Congress
RFK Jr. previously compared Trump to Hitler
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. compared Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler and disparaged his supporters on his podcast in 2016.
Kennedy, who ultimately backed Trump in the 2024 election after dropping his own independent bid, is now a newly selected cabinet member to lead Trump’s Health and Human Services Department — but the old comments reflect the fact that Kennedy was a lifelong Democrat before joining forces with the Republican president-elect.
In the now-eight-year-old radio show broadcasts, first reported by CNN, Kennedy said Trump was stoking fear on the campaign trail with his rhetoric and compared him to Hitler, the former-segregationist Gov. George Wallace and other divisive leaders. On another episode from 2016, Kennedy also said that Trump was unlike Hitler because “Hitler had like a plan, you know, Hitler was interested in policy.” And Trump did not, he said.
Kennedy also praised then-Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi’s description of Trump supporters on the show, reading from an article of his: “We may not have that many outright Nazis in America but we have plenty of cowards and bootlickers.” (Taibbi, who now writes for his own Substack, has since made more sympathetic statements about Trump, including that he has been the victim of Democrats’ use of “lawfare.”)
Kennedy recently said that such inflammatory rhetoric, including comparing Trump to Hitler, “divides our nation and inspires assassins,” in a post on X this October.
Kennedy’s old comments echo similar statements from now Vice President-elect JD Vance, who also compared Trump to the Nazi leader but reversed his viewpoint. Kennedy is now distancing himself from the past comments, with a similar rationale also used by Vance.
“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,” he said in a statement to BLN. His spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
But throughout Kennedy’s longshot independent bid for the White House this year, Kennedy blasted Trump over his first-term cabinet picks, his divisiveness and his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.
“President Trump said he was going to drain the swamp, then he brings John Bolton in to run the NSA. That is like putting a swamp creature in charge of draining the swamp,” Kennedy said in an interview with Ben Shapiro.
“Why do you give him a second term if he’s messed it up so badly the first time?” Kennedy said to Shapiro. “He said he was going to do that the first time.”
Kennedy also attacked Trump’s other cabinet members in interviews and in his stump speech, as well as laying out a list of Trump’s first-term personnel picks that he took issue with in a post on X in June, about two months before his endorsement of Trump.
During an April interview on CNN, the political scion also called Trump a “threat to democracy” because of his attempt to overthrow the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
Now, Kennedy is poised to hold a potentially powerful role in the next Trump administration, pending his confirmation to his cabinet post.
While on the campaign trail as an independent, Kennedy said that he wouldn’t take any cabinet position in a potential Trump second term in August during a local CBS interview. Less than two weeks later he’d dropped out and endorsed Trump.
Democrats have spent the better part of two years looking on in glee as House Republicans have struggled to wrangle their narrow majority and enact a consensus agenda.
Now, eyeing a potentially small majority of their own, they are eager not to see the shoe quickly land on the other foot — which is why Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is under fierce internal pressure to crack down on a surprise rebellion this week.
The decision by Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) and Jared Golden (D-Maine) to support a Republican procedural measure that would have otherwise failed — essentially bailing out Speaker Mike Johnson’s floor agenda — prompted Jeffries and fellow Democratic leaders to decry a “breach of trust” and promise a “serious response.”
Rank-and-file members are watching closely to see if Jeffries follows through on those threats and moves to rein in rogue members who could undermine the party agenda and his own leadership.
“If there’s no understanding that we need to stay together on procedural measures, then we’re going to be like Republicans,” said Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Rules Committee Democrat and a Jeffries ally. “I mean, they can’t get anything done because everybody’s going off in different directions.”
Many Democrats are hoping Jeffries will set an assertive tone and send a message that some protest tactics will not be tolerated in a future majority. The situation is of particular interest to members given the slate of insurgent hard-left members poised to join the caucus next term — some of whom have openly discussed adopting strategies embraced by the hard right.
“It’s an open secret — we don’t want to end up with our own Freedom Caucus,” one House Democrat granted anonymity to speak candidly said in an interview, referring to the fractious ultraconservative group. “You see how a core group of people can stop the workings here … when it’s continual and it’s just about grandstanding. … We don’t want that.”
“I’m not saying that those folks coming in are going to operate in that way,” the member added. “We don’t know. But we’ve got to tighten up the systems.”
Already, House Democrats have competing views about how and when to punish the rogue members. Multiple members, for example, have privately suggested kicking Gluesenkamp Perez off of the Appropriations Committee — a highly coveted assignment.
But others acknowledge that leaders have little leverage against the duo. Golden is leaving the House at the end of this term, and Gluesenkamp Perez is one of the most vulnerable Democrats in the country.
Keeping her seat in a district President Donald Trump won by 3 percentage points in 2024 could determine the outcome of the midterm elections, and she has made her clashes with party leaders a core part of her political identity.
Some members — including progressives who used procedural votes for leverage during Nancy Pelosi’s speakership — also cautioned leadership from overpolicing members.
Asked about how Jeffries should “punish” the members, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), a former chair of the Progressive Caucus, said, “We’re not kids, and he’s not our dad.”
“I’m elected by 750,000 people. I get to make my decisions about what I want,” Jayapal said before adding, “At the same time, I think there has to be a strong commitment to the team.”
“I think that there can be certain reasonable expectations — for example, to flag how one may intend to vote on something,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said. “I also think that the idea that there will be consequences depending on how that is laid out could create a slippery slope.”
