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Speaker 1: What do you think about Jack Schlasberg.

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Speaker 2: Well, I don't know a ton about him.

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Speaker 3: I think he's hot and that's my main interest. But

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Speaker 3: I thought he was a little bit more contained than

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Speaker 3: what I just observed on Twitter. The first tweet that sucks.

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Speaker 2: Me in this isn't all caps Happy birthday to Dax

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Speaker 2: Shepherd's wife. And then two spaces down Kristen, two spaces

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Speaker 2: down Bell, two spaces down, all.

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Speaker 3: Caps again Dax Shepherd, and then we go into normal text.

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Speaker 4: Wonder if he'd ever have me on his podcast Space

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Speaker 4: question Mark after he made racist comments about me space

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Speaker 4: exclamation point, two spaces.

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Speaker 2: Down, dackx all caps, did you get face filler?

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Speaker 4: Space question where?

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Speaker 5: And then I just started scrolling his.

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Speaker 4: Page and I'm like, this man is insane.

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Speaker 2: I don't know if he's just being an edge lord

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Speaker 2: with this one, but this is another tweet we deserve

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Speaker 2: to know if Megan Kelly was born with.

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Speaker 4: Male or female genitalia four exclamation points.

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Speaker 3: Justice will prevail.

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Speaker 4: Wait, I have to find my other favorite one. His

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Speaker 4: tweets are.

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Speaker 6: Just so off the wall.

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Speaker 5: Where is that incredible to me?

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Speaker 7: Oh?

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Speaker 4: Yeah?

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Speaker 6: He called gif me a bitch, which I just thought

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Speaker 6: was funny.

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Speaker 4: I mean RFK RFK Junior says no vaccines.

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Speaker 2: But wants everyone to wear wearable My first Amendment right

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Speaker 2: not to have an or ring.

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Speaker 5: Corporate bitch that he talked kid's menu is DEI.

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Speaker 2: I just don't even know what he's fucking talking about.

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Speaker 5: I'm George Severes, I'm Lyra Smith, and this is United.

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Speaker 6: States of Kennedy, a podcast about our cultural fascination with

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Speaker 6: the Kennedy dynasty. Every week we go into one aspect

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Speaker 6: of the Kennedy story, and today we are talking about

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Speaker 6: JFK's grandson and social media Jester Jack Schlossberg.

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Speaker 1: You may have seen his speech at the twenty twenty

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Speaker 1: four DNC or you may have seen him dancing shirtless

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Speaker 1: on Instagram. Either way, he's been getting people talking. So

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Speaker 1: where did he come from?

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Speaker 6: So, like we said, he is jfka's grandson for most

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Speaker 6: of his life he's currently thirty two. I believe for

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Speaker 6: most of his life did everything you would expect a

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Speaker 6: young handsome Kennedy, especially one who is the literal grandson

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Speaker 6: of JFK to do. He was sort of tangentially involved

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Speaker 6: in politics and the way you would expect. He had

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Speaker 6: a position at the JFK Presidential Library, where he was

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Speaker 6: involved in selecting the recipients of various citizenship awards. He

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Speaker 6: spoke at the twenty twenty DNC in favor of Joe Biden.

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Speaker 6: He attended the Met Gala with his mom, Caroline Kennedy.

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Speaker 6: He went to law school. He went to Harvard. You

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Speaker 6: know again, anything you might.

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Speaker 1: Expect, Harvard and Yale got them, both, Harvard and Yale.

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Speaker 5: I'm sorry, that's right. I gotta catch them all.

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Speaker 6: But then there was this sort of change that happened

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Speaker 6: around early twenty twenty four when he became a very

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Speaker 6: frequent poster on social media, and he is big on Twitter,

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Speaker 6: he was big on Instagram.

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Speaker 5: He has tiktoks.

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Speaker 6: He now, you know, a year and a half later,

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Speaker 6: has launched his own YouTube talk show, and he became

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Speaker 6: sort of this weird anomaly where he combined the glamour

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Speaker 6: of being a Kennedy with the sort of humor of

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Speaker 6: being like a shit poster for lack of a better worse,

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Speaker 6: and his content is very kind of unpredictable. So his

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Speaker 6: tweets and tiktoks range from traditional jokes that like a

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Speaker 6: comedy front facing camera media might make to different characters

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Speaker 6: and doing accents to literally pranks, like he lied about

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Speaker 6: being Justin Baldoni's lawyer just to mess with people, and

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Speaker 6: then the media covered it and then people had to

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Speaker 6: like fact check it and uncover that it was false.

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Speaker 6: He sometimes will make fun of his own family, both

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Speaker 6: his own immediate family and also the Kennedy name more broadly,

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Speaker 6: and then sometimes he's more earnest, like he endorsed Zora

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Speaker 6: Lundani for mayor of New York and posted a video

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Speaker 6: while going to vote for him. He's expressed his support

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Speaker 6: for more progressive democratic politicians like Pritzker, and so you

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Speaker 6: never know whether he is serious or whether he's not.

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Speaker 6: He's obviously, you know, very pot so people like watching

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Speaker 6: videos of him, and he plays into that too. He'll

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Speaker 6: post videos of him shirtless or of him, you know,

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Speaker 6: smugging at the camera, and it has led to some stuff.

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Speaker 6: I mean, he was hired as a Vogue political correspondent

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Speaker 6: at some point and produced I don't know, somewhere around

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Speaker 6: four articles total. He has been on talk shows, he's

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Speaker 6: been interviewed a couple of times, but he's sort of

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Speaker 6: still kind of a.

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Speaker 1: Mission ouside a cameo on Blue Bloods.

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Speaker 5: I did not know that he had a cameo on

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Speaker 5: Blue Bloods.

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Speaker 6: There you go, so LRA, is he someone who is

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Speaker 6: on your feed a lot?

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Speaker 5: Do you get served as contact?

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Speaker 1: Yes?

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Speaker 5: And I got it before I knew who he was.

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Speaker 1: Him singing ticket to Ride I think was the first

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Speaker 1: video I saw of him, and I liked it.

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Speaker 8: She's got a ticket to ride, She's got a ticket

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Speaker 8: to rah h. She's got a ticket to ride, but

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Speaker 8: she don't care.

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Speaker 6: I think I first saw him on Twitter, and he

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Speaker 6: has there's this way of tweeting, both grammatically and syntactically,

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Speaker 6: and also in his use of capitalization stuff that's almost

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Speaker 6: and I mean this only inform and not in content.

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Speaker 6: It's almost Trumpian like. He's almost making fun of Trump's

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Speaker 6: style of tweeting. So, for example, his pinned tweet right

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Speaker 6: now you know as of July twenty twenty five, so apologetist.

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Speaker 6: This has changed his pin tweet is Jesus Christ's body type.

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Speaker 6: My thoughts colin Jesus was thin most popular guy of

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Speaker 6: all time, not jacked toned, but not big. So my

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Speaker 6: question is did Jesus want to put on muscle but

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Speaker 6: couldn't or was he lean on purpose talk soon Jack.

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Speaker 6: I mean, if you have been on Twitter sort of

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Speaker 6: like throughout the twenty tens, you recognize this as kind

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Speaker 6: of a classic shit post. There are so many guys

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Speaker 6: and you know, and women and people's fall genders who

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Speaker 6: sort of tweet in this like half joking way, and

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Speaker 6: the humor just sort of comes from the absurdity. So

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Speaker 6: I just thought he was kind of like a slightly

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Speaker 6: self aware slash occasionally annoying hot millennial guys.

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Speaker 1: But the thing about his tweets is that they're not

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Speaker 1: drill like you know, this is a Kennedy and he's

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Speaker 1: often talking about politicians, correspondents, serious news like people in

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Speaker 1: the news. But he continues to like ship post in

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Speaker 1: the same style kind of no matter what he's talking about,

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Speaker 1: unless he gets really sincere, which happens. But the thing

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Speaker 1: about that is that to me, it seems like he

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Speaker 1: takes risks in that you don't know who's reading it

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Speaker 1: and what they're going to understand as a joke or not,

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Speaker 1: and it doesn't seem like he really cares if you

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Speaker 1: get the joke or not, which is it's risky because

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Speaker 1: you could offend people very easily if you were just

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Speaker 1: simply putting things out there and saying, I don't care

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Speaker 1: if you get it.

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Speaker 6: In his relationship to humor and satire is I would say,

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Speaker 6: generously inconsistent. Like some of his his jokes are just

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Speaker 6: very funny, and then other times it's completely out of nowhere.

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Speaker 6: I mean, a recent twek that I saw was which

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Speaker 6: member of Trump's cabinet has had the most homosexual experiences

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Speaker 6: and then he lists a variety of options. Another one

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Speaker 6: recently was Kid's menu is dei. So of course the

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Speaker 6: joke there is that the Kids' menu, because it appeals

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Speaker 6: to children rather than adults, is a form of DEI.

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Speaker 5: So you know, you sort of.

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Speaker 6: See what he's going for there, And I want to

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Speaker 6: get to the larger project, if there is any in

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Speaker 6: his larger relationship to comedy, But I first want to

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Speaker 6: go through some of our favorite recent posts of his,

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Speaker 6: just so if anyone, you know, if anyone here is

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Speaker 6: wisely not on TikTok or on X, they can kind

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Speaker 6: of understand what we're talking about. So, Lyra, do you

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Speaker 6: have any that you made notice I do.

