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So I'm now just gonna go and give you kind of rapid fire,

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a bunch of the things that RFK believes

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and that he has advocated for it in public.

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This is gonna be good.

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One, that the HIV virus does not cause AIDS.

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Sure, sure, why not?

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Two, that SSRIs, antidepressant medications,

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are responsible for school shootings.

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Okay.

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Three, that gender dysphoria in teens

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is linked to water contaminated with atrazine,

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which is a additive that has possibly caused hermaphrodism

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in frogs, which is where we get to the gay frogs

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in some live studies.

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I was waiting for the gay frogs.

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Yeah, he's a big gay frog truther.

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Yeah, I mean, who isn't?

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Whomst among us?

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["The

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Gay Frogs"]

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So Adrian, today I wanted to ask you

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if you had ever heard of this kind of obscure family

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from Massachusetts, the Kennedys?

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I've driven by their compound.

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Where you have?

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I have actually, yeah, in the hiatus court.

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I think so, yeah.

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There's not much to see on Cape Cod,

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and we're like, oh, fuck it, I'm going to the Kennedy compound.

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There's not much to see as far as I recall.

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So today we're gonna be talking about

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the Kennedys' black sheep, their prodigal son,

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their, you know, maybe revealing embarrassment.

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And...

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Who is not the one who drove a lady off a cliff?

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No, he does not seem to have killed anybody,

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but he is still the one that they like the least.

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He is a conspiracy theorist.

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He is a presidential candidate.

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He is an anti-vaxxer, a scion of the last great American

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dynasty, and the victim of literal brain worms.

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Today we're talking about a man by the name of RFK Jr.

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I'm so excited.

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And I should say, obviously, I will try to assume

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the role of the inductee, and I will,

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I hope to be guided through the life of RFK Jr. by you.

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I should admit that I'm not fully...

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I know some stuff about this guy.

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He's pretty inescapable.

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The family is pretty inescapable.

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But I'll try and keep myself as pure as I can.

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Well, maybe this would be a good place to start,

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because what do you know about RFK Jr.?

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Well, I mean, son of the later, late, better RFK,

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kind of a celebrity seems to have gone the anti-vaxx route

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sort of alongside a couple of more sort of comprehensible

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consumer advocacy kind of movements.

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And just I went down a rabbit hole.

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Is married to Larry David's wife from Caribbean enthusiasm?

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Is that right?

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Yep, Cheryl Hines.

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Which must be awkward, because like,

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cannot imagine that Larry David suffers a man like that,

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given it's on record what he said about Alan Dershowitz.

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Well, Adrienne, you have so much to learn.

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This is fantastic.

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So as you can tell, like, I know bits and then the stuff

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I do not know about RFK Jr.

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could stun a pair of oxen on their tracks.

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Right.

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There is kind of so much to know about RFK Jr.

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And I spent a couple of days in this rabbit hole,

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like really kind of entranced by this story.

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And it is really a great story.

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And I sort of went from thinking, basically, like you did,

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Adrienne, like who is this asshole?

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To being like, oh, my God, this is one of the most operatic

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stories of history and family and destiny and madness

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and feeling really invested in the saga of RFK Jr.

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And then I sort of came out the other end and was like, God,

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who is this asshole?

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So this is the journey I want to take you along with.

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From a tweet to the great American novel back to a tweet.

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Just what an asshole.

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Yeah.

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So like, joking aside, the story of RFK Jr.

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really is kind of a tragic one.

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So it's a story, as I said, of mental illness,

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of how personal tragedy and these like grand historic forces

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combine in one person's life to really foreclose

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the possibility of him ever achieving

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a solid grip on reality.

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This guy just had no shot at being sane.

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It's also the story of the conditions, the sort of media

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and political conditions that make his mental illness seem

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charismatic and even enlightened.

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And dare I say, maybe a little bit contagious to other people.

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It transforms his own sort of inability

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to understand what's real and what's not.

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From his personal problem into a reflection of an engine

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for these various other social pathologies.

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It is also a story about the emerging trend

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of American political diagonalism.

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Have you heard this phrase, Adrienne, diagonalism?

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Yeah, of course.

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It's where basically kind of conspiratorial rhetoric

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can cut across what we would think of as sort

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of intrinsic divides in American politics.

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Yeah, it's a kind of usually populist, usually quite

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conspiratorial political rhetoric

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that can unite the left and the right.

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And the thing that diagonalism almost always does

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is drag everybody further to the right.

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And that's really what happened here.

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So I'm going to start with this quote

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from this really excellent Rebecca Tracer profile of RFK

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from an issue, this cover story in an issue of New York

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magazine last year.

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She puts him this way, right?

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She describes him like, if he were your uncle,

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you would likely consider that he is fighting

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some serious psychological headwinds.

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His own uncle was assassinated when Bobby was nine.

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He was pulled from school five years later at 14

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and flown to the deathbed of his father, also assassinated.

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His cousin drove a plane into the sea on the way

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to Bobby's sister's wedding, JFK Jr., very famous.

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I remember this, yep.

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One of his brothers died in a skiing accident.

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Another died of a drug overdose.

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His wife died by suicide.

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All this in a family in which his grandfather's dictum

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was, there will be no crying in this house.

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Oh, yikes.

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But if he was your uncle, he would not

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be performing surprisingly well in a Democratic presidential

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primary and gobbling the attention of the national

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grass with his every word.

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But he is, tells us much about this country's broken systems

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as any of his diatribe do.

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Interesting.

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So as we move forward, there's one way

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to look at RFK Jr. as a villain, right?

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Because he's taking up a lot of media attention

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with all his anti-vax diatribes and he's lying.

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He does, I believe, consciously deliberately lie

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in some of these.

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OK, I was going to ask.

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So this is pretty documented that he

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knows that this is bad shit.

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Well, it's impossible to establish that kind of state

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of mind, but he has so many contradictions and omissions

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in his presentation of science that it seems to me,

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even if he believes in the forest,

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he's lying about specific trees.

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So there's one way to see him really as villainous, right?

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And then there's another way to see him as a victim, right?

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Because he's clearly sick and suffering

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and has been through the kinds of high-profile violent loss

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that would, I think, drive a lot of people crazy.

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And then there's a third way to look at him as a buffoon,

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right?

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Because he's very obviously being used as a pawn by others.

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And he's quite stupid.

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He's not a smart guy.

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So we're going to have to make space for all of these three

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different ways of looking at RFK as a villain, a victim,

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and a buffoon, because the guy contains multitudes.

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One thing I think is really important to note about him

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is that he really thinks of himself

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as this degraded outsider.

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He thinks of himself as like avenging

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other people's low expectations of him

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by telling these forbidden but morally urgent truths.

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He's got the secret knowledge that he's

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trying to save the world by spreading.

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Well, I mean, that's an interesting thing, right?

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I mean, right down from the Camelot metaphor

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about the Kennedys, the Kennedys have often

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been treated as kind of an American aristocracy.

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And of course, this idea that you can be both the consummate

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insider in the sense that your name opens all these doors,

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but you're kind of still an outsider.

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This is a position or a pose that I think aristocrats tend

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to have a much easier time with, right?

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Because they're above the fray in a certain way

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of bourgeois squabbling while at the same time, right?

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And can this identify to some extent from the structures

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of power that very much they're on the top of, you know?

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Yeah, I mean, this might be a good moment to pivot

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to biography and give listeners who might not be totally

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aware, a rundown of just like who the Kennedys are.

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Wow, OK.

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Our ring episode is about to be the shorter episode.

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I swear I'm going to go through this fast.

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Yeah, it's nice.

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So RFK Jr. is what we think of as kind of the second generation

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of the Kennedys.

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But he is like the third or the fourth generation of Kennedys

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to be born rich.

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So Tracer in her article refers to his grandfather,

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whose victim was, there will be no crying in this house.

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Joe Kennedy.

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Joe Kennedy, yeah, who was a banker.

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He ran a Hollywood movie studio.

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Joe Kennedy got very rich during prohibition.

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So kind of the rumor about him is that he was a bootlegger.

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Historians seem kind of unclear on whether that was true or not.

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And Joe Kennedy was kind of the first Kennedy

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who had this kind of appetite for public service, right?

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Like very public looking guy.

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His parents were politicians.

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But also, he really understood himself as an outsider, right?

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00:09:40,600 --> 00:09:43,640
And this is going to be a recurring theme with RFK Jr.

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specifically, but also with the Kennedys in general.

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Catholicism for one thing.

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They're Catholic.

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They're Irish.

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They really understand themselves to be outsiders.

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And like, perhaps nobody has ever had less of a claim

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00:09:55,560 --> 00:09:56,880
to that status.

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But like Joe Kennedy was a member of the millionaire elite

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at a time when that actually was kind of rare for people

224
00:10:05,520 --> 00:10:07,760
of Irish descent, when the Irish had not

225
00:10:07,760 --> 00:10:11,000
been sort of integrated into American whiteness

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quite the same way.

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Apparently, he got like booed at his Harvard reunion.

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Oh, yikes.

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00:10:15,560 --> 00:10:16,920
Because they didn't like that there was an Irish

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and graduated from Harvard.

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It's shit like that.

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They had a chip on their shoulder.

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00:10:20,440 --> 00:10:22,840
Well, and we might say they're Bostonians, right?

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Like, so this is not a Chicago family,

235
00:10:24,800 --> 00:10:28,000
meaning they were contending with Boston Brahmins, which

236
00:10:28,000 --> 00:10:29,360
like, you know, are very, right?

237
00:10:29,360 --> 00:10:32,280
Like everyone traces their lineage right back to the Mayflower

238
00:10:32,280 --> 00:10:32,880
and shit like that.

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00:10:32,880 --> 00:10:34,920
So it's like, it's also very much a Bostonian story,

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00:10:34,920 --> 00:10:35,560
isn't it?

241
00:10:35,560 --> 00:10:36,960
It's Northeast old money.

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00:10:36,960 --> 00:10:37,480
Yeah.

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00:10:37,480 --> 00:10:40,240
They have the Kennedy camp compound at Hyannas Port.

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00:10:40,240 --> 00:10:42,400
Is it just the four brothers or is there more?

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00:10:42,400 --> 00:10:44,640
There's four that I know.

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00:10:44,640 --> 00:10:45,720
It was a big family.

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00:10:45,720 --> 00:10:47,160
Joe Dyes in World War II.

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00:10:47,160 --> 00:10:49,800
John, also known as Jack, also a war hero.

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00:10:49,800 --> 00:10:50,720
Robert and Teddy.

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00:10:50,720 --> 00:10:51,680
Robert and Teddy.

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Those are the ones I know.

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Were there others?

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00:10:53,520 --> 00:10:55,160
Is there like a failed son who like did nothing?

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00:10:55,160 --> 00:10:57,040
There's a failed daughter.

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00:10:57,040 --> 00:10:59,960
Runs like a bong shop and like, and like son of Barbara

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00:10:59,960 --> 00:11:01,720
or something like that.

257
00:11:01,720 --> 00:11:05,280
If there was, the Kennedy would never allow us to know.

258
00:11:05,280 --> 00:11:05,920
Right.

259
00:11:05,920 --> 00:11:06,640
About that figure.

260
00:11:06,640 --> 00:11:09,680
You know, famously Joe Kennedy was a real son of a bitch,

261
00:11:09,680 --> 00:11:10,200
right?

262
00:11:10,200 --> 00:11:15,040
He was a skirt chaser, really kind of almost compulsively

263
00:11:15,040 --> 00:11:18,480
misogynistic and like sexually voracious.

264
00:11:18,480 --> 00:11:21,560
They had this mother who was just sort of cloistered

265
00:11:21,560 --> 00:11:25,800
and lived this very sheltered life with a lot of Rosaries

266
00:11:25,800 --> 00:11:27,120
in Hyannas Port.

267
00:11:27,120 --> 00:11:31,800
And the sort of famous bastard story about Joe Kennedy,

268
00:11:31,800 --> 00:11:37,600
RFK Junior's grandfather, is that when his daughter Rosemary

269
00:11:37,600 --> 00:11:40,000
started misbehaving as a teenager,

270
00:11:40,000 --> 00:11:43,680
sort of sneaking out to see boys, talking back,

271
00:11:43,680 --> 00:11:47,640
doing kind of standard issue, troubled teenage girl stuff,

272
00:11:47,640 --> 00:11:49,520
Joe Kennedy kidnapped his daughter,

273
00:11:49,520 --> 00:11:52,320
did not tell his wife, Rose, where he had taken this child

274
00:11:52,320 --> 00:11:53,600
and had her lobotomized.

275
00:11:53,600 --> 00:11:54,720
Oh my God.

276
00:11:54,720 --> 00:11:55,160
Yeah.

277
00:11:55,160 --> 00:12:00,160
So Rosemary Kennedy had enforced intellectual disability

278
00:12:00,160 --> 00:12:03,160
because her father didn't like her and so took

279
00:12:03,160 --> 00:12:04,600
a weight part of her brain.

280
00:12:04,600 --> 00:12:07,000
And she was institutionalized for the rest of her life

281
00:12:07,000 --> 00:12:10,320
and was sort of this sort of secret Kennedy sister.

282
00:12:10,320 --> 00:12:11,000
Oh my God.

283
00:12:11,000 --> 00:12:13,400
That gives you a little bit of a taste of who Joe Kennedy is.

284
00:12:13,400 --> 00:12:14,360
Yeah.

285
00:12:14,360 --> 00:12:20,320
So as you can imagine, his sons did very psychologically well.

286
00:12:20,320 --> 00:12:23,600
So Joe Kennedy Junior dies in World War II,

287
00:12:23,600 --> 00:12:28,040
leaving Jack, Robert, and Teddy Edward in that birth order.

288
00:12:28,040 --> 00:12:30,760
Jack Kennedy is a World War II hero.

289
00:12:30,760 --> 00:12:34,840
He works in Navy intelligence, goes on to become president.

290
00:12:34,840 --> 00:12:40,240
He serves from 1961 to 1963 when he is assassinated in Dallas.

291
00:12:40,240 --> 00:12:43,360
During that time, he appoints his little brother, RFK,

292
00:12:43,360 --> 00:12:49,320
as his attorney general in a wildly unethical move.

293
00:12:49,320 --> 00:12:50,720
Yeah, I've always wondered about that.

294
00:12:50,720 --> 00:12:52,800
I mean, he seems to have been quite good at the job,

295
00:12:52,800 --> 00:12:55,560
but it's like, yeah, let's not look too closely.

296
00:12:55,560 --> 00:12:58,280
Like today, Jesus, if like Joe was like, here,

297
00:12:58,280 --> 00:12:59,400
I've got this brother.

298
00:12:59,400 --> 00:13:01,920
Yeah, the attorney general is supposed to be

299
00:13:01,920 --> 00:13:05,560
an independent agent because he is supposed to be able to hold.

300
00:13:05,560 --> 00:13:07,200
All the cabinet posts, right?

301
00:13:07,200 --> 00:13:09,920
Like, interior is not so bad.

302
00:13:09,920 --> 00:13:11,080
HUD, not so bad.

303
00:13:11,080 --> 00:13:13,480
Yeah, like the agent needs to be able to investigate

304
00:13:13,480 --> 00:13:16,040
and hold accountable members of the executive branch,

305
00:13:16,040 --> 00:13:19,840
which you really can't do if the president is your big brother.

306
00:13:19,840 --> 00:13:21,080
JFK is assassinated.

307
00:13:21,080 --> 00:13:23,560
This is a national trauma, right?

308
00:13:23,560 --> 00:13:26,000
All your boomer parents know where they were.

309
00:13:26,000 --> 00:13:27,880
When JFK was assassinated, my mother

310
00:13:27,880 --> 00:13:31,240
got sent home from her Catholic elementary school.

