Sixteenth Minute (of Fame) - ken bone, pt. 1

Episode Date: October 1, 2024

In 2016, one man in a red sweater became the nation's sweetheart... until he didn't. Ken Bone became a celebrity overnight after a star turn at the height of an October 2016 political nightmare. Just two days after the infamous Access Hollywood tape made many think Trump's first run for president was a lost cause, after a year of "her emails" and what felt like an infinity war of an election cycle, the world took comfort in a normal midwestern man who worked at a power plant and loved anime.  What made Ken so appealing, and -- apologies for taking us back to such a cursed period -- what shitstorm was he caught in the middle of? In part one, Jamie examines the media environment that made Ken a star, and the milkshake duck cycle and a Reddit scandal that made him one of the seminal internet main characters to this day.  Next week... we talk to Ken. Donate to Ken's nonprofit of choice, the St. Patrick Center of St. Louis here: https://www.stpatrickcenter.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. What would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth? Unfortunately for Mark Lombardo, this was the choice he faced. He said, you are a number, a New York state number, and we own you. Listen to shock incarceration on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. It's Black Business Month, and Black Tech Green Money is tapping in. I'm Will Lucas spotlighting black founders, investors, and innovators, building the future,

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I wonder why I decided to talk about them this week. With the COVID, excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with in Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the cats, they're eating, they're eating the pets of the people that live there. You talk about extreme. And not a candidate willing to put an arms embargo on Israel in sight. Whether you watch these debates or not, if you live in the U.S., and for a lot of people, if you live outside the U.S., these debates end up affecting you whether you engage with them

or not. For voters, televised debates can range from an annoyance to either affirming a decided vote to swinging a less certain one. And in American presidential debates, they adhere to the two-party system that is definitely working and helping us. Debates have been around forever, literally for all of recorded history, because there is no time in recorded history where people have agreed on things. They can be one with facts, but the more necessary component is charisma. Things you can accomplish with raw charisma are limitless. And let's see how far into the debate episode I can go without saying Riz. When I say Riz, you can shoot me. Here in the U.S., presidential debates have not been around for as long as you probably think. The kinds of debates that hold the

internet in a vice grip like they have in the last few weeks, and apparently won't again in this election cycle, have only been around for as long as television has. And I want to be clear. So let me be clear. I'm only talking about presidential debates here, not on other issues. The first example comes in 1956, during the race between Dwight Eisenhower and Adley-Stevenson. A race that Eisenhower eventually won, which we know, because unless you're a dork, you probably don't know who Adlai-Stevenson is.

sorry to dorks. During this cycle, the first televised presidential debate is aired. During the primaries, Stevenson is up against opponent Estes Keefeffer in May of 1956, duking it out for the Democratic nomination. A Miami ABC affiliate broadcast the debate, and it's pretty boring, honestly. A presidential campaign must not degenerate into a mere personal conflict. Our candidates saw, are only as important as the ideas they represent. Oh, brother, this guy stinks! It's like these losers don't know they're supposed to run ads on this. This doesn't sell aggressively gendered soap in the future,

but choosing this moment to start broadcasting and putting more emphasis on debates is done very intentionally. By 1956, Americans were adapting to and building their life around TV at a very fast rate. TV had been in development since the late 1920s, but as far as the home TV set goes, it's all about the 50s.

According to the Digital Public Library of America, only a few thousand Americans had TVs before 1947. Five years later, this number had reached 12 million, and by 1955, the year before this very boring broadcast, half of American households were rocking a TV. Now that the majority of Americans had a video component to engaging with a debate, people wanted to hear more than just a candidate's voice on the radio. Chillingly similar to what's happening with podcasts. Please don't make me pivot to video. I'm so close to a

nervous breakdown as it is. The Republican candidate, Vice President Richard M. Nixon, and the Democratic candidate, Senator John F. candidate. But indeed, there was the first televised presidential debate between the two parties, as we know it today, on September 26, 1960. between eventual election winner John F. Kennedy and then vice president to Eisenhower, Richard Nixon. Every president is a fucking moron, but this is a significant debate that there is a lot of lore surrounding.

It does define how debates look moving forward. At the time, it pulled as many as 70 million viewers and was an opportunity for Americans to see how young Senator Kennedy and Vice President Nixon composed themselves when speaking to the nation. I think we can do better. I don't want the talent of any American to go to waste.

I know that there are those who say that we want to turn everything over to the government. I don't at all. I want the individuals to meet their responsibility. And I want the states to meet their responsibility. But I think there is also a national responsibility. There is no question but that we cannot discuss our internal affairs in the United States without recognizing that they have. a tremendous bearing on our international position.

As the story goes, people who listened to the debate on the radio thought that Nixon won, and people who watched on TV, thought Kennedy won. And this is for a bunch of reasons, very likely oversimplified because of the sample size of people surveyed. But hey, Kennedy won the election. What was clear was that the debate itself was a conceptual success and set this new precedent moving forward. Because on TV, Kennedy does genuinely look more confident, and Nixon, then and now, looks kind of sweaty. Not that sweaty people shouldn't be president, but Nixon's not a good example of someone who should, and weirdly, it is why all debate venues are generally freezing cold today. Aesthetic. That's what it's all

about. And if TV was going to be the new norm for debates, successful candidates would have to learn to sell themselves using it. So moving forward, candidates who thrived in the press, regardless of their actual politics, tended to win the elections. Think Reagan, think Clinton, think Obama, think Trump for one term, hopefully. That's not to say every elected president was a natural on screen. Looking at you, George Bush, senior. Well, I'm caught up in Super Bowl mania here, and I'm happy to be here.

No charisma whatsoever, kind of incredible, but unmemable precedents become increasingly rare as the years go on, mainly because the technology evolved to make it possible to memeify them. And especially as social media took off, that became necessary for a candidate to be remembered and successful. Ironically, George Bush Sr.'s warmongering son is a great example of this. I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully. I always say that George W. Bush is the reverse Hitler because he started as a warmonger and then became a horrible painter later on. Anyways, as technology continued to evolve, the presidential debate attempted to evolve alongside it.

