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Speaker 1: Al zone media.

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Speaker 2: Presidential debates. I wonder why I decided to talk about

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Speaker 2: them this week.

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Speaker 3: With the COVID, I excuse me with dealing with everything

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Speaker 3: we have to do.

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Speaker 4: With in Springfield.

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Speaker 5: They're eating the dogs, the people that came in, They're

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Speaker 5: eating the cats, They're eating the pets of the people

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Speaker 5: that live there.

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Speaker 3: Talk about extreme.

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Speaker 2: And not a candidate willing to put an arms embargo

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Speaker 2: on Israel in sight. Whether you watch these debates or not,

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Speaker 2: if you live in the US, and for a lot

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Speaker 2: of people if you live outside the US, these debates

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Speaker 2: end up affecting you, whether you engage with them or not.

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Speaker 2: For voters, televised debates can range from an annoyance to

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Speaker 2: either affirming a decided vote to swinging a less certain one.

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Speaker 2: And an American presidential debate, they adhere to the two

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Speaker 2: party system that is definitely working and helping us. Debates

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Speaker 2: have been around forever, literally for all of recorded history,

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Speaker 2: because there is no time in recorded history where people

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Speaker 2: have agreed on things. They can be one with facts,

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Speaker 2: but the more necessary component is charisma. Things you can

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Speaker 2: accomplish with raw charisma are limitless. And let's see how

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Speaker 2: far into the debate episode. I can go without saying Riz.

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Speaker 1: When I say Riz, you can shoot me.

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Speaker 2: Here in the US, presidential debates have not been around

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Speaker 2: for as long as you probably think. The kinds of

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Speaker 2: debates that hold the Internet in a vice grip like

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Speaker 2: they have in the last few weeks and apparently won't

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Speaker 2: again in this election cycle have only been around for

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Speaker 2: as long as television has. And I want to be clear,

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Speaker 2: So let me be clear. I'm only talking about presidential

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Speaker 2: debates here, not on other issues. The first example comes

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Speaker 2: in nineteen fifty six, during the race between Dwight Eisenhower

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Speaker 2: and Adelai Stevenson. Erase that Eisenhower eventually won, which we

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Speaker 2: know because unless you're a dork, you probably don't know

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Speaker 2: who Adlai Stevenson is.

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Speaker 1: Sorry to dorks.

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Speaker 2: During this cycle, the first televised presidential debate is aired

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Speaker 2: during the primaries. Stephenson is up against opponent Esday's Keif

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Speaker 2: Foffer in May of nineteen fifty six, dogging it out

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Speaker 2: for the Democratic nomination. A Miami ABC affiliate broadcast the

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Speaker 2: debate and it's it's pretty boring, Honestly.

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Speaker 6: A presidential campaign must not degenerate into a mere personal

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Speaker 6: conflict our candidates are.

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Speaker 5: Only as important as the ideas they represent.

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Speaker 4: Well, brother, this guy stinks.

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Speaker 2: It's like these losers don't know they're supposed to run

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Speaker 2: ads on this. This doesn't sell aggressively gendered soap in

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Speaker 2: the future, but choosing this moment to start broadcasting and

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Speaker 2: putting more emphasis on debates is done very intentionally. By

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Speaker 2: nineteen fifty six, Americans were adapting to and building their

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Speaker 2: life around TV at a very fast rate. TV had

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Speaker 2: been in development since the late nineteen twenties, but as

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Speaker 2: far as the home TV set goes, it's all about

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Speaker 2: the fifties. According to the Digital Public Library of America,

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Speaker 2: only a few thousand Americans had TVs before nineteen forty seven.

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Speaker 2: Five years later, this number had reached twelve million, and

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Speaker 2: by nineteen fifty five, the year before this very boring broadcast,

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Speaker 2: half of American households were rocking a TV. Now that

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Speaker 2: the majority of Americans had a video component to engaging

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Speaker 2: with a debate, people wanted to hear more than just

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Speaker 2: a candidate's voice on the radio, chillingly similar to what's

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Speaker 2: happening with podcasts. Please don't make me pivot to video.

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Speaker 2: I'm so close to a nervous breakdown as it is.

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Speaker 7: The Republican candidate Vice President Richard M. Mixon and the

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Speaker 7: Democratic candidate Senator John F.

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Speaker 8: Candidate.

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Speaker 2: But indeed, there was the first televised president residential debate

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Speaker 2: between the two parties as we know it today on

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Speaker 2: September twenty sixth, nineteen sixty, between eventual election winner John F.

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Speaker 2: Kennedy and then Vice President to Eisenhower Richard Nixon. Every

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Speaker 2: president is a fucking moron, but this is a significant

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Speaker 2: debate that there is a lot of lore surrounding. It

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Speaker 2: does define how debates look moving forward. At the time,

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Speaker 2: it pulled as many as seventy million viewers and was

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Speaker 2: an opportunity for Americans to see how young Senator Kennedy

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Speaker 2: and Vice President Nixon composed themselves when speaking to the nation.

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Speaker 7: I think we can do better. I don't want the

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Speaker 7: talents of any Americans to go to Waite. I know

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Speaker 7: that there are those who say that we want to

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Speaker 7: turn everything over to the government.

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Speaker 8: I don't at all.

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Speaker 7: I want the individuals to meet their responsibility, and I

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Speaker 7: want the states to meet their responsibility. But I think

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Speaker 7: there is also a national responsibility.

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Speaker 8: There is no question but that we cannot discuss our

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Speaker 8: internal affairs in the United States without recognizing that they

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Speaker 8: have a tremendous bearing on our international position.

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Speaker 2: As the story goes, people who listen to the debate

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Speaker 2: on the radio thought that Nixon won, and people who

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Speaker 2: watched on TV thought Kennedy one. And this is for

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Speaker 2: a bunch of reasons, very likely oversimplified because of the

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Speaker 2: sample size of people surveyed, But hey, Kennedy won the election.

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Speaker 2: What was clear was that the debate itself was a

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Speaker 2: conceptual success and set this new precedent moving forward because

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Speaker 2: on TV, Kennedy does genuinely look more confident, and Nixon

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Speaker 2: then and now looks kind of sweaty. Not that sweaty

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Speaker 2: people shouldn't be president, but Nixon's not a good example

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Speaker 2: of someone who should. And weirdly, it is why all

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Speaker 2: debate venues are generally freezing cold today. Stet stet Stett.

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Speaker 1: That's what it's all about.

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Speaker 2: And if TV was going to be the new norm

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Speaker 2: for debates, successful candidates would have to learn to sell

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Speaker 2: themselves using it. So moving forward, candidates who thrived in

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Speaker 2: the press, regardless of their actual politics, tended to win

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Speaker 2: the elections. Think Reagan think Clinton, think Obama, think Trump

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Speaker 2: for one term. Hopefully that's not to say every elected

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Speaker 2: president was a natural on screen. Looking at you, George

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Speaker 2: Bush Senior.

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Speaker 6: Well, I'm caught up in super Bowl Mania here and

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Speaker 6: I'm happy to be here.

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Speaker 2: No charisma whatsoever. Kind of incredible but unmeimable presidents become

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Speaker 2: increasingly rare as the years go on, mainly because the

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Speaker 2: technology evolved to make it possible to memify them, and

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Speaker 2: especially as social media took off, that became necessary for

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Speaker 2: a candidate to be remembered and successful. Ironically, George Bush

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Speaker 2: Senior's warmongering son is a great example of this.

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Speaker 9: I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully.

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Speaker 1: I always say that George W.

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Speaker 2: Bush is the reverse Hitler because he started as a

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Speaker 2: warmonger and then became a horrible painter later on. Anyways,

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Speaker 2: as technology continued to evolve, the presidential debate attempted to

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Speaker 2: evolve alongside it. And while there were plenty of debates

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Speaker 2: of consequence between the nineteen sixties show down between Kennedy

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Speaker 2: and Nixon and debates today, things really lock into the

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Speaker 2: format we recognize sometime in the eighties, take this very

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Speaker 2: Reagan quip against Walter Mondale in nineteen eighty four that

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Speaker 2: further proved that Riz, Oh, no, you have to shoot me. No,

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Speaker 2: I said, Riz, I think I'm too old to say Riz.

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Speaker 2: That proved that Riz is more important than anything in politics.

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Speaker 2: This moment was not to tackle a common criticism of

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Speaker 2: Reagan at the time. His age soundfamiliar, but he dealt

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Speaker 2: with it so well in the debate that he surged

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Speaker 2: ahead to win and continued to ignore the AIDS crisis

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Speaker 2: for more than another year.

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Speaker 6: Here's the clip, mister Truett and I and I want

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Speaker 6: you to know that also, I will not make age

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Speaker 6: an issue of this campaign. I am not going to

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Speaker 6: exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience.

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Speaker 2: Then, in nineteen eighty eight, a nonprofit called the Commission

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Speaker 2: on Presidential Debates was founded. The CPD sponsored every presidential

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Speaker 2: debate from nineteen eighty eight until twenty twenty, featuring ninety

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Speaker 2: minute long debates with no commercials, and most of them

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Speaker 2: were held on school campuses. And the eighties was a

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Speaker 2: great time to bring in some steadiness and structure to

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Speaker 2: debates because with this decade came the age of the

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Speaker 2: twenty four hour news cycle as cable TV became increasingly popular.

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Speaker 2: Ted Turner founded CNN in nineteen eighty, forever changing the

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Speaker 2: way that we consume political news. It was around the

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Speaker 2: clock thing now, and so if.

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Speaker 1: There were stories, stories.

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Speaker 2: Would be found, and if you were running a campaign,

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Speaker 2: it gave you far more opportunities to make an impression.

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Speaker 2: In general, debates don't just reflect the time they take

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Speaker 2: place in. They also reflect the media environment they make

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Speaker 2: their way into. Reagan was a trained and lightly successful

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Speaker 2: movie actor, and you can tell Trump is a seasoned

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Speaker 2: reality and tabloid star who's known for his shamelessness. And

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Speaker 2: you can tell if.

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Speaker 5: They win, I should get all the credit, and if

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Speaker 5: they lose, I should not be blamed at all.

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Speaker 2: So presidential debates became more showy as the years went

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Speaker 2: on and the media cycle escalated. The two thousand and

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Speaker 2: eight race between Obama and McCain was the first to

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Speaker 2: meaningfully include social media and a candidate who knew how

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Speaker 2: to use it. Obama was the first president to use

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Speaker 2: social media consistently throughout a presidency.

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Speaker 10: Is there any way we could fly Obama to some

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Speaker 10: golf course halfway around the world and just leave him there. Well,

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Speaker 10: RWs surfer girl, I think that's a great idea.

