Trump Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired back at left-wing Marvel actor Mark Ruffalo last week, telling a podcaster the Hollywood star has a “really bad” case of “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
Kennedy appeared on the Fly Zone USA podcast and dismantled the left’s favorite attack line: that Donald Trump is stupid and uneducated.
The HHS chief told host Christian “Trick Trick” Mathis he’d been texting with the “Hulk” actor — who insisted Trump is “stupid.”
“I was texting with Mark Ruffalo the other day — he’s very mad at me. He’s got really bad Trump derangement syndrome, and he said, one of the things he said is ‘you’re working for the stupidest man in America.'”
Kennedy admitted he once believed the same thing when he was a Democrat.
“I believed that he’s very superficial, he’s probably never read a book,” Kennedy said. “But now that I know him, he has like an encyclopedic mind.”
“He knows everything,” Kennedy continued. “He knows about music. He is incredible in terms of musicians, he loves theater, he knows everything about sports. He can out talk you on every sport. He knows everything about Wall Street. Who made their money, how they made the money, what the deals look like.”
Kennedy shared a striking example from Air Force One.
“One time I was on his plane with him, we started talking about troop strength in Syria and Iran and Israel and Jordan,” he recalled. “And he drew — he’s got a very beautiful hand — and he drew a perfect map of the Mid-East, with all the countries, and he put the troop strength on every border of all those countries.”
“You know, I thought he was, when I was in the Democrat Party, I thought he’s a bombastic guy who doesn’t really know anything, and doesn’t really care about detail, or have a grasp for it. But he has an extraordinary grasp of detail.”
The full interview is below:
Kennedy’s defense comes as Hollywood celebrities continue amplifying the “Trump is stupid” narrative — a talking point RFK Jr. now calls flatly false based on firsthand experience inside the administration.
RFK JR: “I was texting with Mark Ruffalo the other day. He's very mad at me … He's got really bad Trump Derangement Syndrome.” 🤣 pic.twitter.com/M0ukaqbHIX
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) July 18, 2026