And while there were plenty of debates of consequence between the 1960 showdown between Kennedy and Nixon and debates today, things really lock into the format we recognize sometime in the 80s. take this very Reagan quip against Walter Mondale in 1984 that further proved that Riz oh no you have to shoot me no I said Riz I think I'm too old to say Riz that proved that Riz is more important

than anything in politics this moment was not to tackle a common criticism of Reagan at the time his age sound familiar but he dealt with it so well in the debate that he surged ahead to win and continued to ignore the AIDS crisis for more than another year. Here's the clip. Mr. Truitt and I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience.

Then in 1988, a nonprofit called the Commission on Presidential Debates was founded. The CPD sponsored every presidential debate from 9.5. 1988 until 2020, featuring 90-minute-long debates with no commercials, and most of them were held on school campuses. And the 80s was a great time to bring in some steadiness and structure to debates, because with this decade came the age of the 24-hour news cycle. As cable TV became increasingly popular, Ted Turner founded CNN in 1980, forever changing the way that we consume political news. It was around-the-clock thing now, and so if there were were no stories, stories would be found.

And if you were running a campaign, it gave you far more opportunities to make an impression. In general, debates don't just reflect the time they take place in. They also reflect the media environment they make their way into. Reagan was a trained and lightly successful movie actor, and you can tell. Trump is a seasoned reality and tabloid star who's known for his shamelessness, and you can tell. If they win, I should get all the credit. And if they lose, I should not be blamed at all. So presidential debates became more showy as the years went on and the media cycle escalated.

The 2008 race between Obama and McCain was the first to meaningfully include social media and a candidate who knew how to use it. Obama was the first president to use social media consistently throughout a presidency. Is there any way we could fly Obama to some golf course halfway around the world and just leave him there? Well, R.W is Surfer Girl. I think that's a great idea. And because social media meant that everyday people were locked into the 24-hour news cycle just as much as the traditional media, the political theatrics increased. And by 2016, we have Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump.

Maybe you remember this time, and also, sorry, this was the era of but her emails, of Mexicans are rapists, of Grab Them by the Pussy. It's a rhetoric we're used to hearing more of now after nearly a decade of Donald Trump running as a mask-off fascist doing things like attempting to overthrow the government and trying to wipe immigration and social safety nets off the country's radar for good. And in response to this, the Democratic Party has gone further right,

with current candidate Kamala Harris' campaign recently bragging that former Reagan Republicans were thrilled with her platform, which is not the flex. They seem to think that is. But in 2016, the mask-offness of this rhetoric still felt pretty new in the U.S. Yes, Trump's proposed policies

were an escalation of the rights already bad agenda, but he just said hateful things versus couching violence in cushy political language. And this was something that American debates weren't really built for, as became clear during the Republican primaries. This is a tough business to run for president. You're a tough guy, Jeb. And we need to have a leader that is pretty principled.

You're never going to be president of the United States by insulting your way to the presidency. Let's see, I'm at 42 and you're at three. So so far I'm doing better. Doesn't matter. So far I'm doing better. Yes, indeed. This was the Jeb Bush, please clap era. Please clap.

It's so funny. It still hits. And eventually, during Trump and Clinton's first debate on September 26th, 2016 at Hofstra University, which is to this day the highest viewed debate in American history, with over 84 million viewers, tensions between the candidates were at an all-time high. I have a feeling that by the end of this evening, I'm going to be blamed for everything that's ever happened. Why not? Why not?

Yeah, why not? I will release my tax returns when she releases her 33,000. emails that have been deleted. As soon as she releases them, I will release. I will release. Yes, the Her Emails era. And you remember, these debates got a ton of internet traffic from every kind of voter you can imagine. It was the first election of my lifetime where people gathered to watch debates in bars like they were football games, because it was fucked up and it was scary, and it was also good TV. And of course, the two main characters were pitted against each other in the media, as you might expect.

The reality TV mega-millionaire pandering to the rights' worst tendencies, and the seasoned politician with a spotty record and a hell-bent mission to become the first woman to hold the American presidency. Sometimes the moderators would be memed and commented on during these debates, but there was never a question of who the two protagonists of this fucked up consequential TV show were until October 9th, 2016 at Washington University in St. Louis, the second debate between Clinton and Trump, and one that featured the town hall format. This format had been in play with the Presidential Commission back since 1992, which featured

an in-the-round setting where local people classified as quote-unquote undecided voters by the commission and online question submitters could ask the candidates about the issues most important to them. The online questions and general moderation was done by Anderson Cooper and ABC's Martha Raddits, and the questions were very of the time.

Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, it is not affordable. What will you do to bring the costs down and make coverage better? There are 3.3 million Muslims in the United States, and I'm one of them. You've mentioned working with Muslim nations, but with Islamophobia on the rise,

how will you help people like me deal with the consequences of being labeled as a threat to the country after the election is over? Perhaps the most important aspect of this election is a Supreme Court justice. What would you prioritize as the most important aspect

of selecting a Supreme Court justice? I viscerally remember watching this debate because it was a shit show. The layout of the space meant that both candidates were standing up for most of the time in this weird performance to, like, connect with normal people. But it did give Trump the opportunity to famously leer behind Hillary Clinton in a bunch of camera shots, just like standing uncomfortably close to her in what is an attempt to intimidate her. And I am in no way a fan of Hillary Clinton's, but it was spooky and weird and uncomfortable.

and the whole debate just felt very unproductive. And I spent my time watching it between talking to my friends at this bar and looking at my phone as people screenshotted weird moments as the candidates, in classic candidate fashion, picked at each other and did not answer a single question. But throughout all of this, there was this guy in the audience the whole time. The whole time!