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Speaker 2: And because social media meant that everyday people were locked

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Speaker 2: into the twenty four hour news cycle just as much

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Speaker 2: as the traditional media, the political theatrics increased, and by

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Speaker 2: twenty sixteen we have Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump. Maybe

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Speaker 2: you remember this time, and also sorry, this was the

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Speaker 2: era of but her emails of Mexicans are rapists of

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Speaker 2: grab them by the pussy. It's rhetoric we're used to

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Speaker 2: hearing more of now, after nearly a decade of Donald

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Speaker 2: Trump running as a mask off fascist, doing things like

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Speaker 2: attempting to overthrow the government and trying to wipe immigration

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Speaker 2: and social safety nets off the country's radar for good.

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Speaker 2: And in response to this, the Democratic Party has gone

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Speaker 2: further right, with current candidate Kamala Harris's campaign recently bragging

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Speaker 2: that former Reagan Republicans were thrilled with her platform, which

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Speaker 2: is not the flex they.

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Speaker 1: Seem to think that is. But in twenty.

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Speaker 2: Sixteen, the mask offness of this rhetoric still felt pretty

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Speaker 2: new in the US. Yes, Trump's proposed policies were an

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Speaker 2: escalation of the rights already bad agenda, but he just

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Speaker 2: said hateful things versus couching violence in cushy political language.

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Speaker 2: And this was something that American debates weren't really built for.

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Speaker 2: As became clear during the Republican primaries.

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Speaker 8: This is a tough business.

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Speaker 5: So you're a tough guy, j It's and we need

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Speaker 5: to have a leader that is preered top.

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Speaker 10: You're never going to be president United States high insulting

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Speaker 10: your way to.

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Speaker 5: Let's see, I'm at forty two and you're at three,

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Speaker 5: So no matter I'm doing better, doesn't matter.

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Speaker 4: So far I'm doing better.

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Speaker 2: Yes, Indeed, this was the Jeb Bush please clap era.

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Speaker 1: Please clap.

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Speaker 2: It's so funny it still hits. And eventually, during Trump

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Speaker 2: and Clinton's first debate on September twenty six, twenty sixteen,

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Speaker 2: at Hofstra University, which is to this day the highest

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Speaker 2: viewed debate in American history with over eighty four million viewers,

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Speaker 2: tensions between the candidates were at an all time high.

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Speaker 11: I have a failure that by the end of this evening,

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Speaker 11: I'm going to be blamed for everything that's ever happened.

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Speaker 4: Why not? Why not? Yeah?

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Speaker 12: Why not?

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Speaker 5: I will release my tax retarge when she releases her

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Speaker 5: thirty three thousand emails that have been deleted. As soon

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Speaker 5: as she releases them, I will release I will.

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Speaker 2: Release, yes, the her emails era. And you remember, these

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Speaker 2: debates got a ton of internet traffic from every kind

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Speaker 2: of voter you can imagine. It was the first election

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Speaker 2: of my lifetime where people gathered to watch debates in

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Speaker 2: bars like they were football games. Because it was fucked

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Speaker 2: up and it was scary, and it was also good TV.

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Speaker 2: And of course, the two main characters were pitted against

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Speaker 2: each other in the media as you might expect, the

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Speaker 2: reality TV mega millionaire pandering to the rights worst tendencies,

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Speaker 2: and the season politician with a spotty record and a

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Speaker 2: hellbent mission to become the first woman to hold the

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Speaker 2: American presidency. Sometimes the moderators would be memed and commented

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Speaker 2: on during these debates, but there was never a question

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Speaker 2: of who the two protagonists of this fucked up, consequential

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Speaker 2: TV show were. Until October ninth, twenty sixteen, at Washington

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Speaker 2: University in Saint Louis, the second debate between Clinton and Trump,

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Speaker 2: and one that featured the town hall format. This format

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Speaker 2: had been in play with the Presidential Commission back since

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Speaker 2: nineteen ninety two, which featured an in the round setting

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Speaker 2: where local people classified as quote unquote undecided voters by

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Speaker 2: the Commission, and online question submitters could ask the candidates

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Speaker 2: about the issues most important to them. The online questions

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Speaker 2: and general moderation was done by Anderson Cooper and ABC's

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Speaker 2: Martha Radditts, and the questions were very of the time.

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Speaker 13: Affordable Care Act known as Obamacare, It is not affordable.

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Speaker 13: What will you do to bring the costs down and

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Speaker 13: make coverage better?

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Speaker 14: There are three point three million Muslims in the United States,

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Speaker 14: and I'm one of them. You've mentioned working with Muslim nations,

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Speaker 14: but with Islamophobia on the rise, how will you help

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Speaker 14: people like me deal with the consequences of being labeled

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Speaker 14: as a threat to the country After the election is over.

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Speaker 15: Perhaps the most important aspect of this election is a

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Speaker 15: Supreme Court justice. What would you prioritize as the most

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Speaker 15: important aspect of selecting a Supreme Court justice?

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Speaker 2: I viscerally remember watching this debate because it was a

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Speaker 2: shit show. The layout of the space meant that both

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Speaker 2: candidates were standing up for most of the time in

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Speaker 2: this weird performance to connect with normal people, but it

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Speaker 2: did give Trump the opportunity to famous lear behind Hillary

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Speaker 2: Clinton in a bunch of camera shots, just like standing

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Speaker 2: uncomfortably close to her in what is an attempt to

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Speaker 2: intimidate her. And I am in no way a fan

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Speaker 2: of Hillary Clinton's but it was spooky and weird and uncomfortable,

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Speaker 2: and the whole debate just felt very unproductive, and I

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Speaker 2: spent my time watching it between talking to my friends

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Speaker 2: at this bar and looking at my phone as people

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Speaker 2: screenshotted weird moments as the candidates, in classic candidate fashion,

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Speaker 2: picked at each other and.

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Speaker 1: Did not answer a single question.

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Speaker 2: But throughout all of this, there was this guy in

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Speaker 2: the audience the whole time, the whole time, just sitting there,

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Speaker 2: one of the undecided voters, sitting right in the front,

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Speaker 2: and you kind of could not take your eyes off

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Speaker 2: of him, Like literally you couldn't. This was a very

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Speaker 2: blue space where most voters were wearing muted colors, but

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Speaker 2: the guy I'm talking about was very attentive and wearing

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Speaker 2: a bright red sweater. And every once in a while, while

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Speaker 2: they keep cutting away to audience shots, and again you're

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Speaker 2: looking at this guy, but the guy never talks until

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Speaker 2: the very end. Weirdly, the very end just under eight

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Speaker 2: minutes before the ninety minute broadcast is over, and all

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Speaker 2: of a sudden, this guy you've been staring at during

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Speaker 2: this depressing, weird end day's show for over an hour

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Speaker 2: is standing up and he says this.

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Speaker 3: What steps will your energy policy take to meet our

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Speaker 3: energy needs while at the same time remaining environmentally friendly

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Speaker 3: and minimizing job loss for fossil power plant workers?

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Speaker 2: An innocuous question, a valid question, even from the man

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Speaker 2: in the red sweater. He's balding, he's wearing glasses, he's

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Speaker 2: on the heavier side, and the sweater. I can't emphasize

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Speaker 2: this red eyes on sweater enough and most importantly, the

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Speaker 2: chiron below him, which reads ken bone undecided? Did voter

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Speaker 2: Your sixteenth minute starts now. Sixteen oh baby, Welcome back

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Speaker 2: to sixteenth Minute, the podcast where we take a look

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Speaker 2: at the most notre glorious Internet characters of the day

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Speaker 2: and see how their moment affected them and what it

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Speaker 2: says about us and the Internet. And in honor of

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Speaker 2: the very chill presidential debate cycle that's taken place in

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty four, by the way, the first to be

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Speaker 2: separate from the Commission on Presidential debates since nineteen eighty eight.

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Speaker 2: Today we're going to look at the most famous non

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Speaker 2: candidate debate participant of all time, one Kenneth Bone. So

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Speaker 2: today we're going to look at the extremely chaotic political

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Speaker 2: landscape that Ken was launched into, and in part two

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Speaker 2: next week, we will talk to the man himself. As

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Speaker 2: I was digging into the original reaction to Ken, one

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Speaker 2: tweet stood out to me from a user at the

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Speaker 2: Shrill List that really succinctly states the tenant rule of

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Speaker 2: the main character experience that we break every single time.

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Speaker 16: It's this, y'all, don't mess up this Ken Bone thing

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Speaker 16: by interviewing him or finding out anything about him.

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Speaker 4: Thanks.

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Speaker 1: Well, sorry.

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Speaker 2: Ken isn't the only person who's ever spoken or was

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Speaker 2: invoked at a debate that made us stir, but he is,

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Speaker 2: from what I could find, the only person who directly

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Speaker 2: asked a question as an undecided voter in this town

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Speaker 2: hall format who's remembered today. And I kind of have

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Speaker 2: an issue with the term undecided voter, But Ken and

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Speaker 2: I get into that in our interview, because yes, folks,

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Speaker 2: we got Kenny. Welcome back to sixteenth minute. I threw

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Speaker 2: a birthday party from my cat flea over the weekend,

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Speaker 2: a fact that just may send jd Vance into cardiac arrest.

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Speaker 2: And this week we are talking about the tumultuous political

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Speaker 2: environment that brought us one ken bone. There might not

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Speaker 2: be many ken bones because there haven't actually been many

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Speaker 2: presidential debates broadcast in this format. The first was in

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Speaker 2: nineteen ninety two, a town hall debate between three candidates,

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Speaker 2: because remember there can be more than two between Bush Senior,

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Speaker 2: Bill Clinton, and Ross Perrot with the same undecided voters

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Speaker 2: ask the questions format, and like Kennedy before him, Bill

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Speaker 2: Clinton thrived on TV and it was thought at the

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Speaker 2: time to help him pull.

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Speaker 1: Ahead and defeat Bush.

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Speaker 2: The format made a comeback in nineteen ninety six between

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Speaker 2: Bill Clinton and Bob Dole, but then we don't see

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Speaker 2: it again until twenty sixteen and haven't since.

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Speaker 1: Why is it.

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Speaker 2: Such a Clinton specific format?

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Speaker 1: I don't know.

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Speaker 2: Conspiracy theories enjoy yourselves. And now that the Commission on

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Speaker 2: Presidential Debates is out of commission, I doubt we'll see

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Speaker 2: it anytime soon.

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Speaker 1: But why can bone?

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Speaker 2: I have my theories, and so does Ken himself. We'll

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Speaker 2: talk about it in a bit after rewatching the full debate.

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Speaker 2: I do think it comes down to a little bit

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Speaker 2: of plant and payoff. Like we've been staring at this

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Speaker 2: guy wearing a bright shirt for an hour and a

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Speaker 2: half of some of the most depressing debating I've ever seen,

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Speaker 2: and then he talks and seems sweet and has a

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Speaker 2: funny name and is smiling and doesn't seem nervous. He's

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Speaker 2: just like Chekhov's ken bone. Another reason is you kind

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Speaker 2: of had to be there, so we have to go there,

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Speaker 2: because understanding this particular moment in the twenty sixteen election

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Speaker 2: cycle is pretty crucial.

