In Leaked Phone Call, Trump Tries to Coax Kennedy Into His Camp

A leaked video of Donald J. Trump calling Robert F. Kennedy Jr. offered a behind-the-scenes look into the former president’s efforts to coax Mr. Kennedy out of the presidential race and into his camp.

On Mr. Kennedy’s speaker phone, Mr. Trump, the Republican nominee, can be heard offering up the kind of anti-vaccine message that Mr. Kennedy is known for. Mr. Trump reveals details of his call with President Biden and also assures Mr. Kennedy, “We’re going to win.”

Mr. Kennedy, the iconoclastic but struggling independent candidate, apologized for the leak almost immediately on X, the same social media site where the video appeared.

“When President Trump called me I was taping with an in-house videographer,” he wrote. “I should have ordered the videographer to stop recording immediately. I am mortified that this was posted.”

On the call, Mr. Trump marveled that he had been shot by an AR-15-type weapon, the sort of military-style rifle Mr. Biden wants to ban — “pretty tough guns, right?” He also called Mr. Biden’s call “very nice” and recounted telling the president how lucky he was to avoid his would-be assassin’s bullet.

“It felt like the world’s largest mosquito,” he told Mr. Kennedy of the bullet wound to his ear.