311
00:13:31,240 --> 00:13:33,080
So in the minds of Irish Catholics,

312
00:13:33,080 --> 00:13:35,720
the Kennedys also were sort of a symbol of assimilation.

313
00:13:35,720 --> 00:13:37,800
And the Kennedy assassination was a symbol

314
00:13:37,800 --> 00:13:41,320
of sort of how incomplete that assimilation was.

315
00:13:41,320 --> 00:13:45,480
And so there's a lot of symbolism put on the Kennedys.

316
00:13:45,480 --> 00:13:49,760
RFK goes on to become a senator from New York,

317
00:13:49,760 --> 00:13:51,680
runs for president in 1960.

318
00:13:51,680 --> 00:13:54,800
H has a, what is like generally regarded as a very

319
00:13:54,800 --> 00:13:59,000
like morally righteous and kind of electrifying campaign

320
00:13:59,000 --> 00:14:02,720
until he is assassinated also in Los Angeles.

321
00:14:02,720 --> 00:14:04,600
By Sirhan Sirhan in the-

322
00:14:04,600 --> 00:14:06,920
It's in LA, it's in the kitchen of a hotel.

323
00:14:06,920 --> 00:14:11,120
Yeah, Sirhan Sirhan, who is a Palestinian American,

324
00:14:11,120 --> 00:14:13,640
does not seem to have had political motivations

325
00:14:13,640 --> 00:14:15,240
or been part of a conspiracy.

326
00:14:15,240 --> 00:14:18,880
He seems to have been a severely mentally ill man

327
00:14:18,880 --> 00:14:21,200
who had a long standing fixation on RFK

328
00:14:21,200 --> 00:14:22,840
and eventually shot him.

329
00:14:22,840 --> 00:14:27,840
So RFK Jr., who is the third of RFK's 11 children

330
00:14:28,160 --> 00:14:32,160
born in 1954, is 14 at the time.

331
00:14:32,160 --> 00:14:33,720
He gets pulled out of prep school,

332
00:14:33,720 --> 00:14:38,720
flown on the vice president's private plane to California

333
00:14:38,880 --> 00:14:41,400
to his father's bedside.

334
00:14:41,400 --> 00:14:43,360
It's just five years after the assassination

335
00:14:43,360 --> 00:14:44,320
of his uncle, right?

336
00:14:44,320 --> 00:14:48,280
So this guy has had two, his two male role models, right?

337
00:14:48,280 --> 00:14:53,080
His historically important uncle, his savior,

338
00:14:53,080 --> 00:14:55,320
your old father who was supposed to avenge the family.

339
00:14:55,320 --> 00:14:57,520
Both these men are not just killed

340
00:14:57,520 --> 00:15:00,400
when he's very young, but they are murdered.

341
00:15:00,400 --> 00:15:04,120
And so RFK says that before the death of his father,

342
00:15:04,120 --> 00:15:05,800
he had wanted to be a veterinarian.

343
00:15:05,800 --> 00:15:07,560
Apparently he really likes animals

344
00:15:07,560 --> 00:15:09,680
and had a bunch of animals growing up.

345
00:15:09,680 --> 00:15:12,320
And after that, he feels like he is called by history

346
00:15:12,320 --> 00:15:13,520
to a greater destiny, right?

347
00:15:13,520 --> 00:15:15,560
He has sort of has to take on the mantle

348
00:15:15,560 --> 00:15:18,520
and the role that his father would have fulfilled.

349
00:15:18,520 --> 00:15:21,200
And in like really brief terms,

350
00:15:21,200 --> 00:15:23,360
he just wasn't up to it.

351
00:15:23,360 --> 00:15:26,280
It really seems to have psychically burdened him, right?

352
00:15:26,280 --> 00:15:31,040
So he winds up getting kicked out of a slew

353
00:15:31,040 --> 00:15:32,920
of private prep schools.

354
00:15:32,920 --> 00:15:35,440
He gets into drugs quite young.

355
00:15:35,440 --> 00:15:38,840
I believe his first drug arrest for pot possession

356
00:15:38,840 --> 00:15:41,840
is when he's still a teenager.

357
00:15:41,840 --> 00:15:46,280
He sort of fails upwards through high school

358
00:15:46,280 --> 00:15:48,480
and winds up at Harvard.

359
00:15:48,480 --> 00:15:51,440
Like you do if you've donated a ton of money to the school.

360
00:15:51,440 --> 00:15:54,800
But he doesn't really do great.

361
00:15:54,800 --> 00:15:57,480
Yeah, you know, like something that comes up a bunch

362
00:15:57,480 --> 00:15:59,960
when you look at RFK Junior's biography

363
00:15:59,960 --> 00:16:02,640
is that somebody with this much mental illness,

364
00:16:02,640 --> 00:16:05,120
this severe addiction issues,

365
00:16:05,120 --> 00:16:08,640
this great of a divorce from reality,

366
00:16:08,640 --> 00:16:11,240
if it was any other family,

367
00:16:11,240 --> 00:16:15,440
he would have been institutionalized, incarcerated,

368
00:16:15,440 --> 00:16:17,880
definitely left sort of at the fringe of society

369
00:16:17,880 --> 00:16:21,080
to live in like anonymous disgrace, right?

370
00:16:21,080 --> 00:16:22,400
And that's not true with RFK.

371
00:16:22,400 --> 00:16:24,720
He sort of keeps failing up for a while.

372
00:16:24,720 --> 00:16:26,840
I do wonder if that's just about the Kennedys.

373
00:16:26,840 --> 00:16:29,360
I mean, I used to live in New England

374
00:16:29,360 --> 00:16:31,600
and I know you're a New Englander as well.

375
00:16:31,600 --> 00:16:35,080
I feel like there's a whole system to shuffle the,

376
00:16:35,080 --> 00:16:37,640
well, I mean, I guess RFK really was just not doing very well.

377
00:16:37,640 --> 00:16:40,440
He's not a failed son, but drug addicted failed sons

378
00:16:40,440 --> 00:16:43,360
of wealthy families from one place to the other

379
00:16:43,360 --> 00:16:46,480
to minimize accountability as much as humanly possible, right?

380
00:16:46,480 --> 00:16:49,000
Like there's a whole totem pole of prep schools.

381
00:16:49,000 --> 00:16:51,200
You can sort of slide down.

382
00:16:51,200 --> 00:16:53,520
If you get kicked out of one for cocaine abuse,

383
00:16:53,520 --> 00:16:55,200
you go to the next one, right?

384
00:16:55,200 --> 00:16:57,160
So in some way, like he's kind of representative

385
00:16:57,160 --> 00:16:59,360
of a whole segment of American society

386
00:16:59,360 --> 00:17:01,600
where failure just is kind of like a thing

387
00:17:01,600 --> 00:17:02,680
that happens to other people.

388
00:17:02,680 --> 00:17:05,080
You will be bounced along,

389
00:17:05,080 --> 00:17:07,360
even if you probably would be helped

390
00:17:07,360 --> 00:17:10,040
if you got a different kind of attention.

391
00:17:10,040 --> 00:17:11,360
I mean, I don't think he would have done,

392
00:17:11,360 --> 00:17:12,880
I mean, obviously I'm not saying jail.

393
00:17:12,880 --> 00:17:14,800
I don't wish that on anyone,

394
00:17:14,800 --> 00:17:17,920
but some kind of attention other than Harvard Yard

395
00:17:17,920 --> 00:17:18,760
might have helped.

396
00:17:18,760 --> 00:17:21,680
Yeah, he does sort of wind up in,

397
00:17:21,680 --> 00:17:23,960
maybe because he feels called to by his family

398
00:17:23,960 --> 00:17:25,200
and by history.

399
00:17:25,200 --> 00:17:27,120
He winds up in these positions

400
00:17:27,120 --> 00:17:30,280
that he can't really live up to, right?

401
00:17:30,280 --> 00:17:33,160
So he goes to law school,

402
00:17:33,160 --> 00:17:34,760
I believe at the University of Virginia,

403
00:17:34,760 --> 00:17:36,080
pretty good law school.

404
00:17:36,080 --> 00:17:39,160
And then as soon as he graduates,

405
00:17:39,160 --> 00:17:43,640
he is appointed to be an ADA USA in New York City.

406
00:17:43,640 --> 00:17:46,240
Very cushy job, assistant district attorney

407
00:17:46,240 --> 00:17:47,840
for the United States is a kind of job

408
00:17:47,840 --> 00:17:50,560
from which people like then run for Congress, right?

409
00:17:50,560 --> 00:17:52,160
It's a fancy job in its own right.

410
00:17:52,160 --> 00:17:54,960
And it's also the job that is a trampoline

411
00:17:54,960 --> 00:17:56,960
for a lot of people's political careers

412
00:17:56,960 --> 00:17:58,240
or very ambitious careers.

413
00:17:58,240 --> 00:18:00,400
And he gets that job and a couple of months later,

414
00:18:00,400 --> 00:18:02,080
he has to quit because he failed the bar.

415
00:18:02,080 --> 00:18:02,920
Oh, shit.

416
00:18:02,920 --> 00:18:04,600
But he can't actually practice law.

417
00:18:04,600 --> 00:18:07,000
He later eventually passes the bar and does practice law.

418
00:18:07,000 --> 00:18:11,080
But this is kind of a moment where he winds up

419
00:18:11,080 --> 00:18:14,640
sort of spiraling kind of downward, right?

420
00:18:14,640 --> 00:18:17,440
So he's got a lot of problems with drugs,

421
00:18:17,440 --> 00:18:20,440
his addiction issues are starting to catch up to him

422
00:18:20,440 --> 00:18:23,200
at some point he's on a plane to rehab

423
00:18:23,200 --> 00:18:25,960
and flight attendants find him sick,

424
00:18:25,960 --> 00:18:29,280
seems like maybe semi-conscious in the plane bathroom

425
00:18:29,280 --> 00:18:31,520
and they discover heroin in his possession.

426
00:18:31,520 --> 00:18:33,280
So that's another arrest.

427
00:18:33,280 --> 00:18:35,280
And I think it might be actually useful

428
00:18:35,280 --> 00:18:38,720
to make a note here about the psychology

429
00:18:38,720 --> 00:18:40,400
of addiction and recovery, right?

430
00:18:40,400 --> 00:18:41,240
So like, first of all,

431
00:18:41,240 --> 00:18:42,920
some of my best friends are drug addicts, right?

432
00:18:42,920 --> 00:18:46,000
Like nothing I say here is meant to disparage

433
00:18:46,000 --> 00:18:47,600
the good character of drug addicts

434
00:18:47,600 --> 00:18:50,200
by comparing them to RFK Junior.

435
00:18:50,200 --> 00:18:53,320
But I think the experience of addiction

436
00:18:53,320 --> 00:18:57,480
is like one useful lens to look at RFK through

437
00:18:57,480 --> 00:19:00,200
because like we tend to think of addicts and alcoholics

438
00:19:00,200 --> 00:19:02,200
as people who like kind of want too much of something

439
00:19:02,200 --> 00:19:06,200
and can't stop themselves from ingesting, indulging,

440
00:19:06,200 --> 00:19:08,280
taking on more, right?

441
00:19:08,280 --> 00:19:10,840
And I think when you look at actual addicts,

442
00:19:10,840 --> 00:19:13,000
what often happens is that they are people

443
00:19:13,000 --> 00:19:16,760
who have endured an unendurable loss, right?

444
00:19:16,760 --> 00:19:18,800
They're often people who are, you know,

445
00:19:18,800 --> 00:19:21,800
to use a buzzword just like traumatize up the wazoo.

446
00:19:21,800 --> 00:19:24,720
They have often experienced a lot of violence

447
00:19:24,720 --> 00:19:27,600
and deprivation in their lives.

448
00:19:27,600 --> 00:19:30,240
And what they are doing is they're self-medicating, right?

449
00:19:30,240 --> 00:19:33,560
They cannot tolerate this world as it is

450
00:19:33,560 --> 00:19:36,360
with its kind of like drab brutality, you know,

451
00:19:36,360 --> 00:19:38,800
these like violent deprivations and disappointments

452
00:19:38,800 --> 00:19:43,600
and these like really paltry consolations in the sober world.

453
00:19:43,600 --> 00:19:46,520
And so they escape into this different world.

454
00:19:46,520 --> 00:19:48,480
They create a different world

455
00:19:48,480 --> 00:19:51,080
through intoxication and through drugs.

456
00:19:51,080 --> 00:19:53,640
And sometimes when people stop taking drugs

457
00:19:53,640 --> 00:19:58,160
and they stop drinking, they still retain that desire

458
00:19:58,160 --> 00:19:59,840
to create a different world, right?

459
00:19:59,840 --> 00:20:01,960
They still want to escape this world

460
00:20:01,960 --> 00:20:03,800
and enter into another one.

461
00:20:03,800 --> 00:20:05,960
So one way to do that is kind of escaping us

462
00:20:05,960 --> 00:20:09,080
for substances, but another way to do it is through fantasy.

463
00:20:09,080 --> 00:20:09,920
Right.

464
00:20:09,920 --> 00:20:11,960
And so I kind of want us to think about this

465
00:20:11,960 --> 00:20:14,560
psychological profile of the addict

466
00:20:14,560 --> 00:20:17,240
as we like move forward into like RFK's

467
00:20:17,240 --> 00:20:18,560
dissension to conspiracism.

468
00:20:18,560 --> 00:20:23,240
Another thing to think about in terms of RFK's experience

469
00:20:23,240 --> 00:20:24,800
as an addict, and he talks a lot about being

470
00:20:24,800 --> 00:20:26,960
a 12-step recovery.

471
00:20:26,960 --> 00:20:30,920
And 12-step groups are this kind of rare space

472
00:20:30,920 --> 00:20:34,920
in which non-related men talk to one another

473
00:20:34,920 --> 00:20:37,960
about emotional life and feelings, right?

474
00:20:37,960 --> 00:20:41,320
And RFK is actually really good at doing this.

475
00:20:41,320 --> 00:20:43,360
He is kind of an intoxicating speaker.

476
00:20:43,360 --> 00:20:45,800
He's absolutely bonkers insane, right?

477
00:20:45,800 --> 00:20:50,440
But he is really, really appealing to young men

478
00:20:50,440 --> 00:20:53,720
as he's sort of become a media figure in his own right.

479
00:20:53,720 --> 00:20:56,240
He's done really well in the mannosphere

480
00:20:56,240 --> 00:20:59,800
and in these sort of male-oriented media spaces,

481
00:20:59,800 --> 00:21:02,200
especially podcasts.

482
00:21:02,200 --> 00:21:04,160
Like not to indict ourselves too much,

483
00:21:04,160 --> 00:21:07,320
but this guy is like such a podcaster.

484
00:21:07,320 --> 00:21:10,400
And it's clear that part of what his audience

485
00:21:10,400 --> 00:21:14,480
are going to him for is not just this messiatic style

486
00:21:14,480 --> 00:21:16,640
of secret knowledge, but this kind of almost

487
00:21:16,640 --> 00:21:19,400
pre-truly compassion and emotionalism

488
00:21:19,400 --> 00:21:21,080
that he can take on.

489
00:21:21,080 --> 00:21:22,320
Yeah, I hadn't thought about it this way,

490
00:21:22,320 --> 00:21:25,560
but it feels to me that his podcast personality,

491
00:21:25,560 --> 00:21:28,880
and I've heard a couple of clips over the last couple of months,

492
00:21:28,880 --> 00:21:30,520
is very Jordan Peterson-esque.

493
00:21:30,520 --> 00:21:32,440
Like you're watching him suffer, and you're

494
00:21:32,440 --> 00:21:34,720
invited to suffer along.