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Speaker 1: So come with me.

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Speaker 2: Sorry again to October twenty sixteen. So this was the

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Speaker 2: second of three debates between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump,

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Speaker 2: and what I don't need to tell you was a

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Speaker 2: jarring and deeply contentious race. My memory is that this

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Speaker 2: election cycle took forever, and that's not just psychic damage.

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Speaker 2: Talk of Trump planning a run began in March twenty fifteen,

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Speaker 2: around the same time as Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, John Kasich,

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Speaker 2: Ben Carson please clap.

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Speaker 1: Please clap, I think that was the candidate's name.

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Speaker 2: The Republican ticket was chaotic this cycle. Twenty twelve, candidate

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Speaker 2: and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney decided not to rerun,

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Speaker 2: and there was no real, presumed ideal candidate that emerged

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Speaker 2: in his stead sidebar Also, I'm from Massachusetts and I

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Speaker 2: was going through some childhood journals recently from when I

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Speaker 2: was like ten, and I wrote a whole journal entry

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Speaker 2: about how I thought Mitt Romney was going to be

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Speaker 2: bad for the children of Massachusetts. On the Democrat side,

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Speaker 2: Hillary Clinton announced her candidacy in April twenty fifteen, soon

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Speaker 2: followed followed by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who many preferred,

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Speaker 2: but this race was far less contentious. By February of

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Speaker 2: twenty sixteen, only Clinton and Sanders remained, and the two

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Speaker 2: ran a tighter race than many expected. Sanders actually didn't

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Speaker 2: drop out before the Democratic primary.

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Speaker 1: And Trump famously.

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Speaker 2: Announced his candidacy in June of twenty fifteen after descending

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Speaker 2: an escalator with Milania, saying.

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Speaker 5: Wow, whoa that is some group of people thousands.

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Speaker 2: This is not true, according to campaign reporter Alana Wise

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Speaker 2: dozens and Trump is running then and now with the

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Speaker 2: slogan make America Great Again, a phrase that isn't just

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Speaker 2: implicitly racist, misogynist, and xenophobic, but also means that I

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Speaker 2: finally gave up and just threw my red Bubba Gump

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Speaker 2: hat away. So by the time the ken Bone debate

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Speaker 2: aired in October twenty sixteen, we'd been getting regular updates

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Speaker 2: on this election cycle on so social media every day

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Speaker 2: for close to a year and a half. Both the

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Speaker 2: Republican and Democratic primaries were closely monitored. As the primaries

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Speaker 2: rolled out and Republican candidates started dropping from the race

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Speaker 2: like flies, Trump succeeded in appealing to voters who felt

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Speaker 2: failed by the Republican Party by loudly saying the most

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Speaker 2: unhinged thing he could think of, and Hillary Clinton ran

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Speaker 2: a very middle of the road centrist Democrat campaign, dodging

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Speaker 2: criticisms of her past policy and putting emphasis on the

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Speaker 2: historic nature of her candidacy, which was true. Clinton's status

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Speaker 2: as the first woman to be a presumed nominee stood

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Speaker 2: in stark contrast to Trump's history of allegedly raping, assaulting,

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Speaker 2: and harassing women, an issue that came up consistently during

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Speaker 2: his campaign, in addition to his history as a racist, landlord,

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Speaker 2: failed businessman, islamophobic, and in general you name it.

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Speaker 1: In terms of being overtly hateful.

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Speaker 2: Another thing we heard a lot about was Hillary's emails,

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Speaker 2: which I'll be honest, I needed a refresher on because

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Speaker 2: they were largely invoked throughout the election without context. The

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Speaker 2: email's issue boiled down to an issue of national security

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Speaker 2: related to when Clinton was Secretary of State for Barack

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Speaker 2: Obama and routed all of her emails, both personal and

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Speaker 2: those of international importance, to the same private server for

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Speaker 2: what she said was convenience. This became a massive story

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Speaker 2: in twenty fifteen. This resulted in in order to have

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Speaker 2: these emails reviewed and have professional emails sent over to

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Speaker 2: the State Department, and a huge scandal for Clinton, one

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Speaker 2: that would continue to escalate after the October ninth debate.

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Speaker 2: She presented it in the media as a mistake, and

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Speaker 2: Republicans generally positioned it as proof that she would be

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Speaker 2: a deceptive and corrupt president. So when Bernie Sanders says

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Speaker 2: this in an October twenty fifteen primary debate against Clinton, the.

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Speaker 7: American people are sick and tired of hearing about your

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Speaker 7: damn emails.

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Speaker 2: Hako, that's what he's talking about. And a year later,

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Speaker 2: when Trump is.

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Speaker 4: Saying, we have a question here from Ken Carperwicks. He

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Speaker 4: has a question about healthcare, Kent. I'd like to know, Anderson,

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Speaker 4: why aren't you bringing up the emails.

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Speaker 5: I'd like to know, why aren't you brought up No,

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Speaker 5: it hasn't, it hasn't, and it hasn't been finished at all.

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Speaker 1: That's what he is talking about.

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Speaker 2: Throughout the election season, Clinton had to answer for scourges

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Speaker 2: on her political record, including her previous endorsement of the

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Speaker 2: Iraq War, a resistance to single pair healthcareized to Wall Street,

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Speaker 2: and a general lack of liberal accomplishment during her time

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Speaker 2: as Secretary of State. Her record was not winning leftists

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Speaker 2: over at all, and then there was just genuine misogyny.

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Speaker 2: Outside of the email scandal, Probably her most notorious public

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Speaker 2: appearance was the whole basket of deplorables thing, a turn

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Speaker 2: of frase she used at a campaign event in September

440
00:26:58,040 --> 00:26:58,840
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen.

441
00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:05,080
Speaker 12: You know, did just being Rosseley John wistic, you could

442
00:27:05,160 --> 00:27:08,200
Speaker 12: put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the

443
00:27:08,280 --> 00:27:09,560
Speaker 12: basket of deplorables.

444
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:14,560
Speaker 2: So Trump wins the Republican nomination with VP Mike Pence

445
00:27:14,680 --> 00:27:18,200
Speaker 2: in July twenty sixteen, and Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic

446
00:27:18,240 --> 00:27:22,400
Speaker 2: nomination a few days later with Tim Kine. And while

447
00:27:22,400 --> 00:27:26,000
Speaker 2: Clinton was fending off the email scandal, a number of

448
00:27:26,080 --> 00:27:29,119
Speaker 2: things were dogging Trump. To name a few, there was

449
00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:33,400
Speaker 2: an ongoing lawsuit about the fraudulent Trump University. There were

450
00:27:33,440 --> 00:27:36,320
Speaker 2: a series of extreme or overtly.

451
00:27:35,840 --> 00:27:38,640
Speaker 1: False tweets, including continued.

452
00:27:38,119 --> 00:27:43,000
Speaker 2: Obama Birtherism conspiracies, and a retweet of a Mussolini quote.

453
00:27:43,560 --> 00:27:47,600
Speaker 2: And as was a major media focus, Trump's treatment of women.

454
00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:51,920
Speaker 2: This had been a conversation for years. Trump's ex wife,

455
00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:55,959
Speaker 2: Evanna had previously accused him of marital rape, and throughout

456
00:27:56,000 --> 00:27:59,600
Speaker 2: the campaign, women who had previously associated with him or

457
00:27:59,680 --> 00:28:03,639
Speaker 2: compete in his beauty pageants came forward with allegations of

458
00:28:03,760 --> 00:28:09,240
Speaker 2: inappropriate touching, comments or coercion. But late in the election cycle,

459
00:28:09,760 --> 00:28:13,320
Speaker 2: one damning tape had a lot of people, including me,

460
00:28:13,920 --> 00:28:17,720
Speaker 2: thinking that there was no way Trump could bounce back

461
00:28:17,760 --> 00:28:21,879
Speaker 2: from the Access Hollywood tape. If you don't remember the

462
00:28:22,560 --> 00:28:26,000
Speaker 2: clip of Donald Trump and then host of Access Hollywood

463
00:28:26,040 --> 00:28:28,680
Speaker 2: Billy Bush from two thousand and five, I.

464
00:28:28,680 --> 00:28:32,520
Speaker 4: Got to confuse some ticktacks, just a casst kissinger. You know,

465
00:28:32,560 --> 00:28:34,720
Speaker 4: I'm automatically a drag kit. The beautiful. I just started

466
00:28:34,760 --> 00:28:35,320
Speaker 4: kissing them.

467
00:28:35,400 --> 00:28:36,240
Speaker 12: It's like a magnet.

468
00:28:36,280 --> 00:28:39,840
Speaker 5: He just didn't And when you're a start, they let

469
00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:40,280
Speaker 5: you do it.

470
00:28:40,680 --> 00:28:42,560
Speaker 4: You can do anything whatever you want to grab him

471
00:28:42,560 --> 00:28:42,760
Speaker 4: by the.

472
00:28:44,680 --> 00:28:47,680
Speaker 1: I can do any of that. I don't really have

473
00:28:47,720 --> 00:28:49,160
Speaker 1: any desire to play more of this.

474
00:28:49,160 --> 00:28:52,320
Speaker 2: This is the most famous section, but it's worth mentioning

475
00:28:52,320 --> 00:28:55,520
Speaker 2: that the actual Access Hollywood tape is much longer than this,

476
00:28:56,040 --> 00:28:59,600
Speaker 2: and includes a protracted session where Trump is telling Billy

477
00:28:59,640 --> 00:29:04,280
Speaker 2: Bush about shamelessly harassing Billy Bush's co host Nancy O'Dell,

478
00:29:04,680 --> 00:29:07,320
Speaker 2: and then goes on to talk about her body disparagingly.

479
00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:10,480
Speaker 2: The woman he's referring to in the clip I just

480
00:29:10,520 --> 00:29:14,120
Speaker 2: played is someone that two are about to interview, a

481
00:29:14,160 --> 00:29:18,440
Speaker 2: soap opera actor named Arianna Zucker. This tape was leaked

482
00:29:18,480 --> 00:29:21,880
Speaker 2: to The Washington Post two days before the town hall

483
00:29:21,920 --> 00:29:25,360
Speaker 2: debate and was absolutely top of mind for both voters

484
00:29:25,400 --> 00:29:30,720
Speaker 2: and media. Trump defended the behavior during the debate, infamously saying.

485
00:29:30,920 --> 00:29:34,320
Speaker 4: This was locker room talk. I'm not proud of it.

486
00:29:34,800 --> 00:29:38,240
Speaker 5: I apologize to my family, I apologize to the American people.

487
00:29:38,560 --> 00:29:41,440
Speaker 4: Certainly, I'm not proud of it. But this is locker

488
00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:42,040
Speaker 4: room talk.

489
00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:46,560
Speaker 2: The day after this leaks, Hillary Clinton condemns Trump's statements,

490
00:29:46,880 --> 00:29:50,720
Speaker 2: and Trump defended himself using the phrase locker room banter.

