3. Robert F Kennedy Jr: Donald Trump's Vice President?

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1:06Hello, and welcome to The Rest is Politics US with me, Katty Kay. And me, Anthony Scaramucci. So, Anthony, how are you doing? How's your week been? I'm doing well, Katty. I admire your headset better than mine. This is very bad for my hair, this headset. I tried that the first week, and then the whole Princess Leia thing, you know, it never worked for Carrie Fisher. And if it doesn't work for Carrie Fisher, Katty Kay should not try it. Well, I just want you to know, I am as vain as you if you haven't figured that out yet. I'm upset about that. I'll give you tips. I'm going to send you my$15 little in-ear buds so that you can get away with that.

1:41Okay. Let's get on with the show. There's a lot to talk about this week. We're going to talk about two things in American politics that I think are pivotal in the election, but haven't really got a lot of traction, certainly around the world. The first thing we're going to look at is Robert F. Kennedy's run for president. We're going to talk about who he really is, why he's running, which candidate he could end up helping. And of course, we have to go into brain worms, which we'll explain later. Then after the break, we're going to look at all things vice presidential and how Donald Trump can't resist turning a very important campaign decision into an episode of The Apprentice.

2:18But first, Anthony, I think we've got to start with the trial in New York. We had Stormy Daniels taking the stand. She was cross-examined by the defense. The prosecution put her up there, and she gave some pretty graphic details about the one-night stand she had with the former president. And I bring it up, Anthony, because, of course, she's a friend of yours. Well, I mean, she's not my friend. Listen, I've met with Stormy, and I was on the Bill Maher show with her, which was very interesting. And then, of course, we went to the after party together, and she told my wife that I was a lot shorter than she thought.

2:55Ouch. But she said I was handsome enough to put in her carry-on luggage. Okay, so Deirdre very much did not like that. I mean, that's fine. But I'm only bringing that up because she's a lot of fun. She's articulate. She's smart. And she is honest. And so her film star career, her being an adult film star, obviously, is going to tarnish some of the things that are coming out of her mouth. But I don't think that what she is saying is false. I think she is telling the truth about her relationship with Donald Trump, telling the truth about what happened. And of course, that's very important for the case and for our UK listeners to understand this case.

3:35It's not that Mr. Trump had sex with an adult film star. That's not the big deal. The big deal is the election interference. He made a decision to use money towards this thing from his organization that would be a direct violation of campaign finance laws in the United States. And it is a form of election interference to do that. So both of those things are felonies. And again, I'm not saying that he's going to go to jail for this sort of stuff, but I do think the prosecution has made the case. Now, I know in the UK, you can't say those sort of things on the air, but you can hear in the United States about US criminal cases.

4:14Yeah, I mean, it was interesting, wasn't it, how he got a bit of a wrapping off from the judge. And the judge did kind of come down on him hard, I thought, and warned him, look, I don't want to send you to jail for contempt of court for violating the gag order, but I might do so. That's the serious side of it. I'm sorry, but I just can't get to the end of the week without getting Donald Trump in his boxers on a bed out of my brain. I mean, it's like I need a defense shield there because I didn't need to know that. I didn't need to, and I'm just wondering how many people are feeling like me, especially female voters thinking, ugh, icky.

4:43Okay, so he himself, knowing his personality as well as I know him, the fact that you're sickened by that has him uber upset. I'm just going to let you know that about him because he hates being mocked. He hates being made fun of. And of course, Stormy has also described in detail other aspects about him, which would describe why perhaps he's so hyper-masculine, why he has this overbite or this overcompensation. And it could have a lot to do with his physical anatomy. And so I'll leave it there because I know that this is a children's friendly podcast, but I just want you to imagine the embarrassment of this guy.

