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WASHINGTON — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claims that both his father and presidential uncle would have approached the wars in Iran and Ukraine the same way as President Trump — who is an “empath’’ with an “encyclopedic’’ brain.
“I think if my father and uncle were around today, they would be making the same kinds of choices that President Trump is making about Iran, about Ukraine, [and] on trying to lift up the middle class,” the Health and Human Services secretary told a panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Texas on Saturday.
“I grew up in a Democratic Party where Democrats owned 30% of the wealth and Republicans owned 70%. Today, it’s exactly the inverse,” Kennedy claimed.
“Democrats are no longer on the side of the middle class; they’re contemptful of it.”
The Kennedy scion, who was greeted with thunderous cheers from the CPAC audience, admitted that he once viewed Trump as a “bombastic narcissist” but said that was based on how he is portrayed in the media and that he soon discovered his assumptions were wrong.
“President Trump is exactly the opposite of everything that I believed him to be,” the HHS chief said of his boss. “I admit I basically drank the Kool-Aid that he was this bombastic narcissist that didn’t read books [and] was ill-informed. And now I know the exact opposite.
“He’s the opposite of a narcissist; he’s an empath.
“He has encyclopedic molecular knowledge [across] a wide range of very eclectic interests—music, Broadway shows, pro-wrestling, football, every sport, golf, and business,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy recounted how, during one flight with Trump, the president took out a sharpie and “perfect map of the Middle East.
“Then he marked the troop strength of every country along each border on that map,” Kennedy gushed. “He has this extraordinary depth of knowledge about what’s happening in each of the agencies—my agency and the others—and he has an instinct for making good choices.”
On Ukraine, Kennedy highlighted how Trump frequently bemoans the fatalities from the brutal war and remarked, “You will not hear any Democrat ever talk about that.
“I think my uncle, John Kennedy, understood the use of power better than any president before him,” he said. “And I think Donald Trump understands the use of power better than probably any president we’ve had—at least since Roosevelt, and maybe in American history.”
The HHS boss had taken heat from most of the Kennedys for his decision to back Trump and join his administration. Most of the Democratic dynasty family had also rebuked his own presidential run and skepticism toward vaccines.
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