Trump’s rant about RFK Jr. reflects his fear over November

Donald Trump has fallen out of love with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign.

The former president recently said he loved the idea of Kennedy running, because he thought the conspiracy theorist would siphon votes from President Joe Biden. But oh, what a difference a month makes.

The MAGA movement’s figurehead is literally shouting about Kennedy now.

To be fair, Biden’s re-election campaign hasn’t been subtle in its efforts to shore up support among voters who may be considering casting their ballots for Kennedy due to his famous family name. But the president himself has mostly played it cool, rarely — if at all — referencing the independent candidate. Trump, on the other hand, has signaled his paranoia about Kennedy through a series of social media attacks (some of which have led Kennedy to respond).

And friends, we now have ourselves a right-wing kook-off.

On Thursday, Trump shared a recorded rant against the independent candidate — a meandering mess of insults and admonition, in which he targeted Kennedy and anyone in the MAGA movement who may be considering voting for him due to his anti-vaccine conspiracism.

Despite Kennedy’s campaign being significantly funded, partly operated and at times widely promoted by right-wingers, Trump called him a “Democrat plant” put in place to help Biden win. And even with Kennedy’s various right-wing stances — such as his downplaying of the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection — Trump used his environmental activism, among other things, to try to portray Kennedy as an “extreme liberal.”

“Republicans, get it out of your mind that you’re going to vote for this guy because he’s conservative — he’s not,” Trump said at one point.

The former president even tried to downplay Kennedy’s anti-vaccine bona fides — “he said the other night that vaccines are fine ... he’s all for them” — but the tirade only underscores Trump’s concern that vaccine opponents could abandon him in November.

Watch Trump’s remarks below:

This article was originally published on MSNBC.com