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Speaker 1: Let me preface this by saying, many of the people

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Speaker 1: whose opinion I greatly respect, really don't like him, but

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Speaker 1: I do like him, and I can't hide it, and

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Speaker 1: I can't fight. I've been watching hours upon hours at

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Speaker 1: this point now in preparation for this, but also months ago,

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Speaker 1: and I think I absolutely tilt into the favorable group.

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Speaker 1: And one of the videos, or like the video that

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Speaker 1: I think was like the turning point for me where

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Speaker 1: there was no going back, is his video complaining or

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Speaker 1: criticizing when people say, hey, man, have a safe flight.

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Speaker 7: Have a safe flight, safe trip, have a safe flight,

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Speaker 7: get there safe, be safe, have a safe flight, have.

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Speaker 9: A safe flight. How what do you want me to do? Huh?

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Speaker 5: What are you doing?

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Speaker 1: It's like, on the one hand, he's saying that in

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Speaker 1: general you're a passenger, you're not in control of the plane.

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Speaker 1: But also as a Kennedy people saying to him a man,

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Speaker 1: have a safe flight, it has a different meaning.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, it's funny.

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Speaker 6: I would say that is a perfect example of like

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Speaker 6: his content at its best. I mean, first all, the

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Speaker 6: premise is a classic stand up comedy premise.

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Speaker 1: Well, it's Seinfeld complaining about the pilot, telling them like

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Speaker 1: what altitude we're gonna be flying at?

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Speaker 5: It's classic Seinfeld humor.

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Speaker 6: It is genuinely a funny premis like, of course, to

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Speaker 6: tell someone have a safe flight is a ridiculous thing.

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Speaker 6: They do not have any control over the flight they're

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Speaker 6: going to have. And as you're saying, he's using his

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Speaker 6: identity as a Kennedy to humorous ends without I mean, yes,

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Speaker 6: it's sort of gallows humor. But he's not offending anyone,

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Speaker 6: you know, he's not making some grand statement about the

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Speaker 6: Democratic Party.

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Speaker 5: He's not endorsing a candidate.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that another one for me was

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Speaker 1: his Valentine Stay video where he's just announcing that he

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Speaker 1: needs a Valentine. And I think that one I really

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Speaker 1: liked because it's like the most self aware I've seen

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Speaker 1: of him. He's like comment subscribe at the end, like

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Speaker 1: it's an obvious joke.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, he likes playing with I would say even his

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Speaker 6: identity as sort of a you know, internet crush. He

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Speaker 6: will often joke about. One time he joked about going

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Speaker 6: through a breakup and he was like, my heart is breaking.

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Speaker 6: And then I saw an interview with him where he

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Speaker 6: said that people actually in his life texted him to say,

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Speaker 6: oh my god, I'm so sorry.

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Speaker 5: Heartbreak is so hard.

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Speaker 6: And then he was like, oh no, I was completely kidding.

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Speaker 6: So he both exudes this kind of like single guy energy,

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Speaker 6: but then he also has this distance with his audience,

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Speaker 6: like he's not actually, you know, being horny.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, there's really not a lot of dirt out there.

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Speaker 1: He's not stirring gossip about like his romantic life or

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Speaker 1: his sex life at all. Yeah.

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Speaker 6: We talk about this later in the episode, but he

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Speaker 6: does that classic Kennedy thing of being both overexposed and

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Speaker 6: a complete mystery. Like I see his content all the time,

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Speaker 6: I would recognize him if I saw him. I have

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Speaker 6: now heard his opinions on a variety of issues. But

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Speaker 6: if you were to tell me at this point in time,

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Speaker 6: where does he live, what is his day to day job,

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Speaker 6: what is his plan? Is he involved in politics? I

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Speaker 6: honestly would not really know. Some of my favorites in

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Speaker 6: terms of videos are he does this series with his

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Speaker 6: dad where he just asks his dad questions and it's

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Speaker 6: sort of charming because his dad is like pretending he

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Speaker 6: doesn't want to be on camera, but then obviously is

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Speaker 6: playing along. There was this great video that is almost

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Speaker 6: like hearkens back to a simpler time. That's just him

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Speaker 6: doing an Australian accent, and I'm pretty sure his mom

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Speaker 6: is off camera and is just like laughing at him

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Speaker 6: doing an Australian accent, which, you know, no matter what

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Speaker 6: you think about Kennedy's, it is just charming to see

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Speaker 6: a mother and an adult son, yeah, joking around.

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Speaker 1: Early earliest ones. And this is like pre even him

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Speaker 1: being like all over TikTok. Was him sitting And I

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Speaker 1: also believe it's his mother sitting next to him laughing

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Speaker 1: or or I think she's filming it. And he's saying

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Speaker 1: how much he hates eating in a restaurant in the

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Speaker 1: middle of the day and.

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Speaker 7: We have to say, wait there to eat something that

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Speaker 7: we don't get to choose really what it is. We

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Speaker 7: only have a couple of choices, and you don't know

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Speaker 7: what any of them are gonna taste like or what's good.

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Speaker 7: And we'll go eat there and it'll be covered in sugar,

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Speaker 7: and then we're gonna sit there for most of the

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Speaker 7: time and wait for some guy to come up and

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Speaker 7: ask us some question. Then we're gonna have to fucking

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Speaker 7: talk to some guy about what we want to eat.

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Speaker 6: Yes, Actually, restaurants are a favorite topic of his. He

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Speaker 6: has another one where he's like making fun of someone

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Speaker 6: ordering at a restaurant and he's being like, we'll do

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Speaker 6: the chicken, We'll do the salmon again. It's like a

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Speaker 6: classic stand up bit where he's like imitating someone ordering

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Speaker 6: up at a restaurant.

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Speaker 5: It's very like eighties.

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Speaker 1: If you had the magic ability to delete or unsee

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Speaker 1: anything that does really fit your personal desire expectation for

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Speaker 1: this person and just be like delightedly surprised that he's

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Speaker 1: really funny. But there's no you know, filter like that.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, So just to give people an idea of some

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Speaker 6: of the things that he's done that have pissed people

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Speaker 6: off that are not as charming as the ones we're

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Speaker 6: talking about. My example earlier, where he's speculating about which

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Speaker 6: of Trump's cabinet members have had the most homosexual experiences.

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Speaker 6: That is, you could argue that's offensive to both the

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Speaker 6: people he's accusing and you know, to gay people in general.

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Speaker 6: If he's using that as sort of like an accusation

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Speaker 6: that it's something negative, obviously, you know, you could also

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Speaker 6: argue that accusing people that espouse homophobic views of being

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Speaker 6: gay is a way to kind of take them down

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Speaker 6: a peg. And accuse them of the one thing that

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Speaker 6: they fear. I'm sort of two minds about it. I'm

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Speaker 6: not gonna, you know, go out and protest because he

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Speaker 6: is speculating that JD. Vans is gay. I could absolutely

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Speaker 6: see the argument for why that is offensive. I could

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Speaker 6: see the argument for why that is stirring the pot

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Speaker 6: in a way that is unproductive. Who's to say, then

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Speaker 6: there's more funny stuff that is so out of character.

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Speaker 9: Like.

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Speaker 6: Part of his job is presenting the Profiles and Courage

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Speaker 6: Award to politicians and citizens that have shown courage, and

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Speaker 6: one of the twenty twenty five recipients was Mike Pence.

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Speaker 6: So in the midst of all of this crazy should posting,

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Speaker 6: he has a serious interview with Mike Pence about the

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Speaker 6: courage he showed after January.

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Speaker 1: Sixth, and it's you know, it's a pretty softball interview.

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Speaker 7: What role should faith play in politics? I know that

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Speaker 7: your faith may have guided you in January sixth into

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Speaker 7: or in many other decisions. How has your faith played

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Speaker 7: a role and how should faith play a role in

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Speaker 7: our politics?

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Speaker 6: Well, faith has ever played a role since the founding

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Speaker 6: of this nation. It's a topful interview because by definition

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Speaker 6: he is quite literally giving him an award.

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Speaker 5: He's not a journalistic.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't seem like the same person, yes.

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Speaker 6: Which is actually something I've noticed a lot. Is he

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Speaker 6: as almost these two personalities. One is like millennial on funte,

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Speaker 6: like he's a social media jester, and then the other

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Speaker 6: one is like serious Kennedy. His hair is perfect, he's

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Speaker 6: wearing a suit, and he's like being interviewed.

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Speaker 5: Along with his mom about the future of the Democratic Party.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the offending tweet that pops to my

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Speaker 1: mind first is the one where he said that Oosha

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Speaker 1: Vance is hotter than Jackie oh.

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Speaker 6: Right, which brings us to the question of why does

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Speaker 6: he post. I mean, obviously some of it is and

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Speaker 6: he said this himself. Some of this is just him

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Speaker 6: entertaining himself and entertaining others and being funny. But he

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Speaker 6: does love to talk about how it's all for some

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Speaker 6: greater purpose. So we both have found interviews he's done

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Speaker 6: where he talks about like his reasoning behind why he

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Speaker 6: does all this.

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Speaker 5: So in the simple as possible terms.

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Speaker 6: When he was on Jimmy Kimmel, he was talking about

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Speaker 6: how his goal is to get young people to vote basically,

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Speaker 6: you know, using his platform as a young Kennedy to

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Speaker 6: get young people.