Just sitting there, one of the undecided voters, sitting right in the front, and you kind of could not take your eyes off of him. Like, literally, you couldn't. This was a very blue space where most voters were wearing muted colors, but the guy I'm talking about was very attentive and wearing a bright red sweater. And every once in a while, they keep cutting away to audience shots,

and again, you're looking at this guy. But the guy never talks. Until the very end, weirdly, the very end, just under eight minutes before the 90-minute broadcast is over. And all of a sudden, this guy you've been staring at during this depressing, weird end-day's show for over an hour is standing up and he says this. What steps will your energy policy take to meet our energy needs while at the same time reminding environmentally friendly and minimizing job loss for fossil power plant workers? An innocuous question, a valid question, even, from the man in the red sweater. He's balding, he's wearing glasses, he's on the heavier side, and the sweater.

I can't emphasize this red-eyes-odd sweater enough. And most importantly, the Chiron below him, which reads, Ken Bone, undecided voter, your 16th minute starts now. Time to make me a start Let's take it too far Then give me one more more Sixth minute of fame Sixteen minute of fame

Sixteen minute of fame Sixteen minute of fame One more minute of fame I'm not so bad when you take me a moment and see how much and what it says about it and the internet says about us and the internet. And in honor of the very chill presidential debate cycle that's taken place in 2024. By the way, the first to be separate from the Commission on Presidential Debates

since 1988, today we are going to look at the most famous non-candidate debate participant of all time. One, Penneth Bone. So today, we're going to look at the extremely chaotic political landscape that Ken was launched into, and in part two next week, we will talk to the man himself. As I was digging into the original reaction to Ken, one tweet stood out to me from a user at the shrillist that really succinctly states the tenant rule of the main character experience that we break every single time. It's this. Y'all, don't mess up this Ken Bone thing by interviewing him or finding out anything about him. Thanks. Well, sorry. Ken isn't the only person. who's ever spoken or was invoked at a debate that made a stir, but he is, from what I could

find, the only person who directly asked a question as an undecided voter in this town hall format who's remembered today. And I kind of have an issue with the term undecided voter, but Ken and I get into that in our interview, because yes, folks, we got Kenny. We all know, right? Genius is evenly distributed. Opportunity is not. It's Black Business Month and Black Tech Green Money is tapping in. I'm Will Lucas spotlighting Black founders, investors, and innovators, building the future,

one idea at a time. Let's talk legacy, tech, and generational wealth. I don't think any person of any gender, race, ethnicity should alter who they are, especially on an intellectual level or a talent level to make someone else feel comfortable just because they are the majority in this situation. and they need employment. So for me, I'm always going to be honest in saying that we need to be unapologetically ourselves.

If that makes me a vocal CEO and people consider that rocking the boat, so be it. To hear this and more on the power of black innovation and ownership, listen to Black Tech Green Money from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Smokey the Barred. Then you know why Smokey tells you when he sees you passing through. Remember, please be careful. It's the least that you can do.

It's what you desire. Don't play with matches. Don't play with fire. After 80 years of learning his wildfire prevention tips, Smokey Bear lives within us all. Learn more at smoky bear.com. And remember, Only you can prevent wildfires.

Brought to you by the USDA Forest Service, your state forester, and the ad council. Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebeney, the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free. I'm Ebeney and every Tuesday I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that would challenge your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you. On Pretty Private, we'll explore the untold experiences of women of color who faced it all. Childhood trauma, addiction, abuse, incarceration, grief, mental health struggles, and more, and found the

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Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect Podcast Network. Tune in on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Sometimes it's hard to remember, but... Going through something like that is a traumatic experience, but it's also not the end of their life. That was my dad, reminding me and so many others who need to hear it,

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Your entire identity has been fabricated. Your beloved brother goes missing without a trace. You discover the depths of your mother's illness, the way it has echoed and reverberated throughout your life, impacting your very legacy. Hi, I'm Danny Shapiro. And these are just a few of the profound and powerful stories I'll be mining on our 12th season of Family Secrets.

With over 37 million downloads, we continue to be moved and inspired by our guests and their courageously told stories. I can't wait to share 10 powerful new episodes with you, stories of tangled up identities, concealed truths, and the way in which family secrets almost always need to be told. I hope you'll join me and my extraordinary guests for this new season of Family Secrets. Listen to Family Secrets Season 12 on the IHeart Radio, app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to 16th minute. I threw a birthday party for my cat flea over the weekend, a fact that just may send

J.D. Vance into cardiac arrest. And this week, we are talking about the tumultuous political environment that brought us one Ken Bone. There might not be many Ken Bones because there haven't actually been many presidential debates broadcast in this format. The first was in 1992, a town hall

debate between three candidates, because remember, there can be more than two, between Bush senior, Bill Clinton, and Ross Perot, with the same undecided voters asked the questions format. And like Kennedy before him, Bill Clinton thrived on

TV, and it was thought at the time to help him pull ahead and defeat Bush. The format made a comeback in 1996 between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole, but then we don't see it again until 2016 and haven't since. Why is it such a Clinton-specific format? I don't know. Conspiracy theories, enjoy yourselves. And now that the Commission on Presidential Debates is out of commission,

I doubt we'll see it anytime soon. But why can bone? I have my theories, and so does Ken himself. We'll talk about it in a bit. After re-watching the full debate, I do think it comes down to a little bit of plant and payoff. Like, we've been staring at this guy, wearing a bright shirt for an hour and a half

of some of the most depressing debating I've ever seen, and then he talks and seems sweet and has a funny name and is smiling and doesn't seem nervous. He's just like Chekhov's Ken Bone. Another reason is you kind of had to be there. So we have to go there because understanding this particular moment in the 2016 election cycle is pretty crucial. So come with me, sorry again, to October 2016. So this was the second of three debates between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

and what I don't need to tell you was a jarring and deeply contentious race. My memory is that this election cycle took forever, and that's not just psychic damage. Talk of Trump planning a run began in March 2015, around the same time as Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, John Kasich, Ben Carson, please clap. Please clap. I think that was the candidate's name. The Republican ticket was chaotic this cycle. 2012 candidate and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney decided not to rerun, and there was no real presumed ideal candidate that emerged in his stead. Sidebar, also, I'm from Massachusetts, and I was going through some childhood journals recently from when I was like 10, and I wrote a whole journal entry about how I thought Mitt Romney was going to be bad for the children of Massachusetts.

