Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of Health and Human Services, has a long history of scathing critiques against Trump, labeling him a “threat to democracy,” a “bully,” and, as recently as July, a “terrible president.”
But Kennedy’s harshest attacks date back to Trump’s rise in 2016, when on his radio show “Ring of Fire,” Kennedy applauded descriptions of Trump’s base as “belligerent idiots” and suggestions that some were “outright Nazis” and “spineless fellow travelers.” Kennedy also likened Trump to historical demagogues like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, accusing Trump of exploiting societal insecurities and xenophobia to amass power.
After Trump won in 2016, Kennedy concluded in one episode from December of that year that Trump was at least in one way not like Hitler, because, “Hitler was interested in policy.”
A CNN KFile review of Kennedy’s past comments shows they fit a pattern of consistent, broad-based criticism that Kennedy has leveled at Trump over the years.
In 2019, Kennedy argued that Trump had turned his first administration over to corporate lobbyists from industries they were supposed to regulate— industries that Kennedy would actually be able to regulate in some cases if confirmed as Trump’s HHS secretary.
As the head of HHS, Kennedy would oversee vast swathes of the American food and health care industries. The sprawling federal agency has a mandatory proposed budget exceeding $1.7 trillion and oversees key public health initiatives, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and Medicare and Medicaid, which together impact the lives of all Americans.
In a statement to CNN, Kennedy expressed pride in serving in Trump’s administration, supported Trump’s vision for the country and said he regrets his past comments about the former president.
“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.
Comparing Trump to demagogues
Kennedy’s years of criticism toward Trump began to soften after he was shunned by the Democratic Party during the 2024 primary, prompting him to run as an independent.
Asked in August whether he would ever serve in Trump’s cabinet, Kennedy said, “No.” but weeks later, he ended his campaign and endorsed Trump. Kennedy has since refrained from any public criticism of Trump, aligning himself with the former president on issues like government censorship and public health.
But the newly uncovered comments from Kennedy’s radio show underscore the intensity of his past rebukes of Trump, including having leveled charges of racism toward him.
Kennedy repeatedly accused Trump of exploiting fear, bigotry and xenophobia to build a “dangerous” nationalist movement and warned 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 demotion.”
In one episode of “Ring of Fire” from December 2016, Kennedy compared Trump’s strategy to historical demagogues who rose during times of crisis.
Drawing comparisons to global crises such as the Great Depression, Kennedy said periods of economic and social instability had often given rise to demagogues who exploit fear, prejudice and insecurity to gain power. He cited figures abroad like Hitler, Francisco Franco and Mussolini, as well as Huey Long and Father Coughlin in the US, as historical parallels.
“And you can see that every statement that Donald Trump makes is fear-based,” Kennedy said on his radio show in December 2016. “Every statement he makes. You know, we have to be fear of the Muslims. We have to be fear of the black people, and particularly the big Black guy Obama, who’s destroying this country, who’s making everybody miserable.”
“And only one person has the genius and the capacity to solve these things. And I’m not gonna tell you how I’m gonna do it. Just trust in me, vote for me and everything will be great again. And of course, that 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 White middle-class men who had experienced the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s as a social demotion, and who found their lives in turmoil,” Kennedy said. “And that kind of insecurity, I think, is the target of the summons that Donald Trump has sent out to the American public.”
‘Belligerent idiots’ and ‘Outright Nazis’
In March 2016, Kennedy praised journalist Matt Taibbi’s critique of Trump’s base, reading on-air a passage that harshly condemned Trump and his followers which he called “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 that you build a truly vicious nationalist movement is to wed a relatively small core of belligerent idiots to a much larger group of opportunists and spineless fellow travelers whose primary function is to turn a blind eye to things,’” Kennedy said, reading Taibbi’s own writing back to him.
“‘We may not have that many outright Nazis in America, but we have plenty of cowards and bootlickers, and once those fleshy dominoes start tumbling into the Trump camp, the game is up,’” Kennedy said in finishing the passage Taibbi wrote.
“And, you know, he’s not like Hitler,” Kennedy said. “Hitler had like a plan, you know, Hitler was interested in policy,” Kennedy went on. “I don’t think Trump has any of that. He’s like non compos mentis. He’ll get in there and who knows what will happen.”
Attacked Trump’s views on the environment
Kennedy on his radio show also harshly criticized Trump’s environmental policies, accusing him of promoting reckless climate denialism and prioritizing corporate interests over public health.
On one episode of “Ring of Fire” in December 2016, Kennedy referenced an article by climate scientist Michael Mann and said, “Michael Mann did a great article this week about the 10 worst climate deniers in the world, the most damaging, most destructive. And Donald Trump is number one.”
He accused Trump of pursuing “pollution-based prosperity” by rolling back regulations like the Clean Water Act and withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement.
“Trump isn’t just gonna destroy the climate, but he’s also promised last week when he spoke to the oil industry, the shale gas industry, he promised that he would get rid of the Clean Water Act,” he added. “So he’s just gonna open the floodgates to every kind of pollution … Trump’s prosperity is gonna be pollution-based prosperity.”
Kennedy’s sharp criticisms 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 Trump’s efforts to boost fossil fuel production “despicable,” accusing him of knowingly prioritizing coal, oil and gas over the planet’s future.