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Speaker 5: You have a big following on TikTok.

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Speaker 6: How would you describe the videos you make for people

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Speaker 6: like me who will not put TikTok on our phones.

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Speaker 7: Well, I think what I'm trying to do with my

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Speaker 7: videos is to bring some levity and some humor to

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Speaker 7: serious political issues, something that you know so much about

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Speaker 7: and do such a great job with on this show.

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Speaker 7: My videos maybe they're a little crazy, but maybe they're

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Speaker 7: just crazy enough to work well.

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Speaker 10: They have to be entertaining to get people interested in

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Speaker 10: Your goal is to get people to vote.

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Speaker 9: To absolutely get out and vote.

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Speaker 7: My goal for being here tonight and my goal for

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Speaker 7: the next few weeks is to get young people excited

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Speaker 7: to vote, to vote for Kamala Harris, like I'm going to.

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Speaker 7: I was just in.

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Speaker 6: And then when he was on Jen Saki's podcast, he

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Speaker 6: talked a little more in depth about a strategy, and

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Speaker 6: he was sort of saying that he felt Republicans are

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Speaker 6: better at the social media game, especially post Trump, and

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Speaker 6: are just better recording attention. They're better according controversy, and

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Speaker 6: so the reason he is posting in such a crazy

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Speaker 6: and controversial way is because he thinks the Democrats can

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Speaker 6: sort of like learn from their playbook.

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Speaker 7: I think that the Internet is a place where it's

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Speaker 7: difficult to break through, and it's difficult to break through,

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Speaker 7: especially if you're not saying something that's controversial or at

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Speaker 7: least somehow unexpected. And I think that I see that

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Speaker 7: Democrats play that game not as well as we could.

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Speaker 7: And I think that I use my judgment to make

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Speaker 7: posts that I think are funny or silly but have

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Speaker 7: a purpose either to make you think this guy's crazy,

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Speaker 7: why is he talking about his own family that way?

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Speaker 7: But to be honest.

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Speaker 9: Then you get all these retweets quotes.

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Speaker 7: And everybody flips out about it, and I think that

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Speaker 7: that's kind of the game that the other side has

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Speaker 7: been playing really well, which is flipping people out and

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Speaker 7: getting a reaction is almost half the battle. And not

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Speaker 7: every post is going to be hilarious or risky in

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Speaker 7: some way. Some of them have to be serious and boring,

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Speaker 7: but they can't all be serious and boring, and so

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Speaker 7: I think that it's very important to switch it up

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Speaker 7: and to take risks, because I think that's not only

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Speaker 7: entertaining for me myself as I laugh and post it

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Speaker 7: on my phone. But also a good way to signal

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Speaker 7: to people that you're willing to either fight for them

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Speaker 7: or speak your own mind, if you're willing to say

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Speaker 7: something that's other people might not get or you know,

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Speaker 7: might engender a reaction that some people don't like.

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Speaker 6: And so that video is him answering a question about

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Speaker 6: the tweet you were just talking about, Lyra, which is

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Speaker 6: that he tweeted asking his readers whether they thought Oosha

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Speaker 6: Van's was hotter than Jackie Oh, who is again his grandmother.

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Speaker 1: This week, he released his new show on YouTube. He

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Speaker 1: released two episodes two days in a row, and within

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Speaker 1: one of those episodes, he reads a news story response

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Speaker 1: to the camera and then you watch live as he

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Speaker 1: drafts and then posts a tweet about the news story.

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Speaker 1: And it is like really a window into what his

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Speaker 1: processes with these tweets, and what is his process is

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Speaker 1: just dumping out jokes and thoughts and not caring for

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Speaker 1: a second it seems, you know, like how it's going.

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Speaker 5: To be received.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, he has this way of thinking where he sort

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Speaker 6: of believes anything is fair game. He's like, if I

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Speaker 6: post something that is a lie, that is actually a

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Speaker 6: commentary on misinformation, and I'm like making fun of the

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Speaker 6: media ecosystem because they're going to pick it up and

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Speaker 6: it's going to be on page six, and I'm actually

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Speaker 6: doing social commentary. If I post something that is offensive,

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Speaker 6: that is because we need to take a page out

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Speaker 6: of the Republican playbook and court controversy because it'll get

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Speaker 6: people paying attention, and we need to appeal to young

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Speaker 6: people that have a sense of humor. If I post

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Speaker 6: something that is earnest, it is because I care deeply

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Speaker 6: about my family's legacy and my grandfather's legacy, and I

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Speaker 6: really want to be a statesman like the other men

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Speaker 6: and women in my family. If I post something that

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Speaker 6: is just a complete silly joke, it's because I think

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Speaker 6: people should laugh, and I'm just entertaining myself and entertaining

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Speaker 6: everyone else. And it's actually not all that serious, and

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Speaker 6: nothing is really serious. So he there really is no

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Speaker 6: gotcha question you can ask him. And it's funny because

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Speaker 6: I understand the perspective that his behavior is reckless, but

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Speaker 6: I also tend to, you know, fifty percent of the

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Speaker 6: time at least agree with him that there should be

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Speaker 6: a little more like what's the word, sort of just

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Speaker 6: like Jouis de vill to day to day political commentary,

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Speaker 6: like it is engaging ultimately to watch this stuff.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The other thing that is interesting to note when he's

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Speaker 1: like having these public takes on the current election in

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Speaker 1: New York is that Andrew Cuomo was married to his

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Speaker 1: aunt for fifteen years, and I just think that, oh yeah, I.

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Speaker 6: Mean, once you start looking at the personal connections, he

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Speaker 6: does not care about the fact that some of the

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Speaker 6: people that he is dragging are you know, his own

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Speaker 6: cousins and like people that were married to other family members,

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Speaker 6: people that have Kennedy relationships. I mean, he posted recently,

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Speaker 6: I have never met Cheryl Hines, but if I did,

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Speaker 6: I'd tell her she looks super dehydrated. I mean, so

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Speaker 6: he's pretty much saying that his cousin's wife is ugly.

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Speaker 6: And actually, I think one of the things that first

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Speaker 6: started getting him attention in the political press was his

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Speaker 6: open disdain for RFK Junior Because, as we've talked about before,

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Speaker 6: it took a while for the rest of the Kennedys

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Speaker 6: to sort of like condemn RFK Junior in an organized way,

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Speaker 6: and from the beginning, he was just like my cousin sucks.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, just saying flat out he's a bad person that

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Speaker 1: you cannot trust and very much not the Kennedy way.

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Speaker 1: The Kennedy way is like you keep your mouth shut

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Speaker 1: about the faults of your relatives.

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Speaker 5: It's funny, like.

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Speaker 6: The question of whether or not Jack's social media presence

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Speaker 6: serves one big purpose is like designed to make you

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Speaker 6: feel crazy, because, as you said, his process is just

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Speaker 6: like firing off his thoughts at any given time, and

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Speaker 6: he is just sort of vibes based.

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Speaker 1: I do want to say I watched both episodes of

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Speaker 1: Getting the Van, his new YouTube show, and I am

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Speaker 1: saying this as a producer. It's a phenomenally produced show.

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Speaker 1: The setup is perfect for him and he gets to

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Speaker 1: be free do his thing. It doesn't always work, sometimes

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00:23:51,240 --> 00:23:54,760
Speaker 1: it does. Is there a sort of central gimmick to it? Okay,

441
00:23:54,800 --> 00:23:58,879
Speaker 1: there's a very shaky explanation of why he's in a

442
00:23:58,960 --> 00:24:02,320
Speaker 1: van at one point where he says that he's going

443
00:24:02,440 --> 00:24:05,400
Speaker 1: to drive across the country in the van and talk

444
00:24:05,480 --> 00:24:10,720
Speaker 1: to everyone, and then he compares his van to the

445
00:24:10,840 --> 00:24:14,800
Speaker 1: vans that they are using to grab people off the

446
00:24:14,800 --> 00:24:17,600
Speaker 1: street and deport them, and he says he wants to

447
00:24:17,640 --> 00:24:21,920
Speaker 1: do the opposite.

448
00:24:20,119 --> 00:24:23,040
Speaker 6: With his I mean, again, this is classic Jack Schlosberg

449
00:24:23,240 --> 00:24:24,159
Speaker 6: Gallows humor.

450
00:24:24,680 --> 00:24:27,040
Speaker 5: It's like, if you squint, it makes sense.

451
00:24:27,160 --> 00:24:30,119
Speaker 6: If you squint and you maybe have like a couple

452
00:24:30,119 --> 00:24:32,960
Speaker 6: of Martini's, you're like, wow, he's kind of a comedic genius.

453
00:24:33,200 --> 00:24:35,159
Speaker 6: But if you take it literally, it really is a

454
00:24:35,240 --> 00:24:37,680
Speaker 6: bit first draft. You know, it's I gotta say, it's

455
00:24:37,720 --> 00:24:41,600
Speaker 6: really giving freshman at the Harvard lampoon, pitching ideas for

456
00:24:41,640 --> 00:24:42,560
Speaker 6: the big issue.

457
00:24:42,359 --> 00:24:45,760
Speaker 1: For sure, but then with such confidence in charisma, well

458
00:24:46,080 --> 00:24:47,840
Speaker 1: in the delivery the Kennedy.

459
00:24:47,560 --> 00:24:49,440
Speaker 5: Chart, I mean, that's the confidence of charisma.

