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Speaker 1: I'm George Severis and I'm Julia Claire and this is

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Speaker 1: United States of Kennedy, a podcast about our cultural fascination

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Speaker 1: with the Kennedy Dynasty. Every week we go into one

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Speaker 1: aspect of the Kennedy story. And today, you know, in

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Speaker 1: light of Love Story ending, the finale has at this

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Speaker 1: point aired, we are recording live mere hours before it airs.

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Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. And despite being Kennedy influencers ourselves, we

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Speaker 1: don't have special special screeners of the television series.

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Speaker 2: And when we tell you, we tried so hard to

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Speaker 2: get the.

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Speaker 1: Screener so hard, FX and Disney said no, none for you.

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Speaker 3: We took this all the way up to the top

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Speaker 3: of iHeart, and we could not get screeners to save

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Speaker 3: our fucking lives.

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Speaker 1: I'm personally emailing Bob Biger daily. I'm saying, Bob, Bob

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Speaker 1: level with me.

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Speaker 2: Here, Bob, it's George again.

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Speaker 1: It's George. We promised we will only do positive coverage

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Speaker 1: of your big show, but we were sort of thinking,

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Speaker 1: you know, we have three episodes left of this show.

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Speaker 1: We have talked about everything from the Cuban missile crisis

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Speaker 1: to Carolyn Bissett to Taylor Swift, somehow to the film Blonde,

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Speaker 1: you know, JFK assassination conspiracy theories, and we were like,

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Speaker 1: what loose ends do we have to tie up? Like

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Speaker 1: what can we talk about the last three episodes? What

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Speaker 1: is in the news? And the three big things? As

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Speaker 1: always over the last few weeks and months, the three

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Speaker 1: big things in the news are, of course Love Story,

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Speaker 1: TikTok's favorite show, Yes, Jack Schlossberg's congressional run, and RFK

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Speaker 1: Junior's continued sheer excellence as a government official and healthcare destroyer.

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Speaker 3: Yes, he's doing so well that they're saying, you know what,

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Speaker 3: maybe do it forever. Maybe we'll embalm you.

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Speaker 1: Rumors of a lifetime appointment for RFK Junior.

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Speaker 3: And all of these three converge, and they all are interconnected.

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Speaker 3: And that's the kind of the crux of what we

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Speaker 3: want to talk about today, because there is no Jack

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Speaker 3: Schlossberg congressional campaign without RFK Junior, and Love Story intersects

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Speaker 3: with that as well.

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Speaker 1: Well. Weirdly, it's Jack Shlosberg is actually the one benefiting

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Speaker 1: the most from all of this because what I don't

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Speaker 1: think I realized until Julia articulated it off Mike is

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Speaker 1: his congressional campaign, which initially to me seemed so kind

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Speaker 1: of dead on arrival, is actually going relatively well. He's

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Speaker 1: pulling better than expected. Nancy Pelosi has endorsed him, and

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Speaker 1: it seems like two things that have helped him are

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Speaker 1: A him defining himself in opposition to RFK Junior and B.

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Speaker 1: I mean, this is I don't know conjecture, but I

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Speaker 1: think just like the buzziness around the Kennedy name among

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Speaker 1: young people from Love Story has sort of trickled into

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Speaker 1: his reputation.

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Speaker 3: And the latter especially makes sense because if you squint

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Speaker 3: really hard at Jack Schlosberg, you could be like, hey,

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Speaker 3: that's vaguely JFK Junior's head shape.

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Speaker 1: And even when you're watching the show, you know you're

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Speaker 1: meeting Caroline Kennedy, who is his mom, you're meeting her husband,

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Speaker 1: and his last name Schlosberg is mentioned, and you're like, oh,

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Speaker 1: I see, that's where Jack Schlosberg came from. And so

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Speaker 1: I think it just served to sort of introduce a

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Speaker 1: new generation to the Kennedy mythology, regardless of how well

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Speaker 1: they're portrayed.

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Speaker 3: I mean, he is a New York Kennedy who vaguely

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Speaker 3: looks like JFK Jr. And is running in Manhattan like

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Speaker 3: he's he's got the wind at his back. And as

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Speaker 3: of recording this, he is polling in first, which again

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Speaker 3: George and I can't understand it.

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Speaker 1: But listen, I'm no political expert. I think is there

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Speaker 1: a chance that I'm completely proven wrong in he takes it? Sure,

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Speaker 1: I've been wrong about pretty much every election over the

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Speaker 1: last ten years. Yeah, but I do suspect that some

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Speaker 1: of this is just sort of like Beginner's luck, shall

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Speaker 1: we say, and and kind of name recognition, especially in

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Speaker 1: the district he's in, which is such, which is all

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Speaker 1: like rich manhattanites.

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Speaker 3: Right, they love the Kennedy. They lay long for the

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Speaker 3: days of Camelot. Like if there were you, Georgie. And

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Speaker 3: I've said this before, but if there were ever a

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Speaker 3: district where people are going to be blinded by the

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Speaker 3: shiney veneer of the Kennedy name, it is this is

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Speaker 3: it is New York twelve.

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Speaker 1: But again, there haven't been any debates yet. There haven't

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Speaker 1: He hasn't really had to answer for some of his

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Speaker 1: you know, for just like what his vision is going

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Speaker 1: to be and whatever else the.

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Speaker 2: George vision is. Believe in something again.

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Speaker 1: That's right. His vision is believe in something again. That

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Speaker 1: is his campaign slogan, and he has explained multiple times

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Speaker 1: that what it means is believe in something again. Your

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Speaker 1: campaign slogan is believe in something again. What do you mean, well,

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Speaker 1: believe in something again?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and what aren't you understanding?

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Speaker 3: So George and I have talked about, you know, at

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Speaker 3: the very nation stages of his campaign, how it seemed

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Speaker 3: like it was kind of ruttorless, it didn't really have

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Speaker 3: anything to say, appeared to be lacking any sort of

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Speaker 3: coj strategy. And I think what I've noticed in following

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Speaker 3: the coverage over the last month or so is that

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Speaker 3: a sort of strategy seems to have emerged, which is

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Speaker 3: that he is going to bring up or talk about

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Speaker 3: RFK Junior in every single interview, and he is going

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Speaker 3: to kind of position himself as the anti RFK Junior,

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Speaker 3: as the Mario to RFK Junior's warrior Wow, which yes,

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Speaker 3: I did just come up with now on the fly.

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Speaker 3: I'm a generational talent, but I think that as far

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Speaker 3: as political strategies go, they're worse ones like our Kay

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Speaker 3: Junior is a menace and he is an objectively destructive

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Speaker 3: force in America. Right now, he is the highest ranking

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Speaker 3: health official in the United States. So I think, you know,

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Speaker 3: if you're a member of his own family, it makes

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Speaker 3: sense as a as a political strategy. Really do I

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Speaker 3: think that Jack Schwasberg has that much else to say?

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Speaker 2: No, But people are buying what he's selling right now.

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Speaker 3: He is, as we said, he's pulling in first, which

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Speaker 3: is crazy because there are much more experienced people in

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Speaker 3: his primary, but that has never stopped a Kennedy from winning.

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Speaker 1: The other thing that he's doing is kind of taking

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Speaker 1: on the mantle of being a young person explaining to

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Speaker 1: old people why they have not been winning over young

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Speaker 1: people and why like he's talking about like Trump won

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Speaker 1: over young people that felt the solution of the political

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Speaker 1: system because Democrats, you know, didn't, because democrats are like

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Speaker 1: a gy intocracy. And I think that works if you

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Speaker 1: are talking to old people that don't know any young

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Speaker 1: people or that don't understand any young people. I don't

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Speaker 1: think his messaging would work if he was in a

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Speaker 1: room with people that were his age. But I think

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Speaker 1: because you know, the people he's trying to win over

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Speaker 1: are sort of like very concerned older liberals that go

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Speaker 1: to Lincoln Center and see you in New York Philharmonic.

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Speaker 1: They're kind of like, this handsome young man has a

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Speaker 1: lot to say.

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Speaker 2: Anyways, I'll see you at the Metropolitan Opera.

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Speaker 1: Exactly No. I think that's I think that's exactly right.

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Speaker 3: And it's funny because recently he did an interview with

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Speaker 3: Fortune magazine and he talked about how Democrats have lost

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Speaker 3: to young men, and he is, you know, like so

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Speaker 3: many people, a better diagnostician than he is a surgeon.

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Speaker 3: He is basically talking about how he quit the Biden

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Speaker 3: campaign because he wasn't able to be fully himself and

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Speaker 3: he thinks that this is the reason why, you know,

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Speaker 3: the Democratic Party has lost a lot of young people,

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Speaker 3: because it doesn't let people be their authentic selves. And

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Speaker 3: he actually gave a lot of praise to President Trump,

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Speaker 3: saying that he was able to like meet young men

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Speaker 3: where they are. I don't think Trump is doing anything

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Speaker 3: that intentionally, but I mean, the proof is in the pudding.

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Speaker 3: The problem is that the young man that the Democratic

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Speaker 3: Party has lost I don't think would be at all

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Speaker 3: moved by Jack Schlosberg and Upper East Side like quadruple

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Speaker 3: Ivy League educated.

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Speaker 1: I mean it's also you can't be you can't be

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Speaker 1: making the argument that you're the solution for the Democrats

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Speaker 1: that have lost young people. When you are endorsed by

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Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi and literally like beloved among party leadership, it seems, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you sort of just can't. You can't have it both ways.

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Speaker 1: But you know, we'll see how it goes. But I

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Speaker 1: do think the strategy of defining himself against RFK Junior

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Speaker 1: is sort of an interesting one. It's sort of another

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Speaker 1: flavor of the general democratic impulse to define themselves against

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump. I mean, for so long, what we've been

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Speaker 1: hearing is that the Democrats' big problem is that they

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Speaker 1: are not offering an alternative. They're simply saying we are

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Speaker 1: not Trump. And he's basically doing that but doing it

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Speaker 1: with like a Kennedy twist, which is he's he has

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Speaker 1: the perfect foil, which is his literal cousin. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: he is able to say, you know, look, this is

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Speaker 1: the bad one and I am the good one.

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Speaker 3: And to that point, I mean that actually has been

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Speaker 3: a successful strategy in congressional races and in some cases

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Speaker 3: in senate races, so like lower like state level races

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Speaker 3: that actually has been a successful strategy for Democrats. So

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Speaker 3: I mean, and it's the district that he is in

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Speaker 3: is so blue that this will not this will never

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Speaker 3: be totally held by a Republican. All he has to

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Speaker 3: win is the primary. So maybe, And again, the constituent

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Speaker 3: base that he is trying to get to elect him

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Speaker 3: is very persuaded by this argument, So I'm sure that

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Speaker 3: it will be successful for him. I can totally see

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Speaker 3: him getting elected, especially now. I'm again I continue to

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Speaker 3: be shocked, but I shouldn't be. That he's been pulling

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Speaker 3: in first basically since the first polling.

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Speaker 1: Data has been available. Yeah, good luck to him.

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Speaker 2: I don't know that he is what the Democratic Party

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Speaker 2: needs right now.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's funny because I wish I had super

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Speaker 1: strong opinions about this. Ultimately, I'm not excited. First of all,

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Speaker 1: I don't live in his district, so it's none of

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Speaker 1: my business. But even if I did, I would certainly

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Speaker 1: not be excited to vote for him. Yeah, there are

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Speaker 1: also such bigger evils in politics right now that I'm

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Speaker 1: kind of like, I don't know, he's sort of just

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Speaker 1: like a random not random, obviously, but he's just like

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Speaker 1: a rich kid that has political aspirations. He sort of

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Speaker 1: believes it's his birthright to do it.

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Speaker 3: Oh, he absolutely believes it's his birthright, and that is

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Speaker 3: why he's like such a kendidy.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, so I've I roll my eyes at him,

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Speaker 1: and I can't believe we're back here again debating whether

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Speaker 1: or not like another unqualified you know, sorry to use

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Speaker 1: this word, NEPO baby deserves to be in government. But

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Speaker 1: you know, in a world where the RFK juniors of

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Speaker 1: the world are doing so much more harm, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's tough. It's tough to really get excited about being

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Speaker 1: anti Jack Schlasberg.

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Speaker 3: And again we've talked about how much he hates FX

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Speaker 3: his love story. But yeah, from all accounts, it seems

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Speaker 3: that the show has done nothing but help.

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Speaker 1: Him, right, I mean, it's certainly it's also like because

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Speaker 1: it's the number one show and e FX, but also

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Speaker 1: just like the one of the most talked about shows.

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Speaker 1: Anytime he is asked about it and he says something,

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Speaker 1: even if it's neutral or negative, it does get him headlines.

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Speaker 1: It does remind people who he is. It reminds people

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Speaker 1: that there is oh, you like this handsome young Kennedy.