On the Democrat side, Hillary Clinton announced her candidacy in April 2015, soon followed by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who many preferred. But this race was far less contentious. By February of 2016, only Clinton and Sanders remained, and the two ran a tighter race than many expected. Sanders actually didn't drop out before the Democratic primary, and Trump famously announced his candidacy in June of 2015, after the second. descending an escalator with Melania, saying,

Wow. Whoa. That is some group of people. Thousands. This is not true. According to campaign reporter Alana Wise, dozens. And Trump is running then and now with a slogan,

Make America Great Again, a phrase that isn't just implicitly racist, misogynist, and xenophobic, but also means that I finally gave up and just threw my red Bubba Gump hat away. So by the time the Ken Bone debate aired in October 2016, we'd been getting regular updates on this election cycle on social media every day for close to a year and a half. Both the Republican and Democratic primaries were closely monitored as the primaries rolled out,

and Republican candidates started dropping from the race like flies. Trump succeeded in appealing to voters who felt failed by the Republican Party by loudly saying the most unhinged thing he could think of, And Hillary Clinton ran a very middle-of-the-road centrist Democrat campaign, dodging criticisms of her past policy and putting emphasis on the historic nature of her candidacy. Which was true. Clinton's status as the first woman to be a presumed nominee stood in stark contrast to Trump's history of allegedly raping, assaulting, and harassing women, an issue that came up consistently during his campaign,

in addition to his history as a racist landlord, failed businessman, and Islamophobic and in general, you name it, in terms of being overtly hateful. Another thing we heard a lot about was Hillary's emails, which I'll be honest, I needed a refresher on because they were largely invoked throughout the election without context. The emails issue boiled down to an issue of national security. Related to when Clinton was Secretary of State for Barack Obama and routed all of her emails, both personal and those of international importance to the same private server for what she said was convenience. This became a massive story in 2015.

This resulted in an order to have these emails reviewed and half-professional emails sent over to the State Department. And a huge scandal for Clinton, one that would continue to escalate after the October 9th debate. She presented it in the media as a mistake, and Republicans generally positioned it as proof that she would be a deceptive and corrupt president. So when Bernie Sanders says this in an October 2015 primary debate against Clinton, The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails. Thank you. Me too.

That's what he's talking about. And a year later, when Trump is saying... We have a question here from Ken Carpawicks. He has a question about health care, Kent. I'd like to know, Anderson, why aren't you bringing up the emails? I'd like to know. Why aren't you getting the bottom? No, it hasn't.

It hasn't. And it hasn't been finished at all. That's what he is talking about. Throughout the election season, Clinton had to answer for scourges on her political record, including her previous endorsement of the Iraq War, a resistance to single-payer health care, ties to Wall Street, and a general lack of liberal accomplishment

during her time as Secretary of State. Her record was not winning leftists over at all. And then there was just genuine massages. Outside of the email scandal, probably her most notorious public appearance was the whole basket of deplorables thing, a turn of phrase she used at a campaign event in September 2016. You know, to just be grossly journalistic, you could put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables.

So Trump wins the Republican nomination with VP Mike Pence in July 2016, and Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic nomination a few days later with Tim Cain. And while Clinton was fending off the email scandal, a number of things were dogging Trump. To name a few, there was an ongoing lawsuit about the fraudulent Trump University. There were a series of extreme or overtly false tweets, including continued Obama birtherism conspiracies and a retweet of a Mussolini quote. And as was a major media focus, Trump's treatment. of women. This had been a conversation for years. Trump's ex-wife Ivana had previously accused

him of marital rape, and throughout the campaign, women who had previously associated with him or competed in his beauty pageants came forward with allegations of inappropriate touching, comments, or coercion. But late in the election cycle, one damning tape had a lot of people, including me, thinking that there was no way Trump could. could bounce back from, the Access Hollywood tape. If you don't remember the clip of Donald Trump and then host of Access Hollywood, Billy Bush, from 2005.

I gotta use some tic-tacks just in case I start kissing her. You know, I'm automatically attracted to beautiful. I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. I just kidding. I don't need to wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.

Whatever you want. Grabbing by the . I can do anything. I don't really have any desire to play more of this. This is the most famous section, but it's worth mentioning that the actual Access Hollywood tape is much longer than this and includes a protracted session where Trump is telling Billy Bush about shamelessly harassing Billy Bush's co-host Nancy O'Dell

and then goes on to talk about her body disparagingly. The woman he's referring to in the clip I just played is someone the two are about to interview, a soap opera actor named Ariana Zucker. This tape was leaked to the Washington Post two days before the town hall debate and was absolutely top of mind for both voters and media. Trump defended the behavior during the debate, infamously saying, This was locker room talk. I'm not proud of it. I apologize to my family. I apologize to the American people. Certainly I'm not proud of it, but this is locker room talk.

The day after this leaks, Hillary Clinton condemns Trump's statements. And Trump defended himself using the phrase, locker room banter. But just remember, while these days Trump's base will slurp up any horrifying shit he can think of, at the time, something this transparently horrible, this close to an election day, a lot of people thought he was done, including some of his own supporters. Dozens of present and former Republican lawmakers made public statements on the Access Hollywood tape as further proof that Trump was unfit to serve as president or as their candidate, while others who had endorsed him condemned the comments and still supported the man.