460
00:24:49,480 --> 00:24:51,439
Speaker 6: Are in his DNA. There's really nothing he can do.

461
00:24:51,480 --> 00:24:53,360
Speaker 6: There's no surgery he can get that can remove them.

462
00:24:53,800 --> 00:24:56,680
Speaker 6: So obviously we are a little more charmed by him

463
00:24:56,680 --> 00:24:58,760
Speaker 6: than we would have maybe admitted.

464
00:24:58,400 --> 00:25:01,280
Speaker 5: A couple of weeks ago. But we also do recognize

465
00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:02,720
Speaker 5: that he has flaws, so don't write in.

466
00:25:03,160 --> 00:25:05,400
Speaker 6: But we wanted to talk to someone that has actually

467
00:25:05,400 --> 00:25:08,480
Speaker 6: had a personal relationship with him and that has had

468
00:25:08,520 --> 00:25:11,960
Speaker 6: a conversation with him. So joining us today to investigate

469
00:25:12,160 --> 00:25:14,760
Speaker 6: is William Cohen. He's a business journalist and the co

470
00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:18,600
Speaker 6: founder of the media company Puck and he was actually

471
00:25:18,720 --> 00:25:21,360
Speaker 6: high school friends with jfk Junior, so he goes way

472
00:25:21,400 --> 00:25:24,320
Speaker 6: back with the Kennedy family. But for our purposes, he

473
00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:27,720
Speaker 6: wrote a profile of Jack Schlasberg last year for Town

474
00:25:27,760 --> 00:25:30,920
Speaker 6: and Country titled you don't know Jack, Bill, Thanks for

475
00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:31,640
Speaker 6: chatting with us.

476
00:25:32,040 --> 00:25:32,920
Speaker 9: Nice to see you both.

477
00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:35,840
Speaker 6: So when we were looking up who to talk to

478
00:25:35,920 --> 00:25:39,280
Speaker 6: about the topic of Jack Schlosberg and Jack Schlosberg's social

479
00:25:39,320 --> 00:25:43,720
Speaker 6: media presence and his present and future as a sort

480
00:25:43,760 --> 00:25:48,520
Speaker 6: of Democratic Party influencer, millennial influencer, we were kind of

481
00:25:48,560 --> 00:25:51,560
Speaker 6: surprised to find this article you wrote for Town and

482
00:25:51,600 --> 00:25:55,000
Speaker 6: Country almost exactly a year ago. Obviously, you are a

483
00:25:55,119 --> 00:25:58,000
Speaker 6: very accomplished business reporter or co founder of Puck. This

484
00:25:58,160 --> 00:26:01,639
Speaker 6: is not your normal beat, I guess. So we were wondering, like,

485
00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:02,840
Speaker 6: how did that come about?

486
00:26:03,160 --> 00:26:08,240
Speaker 10: You'd be surprised when my normal beats consist of one

487
00:26:08,280 --> 00:26:12,240
Speaker 10: of the books that I wrote, probably five or six

488
00:26:12,320 --> 00:26:15,919
Speaker 10: years ago now, was a book called Four Friends, about

489
00:26:15,960 --> 00:26:18,760
Speaker 10: four of my friends from high school, one of whom

490
00:26:19,119 --> 00:26:20,760
Speaker 10: was Jfkate.

491
00:26:20,280 --> 00:26:22,719
Speaker 9: Junior, John F. Kennedy Junior.

492
00:26:23,280 --> 00:26:27,800
Speaker 10: It was a profile of him, how he lived and

493
00:26:27,840 --> 00:26:30,479
Speaker 10: how he died. The story of the book was that

494
00:26:30,640 --> 00:26:33,680
Speaker 10: I had four of these friends from high school, all

495
00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:37,640
Speaker 10: who died young and tragically, and so it was a

496
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:41,760
Speaker 10: way to explore the meaning of life as well as

497
00:26:41,840 --> 00:26:45,720
Speaker 10: how these guys lived. I know, only knew them for

498
00:26:45,840 --> 00:26:51,280
Speaker 10: three or four years, and obviously they had lives of

499
00:26:51,600 --> 00:26:54,720
Speaker 10: thirty or forty years, So what was the rest of

500
00:26:54,760 --> 00:26:56,920
Speaker 10: their lives like so, and how did they get there

501
00:26:56,960 --> 00:26:58,479
Speaker 10: in the first place, all that kind of thing. So

502
00:26:58,560 --> 00:27:00,680
Speaker 10: I became one of those people pe Bull who had

503
00:27:00,720 --> 00:27:04,360
Speaker 10: written about the Kennedys. And so once you become one

504
00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:08,200
Speaker 10: of those people who's written about the Kennedys, then sometimes

505
00:27:08,240 --> 00:27:10,080
Speaker 10: you get asked to continue.

506
00:27:09,640 --> 00:27:10,560
Speaker 9: To write about them.

507
00:27:10,840 --> 00:27:16,480
Speaker 10: And I'm from Massachusetts, Central Massachusetts. Kennedy's were always a

508
00:27:16,600 --> 00:27:23,040
Speaker 10: central theme in my growing up and always been a

509
00:27:23,080 --> 00:27:31,080
Speaker 10: big fan of them. They obviously made mistakes and didn't

510
00:27:31,200 --> 00:27:35,680
Speaker 10: live flawless lives, to put it mildly, but always were

511
00:27:36,200 --> 00:27:40,080
Speaker 10: fascinating and inspiring. And John was a friend of mine,

512
00:27:40,200 --> 00:27:42,800
Speaker 10: and what happened to him was terrible. I think his

513
00:27:43,640 --> 00:27:48,040
Speaker 10: upside was huge, and so you know, naturally I've been

514
00:27:48,080 --> 00:27:53,560
Speaker 10: interested in Jack Schlattsburgh and his sisters, his parents, given

515
00:27:53,640 --> 00:27:58,879
Speaker 10: how much Jack resembles my friend John, you know, with

516
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:02,280
Speaker 10: a twist of his fond which makes a little more

517
00:28:02,320 --> 00:28:08,399
Speaker 10: complex physical specimen than John Junior was, of course, you know,

518
00:28:08,800 --> 00:28:14,879
Speaker 10: the ultimate male figure. So anyway, I was, of course

519
00:28:14,920 --> 00:28:21,280
Speaker 10: always impressed with Jack's academic accomplishments Yale, Harvard Business School,

520
00:28:21,320 --> 00:28:25,760
Speaker 10: Harvard Law School, the Profiles and Courage Award every year,

521
00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:29,240
Speaker 10: standing next to his mother talking about, you know, why

522
00:28:29,280 --> 00:28:31,840
Speaker 10: they had chosen who they had chosen. And then he

523
00:28:31,920 --> 00:28:36,840
Speaker 10: seemed to develop this very unique social media presence which

524
00:28:36,960 --> 00:28:40,240
Speaker 10: was sort of out of character for Kennedy's generally, and

525
00:28:40,560 --> 00:28:44,600
Speaker 10: really kind of out there generally for people of his cohorts.

526
00:28:44,680 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 10: So just became really kind of interesting, What's Jack up to?

527
00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:52,200
Speaker 10: What's this all about? Talked to Town and Country about that.

528
00:28:52,240 --> 00:28:56,160
Speaker 10: We agreed it would be an interesting peace and eventually,

529
00:28:56,240 --> 00:29:00,840
Speaker 10: of course I tracked him down, found him living outside

530
00:29:00,880 --> 00:29:03,959
Speaker 10: of New Orleans, believe it or not, and had a

531
00:29:04,120 --> 00:29:08,280
Speaker 10: nice conversation with him. I think this guy has a

532
00:29:08,280 --> 00:29:12,000
Speaker 10: tremendous upside right up there with his uncle. I know,

533
00:29:12,320 --> 00:29:16,800
Speaker 10: people think he's engaging in sort of like bizarre behavior online.

534
00:29:16,920 --> 00:29:20,400
Speaker 10: And I have kids who are his age, so my

535
00:29:20,520 --> 00:29:23,000
Speaker 10: kids don't do that kind of stuff. I'm not sure

536
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:24,920
Speaker 10: I can fully relate to it, but I feel like

537
00:29:25,040 --> 00:29:29,560
Speaker 10: he's relating to his peers and his audience and making

538
00:29:29,600 --> 00:29:31,880
Speaker 10: an impression. And this is just sort of the way

539
00:29:33,040 --> 00:29:36,320
Speaker 10: you make an impression these days, are one of the ways.

540
00:29:36,400 --> 00:29:40,479
Speaker 10: And I think he's creative and smart and interesting and

541
00:29:40,520 --> 00:29:45,080
Speaker 10: funny and clever, and yeah, it's not typical by any means,

542
00:29:45,200 --> 00:29:50,280
Speaker 10: especially for somebody with his pedigree and his academic accomplishments.

543
00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:53,680
Speaker 10: I mean, why isn't he working in an investment bank

544
00:29:53,840 --> 00:29:56,200
Speaker 10: or why isn't he working at Cravath. I don't know,

545
00:29:56,400 --> 00:29:59,440
Speaker 10: but he's doing this, and he's doing his thing, and

546
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:04,160
Speaker 10: certainly wouldn't be surprised to see him emerge in a

547
00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:06,720
Speaker 10: political fashion at some point.