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Speaker 1: Well there's one that is actually alive now and that's

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Speaker 1: the same age as a one portrait on that TV show,

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Speaker 1: So it's sort of rising tome lifts all boats situation.

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Speaker 3: But yeah, and he's been doing a lot of national

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Speaker 3: press because of the show because he wants to like

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Speaker 3: respond to the show, which only helps his name recognition further.

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Speaker 1: So in terms of the RFK Junior of it all,

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Speaker 1: we kind of realized when we were thinking about what

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Speaker 1: we wanted to talk about over the last three episodes

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Speaker 1: that RFK Junior does come up a lot in passing.

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Speaker 1: I mean, he is sort of the elephant in the

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Speaker 1: room with a lot of this stuff because he is

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Speaker 1: currently by far the Kennedy that holds the most power

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Speaker 1: in our current political system, and we have dedicated an

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Speaker 1: episode to him before. If you go back to the

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Speaker 1: September twenty ninth episode, we talked to Julie Rovner from

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Speaker 1: KFF Health News, and that was very much specifically about

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Speaker 1: RFK Junior's kind of path to essentially anti vaccine activism

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Speaker 1: and how he became the face of it, his obsession

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Speaker 1: with the alleged connection that has been debunked many times

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Speaker 1: between vaccines and autism, and it was sort of about

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Speaker 1: how dangerous it is for him to be in a

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Speaker 1: position of power at the Department of Health. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I remember when he was originally when Congress was voting

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Speaker 1: to confirm him, there was some letter signed by I

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Speaker 1: don't know, hundreds or thousands of doctors or something that

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Speaker 1: said that putting him in charge would be like putting

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Speaker 1: a flat earther in charge of NASA. And so we

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Speaker 1: talked a little. We talked about that. That was the

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Speaker 1: focus of that episode, and while it was tied to

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Speaker 1: a specific news item at the time, which is his

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Speaker 1: kind of befuddling press conference about how he thought thailanl

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Speaker 1: or advil thailan al should not be abused as much

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Speaker 1: because I should not be used by pregnant woman. What

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Speaker 1: was the announcement.

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Speaker 3: He said that thailan al, which is really the only

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Speaker 3: pain reliever and fever reducer that is pregnancy safe, he

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Speaker 3: said that that should not be used by pregnant women

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Speaker 3: based on nothing, because he said that it also causes autism.

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Speaker 3: He keeps kind of amassing a team of I don't

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Speaker 3: know pokemon that he believes cause autism and just putting

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Speaker 3: it out there with with no nothing. We'll be back

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Speaker 3: with more United States and Kennedy after this break, and

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Speaker 3: we're back with more United States and Kennedy.

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Speaker 1: So at the time, that announcement kind of broke through

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Speaker 1: in this both in a serious way. It was obviously

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Speaker 1: a big news story, but also even just on the Internet,

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Speaker 1: it became a mean because there was a screenshot of

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Speaker 1: you know, giant letters on some cable news show that

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Speaker 1: just said autism announcement with a photo of RFK Junior

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Speaker 1: and Donald Trump, and so people then would repurposed that

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Speaker 1: to various humorous ends. So we did talk about his

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Speaker 1: his journey with like health misinformation, with anti vaccine activism,

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Speaker 1: et cetera. And we have, you know, on and off

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Speaker 1: talked about his performance in the Trump administration. But something

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Speaker 1: we haven't really done is gone back and looked at

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Speaker 1: his pre Trump and pre politics life. And there are

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Speaker 1: certain there are certain things you hear people say, I mean, Julia,

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Speaker 1: you were saying that often. You will hear people say,

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Speaker 1: you know, he used to be normal. What happened? You know,

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Speaker 1: he used to be an environmental lawyer, like you know,

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Speaker 1: something that sounds very kind of commendable and he used to,

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Speaker 1: of course be a Democrat. He is, you know, he

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Speaker 1: has been married to Cheryl Hines, who's like kind of

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Speaker 1: a middle row Hollywood actress, and he's like going to

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Speaker 1: parties with Larry David and he you know, lived in

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Speaker 1: La So that was there's one thing we wanted to investigate,

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Speaker 1: is like, how how true is it that quote unquote

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Speaker 1: he used to be normal and then he is one

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Speaker 1: of these people that like comes up in kind of

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Speaker 1: dark ways when we talk about some of the other Kennedy's,

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Speaker 1: Like there was a even when we talked about Eunice Kennedy,

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Speaker 1: there was something we read about how she like didn't

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Speaker 1: allow her kids to hang out with Bobby's kids, and

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Speaker 1: especially Bobby Junior, because they were always getting into trouble.

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Speaker 1: You know, there's a whole sort of tragedy of his

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Speaker 1: his wife before Cheryl Hines, committing suicide, and that's something

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Speaker 1: that sort of is not mentioned because it's like the

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Speaker 1: sixth most alarming thing about him, and so we kind

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Speaker 1: of wanted to do a sort of deep dive into

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Speaker 1: RFK Junior's life before this current crazy chapter.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's that's all so well said, and

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Speaker 3: I think a big project of ours that we you

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Speaker 3: and me, George, that we didn't really like set out

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Speaker 3: to embark upon. Is kind of lifting the veil on

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Speaker 3: the Kennedy myth I think the more you learn about

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Speaker 3: this family, the more you're just like.

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Speaker 2: Oh, no, we shouldn't.

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Speaker 3: We shouldn't be thinking of them in the way that

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Speaker 3: that we do collectively as Americans. And I think there's

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Speaker 3: kind of no better case story for that than R.

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Speaker 1: Of K Junior. Definitely, And I think so much of

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Speaker 1: the way R. Of K Junior has talked about actually

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Speaker 1: serves to perpetuate the Kennedy mythology because everyone always talks

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Speaker 1: about him as this crazy exceptions, Yeah, as if he

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Speaker 1: is an anomaly. Yes, it's always like he is the

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Speaker 1: evil one. How could this happen? How could America's greatest

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Speaker 1: family produce someone who is so you know, immoral, And

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Speaker 1: it's I mean, I do think he is one of

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Speaker 1: the more unethical totally, And I certainly think when we

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Speaker 1: look back on the legacy of various Kennedy's, he's going

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Speaker 1: to be up there as one of the worst ones.

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Speaker 1: But it is interesting when you think about, you know,

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Speaker 1: some of the other things we have talked about on

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Speaker 1: this podcast, whether it is Joe Kennedy, you know, lobotomizing

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Speaker 1: his daughter Rosemary partly because she was getting the way

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Speaker 1: of his son's political careers, or whether it is you know,

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Speaker 1: JFK himself signing off on the surveillance of civil rights figures. Whatever.

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Speaker 1: There are many many sins that Kennedy's have committed that

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Speaker 1: are conveniently left out when we talk about how they

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Speaker 1: are such a great family that I just committed their

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Speaker 1: entire you know, all their lives to public service. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's funny.

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Speaker 3: And actually this kind of comes back to the first

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Speaker 3: episode that I did before I was co host of

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Speaker 3: the United States of Kennedy. We talked about the movie Bobby,

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Speaker 3: which is about obviously Bobby Senior, speaking.

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Speaker 1: Of Bobby's assassination, which I think is actually a great

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Speaker 1: place to start in terms of our FK Junior's life

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Speaker 1: because in so many ways that was the first incredibly

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Speaker 1: traumatic thing that happened to him. Yes, but I'm just

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Speaker 1: thinking about all the times he has come up in

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Speaker 1: other episodes. There was one episode that I think you

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Speaker 1: were away for where we talked about conspiracy theories around

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Speaker 1: Bobby Kennedy's asassination, and in fact, he has been very

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Speaker 1: outspoken about how he thinks. There has been some that

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Speaker 1: the mainstream theory about Sir Hunt Sir Hunt acting alone

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Speaker 1: is incorrect anyway, regardless. So I think something we could

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Speaker 1: start with is our wonderful researchers put together a timeline

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Speaker 1: of our off K Junior's life that is rife with

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Speaker 1: controversies that you cannot even begin to imagine. And so

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Speaker 1: I think we can kind of start there, and then Julie,

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Speaker 1: I will hand it off to you because you have

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Speaker 1: you have unfortunately dedicated many more hours of your life

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Speaker 1: to doing our of K Junior research for another project.

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Speaker 2: I wish, I wish if it could forget all that

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Speaker 2: I know about this man.

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Speaker 1: All right. So in nineteen sixty eight, of course, RFK

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Speaker 1: Junior's father is assassinated. Bobby Kennedy is assassinated in Los Angeles.

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Speaker 1: We also have done an episode on that. If you

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Speaker 1: want more information there, and if you want a completely

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Speaker 1: sort of kind of oscary, cheesy movie about it, you

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Speaker 1: can always check out the film Bobby, which we've also

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Speaker 1: done an episode about. Next thing on this timeline is

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine on July fourth, Independence Day, RFK Junior

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Speaker 1: takes LSD and has a trip wow and congratulations to

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Speaker 1: the whole team there.

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Speaker 3: Yes, and RFK Junior was we should say he was

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Speaker 3: the third of eleven children, which.

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Speaker 1: Is too many. And you say that as a Catholic.

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Speaker 3: And I say that as a Catholic, and I know

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Speaker 3: that I will be receiving a note scorning me from

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Speaker 3: the Vatican. But yes, he was fourteen, I believe when

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Speaker 3: his father was assassinated. Obviously, that's an incredibly difficult time

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Speaker 3: for any kid. When you're fourteen, it's the worst time.

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Speaker 3: So to have something as traumatic as that happen at

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Speaker 3: such a young age I can only imagine was completely

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Speaker 3: catastrophic for him personally. And it is where most people,

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Speaker 3: most biographers, most people who have looked into him site

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Speaker 3: as kind of like the beginning of his troubles.

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Speaker 1: We should say, just very quickly, while we're still on

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Speaker 1: the topic of Bobby's assassination. I mentioned before that our

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Speaker 1: K Junior himself, it's complicated to keep talking about Bobby

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Speaker 1: and Bobby downor maybe I'll call him Bobby Jr. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mentioned before that Bobby Junior himself has always believed

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Speaker 1: that there was something being hidden in the official story

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Speaker 1: of the assassination of his father, just very quickly. Specifically,

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Speaker 1: in a twenty twelve letter to Attorney General Eric Holder,

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Speaker 1: Bobby Junior and Paul Schrade outlined the evidence against Sarahun

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Speaker 1: being the lone gunman and requested that the case be

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Speaker 1: reopened and even better. Bobby Junior and Trade said they

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Speaker 1: knew who the second gunman was, but that comes later.

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Speaker 1: For now we are in nineteen seventy. This is where

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Speaker 1: he starts, you know, post his first ascid trip. This

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Speaker 1: is where his kind of reputation as a bad boy

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Speaker 1: really gets going. I mean he was asked to leave

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Speaker 1: or expelled, you know, depending on who you ask, from

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Speaker 1: two different boarding schools. According to past guest Eileen McNamara,

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Speaker 1: he was the ringleader of the Hyennasport Terrors, where a

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Speaker 1: group of teens who vandalized cars, stole boats, and did drugs.

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Speaker 2: Incredible name, by the way, high Inas Port Terrors.

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Speaker 1: It's an incredible name. On August fifth, again, nineteen seventy,

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Speaker 1: he has put on a year's probation. A year later,

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Speaker 1: almost exactly year later, he is arrested again for spitting

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Speaker 1: ice cream into a police officer's face. Kennedy claimed that

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Speaker 1: the officer was lying about the encounter, but he eventually

400
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Speaker 1: did change his story.

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Speaker 3: What an incredible feat to make a police officer the

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Speaker 3: sympathetic one in this.

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Speaker 1: Situation. Yeah, you can't go around spitting ice cread in

404
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Speaker 1: police officer space, although I guess we don't know the context.

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Speaker 1: And then, according to his memoirs, in late nineteen seventy one,

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Speaker 1: he starts becoming seriously addicted to drugs and he's basically

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Speaker 1: still a kid.

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Speaker 2: And when you're a Kennedy, you're a kid until you're

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Speaker 2: at least forty five.

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Speaker 1: That's exactly right. And that's why Jack Schlasburg actually should

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Speaker 1: not be allowed to run for office, because he's still

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Speaker 1: spiritually fourteen. In nineteen seventy three, he goes on a

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Speaker 1: whitewater rafting trip to South America, where he got shot

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Speaker 1: at by a Chilean soldier near the border with Argentina.

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Speaker 1: He later wrote an article for The Atlantic about Chile.

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Speaker 1: Then in nineteen seventy four, he goes back to South America.

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Speaker 1: In the book The Kennedy's and American Drama, he claimed

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Speaker 1: that they were attacked by some Native peoples and that

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Speaker 1: they responded by throwing dynamite. But then a recent having

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Speaker 1: to Post article makes the case that Bobby Junior exaggerated

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Speaker 1: what happened in order to burnish his credentials for future prominence. Well,

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Speaker 1: mission accomplished, and then nineteen seventy six Kennedy graduates Harvard.