Particularly, his lukewarm soup-eating VP pick Mike Pence. As a husband and father, I was offended by the words and actions described by Donald Trump in the 11-year-old video released yesterday. I do not condone his remarks and cannot defend him. And it obviously feels naive now, but I can't overstate. how bad this was perceived to be for his campaign. At the time, CNN called it the worst weekend for any presidential candidate ever. I wasn't aware of this phrase, but in American politics,

a reveal of a damning further indictment of Trump's character could be classified as an October surprise, or a late-in-the-game reveal that could be a deciding factor to swing undecided voters like Ken Bone away from a certain candidate. And while the Access Hollywood tape is the most remembered of Trump's October surprises, this was actually the third damning thing that it hit his campaign that week. On October 1st, the New York Times reported that Trump likely avoided paying his taxes for almost 20 years and hours before the Access Hollywood tape dropped,

Trump said that the Central Park 5 should never have been exonerated. It looked so bad for him. And liberal media seemed to agree. They oscillated between disgust with the tape itself and started taking this preemptive victory lap, a general feeling that surely this would be the thing that would get Donald Trump out of the race. If not the refusal to release the tax statement,

if not the mask-off xenophobia, if not the pending fraud litigation. Surely this. The day after the tape was released, Trump tweeted, Certainly has been an interesting 24 hours. And that Saturday night, Alec Baldwin, and I can't, we just can't, Alec Baldwin parodied the moment on SNL two nights before the debate. Mr. Trump, this leaked audio showed you saying, you know, I can't quite say it on live television.

But basically, you said you wanted to... Grab them by the puss. For what it's worth, this was not a great weekend for Clinton's campaign either. On the seventh, Wikileaks began to publish emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign manager John Podesta that addressed one of her massive vulnerabilities. The fact that the candidate courting the left had been giving paid speeches to Wall Street groups and refused to release the transcripts. But a paid speech on Wall Street was nothing next to the Access Hollywood tape.

And it didn't register as WikiLeaks probably would have liked for it, too. And this left Trump on the major. defensive. How is he going to survive this debate when half of his party was very ready to walk away from him? The afternoon of October 9th, he retaliated, organizing a press conference just hours before the debate with three women who had previously accused Bill Clinton of assault and rape, Juanita Broderick, Paula Jones, and Kathleen Willie, and a fourth person named Kathy Shelter, whose attacker had been legally represented by Hillary Clinton in Arkansas back in 1975. I had completely forgotten about this until Trump brought it up at the debate itself,

saying that the women were attending the debate as his guests. If you look at Bill Clinton, far worse, minor words, and his was action. His was what he's done to women. There's never been anybody in the history of politics in this nation that's been so abusive to women. So you can say any way you want to say it, but Bill Clinton was abusive to women. Hillary Clinton attacked those same women and attack them viciously, four of them here tonight. This is just so nasty to me because Bill Clinton's history of abusing women and predatory actions should be talked about, just as much as Donald Trump's history of abusing women should.

But Trump choosing this moment to highlight this abuse is incredibly. transparent. He's backed into a corner and pointing at his former friends the Clintons and saying, I know you are, but what am I to discredit his opponent? Here's Juanita Broderick in a press conference Trump held four hours earlier. Hi, I'm Winnie to Broderick, and I'm here to support Donald Trump. I tweeted recently, and Mr. Trump retweeted it, that actions speak louder than words. Mr. Trump may have said so bad words, but Bill Clinton raped me and Hillary Clinton threatened me. I don't think there's any comparison. The stories of these survivors deserve a platform. Bill Clinton is a piece of shit, but it's a valid discussion that couldn't be coming from a

worse source. I believe Bill Clinton's survivors, and I also think Trump was really obviously using them as political pawns to make the words he said in 2005 sound less significant than Bill Clinton's alleged actions. He says this much in the debate, and that might mean something if there weren't ample alleged and proven actions of Trump's own. He's bullshitting. Here's how he's talking at that press conference. These four very courageous women have asked to be here, and it was our honor to help them. and the Access Hollywood tape didn't doom Trump's campaign, as we now know. The lesson here never underestimate how much people of every political persuasion hate women.

So it's this environment that is surrounding this group of undecided, or as I think is a more appropriate term, uncommitted voters, who had questions about issues they felt that neither candidate had sufficiently addressed. As Ken tells me in our interview, the whole idea of undecided even being a question after the Access Hollywood tapes had the participants kind of on their heels and feeling foolish the day of. They'd been selected weeks earlier far before the tape came out. But it's this moment that a random man in a red eyes-odd sweater somehow manages to steal the show. Ken was and is a normal guy.

He worked at a power plant in the area. He had a wife and a teenage son. He'd been raised conservative and was slowly unlearning a lot of it. He liked sports. He liked anime. He liked video games. He was just some guy. And he asked a question about energy policy

because it would directly affect his life. Ken told me all about what this does. was like. It was very long. They took your phone so you couldn't have access to the outside world while on property. And because of that, they gave the town hall members these little disposable cameras to remember the event by. Some of the pictures that went viral of Ken featured him with his disposable camera, taking a picture of the technical equipment that furthered this vision of him as a geek. So Ken doesn't even turn his phone off until well after the debate has ended. By the time he left Washington University, he still didn't know he was becoming famous

as the live reactions to the debate were unrolling everywhere, on TV, and definitely on social media. The general feeling was that Clinton had prevailed as the winner of the debate, but not by as much as Democrats hoped. She was still extremely vulnerable on issues like immigration and health care. As for Trump, he'd made a debate-divate. defining statement of dismissing assault as... Lock a room, talk. And other language implying autocracy over democracy, including threatening to put Hillary Clinton in jail if elected,

appealing to the lock her up contingency. So people really glommed on to him. Here are some tweets. Kenneth Bone is here to remind you its sweater weather. Thank you, Kenneth Bone, for breaking the tension with being named Kenneth Bone. How will you protect my job as a card in guess who? Hashtag Debates. Ken Bone, an undecided voter, but not an undecided dresser.