495
00:21:34,720 --> 00:21:37,360
He's compelling, but he never has a good time.

496
00:21:37,360 --> 00:21:38,800
He's never funny.

497
00:21:38,800 --> 00:21:40,200
He's never self-ironic.

498
00:21:40,200 --> 00:21:43,440
There's a drivenness and a kind of almost hunted quality

499
00:21:43,440 --> 00:21:44,680
to him.

500
00:21:44,680 --> 00:21:47,560
And that's something that clearly was behind Peterson's

501
00:21:47,560 --> 00:21:49,640
connection with the mannosphere, and with especially

502
00:21:49,640 --> 00:21:53,360
young men, and the podcast format we might add as well.

503
00:21:53,360 --> 00:21:56,880
And they both also have broken, gravelly voices for which,

504
00:21:56,880 --> 00:21:58,880
I know he has a medical reason for that,

505
00:21:58,880 --> 00:22:00,520
so I don't want to mock that.

506
00:22:00,520 --> 00:22:04,280
He has a, it's called spastic dystonia, I believe.

507
00:22:04,280 --> 00:22:07,120
He believes that he got it from a flu vaccine,

508
00:22:07,120 --> 00:22:08,880
but it is a medical condition.

509
00:22:08,880 --> 00:22:10,880
Yeah, so I don't want to make light of that.

510
00:22:10,880 --> 00:22:14,160
The point is, he's compelling even though there's

511
00:22:14,160 --> 00:22:15,720
a certain labor in speaking.

512
00:22:15,720 --> 00:22:18,120
There's not the kind of podcasting

513
00:22:18,120 --> 00:22:21,320
that I aspire to where frankly it all feels a little,

514
00:22:21,320 --> 00:22:23,600
feels off the cuff, feels kind of excited,

515
00:22:23,600 --> 00:22:27,920
and inviting people to kind of go along.

516
00:22:27,920 --> 00:22:29,960
His mode, like Peterson's, feels like one,

517
00:22:29,960 --> 00:22:32,520
you're invited to suffer along, and to kind of empathize

518
00:22:32,520 --> 00:22:35,520
with the difficulty that this man clearly has,

519
00:22:35,520 --> 00:22:37,920
making himself understood and expressing himself.

520
00:22:37,920 --> 00:22:39,520
And again, I don't mean to mock that.

521
00:22:39,520 --> 00:22:42,760
It's to say there's a passion there in the sense of a,

522
00:22:42,760 --> 00:22:45,360
not just passion as in excitement,

523
00:22:45,360 --> 00:22:47,440
but as the passion of the Christ.

524
00:22:47,440 --> 00:22:51,240
He's suffering for us, and we're invited to either

525
00:22:51,240 --> 00:22:54,880
mock that or to identify with that struggle.

526
00:22:54,880 --> 00:22:57,800
Right, and when he talks, you listen to him on these podcasts,

527
00:22:57,800 --> 00:23:01,560
he did a three hour Joe Rogan interview that I listened to.

528
00:23:01,560 --> 00:23:02,400
Of course.

529
00:23:02,400 --> 00:23:04,640
I did listen to it like to X-speed, but.

530
00:23:04,640 --> 00:23:05,960
I'm so sorry.

531
00:23:05,960 --> 00:23:08,640
And then he did Jordan Peterson, he did a bunch of these,

532
00:23:08,640 --> 00:23:12,680
like Manusphere podcast, and he does speak, you're right,

533
00:23:12,680 --> 00:23:16,040
it's laborious, it's not fluent.

534
00:23:16,040 --> 00:23:19,360
He always sounds like he's got a terrible cough,

535
00:23:19,360 --> 00:23:22,120
or like maybe he's had a stroke, it's effortful,

536
00:23:22,120 --> 00:23:23,520
but it's also quite fast.

537
00:23:23,520 --> 00:23:24,360
Yeah, yeah.

538
00:23:24,360 --> 00:23:28,320
He talks very fast, and he pulls in a lot of references

539
00:23:28,320 --> 00:23:33,320
to make this kind of cloud of associative ideas

540
00:23:34,080 --> 00:23:36,760
that never really quite hang together,

541
00:23:36,760 --> 00:23:40,200
but they are sort of glued together in his performance

542
00:23:40,200 --> 00:23:44,000
by his personal charisma, by his aspects.

543
00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:46,560
And that's kind of the magic that he has.

544
00:23:46,560 --> 00:23:48,720
But we're off of his biographical tracks,

545
00:23:48,720 --> 00:23:49,720
so let's go back a little bit.

546
00:23:49,720 --> 00:23:53,440
So after he gets sober, he starts working

547
00:23:53,440 --> 00:23:55,000
as an environmental lawyer.

548
00:23:55,000 --> 00:23:57,280
Part of his sort of criminal punishment

549
00:23:57,280 --> 00:23:59,760
is to do community service, and through his community service,

550
00:23:59,760 --> 00:24:03,320
he winds up working for a environmental group

551
00:24:03,320 --> 00:24:06,720
and discovers this kind of passion for environmental,

552
00:24:06,720 --> 00:24:08,760
for environmental law.

553
00:24:08,760 --> 00:24:10,880
And he does that for a long time,

554
00:24:10,880 --> 00:24:14,840
and everybody agrees that as an environmental lawyer,

555
00:24:14,840 --> 00:24:19,640
RFK Jr. is competent, useful, like impassioned.

556
00:24:19,640 --> 00:24:22,320
He seems to have been pretty good at this

557
00:24:22,320 --> 00:24:24,680
in a way that you might not anticipate.

558
00:24:24,680 --> 00:24:29,680
So he is actually almost solely held in esteem

559
00:24:30,280 --> 00:24:32,920
as the guy who got the Hudson River cleaned up.

560
00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:34,160
Oh, yeah.

561
00:24:34,160 --> 00:24:35,040
That's a plus.

562
00:24:35,040 --> 00:24:36,960
I went to school.

563
00:24:36,960 --> 00:24:38,120
I thought that was Lenny Briscoe.

564
00:24:38,120 --> 00:24:41,240
I went to school in upstate New York

565
00:24:41,240 --> 00:24:42,920
and the campus of the college that I went to

566
00:24:42,920 --> 00:24:45,360
was right on the Hudson.

567
00:24:45,360 --> 00:24:48,280
And it used to be this competition of who's brave enough

568
00:24:48,280 --> 00:24:51,600
to swim in the Hudson River and will you come out with gills?

569
00:24:51,600 --> 00:24:52,760
But it was actually decently clean.

570
00:24:52,760 --> 00:24:56,320
It was decently clean because of work that RFK Jr. did.

571
00:24:56,320 --> 00:24:58,120
And I mean, I should say, I mean, that's the other,

572
00:24:58,120 --> 00:25:00,080
there's another little bit of foreshadowing here, right?

573
00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:04,080
That I do feel that if there's any place

574
00:25:04,080 --> 00:25:07,400
in US law where a conspiracy theory

575
00:25:07,400 --> 00:25:09,520
and being just a legal representative

576
00:25:09,520 --> 00:25:11,200
is identical, it's environmental law, right?

577
00:25:11,200 --> 00:25:13,960
It's like, you wouldn't just pour uranium

578
00:25:13,960 --> 00:25:14,920
into this river, right?

579
00:25:14,920 --> 00:25:17,120
And it's like, turns out they were absolutely

580
00:25:17,120 --> 00:25:19,400
just dumping uranium into the river, right?

581
00:25:19,400 --> 00:25:23,080
Like every insane theory you could concoct

582
00:25:23,080 --> 00:25:25,560
when it comes to environmental stuff in the United States,

583
00:25:25,560 --> 00:25:29,560
like is happening or was happening pretty routinely.

584
00:25:29,560 --> 00:25:30,400
Yeah.

585
00:25:30,400 --> 00:25:32,800
So this is actually kind of where he seems to have gotten

586
00:25:32,800 --> 00:25:35,360
his first taste for conspiracism.

587
00:25:35,360 --> 00:25:37,480
It's interesting because he comes from a family

588
00:25:37,480 --> 00:25:40,720
about which so many conspiracy theories have been spun.

589
00:25:40,720 --> 00:25:44,520
And a family that was in full historical fairness

590
00:25:44,520 --> 00:25:47,040
to the Kennedys orchestrating some conspiracies.

591
00:25:47,040 --> 00:25:49,960
Like what do you call what JFK was doing in Cuba,

592
00:25:49,960 --> 00:25:52,720
if not a conspiracy, right?

593
00:25:52,720 --> 00:25:56,160
But he does not really seem to have that great a taste

594
00:25:56,160 --> 00:25:59,080
for this kind of thinking until at least

595
00:25:59,080 --> 00:26:01,200
when he's an environmental lawyer

596
00:26:01,200 --> 00:26:05,400
and he becomes like really aware

597
00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:08,320
of the corruption of federal agencies

598
00:26:08,320 --> 00:26:12,000
and of the sort of malign influence

599
00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:13,840
of these big corporate interests

600
00:26:13,840 --> 00:26:17,640
that are keeping environmental regulation

601
00:26:17,640 --> 00:26:20,520
from having its like desired effect, right?

602
00:26:20,520 --> 00:26:21,360
So like you're right,

603
00:26:21,360 --> 00:26:23,640
there are conspiracies in the world

604
00:26:23,640 --> 00:26:25,800
and they tend to be these kind of benign conspiracies

605
00:26:25,800 --> 00:26:27,160
of like corporate greed, right?

606
00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:28,000
Yeah, yeah.

607
00:26:28,000 --> 00:26:30,960
So that kind of is the seed of his conspiracism.

608
00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:33,920
He is a mentally unwell man,

609
00:26:33,920 --> 00:26:36,640
already prone to fantasizing

610
00:26:36,640 --> 00:26:39,880
with this huge background of trauma.

611
00:26:39,880 --> 00:26:43,400
And now he's working in this righteous field

612
00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:44,880
in which he cannot do the right thing

613
00:26:44,880 --> 00:26:47,440
because of these malign forces, right?

614
00:26:47,440 --> 00:26:50,240
And then in 1994, his son is born.

615
00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:51,320
He's in his second marriage.

616
00:26:51,320 --> 00:26:52,720
He has children already.

617
00:26:52,720 --> 00:26:56,720
But his son, Connor, who's born in 1994,

618
00:26:56,720 --> 00:26:59,800
Connor Kennedy develops in his early childhood

619
00:26:59,800 --> 00:27:03,960
severe alarming life-threatening allergies.

620
00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:05,880
Apparently like largely it's peanuts.

621
00:27:05,880 --> 00:27:07,680
Oh no, yeah, that's a tough one.

622
00:27:07,680 --> 00:27:09,760
And RFK Jr. and his then wife

623
00:27:09,760 --> 00:27:12,640
have to take their little infant innocent,

624
00:27:12,640 --> 00:27:16,080
precious, beloved son to the ER,

625
00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:18,920
something like 30 times in his first three years of life.

626
00:27:18,920 --> 00:27:22,320
So this kid's very precarious in his health.

627
00:27:22,320 --> 00:27:27,120
And RFK seems to have started to wonder

628
00:27:27,120 --> 00:27:29,240
as I think somebody in his position

629
00:27:29,240 --> 00:27:32,560
maybe is understandable that they would wonder

630
00:27:32,560 --> 00:27:35,880
if environmental pollutants

631
00:27:35,880 --> 00:27:38,480
could have caused his son's allergies.

632
00:27:38,480 --> 00:27:40,960
By the way, side note about this kid,

633
00:27:40,960 --> 00:27:42,480
he seems to have recovered.

634
00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:45,560
He grew up to be weird on his own terms.

635
00:27:46,720 --> 00:27:49,080
Connor Kennedy briefly dated Taylor Swift,

636
00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:51,120
friend of the show, in 2012.

637
00:27:51,120 --> 00:27:53,200
Oh yeah, just found a picture of Tay-Tay

638
00:27:53,200 --> 00:27:54,960
and yeah, Connor Kennedy.

639
00:27:54,960 --> 00:27:59,160
More recently, Connor says that he traveled to Ukraine

640
00:27:59,160 --> 00:28:01,280
after the Russian invasion in 2022

641
00:28:01,280 --> 00:28:05,200
to volunteer with a Ukrainian militia there.

642
00:28:05,200 --> 00:28:06,040
Oh wow.

643
00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:06,880
And has now come back.

644
00:28:06,880 --> 00:28:09,280
So Connor is busy in his own right,

645
00:28:09,280 --> 00:28:11,080
doing his own weird shit

646
00:28:11,080 --> 00:28:12,880
following the proud tradition of his father,

647
00:28:12,880 --> 00:28:15,320
but Connor turned out fine in case you were wondering.

648
00:28:15,320 --> 00:28:16,160
Good, good.

649
00:28:16,160 --> 00:28:18,720
But like now RFK Jr. is thinking

650
00:28:18,720 --> 00:28:20,800
not just about environmental toxins

651
00:28:20,800 --> 00:28:23,640
and the forces that have generated them,

652
00:28:23,640 --> 00:28:26,360
but he's thinking about maybe,

653
00:28:26,360 --> 00:28:28,080
are these hurting our kids?

654
00:28:28,080 --> 00:28:28,920
Right.

655
00:28:28,920 --> 00:28:33,880
And that is when stuff starts to get really weird.

656
00:28:33,880 --> 00:28:35,120
So during this whole time,

657
00:28:35,120 --> 00:28:37,800
RFK is a public figure.

658
00:28:37,800 --> 00:28:40,120
He's very much trading on his family name.

659
00:28:40,120 --> 00:28:42,520
He's trying to advocate for causes he believes in,

660
00:28:42,520 --> 00:28:45,440
mostly environmental, in the public sphere.

661
00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:47,600
He's traveling all across the country.

662
00:28:47,600 --> 00:28:50,080
And sometime in the early 2000s,

663
00:28:50,080 --> 00:28:52,360
it's not exactly clear when this happened,

664
00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:54,000
but sometimes in the early 2000,

665
00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:57,560
he is approached by a group of anti-vax mothers

666
00:28:57,560 --> 00:29:01,440
who recruit him to the cause of vaccine skepticism.

667
00:29:01,440 --> 00:29:05,240
And he becomes one of the most prominent

668
00:29:05,240 --> 00:29:08,640
anti-vax conspiracy theorists in the US.

669
00:29:08,640 --> 00:29:12,800
This is an era when vaccine skepticism is on the rise.

670
00:29:12,800 --> 00:29:16,400
So like conspiracy theories and skepticisms of vaccines

671
00:29:16,400 --> 00:29:19,520
are as old as vaccines are, right?

672
00:29:19,520 --> 00:29:22,200
This is a technology that has always provoked

673
00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:24,400
a lot of fear and resistance

674
00:29:24,400 --> 00:29:26,920
from sections of the general public.

675
00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:30,680
But at the time that RFK is recruited

676
00:29:30,680 --> 00:29:33,360
to like sort of the anti-vax world,

677
00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:37,640
there has been a big splash of anti-vaxing publicity

678
00:29:37,640 --> 00:29:41,200
because of a study conducted in the UK in 1998

679
00:29:41,200 --> 00:29:42,840
by a guy named Andrew Wakefield.

680
00:29:42,840 --> 00:29:44,120
Andrew, do you know about this?

681
00:29:44,120 --> 00:29:45,200
Oh yeah.

682
00:29:45,200 --> 00:29:46,960
So it's been like retracted more often

683
00:29:46,960 --> 00:29:49,360
than any study in the history of ever.

684
00:29:49,360 --> 00:29:52,160
It does not show, but it purports to show.

685
00:29:52,160 --> 00:29:54,200
And I think he lost his license.

686
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:57,120
Yes, he lost his medical license in 2010.