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Speaker 3: Now, I mean, you might be saying to yourself, graduating

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Speaker 3: from Harvard, didn't you just say that he was expelled

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Speaker 3: from multiple boarding schools.

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Speaker 2: It simply doesn't matter. I think the whole thing about

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Speaker 2: like public office and public prominence being his birthright. I

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Speaker 2: think there's just like a whole host of things. I think,

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Speaker 2: especially if you grow up in New England, you're just like, yeah, well,

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Speaker 2: there's at least a few congressional seats that are designated

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Speaker 2: for members of the Kennedy family. And there are just

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Speaker 2: also certain families where no.

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Speaker 3: Matter how fucked up their kids are, they will be

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Speaker 3: admitted to every Ivy League school.

435
00:24:54,280 --> 00:24:56,520
Speaker 1: And it's a great system, is what I'm saying. It's

436
00:24:56,520 --> 00:24:58,159
Speaker 1: a great system. I wouldn't change a thing. I wouldn't

437
00:24:58,240 --> 00:25:00,959
Speaker 1: change a yme. Now, this is sort of going into

438
00:25:01,040 --> 00:25:03,840
Speaker 1: his kind of progressive bona fidez, because something people say

439
00:25:03,880 --> 00:25:06,040
Speaker 1: is like, how can he work for Trump when he

440
00:25:06,119 --> 00:25:08,119
Speaker 1: used to be a Democrat. And regardless of what you

441
00:25:08,119 --> 00:25:12,960
Speaker 1: think about the Kennedys, their reputation politically is as you know,

442
00:25:13,119 --> 00:25:16,240
Speaker 1: basically like center left liberals.

443
00:25:16,119 --> 00:25:19,480
Speaker 2: Establishment democrats, they are the establishment.

444
00:25:19,680 --> 00:25:22,399
Speaker 1: Regardless of his personal behavior and whether or not he

445
00:25:22,440 --> 00:25:25,200
Speaker 1: was doing drugs or spinning ice cream at police officers.

446
00:25:25,359 --> 00:25:28,280
Speaker 1: When you look at his you know, academic work at Harvard,

447
00:25:28,400 --> 00:25:31,359
Speaker 1: his early career, it very much is what you would

448
00:25:31,400 --> 00:25:33,399
Speaker 1: expect out of a Kennedy, maybe the bad boy of

449
00:25:33,400 --> 00:25:36,440
Speaker 1: the Kennedy family. I mean. Nineteen seventy eight, he publishes

450
00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:40,040
Speaker 1: a book on Alabama judge Frank Johnson, who is a

451
00:25:40,080 --> 00:25:43,000
Speaker 1: major figure in the civil rights movement. The book emerged

452
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:47,520
Speaker 1: from his Harvard thesis and it did well. In nineteen eighty,

453
00:25:47,560 --> 00:25:50,520
Speaker 1: he stumps for his uncle's contest against Carter for the

454
00:25:50,560 --> 00:25:54,280
Speaker 1: Democratic nomination for president. Obviously Carter would win. As part

455
00:25:54,320 --> 00:25:56,920
Speaker 1: of that, he spends time in Alabama because he knew

456
00:25:56,920 --> 00:25:58,720
Speaker 1: the state when working on his book. I mean, he's

457
00:25:58,720 --> 00:26:01,480
Speaker 1: writing a book about civil rights figure. He is stumping

458
00:26:01,480 --> 00:26:04,199
Speaker 1: for a Democratic candidate. Obviously it is someone who he

459
00:26:04,280 --> 00:26:08,080
Speaker 1: is related to. He stumps with oh god, Caesar Chavez,

460
00:26:08,119 --> 00:26:10,199
Speaker 1: who that is something we can't get into with the

461
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:12,920
Speaker 1: recent news, but at the time obviously a darling of

462
00:26:12,960 --> 00:26:16,520
Speaker 1: the progressive movement. And in nineteen eighty one he chases

463
00:26:16,560 --> 00:26:20,359
Speaker 1: down a pickpocket from the Manhattan subway to Bloomingdale's. So

464
00:26:20,400 --> 00:26:24,080
Speaker 1: suddenly suddenly he's anti crime, which is one of his

465
00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:24,800
Speaker 1: first big.

466
00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:26,480
Speaker 2: Flip flops, vigilanti folk hero.

467
00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:29,720
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty two, he graduates from the University of

468
00:26:29,760 --> 00:26:33,600
Speaker 1: Virginia Law school and starts work as assistant District attorney

469
00:26:33,680 --> 00:26:36,960
Speaker 1: in Manhattan. He also gets married and fails the bar exam. Okay,

470
00:26:37,040 --> 00:26:40,840
Speaker 1: so already we are seeing we're seeing connections with j

471
00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:47,520
Speaker 1: with JFK. Junior, who famously yes that famous Daily News

472
00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:51,520
Speaker 1: or Page six or National Inquirer cover the hunk Flunks,

473
00:26:52,160 --> 00:26:54,000
Speaker 1: one of the best, one of the best cover heads.

474
00:26:55,280 --> 00:26:57,480
Speaker 3: That's gotta be the Post. I don't know for sure,

475
00:26:57,520 --> 00:26:58,960
Speaker 3: but it's got to be The New York Post. They

476
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:02,920
Speaker 3: love to do a little wordplay and just a note

477
00:27:02,960 --> 00:27:06,679
Speaker 3: on University of Virginia Law school that is where his

478
00:27:06,960 --> 00:27:10,880
Speaker 3: father went as well. So he is like pretty intentionally,

479
00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:15,560
Speaker 3: you know, obviously he is Bobby Senior's namesake. He is

480
00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:20,760
Speaker 3: kind of trying to position himself directly in his father's shadow,

481
00:27:20,840 --> 00:27:22,720
Speaker 3: even more so than he already.

482
00:27:23,400 --> 00:27:25,600
Speaker 1: Is by birth. I will say in his defense, he

483
00:27:25,640 --> 00:27:28,760
Speaker 1: did pass the bar exam the following year. I'm sort

484
00:27:28,800 --> 00:27:31,320
Speaker 1: of skimming through the rest of this. There is some drama.

485
00:27:31,880 --> 00:27:34,119
Speaker 1: This is from a book, The Kennedy's in American Drama.

486
00:27:34,600 --> 00:27:37,440
Speaker 1: On August third, he was traveling to Rapid City, South Dakota.

487
00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:40,399
Speaker 1: When he went to the toilet, the doors swung open

488
00:27:40,480 --> 00:27:43,879
Speaker 1: and he was quote sitting in stocking feet on the

489
00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:45,640
Speaker 1: lid of the toilet, asking for help.

490
00:27:46,160 --> 00:27:48,679
Speaker 2: That's well, that's when he was found with heroin.

491
00:27:48,800 --> 00:27:52,240
Speaker 1: Right, That's right, And it seems like that book is

492
00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:55,160
Speaker 1: the only one that has that that has that version

493
00:27:55,160 --> 00:27:57,600
Speaker 1: of the story. The more common contemporary story is that

494
00:27:57,640 --> 00:28:00,520
Speaker 1: he became sick on a flight to Rapid City, possibly

495
00:28:00,560 --> 00:28:02,760
Speaker 1: to go to a treatment center, and police found heroin

496
00:28:02,920 --> 00:28:06,040
Speaker 1: in his back. So, Julia, you I sort of alluded

497
00:28:06,080 --> 00:28:09,680
Speaker 1: to this before. But in the previous in a previous role,

498
00:28:10,160 --> 00:28:12,480
Speaker 1: you used to work on the cricket podcast Hysteria, and

499
00:28:12,840 --> 00:28:15,959
Speaker 1: you guys would do this series called this Fucking Guy About.

500
00:28:16,640 --> 00:28:19,760
Speaker 1: You know, guys that are making America worse for lack

501
00:28:19,800 --> 00:28:21,080
Speaker 1: of a better description.

502
00:28:21,720 --> 00:28:23,720
Speaker 2: And guy Guy is gender neutral.

503
00:28:23,760 --> 00:28:26,640
Speaker 3: Guy, that's right, of course, we are more inclusive here,

504
00:28:26,680 --> 00:28:27,320
Speaker 3: more inclusive.

505
00:28:28,040 --> 00:28:30,639
Speaker 1: And you did do an episode on RFK Junior and

506
00:28:30,720 --> 00:28:34,240
Speaker 1: so much more than I am. You are very well

507
00:28:34,320 --> 00:28:38,080
Speaker 1: versed in his history. I'm wondering what are the things

508
00:28:38,160 --> 00:28:41,760
Speaker 1: that you remember from from all that research and what

509
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:42,960
Speaker 1: sort of stuff surprised you.

510
00:28:43,400 --> 00:28:49,280
Speaker 3: So I think at first blush. My surprise was how

511
00:28:49,640 --> 00:28:53,200
Speaker 3: long he has kind of conned the American public into

512
00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:56,320
Speaker 3: thinking that he is a serious person. It's no failing

513
00:28:56,440 --> 00:29:00,960
Speaker 3: of Americans. I guess he is an extremely confident person.

514
00:29:01,480 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 3: He regardless of what he's talking about and how much

515
00:29:06,120 --> 00:29:08,640
Speaker 3: he does or does not know about it, he speaks

516
00:29:09,480 --> 00:29:14,520
Speaker 3: with a professorial level of certainty about everything.

517
00:29:15,440 --> 00:29:19,040
Speaker 2: And we'll get into his work in Riverkeeper later. But

518
00:29:20,720 --> 00:29:24,440
Speaker 2: when he was kind of big in the environmental movement,

519
00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:27,040
Speaker 2: his sister Rory Kennedy.

520
00:29:28,160 --> 00:29:31,120
Speaker 3: Was doing a documentary about the Hudson River cleanup and

521
00:29:31,200 --> 00:29:34,480
Speaker 3: about kind of like different environmental disasters in the area.

522
00:29:35,240 --> 00:29:38,640
Speaker 3: And she told producers she produces with HBO, and she

523
00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:42,640
Speaker 3: told producers, you have to fact check everything, my brother says.

524
00:29:43,040 --> 00:29:44,440
Speaker 1: She wanted them to inter.

525
00:29:44,560 --> 00:29:46,240
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously he was like a big name, and

526
00:29:46,280 --> 00:29:48,520
Speaker 3: he was a big get, but she was like, he's

527
00:29:48,560 --> 00:29:50,960
Speaker 3: gonna sound like he's the smartest person in the room.

528
00:29:51,320 --> 00:29:53,360
Speaker 2: But a lot of times he makes stuff up.

529
00:29:54,880 --> 00:29:57,360
Speaker 1: I mean a good example of that is a clip

530
00:29:57,400 --> 00:30:01,160
Speaker 1: that you introduced me to is him Joe Rogan saying

531
00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:02,520
Speaker 1: that the Spanish.

532
00:30:02,320 --> 00:30:04,320
Speaker 2: The Spanish flu which killed.

533
00:30:04,440 --> 00:30:07,680
Speaker 1: Caused by vaccines right which they did not have at

534
00:30:07,720 --> 00:30:08,360
Speaker 1: the time.

535
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:11,320
Speaker 3: The Spanish Flu of nineteen eighteen. He said that there

536
00:30:11,360 --> 00:30:15,280
Speaker 3: is good evidence, not definitive, but there is good evidence

537
00:30:15,320 --> 00:30:20,120
Speaker 3: that it was a vaccine induced pandemic, and the flu

538
00:30:20,200 --> 00:30:23,120
Speaker 3: vaccine was not introduced until the nineteen forties.

539
00:30:23,520 --> 00:30:26,960
Speaker 1: I mean stuff like that, Like watching that clip. Obviously

540
00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:28,720
Speaker 1: I know that what he's saying is not true, but

541
00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:32,080
Speaker 1: there is something about seeing someone state something so confidently

542
00:30:32,400 --> 00:30:34,680
Speaker 1: and even even hedging it and being like, you know,

543
00:30:34,760 --> 00:30:37,480
Speaker 1: it's not definitive, but I have certainly read in multiple

544
00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:39,880
Speaker 1: places and you're kind of like, well, he can't be

545
00:30:40,440 --> 00:30:42,960
Speaker 1: completely lying like it. There must be some truth, so

546
00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:45,960
Speaker 1: you sort of I see how people can fall down

547
00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:48,240
Speaker 1: that rabbit hole, because he really does sound very confident.

548
00:30:48,680 --> 00:30:52,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I also think there's something about being from

549
00:30:52,520 --> 00:30:58,280
Speaker 3: that echelon of privilege where he's grown up around a

550
00:30:58,280 --> 00:31:02,800
Speaker 3: lot of very smart, confident people, and the cadence with

551
00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:07,840
Speaker 3: which they speak is something that he has clearly mastered. Yeah,

552
00:31:07,880 --> 00:31:11,440
Speaker 3: whether or not clearly, you know he knows what he's

553
00:31:11,480 --> 00:31:12,160
Speaker 3: talking about.