548
00:30:07,200 --> 00:30:10,400
Speaker 1: Do you think that that's what his aspirations are? Do

549
00:30:10,440 --> 00:30:13,800
Speaker 1: you have any thoughts on what you think he's working

550
00:30:13,920 --> 00:30:18,080
Speaker 1: towards based on the way that he's very he has

551
00:30:18,400 --> 00:30:22,080
Speaker 1: kind of two sides. He has the very polished public

552
00:30:22,120 --> 00:30:24,760
Speaker 1: speaking side, and then he has the just full blown

553
00:30:25,080 --> 00:30:28,320
Speaker 1: content you would make like if you were not a famous,

554
00:30:28,920 --> 00:30:31,600
Speaker 1: notable person, that is pretty.

555
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:32,480
Speaker 5: Silly a lot of times.

556
00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:35,640
Speaker 10: Well, he certainly cleans up well, right, I mean, he

557
00:30:35,680 --> 00:30:38,360
Speaker 10: looks great in the suit. He's very articular when he's

558
00:30:39,040 --> 00:30:43,920
Speaker 10: talking about the Profile and Courage awards are at the convention.

559
00:30:44,400 --> 00:30:47,800
Speaker 10: He can definitely turn it on and he knows how

560
00:30:47,880 --> 00:30:52,080
Speaker 10: to do that, and he can be silly and irreverent too. Frankly,

561
00:30:52,120 --> 00:30:58,360
Speaker 10: it is very charming and compelling and magnetic and captivating.

562
00:30:58,600 --> 00:31:04,720
Speaker 10: So what thirty two now or something. I could certainly

563
00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:08,720
Speaker 10: run for political office, not quite for president yet, but

564
00:31:09,440 --> 00:31:11,400
Speaker 10: I wouldn't be surprised to see him do that. I

565
00:31:11,480 --> 00:31:16,000
Speaker 10: know he told me he was doing some acting gigs

566
00:31:16,080 --> 00:31:21,480
Speaker 10: down in Louisiana. He was probably working on a memoir.

567
00:31:21,560 --> 00:31:24,720
Speaker 10: I don't know where that stands now. I didn't think

568
00:31:24,760 --> 00:31:27,160
Speaker 10: that he had quite enough yet to write a memoir,

569
00:31:27,760 --> 00:31:31,840
Speaker 10: you know, not going the traditional route, just like his

570
00:31:31,960 --> 00:31:34,840
Speaker 10: uncle didn't go the traditional rutie who you know, he

571
00:31:34,920 --> 00:31:38,960
Speaker 10: started George, and he definitely was thinking about running for

572
00:31:39,080 --> 00:31:41,600
Speaker 10: political office at the time of his death.

573
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:43,040
Speaker 9: And I probably would have won.

574
00:31:43,120 --> 00:31:47,280
Speaker 10: And you know, I've speculated that the two twenty sixteen

575
00:31:47,480 --> 00:31:51,320
Speaker 10: presidential election could have been JFK. Junior versus Donald Trump,

576
00:31:51,400 --> 00:31:55,600
Speaker 10: with JFK. Junior easily winning, but obviously that was not

577
00:31:55,640 --> 00:32:00,000
Speaker 10: to be. So, you know, I think Jack chooses this route.

578
00:32:00,160 --> 00:32:05,120
Speaker 10: I don't really see what the negatives are for him succeeding.

579
00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 6: He's sort of I think, despite the fact that he

580
00:32:25,440 --> 00:32:29,960
Speaker 6: has this incredibly consistent output and that there is just

581
00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:33,640
Speaker 6: so much footage of him online, he still remains sort

582
00:32:33,680 --> 00:32:35,480
Speaker 6: of a mystery at his core. I think part of

583
00:32:35,520 --> 00:32:38,800
Speaker 6: it is because he's sometimes joking, sometimes being serious. He

584
00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:42,320
Speaker 6: sort of changes his vibe based on what's.

585
00:32:42,120 --> 00:32:42,640
Speaker 5: In the news.

586
00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:44,800
Speaker 6: There are certain things he reacts really strongly to, an

587
00:32:44,840 --> 00:32:46,640
Speaker 6: other things that he ignores. He has a sort of

588
00:32:46,640 --> 00:32:50,120
Speaker 6: interesting relationship with the media, and that he's both suspicious

589
00:32:50,120 --> 00:32:53,240
Speaker 6: of the media but also really just like his uncle, Yes,

590
00:32:53,320 --> 00:32:56,200
Speaker 6: exactly eggs media narratives on. So I'm wondering, you know,

591
00:32:56,280 --> 00:32:58,640
Speaker 6: you spend time both with him but also just like

592
00:32:59,120 --> 00:33:01,680
Speaker 6: looking at all his do you have a concept of

593
00:33:01,720 --> 00:33:05,000
Speaker 6: like what his core beliefs are, what his political views are.

594
00:33:05,040 --> 00:33:07,400
Speaker 6: You know, if we're talking about a potential future in

595
00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:10,800
Speaker 6: which he goes into politics, what would his public beliefs

596
00:33:10,800 --> 00:33:11,160
Speaker 6: look like?

597
00:33:13,240 --> 00:33:15,760
Speaker 10: Well, and I'd also just throw in that, you know,

598
00:33:15,800 --> 00:33:17,680
Speaker 10: there was a period of time after he went a

599
00:33:17,720 --> 00:33:20,600
Speaker 10: little bit wacky where he said I'm stepping off social

600
00:33:20,720 --> 00:33:23,800
Speaker 10: media for a little while, see you later, guys, and

601
00:33:23,840 --> 00:33:26,160
Speaker 10: then I don't know how much longer it was a

602
00:33:26,240 --> 00:33:27,840
Speaker 10: month or six weeks he was back.

603
00:33:28,280 --> 00:33:30,000
Speaker 6: I mean, well, of course, a huge part of being

604
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:33,320
Speaker 6: a social media influencer is constantly announcing or taking time off.

605
00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:36,760
Speaker 10: Okay, well, you guys might know that better than I do.

606
00:33:37,120 --> 00:33:40,040
Speaker 10: There's no question what his political views are. And he's

607
00:33:40,200 --> 00:33:44,200
Speaker 10: very much progressive and the non Bobby Kennedy junior mold

608
00:33:44,360 --> 00:33:47,760
Speaker 10: or the old Bobby Kennedy junior mold back when he

609
00:33:47,840 --> 00:33:51,239
Speaker 10: was doing Riverkeeper and being an environmentalist. No, he's very

610
00:33:51,320 --> 00:33:54,840
Speaker 10: much in the family mold, you know, very I've spoken

611
00:33:55,080 --> 00:34:02,400
Speaker 10: very anti Trump, anti isolationism, immigration, you know, all the

612
00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:07,240
Speaker 10: things I think that make America great again, honestly, and

613
00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:11,520
Speaker 10: not what the MAGA movement thinks makes America great again.

614
00:34:12,080 --> 00:34:15,480
Speaker 10: So I think he would have I mean, he'd be

615
00:34:15,600 --> 00:34:19,479
Speaker 10: like a total breath of fresh air. I think he'd

616
00:34:19,520 --> 00:34:24,640
Speaker 10: have a lot of success politically if we can never

617
00:34:24,760 --> 00:34:27,480
Speaker 10: make it through the period they we're in now, and

618
00:34:27,560 --> 00:34:32,160
Speaker 10: he would ever decide to turn his attention to politics.

619
00:34:32,560 --> 00:34:35,960
Speaker 1: I mean, the thing about the influencer side and the

620
00:34:35,960 --> 00:34:40,400
Speaker 1: influencer role in general, is that target audience is split.

621
00:34:41,040 --> 00:34:44,719
Speaker 1: That's part of the fervor that people feel about influencers

622
00:34:44,760 --> 00:34:46,399
Speaker 1: is that a lot of times half of them are

623
00:34:46,440 --> 00:34:52,120
Speaker 1: following just to criticize or to take part in looking

624
00:34:52,160 --> 00:34:54,680
Speaker 1: for faults and looking for things to make fun of

625
00:34:54,680 --> 00:34:58,520
Speaker 1: them for complain about. It just makes me wonder, what

626
00:34:58,800 --> 00:35:05,319
Speaker 1: do you think that we expect or desire from a

627
00:35:05,560 --> 00:35:09,319
Speaker 1: Kennedy today that's different than in the past, or is

628
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:09,840
Speaker 1: it the same.

