.”
The New Yorker did not specify the person with whom Mr. Kennedy was exchanging text messages.
Campaign manager Amaryllis Fox Kennedy told the magazine that at the RNC, Mr. Trump alluded to the possibility of Mr. Kennedy ending his presidential campaign.
“They said, ’You know, we know that you take more from us than you take from Biden,’” she said, and added that the Trump team asked Mr. Kennedy whether there was anything he would want to do in a second Trump term in exchange for leaving the race.
She said he is open to serving in a Trump administration, specifying that a role in the Department of Health and Human Services would be “incredibly interesting.”
Mr. Kennedy’s presidential run has been filled by odd tidbits and stories.
At first, reports revealed that Mr. Kennedy had a dead worm in the brain that had eaten a part of it. Another report claimed Mr. Kennedy had eaten a dog, after a picture surfaced of him holding up a dead animal carcass, but it turned out to be a goat.
In the New Yorker story, Mr. Kennedy shared the story behind his decision to leave a dead black bear cub in Central Park in 2014. He also suggested that the brain worm might’ve come from the dead bear.
Mr. Kennedy acknowledged that independent presidential runs are long shots, but said that Mr. Trump’s successes despite his total lack of electoral experience before 2016 were somewhat of an inspiration to him.
“It was realistic to think of myself in the Senate,” he told the outlet. “I think I was always conscious that it was kind of a dangerous thing to make that my ambition. I always had at least a part of me that recognized the implausibility of ever achieving that.”
However, he said the former president’s White House ambitions made him feel like his goal was plausible.
“I think that it enlarged the notions of what’s possible,” he said.
• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.
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