491
00:29:51,320 --> 00:29:55,000
Speaker 2: But just remember while these days, Trump's base will slurp

492
00:29:55,080 --> 00:29:58,000
Speaker 2: up any horrifying shit he can think of. At the time,

493
00:29:58,520 --> 00:30:03,120
Speaker 2: something this transparent, horrible, this close to an election day,

494
00:30:03,880 --> 00:30:06,360
Speaker 2: a lot of people thought he was done, including some

495
00:30:06,480 --> 00:30:10,920
Speaker 2: of his own supporters. Dozens of present and former Republican

496
00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:14,640
Speaker 2: lawmakers made public statements on the Access Hollywood tape as

497
00:30:14,760 --> 00:30:18,560
Speaker 2: further proof that Trump was unfit to serve as president

498
00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:22,320
Speaker 2: or as their candidate, while others who had endorsed him

499
00:30:22,520 --> 00:30:26,760
Speaker 2: condemned the comments and still supported the man. Particularly is

500
00:30:26,880 --> 00:30:29,680
Speaker 2: lukewarm soup eating VP pick Mike Pence.

501
00:30:30,040 --> 00:30:32,280
Speaker 16: As a husband and father, I was offended by the

502
00:30:32,280 --> 00:30:34,680
Speaker 16: words and actions described by Donald Trump in the eleven

503
00:30:34,760 --> 00:30:38,360
Speaker 16: year old video released yesterday. I do not condone his

504
00:30:38,440 --> 00:30:40,840
Speaker 16: remarks and cannot defend him, and.

505
00:30:40,760 --> 00:30:44,520
Speaker 2: It obviously feels naive now, but I can't overstate how

506
00:30:44,600 --> 00:30:48,200
Speaker 2: bad this was perceived to be for his campaign. At

507
00:30:48,200 --> 00:30:51,360
Speaker 2: the time, CNN called it the worst weekend for any

508
00:30:51,440 --> 00:30:54,960
Speaker 2: presidential candidate ever. I wasn't aware of this phrase, but

509
00:30:55,200 --> 00:30:59,920
Speaker 2: in American politics, a reveal of a damning further indictment

510
00:31:00,080 --> 00:31:04,400
Speaker 2: of Trump's character could be classified as an October surprise

511
00:31:05,080 --> 00:31:06,920
Speaker 2: or a late in the game reveal that could be

512
00:31:06,960 --> 00:31:11,120
Speaker 2: a deciding factor to swing undecided voters like Ken Bone

513
00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:15,040
Speaker 2: away from a certain candidate. And while the Access Hollywood

514
00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:18,600
Speaker 2: tape is the most remembered of Trump's October surprises, this

515
00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:21,680
Speaker 2: was actually the third damning thing that it hit his

516
00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:25,440
Speaker 2: campaign that week. On October first, the New York Times

517
00:31:25,520 --> 00:31:29,440
Speaker 2: reported that Trump likely avoided paying his taxes for almost

518
00:31:29,480 --> 00:31:33,959
Speaker 2: twenty years, and hours before the Access Hollywood tape dropped,

519
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:37,320
Speaker 2: Trump said that the Central Park five should never have

520
00:31:37,440 --> 00:31:41,640
Speaker 2: been exonerated. It looked so bad for him, and liberal

521
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:45,520
Speaker 2: media seemed to agree. They oscillated between disgusted with the

522
00:31:45,560 --> 00:31:50,280
Speaker 2: tape itself and started taking this preemptive victory lap, a

523
00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:54,080
Speaker 2: general feeling that surely this would be the thing that

524
00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:56,640
Speaker 2: would get Donald Trump out of the race. If not

525
00:31:56,720 --> 00:31:59,600
Speaker 2: the refusal to release the tax statement, if not, the

526
00:31:59,680 --> 00:32:05,000
Speaker 2: mass govzenophobia, if not the pending fraud litigation, surely this

527
00:32:06,360 --> 00:32:09,400
Speaker 2: The day after the tape was released, Trump tweeted.

528
00:32:09,600 --> 00:32:11,640
Speaker 16: Certainly has made it interesting.

529
00:32:11,720 --> 00:32:16,200
Speaker 2: Twenty four hours and that Saturday night, Alec Baldwin and

530
00:32:16,240 --> 00:32:19,880
Speaker 2: I can't, we just can't. Alec Baldwin parodied the moment

531
00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:22,360
Speaker 2: on SNL two nights before the debate.

532
00:32:22,880 --> 00:32:27,200
Speaker 7: Mister Trump, this leaked audio showed you saying, you know,

533
00:32:27,280 --> 00:32:27,640
Speaker 7: I can't.

534
00:32:27,720 --> 00:32:31,680
Speaker 14: I can't quite say it on live television, but basically

535
00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:34,200
Speaker 14: you said you wanted to.

536
00:32:35,720 --> 00:32:36,680
Speaker 4: Grab them by the book.

537
00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:40,880
Speaker 2: For what it's worth, this was not a great weekend

538
00:32:41,120 --> 00:32:45,320
Speaker 2: for Clinton's campaign either. On the seventh, WikiLeaks began to

539
00:32:45,320 --> 00:32:49,960
Speaker 2: publish emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, John Podesta that

540
00:32:50,040 --> 00:32:54,200
Speaker 2: addressed one of her massive vulnerabilities, the fact that the

541
00:32:54,360 --> 00:32:57,520
Speaker 2: candidate courting the left had been giving paid speeches to

542
00:32:57,680 --> 00:33:01,320
Speaker 2: Wall Street groups and refused to release the transcripts. But

543
00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:04,240
Speaker 2: a paid speech on Wall Street was nothing next to

544
00:33:04,240 --> 00:33:07,600
Speaker 2: the Access Hollywood tape, and it didn't register as Wiki

545
00:33:07,680 --> 00:33:11,200
Speaker 2: Leaks probably would have liked for it too, And this

546
00:33:11,280 --> 00:33:15,240
Speaker 2: left Trump on the major defensive. How is he going

547
00:33:15,320 --> 00:33:18,320
Speaker 2: to survive this debate when half of his party was

548
00:33:18,520 --> 00:33:22,160
Speaker 2: very ready to walk away from him? The afternoon of

549
00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:27,200
Speaker 2: October ninth, he retaliated, organizing a press conference just hours

550
00:33:27,200 --> 00:33:30,920
Speaker 2: before the debate with three women who had previously accused

551
00:33:30,920 --> 00:33:35,640
Speaker 2: Bill Clinton of assault and rape. Juanita Broderick, Paula Jones,

552
00:33:35,840 --> 00:33:39,520
Speaker 2: and Kathleen Willie, and a fourth person named Kathy Shelter,

553
00:33:39,760 --> 00:33:42,960
Speaker 2: whose attacker had been legally represented by Hillary Clinton in

554
00:33:43,120 --> 00:33:44,240
Speaker 2: Arkansas back.

555
00:33:44,120 --> 00:33:45,280
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy five.

556
00:33:46,000 --> 00:33:49,720
Speaker 2: I had completely forgotten about this until Trump brought it

557
00:33:49,920 --> 00:33:53,480
Speaker 2: up at the debate itself, saying that the women were

558
00:33:53,520 --> 00:33:55,840
Speaker 2: attending the debate as his guests.

559
00:33:56,680 --> 00:34:01,200
Speaker 5: If you look at Bill Clinton farward, minor words, and

560
00:34:01,240 --> 00:34:01,880
Speaker 5: his was action.

561
00:34:02,560 --> 00:34:04,080
Speaker 4: His was what he's done to women.

562
00:34:04,120 --> 00:34:07,320
Speaker 5: There's never been anybody in the history of politics in

563
00:34:07,400 --> 00:34:11,400
Speaker 5: this nation that's been so abusive to women. So you

564
00:34:11,480 --> 00:34:14,520
Speaker 5: can say any way you want to say it, but Bill.

565
00:34:14,239 --> 00:34:16,320
Speaker 4: Clinton was abusive to women.

566
00:34:16,640 --> 00:34:21,600
Speaker 5: Hillary Clinton attacked those same women and attack them viciously,

567
00:34:21,680 --> 00:34:22,880
Speaker 5: four of them here tonight.

568
00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:27,040
Speaker 2: This is just so nasty to me, because Bill Clinton's

569
00:34:27,080 --> 00:34:31,360
Speaker 2: history of abusing women and predatory actions should be talked

570
00:34:31,400 --> 00:34:34,480
Speaker 2: about just as much as Donald Trump's history of abusing

571
00:34:34,520 --> 00:34:37,719
Speaker 2: women should. But Trump choosing this moment to highlight this

572
00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:42,239
Speaker 2: abuse is incredibly transparent. He's backed into a corner and

573
00:34:42,320 --> 00:34:46,000
Speaker 2: pointing at his former friends, the Clintons, and saying, I

574
00:34:46,040 --> 00:34:48,680
Speaker 2: know you are, but what am I to discredit his opponent?

575
00:34:49,160 --> 00:34:51,880
Speaker 2: Here's when Eda Broderick in a press conference Trump held

576
00:34:52,120 --> 00:34:53,280
Speaker 2: four hours earlier.

577
00:34:53,960 --> 00:34:58,320
Speaker 12: Okay, I'm ready to Broadrick, and I'm here to support

578
00:34:58,400 --> 00:35:03,120
Speaker 12: Donald Trump. I tweeted recently, and mister Trump retweeted it

579
00:35:03,920 --> 00:35:06,360
Speaker 12: that actions speak louder than wards.

580
00:35:07,880 --> 00:35:09,560
Speaker 1: Mister Trump may have said some.

581
00:35:09,760 --> 00:35:16,480
Speaker 12: Bad words, but Bill Clinton riped me when Hillary Clinton threatened.

582
00:35:17,680 --> 00:35:19,520
Speaker 12: I don't think there's any comparers.

583
00:35:20,320 --> 00:35:24,120
Speaker 2: The stories of these survivors deserve a platform. Bill Clinton

584
00:35:24,200 --> 00:35:26,560
Speaker 2: is a piece of shit, but it's a valid discussion

585
00:35:26,800 --> 00:35:30,320
Speaker 2: that couldn't be coming from a worse source. I believe

586
00:35:30,320 --> 00:35:33,640
Speaker 2: Bill Clinton survivors, and I also think Trump was really

587
00:35:33,760 --> 00:35:36,800
Speaker 2: obviously using them as political pawns to make the words

588
00:35:36,800 --> 00:35:40,239
Speaker 2: he said in two thousand and five sound less significant

589
00:35:40,280 --> 00:35:44,160
Speaker 2: than Bill Clinton's alleged actions. He says as much in

590
00:35:44,239 --> 00:35:47,480
Speaker 2: the debate, and that might mean something if there weren't

591
00:35:47,600 --> 00:35:51,320
Speaker 2: ample alleged and proven actions of Trump's own.