U.S. history books, 2150. And in that moment, the Republic was saved by a man named Ken Bone. At the time, this was still unusual for debates. But even in the midst of this chaos, by the time Ken Bone arrived home in nearby Belleville, Illinois, He was a star. Here's Jake Tapper the day after. All day long, my staff and I, we've been pondering this important question. What makes Ken Bone so awesome?

And Fox and Friends, the day after that. The votes are in, and this undecided voter has won over all of our hearts. If I showed you every news broadcast that made reference to remember that guy and the red sweater from last night with the funny name, well, we loved him. We would be here for hours. People loved him. And Ken was pretty receptive to the attention. We all know, right? Genius is evenly distributed. Opportunity is not. It's Black Business Month and Black Tech Green Money is tapping in. I'm Will Lucas spotlighting Black founders, investors, and innovators, building the future one idea at a time. Let's talk legacy,

tech, and generational wealth. I don't think any person of any gender, race, ethnicity should alter who they are, especially on an intellectual level or a talent level, to make someone else feel comfortable just because they are the majority in this situation and they need employment. So for me, I'm always going to be honest in saying that we need to be unapologetically ourselves. If that makes me a vocal CEO and people consider that rocking the boat, so be it. To hear this and more on the power of black innovation and ownership,

listen to Black Tech Green Money from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When your car is making a strange noise, no matter what it is, you can't just pretend it's not happening. That's an interesting sound. It's like your mental health. If you're struggling and feeling overwhelmed,

it's important to do something about it. It can be as simple as talking to someone or just taking a deep, calming breath to ground yourself. Because once you start to address the problem, you can go so much further. The Huntsman Mental Health Institute and the Ad Council have resources available for you at loveyourmindtay.org. Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebeney, the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free. I'm Ebeney, and every Tuesday I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that would challenge your perceptions and give you, new insight on the people around you. On Pretty Private, we'll explore the untold experiences of women of color who faced it all. Childhood trauma, addiction, abuse, incarceration, grief,

mental health struggles, and more, and found the shrimp to make it to the other side. My dad was shot and killed in his house. Yes, he was a drug dealer. Yes, he was a confidential informant, but he wasn't shot on a street corner. He wasn't shot in the middle of a drug deal. He was shot in his house, unarmed. Pretty Private isn't just a podcast. It's your personal guide for turning storylines into lifelines. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect Podcast Network. Tune in on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

My name is Ed. Everyone say hello, Ed. Hello, Ed. I'm from a very rural background myself. My dad is a farmer, and my mom is a cousin. What do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? I know it sounds like the start of a bad joke, but that really was my reality nine years ago. I just normally do straight stand-up, but this is a bit different.

On stage stood a comedian with a story that no one expected to hear. The 22nd of July 2015, a 23-year-old man had killed his family. And then he came to my house. So what do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? A new podcast called Wisecrack, where stand-up comedy and murder takes center stage. Available now. Listen to Wisecrack on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Your entire identity has been fabricated. Your beloved brother goes missing without a trace. You discover the depths of your mother's illness, the way it has echoed and reverberated throughout your life, impacting your very legacy. Hi, I'm Danny Shapiro. And these are just a few of the profound and powerful stories I'll be mining on our 12th season of Family Secrets.

With over 37 million downloads, we continue to be moved and inspired by our guests and their courageous told stories. I can't wait to share 10 powerful new episodes with you, stories of tangled up identities, concealed truths, and the way in which family secrets almost always need to be told. I hope you'll join me and my extraordinary guests for this new season of Family Secrets. Listen to Family Secrets Season 12 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to 16th Minute. When the 2016 election results came in,

I'd just been broken up with by a malevolent prop comedian who fears me to this day. And this week, we're revisiting the saga of Ken Bone, just in time for another contentious, consequential election cycle where voting anything but down-ballot makes me feel sick. As Ken starts to make public appearances, just showing us, up on TV in the order he received requests in, we see him speak to people across the political

spectrum, because at least initially, he was embraced by everyone. And in a move that reminds me of hawk to a girl more recently, both liberal and conservative media establishments made attempts to claim Ken, as it were. But Ken would not be claimed. So having now thoroughly revisited, this cursed 48 hours of American history. It's a little easier to understand why Ken Bone became such a big deal. Does it still seem a little random? Sure. But Ken Bone was the only fun part of watching the debate, a living meme in the middle of an eventful and largely depressing couple of news days. People just fucking went nuts for this guy. I mean, I mean, full disclosure, on October 11th, 2016, I published a fake diary written by Ken Bone in Paste magazine.

And so if you're Ken Bone, you're presented with an immediate choice of whether you want to engage with this or not. And he decides he's going to. The next few days are filled with Ken interviews, and his general vibe seems to be just as sweet as the man we saw on screen at the debate. His social media following exploded. His Twitter follower count went from literally 7 to over 200,000 in the space of a few days. Everyone was talking Ken. Here he is with Anderson Cooper. It's been very strange, and I'm very sorry to all the Ken Bone 2016 people, but I am only 34 years old.

You'll have to wait for Kenbone 2020. And if you want to dress as me for Halloween, you better be quick. This sweater is sold out on Amazon, and he's must have to be. With Jimmy Kimmel. I'm very grateful to you for spending time with us tonight. Do you have any idea of how adorable you are, first, I want to say? That's a definitive yes. Yes, okay, good.

And on Comedy Central Late Show at midnight. Trigger warning for a Chris Hardwick jump scare. Thanks, Chris. It was a real thrill to see Ken Bone facts trending on Twitter on Monday night. I loved every one of them, but I can't pick my face. because I'm undecided. So we're going to read a few of the best ones. Sure, it's basically the same three things over and over,

but it's not like the other news churn of the debate left anything remotely fun to talk about. In the week after Trump's obfuscation about the Access Hollywood tape, a number of women decided to come forward with their own allegations about how Trump had treated them to give further credence that the 2005 tape was no joke.