554
00:31:12,520 --> 00:31:12,960
Speaker 1: Definitely.

555
00:31:13,040 --> 00:31:18,360
Speaker 3: I didn't know about a lot of the more sinister

556
00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:23,760
Speaker 3: aspects of his romantic relationships, and I wish I knew

557
00:31:23,840 --> 00:31:27,520
Speaker 3: less about it, and it kind of really puts the

558
00:31:27,560 --> 00:31:33,160
Speaker 3: whole scandal with Olivia Nuzzi into a much clearer pattern.

559
00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:35,480
Speaker 1: This is a man who is.

560
00:31:36,080 --> 00:31:42,120
Speaker 3: Has just a level of public and interpersonal predation that

561
00:31:42,280 --> 00:31:44,200
Speaker 3: feels to me like pathological.

562
00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:48,000
Speaker 1: There's a lot of accounts of him being sort of

563
00:31:48,040 --> 00:31:50,560
Speaker 1: what you would call a creep like, accounts of him

564
00:31:51,240 --> 00:31:56,280
Speaker 1: treating women poorly in professional settings, sending photos of women

565
00:31:56,400 --> 00:31:59,840
Speaker 1: without their consent to friends. There is this, I mean,

566
00:31:59,840 --> 00:32:01,760
Speaker 1: this is in europe Post, so obviously you know grain

567
00:32:01,800 --> 00:32:06,400
Speaker 1: of salt. But his secret sex diaries were found and

568
00:32:06,440 --> 00:32:09,720
Speaker 1: published a couple of years ago, and this is the

569
00:32:09,720 --> 00:32:13,240
Speaker 1: the classic post headline inside RFK Junior's secret sex diaries,

570
00:32:13,280 --> 00:32:16,760
Speaker 1: including the codes he used for women while grappling with

571
00:32:16,800 --> 00:32:20,760
Speaker 1: his quote lust demons. So he was grappling with his

572
00:32:20,840 --> 00:32:22,520
Speaker 1: lust demons twenty four seven.

573
00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:27,240
Speaker 3: And grappling with them quite physically, quite literally, Yeah, grappling

574
00:32:27,680 --> 00:32:28,600
Speaker 3: with other people.

575
00:32:29,040 --> 00:32:32,680
Speaker 1: The lust demons, it must be said, speaking of him

576
00:32:32,720 --> 00:32:36,440
Speaker 1: not being an exception, are a huge element of the

577
00:32:36,480 --> 00:32:39,000
Speaker 1: plate of Kennedy men. I mean, this is not the

578
00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:42,280
Speaker 1: first time we have heard about a male Kennedy battling

579
00:32:42,360 --> 00:32:46,280
Speaker 1: something that could be described as a sex addiction or

580
00:32:46,520 --> 00:32:49,960
Speaker 1: just sort of an obsession with sex and also a

581
00:32:50,000 --> 00:32:53,280
Speaker 1: way of treating women, let's say, without the respect that

582
00:32:53,360 --> 00:32:55,200
Speaker 1: maybe you would extend to a human.

583
00:32:55,560 --> 00:32:57,600
Speaker 3: And I think in you know, and we've talked about

584
00:32:57,640 --> 00:33:00,800
Speaker 3: this before, but like in so many ways, RFK is

585
00:33:00,840 --> 00:33:05,920
Speaker 3: the logical endpoint of this constellation of traits that has

586
00:33:05,960 --> 00:33:09,560
Speaker 3: made up the Kennedy family for generations.

587
00:33:09,640 --> 00:33:11,080
Speaker 1: Now, I think.

588
00:33:10,960 --> 00:33:13,160
Speaker 3: It's crazy that we didn't get one like him sooner,

589
00:33:13,320 --> 00:33:15,960
Speaker 3: honestly true, or.

590
00:33:15,920 --> 00:33:19,280
Speaker 1: Maybe there were others like him sooner, but the world

591
00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:21,640
Speaker 1: wasn't ready. It's like we needed Trump to open the

592
00:33:21,680 --> 00:33:23,760
Speaker 1: doors for an RFK junior to be in office.

593
00:33:25,320 --> 00:33:28,160
Speaker 3: We'll be back with more United States of Kennedy after

594
00:33:28,200 --> 00:33:39,480
Speaker 3: this break, and we're back with more United States of Kennedy.

595
00:33:39,760 --> 00:33:41,280
Speaker 1: I want to go to back to the timeline a bit,

596
00:33:41,360 --> 00:33:44,080
Speaker 1: just so we you know, don't miss anything, because there's

597
00:33:44,120 --> 00:33:47,000
Speaker 1: a lot of exciting stuff here. Nineteen eighty four, Okay.

598
00:33:47,440 --> 00:33:50,680
Speaker 1: RFK Junior pleads guilty to heroin possession. A month later,

599
00:33:50,720 --> 00:33:53,600
Speaker 1: he will be sentenced to probation and mandated drug treatment

600
00:33:54,120 --> 00:33:57,720
Speaker 1: and fifteen hundred hours of community service, though he is

601
00:33:57,760 --> 00:34:00,640
Speaker 1: allowed to do his community service in New York. As

602
00:34:00,720 --> 00:34:02,640
Speaker 1: part of his community service. I didn't know this. He

603
00:34:02,680 --> 00:34:07,040
Speaker 1: starts volunteering with environmental causes and brings his law background

604
00:34:07,240 --> 00:34:10,640
Speaker 1: to that field, and his probation ultimately ends a year

605
00:34:10,680 --> 00:34:14,120
Speaker 1: early in nineteen eighty seven, so this is three years

606
00:34:14,120 --> 00:34:18,160
Speaker 1: after the hair in charge. He receives a master's degree

607
00:34:18,160 --> 00:34:22,200
Speaker 1: in environmental law from Pace University School of Law. According

608
00:34:22,200 --> 00:34:24,000
Speaker 1: to the La Times, he is the first recipient of

609
00:34:24,040 --> 00:34:25,080
Speaker 1: this master's degree.

610
00:34:25,200 --> 00:34:28,759
Speaker 3: I referenced RFK Junior's work with Riverkeeper, which is kind

611
00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:32,360
Speaker 3: of where he cut his teeth as an environmental lawyer.

612
00:34:32,800 --> 00:34:37,840
Speaker 3: His work with Riverkeeper began through his court mandated community service,

613
00:34:38,440 --> 00:34:41,799
Speaker 3: and it was part of the ongoing project back then

614
00:34:41,960 --> 00:34:45,200
Speaker 3: in the late eighties, mid to late eighties and early nineties,

615
00:34:45,239 --> 00:34:49,759
Speaker 3: to clean up the polluted Hudson River. And you know what,

616
00:34:50,200 --> 00:34:55,239
Speaker 3: I think that for a long time Bobby Junior was

617
00:34:55,360 --> 00:34:58,640
Speaker 3: able to kind of live in this space of like

618
00:34:59,400 --> 00:35:01,840
Speaker 3: he's a a troubled guy.

619
00:35:02,600 --> 00:35:05,760
Speaker 2: He had such a tragic beginning.

620
00:35:05,320 --> 00:35:06,160
Speaker 1: To his life.

621
00:35:06,719 --> 00:35:09,480
Speaker 3: We all kind of have the collective trauma of him

622
00:35:09,520 --> 00:35:14,440
Speaker 3: losing his father. As a nation, we you know, we

623
00:35:14,520 --> 00:35:18,319
Speaker 3: mourned the loss of his father. And I think he

624
00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:22,680
Speaker 3: is someone who people have continually wanted to give a

625
00:35:22,719 --> 00:35:27,000
Speaker 3: second chance, and he is really obviously abused that time.

626
00:35:27,080 --> 00:35:29,480
Speaker 1: And again, there's a way to view all of this.

627
00:35:29,560 --> 00:35:32,839
Speaker 1: I mean, we are obviously, you know, being a bit

628
00:35:32,880 --> 00:35:35,640
Speaker 1: sarcastic and coming at it from the place of people

629
00:35:35,640 --> 00:35:37,839
Speaker 1: who disagree with him politically and think he is a

630
00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:42,000
Speaker 1: slightly evil person. But reading this timeline, if you didn't

631
00:35:42,040 --> 00:35:43,880
Speaker 1: know what he was up to now, there is a

632
00:35:44,480 --> 00:35:49,560
Speaker 1: sense of you know, triumph over hardships that can read

633
00:35:49,640 --> 00:35:52,799
Speaker 1: as inspiring. I mean, his father was literally assassinated when

634
00:35:52,800 --> 00:35:55,800
Speaker 1: he was fourteen, He dealt with clear you know, demons

635
00:35:55,920 --> 00:35:59,680
Speaker 1: drug addiction, and then basically found his passion in environmental

636
00:35:59,719 --> 00:36:01,520
Speaker 1: active So, you.

637
00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:04,359
Speaker 3: Know, the more tragic aspect of this that we really

638
00:36:04,360 --> 00:36:07,440
Speaker 3: haven't mentioned yet is not just that Bobby had Bobby

639
00:36:07,520 --> 00:36:14,080
Speaker 3: Junior had a personal addiction to heroin, but also he

640
00:36:14,200 --> 00:36:18,360
Speaker 3: kind of led many of his other siblings down a

641
00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:21,799
Speaker 3: dark path of drug use, including his younger brother, who

642
00:36:21,960 --> 00:36:25,480
Speaker 3: died of an overdose at twenty eight years old in

643
00:36:25,480 --> 00:36:29,640
Speaker 3: a Florida hotel room. So Bobby was given a second

644
00:36:29,719 --> 00:36:32,759
Speaker 3: chance time and again. But you know, many of the

645
00:36:32,800 --> 00:36:36,000
Speaker 3: other people that he kind of led into depravity were

646
00:36:36,040 --> 00:36:39,520
Speaker 3: not so lucky. And I think everybody knew. Everybody, especially

647
00:36:39,560 --> 00:36:43,120
Speaker 3: in his family, knew that he was just a very persuasive,

648
00:36:43,280 --> 00:36:47,160
Speaker 3: charismatic figure from the beginning, which to our earlier point

649
00:36:47,200 --> 00:36:51,120
Speaker 3: about Eunice Kennedy Shriver not allowing her children to hang

650
00:36:51,160 --> 00:36:54,799
Speaker 3: out with him, that was exactly why, because he was

651
00:36:54,960 --> 00:36:57,440
Speaker 3: very persuasive and charismatic.

652
00:36:57,200 --> 00:36:59,840
Speaker 1: And his you know, his sort of bad boy in

653
00:37:00,320 --> 00:37:02,720
Speaker 1: He wasn't one of these He wasn't like a lone wolf.

654
00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:05,120
Speaker 1: He was someone who always had a crew with him,

655
00:37:05,160 --> 00:37:07,880
Speaker 1: whether the crew was you know, the hyannasport Terrors, or

656
00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:10,200
Speaker 1: whether it was him like bringing his siblings into it,

657
00:37:10,600 --> 00:37:13,080
Speaker 1: and or whether it was like quite literally the anti

658
00:37:13,160 --> 00:37:15,879
Speaker 1: VAXX movement, of which he became one of the main

659
00:37:15,960 --> 00:37:20,759
Speaker 1: leaders like he thrives on persuading people to do and

660
00:37:20,840 --> 00:37:24,600
Speaker 1: think and believe questionable things. There was something sort of

661
00:37:24,680 --> 00:37:27,640
Speaker 1: you know, cult leaderish about it completely.

662
00:37:27,680 --> 00:37:30,239
Speaker 3: And I think that was what really struck me in

663
00:37:30,280 --> 00:37:34,360
Speaker 3: doing the initial research on RFK Junior, is the pattern

664
00:37:34,560 --> 00:37:37,240
Speaker 3: and the degree to which he has kind of courted

665
00:37:37,440 --> 00:37:41,680
Speaker 3: followers for most of his life, and I think it

666
00:37:41,760 --> 00:37:46,800
Speaker 3: was just something that kind of went unchecked and unrecognized

667
00:37:46,960 --> 00:37:52,000
Speaker 3: for so long, again because of the heavy cloud of

668
00:37:52,560 --> 00:37:55,160
Speaker 3: RFK Senior's assassination.

669
00:37:55,600 --> 00:38:00,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we are in nineteen ninety four. This is

670
00:38:00,080 --> 00:38:03,279
Speaker 1: sort of goes back to his relationship with women. How's

671
00:38:03,320 --> 00:38:06,239
Speaker 1: this for a timeline? March twenty fourth, he divorces his

672
00:38:06,280 --> 00:38:10,840
Speaker 1: first wife, Emily Black. April fifteenth, he marries Mary Richardson,

673
00:38:10,840 --> 00:38:12,640
Speaker 1: who is six months pregnant.

674
00:38:12,440 --> 00:38:14,960
Speaker 2: And George, I'm not great at math, but.