629
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:12,320
Speaker 10: I wrote a piece a couple of months ago about

630
00:35:12,360 --> 00:35:17,520
Speaker 10: the feud among the family against Bobby Junior. But one

631
00:35:17,960 --> 00:35:22,000
Speaker 10: family friend says something to me which really got me thinking,

632
00:35:22,360 --> 00:35:25,439
Speaker 10: You know, to people in their twenties even know who

633
00:35:25,600 --> 00:35:29,479
Speaker 10: Carolyn Kennedy is. So Carolyn Kennedy does this video coming

634
00:35:29,480 --> 00:35:32,400
Speaker 10: out against Bobby Junior. As I mean, people at my

635
00:35:32,480 --> 00:35:36,600
Speaker 10: age think, whoa Carolyn Kennedy, Ambassador to Australia, the Bassard

636
00:35:36,719 --> 00:35:40,560
Speaker 10: in Japan. She never talks to the press, She's always controlled,

637
00:35:40,640 --> 00:35:43,960
Speaker 10: she never criticizes anyone in the family. Then she makes

638
00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:49,280
Speaker 10: this video that's against her own cousin and frightly so obviously,

639
00:35:49,400 --> 00:35:52,200
Speaker 10: and we're all like jaws on the ground. Did you

640
00:35:52,280 --> 00:35:56,759
Speaker 10: see the video that Carolyn Kennedy just made and released

641
00:35:56,920 --> 00:35:58,960
Speaker 10: and then somebody said, but yeah, but how many people

642
00:35:59,239 --> 00:36:01,919
Speaker 10: twenties third even know who she is, let alone caere

643
00:36:02,360 --> 00:36:05,880
Speaker 10: And I think there's an element of that. So I think,

644
00:36:06,040 --> 00:36:13,160
Speaker 10: like every generation, there's delusion and dissipation of the family fabulousness,

645
00:36:13,200 --> 00:36:16,280
Speaker 10: and I think to some degree we're seeing that, although

646
00:36:16,320 --> 00:36:18,640
Speaker 10: there's a lot of people in that generation who are

647
00:36:19,160 --> 00:36:22,319
Speaker 10: the new generation, who are quite accomplished, and so I

648
00:36:22,360 --> 00:36:27,200
Speaker 10: think because of the Kennedy name, a lot is still expected.

649
00:36:27,280 --> 00:36:31,719
Speaker 10: When somebody with that name and that pedigree shows themselves

650
00:36:31,760 --> 00:36:38,640
Speaker 10: to be talented or differentiated or politically oriented, immediately a lot.

651
00:36:38,600 --> 00:36:39,440
Speaker 9: Is expected of them.

652
00:36:39,480 --> 00:36:42,040
Speaker 10: I mean, if Jack we're working at Goldman Sachs, I

653
00:36:42,080 --> 00:36:44,759
Speaker 10: don't think a lot would be expected of him. But

654
00:36:45,239 --> 00:36:50,839
Speaker 10: when he's making political videos and being overtly political and

655
00:36:51,239 --> 00:36:54,200
Speaker 10: raising the question of whether he's going to go into politics,

656
00:36:54,239 --> 00:36:57,960
Speaker 10: then immediately a lot is expected of him. I don't

657
00:36:57,960 --> 00:37:01,239
Speaker 10: think much was expected a John Junior when he was

658
00:37:01,640 --> 00:37:03,960
Speaker 10: in the DA's office, although he did a good job

659
00:37:04,040 --> 00:37:06,759
Speaker 10: when he started George and ran George again. I think

660
00:37:06,760 --> 00:37:09,160
Speaker 10: he proved himself that that was a magazine ahead of

661
00:37:09,160 --> 00:37:11,520
Speaker 10: its time, and he did a lot of very clever things,

662
00:37:11,600 --> 00:37:16,200
Speaker 10: although managing the finances was not in his sweet spot.

663
00:37:16,480 --> 00:37:19,320
Speaker 10: But then again, when he started to think about turning

664
00:37:19,400 --> 00:37:22,960
Speaker 10: to politics, whether to run against Hillary Clinton for senator

665
00:37:23,000 --> 00:37:26,680
Speaker 10: from New York or governor against Pataki, I think people

666
00:37:26,719 --> 00:37:29,560
Speaker 10: really started to get excited and thought wow. When he

667
00:37:29,600 --> 00:37:34,880
Speaker 10: appeared at the convention, that was just a really wow moment.

668
00:37:35,040 --> 00:37:35,239
Speaker 9: Right.

669
00:37:35,520 --> 00:37:40,279
Speaker 10: I think when Kennedy's start tilting towards politics, a lot

670
00:37:40,400 --> 00:37:43,680
Speaker 10: is expected of them still, even if most people don't

671
00:37:43,680 --> 00:37:45,280
Speaker 10: know who Carolyn Kennedy is anymore.

672
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:48,200
Speaker 6: Do you think the fact that RFK Junior is so

673
00:37:48,680 --> 00:37:51,040
Speaker 6: off the deep end in terms of what is expected

674
00:37:51,080 --> 00:37:53,480
Speaker 6: of a Kennedy means that, in a weird way, the

675
00:37:53,520 --> 00:37:56,239
Speaker 6: window has opened for Jack to be a little more

676
00:37:56,360 --> 00:37:58,880
Speaker 6: unhinged on social media. And it actually is not that

677
00:37:58,960 --> 00:38:01,359
Speaker 6: big of a deal because at least his politics are

678
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:02,640
Speaker 6: correct on line with the family.

679
00:38:04,160 --> 00:38:06,640
Speaker 10: Yeah, I don't think people in this family are criticizing

680
00:38:06,719 --> 00:38:11,279
Speaker 10: him for his you know, sometimes wacky videos. I mean,

681
00:38:11,320 --> 00:38:15,040
Speaker 10: the family is much more critical of RFK Junior obviously,

682
00:38:15,080 --> 00:38:17,960
Speaker 10: because he seems to have like totally gone off the

683
00:38:18,040 --> 00:38:22,319
Speaker 10: deep end, you know, the whole running for president and

684
00:38:22,400 --> 00:38:27,200
Speaker 10: then dropping the campaign and then endorsing Trump and somehow

685
00:38:27,239 --> 00:38:30,800
Speaker 10: getting in the cabinet and all these sort of wacky

686
00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:35,600
Speaker 10: policies that he's espousing from a position of power is

687
00:38:35,640 --> 00:38:39,920
Speaker 10: definitely not what is typical for this family. The rift

688
00:38:40,640 --> 00:38:45,160
Speaker 10: is not uniform and universal. I think obviously his family,

689
00:38:45,239 --> 00:38:48,480
Speaker 10: his children support him, most of them, while pretty much

690
00:38:48,480 --> 00:39:04,080
Speaker 10: everyone else in the family is on the other side.

691
00:39:08,640 --> 00:39:11,640
Speaker 6: Did you ever hear from Jack after your piece came

692
00:39:11,640 --> 00:39:13,600
Speaker 6: out or have you been in touch with him at

693
00:39:13,640 --> 00:39:14,439
Speaker 6: all over the last year?

694
00:39:14,520 --> 00:39:14,680
Speaker 1: Oh?

695
00:39:14,840 --> 00:39:19,680
Speaker 10: Actually, he did write me and said basically, he said

696
00:39:19,440 --> 00:39:24,000
Speaker 10: he thought it was really fair and complimentary. But I've

697
00:39:24,480 --> 00:39:27,120
Speaker 10: tried reaching out to him since, you know, for the

698
00:39:27,160 --> 00:39:30,680
Speaker 10: next article, and he didn't respond. My thinking was that

699
00:39:30,960 --> 00:39:34,680
Speaker 10: maybe other people wondered why he had spoken to me,

700
00:39:35,120 --> 00:39:37,799
Speaker 10: and maybe that wasn't the smartest thing for him to do,

701
00:39:38,239 --> 00:39:40,680
Speaker 10: although I don't know why not, but whatever, and so

702
00:39:40,840 --> 00:39:43,359
Speaker 10: he wasn't He might have been so like, Okay, now

703
00:39:43,400 --> 00:39:47,120
Speaker 10: I'm done engaging with the media again, or this guy

704
00:39:47,440 --> 00:39:48,759
Speaker 10: in particular, I don't you know.

705
00:39:49,080 --> 00:39:51,279
Speaker 9: Yeah, that's just sort of speculation on my part.

706
00:39:51,840 --> 00:39:56,160
Speaker 1: Well, and you know, like very recently he's been so

707
00:39:56,719 --> 00:40:01,640
Speaker 1: vocal against the Ryan Murphy Show. Have you seen this.

708
00:40:01,760 --> 00:40:04,479
Speaker 1: Do you know what I'm talking about? Ryan Harfy's doing

709
00:40:04,520 --> 00:40:07,640
Speaker 1: a show about JFP Jr. And Carolyn Bessaid, and Jack

710
00:40:07,760 --> 00:40:11,480
Speaker 1: is frequently posting things and calling Ryan Murphy like a

711
00:40:11,520 --> 00:40:12,439
Speaker 1: pervert ease.

712
00:40:12,480 --> 00:40:14,399
Speaker 5: He said he looks like a thumb the other day.

713
00:40:14,600 --> 00:40:16,640
Speaker 9: Okay, I've missed some of this.

714
00:40:17,000 --> 00:40:20,840
Speaker 1: It's been going on, And what really are there expectations

715
00:40:20,880 --> 00:40:23,240
Speaker 1: for how they're represented?

716
00:40:23,560 --> 00:40:27,719
Speaker 10: Well, it was the culture massively public figures, right, So

717
00:40:28,560 --> 00:40:33,200
Speaker 10: they're going to be represented in any number of ways,

718
00:40:33,880 --> 00:40:37,239
Speaker 10: some of them flattering, some of them not. For the

719
00:40:37,320 --> 00:40:43,560
Speaker 10: article I did about the sort of internescing warfare related

720
00:40:43,560 --> 00:40:46,760
Speaker 10: to Bobby Junior, I talked to Larry Lehmer, who wrote

721
00:40:46,760 --> 00:40:49,920
Speaker 10: The Kennedy Women, and he was finishing up or his

722
00:40:50,200 --> 00:40:53,759
Speaker 10: new book about Andy Warhol was coming out, but then

723
00:40:53,840 --> 00:40:56,759
Speaker 10: he was going right back to writing a new book

724
00:40:56,800 --> 00:41:01,800
Speaker 10: about Jack Kennedy. The father found some stash of a

725
00:41:01,920 --> 00:41:05,360
Speaker 10: secret stash of letters or something that he was so

726
00:41:05,520 --> 00:41:08,400
Speaker 10: excited to go through and then write another book about

727
00:41:08,440 --> 00:41:11,240
Speaker 10: this guy. And now there's been this rash of books

728
00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:16,239
Speaker 10: about Carolyn Bissett and Carolyn and John and now there's

729
00:41:16,360 --> 00:41:19,319
Speaker 10: this series or whatever it's going to be about them.