And while the Stormy Daniels' allegations, allegation wouldn't become public then, many women's stories did. I could find 14 accounts of women coming forward with allegations of harassment and assault from the past that were reported in the week after the October 9th debate. It was nuts. But at first, Ken Bone was something everyone could agree on. He was profiled just about everywhere that first week. The New Yorker, the New York Times, Vox, the Washington Post, you name it, they wrote

about him in those first few days. And most of the pieces have a similar tilt, that Ken Bone was a breath of fresh air, the working class every man personified. He was good on camera, he didn't seem to be hawking anything, and bonus, he was using many of his appearances

to raise money for a local shelter for the unhoused, the St. Patrick Center in St. Louis. But we know this story, right? Something was going to give. The sudden increased, public scrutiny led to a phenomenon we've talked about on this show before, the inevitable milkshake duck moment. Fox's Asia Romano described the pattern in 2021 as a mild-mannered commoner unexpectedly gains attention and briefly captures the heart of the nation, or at a minimum, the

board attention of Twitter and the nation's meme makers, only for a horrifying revelation about them to surface before 15 minutes of internet fame have even elapsed. And less than a week later, Ken's milkshake duck moment came. He was asked to host a Reddit AMA, Ask Me Anything, to adoring commenters, introducing himself from his actual Reddit account, username Stan Gibson 18. He writes, Hello, Reddit. I'm just a normal guy who spends his free time with his hot wife and cat in St. Louis.

I didn't see any of this coming. It's been a crazy week. The replies matched the fawning nature of how Ken was talked about in those early days. A kid commented that he wrote an essay about him called Ken Bone, our deliverance from evil. And there were questions about his opinions on certain political policies and how he met his hot wife. But some people clicked on the username Stan Gibson 18

and found some pretty sketchy Reddit user behavior. I'm not going to rehash it all here. Ken Bone has addressed it publicly numerous times and in our interview. But the comments people pulled to disseminate on social media ranged from as innocuous as Ken commenting on not-safe-for-work pictures, who cares, to genuinely offensive comments about Jennifer Lawrence's leaked nudes and the murder of Trayvon Martin. This last one is worth honing in on in particular. Ken wrote, It doesn't have to be a one or the other view here. From what I read about the case, the shooting of Trayvon Martin was justified. But from what I've learned of Zimmerman, through statements, interviews, and behavior,

he's a big old shitbird. Bad guy legally kills kid in self-defense. Sucks for everybody, including us, due to the media fuckery. This is the statement that is brought up the most, and there are many interpretations of this comment that made it sound like Ken Bone was completely okay with Zimmerman murdering Trayvon Martin in cold blood, which doesn't seem to be the statement here, but the fact remains that it is deeply insensitive and beside the point.

And once these comments were discovered, Ken acknowledged and apologized for them in short order, apologizing to Jennifer Lawrence directly and saying this about the Trayvon Martin comments on October 14th. There's some that I'm not super proud of, and a part of my message is being positive and holding our leaders to a higher level of discourse. So I need to hold myself accountable for that, too. I like to feel like I've grown and evolved as a person in the time since then. If I could personally apologize to any of the people who are offended by what they read, then I absolutely would do that.

And maybe I'll get that chance to this platform. But if you're, if you were offended by that and you listen, I take responsibility for that. And so less than a week after Ken had become a public figure, he was persona non grata. And at the time, this started some conversation around what? what this kind of internet fame really meant. And if it was productive to dig up whatever one could on someone who was a normal person just days before, what are we really getting out of headlines like the New York Posts?

Ken Bone is actually kind of an awful guy. The New York Times, we may be leaving the Ken Bone Zone. GQ's Jay Willis meditated on it in a piece at the time called The Internet Came for Ken Bone, and it will drag you too. Now, you may be thinking, wait, I haven't copped to insurance fraud or publicly expressed my appreciation for pregnancy porn, but the internet is an involuntary time capsule that preserves all forms of imprudence. If you were wearing Ken Bone's grass-stained new balances, it would just be some other offensive element of your past displayed as proof of your

fallibility. So this was written eight years ago, when the rhythms of random online fame were beginning to be policed and reported on by online users, as much as, if not more so, than traditional media outlets. Like, if Ken Bone came to prominence 20 years earlier, no one would know his feelings on police brutality or pregnancy porn. That's a development in how fame works now. And Ken certainly lost a lot of fans as a result. Nearly a decade on, the milkshake duck phenomenon does feel like an inevitability, unless you've lived a completely moral, upright life online, which almost no one has. This isn't to excuse Ken's comments at all.

He doesn't excuse them himself. But I think what defines the main character is how they manage to navigate these moments. Do they grow defensive and double down? Do they say nothing? Do they apologize? Do they really apologize? All of these are functionally PR questions. And when someone becomes famous overnight, questions that they're supposed to be able to

answer right away. So a few days after becoming notorious, Ken Bone had to do something if he wanted to maintain his persona in any way. And he does. He apologizes for the comments and leaves them up on his Reddit page so as not to be seen as scrubbing his problematic online history. And he keeps going. We're going to talk about all of this in our interview as well. So at the time, if you were a Ken fan, all you could do is make your own judgment and see if he took the constructive of criticism to heart and move past the unproductive element of dogpiling, because there are elements to this process that are extremely unproductive. The fact that Ken Bone's family was threatened, that his home was swatted, and he was made to feel generally unsafe. But even as

all this is going on, Ken never hired a manager or a publicist or anything like that. All the appearances he made during this intense month leading up to the election were done around his work schedule and facilitated by Ken. And during this peak moment, even through the controversy, there was no shortage of interest of giving this guy attention. He tweeted out an ad for Uber, which almost got him in trouble with the FTC. Whoops. And of course, Aizod, the maker of the original red sweater, got in touch and put Ken in an ad on October 21st called Ken Bones' 15th minute. That's all but like worshipful and includes Ken's wife Heather. I'm about as pumped up as I can get, and it's just fun letting it carry me.