687
00:29:57,120 --> 00:30:01,920
The study purporting to show that 12 British children

688
00:30:01,920 --> 00:30:04,680
were made autistic because of exposure

689
00:30:04,680 --> 00:30:08,720
to the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine

690
00:30:08,720 --> 00:30:10,680
is a big blockbuster study.

691
00:30:10,680 --> 00:30:12,160
It gets covered up the wazoo.

692
00:30:12,160 --> 00:30:16,120
It creates this massive drop off in vaccinations in the UK

693
00:30:16,120 --> 00:30:19,480
that is then of course followed by a measles outbreak.

694
00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:23,600
This is pretty thoroughly debunked pretty quickly,

695
00:30:23,600 --> 00:30:27,880
especially in the British press by 2004.

696
00:30:27,880 --> 00:30:31,680
It has been pretty thoroughly disproven in public.

697
00:30:31,680 --> 00:30:33,720
Andrew Wakefield, the scientist behind it,

698
00:30:33,720 --> 00:30:36,320
loses his medical license in 2010.

699
00:30:36,320 --> 00:30:39,520
And I mean, I was around for a lot of these discussions.

700
00:30:39,520 --> 00:30:42,040
And I mean, obviously I don't keep close tabs

701
00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:44,880
on anti-vax world, but in some way,

702
00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:48,520
it was the very swiftness with which the Wakefield study

703
00:30:48,520 --> 00:30:49,440
was sort of dispatched.

704
00:30:49,440 --> 00:30:51,000
I was like, this is bullshit.

705
00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:53,560
That in some way, it kind of seemed to reconfirm anti-vax

706
00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:55,360
sentiment, that people would go, oh,

707
00:30:55,360 --> 00:30:58,360
there is a hidden knowledge here that they don't want us to have.

708
00:30:58,360 --> 00:31:01,360
I was like, no, it was just an unbelievably shoddy study that

709
00:31:01,360 --> 00:31:03,520
didn't show what it purported to show.

710
00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:06,600
But in some way, the very swiftness

711
00:31:06,600 --> 00:31:08,920
with which that window got slammed shut

712
00:31:08,920 --> 00:31:11,520
by the medical establishment seemed

713
00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:16,120
to activate the kind of anti-authoritarian tendencies

714
00:31:16,120 --> 00:31:18,120
for certain, especially I guess, sort of more

715
00:31:18,120 --> 00:31:20,520
left trending anti-vax parents.

716
00:31:20,520 --> 00:31:23,440
Like the Marin moms, if you will.

717
00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:24,160
Yeah.

718
00:31:24,160 --> 00:31:26,280
We think about anti-vax sentiment

719
00:31:26,280 --> 00:31:28,680
as something that's happening among white women in the US

720
00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:29,520
in our time.

721
00:31:29,520 --> 00:31:34,000
But I think it's interesting to think about the conspiracy

722
00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:37,280
masculinity that RFK sort of steps into,

723
00:31:37,280 --> 00:31:41,160
where he gets to be a savior of the innocent

724
00:31:41,160 --> 00:31:44,840
because of his privileged position, because of his access

725
00:31:44,840 --> 00:31:48,600
to all these power brokers and to the secret information.

726
00:31:48,600 --> 00:31:56,120
It's like it's a frequently sort of feminized conspiracy theory.

727
00:31:56,120 --> 00:31:59,200
But I think the leadership position he took up in it

728
00:31:59,200 --> 00:32:01,000
is a very masculine one.

729
00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:01,520
Yeah.

730
00:32:01,520 --> 00:32:05,960
And I mean, the idea that they're poisoning our children,

731
00:32:05,960 --> 00:32:09,720
we yet have to do our episode on precious bodily fluids.

732
00:32:09,720 --> 00:32:13,240
But the idea that they're trying to inject something into us

733
00:32:13,240 --> 00:32:17,200
from fluoride to whatever, to the COVID vaccine,

734
00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:19,600
that's doing something to gender expression or to gender

735
00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:21,880
and how it's lived in society, right?

736
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:23,760
Like they're turning the frogs gay kind of thing.

737
00:32:23,760 --> 00:32:25,040
But we'll get to the gay frogs.

738
00:32:25,040 --> 00:32:25,920
Don't worry about it.

739
00:32:25,920 --> 00:32:26,400
Oh, yeah.

740
00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:27,080
No, no, no.

741
00:32:27,080 --> 00:32:29,880
I fully expect that that's the destination here.

742
00:32:29,880 --> 00:32:30,360
But right.

743
00:32:30,360 --> 00:32:34,080
So like in some way, it's not just gender anxieties,

744
00:32:34,080 --> 00:32:37,160
even though I think that you're right, that my image of like

745
00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:40,840
a anti-vax activist is a mom on some level.

746
00:32:40,840 --> 00:32:43,600
But like the concern often enough is not about gender itself

747
00:32:43,600 --> 00:32:45,240
is about masculinity specifically.

748
00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:45,760
Yeah.

749
00:32:45,760 --> 00:32:49,320
And the specter of autism in particular,

750
00:32:49,320 --> 00:32:53,000
which in it's sort of like eugenic antagonism

751
00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:57,440
towards the autistic, it's often about a concern of around boys

752
00:32:57,440 --> 00:33:00,760
and around boys sort of failing to mature

753
00:33:00,760 --> 00:33:05,200
into this like virile, outgoing, assertive, masculine

754
00:33:05,200 --> 00:33:05,880
creature, right?

755
00:33:05,880 --> 00:33:09,680
There's gender anxiety in even the eugenic reoccupation

756
00:33:09,680 --> 00:33:11,560
of autism as a disease.

757
00:33:11,560 --> 00:33:11,760
Yeah.

758
00:33:11,760 --> 00:33:12,960
The same thing my former colleague,

759
00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:16,120
Steve Sheffer wrote a whole book about Asperger's children.

760
00:33:16,120 --> 00:33:16,720
I think it's called.

761
00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:17,040
Yeah.

762
00:33:17,040 --> 00:33:18,000
Oh, cool.

763
00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:18,760
Yeah.

764
00:33:18,760 --> 00:33:21,400
For our listeners who are waiting on bated breath,

765
00:33:21,400 --> 00:33:23,280
vaccines don't cause autism.

766
00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:26,760
They don't cause any other things that RFK Jr.

767
00:33:26,760 --> 00:33:31,160
attributes them to cause, such as ADHD, allergies,

768
00:33:31,160 --> 00:33:33,320
verbal, and physical ticks.

769
00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:38,000
But he does write a big investigative piece,

770
00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:39,960
what's billed as an investigative piece,

771
00:33:39,960 --> 00:33:44,560
as published in 2005, and it is published on the homepage

772
00:33:44,560 --> 00:33:45,920
of salon.com.

773
00:33:45,920 --> 00:33:47,920
Oh, oh, oh.

774
00:33:47,920 --> 00:33:49,840
And also in the print edition.

775
00:33:49,840 --> 00:33:52,440
That was a wilder place in 2005, I feel, I guess.

776
00:33:52,440 --> 00:33:54,800
But it was also published in the print edition of Rolling

777
00:33:54,800 --> 00:33:55,320
Stone.

778
00:33:55,320 --> 00:33:55,920
Oh, wow.

779
00:33:55,920 --> 00:33:59,320
RFK Jr. is very close friends with Yann Wenner,

780
00:33:59,320 --> 00:34:01,960
the co-founder and then editor-in-chief of Rolling

781
00:34:01,960 --> 00:34:02,520
Stone.

782
00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:04,880
Also a kind of scumbaggy guy who we should probably

783
00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:06,960
do an episode on now that I think of him.

784
00:34:06,960 --> 00:34:08,280
With interesting gender politics.

785
00:34:08,280 --> 00:34:09,840
Interesting gender politics.

786
00:34:09,840 --> 00:34:12,760
So Salon and Rolling Stone published what they billed

787
00:34:12,760 --> 00:34:16,400
as a joint investigation from RFK,

788
00:34:16,400 --> 00:34:21,160
in which he claims to have blockbuster inside information

789
00:34:21,160 --> 00:34:24,480
that was so hidden that he had to get a FOIA for it,

790
00:34:24,480 --> 00:34:28,360
that the CDC has been covering up the danger of vaccines

791
00:34:28,360 --> 00:34:29,560
to children.

792
00:34:29,560 --> 00:34:32,280
So the kind of gist of this claim

793
00:34:32,280 --> 00:34:39,280
is that for a while, vaccines were made with a disinfectant

794
00:34:39,280 --> 00:34:42,440
in the vials to keep them from getting contaminated.

795
00:34:42,440 --> 00:34:45,400
And this disinfectant contained, among other things,

796
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:47,440
like trace amounts of mercury.

797
00:34:47,440 --> 00:34:51,280
And so RFK believed that childhood diseases

798
00:34:51,280 --> 00:34:54,960
were being caused by mercury exposure after vaccination.

799
00:34:54,960 --> 00:34:55,440
OK.

800
00:34:55,440 --> 00:34:57,200
That's not what happens.

801
00:34:57,200 --> 00:34:58,840
Yeah, I mean, this is one of those things.

802
00:34:58,840 --> 00:35:00,520
Like if something contains something,

803
00:35:00,520 --> 00:35:03,320
you always have to wonder about quantities, et cetera, et cetera.

804
00:35:03,320 --> 00:35:05,320
I'm not going to shoot my mouth off and try

805
00:35:05,320 --> 00:35:06,480
and be a medical doctor here.

806
00:35:06,480 --> 00:35:09,520
But I do think it's always very noticeable when you're told

807
00:35:09,520 --> 00:35:11,960
that something contains something.

808
00:35:11,960 --> 00:35:13,720
There was that famous claim a few years ago,

809
00:35:13,720 --> 00:35:16,760
like LaCroix contains rat poisons.

810
00:35:16,760 --> 00:35:19,720
It appears to contain a tiny bit of a compound that also occurs

811
00:35:19,720 --> 00:35:21,080
in rat poisons.

812
00:35:21,080 --> 00:35:23,760
I feel like the images of someone dumping

813
00:35:23,760 --> 00:35:27,160
industrial quantities of the substance into your vaccine

814
00:35:27,160 --> 00:35:29,360
is different from, yeah, there's like,

815
00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:31,800
there might even be a trace amount of something in there.

816
00:35:31,800 --> 00:35:35,360
I mean, doesn't like every tuna eat contain some mercury?

817
00:35:35,360 --> 00:35:38,600
Actually, RFK believes that he himself

818
00:35:38,600 --> 00:35:41,240
is a victim of mercury poisoning because of the large amounts

819
00:35:41,240 --> 00:35:44,040
of canned tuna that he was eating for stretches

820
00:35:44,040 --> 00:35:45,640
of his adult life.

821
00:35:45,640 --> 00:35:49,440
But he publishes this salacious claim, right?

822
00:35:49,440 --> 00:35:52,520
And what it gets read as, and this is not the facts,

823
00:35:52,520 --> 00:35:55,360
what it gets read as is your children are being

824
00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:57,160
injected with mercury.

825
00:35:57,160 --> 00:35:58,280
It's making them sick.

826
00:35:58,280 --> 00:36:00,240
The CDC is covering it up.

827
00:36:00,240 --> 00:36:03,160
What actually happened is that the CDC had a meeting where

828
00:36:03,160 --> 00:36:08,920
they were anticipating this conspiracy theory happening.

829
00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:12,400
And so they had decided to remove the mercury disinfectant,

830
00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:14,920
even though there was no evidence that it was dangerous.

831
00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:19,160
He had anticipation of anti-vaxxers finding out about it

832
00:36:19,160 --> 00:36:21,040
and deciding that it was dangerous and concocting

833
00:36:21,040 --> 00:36:21,800
a conspiracy theory.

834
00:36:21,800 --> 00:36:24,720
So the thing that he says causes autism

835
00:36:24,720 --> 00:36:26,640
is no longer in the vaccines.

836
00:36:26,640 --> 00:36:28,240
And yet autism rates are still going.

837
00:36:28,240 --> 00:36:28,800
I mean, whatever.

838
00:36:28,800 --> 00:36:29,840
Why am I debating this?

839
00:36:29,840 --> 00:36:30,400
This is ridiculous.

840
00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:31,200
Right.

841
00:36:31,200 --> 00:36:33,640
This is also something where several European countries

842
00:36:33,640 --> 00:36:36,440
had removed the disinfectant from their vaccine supply

843
00:36:36,440 --> 00:36:37,280
long before.

844
00:36:37,280 --> 00:36:39,160
And their autism rates hadn't changed at all.

845
00:36:39,160 --> 00:36:41,160
So you could also have a control group, right?

846
00:36:41,160 --> 00:36:41,640
Yeah.

847
00:36:41,640 --> 00:36:43,160
And also, it's already removed.

848
00:36:43,160 --> 00:36:44,560
This is a meeting about how they're

849
00:36:44,560 --> 00:36:47,200
removing it out of an absolute abundance of caution

850
00:36:47,200 --> 00:36:52,400
and how they want to present the notification of this removal

851
00:36:52,400 --> 00:36:55,920
of the mercury disinfectant so that it doesn't

852
00:36:55,920 --> 00:36:57,360
feed conspiracy theory.

853
00:36:57,360 --> 00:37:01,360
But then the whole attempt to roll this out

854
00:37:01,360 --> 00:37:03,920
in sort of a healthy, helpful way that's not

855
00:37:03,920 --> 00:37:06,840
going to create more vaccine hesitancy, in fact,

856
00:37:06,840 --> 00:37:09,760
is taken up by the vaccine skeptical community

857
00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:13,520
and pitched as a conspiracy against American children.

858
00:37:13,520 --> 00:37:16,480
It's also the thing where basically FOIA

859
00:37:16,480 --> 00:37:19,080
can sort of operate the exact opposite way, which

860
00:37:19,080 --> 00:37:23,360
is intended where you're watching a government body do

861
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:27,440
its work, but because you can see the messy business of how

862
00:37:27,440 --> 00:37:30,800
that is done, it fuels more conspiracy theories.

863
00:37:30,800 --> 00:37:32,240
And instead, you get the opposite.

864
00:37:32,240 --> 00:37:35,200
These are people who are existing and operating

865
00:37:35,200 --> 00:37:37,120
in reality and are like, oh, shit,

866
00:37:37,120 --> 00:37:38,600
is this really worth it?

867
00:37:38,600 --> 00:37:41,680
We don't think it's dangerous, but let's not stoke this.

868
00:37:41,680 --> 00:37:45,680
And then that very operation is the sign that something

869
00:37:45,680 --> 00:37:46,960
is secret hidden from you.

870
00:37:46,960 --> 00:37:47,520
Right.

871
00:37:47,520 --> 00:37:50,280
And that anything kind of secretive or happened in quote

872
00:37:50,280 --> 00:37:54,040
unquote behind closed doors is necessarily nefarious.

873
00:37:54,040 --> 00:37:56,120
This wasn't even really concealed.

874
00:37:56,120 --> 00:37:59,560
RFK Jr. filed a FOIA request, something every reporter does.

875
00:37:59,560 --> 00:38:00,160
Everyone can do.

876
00:38:00,160 --> 00:38:01,160
A couple times a day.

877
00:38:01,160 --> 00:38:02,320
Anybody can do it.

878
00:38:02,320 --> 00:38:03,680
I filed a FOIA request.

879
00:38:03,680 --> 00:38:05,920
I am not a particularly smart person.

880
00:38:05,920 --> 00:38:07,360
It's not hard.

881
00:38:07,360 --> 00:38:12,680
And he received the documents that he requested,

882
00:38:12,680 --> 00:38:15,280
and they showed nothing.

883
00:38:15,280 --> 00:38:16,600
They showed nothing nefarious.