730
00:41:19,600 --> 00:41:23,640
Speaker 10: So they're you know, massively public figures, have been you know,

731
00:41:23,680 --> 00:41:28,440
Speaker 10: their whole lives. I don't think there's anybody who can

732
00:41:28,520 --> 00:41:32,080
Speaker 10: really still compare to them in terms of being sort

733
00:41:32,120 --> 00:41:36,920
Speaker 10: of massively public figures. Not the Bushes, not Obama, not Biden,

734
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:40,319
Speaker 10: not Trump. I mean, you know, so you know, I

735
00:41:40,360 --> 00:41:45,080
Speaker 10: think like that, you know, once people get done, you know,

736
00:41:45,480 --> 00:41:49,560
Speaker 10: digesting and hopefully you know, getting beyond what Trump has

737
00:41:49,560 --> 00:41:51,600
Speaker 10: been doing to us. I don't think anybody's going to

738
00:41:51,680 --> 00:41:55,960
Speaker 10: be writing books about Donald Trump fifty years from now

739
00:41:56,360 --> 00:42:00,279
Speaker 10: because you know, the new letters emerge or or you

740
00:42:00,360 --> 00:42:06,239
Speaker 10: know something about his exotic lifestyle or whatever it is.

741
00:42:06,560 --> 00:42:08,719
Speaker 10: You know, this is just not that interest in that.

742
00:42:08,960 --> 00:42:13,640
Speaker 10: I mean, this family was you know, glamorous, and you know,

743
00:42:13,960 --> 00:42:17,200
Speaker 10: I mean, was there ever a more beautiful couple than

744
00:42:18,120 --> 00:42:20,040
Speaker 10: John and Jackie? I mean, I don't think.

745
00:42:20,160 --> 00:42:20,239
Speaker 7: So.

746
00:42:20,800 --> 00:42:23,480
Speaker 6: This is something we keep sort of writing into with

747
00:42:23,520 --> 00:42:25,560
Speaker 6: people of all generations, and I think now with jack

748
00:42:25,600 --> 00:42:29,839
Speaker 6: Schlassberg it is revived in some younger people. It's just

749
00:42:29,880 --> 00:42:31,759
Speaker 6: like this idea of the Kennedy effect, Like when you

750
00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:34,279
Speaker 6: are in a room with them, or even when you

751
00:42:34,440 --> 00:42:37,480
Speaker 6: watch them on television, there's just something about the charm

752
00:42:37,520 --> 00:42:39,480
Speaker 6: and about the chrisma that works on you even if

753
00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:41,960
Speaker 6: you don't want it to. So you know, as someone

754
00:42:41,960 --> 00:42:45,320
Speaker 6: who knew JFK Jr. In person, someone who has met

755
00:42:45,440 --> 00:42:49,000
Speaker 6: various members of the family, what is that like in person?

756
00:42:50,840 --> 00:42:55,120
Speaker 10: Well, with JFK Jr. It was unlike anything I've ever

757
00:42:55,160 --> 00:42:59,759
Speaker 10: seen in my life. And I've met Obama and was

758
00:43:00,000 --> 00:43:04,880
Speaker 10: obviously quite impressed and taken with him. But John Junior,

759
00:43:05,040 --> 00:43:11,840
Speaker 10: I mean, it was he just warped the room, He

760
00:43:12,400 --> 00:43:14,720
Speaker 10: warped the behavior of other people.

761
00:43:15,360 --> 00:43:15,719
Speaker 9: He was.

762
00:43:15,840 --> 00:43:21,200
Speaker 10: I mean, he was just the brightest, shining celebrity in

763
00:43:21,280 --> 00:43:21,799
Speaker 10: any room.

764
00:43:22,040 --> 00:43:23,319
Speaker 9: And I mean just like it was.

765
00:43:23,360 --> 00:43:26,440
Speaker 10: A buzz went through the audience as soon as he

766
00:43:26,680 --> 00:43:31,080
Speaker 10: walked into a room. Was there, Oh my god, these JFK.

767
00:43:31,280 --> 00:43:36,839
Speaker 10: Junior's here. But you know, obviously, you know I was

768
00:43:37,320 --> 00:43:41,120
Speaker 10: friendly with him, and we transcended all of that, of course,

769
00:43:41,400 --> 00:43:43,680
Speaker 10: But you know, I would just stand back and watch

770
00:43:43,719 --> 00:43:47,560
Speaker 10: it on many occasions and just sort of be in

771
00:43:47,640 --> 00:43:48,080
Speaker 10: awe of it.

772
00:43:48,440 --> 00:43:50,759
Speaker 5: Specific instances or moments come to mind.

773
00:43:50,920 --> 00:43:55,400
Speaker 10: Oh, I mean, certainly there due I mean I remember

774
00:43:55,640 --> 00:43:58,760
Speaker 10: once I think I told this story in the book,

775
00:43:58,840 --> 00:44:02,560
Speaker 10: but I was working at are at Rockefeller Center, and

776
00:44:03,000 --> 00:44:06,160
Speaker 10: I lived on the Upper West Side, and so would

777
00:44:06,160 --> 00:44:10,520
Speaker 10: walk home on a nice night from Rockefeller Center to

778
00:44:10,640 --> 00:44:14,839
Speaker 10: my apartment on Riverside Drive. And I was walking up

779
00:44:14,840 --> 00:44:17,880
Speaker 10: Broadway and got to Columbus Circle to what used to

780
00:44:17,920 --> 00:44:21,080
Speaker 10: be the old Paramount building, which had a movie theater

781
00:44:21,160 --> 00:44:24,640
Speaker 10: in the basement. Now it's some sort of Trump building.

782
00:44:24,760 --> 00:44:28,480
Speaker 10: It's where Jean George is right there at the Columbus Circle.

783
00:44:29,719 --> 00:44:33,080
Speaker 10: I was walking by and finding my own business, and

784
00:44:33,239 --> 00:44:37,000
Speaker 10: John rode up on his bicycle and there was scaffolding

785
00:44:37,080 --> 00:44:40,320
Speaker 10: around the building. They were doing one of their numerous

786
00:44:40,560 --> 00:44:44,960
Speaker 10: refurbishments of the building. And he locked his bike to

787
00:44:45,160 --> 00:44:49,600
Speaker 10: the scaffolding and said hello, and we started talking and

788
00:44:50,040 --> 00:44:52,800
Speaker 10: reminiscing and catching up. And the first thing I noticed

789
00:44:52,840 --> 00:44:55,600
Speaker 10: it is fly was down, and I told him about that,

790
00:44:56,000 --> 00:44:56,319
Speaker 10: and then.

791
00:44:56,200 --> 00:44:57,760
Speaker 9: We're in time for like twenty minutes.

792
00:44:57,840 --> 00:45:00,520
Speaker 10: Finally he says to me, well, you know, I really

793
00:45:00,719 --> 00:45:03,560
Speaker 10: should go because.

794
00:45:03,239 --> 00:45:04,359
Speaker 9: I'm facing on her name.

795
00:45:04,520 --> 00:45:07,319
Speaker 10: Who is the actress who was in Splash, who's married now,

796
00:45:07,520 --> 00:45:11,400
Speaker 10: Hannah Daryl Hannah Darryl. Is you know, waiting for me

797
00:45:11,600 --> 00:45:15,759
Speaker 10: inside to go to the movies? Said John, Why in

798
00:45:15,800 --> 00:45:18,879
Speaker 10: the world are you sitting here talking to me when

799
00:45:19,000 --> 00:45:24,120
Speaker 10: Darryl is waiting for you down in the movie theater

800
00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:27,640
Speaker 10: and you're twenty minutes late. Now, you didn't need to

801
00:45:27,680 --> 00:45:32,120
Speaker 10: spend time with me talking about nothing. You know, Darryl

802
00:45:32,239 --> 00:45:34,960
Speaker 10: is going to be pissed. Well, that's just the way

803
00:45:34,960 --> 00:45:39,000
Speaker 10: it was with John. You know, he was very much

804
00:45:39,120 --> 00:45:44,520
Speaker 10: like in the moment and very absent minded and lost

805
00:45:44,560 --> 00:45:48,520
Speaker 10: his wallet, lost his bike, blah blah blah. And yet

806
00:45:48,560 --> 00:45:51,120
Speaker 10: but eventually he kind of you know, he definitely got

807
00:45:51,200 --> 00:45:54,760
Speaker 10: it together. I mean, to start and run and produce

808
00:45:54,840 --> 00:45:58,880
Speaker 10: a magazine like George every month, I mean that requires

809
00:45:58,960 --> 00:46:04,000
Speaker 10: a lot of skills organizational and leadership and editorial judgment,

810
00:46:04,040 --> 00:46:05,600
Speaker 10: and he pulled it off.