5:24And here's the other thing. He thought he was going to get away with this. And so I think Trump's surprise was, I'm going to run for president. It's a very big publicity stunt for me. I've done so many stupid things in my life that they will creep up on me in the presidency and I won't make it to the presidency. And then lo and behold, he's able to get away with everything. There's a whole list of things that he has done that has broken every canon of American politics, presidential politics, and presidential candidates. Isn't there something kind of wonderful about the fact that he's done all of that, and the one thing he couldn't get away with was Stormy Daniels and a one-night stand in a conference hotel room, and that that's what's coming back to bite him?

6:09I thought it was kind of cool the way the prosecution built her up, to your point about her being smart. They said, look, this woman got a full scholarship to a Texas university and was going to be a vet. She was on her way. She was studying until she got into the film star business, I think she's the big feminist icon. I brought a prop for this show, okay? Because I know we do YouTube as well. And so I want to just show you this. Can you see this? Yep. That is a picture of me. Two handsome men. Yeah. Well, I don't know. The characters are not that handsome, but that's Don Corleone as Trump, me as Tom Hagen.

6:40That was going to be the cover of the New York magazine the week I got fired. Okay. So forget about the Italian racism of the cover. It doesn't really bother me. but the point is he's a mafia don he sees himself as a mafia don and the mistake that mr trump made is that he didn't take care of his made guys okay and so michael cohen was one of his made guys and he never took care of him and he left him hanging and so what did michael cohen do to him michael cohen did to him the same thing that sammy gravano did to john gotty he went after him in the court system. He exposed him. And if he's guilty here, which he likely will be guilty, this will be a problem for Mr.

7:24Trump because he will be running for president. They're not going to put him in jail, Caddy, but he'll be running for president with an ankle bracelet on and he'll be stuck at Mar-a-Lago. And people will decry that and they'll say that that's lawfare, meaning the Biden administration has used the law to hurt the other candidate. But the truth of the matter is, if you understand the American political system, this is a New York state issue and this is a city issue. The prosecutor coming after Mr. Trump has really nothing to do with the Biden administration. Yeah. I mean, let's look, we have to leave this to play out.

7:56It's going to be another two to four weeks. We reckon this trial is going to run and it's going to be that jury of 12 of Donald Trump's peers who are going to decide. And only one member of that jury has to decide that he's not guilty. And Donald Trump gets acquitted. It's a hung jury. Okay, so just one thought on that, if you don't mind me saying this, this is from my law school experience working with a lot of lawyers. Everyone thinks, well, you got one juror in there, they're probably a MAGA person deep in the Trump cult, and no matter what is said, is going to let Trump - Or they just decide that the evidence isn't there, that he personally knew that these checks were going.

8:35I'll tell you, that's not how it works inside those juries because there's a group think that overtakes the jury. And if there are 11 people pushing for the guilty verdict, they will be able to convince that one person. So this will be a nasty thing that happens and we'll watch it unfold. But the learning lesson here for all of these people listening to us, Katty, you got to protect the people that are working with you, whether you like them or not. And Mr. Trump has an asymmetric view of loyalty. He's paying the price for it right now in that court. So that's interesting because my learning lesson is don't have a one night stand with somebody else when your wife has just had a baby.

9:12And that's why you and I make good podcast partners. See that? Do you see how you're adding value in a way that I couldn't? Right. What we're actually going to talk about is the third party candidate, RFK Jr., Robert Kennedy Jr., who is also running for president of the United States. I think a lot of viewers around the world are very aware of Joe Biden and Donald Trump. They may not actually know that there are actually two or three other candidates running. The only one of those who's actually developing traction is Robert Kennedy Jr. He is the son of Bobby Kennedy, who, of course, was assassinated in 1968.

9:47and he is the nephew of John Kennedy, who was president of the United States, who was also assassinated in 1963. So he has this kind of lineage. If you think about the Kennedys, they are the Windsors of American politics. I think that's fair, right, Anthony? I mean, I think that's a fair description of the Kennedys. There just isn't a bigger Democratic name, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama. Yeah, but they don't have that storied history that the Kennedys do. And so in comes RFK Jr. running as an independent candidate in this race. Well, you know the British aristocracy better than me, but I can tell you this about the United States, and I'm a blue-collar kid.

