Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., appeared on NewsNation with host Leland Vedeart on Tuesday and was asked about the current state of the Democrat Party. He did not mince words, comparing what the Democrat Party was like when his uncle, John F. Kennedy, was president to the current-day party that does not know who its leader is or will be.
Q: What is your diagnosis of what's going on inside the Democratic Party right now?
A: I grew up in a Democratic Party that wanted closed borders. It was the Republicans that wanted open borders because the big corporations wanted cheap labor. But today, the Chamber of Commerce, which was always the big advocate for open borders and cheap labor, they're now supporting President Trump and his border policies. And the Democratic Party has completely flipped on this issue. Open borders raises the cost of housing, of health care for all other Americans, and it lowers the cost that they're getting in wages. It makes no sense to me.
RFK Jr. just revived an inconvenient history lesson about Democrats and illegal immigration.
— Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) February 25, 2026
“I grew up in a Democratic Party that WANTED closed borders. It was the Republicans that wanted open borders because the big corporations wanted cheap labor.”
“Open borders… raises the… pic.twitter.com/L52kALWaGa
When JFK was president, some of his key policies included deep cuts to federal income tax and corporate tax, support for mental health facilities, and a commitment to stopping the expansion of the Soviet Union. Most Democrat politicians nowadays don't even bother discussing cutting federal income tax; they discuss raising corporate tax (which would then be passed on to the consumers) and several Democrat governors have closed or attempted to "reform" mental health facilities, such as Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), then-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY), and current Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY).
This was the result of Newsom's "reform": $236 million of taxpayer money spent to help ... 22 people.
Remember when I mentioned Gavin Newsom’s Care Court was an abject failure?
— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) January 27, 2026
What Newsom promised was a new paradigm in solving homelessness, turned out to cost taxpayers $236 million and only forced 22 people into treatment.
Read that again.
236 million taxpayer dollars.
22… https://t.co/FpwArqUQib pic.twitter.com/237SRY06rW
In terms of immigration, as RFK Jr. mentioned, whether it's former President Barack Obama, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), or Hillary Clinton, they were all anti-immigration back in the day.
In 2008, Clinton told supporters as she ran for president that illegals who commit a crime will be deported, no questions asked. Then gave a long to-do list for those who were illegal but hadn't committed a crime (aside from the crime of entering the United States illegally) and got applause from Democrat voters.
Joe Rogan just dropped a MOAB on the Democrat immigration narrative — playing a clip of Hillary Clinton from 2008 that OBLITERATES their current talking points.
— Overton (@overton_news) January 28, 2026
As @joerogan pointed out, the policies Democrats now call President Trump a “Nazi” for enforcing were standard party… pic.twitter.com/1b10WNPNBP
In 2015, Sanders went as far as saying that the notion Democrats are for open borders is a Koch brothers conspiracy. Here is the full clip of that exchange with journalist Ezra Klein:
In 2015, Bernie Sanders said that open borders is a right-wing proposal aimed at bringing in cheap labor, and that mass immigration drives down wages for American workers.pic.twitter.com/ioPkkVrF87
— Thomas Sowell Quotes (@ThomasSowell) February 6, 2026
The Democrat Party of today has undoubtedly changed even from two decades ago, and there are more Democrat politicians today who embrace leftist policies like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Los Angeles County Board Supervisor Nithya Raman, and others who openly embrace far-left policies and portray them as if those policies will "help" the working class and ordinary Americans. These failed policies have been tried in other countries and have failed. They will definitely not work in a country that is run on traditional capitalism.
The Democrat policies of the past and present are like night and day. The current policies don't help anybody; they harm working and middle-class Americans. In today's Democrat Party, JFK would be considered a Republican, or at the very least, his policies would be rejected by most Democrats currently in Congress and positions of power, and that speaks volumes.