884
00:38:16,600 --> 00:38:19,880
And this is where I think RFK counts as a liar,

885
00:38:19,880 --> 00:38:25,720
because his salon article emits vast chunks of context.

886
00:38:25,720 --> 00:38:30,080
It emits big chunks of quotes to try and make this seem much

887
00:38:30,080 --> 00:38:31,640
more nefarious than it is.

888
00:38:31,640 --> 00:38:33,840
So you mentioned Jan Wenner, but was this

889
00:38:33,840 --> 00:38:35,920
the Joan Walsh period of salon?

890
00:38:35,920 --> 00:38:38,360
Like, who greenleaves this fucking thing?

891
00:38:38,360 --> 00:38:38,880
Yeah.

892
00:38:38,880 --> 00:38:42,840
So this is the other thing, is that this article gets debunked

893
00:38:42,840 --> 00:38:43,560
quite quickly.

894
00:38:43,560 --> 00:38:46,640
It has a lot of serious factual errors.

895
00:38:46,640 --> 00:38:50,000
Salon and Rolling Stone eventually retracted a few years

896
00:38:50,000 --> 00:38:52,120
later in 2011.

897
00:38:52,120 --> 00:38:56,640
But in the meantime, it does go about as viral as anything

898
00:38:56,640 --> 00:38:59,840
can go in 2005, which raises the question,

899
00:38:59,840 --> 00:39:02,760
as you said, of who published, who edited this thing?

900
00:39:02,760 --> 00:39:05,840
And Joan Walsh was indeed the editor of Salon of the time,

901
00:39:05,840 --> 00:39:07,400
or an editor of Salon at the time.

902
00:39:07,400 --> 00:39:08,920
She's now at the nation.

903
00:39:08,920 --> 00:39:12,080
And she wrote this past summer an account

904
00:39:12,080 --> 00:39:14,160
of the publication of this article,

905
00:39:14,160 --> 00:39:19,280
in which she says, look, this guy got away with things

906
00:39:19,280 --> 00:39:22,120
we would not have allowed other writers to get away with,

907
00:39:22,120 --> 00:39:24,600
because his last name was Kennedy,

908
00:39:24,600 --> 00:39:28,320
because he has known people like John Wenner his whole life,

909
00:39:28,320 --> 00:39:31,080
because people working in the media

910
00:39:31,080 --> 00:39:34,680
have looked up to his dad their whole lives

911
00:39:34,680 --> 00:39:40,240
and have had a reverence for the sort of romantic past

912
00:39:40,240 --> 00:39:43,640
and image of sort of liberal righteousness associated

913
00:39:43,640 --> 00:39:44,960
with this name.

914
00:39:44,960 --> 00:39:48,640
They let him publish some horseshit that

915
00:39:48,640 --> 00:39:51,760
had a really devastating public health impact.

916
00:39:51,760 --> 00:39:53,800
Yeah, I mean, and this is such a common thing, right,

917
00:39:53,800 --> 00:39:56,120
that you get these sort of celebrity,

918
00:39:56,120 --> 00:39:58,360
and especially this is especially when you take positions

919
00:39:58,360 --> 00:40:00,600
kind of right of the mainstream normally, right?

920
00:40:00,600 --> 00:40:02,920
You're like, oh, I was censored, but because I'm such

921
00:40:02,920 --> 00:40:06,040
a powerful person, I was able to get this information out.

922
00:40:06,040 --> 00:40:08,680
And in fact, it's like, no, it's because everyone's

923
00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:12,040
terribly afraid of being seen as coming down too hard

924
00:40:12,040 --> 00:40:14,000
in that kind of opinion, right?

925
00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:16,120
If you were just to say something bog standard,

926
00:40:16,120 --> 00:40:18,400
like, you know, let's eliminate three strikes

927
00:40:18,400 --> 00:40:20,800
or something like that, like they will come down

928
00:40:20,800 --> 00:40:21,680
on you much harder, right?

929
00:40:21,680 --> 00:40:24,360
Like, some way the kind of thing kind of contains

930
00:40:24,360 --> 00:40:27,680
its own refutation, but it's a very, very common

931
00:40:27,680 --> 00:40:29,800
kind of discursive trope, and it drives me,

932
00:40:29,800 --> 00:40:31,120
frankly, a little insane.

933
00:40:31,120 --> 00:40:34,400
Yeah, this is like his claim or his conception

934
00:40:34,400 --> 00:40:36,960
of himself as an outsider, right?

935
00:40:36,960 --> 00:40:39,040
He's like, look how dangerous I'm being.

936
00:40:39,040 --> 00:40:41,680
It's like, what's actually happening is these institutions

937
00:40:41,680 --> 00:40:44,920
are bending over backwards to accommodate you

938
00:40:44,920 --> 00:40:48,360
because of how thoroughly you are, in fact, an insider

939
00:40:48,360 --> 00:40:51,560
and how much entitlement to public platforming

940
00:40:51,560 --> 00:40:54,240
and attention we all consider you to have.

941
00:40:54,240 --> 00:40:58,400
So this is his like real initiation or like coming out story

942
00:40:58,400 --> 00:41:00,880
as an anti-vaxx conspiracy theorist, right?

943
00:41:00,880 --> 00:41:05,880
And after this 2005 article, he sort of broadens

944
00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:08,280
his horizons, becomes, you know, he remains sort of

945
00:41:08,280 --> 00:41:10,200
at his core, an anti-vaxxer, that's clearly

946
00:41:10,200 --> 00:41:13,920
where his passion is, but this is not the only

947
00:41:13,920 --> 00:41:17,160
conspiracy theory he starts trumpeting.

948
00:41:17,160 --> 00:41:21,640
So sometime in the early 2000s or the mid 2000s,

949
00:41:21,640 --> 00:41:25,440
his friend Larry David introduces him

950
00:41:25,440 --> 00:41:28,120
to what becomes his next big like advocacy

951
00:41:28,120 --> 00:41:32,440
for conspiracy theorizing, which is his notion

952
00:41:32,440 --> 00:41:36,440
that the Republican Party stole the 2004 election.

953
00:41:36,440 --> 00:41:40,600
Okay, so just backing up for a second.

954
00:41:40,600 --> 00:41:42,560
Him and Cheryl Hines getting together,

955
00:41:42,560 --> 00:41:44,160
is a Larry David joint?

956
00:41:44,160 --> 00:41:47,480
Yes, Larry David introduced R.F.K. Jr. to Cheryl Hines,

957
00:41:47,480 --> 00:41:49,600
the woman who would become his third wife.

958
00:41:49,600 --> 00:41:52,400
Pretty, pretty, pretty weird.

959
00:41:52,400 --> 00:41:54,440
Pretty weird, and that actually brings us nicely

960
00:41:54,440 --> 00:41:59,760
to the end of his second marriage because around 2010,

961
00:41:59,760 --> 00:42:03,920
Kennedy files for divorce from his second wife

962
00:42:03,920 --> 00:42:08,920
and initiates a prolonged, ugly, public custody battle

963
00:42:08,920 --> 00:42:10,240
over their children.

964
00:42:10,240 --> 00:42:14,960
As part of those proceedings, a diary that R.F.K. kept

965
00:42:14,960 --> 00:42:17,480
during the time of his marriage shows him

966
00:42:17,480 --> 00:42:21,960
keeping tallies of women who he had had sex with

967
00:42:21,960 --> 00:42:23,200
while he was married to this other woman.

968
00:42:23,200 --> 00:42:24,520
Such a beginner mistake, it's a weird thing

969
00:42:24,520 --> 00:42:25,760
to do on your second marriage.

970
00:42:25,760 --> 00:42:29,280
Yeah, he writes all these women down

971
00:42:29,280 --> 00:42:32,400
and then he ranks their sexual performance.

972
00:42:32,400 --> 00:42:35,240
He recounts in that diary,

973
00:42:35,240 --> 00:42:39,120
sleeping with 37 women just in the year 2001,

974
00:42:39,120 --> 00:42:40,720
which I think is a nice callback

975
00:42:40,720 --> 00:42:45,760
to this anxious Kennedy masculinity insecurity.

976
00:42:45,760 --> 00:42:46,600
Yeah, I was gonna say,

977
00:42:46,600 --> 00:42:49,400
like there's the satiriasis run strong

978
00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:51,040
among the men in that family, right?

979
00:42:51,040 --> 00:42:51,880
Like, I mean-

980
00:42:51,880 --> 00:42:53,800
Yeah, his grandfather, Joe Kennedy, was famous.

981
00:42:53,800 --> 00:42:56,680
This is Philanderer, so work has two uncles,

982
00:42:56,680 --> 00:42:58,640
J.F.K. and Ted Kennedy.

983
00:42:58,640 --> 00:43:00,280
This actually doesn't seem to have been something

984
00:43:00,280 --> 00:43:02,680
that his father, R.F.K., was as in due.

985
00:43:02,680 --> 00:43:03,520
Yeah, yeah.

986
00:43:03,520 --> 00:43:05,400
Well, I mean, he had 11 children.

987
00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:08,320
I mean, I feel like you guys just tapped out.

988
00:43:08,320 --> 00:43:09,640
R.F.K. was the choir boy,

989
00:43:09,640 --> 00:43:11,840
but R.F.K. Jr seems to have taken on

990
00:43:11,840 --> 00:43:14,360
this anxious sexual acquisitiveness.

991
00:43:14,360 --> 00:43:15,720
He's like, you know, 37-

992
00:43:15,720 --> 00:43:18,440
J.F.K. Jr was kind of a Playboy too, right?

993
00:43:18,440 --> 00:43:19,280
Like famously.

994
00:43:19,280 --> 00:43:20,720
I don't know as much about J.F.K. Jr.

995
00:43:20,720 --> 00:43:21,680
I just know the outfits.

996
00:43:21,680 --> 00:43:23,880
I see a lot of picture of the beautiful, like J.Crew.

997
00:43:23,880 --> 00:43:24,720
Yeah.

998
00:43:24,720 --> 00:43:26,520
No, that was his vibe, I thought.

999
00:43:26,520 --> 00:43:28,440
I mean, I'm not gonna suggest anything,

1000
00:43:28,440 --> 00:43:30,040
but he did not look at him and go like,

1001
00:43:30,040 --> 00:43:32,160
that's a man that doesn't fuck.

1002
00:43:32,160 --> 00:43:35,160
Yeah, yeah, the sort of like sexual swagger.

1003
00:43:35,160 --> 00:43:36,000
Yeah.

1004
00:43:36,000 --> 00:43:38,000
You know, your enemy did a wonderful podcast

1005
00:43:38,000 --> 00:43:40,760
on the Kennedys that introduced me to Gary Will's book,

1006
00:43:40,760 --> 00:43:42,120
The Kennedy Imprisonment,

1007
00:43:42,120 --> 00:43:43,200
which I think all our readers-

1008
00:43:43,200 --> 00:43:45,520
Oh, Gary Will wrote about the Gary Will's wrote about the Will.

1009
00:43:45,520 --> 00:43:48,080
Gary Will's wrote a really good book about the Kennedys.

1010
00:43:48,080 --> 00:43:49,840
He does a lot with the psychology

1011
00:43:49,840 --> 00:43:52,080
of the Kennedy masculinity.

1012
00:43:52,080 --> 00:43:55,520
And his theory is like, you know, these guys,

1013
00:43:55,520 --> 00:43:57,160
unlike the sort of stereotype

1014
00:43:57,160 --> 00:43:59,720
of mid-century Irish Americans,

1015
00:43:59,720 --> 00:44:03,080
these were not like big physically intimidating,

1016
00:44:03,080 --> 00:44:05,120
fighting Irish guys.

1017
00:44:05,120 --> 00:44:06,680
The Kennedy men are kind of scrawny.

1018
00:44:06,680 --> 00:44:08,520
Yeah, they're hot soy boys.

1019
00:44:08,520 --> 00:44:10,520
Yeah, they can't win a fight, right?

1020
00:44:10,520 --> 00:44:13,440
And Joe Kennedy compensates for-

1021
00:44:13,440 --> 00:44:15,760
Well, except the World War, I guess.

1022
00:44:15,760 --> 00:44:18,480
The Kennedy men compensate for what they feel

1023
00:44:18,480 --> 00:44:21,560
is their insufficiently masculine physical prowess

1024
00:44:21,560 --> 00:44:26,560
with just like insanely insecure sexual acquisitiveness.

1025
00:44:26,720 --> 00:44:28,520
Masculinity is something you have to prove, right?

1026
00:44:28,520 --> 00:44:31,000
Feminity is something that like you get relegated to.

1027
00:44:31,000 --> 00:44:33,240
Masculinity is something you have to maintain.

1028
00:44:33,240 --> 00:44:35,320
And the way the Kennedy men maintain their masculinity

1029
00:44:35,320 --> 00:44:38,200
is by having sexualism with many women as possible.

1030
00:44:38,200 --> 00:44:40,040
That sort of comes up in that book,

1031
00:44:40,040 --> 00:44:42,400
is that Halberstam, the best and the brightest,

1032
00:44:42,400 --> 00:44:43,920
sort of about the transition

1033
00:44:43,920 --> 00:44:45,040
from the Kennedy administration

1034
00:44:45,040 --> 00:44:46,720
to the Johnson administration that, you know,

1035
00:44:46,720 --> 00:44:48,880
Johnson was, had this like, right,

1036
00:44:48,880 --> 00:44:50,880
famous, a huge guy,

1037
00:44:50,880 --> 00:44:52,720
kind of had his dick out half the time, right?

1038
00:44:52,720 --> 00:44:55,280
Like as a totally different model of masculinity

1039
00:44:55,280 --> 00:44:58,000
and that like the Kennedy boys just really chafed against that.

1040
00:44:58,000 --> 00:45:01,040
And he, against them, that sort of comes through there,

1041
00:45:01,040 --> 00:45:03,520
that there's also these dueling styles of masculinity there,

1042
00:45:03,520 --> 00:45:06,040
because Johnson infamously is just like,

1043
00:45:06,040 --> 00:45:08,280
is I think sexually not that, it's not acquisitive.

1044
00:45:08,280 --> 00:45:10,920
He's just like, it's just like out there, right?

1045
00:45:10,920 --> 00:45:13,320
Like, right, like would sort of have people

1046
00:45:13,320 --> 00:45:15,000
watching urinate and stuff like that.

1047
00:45:15,000 --> 00:45:16,640
Weird shit.

1048
00:45:16,640 --> 00:45:20,000
We should do a LBJ episode,

1049
00:45:20,000 --> 00:45:21,560
because he's a weird guy.

1050
00:45:21,560 --> 00:45:22,400
Oh yeah, oh yeah.

1051
00:45:22,400 --> 00:45:26,120
But RFK Jr. has sort of inherited this like anxious,

1052
00:45:26,120 --> 00:45:28,080
got to fuck a lot, got to prove I'm a man.

1053
00:45:28,080 --> 00:45:30,040
And then keep a diary about it, which like,

1054
00:45:30,040 --> 00:45:31,480
And then he keeps a diary about it.

1055
00:45:31,480 --> 00:45:34,520
So this all comes out in his very messy second divorce.

1056
00:45:34,520 --> 00:45:35,720
Skill issue.

1057
00:45:35,720 --> 00:45:37,680
In the process, this is going to get dark.

1058
00:45:37,680 --> 00:45:39,480
And this is a little bit of a content warning,

1059
00:45:39,480 --> 00:45:42,000
but his second wife, in the process of their divorce,

1060
00:45:42,000 --> 00:45:45,320
Mary Kathleen Richardson commits suicide in 2012.

1061
00:45:45,320 --> 00:45:47,160
She hangs herself in an outbuilding

1062
00:45:47,160 --> 00:45:48,280
of one of their estates.