10:27People love aristocracy. You can pretend otherwise. The United States tries to be this flat, meritocratic system, but there's a love affair in the United States for families like the Kennedys. Now, maybe the Kennedy shine has sort of been rubbed off a little bit over the last 20 years, but I'll take you back to the 60s and 70s, an era that I frankly grew up in where people like my parents, and again, I got raised Roman Catholic, and so Jack Kennedy was the first Catholic president of the United States. They must have loved him. And there were pictures of him everywhere in our house. And obviously, I wasn't alive at the time, but my mother told me that the parish priest literally told people, go out and vote for John Kennedy for president, because this is the opportunity for the Catholics to have their first president.

11:18Of course, Joe Biden is the second Roman Catholic president. But the thing about the Kennedy family, though, is they have been mired in tragedy. And so there's often a saying in Greek tragedy that the sins of the father get passed on generationally. And of course, Joe Kennedy was a bootlegger. He was involved with the mafia. He was a stock swindler. He made a fortune doing that. And for those of us that really know our British history, he was the UK ambassador for a time appointed by Franklin Roosevelt. And he was an appeaser. He was a sympathizer with the Nazis, and he was well and roundly disliked by the UK government.

11:58And so he had to have separation from his younger children who wanted to be in politics because Mr. Churchill obviously didn't like him. And Jack Kennedy had to position himself away from his dad. Why am I bringing all this up? Is that this family is attached to the American political scene for the last 80 years, Caddy. And Robert Kennedy is representing the family, even though the family, including his siblings, have not endorsed him. Moreover, they've all gone to the White House. The Kennedy family, this royal Windsor-like family that you're describing, has gone to the White House and taken pictures with Joe Biden and have endorsed Joe Biden.

12:41This would also include Jack Kennedy's last surviving child, Caroline Kennedy. I think there are some members of the family actually that are supporting him, but the main ones, you're right. The main ones. The main ones. And I think just to explain to listeners why he's drawn the ire of so many of his own family members as well, of course, of Democrats. He's a controversial figure. Basically, if you look at his campaign platform, he's running on sort of two main things. One is that the current system, which is dominated by two parties, no longer represents lots of people. And so you've got millions of Americans who feel homeless.

13:18The other is this kind of anti-COVID response, anti-COVID vaccine. If you just say one thing about Robert Kennedy that people know, it's that he's anti-vax, right? I mean, that's kind of what he's running on. And he's this outspoken anti-establishment figure. And it's that anti-vax side of him that his family don't like and the fact that he risks toppling Joe Biden just by the fact that he is running as an independent candidate. Now, historically, independent candidates, we know this, they haven't had much traction. We spoke about this last week. The system costs so much freaking money that it's almost impossible to run if you don't have a big party backing you.

14:03But Kennedy's argument this time around, and the reason he's running as an independent, is that so many people are unhappy with the choices that they have of Joe Biden and Donald Trump that this year there is an opportunity for somebody to run as an independent candidate who gives them somebody else. So now we have this 70-year-old guy, but boom, news flash because he runs. And just this week, we discover that the guy has a dead worm in his brain. He wasn't hearing things. He had memory loss, all sorts of problems, neurological problems. He went to a doctor and the doctor said, it's a tumor. His uncle had had a tumor, recently died of a tumor.

14:48So they said, you've got to fly down and have emergency surgery. Just as he's about to get on the plane to fly down to have emergency surgery, another doctor rings him up and says, actually, you know what? We don't think this is a tumor. This memory loss that you've been having, the brain fog that you've been having, we look at the scan and we think that it's a worm. It's a parasite in your brain and this worm has died. And apparently when worms die in your brain, Anthony, it's never very nice because they start eating away at the cell. I can't believe I'm really saying this. We've gone from sex to brain worms.