592
00:35:51,880 --> 00:35:52,919
Speaker 1: He's bullshitting.

593
00:35:53,160 --> 00:35:55,440
Speaker 2: Here's how he's talking at that press conference.

594
00:35:55,920 --> 00:36:00,080
Speaker 5: These war very courageous women have asked to be here.

595
00:36:00,120 --> 00:36:02,080
Speaker 11: And it was a June Help.

596
00:36:01,880 --> 00:36:07,520
Speaker 2: Them, Loah, and the Access Hollywood tape didn't doom Trump's campaign,

597
00:36:07,719 --> 00:36:12,040
Speaker 2: as we now know, the lesson here. Never underestimate how

598
00:36:12,120 --> 00:36:14,640
Speaker 2: much people of every political.

599
00:36:14,160 --> 00:36:15,640
Speaker 1: Persuasion hate women.

600
00:36:16,160 --> 00:36:20,560
Speaker 2: So it's this environment that is surrounding this group of

601
00:36:20,920 --> 00:36:23,839
Speaker 2: undecided or, as I think is a more appropriate term,

602
00:36:24,200 --> 00:36:28,520
Speaker 2: uncommitted voters who had questions about issues they felt that

603
00:36:28,600 --> 00:36:32,840
Speaker 2: neither candidate had sufficiently addressed. As Ken tells me in

604
00:36:32,880 --> 00:36:36,600
Speaker 2: our interview, the whole idea of undecided even being a

605
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:40,399
Speaker 2: question after the Access Hollywood tapes had the participants kind

606
00:36:40,400 --> 00:36:43,440
Speaker 2: of on their heels and feeling foolish the day of.

607
00:36:43,960 --> 00:36:47,680
Speaker 2: They'd been selected weeks earlier, far before the tape came out.

608
00:36:48,280 --> 00:36:51,759
Speaker 2: But it's this moment that a random man in a

609
00:36:51,800 --> 00:36:56,280
Speaker 2: red eyes On sweater somehow manages to steal the show.

610
00:36:57,440 --> 00:37:02,239
Speaker 2: Ken was and is a normal guy. He worked at

611
00:37:02,239 --> 00:37:04,800
Speaker 2: a power plant in the area. He had a wife

612
00:37:04,960 --> 00:37:08,759
Speaker 2: and a teenage son. He'd been raised conservative and was

613
00:37:08,880 --> 00:37:12,920
Speaker 2: slowly unlearning a lot of it. He liked sports, he

614
00:37:13,080 --> 00:37:17,879
Speaker 2: liked anime, he liked video games. He was just some guy,

615
00:37:18,560 --> 00:37:21,480
Speaker 2: and he asked a question about energy policy because it

616
00:37:21,480 --> 00:37:23,680
Speaker 2: would directly affect his life.

617
00:37:24,239 --> 00:37:27,080
Speaker 1: Ken told me all about what this day was like.

618
00:37:27,719 --> 00:37:28,840
Speaker 1: It was very long.

619
00:37:29,040 --> 00:37:31,640
Speaker 2: They took your phone, so you couldn't have access to

620
00:37:31,680 --> 00:37:34,680
Speaker 2: the outside world while on property, and because of that,

621
00:37:35,080 --> 00:37:38,480
Speaker 2: they gave the town hall members these little disposable cameras

622
00:37:38,520 --> 00:37:41,279
Speaker 2: to remember the event by some of the pictures that

623
00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:44,960
Speaker 2: when viral of Ken featured him with his disposable camera

624
00:37:45,400 --> 00:37:48,680
Speaker 2: taking a picture of the technical equipment that furthered this

625
00:37:48,880 --> 00:37:52,239
Speaker 2: vision of him as a geek. So Ken doesn't even

626
00:37:52,280 --> 00:37:56,360
Speaker 2: turn his phone off until well after the debate has ended.

627
00:37:57,200 --> 00:38:00,840
Speaker 2: By the time he left Washington University, he still didn't

628
00:38:00,880 --> 00:38:04,279
Speaker 2: know he was becoming famous. As the live reactions to

629
00:38:04,360 --> 00:38:09,359
Speaker 2: the debate were unrolling everywhere on TV and definitely on

630
00:38:09,400 --> 00:38:13,320
Speaker 2: social media. The general feeling was that Clinton had prevailed

631
00:38:13,400 --> 00:38:15,839
Speaker 2: as the winner of the debate, but not by as

632
00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:19,840
Speaker 2: much as Democrats hoped. She was still extremely vulnerable on

633
00:38:19,920 --> 00:38:24,920
Speaker 2: issues like immigration and healthcare. As for Trump, he'd made

634
00:38:24,960 --> 00:38:28,520
Speaker 2: a debate defining statement of dismissing.

635
00:38:28,040 --> 00:38:31,000
Speaker 4: Assault as locker room talk.

636
00:38:31,080 --> 00:38:36,319
Speaker 2: And other language implying autocracy over democracy, including threatening to

637
00:38:36,320 --> 00:38:39,360
Speaker 2: put Hillary Clinton in jail if elected, appealing to the

638
00:38:39,440 --> 00:38:43,839
Speaker 2: lock her up contingency. So people really glombed on to him.

639
00:38:44,200 --> 00:38:45,200
Speaker 2: Here are some tweets.

640
00:38:46,480 --> 00:38:49,760
Speaker 16: Kenneth Bone is here to remind you it's sweater weather.

641
00:38:50,800 --> 00:38:53,720
Speaker 2: Thank you Kenneth Bone for breaking the tension with being

642
00:38:53,800 --> 00:38:55,520
Speaker 2: named Kenneth Bone.

643
00:38:56,640 --> 00:38:59,239
Speaker 16: How will you protect my job as a card and

644
00:38:59,400 --> 00:38:59,919
Speaker 16: guess who?

645
00:39:00,360 --> 00:39:05,319
Speaker 2: Hashtag debates Ken Bone an undecided voter, but not an

646
00:39:05,400 --> 00:39:06,840
Speaker 2: undecided dresser.

647
00:39:07,280 --> 00:39:11,000
Speaker 16: US History Books, twenty one fifty and in that moment,

648
00:39:11,000 --> 00:39:14,440
Speaker 16: the Republic was saved by a man named Ken Bone.

649
00:39:14,640 --> 00:39:18,480
Speaker 2: At the time, this was still unusual for debates. But

650
00:39:18,600 --> 00:39:21,520
Speaker 2: even in the midst of this chaos. By the time

651
00:39:21,680 --> 00:39:26,719
Speaker 2: Ken Bone arrived home in nearby Belleville, Illinois, he was

652
00:39:26,760 --> 00:39:31,120
Speaker 2: a star. Here's Jake Tapper the day after All day long,

653
00:39:31,320 --> 00:39:34,840
Speaker 2: my staff and I we've been pondering this important question

654
00:39:35,560 --> 00:39:40,760
Speaker 2: what makes Ken Bone so awesome? And Fox and Friends

655
00:39:40,840 --> 00:39:41,840
Speaker 2: the day after that.

656
00:39:42,960 --> 00:39:46,319
Speaker 3: The votes are in and this undecided voter has won

657
00:39:46,400 --> 00:39:47,800
Speaker 3: over all of our hearts.

658
00:39:48,480 --> 00:39:52,759
Speaker 2: If I showed you every news broadcast that made reference

659
00:39:53,040 --> 00:39:56,200
Speaker 2: to remember that guy in the red sweater from last

660
00:39:56,320 --> 00:40:00,040
Speaker 2: night with the funny name, well, we loved him, it

661
00:40:00,080 --> 00:40:05,280
Speaker 2: would be here for hours. People loved him, and Ken

662
00:40:05,440 --> 00:40:23,720
Speaker 2: was pretty receptive to the attention. Welcome back to sixteenth minute.

663
00:40:23,840 --> 00:40:26,560
Speaker 2: When the twenty sixteen election results came in, I'd just

664
00:40:26,600 --> 00:40:29,640
Speaker 2: been broken up with by a malevolent prop comedian who

665
00:40:29,680 --> 00:40:33,799
Speaker 2: fears me to this day. And this week we're revisiting

666
00:40:33,840 --> 00:40:37,000
Speaker 2: the saga of ken Bone, just in time for another contentious,

667
00:40:37,200 --> 00:40:41,000
Speaker 2: consequential election cycle. We're voting anything but down ballot makes

668
00:40:41,040 --> 00:40:44,919
Speaker 2: me feel sick as Ken starts to make public appearances,

669
00:40:45,280 --> 00:40:47,880
Speaker 2: just showing up on TV in the order he received

670
00:40:47,880 --> 00:40:51,120
Speaker 2: requests in we see him speak to people across the

671
00:40:51,160 --> 00:40:56,680
Speaker 2: political spectrum, because at least initially, he was embraced by everyone,

672
00:40:57,280 --> 00:40:59,480
Speaker 2: and in a move that reminds me of Hawk to

673
00:40:59,560 --> 00:41:04,280
Speaker 2: a girl. More recently, both liberal and conservative media establishments

674
00:41:04,600 --> 00:41:08,879
Speaker 2: made attempts to claim Ken as it were, but Ken

675
00:41:08,920 --> 00:41:13,960
Speaker 2: would not be claimed. So, having now thoroughly revisited this

676
00:41:14,400 --> 00:41:18,600
Speaker 2: cursed forty eight hours of American history, it's a little

677
00:41:18,640 --> 00:41:23,440
Speaker 2: easier to understand why ken Bone became such a big deal.

678
00:41:24,040 --> 00:41:26,719
Speaker 1: Does it still seem a little random?

679
00:41:26,719 --> 00:41:31,600
Speaker 2: Sure, But Ken Bone was the only fun part of

680
00:41:31,719 --> 00:41:35,000
Speaker 2: watching the debate, a living meme in the middle of

681
00:41:35,040 --> 00:41:39,560
Speaker 2: an eventful and largely depressing couple of news days. People

682
00:41:39,680 --> 00:41:43,600
Speaker 2: just fucking went nuts for this guy. I mean full disclosure.

683
00:41:43,800 --> 00:41:47,720
Speaker 2: On October eleventh, twenty sixteen, I published a fake diary

684
00:41:47,800 --> 00:41:50,960
Speaker 2: written by Ken Bone in Paste magazine, And so if

685
00:41:51,000 --> 00:41:54,360
Speaker 2: you're Ken Bone, you're presented with an immediate choice of

686
00:41:54,440 --> 00:41:57,560
Speaker 2: whether you want to engage with this or not, and

687
00:41:57,680 --> 00:42:01,600
Speaker 2: he decides he's going to the next few days are

688
00:42:01,719 --> 00:42:05,319
Speaker 2: filled with ken interviews, and his general vibe seems to

689
00:42:05,320 --> 00:42:07,520
Speaker 2: be just as sweet as the man we saw on

690
00:42:07,600 --> 00:42:11,800
Speaker 2: screen at the debate. His social media following exploded.