1063
00:45:48,280 --> 00:45:49,120
Oh no.

1064
00:45:49,120 --> 00:45:50,520
But he quickly gets married again.

1065
00:45:50,520 --> 00:45:53,400
He gets married to Cheryl Hines, who Larry David

1066
00:45:53,400 --> 00:45:55,920
plays opposite on curvy or enthusiasm and the actor.

1067
00:45:55,920 --> 00:45:57,560
He gets married and divorced from

1068
00:45:57,560 --> 00:45:59,840
in different seasons of curvy enthusiasm.

1069
00:45:59,840 --> 00:46:02,760
Yes, and Larry David introduced them

1070
00:46:02,760 --> 00:46:05,480
and they get married in 2014.

1071
00:46:05,480 --> 00:46:09,800
Also in 2014, he publishes another book on vaccines.

1072
00:46:09,800 --> 00:46:13,240
Once again, talking about that mercury-based

1073
00:46:13,240 --> 00:46:16,560
disinfectant additive is a book called

1074
00:46:16,560 --> 00:46:19,520
Samarasal, Let the Science Speak,

1075
00:46:19,520 --> 00:46:22,520
that blames vaccines for speech and facial tics.

1076
00:46:22,520 --> 00:46:26,040
He eliminates autism from this book

1077
00:46:26,040 --> 00:46:27,800
because he says it's too controversial.

1078
00:46:27,800 --> 00:46:31,680
He says, you know, these vaccines with Samarasal in them,

1079
00:46:31,680 --> 00:46:35,560
they cause speech and facial tics, they cause allergies,

1080
00:46:35,560 --> 00:46:38,680
they call ADHD, they cause all these other

1081
00:46:38,680 --> 00:46:40,560
childhood health issues.

1082
00:46:40,560 --> 00:46:42,800
And he points to the cause as-

1083
00:46:42,800 --> 00:46:44,520
That's less controversial.

1084
00:46:44,520 --> 00:46:46,240
Yeah, it's not true.

1085
00:46:46,240 --> 00:46:47,080
It's not true.

1086
00:46:47,080 --> 00:46:50,640
And also, he published this book in 2014

1087
00:46:50,640 --> 00:46:54,640
and Samarasal has not been included in vaccines since 1993.

1088
00:46:54,640 --> 00:46:57,160
Oh, my God.

1089
00:46:57,160 --> 00:46:58,720
Also, I mean, can we talk about the fact?

1090
00:46:58,720 --> 00:47:01,280
I mean, not the point here, but like,

1091
00:47:01,280 --> 00:47:04,240
is this just post-hoc ergo-proptor hoc, the book, right?

1092
00:47:04,240 --> 00:47:07,720
Like, what's the causal connection between

1093
00:47:07,720 --> 00:47:10,000
these substances and all these things?

1094
00:47:10,000 --> 00:47:12,200
Like, is it just that those are rising?

1095
00:47:12,200 --> 00:47:13,800
These are all things that go up, right?

1096
00:47:13,800 --> 00:47:15,440
Line go up, I guess, famously.

1097
00:47:15,440 --> 00:47:17,600
The more kids diagnosed with ADHD

1098
00:47:17,600 --> 00:47:19,960
than they were 20 years ago, that's true.

1099
00:47:19,960 --> 00:47:21,400
And then you're connecting it to like,

1100
00:47:21,400 --> 00:47:23,760
your particular pet issue, like, I mean, like,

1101
00:47:23,760 --> 00:47:25,080
what's wrong with microplastics?

1102
00:47:25,080 --> 00:47:26,560
That's also, I see.

1103
00:47:26,560 --> 00:47:29,520
So like, when you look at these big data sets,

1104
00:47:29,520 --> 00:47:33,880
there does seem to be some correlation

1105
00:47:33,880 --> 00:47:38,880
between vaccination and other diagnoses in children, right?

1106
00:47:39,200 --> 00:47:42,760
Children who are vaccinated are a little more likely

1107
00:47:42,760 --> 00:47:46,520
to be autistic or to have ADHD

1108
00:47:46,520 --> 00:47:48,760
or to have other health issues.

1109
00:47:48,760 --> 00:47:52,520
And that is because they are going to the doctor

1110
00:47:52,520 --> 00:47:54,840
and they are being diagnosed.

1111
00:47:54,840 --> 00:47:56,120
The kids who aren't being vaccinated

1112
00:47:56,120 --> 00:47:58,560
are kids who aren't seeing a doctor ever.

1113
00:47:58,560 --> 00:48:00,000
And hence aren't being given.

1114
00:48:00,000 --> 00:48:02,520
Was biting my tongue to not have to say that, exactly.

1115
00:48:02,520 --> 00:48:05,840
And hence aren't being given these diagnoses, right?

1116
00:48:05,840 --> 00:48:09,080
So it's a correlation that he mistakes for a causation.

1117
00:48:09,080 --> 00:48:11,520
Class of conservative thought mistake.

1118
00:48:11,520 --> 00:48:16,400
And it's one that has been debunked pretty thoroughly,

1119
00:48:16,400 --> 00:48:21,040
but he does go on like all of these network morning shows,

1120
00:48:21,040 --> 00:48:24,720
talking about his book that makes no fucking sense.

1121
00:48:24,720 --> 00:48:29,400
So, you know, this is just kind of the tip of the iceberg

1122
00:48:29,400 --> 00:48:30,920
with RFK.

1123
00:48:30,920 --> 00:48:34,840
So I'm now just gonna go and give you kind of rapid fire,

1124
00:48:34,840 --> 00:48:37,320
a bunch of the things that RFK believes

1125
00:48:37,320 --> 00:48:39,640
and that he has advocated for it in public.

1126
00:48:39,640 --> 00:48:40,840
This is gonna be good.

1127
00:48:40,840 --> 00:48:44,000
One, that the HIV virus does not cause AIDS.

1128
00:48:44,000 --> 00:48:45,160
Sure, sure why not?

1129
00:48:45,160 --> 00:48:48,280
Two, that SSRIs, anti-depressant medications,

1130
00:48:48,280 --> 00:48:50,400
are responsible for school shootings.

1131
00:48:50,400 --> 00:48:51,240
Okay.

1132
00:48:51,240 --> 00:48:53,600
Three, that gender dysphoria in teens

1133
00:48:53,600 --> 00:48:56,960
is linked to water contaminated with atrazine,

1134
00:48:56,960 --> 00:49:00,680
which is a additive that has possibly caused

1135
00:49:00,680 --> 00:49:02,360
from aphrodism in frogs.

1136
00:49:02,360 --> 00:49:03,200
The frogs.

1137
00:49:03,200 --> 00:49:04,200
So we get to the gay frogs.

1138
00:49:04,200 --> 00:49:05,040
I want the gay frogs.

1139
00:49:05,040 --> 00:49:06,480
I was waiting for the gay frogs.

1140
00:49:06,480 --> 00:49:08,520
Yeah, he's a big gay frog, truth or dare.

1141
00:49:08,520 --> 00:49:09,680
Yeah, I mean, who isn't?

1142
00:49:09,680 --> 00:49:11,120
Whom's the mongers?

1143
00:49:11,120 --> 00:49:14,520
Four, that the CIA orchestrated the assassinations

1144
00:49:14,520 --> 00:49:16,480
of his father, RFK and his uncle.

1145
00:49:16,480 --> 00:49:18,000
I was wondering about that, okay.

1146
00:49:18,000 --> 00:49:20,960
Yes, he does not believe that Sir Hans Sirhan,

1147
00:49:20,960 --> 00:49:23,160
the man who is still currently in prison

1148
00:49:23,160 --> 00:49:26,280
for the death of his father, committed that murder.

1149
00:49:26,280 --> 00:49:28,640
Kennedy has advocated for Sir Hans release,

1150
00:49:28,640 --> 00:49:32,840
much to the chagrin of his siblings.

1151
00:49:32,840 --> 00:49:36,480
Five, that his cousin, Michael Skakel,

1152
00:49:36,480 --> 00:49:39,440
who served over a decade in prison

1153
00:49:39,440 --> 00:49:43,800
for the Greenwich Connecticut murder of Martha Moxley

1154
00:49:43,800 --> 00:49:45,440
is innocent of that murder

1155
00:49:45,440 --> 00:49:49,400
and that the real murderers were two local black young men.

1156
00:49:49,400 --> 00:49:50,360
Oh, lovely.

1157
00:49:50,360 --> 00:49:54,560
Five, that 5G Wi-Fi is being used to poison

1158
00:49:54,560 --> 00:49:57,320
and surveil people, causing, among other things,

1159
00:49:57,320 --> 00:50:00,760
a condition that RFK refers to as leaky brain.

1160
00:50:00,760 --> 00:50:01,920
It's the silent killer.

1161
00:50:01,920 --> 00:50:06,920
Seven, that the COVID-19 virus was A, engineered in a lab,

1162
00:50:07,520 --> 00:50:11,000
and B, that it was engineered to be less fatal

1163
00:50:11,000 --> 00:50:13,920
to Chinese and Oskanasi Jewish people.

1164
00:50:13,920 --> 00:50:15,760
Oh, wow, I love that we get to the antisemitism

1165
00:50:15,760 --> 00:50:16,880
at the very end there.

1166
00:50:16,880 --> 00:50:18,080
He's like, oh, and by the way.

1167
00:50:18,080 --> 00:50:21,920
It never fails, and A,

1168
00:50:21,920 --> 00:50:24,760
to that COVID vaccines are worse than the Holocaust.

1169
00:50:24,760 --> 00:50:25,600
Oh, okay.

1170
00:50:25,600 --> 00:50:26,680
Which he does believe happens,

1171
00:50:26,680 --> 00:50:27,520
so at least there's that.

1172
00:50:27,520 --> 00:50:28,360
He does seem to believe that it happened.

1173
00:50:28,360 --> 00:50:30,320
I think his quote was something like,

1174
00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:32,600
at least when Hitler came for you,

1175
00:50:32,600 --> 00:50:34,160
you could hide like Anne Frank

1176
00:50:34,160 --> 00:50:36,680
and you can't do that with a vaccine mandate.

1177
00:50:36,680 --> 00:50:39,320
Except people did, like a lot.

1178
00:50:39,320 --> 00:50:41,640
Yeah, wow, I mean, this is someone

1179
00:50:41,640 --> 00:50:43,960
who's almost indiscriminate.

1180
00:50:43,960 --> 00:50:44,800
Yeah.

1181
00:50:44,800 --> 00:50:48,200
In terms of his, he just grabs everything from the buffet.

1182
00:50:48,200 --> 00:50:51,720
Yeah, basically anything that has been floating around

1183
00:50:51,720 --> 00:50:54,000
as a physically health-related,

1184
00:50:54,000 --> 00:50:57,840
but like right-wing conspiracy theory on the internet,

1185
00:50:57,840 --> 00:50:59,960
on the right-wing internet over like the past 20 years,

1186
00:50:59,960 --> 00:51:01,920
he has been an advocate for at some point.

1187
00:51:01,920 --> 00:51:02,760
Right, right.

1188
00:51:02,760 --> 00:51:03,600
So as you can imagine,

1189
00:51:03,600 --> 00:51:06,800
this is a guy who dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic

1190
00:51:06,800 --> 00:51:08,800
in like totally normal.

1191
00:51:08,800 --> 00:51:09,640
Oh yeah.

1192
00:51:09,640 --> 00:51:10,920
And healthy ways.

1193
00:51:10,920 --> 00:51:13,000
Yeah, massively mature, I'm sure.

1194
00:51:13,000 --> 00:51:14,200
So like as we covered,

1195
00:51:14,200 --> 00:51:15,960
RK has been riding the anti-vax train

1196
00:51:15,960 --> 00:51:17,960
for a long time before 2020,

1197
00:51:17,960 --> 00:51:20,640
but the COVID-19 pandemic created this,

1198
00:51:20,640 --> 00:51:24,040
once again, a resurgence in anti-vax sentiment.

1199
00:51:24,040 --> 00:51:27,280
And this really revived his fame in a new way

1200
00:51:27,280 --> 00:51:29,920
and it brought him an influx of new attention,

1201
00:51:29,920 --> 00:51:32,280
new fans, new visibility.

1202
00:51:32,280 --> 00:51:35,080
So his podcast really took off

1203
00:51:35,080 --> 00:51:38,240
and so did his Twitter and on his Twitter account.

1204
00:51:38,240 --> 00:51:41,680
So did mine, so I can't hate the hustle, yeah.

1205
00:51:41,680 --> 00:51:43,720
A lot of people spend a lot of time tweeting

1206
00:51:43,720 --> 00:51:44,960
during the quarantine,

1207
00:51:44,960 --> 00:51:48,800
but his Twitter really became this

1208
00:51:48,800 --> 00:51:52,600
like sort of engine of parasocial attachment to RFK Junior

1209
00:51:52,600 --> 00:51:56,960
for some of the quarantine, the anti-vax set.

1210
00:51:56,960 --> 00:52:00,720
So on his Twitter, he posts a lot of front-facing videos

1211
00:52:00,720 --> 00:52:02,800
and videos of himself,

1212
00:52:02,800 --> 00:52:05,480
like especially performing feats of strength.

1213
00:52:05,480 --> 00:52:07,760
So he'll like lift weights.

1214
00:52:07,760 --> 00:52:10,040
He goes skiing, stuff like that.

1215
00:52:10,040 --> 00:52:12,200
And he talks a lot in these videos

1216
00:52:12,200 --> 00:52:16,280
that he posts on Twitter in his very distinctive voice.

1217
00:52:16,280 --> 00:52:18,200
And so like maybe most importantly

1218
00:52:18,200 --> 00:52:22,800
in the COVID era, RFK Junior became a fixture

1219
00:52:22,800 --> 00:52:26,000
on sort of like casually reactionary,

1220
00:52:26,000 --> 00:52:28,120
like men's entertainment, right?

1221
00:52:28,120 --> 00:52:31,440
So a lot of the talk interview podcasts

1222
00:52:31,440 --> 00:52:34,600
in which men talk to other men about how to be men

1223
00:52:35,640 --> 00:52:37,400
and how being men is so great.

1224
00:52:37,400 --> 00:52:41,200
This is where he really found his niche.

1225
00:52:41,200 --> 00:52:45,840
So Russell Brandt, the allegedly sexually abusive

1226
00:52:45,840 --> 00:52:48,280
British comedian, he went on his show.

1227
00:52:48,280 --> 00:52:50,320
Lex Fridman, who is this like, I guess,

1228
00:52:50,320 --> 00:52:55,320
Russian born former military guy, he went on his show.

1229
00:52:55,800 --> 00:52:57,600
He goes on Bill Maher a bunch.

1230
00:52:57,600 --> 00:52:58,440
Of course.

1231
00:52:58,440 --> 00:53:00,440
Tucker Carlson, Glenn Beck.

1232
00:53:00,440 --> 00:53:01,280
Wow.

1233
00:53:01,280 --> 00:53:02,440
Jordan Peterson.

1234
00:53:02,440 --> 00:53:04,720
And probably most importantly, Joe Rogan,

1235
00:53:04,720 --> 00:53:08,240
who's sort of like the king of this little shit mountain.

1236
00:53:08,240 --> 00:53:10,800
God, why didn't you just give all these people COVID?

1237
00:53:10,800 --> 00:53:11,880
That would have been so funny.

1238
00:53:11,880 --> 00:53:14,840
And he gains a ton of attention,

1239
00:53:14,840 --> 00:53:16,720
especially from young men, right?

1240
00:53:16,720 --> 00:53:17,560
Yeah, yeah.

1241
00:53:17,560 --> 00:53:20,920
So in this era, he's spreading a ton of COVID misinformation.