811
00:46:06,480 --> 00:46:08,360
Speaker 6: I Mean, you mentioned a lot of the similarities between

812
00:46:08,440 --> 00:46:11,320
Speaker 6: JFK Junior and Jack in the piece, and obviously a

813
00:46:11,360 --> 00:46:14,719
Speaker 6: lot of them have come up in this conversation. There's

814
00:46:15,000 --> 00:46:19,960
Speaker 6: a real parallel between George Magazine and Jack's Instagram, just

815
00:46:20,000 --> 00:46:22,040
Speaker 6: in the sense that each of them is like the

816
00:46:22,160 --> 00:46:24,560
Speaker 6: media form of its time. It's like, of course, in

817
00:46:24,600 --> 00:46:26,480
Speaker 6: the nineties, what you would want to do if you

818
00:46:26,480 --> 00:46:28,960
Speaker 6: wanted to be a media figure is start a sexy

819
00:46:29,040 --> 00:46:33,000
Speaker 6: political magazine that sort of like you know, Vanity fair

820
00:46:33,200 --> 00:46:35,120
Speaker 6: esque and then, of course now the cool thing to

821
00:46:35,160 --> 00:46:38,520
Speaker 6: do is to do vertical short form video. A lot

822
00:46:38,520 --> 00:46:40,880
Speaker 6: of the similarities are very self evident, but I'm wondering

823
00:46:40,880 --> 00:46:43,400
Speaker 6: if there's anything else that you can talk about in

824
00:46:43,480 --> 00:46:46,640
Speaker 6: terms of the parallels you see between Jack and his uncle.

825
00:46:47,640 --> 00:46:53,439
Speaker 10: There's obviously a physical appearance, there's similarities. I think Jack

826
00:46:53,680 --> 00:46:58,520
Speaker 10: probably has more raw intelligence than John did. Not to

827
00:46:58,520 --> 00:47:02,359
Speaker 10: say that John wasn't smart, because he was, but he

828
00:47:02,480 --> 00:47:03,280
Speaker 10: was lazy.

829
00:47:04,120 --> 00:47:07,120
Speaker 9: He was intellectually lazy.

830
00:47:07,239 --> 00:47:12,399
Speaker 10: I think Jack is obviously quite gifted intellectually. Jack Schlasburg

831
00:47:12,560 --> 00:47:17,279
Speaker 10: he had a much more normalized upbringing, except that he

832
00:47:17,360 --> 00:47:20,080
Speaker 10: you know, he did spend time in Japan when his

833
00:47:20,120 --> 00:47:22,840
Speaker 10: mother was ambassador of Japan, and in time in Australia

834
00:47:22,880 --> 00:47:25,880
Speaker 10: when his mother was an ambassador to Australia. But you know,

835
00:47:26,239 --> 00:47:28,320
Speaker 10: you know, his father wasn't President of the United States,

836
00:47:28,440 --> 00:47:29,920
Speaker 10: and you know, assassinated.

837
00:47:30,960 --> 00:47:33,799
Speaker 6: Can I ask you one final question, do you have

838
00:47:33,880 --> 00:47:37,640
Speaker 6: any sense of what Jack's social life and social circle

839
00:47:37,680 --> 00:47:39,600
Speaker 6: are like? I'm realizing, you know, we're talking a lot

840
00:47:39,640 --> 00:47:43,839
Speaker 6: about JFK. Junior and his various friendships and the people

841
00:47:43,840 --> 00:47:46,160
Speaker 6: he surrounded himself with. I mean, George Magazine was a

842
00:47:46,239 --> 00:47:49,279
Speaker 6: very collaborative effort, and it just sort of occurred to

843
00:47:49,320 --> 00:47:51,480
Speaker 6: me in this conversation. You know, all of Jack's videos

844
00:47:51,520 --> 00:47:53,320
Speaker 6: are just him or just him with a member of

845
00:47:53,360 --> 00:47:56,839
Speaker 6: his family. He's not like a he doesn't have sort

846
00:47:56,840 --> 00:47:59,200
Speaker 6: of the socialite tendencies that some of the other members

847
00:47:59,239 --> 00:48:01,920
Speaker 6: of his family have. And I'm wondering what is his

848
00:48:02,040 --> 00:48:05,480
Speaker 6: day to day like, not that you have answered that question, you.

849
00:48:05,440 --> 00:48:07,759
Speaker 10: Know, well, I did ask him, you know, did he

850
00:48:07,800 --> 00:48:10,160
Speaker 10: have a girlfriend, And you know, he didn't want to

851
00:48:10,200 --> 00:48:13,440
Speaker 10: get into his personal life, which you know, I felt

852
00:48:13,440 --> 00:48:16,080
Speaker 10: like I had to ask because everybody wanted to know,

853
00:48:16,800 --> 00:48:19,359
Speaker 10: and I felt like I wasn't surprised that he didn't

854
00:48:19,400 --> 00:48:21,440
Speaker 10: want to answer. You know, I think there's a lot

855
00:48:21,440 --> 00:48:23,839
Speaker 10: of speculation, but I think you know, when he's what

856
00:48:23,920 --> 00:48:26,760
Speaker 10: thirty two now, right, I was married by that time.

857
00:48:26,960 --> 00:48:30,600
Speaker 10: I think people are curious what is so well, I

858
00:48:30,640 --> 00:48:33,600
Speaker 10: think people are curious, like what he does. I mean,

859
00:48:33,640 --> 00:48:36,799
Speaker 10: he was, you know, covering the election for Vogue. I mean,

860
00:48:36,840 --> 00:48:40,080
Speaker 10: I don't know how many articles he produced there or

861
00:48:40,640 --> 00:48:42,160
Speaker 10: how or why he got I mean, I guess I

862
00:48:42,200 --> 00:48:44,400
Speaker 10: could figure out why he got that, but you know,

863
00:48:44,440 --> 00:48:48,279
Speaker 10: I'm not sure how qualified he was for it, but again,

864
00:48:48,320 --> 00:48:51,440
Speaker 10: he's pretty smart. But you know, Okay, that's over. I

865
00:48:51,480 --> 00:48:54,480
Speaker 10: don't know what he's doing now. I know he's moved

866
00:48:54,480 --> 00:48:55,440
Speaker 10: back to New York.

867
00:48:55,600 --> 00:48:55,799
Speaker 5: Yeah.

868
00:48:55,800 --> 00:48:58,000
Speaker 6: It's another element of the mystery at the center of

869
00:48:58,040 --> 00:49:03,839
Speaker 6: this personality is he's both complet overexposed and also completely mysterious.

870
00:49:04,000 --> 00:49:06,880
Speaker 9: And I'm sure that is by design.

871
00:49:07,200 --> 00:49:10,080
Speaker 6: And it's a very Kennedy thing to be both overexposed

872
00:49:10,120 --> 00:49:11,480
Speaker 6: and unknowable.

873
00:49:11,760 --> 00:49:17,000
Speaker 10: Right, And I think John Junior was plenty overexposed, but

874
00:49:17,239 --> 00:49:21,040
Speaker 10: more knowable. Yeah, I think he was less mysterious, at

875
00:49:21,120 --> 00:49:23,200
Speaker 10: least to me. I mean maybe it's because I knew

876
00:49:23,239 --> 00:49:26,200
Speaker 10: him and friends with him, but yeah, you know, I

877
00:49:26,200 --> 00:49:28,960
Speaker 10: think we knew who he was dating and you know

878
00:49:29,000 --> 00:49:31,479
Speaker 10: what he was doing, right. You know, when I got

879
00:49:31,560 --> 00:49:34,000
Speaker 10: done with that article and after talking to him, people

880
00:49:34,000 --> 00:49:35,399
Speaker 10: would ask me, and I would say, I think he's

881
00:49:35,440 --> 00:49:38,799
Speaker 10: got a very steep trajectory. I think he could do

882
00:49:38,880 --> 00:49:41,640
Speaker 10: whatever he wants to do, sort of like John Junior

883
00:49:41,800 --> 00:49:44,040
Speaker 10: at that age. He can do whatever he wants to do,

884
00:49:44,480 --> 00:49:46,520
Speaker 10: and I think people will embrace it and give him

885
00:49:46,560 --> 00:49:46,960
Speaker 10: a chance.

886
00:49:49,200 --> 00:49:51,120
Speaker 5: And that's it for this week's episode.

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00:49:51,600 --> 00:49:54,080
Speaker 6: Join us next week for the second Kennedy film of

888
00:49:54,120 --> 00:49:57,240
Speaker 6: the month, We're talking with Hunter Harris all about Pablo

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00:49:57,320 --> 00:50:01,799
Speaker 6: Lorraine Jackie, the twenty sixteen films starring Natalie Portman as

890
00:50:01,920 --> 00:50:04,759
Speaker 6: Jackie Kennedy in the aftermath of JFK's assassination.

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00:50:04,920 --> 00:50:08,360
Speaker 1: Right, go and rewatch it, or, in the case of

892
00:50:08,440 --> 00:50:10,799
Speaker 1: almost everyone I tried to talk to you about it,

893
00:50:10,880 --> 00:50:14,080
Speaker 1: watch it for the first time and listen next Monday.

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00:50:14,200 --> 00:50:18,200
Speaker 1: So subscribe and follow United States of Kennedy for all

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00:50:18,200 --> 00:50:19,720
Speaker 1: things Kennedy every week.