691
00:42:12,200 --> 00:42:13,520
Speaker 1: His Twitter follower.

692
00:42:13,200 --> 00:42:17,320
Speaker 2: Count went from literally seven to over two hundred thousand

693
00:42:17,600 --> 00:42:20,560
Speaker 2: in the space of a few days. Everyone was talking

694
00:42:20,680 --> 00:42:22,920
Speaker 2: Ken Here he is with Anderson Cooper.

695
00:42:23,800 --> 00:42:26,719
Speaker 3: It's been very strange, and I'm very sorry to all

696
00:42:26,760 --> 00:42:29,200
Speaker 3: the Ken Bone twenty sixteen people, but I am only

697
00:42:29,239 --> 00:42:31,279
Speaker 3: thirty four years old. You'll have to wait for Ken

698
00:42:31,320 --> 00:42:35,040
Speaker 3: Bone twenty twenty. And if you want to addresses me for Halloween,

699
00:42:35,040 --> 00:42:37,680
Speaker 3: you better be quick. The sweater is sold out on Amazon,

700
00:42:37,840 --> 00:42:39,319
Speaker 3: and these mustaches don't come.

701
00:42:39,239 --> 00:42:44,600
Speaker 2: Overnight with Jimmy Kimmel, very grateful to you for spending

702
00:42:44,640 --> 00:42:45,440
Speaker 2: time with us tonight.

703
00:42:45,560 --> 00:42:48,200
Speaker 16: Do you have any idea of how adorable you are?

704
00:42:48,320 --> 00:42:49,880
Speaker 4: First, I want to say.

705
00:42:51,120 --> 00:42:52,320
Speaker 3: That's a definitive guess.

706
00:42:52,440 --> 00:42:53,279
Speaker 4: Yes, Okay, good?

707
00:42:53,960 --> 00:42:57,480
Speaker 2: And on Comedy Central Late Show at midnight, Trigger warning

708
00:42:57,520 --> 00:42:59,200
Speaker 2: for Chris Hardwick jump scare.

709
00:43:00,120 --> 00:43:02,479
Speaker 11: Thanks Chris. It was a real thrill to see ken

710
00:43:02,520 --> 00:43:06,440
Speaker 11: Bone facts trending on Twitter on Monday night. I loved

711
00:43:06,480 --> 00:43:08,800
Speaker 11: every one of them, but I can't pick my favorite

712
00:43:08,800 --> 00:43:11,279
Speaker 11: because I'm undecided, So I'm going to read a few

713
00:43:11,280 --> 00:43:11,919
Speaker 11: of the best mines.

714
00:43:11,880 --> 00:43:15,920
Speaker 2: Sure, it's basically the same three things over and over,

715
00:43:16,360 --> 00:43:18,360
Speaker 2: but it's not like the other news turn of the

716
00:43:18,400 --> 00:43:23,000
Speaker 2: debate left anything remotely fun to talk about. In the

717
00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:26,840
Speaker 2: week after Trump's obfuscation about the Access Hollywood tape, a

718
00:43:26,960 --> 00:43:29,560
Speaker 2: number of women decided to come forward with their own

719
00:43:29,600 --> 00:43:33,200
Speaker 2: allegations about how Trump had treated them to give further

720
00:43:33,280 --> 00:43:36,360
Speaker 2: credence that the two thousand and five tape was no joke.

721
00:43:37,000 --> 00:43:40,399
Speaker 2: And while the Stormy Daniel's allegation wouldn't become public, then

722
00:43:41,040 --> 00:43:45,680
Speaker 2: many women's stories did. I could find fourteen accounts of

723
00:43:45,760 --> 00:43:49,239
Speaker 2: women coming forward with allegations of harassment and assault from

724
00:43:49,239 --> 00:43:52,040
Speaker 2: the past that were reported in the week after the

725
00:43:52,080 --> 00:43:57,000
Speaker 2: October ninth debate. It was nuts, but at first ken

726
00:43:57,040 --> 00:44:00,640
Speaker 2: Bone was something everyone could agree on. He was profiled

727
00:44:00,920 --> 00:44:03,000
Speaker 2: just about everywhere that first week.

728
00:44:03,320 --> 00:44:04,520
Speaker 1: The New Yorker, The New.

729
00:44:04,480 --> 00:44:08,160
Speaker 2: York Times, Fox, the Washington Post, you name it. They

730
00:44:08,200 --> 00:44:11,439
Speaker 2: wrote about him in those first few days, and most

731
00:44:11,440 --> 00:44:14,680
Speaker 2: of the pieces have a similar tilt that Ken Bone

732
00:44:14,880 --> 00:44:19,160
Speaker 2: was a breath of fresh air, the working class everyman personified.

733
00:44:19,680 --> 00:44:20,439
Speaker 1: He was good on.

734
00:44:20,400 --> 00:44:24,400
Speaker 2: Camera, he didn't seem to be hawking anything, and bonus,

735
00:44:24,680 --> 00:44:27,360
Speaker 2: he was using many of his appearances to raise money

736
00:44:27,360 --> 00:44:30,200
Speaker 2: for a local shelter for the unhoused, the Saint Patrick

737
00:44:30,280 --> 00:44:34,120
Speaker 2: Center in Saint Louis. But we know this story right,

738
00:44:34,800 --> 00:44:39,480
Speaker 2: Something was going to give. The sudden increased public scrutiny

739
00:44:39,680 --> 00:44:42,280
Speaker 2: led to a phenomenon we've talked about on this show before,

740
00:44:42,760 --> 00:44:48,000
Speaker 2: the inevitable milkshake duck moment. Fox's Asia Romana described the

741
00:44:48,040 --> 00:44:49,600
Speaker 2: pattern in twenty twenty.

742
00:44:49,320 --> 00:44:54,400
Speaker 16: One as a mild mannered commoner unexpectedly gains attention and

743
00:44:54,560 --> 00:44:57,800
Speaker 16: briefly captures the heart of the nation, or at a minimum,

744
00:44:57,920 --> 00:45:01,440
Speaker 16: the bored attention of Twitter and the nation's meme makers,

745
00:45:01,960 --> 00:45:06,400
Speaker 16: only for a horrifying revelation about them to surface before

746
00:45:06,480 --> 00:45:09,799
Speaker 16: fifteen minutes of Internet fame have even elapsed.

747
00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:14,479
Speaker 2: And less than a week later, Ken's milkshake duck moment came.

748
00:45:15,280 --> 00:45:18,279
Speaker 2: He was asked to host a Reddit ama Ask Me

749
00:45:18,320 --> 00:45:23,680
Speaker 2: Anything to adoring commenters. Introducing himself from his actual Reddit

750
00:45:23,680 --> 00:45:27,279
Speaker 2: account username Stan Gibson eighteen.

751
00:45:27,680 --> 00:45:31,759
Speaker 16: He writes, Hello Reddit, I'm just a normal guy who

752
00:45:31,800 --> 00:45:34,720
Speaker 16: spends his free time with his hot wife and cat

753
00:45:34,880 --> 00:45:38,000
Speaker 16: in Saint Louis. I didn't see any of this coming.

754
00:45:38,239 --> 00:45:39,680
Speaker 16: It's been a crazy week.

755
00:45:40,239 --> 00:45:43,120
Speaker 2: The replies match the fawning nature of how ken was

756
00:45:43,160 --> 00:45:46,360
Speaker 2: talked about in those early days. A kid commented that

757
00:45:46,440 --> 00:45:49,319
Speaker 2: he wrote an essay about him called ken Bone Our

758
00:45:49,400 --> 00:45:52,839
Speaker 2: Deliverance from Evil, and there were questions about his opinions

759
00:45:52,920 --> 00:45:56,200
Speaker 2: on certain political policies and how he met his hot wife.

760
00:45:56,760 --> 00:46:01,160
Speaker 2: But some people clicked on the username Dan Gibson eighteen

761
00:46:01,680 --> 00:46:06,200
Speaker 2: and found some pretty sketchy Reddit user behavior. I'm not

762
00:46:06,239 --> 00:46:09,040
Speaker 2: going to rehash it all here. Ken Bone has addressed

763
00:46:09,040 --> 00:46:12,400
Speaker 2: it publicly numerous times and in our interview, But the

764
00:46:12,440 --> 00:46:15,960
Speaker 2: comments people pulled to disseminate on social media ranged from

765
00:46:16,040 --> 00:46:19,640
Speaker 2: as innocuous as ken commenting on not Safe.

766
00:46:19,440 --> 00:46:21,399
Speaker 1: For work pictures who Cares.

767
00:46:21,600 --> 00:46:26,080
Speaker 2: Too genuinely offensive comments about Jennifer Lawrence's leaked nudes, and

768
00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:29,560
Speaker 2: the murder of Trayvon Martin. This last one is worth

769
00:46:29,600 --> 00:46:32,120
Speaker 2: honing in on. In particular, Ken.

770
00:46:31,920 --> 00:46:34,400
Speaker 16: Wrote it doesn't have to be a one or the

771
00:46:34,480 --> 00:46:37,160
Speaker 16: other view here. From what I read about the case,

772
00:46:37,560 --> 00:46:40,360
Speaker 16: the shooting of Trayvon Martin was justified. But from what

773
00:46:40,440 --> 00:46:45,040
Speaker 16: I've learned of Zimmerman through statements, interviews, and behavior, he's

774
00:46:45,040 --> 00:46:48,520
Speaker 16: a big old shitbird, bad guy legally kills kid in

775
00:46:48,600 --> 00:46:52,160
Speaker 16: self defense. Sucks for everybody, including us due to the

776
00:46:52,200 --> 00:46:53,120
Speaker 16: media fuckery.

777
00:46:53,440 --> 00:46:55,720
Speaker 2: This is the statement that has brought up the most,

778
00:46:55,920 --> 00:46:58,759
Speaker 2: and there are many interpretations of this comment that made

779
00:46:58,800 --> 00:47:02,400
Speaker 2: it sound like ken Bone was completely okay with Zimmerman

780
00:47:02,560 --> 00:47:06,200
Speaker 2: murdering Trayvon Martin in cold blood, which doesn't seem to

781
00:47:06,200 --> 00:47:08,600
Speaker 2: be the statement here, but the fact remains that it

782
00:47:08,640 --> 00:47:12,560
Speaker 2: is deeply insensitive and beside the point. And once these

783
00:47:12,560 --> 00:47:16,759
Speaker 2: comments were discovered, ken acknowledged and apologized for them in

784
00:47:16,800 --> 00:47:20,680
Speaker 2: short order, and apologizing to Jennifer Lawrence directly and saying

785
00:47:20,719 --> 00:47:24,399
Speaker 2: this about the Trayvon Martin comments on October fourteenth.