675
00:38:16,520 --> 00:38:18,160
Speaker 1: I don't see anything wrong here. I don't know what

676
00:38:18,239 --> 00:38:22,000
Speaker 1: you're getting at. No, go on, go on, and his

677
00:38:22,120 --> 00:38:27,080
Speaker 1: son Connor is born later that year, obviously with Mary

678
00:38:27,160 --> 00:38:32,200
Speaker 1: Richardson his second wife, and Connor fans might recognize from

679
00:38:32,680 --> 00:38:34,520
Speaker 1: an episode we did a very long time ago about

680
00:38:34,560 --> 00:38:38,200
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift. Because Connor Kennedy is the Kennedy Taylor Swift

681
00:38:38,440 --> 00:38:41,920
Speaker 1: briefly dated and it's kind of this big part of

682
00:38:41,960 --> 00:38:44,680
Speaker 1: the Taylor Swift fandom, and there are various conspiracy theories

683
00:38:44,719 --> 00:38:46,560
Speaker 1: around it, and people say, oh, look at her, she

684
00:38:47,120 --> 00:38:50,160
Speaker 1: bought a house next to the Kennedy compound and all

685
00:38:50,160 --> 00:38:52,439
Speaker 1: this stuff. So if you want to hear more about that,

686
00:38:52,800 --> 00:38:55,080
Speaker 1: and we understand if you want to pause this sort

687
00:38:55,080 --> 00:38:58,360
Speaker 1: of depressing episode to listen to an episode about Taylor Swift.

688
00:38:58,719 --> 00:39:03,760
Speaker 1: That is the episode of with Fran Houffner. So let's see. Okay,

689
00:39:03,800 --> 00:39:07,200
Speaker 1: So in nineteen ninety six, this is when Bobby Junior

690
00:39:07,239 --> 00:39:10,640
Speaker 1: says that he came down with spasmodic dysphonia, which is

691
00:39:10,680 --> 00:39:12,719
Speaker 1: the condition he has, which is why he you know,

692
00:39:12,760 --> 00:39:14,759
Speaker 1: speaks in a particular way. That why he sounds like that,

693
00:39:14,920 --> 00:39:17,479
Speaker 1: yes and why and which unfortunately a lot of people

694
00:39:17,520 --> 00:39:21,480
Speaker 1: make fun of which, you know, it's complicated to get

695
00:39:21,520 --> 00:39:24,399
Speaker 1: into the ethics of is it okay to make fun

696
00:39:24,440 --> 00:39:28,800
Speaker 1: of someone's, you know, disability because they are in evil

697
00:39:28,840 --> 00:39:31,520
Speaker 1: in other areas of their life. The Jewish and I

698
00:39:31,520 --> 00:39:33,799
Speaker 1: say yes, it is. Iconically, he did say that it

699
00:39:33,880 --> 00:39:37,680
Speaker 1: could be a flu vaccine side effect so it's always

700
00:39:37,760 --> 00:39:41,040
Speaker 1: nice when something falls right into your existing view of

701
00:39:41,080 --> 00:39:43,920
Speaker 1: the world, all right. In two thousand y two k

702
00:39:44,160 --> 00:39:47,600
Speaker 1: he is engaged in a power struggle with Robert H.

703
00:39:47,680 --> 00:39:51,080
Speaker 1: Boyle of river Keepers over Kennedy's desire to hire a

704
00:39:51,200 --> 00:39:55,200
Speaker 1: convicted bird smuggler. And this is I actually, this is

705
00:39:55,239 --> 00:39:58,440
Speaker 1: a great place to pause. Like his environmentalism is so

706
00:39:58,560 --> 00:40:00,960
Speaker 1: fascinating to me, because on the one hand, he is

707
00:40:01,000 --> 00:40:07,799
Speaker 1: so passionate about you know, conservation, pollution, climate change, things

708
00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:10,160
Speaker 1: like that, and then on the other hand he has

709
00:40:10,280 --> 00:40:15,320
Speaker 1: such there's a theme of violence against animals specifically, yes,

710
00:40:15,360 --> 00:40:16,799
Speaker 1: in his life. Yes, so.

711
00:40:17,880 --> 00:40:19,799
Speaker 3: And I'm actually just going to push back slightly on

712
00:40:19,880 --> 00:40:22,560
Speaker 3: something on what you just said, which is, yeah, I

713
00:40:22,800 --> 00:40:25,279
Speaker 3: don't know, like from all everything I know about him now,

714
00:40:25,440 --> 00:40:29,360
Speaker 3: I don't know that he was actually ever passionate about environmentalism.

715
00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:32,320
Speaker 3: You've seen a lot, you know, like we just talked

716
00:40:32,320 --> 00:40:37,040
Speaker 3: about with him wanting to develop oil fields, like have

717
00:40:37,120 --> 00:40:40,720
Speaker 3: a hand in developing oil fields, and that is hiring

718
00:40:40,840 --> 00:40:44,799
Speaker 3: and wanting to hire an Australian bird smuggler. I think

719
00:40:44,920 --> 00:40:47,800
Speaker 3: Bobby has always been passionate about Bobby.

720
00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:50,319
Speaker 1: I think that is like.

721
00:40:50,880 --> 00:40:54,880
Speaker 3: Ultimately he has for his whole life, wanted power and

722
00:40:54,920 --> 00:40:59,280
Speaker 3: influence and followers, and kind of goes wherever the wind

723
00:40:59,760 --> 00:41:00,439
Speaker 3: takes him.

724
00:41:00,920 --> 00:41:02,200
Speaker 1: But I think to.

725
00:41:03,760 --> 00:41:08,439
Speaker 3: The violence against animals, I think that will take us

726
00:41:08,560 --> 00:41:14,160
Speaker 3: really nicely. To his cousin Caroline Kennedy's letter to the Senate,

727
00:41:14,200 --> 00:41:17,280
Speaker 3: I know we were jumping back and forth here, but this letter,

728
00:41:17,680 --> 00:41:20,640
Speaker 3: you know, talks a lot about the family history.

729
00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:24,920
Speaker 1: And Caroline wrote this letter when he was nominated by Trump.

730
00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:27,920
Speaker 1: It was before he was confirmed to be a Secretary

731
00:41:27,920 --> 00:41:29,080
Speaker 1: of Health and Human Services.

732
00:41:29,200 --> 00:41:33,880
Speaker 3: She wrote this letter to the senators on the Health, Education, Labor,

733
00:41:33,880 --> 00:41:37,040
Speaker 3: and Pensions Committee who were doing the hearings that would

734
00:41:37,160 --> 00:41:40,320
Speaker 3: lead to his confirmation. Book and I'm not going to

735
00:41:40,360 --> 00:41:45,040
Speaker 3: read the whole thing, but this really details nicely into

736
00:41:45,080 --> 00:41:47,880
Speaker 3: what we were just discussing. Okay, She says, I have

737
00:41:48,040 --> 00:41:51,040
Speaker 3: known Bobby my whole life. We grew up together. It's

738
00:41:51,120 --> 00:41:54,160
Speaker 3: no surprise that he keeps birds of prey as pets,

739
00:41:54,280 --> 00:41:58,440
Speaker 3: because he himself is a predator. He has always been charismatic,

740
00:41:59,040 --> 00:42:02,720
Speaker 3: able to attract through the strength of his personality, willing

741
00:42:02,719 --> 00:42:05,799
Speaker 3: to take risks and break the rules. I watched his

742
00:42:05,840 --> 00:42:09,360
Speaker 3: younger brothers and cousins follow him down the path of

743
00:42:09,440 --> 00:42:13,719
Speaker 3: drug addiction. His basement, his garage, and his dorm room

744
00:42:14,239 --> 00:42:17,080
Speaker 3: were the centers of the action where drugs were available,

745
00:42:17,920 --> 00:42:20,759
Speaker 3: and he enjoyed showing off how he put baby chickens

746
00:42:20,760 --> 00:42:23,839
Speaker 3: and mice in the blender to feed his hawks. It

747
00:42:23,880 --> 00:42:27,200
Speaker 3: was often a perverse scene of despair and violence. And

748
00:42:27,239 --> 00:42:30,440
Speaker 3: then she says, of course, people can grow and change.

749
00:42:30,520 --> 00:42:33,480
Speaker 3: Through his own strength and the many second chances he

750
00:42:33,560 --> 00:42:35,799
Speaker 3: was given by people who felt sorry for the boy

751
00:42:35,840 --> 00:42:38,640
Speaker 3: who had lost his father, Bobby was able to pull

752
00:42:38,760 --> 00:42:42,120
Speaker 3: himself out of illness and disease. I admired the discipline

753
00:42:42,160 --> 00:42:46,279
Speaker 3: that took and the continuing commitment it requires. But siblings

754
00:42:46,280 --> 00:42:49,360
Speaker 3: and cousins who Bobby encouraged down the path of substance

755
00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:53,520
Speaker 3: abuse suffered addiction, illness, and death, while Bobby has gone

756
00:42:53,520 --> 00:42:57,000
Speaker 3: on to misrepresent, lie and cheat his way through life.

757
00:42:57,520 --> 00:42:59,960
Speaker 3: And then she calls him addicted to attention.

758
00:43:00,480 --> 00:43:03,200
Speaker 1: Addicted to attention. Yeah, yeah, I guess that is something

759
00:43:03,239 --> 00:43:07,120
Speaker 1: that that is an element of it that I hadn't

760
00:43:07,360 --> 00:43:11,880
Speaker 1: fully grappled with. I mean I because he is. It's complicated.

761
00:43:11,920 --> 00:43:13,680
Speaker 1: He is a true believer in a lot of this stuff.

762
00:43:13,719 --> 00:43:17,280
Speaker 1: Like you can't call him with the anti vaccine stuff,

763
00:43:17,280 --> 00:43:20,279
Speaker 1: for example, I don't think that he is solely doing

764
00:43:20,360 --> 00:43:23,399
Speaker 1: I think he genuinely believes it, and I think for

765
00:43:23,440 --> 00:43:26,840
Speaker 1: whatever reason, he has decided this is his big cause.

766
00:43:27,239 --> 00:43:29,319
Speaker 1: But then there is also the element of him just

767
00:43:29,560 --> 00:43:32,399
Speaker 1: generally wanting to be the face of something. I think

768
00:43:32,440 --> 00:43:33,399
Speaker 1: he wants to be.

769
00:43:33,719 --> 00:43:36,600
Speaker 3: Not to sound too hyperbolic, but I think he wants

770
00:43:36,719 --> 00:43:39,880
Speaker 3: to kind of have cull leader status, and he's corded

771
00:43:39,920 --> 00:43:44,160
Speaker 3: that for most of his life and this is the

772
00:43:44,280 --> 00:43:48,480
Speaker 3: issue that has provided him with that platform and with

773
00:43:48,600 --> 00:43:49,280
Speaker 3: that position.

774
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:55,200
Speaker 1: And Carolyn Kennedy again like, this is not someone who publishes,

775
00:43:55,880 --> 00:43:59,280
Speaker 1: you know, open letters and public statements on a regular basis.

776
00:44:00,120 --> 00:44:03,520
Speaker 2: No, no, almost We almost never hear from her.

777
00:44:04,040 --> 00:44:06,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, if there is someone who embodies the

778
00:44:06,760 --> 00:44:10,200
Speaker 1: kind of stiff upper lip, you know, ethos of the

779
00:44:10,239 --> 00:44:13,800
Speaker 1: sort of like white well to do you know Kennedy family,

780
00:44:13,880 --> 00:44:17,080
Speaker 1: it's her. I mean, I understand that the Ryan Murphy

781
00:44:17,080 --> 00:44:19,360
Speaker 1: Love Story show is fictional, but the way she's portrayed

782
00:44:19,400 --> 00:44:22,319
Speaker 1: is kind of the way I imagine, Yeah, she was

783
00:44:22,600 --> 00:44:24,600
Speaker 1: early in her life, which is sort of like it's

784
00:44:24,760 --> 00:44:27,879
Speaker 1: it's imagine imagine someone saying, well, it's just not done.

785
00:44:28,200 --> 00:44:30,920
Speaker 1: That is what I imagine when I imagine Caroline Kennedy.

786
00:44:30,960 --> 00:44:34,680
Speaker 1: So for her to be so blunt and so you know,

787
00:44:35,840 --> 00:44:40,120
Speaker 1: frankly like mean about her own family member, you know,

788
00:44:40,239 --> 00:44:43,440
Speaker 1: says a lot. While we're on the topic of animal abuse,

789
00:44:43,960 --> 00:44:46,600
Speaker 1: this is a I mean, it's not just that he

790
00:44:46,880 --> 00:44:50,640
Speaker 1: blended baby chickens to feed to his hawks. There is

791
00:44:50,760 --> 00:44:54,840
Speaker 1: a pattern of sort of like weird interactions with animals

792
00:44:55,320 --> 00:44:57,640
Speaker 1: throughout his life. I mean, there is the famous story

793
00:44:57,680 --> 00:45:01,400
Speaker 1: of him abandoning a bear carcass in Central Park.

