RFK Jr., In Unearthed Audio, Compared Trump to Hitler and Called His Supporters ‘Belligerent Idiots’ and ‘Outright Nazis’
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
Add Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to the list of supporters of President-elect Donald Trump who once compared him to Adolf Hitler.
Kennedy, who was nominated by President-elect Donald Trump for Secretary of Health and Human Services, has a long history of promoting conspiracy theories and misinformation about vaccines and other health topics.
In audio recordings from Kennedy’s radio show, Ring of Fire, CNN senior reporter Andrew Kaczynski found multiple examples of Kennedy sharply criticizing Trump, including times when he drew connections to the genocidal Nazi dictator. Kennedy’s comments could be viewed as even harsher than those by Vice President-elect JD Vance, who called Trump “America’s Hitler,” because Kennedy assessed the former-and-future president as actually worse than Hitler in a key way.
As Trump made gains in the 2016 GOP presidential primary and eventually won the election, Kennedy “repeatedly accused Trump of exploiting fear, bigotry and xenophobia to build a ‘dangerous’ nationalist movement and warned Trump would destroy both the climate and clean water,” wrote Kaczynski, specifically connecting Trump to “historical demagogues who rose during times of crisis,” like Hitler, Italy’s Benito Mussolini, Spain’s Franciso Franco, and Huey Long and Father Coughlin in the U.S.
Kaczynski quoted a December 2016 episode in which Kennedy said “every statement that Donald Trump makes is fear-based,” encouraging fear of “Muslims” and “Black people, and particularly the big Black guy Obama, who’s destroying this country, who’s making everybody miserable.”
“And only one person has the genius and the capacity to solve these things,” Kennedy continues in the clip. “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.”
In the same episode, Kennedy spoke about the “appeal” of segregationist Alabama Gov. George Wallace 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,” arguing “that kind of insecurity, I think, is the target of the summons that Donald Trump has sent out to the American public.”
Another episode from March 2016 featured Kennedy making even more extreme accusations against Trump and his supporters. As Kaczynski reported, Kennedy effusively praised a critique by Matt Taibbi as “beautifully” written and read a passage on air. Kennedy’s assessment went so far as to describe Trump as worse than Hitler because Hitler was at least “interested in policy”:
“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 said, reading Taibbi’s own writing back to him.
“‘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 said in finishing the passage Taibbi wrote.
“And, you know, he’s not like Hitler,” Kennedy said. “Hitler had like a plan, you know, Hitler was interested in policy,” Kennedy went on. “I don’t think Trump has any of that. He’s like non compos mentis. He’ll get in there and who knows what will happen.”
After the CNN article was published, Kennedy issued a statement apologizing for his past comments.
“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,” said Kennedy.
