Mike Pence has revived old clips of his former boss trashing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hours before the health secretary nominee faced senators for his confirmation hearing.
“President Trump was right the first time,” Pence wrote on X. “Senators, Vote No on RFK, Jr.”
Pence uploaded an old video of Donald Trump smacking down Kennedy as a “Democrat plant” and “radical left liberal” when they were running against each other in the November polls.
“A lot of people think that Junior is a conservative. He’s not,” Trump said in the video. “He’s more liberal than anybody running on the Democrat side.”
The president claimed that Kennedy was against guns, the military, and veterans, while also being “an extreme environmentalist who makes the ‘Green New’ scammers look very conservative by comparison.”
“Don’t think you’re going to vote for him and feel good,” Trump went on. “I’d even take Biden over Junior because our country would last about a year or two longer than it would with Junior.”
The anti-Kennedy ad was run by Advancing American Freedom, a conservative advocacy group founded by Pence. The organization earlier announced a six-figure ad blitz opposing Kennedy’s confirmation.
Kennedy initially ran as an independent presidential candidate but later backed out and threw his weight behind Trump.
Trump rewarded Kennedy, a notorious vaccine skeptic who has promoted several questionable public health policies, with a nomination as chief of the Department of Health and Human Services.
In his Wednesday confirmation hearing, Kennedy fumbled basic facts about Medicaid and got grilled on his anti-vaccine stance. He did promise, however, not to go after junk food loved by Trump and America.
“I don’t want to take food away from anybody,” Kennedy told senators. “If you like a McDonald’s cheeseburger, Diet Coke, which my boss loves, you should be able to get them. If you want to eat a Hostess Twinkie, you should be able to do that, but you should know what the impacts are.”
On Tuesday, Kennedy’s cousin Caroline Kennedy condemned him as a “predator” who was “unqualified” for the health secretary role. Kennedy’s billionaire former running mate, meanwhile, vowed revenge against senators who would vote against his confirmation.