Independent Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Apologized Following the leak of a video of the phone call between the two leaders, President Trump issued a statement on the same day.
Trump spoke with Kennedy on Monday at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee before announcing Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, as his running mate. In a leaked transcript of the call, Trump can be heard on speakerphone saying he agrees with some of Kennedy’s positions on vaccines.
Trump also told the unlikely candidate “I want you to do something,” adding that it would be “very good” for Kennedy. “We’re going to win,” Trump also said, according to the footage.
Kennedy apologized. Leaks Tuesday, shortly after it was posted online.
“I was recording with our in-house videographer when President Trump called me. I should have instructed the videographer to stop recording immediately,” he wrote on social media platform X. “I am embarrassed that this was posted and I apologize to the President.”
Trump was also heard saying that President Biden had been “very kind” to Kennedy in a phone call following the weekend assassination attempt, in which a gunman opened fire at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday, leaving Kennedy grazed in the ear. The gunman and one rally attendee were killed and two others seriously injured.
“It was like a giant, the biggest mosquito in the world,” he said of the bullet.
He also said in a phone call with Kennedy that he was shot with an AR-15-style weapon, adding that those are “pretty heavy-duty guns, right?”
The independents’ endorsements could boost either the Trump or Biden race. Kennedy has just 8 percent approval, according to The Hill/Decision Desk national polling average.
The Hill has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.