786
00:47:25,200 --> 00:47:28,440
Speaker 3: There's some that I'm not super proud of, and a

787
00:47:28,520 --> 00:47:31,560
Speaker 3: part of my message is being positive and holding our

788
00:47:31,640 --> 00:47:34,680
Speaker 3: leaders to a higher level of discourse, so I need

789
00:47:34,680 --> 00:47:36,960
Speaker 3: to hold myself accountable for that too. I like to

790
00:47:36,960 --> 00:47:39,480
Speaker 3: feel like I've grown and evolved as a person in

791
00:47:39,520 --> 00:47:42,560
Speaker 3: the time since then, if I could personally apologize to

792
00:47:42,560 --> 00:47:44,560
Speaker 3: any of the people who are offended by what they read,

793
00:47:44,880 --> 00:47:46,799
Speaker 3: then I absolutely would do that, and maybe I'll get

794
00:47:46,800 --> 00:47:50,400
Speaker 3: that chance to this platform. But if you were offended

795
00:47:50,400 --> 00:47:53,000
Speaker 3: by that and you listen, I take responsibility for that.

796
00:47:53,840 --> 00:47:56,160
Speaker 2: And so less than a week after ken had become

797
00:47:56,280 --> 00:48:00,920
Speaker 2: a public figure, he was persona non grata. Time This

798
00:48:00,960 --> 00:48:05,280
Speaker 2: started some conversation around what this kind of Internet fame

799
00:48:05,480 --> 00:48:08,480
Speaker 2: really meant and if it was productive to dig up

800
00:48:08,520 --> 00:48:11,480
Speaker 2: whatever one could on someone who was a normal person

801
00:48:11,640 --> 00:48:14,680
Speaker 2: just days before. What are we really getting out of

802
00:48:14,719 --> 00:48:18,200
Speaker 2: headlines like the New York Posts ken Bone is actually

803
00:48:18,280 --> 00:48:20,840
Speaker 2: kind of an awful guy, the New York Times.

804
00:48:21,000 --> 00:48:23,000
Speaker 1: We may be leaving the Ken Bone zone.

805
00:48:23,560 --> 00:48:26,640
Speaker 2: GQ's j Willis meditated on it in a piece at

806
00:48:26,680 --> 00:48:30,239
Speaker 2: the time called the Internet came for Ken Bone and

807
00:48:30,280 --> 00:48:31,399
Speaker 2: it will drag you too.

808
00:48:32,280 --> 00:48:35,799
Speaker 16: Now you may be thinking, wait, I haven't copped to

809
00:48:36,000 --> 00:48:40,640
Speaker 16: insurance fraud or publicly expressed my appreciation for pregnancy porn.

810
00:48:41,160 --> 00:48:45,319
Speaker 16: But the Internet is an involuntary time capsule that preserves

811
00:48:45,600 --> 00:48:50,120
Speaker 16: all forms of imprudence. If you were wearing Ken Bone's

812
00:48:50,160 --> 00:48:52,839
Speaker 16: grass stained new balances, it would just be some other

813
00:48:53,000 --> 00:48:57,239
Speaker 16: offensive element of your past displayed as proof of your fallibility.

814
00:48:57,800 --> 00:49:00,800
Speaker 2: So this was written eight years ago, when the rhythms

815
00:49:00,840 --> 00:49:04,239
Speaker 2: of random online fame were beginning to be policed and

816
00:49:04,320 --> 00:49:07,880
Speaker 2: reported on by online users as much as, if not

817
00:49:08,160 --> 00:49:12,240
Speaker 2: more so, than traditional media outlets. Like if Ken Bone

818
00:49:12,239 --> 00:49:15,840
Speaker 2: came to prominence twenty years earlier, no one would know

819
00:49:15,880 --> 00:49:19,840
Speaker 2: his feelings on police brutality or pregnancy porn. That's the

820
00:49:19,880 --> 00:49:23,760
Speaker 2: development and how fame works now, and Ken certainly lost

821
00:49:23,800 --> 00:49:27,000
Speaker 2: a lot of fans as a result. Nearly a decade on.

822
00:49:27,400 --> 00:49:31,560
Speaker 2: The milkshake duck phenomenon does feel like an inevitability unless

823
00:49:31,560 --> 00:49:36,320
Speaker 2: you've lived a completely moral, upright life online, which almost

824
00:49:36,320 --> 00:49:40,280
Speaker 2: no one has. This isn't to excuse Ken's comments at all.

825
00:49:40,640 --> 00:49:43,760
Speaker 2: He doesn't excuse them himself. But I think what defines

826
00:49:43,800 --> 00:49:46,840
Speaker 2: the main character is how they managed to navigate these moments.

827
00:49:47,200 --> 00:49:50,240
Speaker 2: Did they grow defensive and double down? Did they say nothing?

828
00:49:50,480 --> 00:49:54,920
Speaker 2: Did they apologize? Do they really apologize? All of these

829
00:49:54,960 --> 00:49:59,520
Speaker 2: are functionally pr questions, and when someone becomes famous overnight

830
00:50:00,320 --> 00:50:02,560
Speaker 2: that they're supposed to be able to answer right away.

831
00:50:03,560 --> 00:50:06,879
Speaker 2: So a few days after becoming notorious, Ken Bone had

832
00:50:06,920 --> 00:50:10,280
Speaker 2: to do something. If he wanted to maintain his persona

833
00:50:10,600 --> 00:50:14,200
Speaker 2: in any way, and he does. He apologizes for the

834
00:50:14,239 --> 00:50:17,000
Speaker 2: comments and leaves them up on his Reddit page so

835
00:50:17,080 --> 00:50:20,640
Speaker 2: as not to be seen as scrubbing his problematic online history,

836
00:50:21,160 --> 00:50:23,440
Speaker 2: and he keeps going. We're going to talk about all

837
00:50:23,440 --> 00:50:26,239
Speaker 2: of this in our interview as well. So at the time,

838
00:50:26,280 --> 00:50:28,400
Speaker 2: if you were a Ken fan, all you could do

839
00:50:28,600 --> 00:50:30,799
Speaker 2: is make your own judgment and see if he took

840
00:50:30,880 --> 00:50:34,439
Speaker 2: the constructive criticism to heart and move past the unproductive

841
00:50:34,480 --> 00:50:38,400
Speaker 2: element of dog piling, because there are elements to this

842
00:50:38,480 --> 00:50:42,840
Speaker 2: process that are extremely unproductive, the fact that ken Bone's

843
00:50:42,840 --> 00:50:46,239
Speaker 2: family was threatened, that his home was swatted, and he

844
00:50:46,320 --> 00:50:49,680
Speaker 2: was made to feel generally unsafe. But even as all

845
00:50:49,719 --> 00:50:52,719
Speaker 2: this is going on, Ken never hired a manager or

846
00:50:52,719 --> 00:50:54,399
Speaker 2: a publicist or anything like that.

847
00:50:55,120 --> 00:50:56,920
Speaker 1: All the appearances he made during.

848
00:50:56,719 --> 00:50:59,480
Speaker 2: This intense month leading up to the election were done

849
00:50:59,520 --> 00:51:04,080
Speaker 2: around his work schedule and facilitated by Ken And during

850
00:51:04,120 --> 00:51:08,000
Speaker 2: this peak moment, even through the controversy, there was no

851
00:51:08,120 --> 00:51:09,439
Speaker 2: shortage of interest.

852
00:51:09,200 --> 00:51:10,600
Speaker 1: Of giving this guy attention.

853
00:51:11,520 --> 00:51:13,960
Speaker 2: He tweeted out an ad for Uber which almost got

854
00:51:14,040 --> 00:51:14,799
Speaker 2: him in trouble with the.

855
00:51:14,760 --> 00:51:18,319
Speaker 1: FTC whoops, and of course Izod, the.

856
00:51:18,280 --> 00:51:20,719
Speaker 2: Maker of the original Red Sweater got in touch and

857
00:51:20,760 --> 00:51:23,400
Speaker 2: put Ken in an ad on October twenty first, called

858
00:51:23,719 --> 00:51:28,600
Speaker 2: ten Bones, fifteenth Minute That's all but like worshipful and

859
00:51:28,680 --> 00:51:30,000
Speaker 2: includes Ken's wife Heather.

860
00:51:30,640 --> 00:51:32,560
Speaker 17: I'm about as pumped up as I can get, and

861
00:51:32,600 --> 00:51:34,120
Speaker 17: it's just fun letting it carry me.

862
00:51:35,360 --> 00:51:39,680
Speaker 3: So you just never give up hope.

863
00:51:40,080 --> 00:51:41,200
Speaker 17: Why I'm there right on.

864
00:51:43,120 --> 00:51:45,040
Speaker 2: To see other people who enjoy him as much as

865
00:51:45,080 --> 00:51:46,080
Speaker 2: I do is real fun.

866
00:51:48,440 --> 00:51:50,560
Speaker 17: It's really important that we don't give up on the

867
00:51:50,600 --> 00:51:55,040
Speaker 17: political process. I really do expect at the end of

868
00:51:55,040 --> 00:51:58,440
Speaker 17: the election that it winds down and when it's over,

869
00:51:59,200 --> 00:52:02,200
Speaker 17: it's over, and I'm happy to have played my role.

870
00:52:04,160 --> 00:52:08,520
Speaker 2: Someone tell passed Ken what happened. And even after the election,

871
00:52:09,040 --> 00:52:12,400
Speaker 2: Ken continued to make appearances, one of which he used

872
00:52:12,400 --> 00:52:16,000
Speaker 2: to reveal that he eventually did become a decided voter

873
00:52:16,160 --> 00:52:19,120
Speaker 2: and went for Hillary. But the intensity of this first

874
00:52:19,160 --> 00:52:23,000
Speaker 2: week was never matched again. His rise was steep and

875
00:52:23,040 --> 00:52:26,440
Speaker 2: connected to a specific moment, and the fall was pretty

876
00:52:26,440 --> 00:52:31,080
Speaker 2: steep too. And then the media cycle kept moving, and

877
00:52:31,160 --> 00:52:34,920
Speaker 2: in October twenty sixteen, that was no joke back at

878
00:52:34,920 --> 00:52:39,399
Speaker 2: the election ranch Hillary Clinton's real October surprise. The thing

879
00:52:39,440 --> 00:52:41,400
Speaker 2: that was thought to be. The final wrecking ball to

880
00:52:41,440 --> 00:52:45,560
Speaker 2: her campaign didn't come until the end of October, when

881
00:52:45,680 --> 00:52:49,200
Speaker 2: FBI Director James Comy announced that her email server had

882
00:52:49,239 --> 00:52:52,960
Speaker 2: put classified insensitive information at risk and that there would

883
00:52:53,040 --> 00:52:57,840
Speaker 2: be an investigation. That investigation was concluded two days before

884
00:52:57,840 --> 00:53:01,200
Speaker 2: the election and stated that no charges would be filed

885
00:53:01,239 --> 00:53:05,440
Speaker 2: and weren't necessary, but the damage was already done. Clinton

886
00:53:05,480 --> 00:53:07,680
Speaker 2: had been leading in national polls by as much as

887
00:53:07,800 --> 00:53:12,319
Speaker 2: seven points before this announcement and plummeted after the investigation

888
00:53:12,440 --> 00:53:16,239
Speaker 2: was announced. So as the US began to navigate what

889
00:53:16,280 --> 00:53:19,440
Speaker 2: the fuck a Trump presidency was going to mean after

890
00:53:19,560 --> 00:53:22,279
Speaker 2: he was declared the winner, ken Bone had to come

891
00:53:22,320 --> 00:53:24,840
Speaker 2: to grips with what his viral fame was going to

892
00:53:24,880 --> 00:53:27,640
Speaker 2: look like moving forward, and what he wanted to do

893
00:53:27,719 --> 00:53:28,000
Speaker 2: with it.

