A segment of a phone call between independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Donald Trump was leaked on social media early Tuesday, revealing just how much the two men support each other, despite Kennedy’s repeated insistence that he wants to offer voters a different option.

In one section, Trump can be heard tying vaccines to autism.

“When you feed a baby, Bobby, a vaccination that is like 38 different vaccines, and it looks like it’s meant for a horse, not a … you know, 10-pound or 20-pound baby,” Trump said on the call. “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 that it doesn’t have an impact, right? But you and I talked about that a long time ago.”

Trump appeared to suggest to Kennedy that the two should combine their efforts in some way, telling Kennedy that doing so would be “so good” and “so big” for the independent candidate. At one point, Trump said, “We’re gonna win.”

“Yeah,” Kennedy agreed.

Trump can also be heard describing the moment he was struck by a bullet on Friday at his Pennsylvania rally.

“I just turned my head to show the chart,” Trump said on the call. “And something rapped me. It felt like a giant … like the world’s largest mosquito. And it was. It was a bullet going around. You know, what do they call that, an AR-15 or something? That was a big gun. That was a pretty tough gun, right?”

In a since-deleted post, the apparent originator of the leak—Kennedy’s son, Bobby Kennedy III—wrote that “these sorts of conversations should be had in public.”

“Here’s Trump giving his real opinion to my dad about vaccinating kids—this was the day after the assassination attempt,” the younger Kennedy wrote. “This is not a cheapfake or somebody doing a Trump voice. This is the real deal.”

Kennedy’s campaign has since come out and apologized for the leak, claiming that he had erred by failing to stop a “videographer” from filming him after Trump rang.

“I should have ordered the videographer to stop recording immediately,” Kennedy wrote on X (formerly Twitter.) “I am mortified that this was posted. I apologize to the president.”

Watch the full clip of the call below:

A video of Trump’s call with RFK Jr. was leaked - Trump talks about vaccines, tells RFK Jr. doing something with him would be “big,” mentioned his call with Biden and said the bullet was like “the world’s largest mosquito.”
RFK Jr apologized for the leak. pic.twitter.com/Z6DQ955P6W

A Fox News analyst said people would question why exactly Donald Trump had picked J.D. Vance as his running mate, considering his lack of experience and former status as a Never Trump Republican.

Vance has talked his fair share of smack about the former president, saying Trump could be “America’s Hitler,” accused him of committing serial sexual assault, and calling him “one of USA’s most hated, villainous, douchey celebs.” But as Trump has amassed more power in the run-up to November, it seems that Vance has finally changed his tune. To many, though, it’s unclear why Trump would want to work with Vance at all.

Brit Hume, a chief political analyst for Fox, said Monday night that many voters would be asking that question, and offered up a possible theory for Trump’s choice.

“Some people may look at this and remember what J.D. Vance used to say about Donald Trump,” said Hume. “He was a hard-core Never Trumper not very many years ago, and he reversed himself completely not that long ago.

“And one of the things you worry about is, when somebody’s making a pick for a potential president—potential president if something happens to him—then you think, well, is this person; how did he get the job?

“Did he get it because he was really the best qualified to be president? Or did he get it because he sucked up effectively to the nominee?” said Hume. “People will have questions about that.”

Although Vance reportedly divided Trump’s donors, he was the “little pet” of one of Trump’s campaign managers, Susie Wiles, according to one anonymous GOP strategist. He also had a number of powerful backers in Trump’s inner circle, including Trump’s sons, Don Jr. and Eric, as well as Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk.

A top Republican is blaming his divisive, hate-fueled speech at the Republican National Convention on a teleprompter loading error.

Senator Ron Johnson told PBS NewsHour Monday night that he had intended to hop on the “unity convention” bandwagon in the aftermath of the attempted assassination on Donald Trump’s life. But instead, he read a version of the script that was practically the opposite, allegedly because of a teleprompter mishap.

“That speech was written last week. They literally loaded the wrong speech,” Johnson told the news outlet.

“I had taken that out. Instead I’d loaded about that we needed a somber moment in history. We should heed President Trump’s call to unite,” he said. “We must heal and unify this nation. I didn’t know how to take that out without screwing up the teleprompter.”

But those statements being there in error apparently didn’t stop Johnson from saying them anyway. In a four-minute speech on Monday, Johnson........

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