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Former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed that Donald Trump is a “changed” man who is more prepared to govern now than he was in his first term as president and that Trump is “focused on his legacy now” as he eyes a second shot.
“I think, if President Trump wins, that people are going to see a very different President Trump than they did during the first term,” Kennedy said in an interview with the “All-In” podcast on Friday. “I think he’s changed as a person.”
Kennedy, who dropped his independent presidential bid last week to endorse Trump against the wishes of his family and his wife, said that Trump has acknowledged his mistakes from his first term, including that he “appointed a lot of people [he] shouldn’t have appointed.” (Nearly half of his former Cabinet has yet to endorse Trump’s candidacy, and many of those have spoken out against the former president.)
“He said many interesting things to me about what he did wrong the last time, about how he failed — you know, he had no idea he was going to win, he had no idea how to govern,” Kennedy said.
Trump is now listening to a “wider range of voices,” he added, citing as examples himself and Tulsi Gabbard, who have joined Trump’s transition team — a move that my colleague Zeeshan Aleem has argued doesn’t enlarge Trump’s tent so much as shrinks it.
“He’s listening to more than just that kind of narrow, right-wing band that people are terrified of,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy appears to be trying to soften the former president’s edges in an effort to expand his appeal, but he's arguing against evidence to the contrary in Trump’s own rhetoric and behavior. Nearly four years since losing his re-election bid, Trump still baselessly claims that the election was stolen from him. He and his allies are resorting to a playbook similar to the one they used in 2020, hyping up fears of voter fraud in case he does not win in November. Trump has vowed to use the powers of the executive office to punish his political rivals if he becomes president again. He has continued to level extremely personal attacks against his foes, and in his pitch for more draconian border security measures, he has denigrated migrants in racist, dehumanizing terms — just as he did as president.
Both Trump and Kennedy have traded barbs on the campaign trail in the past. Although Kennedy has now joined the Republicans’ team, saying that it aligns with some of his priorities, the two men still differ on several key issues.