1242
00:53:20,920 --> 00:53:23,640
He's got lab leak, anti-vax.

1243
00:53:23,640 --> 00:53:25,320
He's a big proponent of ivermectin,

1244
00:53:25,320 --> 00:53:27,640
that horse drug that people were taking.

1245
00:53:27,640 --> 00:53:28,480
The dewormer.

1246
00:53:28,480 --> 00:53:30,640
The pandemic, like you name it.

1247
00:53:30,640 --> 00:53:31,880
And specifically.

1248
00:53:31,880 --> 00:53:33,280
Parts one, two and three.

1249
00:53:33,280 --> 00:53:34,440
Yeah.

1250
00:53:34,440 --> 00:53:37,000
And specifically, he starts targeting Anthony Fauci.

1251
00:53:37,000 --> 00:53:37,840
Right.

1252
00:53:37,840 --> 00:53:39,360
Who must have been on his radar before, right?

1253
00:53:39,360 --> 00:53:40,200
Like.

1254
00:53:40,200 --> 00:53:41,800
He was a public health official,

1255
00:53:41,800 --> 00:53:45,000
who was sort of the center of a lot of COVID conspiracy

1256
00:53:45,000 --> 00:53:47,400
theorizing in this time.

1257
00:53:47,400 --> 00:53:51,080
So he gets kicked off of Facebook and Instagram

1258
00:53:51,080 --> 00:53:52,040
during this era.

1259
00:53:53,600 --> 00:53:54,960
He has since been restored.

1260
00:53:54,960 --> 00:53:55,800
He is your uncle.

1261
00:53:55,800 --> 00:53:56,920
He's basically your uncle.

1262
00:53:56,920 --> 00:53:57,760
He is.

1263
00:53:57,760 --> 00:53:58,600
I mean, my uncle.

1264
00:53:58,600 --> 00:53:59,440
Everyone's uncle.

1265
00:53:59,440 --> 00:54:02,640
No, not your specifically, but like everyone's uncle.

1266
00:54:02,640 --> 00:54:04,120
My uncle could win in a fight.

1267
00:54:04,120 --> 00:54:06,640
You know, I don't think I would win in a fight.

1268
00:54:06,640 --> 00:54:10,440
But, you know, he gets kicked off of these Facebook

1269
00:54:10,440 --> 00:54:12,720
and Instagram platforms and he claims

1270
00:54:12,720 --> 00:54:15,400
that he's being censored, right?

1271
00:54:15,400 --> 00:54:18,320
By the evil shadowy powers that be.

1272
00:54:18,320 --> 00:54:21,760
He actually sues and says that the White House

1273
00:54:21,760 --> 00:54:25,440
has pressured Facebook to de-platform him.

1274
00:54:25,440 --> 00:54:26,920
We know that actually the White House did sort of

1275
00:54:26,920 --> 00:54:29,160
encourage tech platforms during this era

1276
00:54:29,160 --> 00:54:32,960
to like maybe not amplify vaccines information

1277
00:54:32,960 --> 00:54:34,520
quite as much as they were doing.

1278
00:54:34,520 --> 00:54:36,200
And, you know, RFK and his lawsuit

1279
00:54:36,200 --> 00:54:38,520
has posed this as a free speech issue.

1280
00:54:38,520 --> 00:54:40,440
Well, I mean, this is something I,

1281
00:54:40,440 --> 00:54:43,280
in rewriting my book for the American edition,

1282
00:54:43,280 --> 00:54:46,320
like it really struck me how like,

1283
00:54:46,320 --> 00:54:50,000
part of why stories about cancel culture and free speech,

1284
00:54:50,000 --> 00:54:54,160
part of why they happen, why these stories happen,

1285
00:54:54,160 --> 00:54:57,520
is because people who are used to a really big platform

1286
00:54:57,520 --> 00:55:00,440
sort of feel that they're not giving the platform their owed.

1287
00:55:00,440 --> 00:55:02,440
The reason they catch on though is because

1288
00:55:02,440 --> 00:55:04,480
people do seem to have these experiences of like,

1289
00:55:04,480 --> 00:55:06,920
oh, I'm not getting to say the thing I want to say.

1290
00:55:06,920 --> 00:55:09,400
And it was very noticeable as I was traveling

1291
00:55:09,400 --> 00:55:13,360
with my book in German, the 2022 one on cancel culture.

1292
00:55:13,360 --> 00:55:15,880
And a lot of people were like, well, what happened to me

1293
00:55:15,880 --> 00:55:19,400
and my Facebook group or in the WhatsApps, you know,

1294
00:55:19,400 --> 00:55:22,280
when I posted just this totally innocent stuff

1295
00:55:22,280 --> 00:55:24,360
about Italian doctors finding this and that

1296
00:55:24,360 --> 00:55:26,840
in the COVID vaccine and my kids came down on me

1297
00:55:26,840 --> 00:55:27,680
like a ton of breaks.

1298
00:55:27,680 --> 00:55:30,440
Like people had a lot of experiences of like

1299
00:55:30,440 --> 00:55:33,400
feeling like they couldn't say stuff, right?

1300
00:55:33,400 --> 00:55:35,760
And like, it's not shocking that that's how

1301
00:55:35,760 --> 00:55:37,800
he and this audience found each other, right?

1302
00:55:37,800 --> 00:55:39,040
Like, because it's both.

1303
00:55:39,040 --> 00:55:43,120
It's both him not getting the kind of attention

1304
00:55:43,120 --> 00:55:45,840
and imputation of expertise that he's used to

1305
00:55:45,840 --> 00:55:48,840
and it's people, very everyday people having experiences

1306
00:55:48,840 --> 00:55:51,840
that aren't really censorship but can feel like it, right?

1307
00:55:51,840 --> 00:55:52,880
Or it's like, shut up, uncle.

1308
00:55:52,880 --> 00:55:55,520
I'm like, get you, get you a damn shot

1309
00:55:55,520 --> 00:55:57,400
or you can't see a kid, right?

1310
00:55:57,400 --> 00:56:01,880
And look, COVID was a really terrifying and confusing

1311
00:56:01,880 --> 00:56:04,840
for a lot of people and it was also legitimately mismanaged.

1312
00:56:04,840 --> 00:56:09,840
I'm gonna read again just briefly from the RFK profile

1313
00:56:09,840 --> 00:56:11,240
by Rebecca Tracer where she's talking about

1314
00:56:11,240 --> 00:56:12,320
this period of his life.

1315
00:56:13,240 --> 00:56:16,760
Being shunned in any way for ideas that when it comes

1316
00:56:16,760 --> 00:56:19,320
to vaccines are not just about individual choice

1317
00:56:19,320 --> 00:56:21,480
but about our collective responsibility

1318
00:56:21,480 --> 00:56:23,800
is perhaps anathema to people raised to assume

1319
00:56:23,800 --> 00:56:27,160
their voices would be heard and understood as legitimate.

1320
00:56:27,160 --> 00:56:29,760
Public health directives during COVID were crude

1321
00:56:29,760 --> 00:56:31,240
and sometimes wrong.

1322
00:56:31,240 --> 00:56:33,480
Messaging on masking changed repeatedly.

1323
00:56:33,480 --> 00:56:35,280
Masking outdoors now seems silly.

1324
00:56:35,280 --> 00:56:37,880
The school closures lasted longer than they should have

1325
00:56:37,880 --> 00:56:39,920
but the objections made by people like Kennedy

1326
00:56:39,920 --> 00:56:43,360
were not rooted in special advanced scientific knowledge.

1327
00:56:43,360 --> 00:56:47,080
Rather, they stem from the fury of normally powerful people

1328
00:56:47,080 --> 00:56:50,800
affronted by the argument that their individual impulses

1329
00:56:50,800 --> 00:56:53,480
put them on the wrong side of a moral question

1330
00:56:53,480 --> 00:56:56,120
of communal engagement and compassion.

1331
00:56:56,120 --> 00:56:59,360
It is a dynamic many managed to reframe

1332
00:56:59,360 --> 00:57:02,240
as their willingness to stand in patriotic challenge

1333
00:57:02,240 --> 00:57:05,560
to weak-minded, compliant, vaccinated sheep.

1334
00:57:05,560 --> 00:57:07,200
And this is a type of environment

1335
00:57:07,200 --> 00:57:10,120
in which men born with immense wealth and power,

1336
00:57:10,120 --> 00:57:12,320
the kind who casually mentioned the governors have called

1337
00:57:12,320 --> 00:57:14,960
and offered them sentencing so they have turned down.

1338
00:57:14,960 --> 00:57:17,440
This is something RFK claimed in the interview with her.

1339
00:57:17,440 --> 00:57:18,280
Oh, wow.

1340
00:57:18,280 --> 00:57:20,400
The governor in question says it's not true.

1341
00:57:20,400 --> 00:57:23,840
Can recast themselves as martyred heroes.

1342
00:57:23,840 --> 00:57:28,120
So in 2021, he publishes a book, the real Anthony Fauci,

1343
00:57:28,120 --> 00:57:31,240
Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy

1344
00:57:31,240 --> 00:57:33,440
and Public Health, which in turn has launched him

1345
00:57:33,440 --> 00:57:36,120
into his 2024 presidential run.

1346
00:57:36,120 --> 00:57:39,240
He is now polling in some national polls as high as 20%.

1347
00:57:39,240 --> 00:57:40,280
Is that true?

1348
00:57:40,280 --> 00:57:43,480
Yeah, he seems to have gone down more recently,

1349
00:57:43,480 --> 00:57:47,440
but he is on the ballot in a couple of states

1350
00:57:47,440 --> 00:57:50,000
that are real significant, specifically Michigan,

1351
00:57:50,000 --> 00:57:55,200
which Biden really needs to win and which he's already

1352
00:57:55,200 --> 00:57:58,960
at risk of losing because of how deeply Biden has alienated

1353
00:57:58,960 --> 00:58:01,280
Arab-American and Muslim-American voters who

1354
00:58:01,280 --> 00:58:03,640
are big voting block in Michigan.

1355
00:58:03,640 --> 00:58:06,680
So he's on the ballot and he might actually

1356
00:58:06,680 --> 00:58:11,040
be like a Jill Stein style spoiler.

1357
00:58:11,040 --> 00:58:15,760
It might be worse mentioning his running mate.

1358
00:58:15,760 --> 00:58:16,640
Oh, he has a running mate.

1359
00:58:16,640 --> 00:58:19,200
Who is a Silicon Valley person.

1360
00:58:19,200 --> 00:58:23,240
Well, I'm not shocked because the Tracer description, which

1361
00:58:23,240 --> 00:58:27,960
is as always spot on, describes 95% of Silicon

1362
00:58:27,960 --> 00:58:29,080
Valley billionaires.

1363
00:58:29,080 --> 00:58:32,760
Like I said, they are never more outraged

1364
00:58:32,760 --> 00:58:39,400
than what they take to be their outsized claim on our attention

1365
00:58:39,400 --> 00:58:41,840
and deference is threatened in the least.

1366
00:58:41,840 --> 00:58:44,160
They do not handle this very well.

1367
00:58:44,160 --> 00:58:48,600
And RFK Jr. they have this weird kind of humiliation

1368
00:58:48,600 --> 00:58:49,440
ritual going.

1369
00:58:49,440 --> 00:58:52,000
I feel like where these people are rich as hell

1370
00:58:52,000 --> 00:58:54,000
and don't have to hear from us plebs ever.

1371
00:58:54,000 --> 00:58:55,680
But then they all start Twitter accounts

1372
00:58:55,680 --> 00:58:57,680
and post incredibly stupid shit.

1373
00:58:57,680 --> 00:59:00,920
And then people point out that it's stupid shit.

1374
00:59:00,920 --> 00:59:02,760
And then the cataculture is real.

1375
00:59:02,760 --> 00:59:04,840
It's so fascinating.

1376
00:59:04,840 --> 00:59:08,040
This doubleness of on the one hand,

1377
00:59:08,040 --> 00:59:09,640
no, you do have an outsized platform.

1378
00:59:09,640 --> 00:59:11,080
You could probably use it for anything.

1379
00:59:11,080 --> 00:59:15,840
But any kind of back talk, any kind of clap back

1380
00:59:15,840 --> 00:59:19,240
will send you into a fucking tailspin.

1381
00:59:19,240 --> 00:59:22,720
And I'm not shocked that he found some sympathicos

1382
00:59:22,720 --> 00:59:26,600
among the well-heeled of Paul Altmanlow Park.

1383
00:59:26,600 --> 00:59:27,360
Yeah.

1384
00:59:27,360 --> 00:59:30,880
She is his vice presidential running mate.

1385
00:59:30,880 --> 00:59:35,840
She's also the primary funder of his campaign now.

1386
00:59:35,840 --> 00:59:36,400
Shocker.

1387
00:59:36,400 --> 00:59:38,440
Her name is Nicole Shanahan.

1388
00:59:38,440 --> 00:59:39,720
Do you know this person at all?

1389
00:59:39,720 --> 00:59:40,200
Yeah.

1390
00:59:40,200 --> 00:59:42,320
Yeah, I looked her up when this was announced.

1391
00:59:42,320 --> 00:59:45,560
But I've forgotten everything I learned about her then.

1392
00:59:45,560 --> 00:59:48,680
She, Nicole Shanahan is a tech lawyer.

1393
00:59:48,680 --> 00:59:51,760
She legitimately did grow up very poor.

1394
00:59:51,760 --> 00:59:54,600
Like her mother was an immigrant, single mother,

1395
00:59:54,600 --> 00:59:56,040
immigrant on welfare.

1396
00:59:56,040 --> 00:59:57,760
I was going to say, when Shanahan Kennedy,

1397
00:59:57,760 --> 01:00:01,120
this is the first all Irish ticket.

1398
01:00:01,120 --> 01:00:04,080
Her mother was an immigrant from China.

1399
01:00:04,080 --> 01:00:08,640
And her father was a white American who, I think,

1400
01:00:08,640 --> 01:00:10,280
took off pretty early.

1401
01:00:10,280 --> 01:00:13,400
But she came really from nothing

1402
01:00:13,400 --> 01:00:17,560
and worked her way up to being a lawyer in Silicon Valley.

1403
01:00:17,560 --> 01:00:20,800
And she made quite a bit of money by getting married.

1404
01:00:20,800 --> 01:00:23,560
She married a gentleman named Sergey Brin, who

1405
01:00:23,560 --> 01:00:25,040
is the co-founder of Google.

1406
01:00:25,040 --> 01:00:26,520
Oh, yeah.

1407
01:00:26,520 --> 01:00:30,120
They had a daughter who is, I think, currently like four

1408
01:00:30,120 --> 01:00:34,240
years old and is autistic, which Nicole

1409
01:00:34,240 --> 01:00:37,360
believes may have been caused by environmental factors among

1410
01:00:37,360 --> 01:00:38,560
the vaccines.

1411
01:00:38,560 --> 01:00:44,920
Nicole is a pro natalist, but also a natural childbirth

1412
01:00:44,920 --> 01:00:45,640
insidious.

1413
01:00:45,640 --> 01:00:50,600
So she actually opposes IVF and medication, pain medication

1414
01:00:50,600 --> 01:00:54,240
during childbirth and has a big sort of fund devoted

1415
01:00:54,240 --> 01:00:56,520
to research and lobbying.

1416
01:00:56,520 --> 01:00:57,840
To deny women care.

1417
01:00:57,840 --> 01:00:58,560
Right.

1418
01:00:58,560 --> 01:01:02,600
And she recently got divorced from Sergey Brin,

1419
01:01:02,600 --> 01:01:03,840
according to The Wall Street Journal,

1420
01:01:03,840 --> 01:01:06,760
because she did on him with Elon Musk.