15:22Anyway, they start eating away at the cells. You can't remember stuff. So Bobbierke Kennedy thinks, oh, great. I don't have to have brain surgery. It's not a tumor. And this, for some reason, all of this gets into his divorce deposition from a decade ago and it pops up this story yesterday in the New York Times and now this brain worm and what impact it may have on Bobby Kennedy because the only thing we know is that Bobby Kennedy says he's fine. He says that those memory losses and that brain fog, that was 10 years ago. We don't know that's true. We haven't seen the medical records. So we don't know whether actually this brain worm is going to have much more of an impact on his campaign.

16:02Could it be that voters look at Bobby Kennedy now and they don't see this strapping model of masculinity. They see a guy who's got a dead parasite in his brain. I just want to add one thing. And I think that the notion of brain worms and sex with Donald Trump, I think they're very similar. I do. I think they're very similar. Could somebody please pass me the vomit bag after I just said that? And since our producers have asked if we ever met him, again, I'm bringing props. That's me and Bobby at the Bitcoin conference last year. And I spent an hour with Bobby to talk about his campaign. And I was there for his speech.

16:40And he's a charismatic guy and he's a thoughtful guy. And there's a lot of things that he says have a lot of truth to them. But you and I both know American politics well enough that there's no chance in hell he's going to get elected to the American presidency. So why is he doing this and who is he going to damage the most? And since I can't leave that worm out there hanging, I just want to point this out that his father was the most vicious of vicious campaign managers. Bobby Kennedy Jr. was Jack Kennedy's campaign manager and he was dropping bombs on people left and right. But this is a self-detonation bomb that Bobby Kennedy could come out there and tell us that he's got a dead worm living inside of his brain.

17:26Now, I may have a dead worm living inside my brain, Katie, but I'm just going to let you know, I'm not going to let you know about it. Anyway, we'll get more on this worm because actually this worm could be pertinent to the November election. But who does he hurt more? Well, I think that's a really good question. The Biden campaign has been the campaign that has been most worried about Bobby Kennedy, right? They have spent a lot of money on lawyers trying to prevent Bobby Kennedy to get onto the ballot. So quick explanation, in order to run as a candidate, Bobby Kennedy's name literally has to be printed on those ballot papers in as many states as possible to give him a chance of winning those states.

18:09At the moment, he's only on the ballot in three states. He says he could be on 10 states overnight. He just hasn't decided to do whatever it takes to get there. You get on the ballot by getting a ton of people to make signatures, right? Thousands of signatures. And each state has different rules. It's super complicated. It's very expensive. You have to get these thousands of signatures in order to get on the ballot. Or you could do what he did in Michigan, which was you find an existing party, which is on the ballot already, an independent party. In Michigan, it's the natural law party, which I think has a membership of about four.

18:44And they have suddenly decided to make Bobby Kennedy their candidate. So he's on the ballot in Michigan, which is why this is all started to be important. He got onto the ballot in Michigan in April, which is when the Biden campaign suddenly woke up and thought, oh Christ, this guy could actually be a problem for us because Michigan is a swing state. We've spoken about that. And if Bobby Kennedy takes 10 % of the vote in Michigan in a very tight race, that could hurt us. Now the Biden campaign, and I'll let you talk about the Trump campaign in a second. But the Biden campaign knows that traditionally, these third party candidates have hurt Democrats more than they've hurt Republicans.

19:23So, Ralph Nader hurt Al Gore in 2000. Jill Stein, the Green candidate, hurt Hillary Clinton in 2016. Stein got 30 ,000 votes in Wisconsin, which potentially lost Hillary Clinton that state. She may even have lost Hillary Clinton the election in 2016. You could make that argument, which is why Bobby Kennedy's campaign is such a big deal. And the Biden campaign knows that Trump has a high floor. There are lots of people that really love Donald Trump. They're not going to leave him for some third party candidate. But Joe Biden's supporters, they're a little bit more squishy. And a candidate comes along with the name Kennedy, who has some issues that appeal to Democrats.