794
00:45:01,600 --> 00:45:08,280
Speaker 3: Yes, he came across bear carcass and was going to

795
00:45:08,400 --> 00:45:12,080
Speaker 3: pick it up and then harvest it for meat, but

796
00:45:12,200 --> 00:45:14,200
Speaker 3: then he had to like catch a flight and had

797
00:45:14,200 --> 00:45:16,560
Speaker 3: a dinner reservation or something, so he ended up just

798
00:45:16,840 --> 00:45:20,279
Speaker 3: dropping the bear carcass in Central Park, which led to

799
00:45:20,440 --> 00:45:25,080
Speaker 3: like a decade of mystery as to where that carcass

800
00:45:25,120 --> 00:45:25,480
Speaker 3: came from.

801
00:45:25,480 --> 00:45:29,640
Speaker 1: And it was him, Oh, Mike. And then he once

802
00:45:29,800 --> 00:45:32,680
Speaker 1: brought a chainsaw to the beach and cut the head

803
00:45:32,760 --> 00:45:36,759
Speaker 1: off of the beached whale. That's right, which is part

804
00:45:36,800 --> 00:45:39,319
Speaker 1: of and I want you to sort of walk me

805
00:45:39,360 --> 00:45:42,240
Speaker 1: through this. This is part of a larger I guess

806
00:45:42,280 --> 00:45:47,920
Speaker 1: obsession he has with like roadkill and a roadkill related phenomena. Obviously,

807
00:45:48,600 --> 00:45:53,360
Speaker 1: a beached whale is, you know, beach roadkiln. So what's

808
00:45:53,400 --> 00:45:58,880
Speaker 1: going on there? He actively will collect animals off the street.

809
00:45:59,000 --> 00:46:01,160
Speaker 3: I don't know that I can say exactly what's going

810
00:46:01,200 --> 00:46:03,520
Speaker 3: on there because I don't understand it myself.

811
00:46:03,920 --> 00:46:06,239
Speaker 2: But when pressed about it, he has said, I've been

812
00:46:06,239 --> 00:46:09,600
Speaker 2: picking up roadkill for most of my life, which is

813
00:46:09,600 --> 00:46:12,840
Speaker 2: an insane thing to say for an I see upper

814
00:46:12,880 --> 00:46:15,480
Speaker 2: class kid to just be.

815
00:46:15,520 --> 00:46:18,480
Speaker 3: Really fascinated with roadkiller. I mean, look, I don't think

816
00:46:18,520 --> 00:46:22,279
Speaker 3: that I'm not a doctor. I'm not here to apologize anyone, but.

817
00:46:22,200 --> 00:46:24,120
Speaker 1: It is not a doctor like Bobby.

818
00:46:25,920 --> 00:46:31,080
Speaker 3: I leave the medicalisions to him exactly, But I mean,

819
00:46:31,160 --> 00:46:33,239
Speaker 3: it is just like one of those things that they

820
00:46:33,719 --> 00:46:37,959
Speaker 3: they always cite with like sociopaths and serial killers. It's

821
00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:45,319
Speaker 3: a childhood violence against animals. And the place where Bobby

822
00:46:45,400 --> 00:46:48,000
Speaker 3: Junior grew up is called Hickory Hill was this grand

823
00:46:48,160 --> 00:46:51,480
Speaker 3: estate in Virginia, and they had a ton of animals.

824
00:46:51,480 --> 00:46:54,439
Speaker 3: His mom was a huge animal lover, but Bobby Junior

825
00:46:54,560 --> 00:46:56,680
Speaker 3: was kind of like a lizard boy. He was really

826
00:46:56,680 --> 00:46:59,480
Speaker 3: into like the lizards and the I don't know just

827
00:46:59,520 --> 00:47:02,200
Speaker 3: and there's no thing inherently wrong with being a lizard boy.

828
00:47:02,280 --> 00:47:04,600
Speaker 1: I want to say that, I think being a lizard boy,

829
00:47:04,600 --> 00:47:06,399
Speaker 1: you know, it can go either way. Like I think

830
00:47:06,440 --> 00:47:10,799
Speaker 1: many lizard boys actually have a deep earnest love for

831
00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:15,840
Speaker 1: animals and and should be you know, given a journal

832
00:47:15,960 --> 00:47:19,120
Speaker 1: and potentially a sketch book and a magnifying glass, and

833
00:47:19,160 --> 00:47:22,040
Speaker 1: I think they'd be amazing eagle scouts. And then I think,

834
00:47:22,120 --> 00:47:24,080
Speaker 1: you know, for Bobby, it was a little more sort

835
00:47:24,120 --> 00:47:27,120
Speaker 1: of you know, hide the rest of the animals because

836
00:47:27,120 --> 00:47:28,080
Speaker 1: he's coming for everyone.

837
00:47:28,480 --> 00:47:32,040
Speaker 3: Going back to the more recent cutting the head off

838
00:47:32,080 --> 00:47:35,160
Speaker 3: of a beached whale with a chase saw, they're simply

839
00:47:35,320 --> 00:47:37,680
Speaker 3: I can't tell you why he did it, and he

840
00:47:37,840 --> 00:47:39,800
Speaker 3: then strapped into the roof of his car.

841
00:47:40,480 --> 00:47:42,879
Speaker 1: It really it's just like what you wake up one

842
00:47:42,920 --> 00:47:45,440
Speaker 1: morning and you're, you know, I, let's do a fun

843
00:47:45,480 --> 00:47:47,319
Speaker 1: activity for the day. Maybe we'll go on a hike,

844
00:47:47,360 --> 00:47:50,480
Speaker 1: maybe we'll get brunch. The series of decisions that leads

845
00:47:50,520 --> 00:47:52,320
Speaker 1: to like, Okay, I'm getting the chain, so I'm putting

846
00:47:52,320 --> 00:47:54,520
Speaker 1: it in the car, going to the beach, sawing a

847
00:47:55,120 --> 00:47:57,120
Speaker 1: head off the beached whale, and then putting it in

848
00:47:57,120 --> 00:48:00,680
Speaker 1: my car and that's who's in charge of UH Health

849
00:48:00,680 --> 00:48:04,560
Speaker 1: and Human Services. That's right, that's absolutely right, so very quickly,

850
00:48:04,600 --> 00:48:07,120
Speaker 1: and we'll sort of get to present day. I gotta

851
00:48:07,120 --> 00:48:09,319
Speaker 1: say we're skipping a lot of the vaccine stuff because

852
00:48:09,360 --> 00:48:12,400
Speaker 1: we've already covered in another episode. But so two thousand

853
00:48:12,400 --> 00:48:16,760
Speaker 1: and five, Rolling Stone and Salon publish RFK Junior's article

854
00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:20,680
Speaker 1: Deadly Immunity. This immediately leads to controversy, and in twenty

855
00:48:20,719 --> 00:48:24,040
Speaker 1: eleven Salon will pull the article, as will Rolling Stone.

856
00:48:24,200 --> 00:48:26,759
Speaker 3: So this is and again we're not going to go

857
00:48:26,800 --> 00:48:29,440
Speaker 3: too deep into the vaccines, the anti vax stuff, but

858
00:48:29,560 --> 00:48:32,279
Speaker 3: this is actually like part of a larger pattern of

859
00:48:32,360 --> 00:48:35,040
Speaker 3: how we got to where we are today with vaccine

860
00:48:35,080 --> 00:48:40,120
Speaker 3: misinformation and anti vaxers who have kind of caused measles

861
00:48:40,160 --> 00:48:40,680
Speaker 3: to return.

862
00:48:40,920 --> 00:48:42,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is sort of like you can point to

863
00:48:42,880 --> 00:48:46,440
Speaker 1: this moment as like this sort of incredible case of

864
00:48:46,520 --> 00:48:51,240
Speaker 1: basically journalistic malpractice that set into motion so many things

865
00:48:51,280 --> 00:48:53,080
Speaker 1: that would then lead us to where we are today.

866
00:48:53,200 --> 00:48:55,719
Speaker 3: Right and before that, you know, there had been the

867
00:48:56,480 --> 00:48:59,200
Speaker 3: study that really like started it all in the UK.

868
00:48:59,400 --> 00:49:04,080
Speaker 3: Andrew wake Field conducted a study in which he found

869
00:49:04,719 --> 00:49:10,160
Speaker 3: he alleged to have found a link between vaccines and autism,

870
00:49:10,280 --> 00:49:14,800
Speaker 3: particularly a preservative in vaccines that has not been used

871
00:49:14,840 --> 00:49:18,000
Speaker 3: for decades, and he published that study in a journal

872
00:49:18,040 --> 00:49:21,720
Speaker 3: called The Landset. The Landset did not retract that study

873
00:49:21,840 --> 00:49:24,600
Speaker 3: until many years later because so many people one of

874
00:49:24,640 --> 00:49:29,080
Speaker 3: the big things about the scientific method and medical studies is.

875
00:49:29,000 --> 00:49:30,080
Speaker 1: They have to be replicable.

876
00:49:30,360 --> 00:49:33,399
Speaker 3: In order for the conclusion to be true, it has

877
00:49:33,440 --> 00:49:37,520
Speaker 3: to be replicable, and researchers who tried to replicate this

878
00:49:37,600 --> 00:49:40,799
Speaker 3: study were never able to find the same studies as

879
00:49:40,880 --> 00:49:44,919
Speaker 3: Andrew Wakefield. Andrew Wakefield was then found out to have

880
00:49:45,080 --> 00:49:49,920
Speaker 3: all sorts of financial interest in the results of this study,

881
00:49:51,040 --> 00:49:53,600
Speaker 3: and he has since been stripped of his medical license.

882
00:49:53,920 --> 00:49:59,440
Speaker 3: And again the Landset did not retract this study until

883
00:49:59,440 --> 00:50:01,720
Speaker 3: many years later. The same thing happened with this Rolling

884
00:50:01,719 --> 00:50:06,000
Speaker 3: Stone Slawn article Deadly Immunity, which is that by the

885
00:50:06,080 --> 00:50:09,320
Speaker 3: time it was retracted, the damage had already been done.

886
00:50:09,400 --> 00:50:12,960
Speaker 3: And it's this and it happened again with RFK Junior.

887
00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:17,920
Speaker 3: His Facebook presence, basically like Facebook, was.

888
00:50:17,880 --> 00:50:23,280
Speaker 2: One of the big drivers of anti VAX's misinformation.

889
00:50:23,880 --> 00:50:26,800
Speaker 1: It was very, very late in the game.

890
00:50:27,080 --> 00:50:31,080
Speaker 3: I think it was during the pandemic that Facebook finally

891
00:50:32,000 --> 00:50:36,200
Speaker 3: closed down the Children's Health Defense Facebook page, which had

892
00:50:36,239 --> 00:50:41,480
Speaker 3: pushed so much vaccine misinformation. And obviously the Children's Health

893
00:50:41,800 --> 00:50:46,160
Speaker 3: Defense is Bobby's organization, right, Yeah, that.

894
00:50:46,160 --> 00:50:48,840
Speaker 1: Was sort of during a brief period where there was

895
00:50:49,000 --> 00:50:53,680
Speaker 1: enough pressure on social media companies to kind of moderate

896
00:50:53,840 --> 00:50:59,360
Speaker 1: content in collaboration with fact checking organizations, governments, et cetera.

897
00:50:59,560 --> 00:51:03,640
Speaker 1: And we just don't live in that world anymore.

898
00:51:04,200 --> 00:51:07,360
Speaker 3: It's and again, the damage had already been done because

899
00:51:07,440 --> 00:51:11,560
Speaker 3: most of the seeds of vaccine misinformation had been planted

900
00:51:11,560 --> 00:51:13,920
Speaker 3: in the early two thousands, and it had proliferated in

901
00:51:13,960 --> 00:51:14,840
Speaker 3: the twenty tens.

902
00:51:15,040 --> 00:51:18,680
Speaker 2: So by the time they took away.

903
00:51:19,960 --> 00:51:24,319
Speaker 3: RFK Junior's mouthpiece on Facebook, it was way way too late.

904
00:51:24,440 --> 00:51:26,479
Speaker 1: And that again there's a pattern of that.

905
00:51:26,520 --> 00:51:29,680
Speaker 3: Where like people just shouldn't have let this guy talk

906
00:51:29,719 --> 00:51:30,560
Speaker 3: in the first place.

907
00:51:31,280 --> 00:51:34,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think there is an argument to be

908
00:51:34,480 --> 00:51:37,880
Speaker 1: made that the Kennedy name did cause a lot of

909
00:51:37,920 --> 00:51:39,680
Speaker 1: people to give him the benefit of the doubt more

910
00:51:39,680 --> 00:51:44,440
Speaker 1: than they would have some random hack whose history is

911
00:51:44,520 --> 00:51:48,239
Speaker 1: like so spotty and who clearly is not, you know,

912
00:51:48,320 --> 00:51:53,640
Speaker 1: a serious scientist, Like it is him being sort of

913
00:51:53,719 --> 00:51:59,000
Speaker 1: a young, handsome Kennedy with connections was a huge part

914
00:51:59,040 --> 00:51:59,319
Speaker 1: of this.

