Trump endorses vaccine conspiracy in leaked call with RFK Jr. after

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump repeated false conspiracy theories about childhood vaccinations during a recent call with the third-party presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., according to a video of the call leaked Tuesday.

Trump can be heard saying that, after receiving vaccines to protect infants against life-threatening diseases, “You see the baby all of a sudden starting to change radically.”

The clip also shows Trump telling his ostensible campaign rival, “I would love you to do something. And I think it’ll be so good for you and so big for you.”

When Trump adds, “We’re going to win” the election, Kennedy responds, “Yeah.”

It was not clear what Trump was suggesting Kennedy should do. A Trump campaign spokesman did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for clarification about the leaked conversation, which Kennedy verified later Tuesday morning.

But the clip offers more evidence for Biden supporters who have accused Kennedy of running a spoiler campaign that is likely to benefit Trump in November.

The 98-second video, which was posted online and then deleted by Kennedy’s son, Bobby Kennedy III, captures Trump’s voice on a cell phone being held by Kennedy, an independent presidential candidate and documented vaccine conspiracist and distributor of vaccine disinformation.

“I agree with you,” Trump is heard saying at the start of the clip. “Something’s wrong with that whole system.”

“Remember how I said, ‘I want to do small doses, small doses.’ When you, when you feed a baby, Bobby, in vaccination, that it’s like 38 different vaccines and it looks like it’s meant for a horse,” Trump says.

“Not a 10 pound or 20 pound baby. It looks like you’re giving, you should be giving a horse this. And you ever see the size of it, right? There’s this massive, and then you see the baby all of a sudden starting to change radically. I’ve seen it too many times and then you hear it doesn’t have an impact, right?” Trump says.

“There’s this massive, and then you see the baby all of a sudden starting to change radically,” Trump claims. “I’ve seen it too many times and then you hear it doesn’t have an impact, right?”

Unfounded skepticism and online disinformation about the safety of childhood vaccinations has caused childhood vaccination levels in the United States to fall in recent years, a trend that was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kennedy III said the call took place one day after Trump survived an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday. The video clip does not appear to show the entire call.

Trump told Kennedy that President Joe Biden was “very nice” when he called after the shooting, in which Trump sustained a minor injury and one rallygoer was killed.

The bullet that whizzed by his head sounded “like the world’s largest mosquito,” Trump told…