894
00:53:29,040 --> 00:53:29,760
Speaker 1: Like most main.

895
00:53:29,680 --> 00:53:32,319
Speaker 2: Characters I talked to who had a life prior to

896
00:53:32,400 --> 00:53:35,400
Speaker 2: their moment, ken Bone had no desire to quit his

897
00:53:35,480 --> 00:53:38,000
Speaker 2: day job or move to Hollywood, but he did want

898
00:53:38,040 --> 00:53:40,120
Speaker 2: to engage with this fame to the extent that he

899
00:53:40,120 --> 00:53:43,800
Speaker 2: could manage it alongside his normal life. While he remained

900
00:53:43,840 --> 00:53:47,759
Speaker 2: firmly in this debate moment for most people, here are

901
00:53:47,760 --> 00:53:50,440
Speaker 2: some of the appearances he made in the years that followed.

902
00:53:50,960 --> 00:53:55,520
Speaker 2: In twenty seventeen, an appearance on Bill Maher, I.

903
00:53:55,520 --> 00:53:57,920
Speaker 16: Want to convince you that you should have voted for

904
00:53:58,000 --> 00:54:00,920
Speaker 16: Hilary instead of Godzilla.

905
00:54:01,000 --> 00:54:02,800
Speaker 3: Well I didn't. I'll tell you that much. I didn't

906
00:54:02,840 --> 00:54:05,160
Speaker 3: vote for Godzilla. I didn't vote for Jill Stein either,

907
00:54:05,280 --> 00:54:06,960
Speaker 3: not Godzilla and not Jill Stein.

908
00:54:06,960 --> 00:54:09,239
Speaker 4: But are you going to reveal who you did vote

909
00:54:09,280 --> 00:54:09,600
Speaker 4: for now?

910
00:54:09,640 --> 00:54:11,239
Speaker 3: I'm waiting for my book deal to come through.

911
00:54:15,840 --> 00:54:16,400
Speaker 4: Is that true?

912
00:54:16,600 --> 00:54:17,680
Speaker 11: No, not at all.

913
00:54:18,360 --> 00:54:20,719
Speaker 3: I promised before the election that I wouldn't say who

914
00:54:20,719 --> 00:54:23,400
Speaker 3: I voted for because like it or not, we're obsessed

915
00:54:23,400 --> 00:54:25,880
Speaker 3: with celebrities in this country, and even like an F

916
00:54:25,960 --> 00:54:29,800
Speaker 3: list celebrity like me, people put stock in my opinion

917
00:54:30,239 --> 00:54:32,319
Speaker 3: and it's not fair to the democratic process if I

918
00:54:32,360 --> 00:54:35,759
Speaker 3: tell them what to believe. You're an informer. That is

919
00:54:35,800 --> 00:54:39,200
Speaker 3: your job to inform people, educate them, entertain them. I'm

920
00:54:39,200 --> 00:54:41,479
Speaker 3: a random due that works at the power plant. People

921
00:54:41,520 --> 00:54:43,040
Speaker 3: don't need to be informed by me.

922
00:54:43,920 --> 00:54:44,839
Speaker 4: Someone cooked here.

923
00:54:45,320 --> 00:54:48,600
Speaker 2: Ken also made an appearance at Sea Pac in twenty seventeen,

924
00:54:49,080 --> 00:54:51,920
Speaker 2: serving as a representative for a polling company called Victory

925
00:54:52,000 --> 00:54:55,360
Speaker 2: Insights and an app called Donor Decks, which was a

926
00:54:55,400 --> 00:54:59,040
Speaker 2: software that aimed to get normal people involved in politics.

927
00:54:59,280 --> 00:55:02,480
Speaker 3: I and just running into these consultants or these committees

928
00:55:02,719 --> 00:55:04,600
Speaker 3: can cost you as much as a family makes in

929
00:55:04,640 --> 00:55:08,360
Speaker 3: a year fifty sixty eighty thousand dollars. Well, donor decks

930
00:55:08,360 --> 00:55:10,880
Speaker 3: can get you in touch with potential donors for a

931
00:55:10,880 --> 00:55:12,080
Speaker 3: couple hundred dollars a month.

932
00:55:12,640 --> 00:55:14,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, it kind of sounds like a scam. He was

933
00:55:14,560 --> 00:55:18,080
Speaker 2: a paid spokesman and it's not around anymore. These appearances

934
00:55:18,080 --> 00:55:20,920
Speaker 2: were both twenty seventeen, so you can see even though

935
00:55:20,960 --> 00:55:24,640
Speaker 2: he ultimately votes Democrat, there is still a conservative tilt

936
00:55:24,680 --> 00:55:28,520
Speaker 2: to what Ken is interacting with publicly. But even as

937
00:55:28,560 --> 00:55:32,520
Speaker 2: he's doing so, it's clear that he's deeply unsatisfied with

938
00:55:32,719 --> 00:55:36,080
Speaker 2: how Trump's presidency is going, so for a while, he

939
00:55:36,160 --> 00:55:39,240
Speaker 2: still appears to be the independent voter he became famous

940
00:55:39,239 --> 00:55:43,319
Speaker 2: for being. In general, his appearances and his opinions don't

941
00:55:43,360 --> 00:55:46,799
Speaker 2: really seem to follow one political line or another, but

942
00:55:46,840 --> 00:55:50,560
Speaker 2: that changed over time. As the years pass Ken continued

943
00:55:50,600 --> 00:55:54,520
Speaker 2: to occasionally engage with the press while maintaining his normal life,

944
00:55:54,920 --> 00:55:56,719
Speaker 2: and in doing so, he did a lot of the

945
00:55:56,760 --> 00:56:01,200
Speaker 2: things we now associate with niche celebrity cameo account where

946
00:56:01,200 --> 00:56:03,880
Speaker 2: you could order a custom video message for your friend

947
00:56:03,880 --> 00:56:07,000
Speaker 2: from Ken Bone, a short lived podcast called The Ken

948
00:56:07,080 --> 00:56:10,720
Speaker 2: Bone Show, and he also did paid talks around the country.

949
00:56:11,080 --> 00:56:13,200
Speaker 2: But over the years, you can sort of track a

950
00:56:13,280 --> 00:56:17,239
Speaker 2: shift in his politics just by scrolling up. There's a

951
00:56:17,280 --> 00:56:19,160
Speaker 2: lot of stuff he was posting in the back half

952
00:56:19,200 --> 00:56:21,759
Speaker 2: of the twenty tens that I don't agree with at all,

953
00:56:21,920 --> 00:56:25,520
Speaker 2: particularly around gun control. But the closer you get to

954
00:56:25,560 --> 00:56:29,319
Speaker 2: the present, the more left Ken seems to go. He

955
00:56:29,400 --> 00:56:32,520
Speaker 2: maintains his Internet presence and would occasionally speak out on

956
00:56:32,600 --> 00:56:36,000
Speaker 2: political issues that meant something to him. The way COVID

957
00:56:36,120 --> 00:56:39,880
Speaker 2: was catastrophically handled in the US had a demonstrative effect

958
00:56:39,960 --> 00:56:43,120
Speaker 2: on Ken. He donated some of his cameo proceeds to

959
00:56:43,200 --> 00:56:47,320
Speaker 2: COVID relief and was extremely critical of anti VAXX freaks

960
00:56:47,360 --> 00:56:48,880
Speaker 2: who refused a social distance.

961
00:56:49,400 --> 00:56:49,920
Speaker 1: He said he.

962
00:56:49,920 --> 00:56:53,759
Speaker 2: Voted third party in twenty twenty and was unsatisfied with

963
00:56:53,880 --> 00:56:57,080
Speaker 2: the two main candidates, and in the last two years

964
00:56:57,360 --> 00:57:01,480
Speaker 2: he's advocated for better public education on a indigenous American history.

965
00:57:01,840 --> 00:57:05,040
Speaker 2: He's been extremely critical of Israel, and he's called people

966
00:57:05,160 --> 00:57:09,320
Speaker 2: encouraging student protests for Gaza to be shut down Boot Liquors,

967
00:57:09,800 --> 00:57:11,759
Speaker 2: and he's advocated for healthcare for all.

968
00:57:12,520 --> 00:57:13,600
Speaker 1: Ken's kind of based.

969
00:57:13,640 --> 00:57:17,520
Speaker 2: Now you guys, and in Part two, releasing next Tuesday,

970
00:57:17,640 --> 00:57:18,520
Speaker 2: we'll hear about this.

971
00:57:18,520 --> 00:57:20,800
Speaker 1: Saga from the man himself.

972
00:57:21,160 --> 00:57:24,960
Speaker 2: Part two with Kenneth Bone See you then, and before that,

973
00:57:25,320 --> 00:57:29,320
Speaker 2: a moment of fun. One more Cursed George W. Bush

974
00:57:29,360 --> 00:57:30,120
Speaker 2: Poll Bye.

975
00:57:31,320 --> 00:57:34,640
Speaker 9: We got an issue in America. Too many good dots

976
00:57:34,640 --> 00:57:38,760
Speaker 9: for getting out of business. Too many obgyns aren't able

977
00:57:38,800 --> 00:57:42,240
Speaker 9: to practice their their love with women all across this country.

978
00:57:46,280 --> 00:57:50,240
Speaker 2: Sixteenth minute as a production of Whole Zone Media and Iheartwordtaps.

979
00:57:50,400 --> 00:57:53,720
Speaker 1: It is written, posted and produced by me Jamie Loftus.

980
00:57:53,920 --> 00:57:57,320
Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Sophie Lichtman and Robert Evans. He

981
00:57:57,360 --> 00:58:01,320
Speaker 2: Amazing Ian Johnson is our supervising producer and our editor.

982
00:58:01,880 --> 00:58:05,680
Speaker 2: Our theme song is by Sad thirteen. Voice acting is

983
00:58:05,720 --> 00:58:08,760
Speaker 2: from Grant Crater and Pet. Shout outs to our dog

984
00:58:08,800 --> 00:58:11,840
Speaker 2: producer Anderson, my cats Flee and Casper, and my pet

985
00:58:11,920 --> 00:58:13,600
Speaker 2: rock Bird, who will outlive us all.

986
00:58:14,040 --> 00:58:15,320
Speaker 1: Bye