1421
01:01:06,760 --> 01:01:09,880
I mean, the word shit sandwich was thrown around a lot,

1422
01:01:09,880 --> 01:01:12,320
but Jesus fucking Christ.

1423
01:01:12,320 --> 01:01:15,280
So she's got her divorce money.

1424
01:01:15,280 --> 01:01:17,960
She's got her lawyer money, and then she's got divorcing

1425
01:01:17,960 --> 01:01:20,000
one of the richest men in the world's money.

1426
01:01:20,000 --> 01:01:23,200
And she's decided to spend it on RFK.

1427
01:01:23,200 --> 01:01:27,360
So now we've got the specter of Silicon Valley funding

1428
01:01:27,360 --> 01:01:29,440
fueling all this conspiracy theorizing.

1429
01:01:29,440 --> 01:01:33,640
The way their algorithms fuel it into our faces on YouTube

1430
01:01:33,640 --> 01:01:34,880
and Twitter, et cetera.

1431
01:01:34,880 --> 01:01:38,000
Now also, they're funding it onto our ballots.

1432
01:01:38,000 --> 01:01:38,480
Wow.

1433
01:01:38,480 --> 01:01:41,000
I mean, years ago for a piece, I went to the,

1434
01:01:41,000 --> 01:01:43,400
do you know where the Rosewood is in Palo Alto on San

1435
01:01:43,400 --> 01:01:44,320
Hill Road?

1436
01:01:44,320 --> 01:01:45,200
I think I do, yeah.

1437
01:01:45,200 --> 01:01:45,720
Yeah.

1438
01:01:45,720 --> 01:01:47,240
That's famous for its cougar night,

1439
01:01:47,240 --> 01:01:50,960
where sort of like the wives of Silicon Valley grandees

1440
01:01:50,960 --> 01:01:55,400
kind of go on the hunt for people who have affairs with,

1441
01:01:55,400 --> 01:01:56,640
at least the Scuttle.

1442
01:01:56,640 --> 01:02:00,880
But it sucks when that invades your national politics.

1443
01:02:00,880 --> 01:02:03,160
That was a weird fucking scene.

1444
01:02:03,160 --> 01:02:05,320
I went a couple of times for this piece,

1445
01:02:05,320 --> 01:02:07,400
and it was a weird fucking scene.

1446
01:02:07,400 --> 01:02:11,120
And little did I know that it might cost Joe Biden,

1447
01:02:11,120 --> 01:02:12,880
Michigan in 2024.

1448
01:02:12,880 --> 01:02:13,800
Yeah.

1449
01:02:13,800 --> 01:02:18,040
These people really should be insulated

1450
01:02:18,040 --> 01:02:20,920
from the dangers of their own minds, right?

1451
01:02:20,920 --> 01:02:22,280
Living that compound, man.

1452
01:02:22,280 --> 01:02:24,760
But they have so much money that they

1453
01:02:24,760 --> 01:02:26,240
have to make it our problem.

1454
01:02:26,240 --> 01:02:30,280
And I sort of want to end maybe on this note about Kennedy's

1455
01:02:30,280 --> 01:02:31,240
Super Bowl ad.

1456
01:02:31,240 --> 01:02:33,120
It was Shanahan's idea.

1457
01:02:33,120 --> 01:02:34,880
It was her funding.

1458
01:02:34,880 --> 01:02:39,920
But RFK Jr. put out this ad at the 2024 Super Bowl

1459
01:02:39,920 --> 01:02:46,480
that was frame for frame a rerun of a JFK campaign ad.

1460
01:02:46,480 --> 01:02:47,240
The one?

1461
01:02:47,240 --> 01:02:47,960
Yeah.

1462
01:02:47,960 --> 01:02:50,080
Could you know the tune, the jingle, the animation?

1463
01:02:50,080 --> 01:02:53,080
For Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy,

1464
01:02:53,080 --> 01:02:54,680
Kennedy for you, something like that.

1465
01:02:54,680 --> 01:02:55,160
Yeah.

1466
01:02:55,160 --> 01:02:56,520
You have a beautiful voice, Adrian.

1467
01:02:56,520 --> 01:02:57,320
Thank you.

1468
01:02:57,320 --> 01:02:58,280
No, but I fucked it up.

1469
01:02:58,280 --> 01:03:00,680
It's like, yeah, I did put too many Kennedy's.

1470
01:03:00,680 --> 01:03:03,120
But then people just thought, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy.

1471
01:03:03,120 --> 01:03:04,960
It's a very old-timey.

1472
01:03:04,960 --> 01:03:05,520
It's very subtle.

1473
01:03:05,520 --> 01:03:08,040
It's very subtle in what it's doing.

1474
01:03:08,040 --> 01:03:09,680
I heard this 30 years ago, I think.

1475
01:03:09,680 --> 01:03:11,920
Like, and it's still in my brain.

1476
01:03:11,920 --> 01:03:14,040
So fair play.

1477
01:03:14,040 --> 01:03:18,000
Don Draper, whoever came up with this monstrosity in 1960.

1478
01:03:18,000 --> 01:03:22,880
But he's so transparently trading off of the nostalgia

1479
01:03:22,880 --> 01:03:27,680
for this imagined noble past, which the Kennedys were also

1480
01:03:27,680 --> 01:03:28,180
doing.

1481
01:03:28,180 --> 01:03:32,040
They called their own reign literally Camila, right?

1482
01:03:32,040 --> 01:03:32,880
Right.

1483
01:03:32,880 --> 01:03:38,400
Righteous, pure, noble, aristocratic.

1484
01:03:38,400 --> 01:03:41,880
And then what you actually have is this kind

1485
01:03:41,880 --> 01:03:43,080
of blubbering idiot.

1486
01:03:43,080 --> 01:03:45,520
We didn't even get to the fact that he literally has brain worms.

1487
01:03:45,520 --> 01:03:48,800
And he has had worms in his brain at least since 2010,

1488
01:03:48,800 --> 01:03:50,320
according to court depositions.

1489
01:03:50,320 --> 01:03:52,640
How did this come up?

1490
01:03:52,640 --> 01:03:55,440
Well, you see, Your Honor, when I parked my car

1491
01:03:55,440 --> 01:03:58,120
in the on parking lot, can I ask you a question?

1492
01:03:58,120 --> 01:03:58,960
Do you have brain worms?

1493
01:03:58,960 --> 01:03:59,460
Fuck it.

1494
01:03:59,460 --> 01:03:59,960
Good.

1495
01:03:59,960 --> 01:04:02,400
I mean, we're cooked.

1496
01:04:02,400 --> 01:04:03,200
We got to settle.

1497
01:04:03,200 --> 01:04:03,960
Yeah.

1498
01:04:03,960 --> 01:04:06,160
When he was divorcing his second wife,

1499
01:04:06,160 --> 01:04:08,800
he was trying to argue that he didn't have a lot of earning

1500
01:04:08,800 --> 01:04:11,880
power, in part because a worm had eaten part of his brain.

1501
01:04:11,880 --> 01:04:13,600
It's kind of unclear how the worm got there.

1502
01:04:13,600 --> 01:04:15,640
It does seem to actually be a real worm.

1503
01:04:15,640 --> 01:04:16,520
Yeah, this is a thing.

1504
01:04:16,520 --> 01:04:18,760
Like, I mean, there are amoebas and kinds of things

1505
01:04:18,760 --> 01:04:21,040
that you can pick up that do burrow in your brain.

1506
01:04:21,040 --> 01:04:22,160
It's not.

1507
01:04:22,160 --> 01:04:23,560
In some ways, no joking matter.

1508
01:04:23,560 --> 01:04:25,880
And someone goes through a lot of tropical locales

1509
01:04:25,880 --> 01:04:27,600
to do exciting things.

1510
01:04:27,600 --> 01:04:29,880
I could imagine he's got a higher than average chance

1511
01:04:29,880 --> 01:04:31,480
of picking one of these bad boys up.

1512
01:04:31,480 --> 01:04:32,680
Yeah, because he travels a lot.

1513
01:04:32,680 --> 01:04:35,320
They've got doctors speculating in the New York Times,

1514
01:04:35,320 --> 01:04:37,600
like, OK, he may have eaten some contaminated pork.

1515
01:04:37,600 --> 01:04:39,160
That's one way it can happen.

1516
01:04:39,160 --> 01:04:42,360
But he does literally have a worm, a now dead worm.

1517
01:04:42,360 --> 01:04:43,000
It's still there.

1518
01:04:43,000 --> 01:04:44,640
I thought you can get rid of these things.

1519
01:04:44,640 --> 01:04:47,760
No, I mean, what happens is they die in your brain.

1520
01:04:47,760 --> 01:04:52,720
And then the cells form sort of like a calcified little cocoon

1521
01:04:52,720 --> 01:04:53,880
around it.

1522
01:04:53,880 --> 01:04:55,840
And that can cause inflammation.

1523
01:04:55,840 --> 01:04:56,760
Jesus.

1524
01:04:56,760 --> 01:04:59,680
So he's deeply unwell, right?

1525
01:04:59,680 --> 01:05:03,760
There's a guy who has been in flight

1526
01:05:03,760 --> 01:05:09,200
from his traumatic past and from the horror of his world,

1527
01:05:09,200 --> 01:05:14,480
his whole life, and has now become so deeply divorced

1528
01:05:14,480 --> 01:05:18,920
from reality and really hurt by this flight,

1529
01:05:18,920 --> 01:05:23,000
like his attempts to insulate himself from psychic pain

1530
01:05:23,000 --> 01:05:27,160
have clearly just made him really debilitated, right?

1531
01:05:27,160 --> 01:05:29,800
And in a way, he's like Hamlet, but he's stupid Hamlet.

1532
01:05:29,800 --> 01:05:32,400
He's also like the stupidest person alive.

1533
01:05:32,400 --> 01:05:35,400
So that is my spiel on RFK Junior.

1534
01:05:35,400 --> 01:05:37,920
Thank you for coming along on this journey with me, Adrienne.

1535
01:05:37,920 --> 01:05:39,560
I feel like I've really taken you on a ride.

1536
01:05:39,560 --> 01:05:42,840
Yeah, I feel like I ate some bad pork.

1537
01:05:42,840 --> 01:05:46,040
And now I've got a mummified brainworm myself.

1538
01:05:46,040 --> 01:05:48,760
Well, thank you for walking me through this.

1539
01:05:48,760 --> 01:05:52,200
I had not seen the Super Bowl ad because I didn't watch

1540
01:05:52,200 --> 01:05:53,960
the Super Bowl, forgot.

1541
01:05:53,960 --> 01:05:56,240
And it's interesting, right?

1542
01:05:56,240 --> 01:05:59,200
Like the way that like the past isn't dead,

1543
01:05:59,200 --> 01:06:00,080
it's not even past.

1544
01:06:00,080 --> 01:06:02,840
Like this, we're still kind of shadow boxing

1545
01:06:02,840 --> 01:06:05,960
with these demons from over 70 years ago, right?

1546
01:06:05,960 --> 01:06:08,360
Like it's really quite remarkable.

1547
01:06:08,360 --> 01:06:12,720
But on the other hand, I do think it's a weird and idiosyncratic

1548
01:06:12,720 --> 01:06:16,160
story, but like the way that the rich have been

1549
01:06:16,160 --> 01:06:18,840
able to inoculate themselves against, you know,

1550
01:06:18,840 --> 01:06:22,320
pun very much intended against any kind of accountability,

1551
01:06:22,320 --> 01:06:22,640
right?

1552
01:06:22,640 --> 01:06:24,480
Like it's just so remarkable here, right?

1553
01:06:24,480 --> 01:06:27,120
Like, and there's not, it's not an accent that this is a Kennedy

1554
01:06:27,120 --> 01:06:31,720
in the Silicon Valley billionaire sharing top billing

1555
01:06:31,720 --> 01:06:34,760
of our story in some way, even though I guess she entered

1556
01:06:34,760 --> 01:06:36,080
the story pretty late.

1557
01:06:36,080 --> 01:06:38,480
But like it's just this thing where like, you know,

1558
01:06:38,480 --> 01:06:41,840
what would it take for these people to ever face accountability?

1559
01:06:41,840 --> 01:06:44,120
It's like it's not even possible to imagine, right?

1560
01:06:44,120 --> 01:06:47,320
Like what it would take for one of our elites to sort of have

1561
01:06:47,320 --> 01:06:51,280
to explain what they fucking meant or like whether or not

1562
01:06:51,280 --> 01:06:54,000
it was good that they probably got people killed by giving

1563
01:06:54,000 --> 01:06:56,160
garbage health advice or whatever, right?

1564
01:06:56,160 --> 01:06:59,240
Like apparently, you know, not to get on my soapbox here,

1565
01:06:59,240 --> 01:07:02,120
but like as I read in your wonderful article from this

1566
01:07:02,120 --> 01:07:05,440
morning, apparently Supreme Court justices that fly upside

1567
01:07:05,440 --> 01:07:08,600
down American flags outside of their houses are not actually

1568
01:07:08,600 --> 01:07:12,480
responsible for flying upside down American flags outside of

1569
01:07:12,480 --> 01:07:17,040
their houses. Like we've created a zone of impunity around

1570
01:07:17,040 --> 01:07:21,920
certain elites around certain groups and Silicon Valley,

1571
01:07:21,920 --> 01:07:24,680
the Kennedys, and you know, the upper echelons of the

1572
01:07:24,680 --> 01:07:28,120
Republican Party are sort of probably the most noticeable of

1573
01:07:28,120 --> 01:07:30,640
these, where it's just like, it's not even conceivable what

1574
01:07:30,640 --> 01:07:33,080
failure would look like, what accountability would look like,

1575
01:07:33,080 --> 01:07:35,840
what becoming impossible would look like, right?

1576
01:07:35,840 --> 01:07:39,680
I mean, like, you know, the man's probably hobnobbing with

1577
01:07:39,680 --> 01:07:42,480
Larry David as we speak, which sounds lovely, right?

1578
01:07:42,480 --> 01:07:46,880
Like, poor Alan Dershowitz got a year full just because he

1579
01:07:46,880 --> 01:07:48,400
like supported Donald Trump, right?

1580
01:07:48,400 --> 01:07:50,280
It was like a lot of the country did.

1581
01:07:50,280 --> 01:07:52,800
And like, Larry David will still hang out with this dude.

1582
01:07:52,800 --> 01:07:55,600
Like it's just, I don't know, I give up.

1583
01:07:55,600 --> 01:07:57,480
In short, I give up.

1584
01:07:57,480 --> 01:08:01,920
You made the mistake of not being born to Robert F. Kennedy.

1585
01:08:01,920 --> 01:08:03,160
That was your first mistake.

1586
01:08:03,160 --> 01:08:05,280
And now you don't get to hang out with Larry David.

1587
01:08:05,280 --> 01:08:07,440
Yeah, that's my tragedy.

1588
01:08:07,440 --> 01:08:10,760
All right, well, we're all going to have to go grieve.

1589
01:08:10,760 --> 01:08:13,720
Our inability to be consequence-free candidates.

1590
01:08:13,720 --> 01:08:16,640
But I hope you guys will join us next time on your favorite

1591
01:08:16,640 --> 01:08:18,160
podcast, In Bed Was Alright.

1592
01:08:18,160 --> 01:08:20,160
See you then.

1593
01:08:20,160 --> 01:08:22,000
In Bed With A Right, we'd like to thank the Michelle R.

1594
01:08:22,000 --> 01:08:24,840
Clayman Institute for Gender Research for generous support.

1595
01:08:24,840 --> 01:08:27,320
Jennifer Portillo for setting up our studio.

1596
01:08:27,320 --> 01:08:38,320
Our producer is Katie Lau.