915
00:52:00,120 --> 00:52:02,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think I mean, you see that even

916
00:52:02,000 --> 00:52:04,640
Speaker 3: in his environmental law career, he was not the most

917
00:52:04,640 --> 00:52:06,600
Speaker 3: even though you know, he passed the bar, he had

918
00:52:06,640 --> 00:52:08,799
Speaker 3: a law degree, he was not like.

919
00:52:08,800 --> 00:52:12,840
Speaker 2: A super serious intellectual person.

920
00:52:13,360 --> 00:52:16,239
Speaker 3: A lot of reporting on his time at Riverkeeper was

921
00:52:16,920 --> 00:52:20,000
Speaker 3: that he wouldn't be doing like the oral arguments or

922
00:52:20,000 --> 00:52:22,480
Speaker 3: anything like that, or doing the legwork on these big

923
00:52:22,760 --> 00:52:24,320
Speaker 3: landmark environmental cases.

924
00:52:24,480 --> 00:52:26,959
Speaker 1: He would be brought in as kind of a show

925
00:52:26,960 --> 00:52:27,640
Speaker 1: pony to.

926
00:52:27,719 --> 00:52:31,160
Speaker 3: Draw attention to a particular case because of his famous

927
00:52:31,200 --> 00:52:32,640
Speaker 3: face and his famous last name.

928
00:52:33,719 --> 00:52:37,120
Speaker 1: So we should say, sort of funnily enough, the same year,

929
00:52:37,200 --> 00:52:40,120
Speaker 1: the same year that Rolling Stone and Salon publish this

930
00:52:40,719 --> 00:52:44,680
Speaker 1: deadly immunity article that they then have to retract, Fox

931
00:52:44,800 --> 00:52:50,160
Speaker 1: News airs this big special about climate change called the

932
00:52:50,200 --> 00:52:53,600
Speaker 1: heat is on the Case of Global Warming that Bobby

933
00:52:53,640 --> 00:52:57,640
Speaker 1: Junior and Lorie David, Larry David's wife helped get off

934
00:52:57,640 --> 00:53:02,680
Speaker 1: the ground, which I think that really so perfectly shows

935
00:53:02,760 --> 00:53:07,360
Speaker 1: that his two sides. There's sort of like the conspiratorial

936
00:53:07,920 --> 00:53:11,120
Speaker 1: anti vac side, and then there's the kind of you know,

937
00:53:11,200 --> 00:53:18,320
Speaker 1: Hollywood adjacent philanthy you know, kind of philanthropic climate activism side,

938
00:53:18,520 --> 00:53:22,600
Speaker 1: which is his connection to Laurie David. And then obviously,

939
00:53:23,040 --> 00:53:24,400
Speaker 1: you know, enter Cheryl Hines.

940
00:53:25,920 --> 00:53:28,680
Speaker 3: We'll be back with more United States of Kennedy after

941
00:53:28,760 --> 00:53:38,840
Speaker 3: this break, and we're back with more.

942
00:53:38,800 --> 00:53:42,680
Speaker 1: United States of Kennedy. We're almost at present day. Now.

943
00:53:42,760 --> 00:53:47,600
Speaker 1: Twenty ten is when Kennedy starts experiencing memory loss and

944
00:53:47,640 --> 00:53:53,719
Speaker 1: fogginess and grows concerned and somehow learns he has a brainworm. Now,

945
00:53:53,760 --> 00:53:56,719
Speaker 1: this is another thing we've been hearing more about over

946
00:53:56,719 --> 00:53:58,120
Speaker 1: the last few years, is that at some point he

947
00:53:58,160 --> 00:54:01,680
Speaker 1: had a brainworm, a dead tape worm in his brain. Yes,

948
00:54:02,080 --> 00:54:05,200
Speaker 1: there are various conflicting stories, but basically he was told

949
00:54:05,200 --> 00:54:07,719
Speaker 1: he had a brain tumor, a doctor said he might not,

950
00:54:07,920 --> 00:54:09,279
Speaker 1: and it turned out to be a.

951
00:54:09,239 --> 00:54:11,560
Speaker 2: Tapeworm, a dead tapeworm.

952
00:54:11,360 --> 00:54:16,920
Speaker 1: At dead tape warm. Interestingly, December twenty eleven, apparently he

953
00:54:16,960 --> 00:54:20,680
Speaker 1: starts dating Cheryl Hines, who he is presumably introduced to

954
00:54:21,160 --> 00:54:24,319
Speaker 1: through the David's Larry David and his wife. There is

955
00:54:24,360 --> 00:54:26,800
Speaker 1: a really amazing photo of the three of them at

956
00:54:27,880 --> 00:54:31,120
Speaker 1: at their wedding where Larry looks so displeased. It should

957
00:54:31,160 --> 00:54:33,880
Speaker 1: be noted that in twenty eleven, he was still married

958
00:54:34,080 --> 00:54:36,560
Speaker 1: to his second wife and the mother of his children,

959
00:54:36,600 --> 00:54:39,919
Speaker 1: Mary Richardson, who in twenty twelve dies by suicide.

960
00:54:40,000 --> 00:54:44,520
Speaker 3: So Mary Richardson's family actually attempted to bring a wrongful

961
00:54:44,560 --> 00:54:50,000
Speaker 3: death lawsuit against RFK Junior, who they said had kind

962
00:54:50,000 --> 00:54:54,240
Speaker 3: of emotionally terrorized her. He had cut off her access

963
00:54:54,440 --> 00:54:59,239
Speaker 3: to money and credit cards. He was known to like

964
00:54:59,320 --> 00:55:03,439
Speaker 3: emotionally rate her, and allegedly told her that she would

965
00:55:03,440 --> 00:55:06,440
Speaker 3: be better off dead again. All of this is alleged,

966
00:55:06,600 --> 00:55:11,319
Speaker 3: but Moregan Callahan wrote this book called Ask Not, which

967
00:55:11,360 --> 00:55:14,759
Speaker 3: is like all about the Kennedy women and who were

968
00:55:14,800 --> 00:55:17,920
Speaker 3: destroyed by the Kennedy men, and she talks about that

969
00:55:18,080 --> 00:55:18,480
Speaker 3: a lot.

970
00:55:18,719 --> 00:55:24,120
Speaker 2: It's horrific. It's a terrible footnote to this saga.

971
00:55:24,600 --> 00:55:27,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, then the Trump connections start, you know. In twenty seventeen,

972
00:55:27,960 --> 00:55:31,080
Speaker 1: Bobby Junior claims he was asked by President ELEC. Trump

973
00:55:31,120 --> 00:55:34,400
Speaker 1: to chair a Vaccine Safety and Scientific Integrity Commission, which

974
00:55:34,520 --> 00:55:37,600
Speaker 1: that commission never happened, but he says that at some

975
00:55:37,680 --> 00:55:40,240
Speaker 1: point it was in the beginning stages. In twenty nineteen,

976
00:55:40,280 --> 00:55:42,719
Speaker 1: to your point, Julia, a study found that fifty four

977
00:55:42,800 --> 00:55:45,719
Speaker 1: percent of anti vax ads on Facebook were bought by

978
00:55:45,719 --> 00:55:49,120
Speaker 1: two groups. One was a random organization called Stop Mandatory

979
00:55:49,200 --> 00:55:52,840
Speaker 1: Vaccination and the other one was Kennedy's World Mercury Project.

980
00:55:52,960 --> 00:55:56,960
Speaker 3: World Mercury Project was the name of the organization that

981
00:55:57,080 --> 00:55:59,040
Speaker 3: became the Children's Health Defense.

982
00:55:59,480 --> 00:56:02,520
Speaker 1: I see, in twenty nineteen, the Children's Health Defense had

983
00:56:02,560 --> 00:56:05,200
Speaker 1: almost three million dollars in revenue. In twenty twenty one

984
00:56:05,280 --> 00:56:07,960
Speaker 1: it was almost sixteen, and in twenty twenty two it

985
00:56:08,040 --> 00:56:11,239
Speaker 1: was twenty three point five million dollars in revenue. To

986
00:56:11,280 --> 00:56:13,560
Speaker 1: state the obvious, twenty twenty is when COVID happened. So

987
00:56:13,600 --> 00:56:15,799
Speaker 1: that is why from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty two

988
00:56:16,480 --> 00:56:22,240
Speaker 1: interest in anti vax theories sort of skyrocketed. And that's

989
00:56:22,280 --> 00:56:24,600
Speaker 1: sort of it. In twenty twenty three, he announces he's

990
00:56:24,600 --> 00:56:26,920
Speaker 1: going to run for president as a Democrat. Then he

991
00:56:26,960 --> 00:56:29,880
Speaker 1: announces he's going to run as an independent. This is,

992
00:56:30,239 --> 00:56:33,120
Speaker 1: you know, in retrospect, around the time when the Olivia

993
00:56:33,239 --> 00:56:37,160
Speaker 1: Essi affair was happening. He ultimately did not win the election,

994
00:56:37,360 --> 00:56:40,799
Speaker 1: but then joined the Trump administration. And now here we

995
00:56:40,840 --> 00:56:46,480
Speaker 1: are and it's good right. That's the basic timeline of

996
00:56:47,480 --> 00:56:52,080
Speaker 1: RFK Junior's sort of life relationships career. It really is

997
00:56:52,760 --> 00:56:58,600
Speaker 1: very Kennedy esque, just in the sheer quantity of tragic events.

998
00:56:58,760 --> 00:57:01,759
Speaker 1: And I'm even just saying that objectively, like not even

999
00:57:01,800 --> 00:57:05,200
Speaker 1: taking into account which ones were you know, orchestrated by him,

1000
00:57:05,320 --> 00:57:08,000
Speaker 1: or which ones happened to him, or which ones were accidents,

1001
00:57:08,040 --> 00:57:11,040
Speaker 1: or which ones were intentional. It just is. It is

1002
00:57:11,200 --> 00:57:15,840
Speaker 1: drug addiction, it is suicide. It is you know, extremely

1003
00:57:15,880 --> 00:57:22,760
Speaker 1: traumatic childhood events. It is you know, broken relationships with family, bitterness,

1004
00:57:23,360 --> 00:57:24,720
Speaker 1: public fighting.

1005
00:57:25,080 --> 00:57:28,120
Speaker 3: I mean, I think this gets left out quite often.

1006
00:57:28,560 --> 00:57:34,160
Speaker 3: It's in part about his personal struggle with money too,

1007
00:57:34,480 --> 00:57:37,720
Speaker 3: and his slow hero status in the anti VAXX movement

1008
00:57:38,000 --> 00:57:42,480
Speaker 3: is you know, based on his own assertions that he

1009
00:57:42,520 --> 00:57:45,440
Speaker 3: doesn't have a dog in this fight and he just

1010
00:57:45,480 --> 00:57:50,960
Speaker 3: wants to, you know, protect people from big bad pharma,

1011
00:57:51,000 --> 00:57:54,040
Speaker 3: when in fact, you know, and a lot of people think,

1012
00:57:54,080 --> 00:57:56,240
Speaker 3: because he's a Kennedy, he must have so much money,

1013
00:57:56,400 --> 00:57:59,960
Speaker 3: just like generational wealth. But by the time the Kennedy

1014
00:58:00,000 --> 00:58:03,520
Speaker 3: the fortune got down to himself and his siblings, and

1015
00:58:03,640 --> 00:58:06,000
Speaker 3: again he is one of eleven, there just wasn't that

1016
00:58:06,160 --> 00:58:10,120
Speaker 3: much money left. And there's been a lot written about

1017
00:58:10,400 --> 00:58:15,360
Speaker 3: his aspirations to greater personal wealth and really his belief

1018
00:58:15,400 --> 00:58:19,040
Speaker 3: that he deserves to be wealthier, and he has a

1019
00:58:19,120 --> 00:58:24,400
Speaker 3: direct financial stake in multiple lawsuits currently still going through

1020
00:58:24,440 --> 00:58:29,440
Speaker 3: the courts against vaccine manufacturers. He draws an enormous salary

1021
00:58:29,440 --> 00:58:35,200
Speaker 3: from the children's Health Defense. He wants money, power, and status.

1022
00:58:35,520 --> 00:58:37,800
Speaker 3: That's just like the long and the short of it,

1023
00:58:37,920 --> 00:58:41,040
Speaker 3: and he's gotten all of it. And look at what

1024
00:58:41,280 --> 00:58:42,400
Speaker 3: the rest of us have now.

