RFK Jr. once praised the scathing description of Trump and his supporters as “idiots,” “Nazis,” and “bootlickers.”

CNN
—

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for secretary of Health and Human Services, has long been harshly critical of Trump, calling him a “threat to democracy” and a “tyrant.” July, a “terrible president.”

But Kennedy’s sharpest attacks date back to Trump’s rise in 2016, when Kennedy, on his radio show “Ring of Fire,” praised descriptions of Trump’s base as “belligerent idiots” and suggestions that some were “outright Nazis” and “spineless hangers-on.” “ act.” Kennedy also compared Trump to historical demagogues such as Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini and accused Trump of exploiting societal insecurities and xenophobia to amass power.

After Trump won in 2016, Kennedy concluded in an episode in December of that year that Trump was not like Hitler in at least one respect, because “Hitler was interested in politics.”

A CNN KFile review of Kennedy’s past comments shows that they fit a pattern of consistent, broad criticism that Kennedy has leveled at Trump over the years.

In 2019, Kennedy argued that Trump had handed his first administration over to corporate lobbyists from industries they were supposed to regulate — industries that in some cases Kennedy could actually regulate if he were confirmed as Trump’s HHS secretary.

As head of HHS, Kennedy would oversee large parts of the American food and healthcare industries. The sprawling federal agency has a mandatory budget proposal of over $1.7 trillion and oversees major public health initiatives, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Medicare and Medicaid. that together impact the lives of all Americans.

In a statement to CNN, Kennedy expressed pride in having served in Trump’s administration, supported Trump’s vision for the country and said he regretted his past comments about the former president.

“Like many Americans, I have allowed myself to believe the mainstream media’s distorted, dystopian portrait of President Trump. I no longer believe in it and now regret making those statements,” he said.

Kennedy’s years-long criticism of Trump subsided after he was shunned by the Democratic Party in the 2024 primary, prompting him to run as an independent.

When asked in August whether he would ever serve in Trump’s Cabinet, Kennedy replied, “No.” But weeks later, he ended his campaign and endorsed Trump. Since then, Kennedy has refrained from any public criticism of Trump and has sided with the former president on issues such as government censorship and public health.

But the newly uncovered comments from Kennedy’s radio show underscore the intensity of his previous rebukes of Trump, including leveling accusations of racism against him.

Kennedy repeatedly accused Trump of exploiting fear, bigotry and xenophobia to build a “dangerous” nationalist movement and warned that Trump would destroy both the climate and clean water. Kennedy also compared Trump’s supporters to white Americans in the 1970s who, he said, viewed the civil rights movement as a “social decline.”

In a December 2016 episode of “Ring of Fire,” Kennedy compared Trump’s strategy to historical demagogues who stood up in times of crisis.

Comparing it to global crises such as the Great Depression, Kennedy said that periods of economic and social instability often spawned demagogues who exploited fear, prejudice and uncertainty to gain power. He cited figures abroad such as Hitler, Francisco Franco and Mussolini as well as Huey Long and Father Coughlin in the USA as historical parallels.

“And you see that every statement that Donald Trump makes is based on fear,” Kennedy said on his radio show in December 2016. “Every statement he makes. You know, we have to be afraid of the Muslims. We must be afraid of black people, especially the great black man Obama, who is destroying this country and making everyone miserable.”

“And only one person has the genius and ability to solve these things. And I won’t tell you how I’m going to do it. Just trust me, vote for me and everything will be okay. And of course the whole thing is like a carnival barker,” Kennedy concluded.

He also compared Trump’s appeal to that of famous segregationist Alabama Gov. George Wallace.

“Wallace’s appeal … was to middle-class white men who had experienced social decline in the civil rights movement of the 1960s and whose lives were in turmoil,” Kennedy said. “And that kind of uncertainty is, I think, the goal of the calls that Donald Trump has made to the American public.”

“War-loving idiots” and “open Nazis”

In March 2016, Kennedy praised journalist Matt Taibbi’s criticism of Trump’s base and read a televised passage strongly condemning Trump and his supporters, which he described as “beautifully written.”

“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 to build a truly vicious nationalist movement is to create a relatively small core of belligerents.’ Marrying idiots.’ “A much larger group of opportunists and spineless hangers-on whose main job is to turn a blind eye to things,” Kennedy said, reading Taibbi’s own writing to him.

“‘We may not have that many real Nazis in America, but we have a lot of cowards and bootlickers, and once those meaty dominoes fall into the Trump camp, it’s game over,'” Kennedy said at the end of the passage that Taibbi read had written.

“And you know, he’s not like Hitler,” Kennedy said. “Hitler had a plan, you know, Hitler was interested in politics,” Kennedy continued. “I don’t think Trump has any of that. He is like dissatisfied. He’s going to get in there and who knows what’s going to happen.”

Kennedy also sharply criticized Trump’s environmental policies on his radio show, accusing him of promoting reckless climate denial and prioritizing corporate interests over public health.

On a December 2016 episode of “Ring of Fire,” Kennedy referenced an article by climate scientist Michael Mann and said, “Michael Mann wrote a great article this week about the ten worst climate deniers in the world, the most damaging and destructive.” And Donald Trump is number one.”

He accused Trump of seeking “pollution-induced prosperity” by rolling back regulations like the Clean Water Act and withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement.

“Not only will Trump destroy the climate, but he also promised last week when he spoke to the oil industry and the shale gas industry that he would repeal the Clean Water Act,” he added. “So he’s just going to open the floodgates to any kind of pollution… Trump’s prosperity will be based on pollution.”

Kennedy’s harsh criticism of Trump extended into 2019, when he compared Trump’s EPA chief Andrew Wheeler to one of the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” and called “despicable” Trump’s efforts to boost fossil fuel production over the future of the gas Planets.