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Kennedy's private text messages were exposed: Trump was "almost not a human being, antisocial"

2024-08-06

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[Text/Ruan Jiaqi, Observer Network]

According to The Hill on the 5th, on Monday local time, in a profile on independent candidate Robert Kennedy Jr., the American magazine The New Yorker broke the news that in a recent text message exchange, Kennedy told an unidentified recipient that Trump is "a terrible person. He is the worst president ever, and he is barely human. He may be a sociopath."

He then added that President Biden is "more dangerous to the United States and the planet" than Trump, without explaining why he made such an assessment of the two. Neither Trump nor Kennedy's campaign team responded to the report.

The report mentioned that shortly before these text messages were sent, Trump and Kennedy had just had a telephone conference, and Kennedy publicly apologized for the leak of part of the call content.

At that time, Trump first shared the false statement about children's vaccines on the phone, saying that the vaccines given to children are like those given to horses, and that changes can be seen immediately after the vaccination. He also praised Kennedy's long-standing skeptical attitude towards vaccines.

Trump then changed the subject and tried to persuade the independent candidate to support his campaign. "I hope you can do something. I think it would be very good and meaningful for you," he said on the phone. "We are far ahead of that guy, and we will win," he added.

According to The New Yorker, the day after the "phone scandal," Kennedy attended the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. His campaign manager and daughter-in-law, Amaryllis Fox, also told The New Yorker that Trump and his team hinted at Kennedy to end his campaign at the convention and asked him what position he would like to take if he were elected to the White House again. "They said, 'We know you get more from us than from Biden.'"

Foxx went on to say that Kennedy is not opposed to serving in the Trump administration, and he thinks the head of the Department of Health and Human Services would be a "very interesting" position. But she also mentioned that if Harris, the Democratic nominee, wins the election in November, Kennedy would also be willing to join her new administration.

The New Yorker mentioned that in January 2017, Kennedy visited then-President Trump at Trump Tower, where he told reporters that he was invited by Trump to serve as chairman of the Vaccine Safety Committee. However, the Trump campaign later denied that there had been such a proposal.

As Kennedy dropped out of the Democratic presidential nomination race and ran as an independent, the feature article also discusses his views on his participation in the general election.

The article wrote that Kennedy admitted that his chances of becoming the president of the United States were low, but Trump's victory in 2016 without any political experience changed his view of his political future.

"I think I've always known that (the presidency) was a dangerous thing to have as an ambition. At least part of me has always known that it was impossible to achieve," Kennedy said. "But I think (Trump's victory) has expanded the possibility of that happening."

According to The Hill, the latest poll by the U.S. election forecasting agency DECISION DESK HQ shows that Kennedy's approval rating is 4.2%, Harris's approval rating is 45.9%, and Trump's is 44.4%.

ABC previously pointed out that although independent candidates rarely get more than a few percentage points of votes, Democrats have accused independent candidates in the 2000 and 2016 elections of diverting their votes and allowing the Republicans to reap the benefits.

According to a report by the New York Post on the 5th, a poll from the left-wing think tank Data for Progress showed that in the six-party forecast (Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, Green Party and two independent candidates) that included candidates from other parties including Kennedy, Trump's support rate in key swing states was 1 percentage point higher than Harris.

Cross-data also showed that in the six-party forecast, Harris lost to Trump in the votes of young people and low-income people. 46% of voters aged 18 to 34 eventually supported Trump, while only 41% supported Harris. But in a one-on-one matchup, Harris would receive 52% of the young votes.

After the Democratic Party replaced Harris as its nominee, the two parties were in a stalemate in the polls. A recent CBS poll showed that Harris (50%) was 1 percentage point ahead of Trump (49%), a result that Biden had never achieved when he ran for office. This also made the Trump campaign team quite dissatisfied, accusing the poll of being "fake" and "manipulated" in order to favor the Democratic Party.

Brian Hughes, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, issued a statement slamming the poll results. He said the poll of 3,102 registered voters included more liberal voters and fewer conservative voters than previous surveys, and if weighted correctly, Trump should lead 51% to 49%.

"The Fake News Media continues to help Dangerously Liberal Kamala hide her record of economic failures and weak crime policies. Now they’ll even use the polls to inflate her results," Hughes wrote.

This article is an exclusive article of Observer.com and may not be reproduced without authorization.