1025
00:58:43,680 --> 00:58:46,560
Speaker 1: Not often that you are faced with something that truly

1026
00:58:46,560 --> 00:58:49,920
Speaker 1: feels like pure evil. Yeah, you know, it's like everything

1027
00:58:49,960 --> 00:58:56,240
Speaker 1: from violence against small animals to just like constant misogyny

1028
00:58:56,600 --> 00:59:00,960
Speaker 1: and disrespect to women, just sort of verbal abuse and

1029
00:59:02,360 --> 00:59:04,920
Speaker 1: a complete lack of you know, a complete lack of

1030
00:59:04,960 --> 00:59:08,160
Speaker 1: respect for your fellow man. I mean it is. It's

1031
00:59:08,240 --> 00:59:11,000
Speaker 1: kind of shocking. But luckily he is in control of

1032
00:59:11,000 --> 00:59:11,960
Speaker 1: our healthcare system.

1033
00:59:12,280 --> 00:59:15,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's good that we'll never hear from him again. Yeah,

1034
00:59:15,240 --> 00:59:18,640
Speaker 3: but I mean, I think that more than anything, Georgian

1035
00:59:18,640 --> 00:59:22,160
Speaker 3: and I've wanted this episode to be an antidote to

1036
00:59:23,640 --> 00:59:27,000
Speaker 3: the often asked how did he get this way?

1037
00:59:27,440 --> 00:59:30,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, And I think you were very right to

1038
00:59:30,040 --> 00:59:33,320
Speaker 1: point out that we needed to investigate this claim that

1039
00:59:33,440 --> 00:59:36,200
Speaker 1: he used to be normal, and then something happened. Because

1040
00:59:36,280 --> 00:59:40,400
Speaker 1: even as a kind of casual reader of the of

1041
00:59:40,560 --> 00:59:43,040
Speaker 1: rf CARE related news before I started doing this podcast,

1042
00:59:43,160 --> 00:59:45,760
Speaker 1: like that was kind of my idea of him too.

1043
00:59:45,840 --> 00:59:47,680
Speaker 1: I was just sort of like and in fact I

1044
00:59:47,720 --> 00:59:50,640
Speaker 1: remember and talk about, you know, kind of casual misinformation.

1045
00:59:50,680 --> 00:59:53,120
Speaker 1: But I remember when the brainworm story came out, there

1046
00:59:53,120 --> 00:59:54,240
Speaker 1: was a part of me that was like, well, that

1047
00:59:54,360 --> 00:59:57,600
Speaker 1: explains it, Like something happened, Like he has brain damage.

1048
00:59:57,640 --> 01:00:00,520
Speaker 3: Like I mean, it's one of those things where two

1049
01:00:00,520 --> 01:00:03,520
Speaker 3: things can be true at once. He absolutely has worm

1050
01:00:03,560 --> 01:00:07,000
Speaker 3: related brain damage, but I mean the brain worm died

1051
01:00:07,120 --> 01:00:10,000
Speaker 3: because it couldn't. There was nothing left up there to

1052
01:00:10,040 --> 01:00:10,520
Speaker 3: begin with.

1053
01:00:11,160 --> 01:00:13,640
Speaker 1: That's right. It's an honor every week to get more

1054
01:00:13,680 --> 01:00:16,640
Speaker 1: and more worm related brain damage by learning about this

1055
01:00:16,720 --> 01:00:21,080
Speaker 1: incredible American family. And I got to say, I recommend

1056
01:00:21,080 --> 01:00:24,480
Speaker 1: the front line of episode about the right. It's called

1057
01:00:24,480 --> 01:00:26,880
Speaker 1: The Rise of RFK Junior. If you want sort of

1058
01:00:27,160 --> 01:00:30,760
Speaker 1: two full hours of more detailed historical context, I really

1059
01:00:30,800 --> 01:00:31,400
Speaker 1: recommend it.

1060
01:00:31,480 --> 01:00:36,720
Speaker 2: I found it so so helpful and so informative. And again,

1061
01:00:37,000 --> 01:00:40,760
Speaker 2: I really think it's important to talk about these things

1062
01:00:40,800 --> 01:00:44,640
Speaker 2: and to know who was at the helm of one

1063
01:00:44,680 --> 01:00:48,000
Speaker 2: of the most destructive movements in our country. You know,

1064
01:00:48,440 --> 01:00:51,000
Speaker 2: it's likely that you know people you listening to this

1065
01:00:51,080 --> 01:00:55,720
Speaker 2: podcast that you know people who are vaccine skeptical, vaccine hesitant,

1066
01:00:55,960 --> 01:00:58,760
Speaker 2: or choosing not to vaccinate their children. And it is

1067
01:00:58,800 --> 01:01:02,240
Speaker 2: important to be able to kind of talk on a

1068
01:01:02,320 --> 01:01:06,680
Speaker 2: human level to people like that and to hopefully let

1069
01:01:06,680 --> 01:01:10,080
Speaker 2: them know that the person who is leading this movement

1070
01:01:10,280 --> 01:01:12,919
Speaker 2: does not have their best interest at heart.

1071
01:01:13,160 --> 01:01:15,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, And I think putting a face to it

1072
01:01:15,240 --> 01:01:19,640
Speaker 1: really helps because it so often devolves into well, people

1073
01:01:19,720 --> 01:01:23,280
Speaker 1: say this, well, you know, I heard this, and slowly,

1074
01:01:23,440 --> 01:01:26,520
Speaker 1: because of the way our media ecosystem works, something that

1075
01:01:26,640 --> 01:01:30,360
Speaker 1: is a very very fringe opinion becomes normalized really really fast,

1076
01:01:30,400 --> 01:01:32,800
Speaker 1: and you just hear it in mixed company. You'll hear

1077
01:01:32,800 --> 01:01:35,120
Speaker 1: it from you know, a friend, someone that you know,

1078
01:01:35,360 --> 01:01:39,160
Speaker 1: a cowork or whatever, and you sort of assume there's

1079
01:01:39,200 --> 01:01:41,720
Speaker 1: something that you're not familiar with, and people have done

1080
01:01:41,720 --> 01:01:44,760
Speaker 1: their own research, and when you see very clearly, like

1081
01:01:45,560 --> 01:01:49,240
Speaker 1: everything that a lot of this stuff is based on,

1082
01:01:49,520 --> 01:01:52,600
Speaker 1: the foundation upon which this movement is built has all

1083
01:01:52,640 --> 01:01:56,560
Speaker 1: been debunked. All the original research, the original you know,

1084
01:01:57,080 --> 01:01:59,920
Speaker 1: r of CA junior articles. It's just important to like

1085
01:02:00,320 --> 01:02:02,640
Speaker 1: put a face to it. It's funny because the first

1086
01:02:02,640 --> 01:02:05,640
Speaker 1: time I ever heard about vaccines causing autism was in

1087
01:02:05,680 --> 01:02:08,240
Speaker 1: fact from Jenny McCarthy on Chelsea Lately. So that was

1088
01:02:08,240 --> 01:02:09,600
Speaker 1: the face I put to the movement.

1089
01:02:10,200 --> 01:02:14,560
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, I mean, well, one day Oprah will answer

1090
01:02:14,600 --> 01:02:18,160
Speaker 3: for her crimes because I know that she also was

1091
01:02:18,200 --> 01:02:22,600
Speaker 3: like the first national show that gave a platform to

1092
01:02:22,640 --> 01:02:26,600
Speaker 3: Jenny McCarthy. But Jenny McCarthy just got her information from

1093
01:02:26,640 --> 01:02:28,040
Speaker 3: people like RFK Junior.

1094
01:02:28,280 --> 01:02:31,919
Speaker 1: Yes, completely, and ultimately she got her information from people

1095
01:02:31,960 --> 01:02:34,760
Speaker 1: that were presenting themselves as experts, and they were presenting

1096
01:02:34,800 --> 01:02:39,040
Speaker 1: themselves as you know, people in the medical community. And

1097
01:02:39,720 --> 01:02:42,840
Speaker 1: also she was the mother of an autistic such exactly,

1098
01:02:42,880 --> 01:02:45,400
Speaker 1: she was the mother of the Sun and wanted quote

1099
01:02:45,480 --> 01:02:47,680
Speaker 1: unquote answers and which.

1100
01:02:47,480 --> 01:02:50,040
Speaker 3: Of course, so many parents who are in that position.

1101
01:02:50,480 --> 01:02:53,880
Speaker 3: They're suffering and they want to know why, and they

1102
01:02:54,520 --> 01:02:58,520
Speaker 3: unfortunately want someone to blame. And that's really powerful and

1103
01:02:58,640 --> 01:03:00,240
Speaker 3: r f K Junior knows that, I.

1104
01:03:00,160 --> 01:03:01,880
Speaker 1: Know we are going along here, but just to close

1105
01:03:01,880 --> 01:03:05,400
Speaker 1: out the autism element of all of this, one thing

1106
01:03:05,440 --> 01:03:08,640
Speaker 1: that is especially offensive when our KA Junior talks about

1107
01:03:08,680 --> 01:03:11,640
Speaker 1: this is that he seems to have zero respect for

1108
01:03:11,720 --> 01:03:13,960
Speaker 1: people with autism. He talks about them as though they

1109
01:03:13,960 --> 01:03:17,760
Speaker 1: are completely disposable members of society aniso. It's like a

1110
01:03:17,800 --> 01:03:20,200
Speaker 1: death sentence. I mean, there are quotes where he says,

1111
01:03:20,520 --> 01:03:24,600
Speaker 1: these are people that will never pay taxes, that will never.

1112
01:03:24,560 --> 01:03:27,600
Speaker 2: They'll never throw a baseball, they'll never write a poem.

1113
01:03:27,440 --> 01:03:29,720
Speaker 1: They'll never be able to use the bathroom, use a

1114
01:03:29,760 --> 01:03:32,960
Speaker 1: toilet unassisted, all this stuff. I mean it for someone

1115
01:03:32,960 --> 01:03:35,080
Speaker 1: who is dedicated the better part of his life to

1116
01:03:35,200 --> 01:03:38,680
Speaker 1: quote unquote studying what causes autism, he seems to have

1117
01:03:38,720 --> 01:03:41,120
Speaker 1: no concept of what it is so anyway.

1118
01:03:40,960 --> 01:03:44,560
Speaker 3: I mean he treats it as a disease that needs eradication.

1119
01:03:44,960 --> 01:03:48,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, which I think is a whole other part of his.

1120
01:03:48,600 --> 01:03:53,000
Speaker 1: He does have this obsession with like cleanliness and detoxifying everything,

1121
01:03:53,040 --> 01:03:57,720
Speaker 1: which we need a psychoanalyst to help us work through.

1122
01:03:57,840 --> 01:04:01,200
Speaker 3: He doesn't believe in germ theory that like, if you

1123
01:04:01,280 --> 01:04:04,160
Speaker 3: are a if you take all the right supplements and

1124
01:04:04,160 --> 01:04:08,120
Speaker 3: if your body is a temple, then disease cannot enter it,

1125
01:04:08,160 --> 01:04:09,680
Speaker 3: which is simply not how that works.

1126
01:04:09,800 --> 01:04:13,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that is how he got a brainworm. So

1127
01:04:13,360 --> 01:04:15,520
Speaker 1: thank you everyone for listening. We will be back next

1128
01:04:15,520 --> 01:04:18,560
Speaker 1: week with our regularly scheduled programming, but we just wanted

1129
01:04:18,600 --> 01:04:21,360
Speaker 1: to sort of while we still can, in our last

1130
01:04:21,360 --> 01:04:24,840
Speaker 1: three episodes do this deep dive that we've been craving

1131
01:04:24,840 --> 01:04:27,760
Speaker 1: for a while. So that is it this week from

1132
01:04:27,880 --> 01:04:31,160
Speaker 1: United States of Kennedy. Subscribe and follow United States of

1133
01:04:31,240 --> 01:04:33,440
Speaker 1: Kennedy for all Things Kennedy every week.

1134
01:04:34,080 --> 01:04:36,959
Speaker 3: United States of Kennedy is hosted by me, Julia Clair

1135
01:04:37,120 --> 01:04:38,040
Speaker 3: and George Savers.

1136
01:04:38,400 --> 01:04:42,720
Speaker 1: Original music by Joshua Chipolski, editing by Graham Gibson, mixing

1137
01:04:42,760 --> 01:04:44,360
Speaker 1: and mastering by Doug Bame.

1138
01:04:44,560 --> 01:04:47,080
Speaker 3: Research by Dave Bruce and Austin Thompson.

1139
01:04:47,240 --> 01:04:51,240
Speaker 1: Our producer is Carmen Laurent. Our executive Producer is Jenna Cagle.

1140
01:04:51,440 --> 01:04:52,720
Speaker 1: Created by Lyra Smith.

1141
01:04:52,960 --> 01:04:55,400
Speaker 3: United States of Kennedy is a production that live her

1142
01:04:55,480 --> 01:04:56,000
Speaker 3: podcast