Exclusive – Donald Trump Recounts How Ted Kennedy Once Told Him Joe Biden Was the ‘Dumbest’ Senator

PALM BEACH, Florida — Former President Donald Trump told Breitbart News exclusively that years ago when he was a U.S. senator that now-President Joe Biden was regarded by then-Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and his colleagues as the “dumbest” person in the U.S. Senate.

Trump was explaining how Biden is a “very vicious guy” surrounded by “vicious people,” but also noted that Biden is “not smart at all.”

“I ran against him. I got far more votes than I did the first time. I feel I know him very well,” Trump told Breitbart News in an exclusive more-than-two-hour-long interview at Mar-a-Lago just before the new year. “A lot of times in dealmaking you know a person better if you’re doing deals than if you’re with that person all the time. He’s surrounded by vicious people, radical left people, and people that are ultimately going to destroy him. They give no quarter. They’re willing to do anything like weaponize the Justice Department and the FBI and all of those things can come back to hurt Joe and them and everybody else ultimately. There’s a level of viciousness that you don’t see. Joe Biden is a very vicious guy. He’s not a smart guy—not smart at all. All you have to do is look at his academic credentials. But he’s a very vicious guy.”

Trump then said that Biden, while “vicious” in reality, has been able to fool Americans into believing “this image of ‘nice,’” something that Trump says a story from the late Kennedy undercuts.

“He’s got this image of ‘nice,’ when Ted Kennedy—who I knew very well, he’s a Palm Beach guy, rich family, had a house on the ocean a mile down the road,” Trump said. “I was very friendly with him for various reasons. I said to Ted Kennedy, ‘who’s the smartest guy in the Senate?’ He gave me a name I won’t tell you because I cannot stand the guy but it was really true he’s a smart guy. Then I said ‘who’s the dumbest?’ He said ‘probably Joe.’ I said ‘who’s Joe?’ He said ‘Joe Biden.’ I said ‘why is he the dumbest?’ He said ‘it’s because he doesn’t understand concepts, he doesn’t understand policy, and he doesn’t understand anything that is complicated like taxes and various other things.’ But, he said, ‘he’s hale and hearty and well-meant.’ It’s true, sort of, with the smile—you could see a friendliness there, but it’s not friendliness. Ted Kennedy said he’s the dumbest guy in the Senate and now he’s our president.”

Kennedy died at the very beginning of former President Barack Obama’s first term–Biden was Obama’s Vice President–but he served for decades in the upper chamber of Congress with Biden. Kennedy was a senator from Massachusetts from November 1962 through his death in August 2009. Biden was a senator from Delaware from January 1973 until he became vice president in January 2009.

Trump is correct that the Kennedy family had an estate on Palm Beach for many years, one that John F. Kennedy used to call the “Winter White House” when he worked from there as president of the United States during holidays. The Kennedy family sold the property later, during Trump’s presidency. Trump, who often worked from here at Mar-a-Lago during the winter months of his presidency, would call his resort the “Winter White House” or “Southern White House” as well–just like JFK, Ted Kennedy’s brother.

Later in the interview, Trump accused Biden of having “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” a term that has come to describe those obsessed in an unhealthy way with Trump.

“I think he’s got Trump Derangement Syndrome. I think he’s got the biggest case of it,” Trump told Breitbart News of Biden.

Trump also noted that he thinks hard leftists are using the desperate steps of weaponizing government against him and absurdly claiming Trump winning would be a move towards authoritarianism because they are clinging to power. Trump said he does not think they care about the country, and in fact he believes they actually secretly hate America.

“I think they just want to stay in power,” Trump said. “I don’t think they care about the country. In many ways, they hate the country. Who could love the country when you’re letting 15 million people in? By the end of his term, I think they will have let 15 million people in. Who could love the country? I think, inwardly, they hate the country. They might not even be able to express that.”

Asked to define who he means by “they,” Trump said he means the people who are steering Biden—who, again, he believes is stupid—for their radical agenda.

“A group of radical left maniacs that are running the country for Biden—using him—I believe he’s a shell,” Trump said when asked to define “they,” adding too that Biden is simply a “vehicle” for these radical leftists controlling him.

“He’s a vehicle and he turned out to be great for them,” Trump said. “None of them wanted him because he can’t speak and he couldn’t speak three years ago—he couldn’t speak at the debates. The last debate, he gave away the whole energy. He actually said he doesn’t want to do energy. I said that was a Perry Mason moment. But in the end, the press doesn’t pick it up. The press is dishonest not for what they say but for what they don’t say in many ways. It’s almost worse.”

Trump noted that the weaponization of law enforcement against him and other political opponents of these leftists is a whole new step towards the third world.

“I think what they’ve done with the weaponization and going after your political opponent—I think that’s one of the biggest moves made in politics in this country in a hundred years,” Trump said. “It’s never happened here. It has happened in banana republics and third world countries fairly routinely.”

Trump also added that the leftists steering Biden are “unrestrained lunatics.”

“Yeah, I think they are unrestrained lunatics,” Trump told Breitbart News. “I believe they will do whatever is necessary but we’re going to win. We’re going to win. For instance, they indicted me four times and the greatest criminals on earth haven’t been indicted four times.”

More from Trump’s latest interview with Breitbart News is forthcoming.

Breitbart