Washington.- The alliance between Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former President Donald J. Trump, which was finalized on Tuesday with Kennedy’s appointment to Trump’s transition team, is a marked shift in a relationship that has long been combative.
Kennedy spent the better part of a decade lobbying attacks on Trump, portraying him as a buffoon, an anti-democratic bully who led an ineffective administration.
Kennedy brushed aside his criticism when he suspended his unlikely independent presidential campaign last Friday, saying he was backing Trump because he “wanted to believe that this time Trump would bring him into his administration” — something that didn’t happen last time, after they met in 2017.
Asked for his opinion, Kennedy repeated statements he made on Friday, saying that he and the former president “don’t agree on everything.”
But he said they had found common ground on certain issues, striking a different, more positive tone as he stood before a cheering crowd of Trump supporters in Glendale, Arizona.
“Don’t you want a president who is going to protect the liberties of America and who is going to protect us against totalitarianism?” Kennedy asked Friday.
Six years ago, he accused Trump of “systematically” supporting totalitarian governments around the world.
These are the 12 times Kennedy ridiculed Trump and his policies:
On July 2, 2024, he said that “Donald Trump was a terrible president” because he had made promises that he did not keep.
On June 19, 2024, he said it was “absurd and terrifying” and that he had an “imperial plan” for American foreign policy.
On June 13, 2024, he claimed that he “spent more money than all the other presidents,” highlighting the significant increases in the national debt between 2017 and 2021.
On June 11, 2024, he commented that Trump had “a soft spot for swamp monsters,” suggesting that Trump had presided over a corrupt administration.
On May 24, 2024, he claimed that “he does not respect the Constitution” and criticized him for his handling of the Covid pandemic by imposing the greatest restrictions on individual freedoms.
On April 27, 2024, he said that “Trump criticized him with a series of crazy, inaccurate and incoherent statements”
On April 1, 2024, he told CNN that Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election were “terrible.”
On January 14, 2020, he said that “Trump is a bully.”
On May 17, 2018, he said that “he was a high-level jester.”
On August 15, 2017, he said that “I do not like President Trump’s environmental policies.”
On August 5, 2016, Kennedy said that Trump’s political rise was “terrifying.”
And on March 15, 2005, he commented that “we need some positive role models” and considered Trump’s ostentatious life to be a bad example for Americans.
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