20:00He's pro-choice. He's pro-union. It's possible the Biden campaign realizes that those squishy Democrats could go and pull the lever for Bobby Kennedy. So that's the case for the Biden campaign. What do you reckon about the Trump campaign? Where are they worried? I just want to say a few things. And again, just to remind everybody listening in, in American politics, follow the money. And the money for the Bobby Kennedy campaign is coming from conservative Republicans that are trying to help Trump. You will find Steve Bannon in pictures with Bobby Kennedy. Moreover, Jill Stein, who you'll remember, was a Green Party candidate in 2016.

20:41She was backed by arch-right conservatives, even though she's a quote-unquote Green Party member. So follow the money. There's also disinformation out there, I believe, where people are saying, well, Bobby Kennedy hurts Trump more than he hurts Biden. The Biden people certainly don't feel that way. And obviously, these right-wing conservatives that are funding Bobby Kennedy don't feel that way. And so the real question is, what happens here? Bobby Kennedy stay in the race? How does this sort itself out? Now, I will say this to you. Anthony, do you think there's any chance that just recently the Trump campaign is starting also to think that Kennedy could be a problem for them?

21:21I'm just noticing how Trump is being a little bit more vicious about Kennedy. He's calling him junior. He's saying that he's a democratic plant. He's sort of putting out truth socials about him a little bit more. And I wonder whether they have any internal polling that is suggesting that he could be something of a threat to them. So both sides may be worried about him, but again, follow the money. The right wing is the one supporting Bobby Kennedy. And you know this, I still talk to a lot of Trump people and a lot of Trump insiders. When asked the following question, would Donald Trump accept Bobby Kennedy Jr.

21:57as a vice presidential candidate? The answer to that question was yes. And then the follow-up question is, well, why? And the answer to that question is Mr. Trump wants to win. He wants to win at all costs. He wants to put a hurt on the liberal elite and all of his haters. Nothing will make him happier than just to win. He probably doesn't want to govern as much as he wants to win, caddy. And so I believe it is still on the table, despite the rhetoric and the rabble rousing, it is still on the table that Bobby Kennedy could be the vice presidential candidate for Donald Trump. And by the way, if that were to happen, it's really bad news for the Biden campaign, because one thing that Kennedy is doing is he's attracting a lot of young people to his campaign.

22:40Now, politics being politics, maybe the egos are too big, but I'll just remind people about their American history. In 1980, George Herbert Walker Bush said that Ronald Reagan's economic plan was voodoo economics. And everyone roundly criticized George Bush for saying that. Reagan went after him, but at the convention, he made George Bush his vice presidential candidate to unite the party. Mr. Trump has one other thing going on, if you don't mind me adding this, is that he can't get the Nikki Haley voters. In Indianapolis, 21 % of them, she's not on the ballot. 21 % of them voted for her. In Pennsylvania, Governor Haley not on the ballot or Ambassador Haley not on the ballot.

23:2317 % of the people voted for her. And you and I both know in American politics, you need the crossover voter. Barack Obama got that from Hillary Clinton in 08. Hillary did not get that from Bernie Sanders in 16. She lost the election. So Trump is sitting there knowing that a good 15 to 20 % of old school Republicans may hive off from him. And so don't be counting out a marriage, a political marriage between Bobby Kennedy and Donald Trump. Well, that would be seismic. By the way, you should clearly be a broadcaster, Anthony, because that was the perfect segue into the second half of our show. After the break, we're going to talk more about the vice presidential pick because I tell you, a Trump-Kennedy ticket would be two massive alpha males.

24:07I have not met Bobby Kennedy. A very good friend of mine dated him for a while, and there is nothing shy and retiring about Bobby Kennedy. He does not like taking second place to anybody. So I wonder how that would shake out. We're going to talk more about the vice presidential pick after the break.

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