Both of the rebels are shrugging off the intense reaction from Democratic leaders and some of their colleagues. Golden said he voted with Republicans to advance a bill he cosponsored benefiting lobstermen in Maine; Gluesenkamp Perez said she voted to support Golden and “people who make their livelihoods and heritage on the water.”
“I do not have a polished political strategy,” she told reporters Wednesday. “I know my community, and that’s who sent me here, and that’s who I am thinking about.”
Many of their Democratic colleagues aren’t ready to just let it go, however. Several argued in interviews that if every member broke ranks on procedural votes to advance legislation they support, the party would lose significant leverage.
“I am generally of the view that if you believe that you are a free agent in this town, maybe you don’t get to use the team locker room anymore,” Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) said, adding that he could not think of a potential punishment “within the scope of what leadership can do that could be opposed by the caucus.”
Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) said “some tough love“ might be necessary to send a message to the broader caucus: “We’re all in this together.”
Amid the agita, it’s not clear how quickly Jeffries will act. An internal committee dealing with caucus rules met Wednesday and discussed the matter but did not advance any specific proposals for sanctions or rules changes.
Jeffries himself has not committed to a timeline for imposing consequences against the two defectors. He told reporters Wednesday he wants to pursue action “sooner rather than later” as he faces internal questions about whether he can exert the same level of control over Democrats as his predecessor did.
Pelosi dealt with rebellions of her own, including moderates who repeatedly voted with Republicans to amend Democratic bills on the floor. But she pointedly commented on the disloyalty on display this week, with Golden and Gluesenkamp Perez essentially voting to advance the GOP floor agenda.
“We didn’t even consider that anybody would do that,” she said Tuesday. “We never had that problem, so I’m disappointed that they did that.”
Another lawmaker who was happy to comment Wednesday was Johnson, who has routinely contended with GOP mutinies during his time in office — including one that Gluesenkamp Perez and Golden bailed him out of Tuesday.
Jeffries “has a serious problem in his caucus,” he told reporters, citing the “warring factions in his party.”
“I don’t see a way out of that thicket,” he said. “But I’m not going to tell him how to govern his conference, and he doesn’t, or shouldn’t, be telling me how to.”
Sen. Thom Tillis renewed his call for President Donald Trump to fire Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday, following the resignation earlier this week of Army Secretary Dan Driscoll.
“I have never witnessed more inept management of the brave men and women who serve our country,” the outgoing two-term North Carolina Republican wrote on X. “He is intimidated by competence and retreats to ginning up culture wars instead of soberly attending to the vital work of our national defense and the health and well-being of our fighting force.”
Driscoll, whose long-rumored resignation became official this week, had clashed with Hegseth over the Defense secretary’s reluctance to modernize the Army and his firings of dozens of senior officers. Hegseth has focused more on cultural issues — including grooming and fitness standards — within the department.
“If we had a @SecWar who maintained the same priorities and forward-thinking, he would be fighting to retain talented leaders like Dan and the many flag officers he has forced into retirement,” Tillis charged. “Instead, he is creating a leadership void at the top of our military ranks.”
The White House and Pentagon did not respond to requests for comment on Tillis’ post.
Tillis, who is not running for reelection in November, has openly clashed with Hegseth since Trump tapped the former Fox News host to lead the Pentagon in 2024.
In May, Tillis told POLITICO he believed Hegseth had misinformed Trump on the dynamics of a war in Iran. Firing Hegseth, he said, was on “a Christmas wish list.” In a book set to be released next month, Tillis branded Hegseth — along with a handful of other White House officials — as “MAGATS” and accused them of “not looking around corners and taking care of this president.”
It hasn’t earned him friends in the administration.
“The media said how brave he was to take me on, but he wasn’t brave, he was just the opposite – HE WAS A QUITTER!” Trump wrote on Truth Social in May. “Now he can have all the fun he wants for a few months, with some of his RINO friends, screwing the Republican Party. In the end it will only get bigger, and better, and stronger, than ever before!”
Despite a stern message from party leaders, a panel of House Democrats did not settle on any particular consequences for the pair of lawmakers who crossed party lines Tuesday to advance an otherwise troubled slate of Republican-led bills.
Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and fellow leaders said the matter would be reviewed by the Democratic Committee on Caucus Rules, which convened Wednesday morning for a prescheduled listening session.
Attendees discussed possible changes to the rules that govern House Democrats’ conduct for next term. Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.), the panel’s chair, suggested to reporters that discussion included what should happen if members vote with Republicans on procedural measures like the one Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) supported Tuesday.
“There’s been a variety of suggestions to change our rules, not just regarding the last couple days, but several suggestions that have been percolating for some time,” Levin said, while adding that any changes would happen only “in the next couple of months.”
The lack of urgency stands in contrast to the stern statement Jeffries and fellow leaders made Tuesday about the rogue members’ “breach of trust” — not to mention the rage some rank-and-file House Democrats are expressing. Some have floated removing the pair from their committees — particularly Gluesenkamp Perez’ seat on the exclusive Appropriations panel.
“Somebody else who is willing to think about other people needs to be on that seat, that exclusive committee,” said one House Democrat granted anonymity to speak candidly.
Jeffries, who was not present at the meeting, also seemed to have a speedier timeline for responding to Gluesenkamp Perez and Golden. He told reporters after the meeting wrapped that he was waiting on feedback from Levin and that the caucus would have conversations “amongst the family about the best way to move forward.”
Asked about his timeline for action against the pair, Jeffries said, “Sooner rather than later.”
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