You just never give up hope. Hey, how's everybody doing? I see other people enjoy him as much as I do is real fun. It's really important that we don't give up on the political process. I really do expect at the end of the election that it winds down. And when it's over, it's over. And I'm happy to have played my role. Woof, someone tell past Ken what happened?

And even after the election, Penn continued to make appearances, one of which he used to reveal that he eventually did become a decided voter and went for Hillary. But the intensity of this first week was never matched again. His rise was steep and connected to a specific moment, and the fall was pretty steep too. And then the media cycle kept moving, and in October 2016, that was no joke. Back at the election ranch, Hillary Clinton's real October surprise, the thing that was thought to be the final wrecking ball to her campaign,

didn't come until the end of October, when FBI director James Comey announced that her email server had put classified insensitive information at risk and that there would be an investigation. That investigation was concluded two days before the election and stated that no charges would be filed and weren't necessary, but the damage was already done. Clinton had been leading in national polls by as much as seven points before this announcement

and plummeted after the investigation was announced. So as the U.S. began to navigate what the fuck a Trump presidency was going to mean after he was declared the winner, and Bone had to come to grips with what his viral fans, was going to look like moving forward, and what he wanted to do with it. Like most main characters I've talked to who had a life prior to their moment, Ken Bone had no desire to quit his day job or move to Hollywood, but he did want to engage with his fame to the extent that he could manage it alongside his normal life.

While he remained firmly in this debate moment for most people, here are some of the appearances he made in the years that followed. In 2017, an appearance on Bill, I want to convince you that you should have voted for Hillary instead of Godzilla. Well, I didn't, I'll tell you that much, I didn't vote for Godzilla. I didn't vote for Jill Stein either. Not Godzilla and not Jill Stein, but I'm not saying anything. Are you going to reveal who you did vote for?

No, I'm waiting for my book deal to come through. Is that true? No, not at all. I promised before the election that I wouldn't say who I voted for, because like it or not, we're obsessed with celebrities in this country, and even like an F-list celebrity like me, people put stock in my opinion, and it's not fair to the democratic process if I tell them what to believe. Now, like, you're an informer.

That is your job to inform people, educate them, entertain them. I'm a random dude that works at the power plant. People don't need to be informed by me. Someone cooked here. Ken also made an appearance at CPAC in 2017, serving as a representative for a polling company called Victory Insights and an app called Donor Decks, which was a software that aimed to get normal people involved in politics. And just running into these consultants or these committees can cost you as much as a family

makes in a year, $50,000, $80,000. Well, donor decks can get you in touch with potential donors for a couple hundred dollars a month. It kind of sounds like a scam. He was a paid spokesman, and it's not around anymore. These appearances were both 2017, so you can see, even though he ultimately. ultimately votes Democrat, there is still a conservative tilt to what Ken is interacting with publicly. But even as he's doing so, it's clear that he's deeply unsatisfied with how

Trump's presidency is going. So for a while, he still appears to be the independent voter he became famous for being. In general, his appearances and his opinions don't really seem to follow one political line or another. But that changed over time. As the years pass, Ken continued to occasionally engage with the press while maintaining his normal life. And in doing so, he did a lot of the things we now associate with niche celebrity, a cameo account where you could order a custom video message for your friend from Ken Bone, a short-lived podcast called The Ken Bone Show, and he also did paid talks around the country. But over the years, you can sort of track a shift in his politics just by scrolling up. There's a lot of stuff he was posting in the back half of the 2010s that

I don't agree with at all, particularly around gun control. But the closer you get to the present, the more left Ken seems to go. He maintains his internet presence and would occasionally speak out on political issues that meant something to him. The way COVID was catastrophically handled in the U.S. had a demonstrative effect on Ken. He donated some of his cameo proceeds to COVID relief and was extremely critical of anti-vax freaks who refused to social distance. He said he voted third party in 2020 and was unsatisfied with the two main candidates. And in the last two years, he's advocated for better public education on indigenous American history. He's been extremely critical of Israel. And he's called people encouraging student

protests for Gaza to be shut down bootlickers. And he's advocated for health care for all. Ken's kind of based now, you guys. And in part two, releasing next Tuesday, we'll hear about this saga from the man himself, part two with Kenneth Bone. See you then, and before that, a moment of fun, one more cursed George W. Bushpole. Bye. We got an issue in America. Too many good docs are getting out of business.

Too many OBGYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country. 16th Minute is a production of Cool Zone Media and I Hard Radio. It is written, hosted, and produced by me, Jamie Laughness. Our executive producers are Sophie Lichterman and Robert Evans. The Amazing Ian Johnson is our supervising producer and our editor. Our theme song is by Sad 13. Voice acting is from Grant Crater. And pet shoutouts to our dog producer Anderson, my cats fleeing Casper, and my pet rock bird who will outlive us all. Bye. would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison or the most

brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth? Unfortunately for Mark Lombardo, this was the choice he faced. He said, you are a number, a New York State number, and we own you. Listen to shock incarceration on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's Black Business Month, and Black Tech Green Money is tapping in. I'm Will Lucas spotlighting Black founders, investors, and innovators, building the future, one idea at a time. Let's talk legacy, tech, and generational wealth. I had the skill and I had the talent.

I didn't have the opportunity. Yeah. We all know, right? Genius is evenly distributed. Opportunity is not. To hear this and more on the power of Black Innovation and Ownership, listen to Black Tech Green Money from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the Eyeheart Radio app. podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

Don't let biased algorithms or degree screens or exclusive professional networks or stereotypes. Don't let anything keep you from discovering the half of the workforce who are stars. Workers skilled through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time to tear the paper ceiling and see the stars beyond it. Find out how you can make stars part of your talent strategy at tear the paper. Spreeling.org. Brought to you by opportunity at work in the ad council. Tune in to All the Smoke Podcast, where Matt and Stacks sit down with former first lady, Michelle Obama.

Folks find it hard to hate up close. And when you get to know people, you're sitting in their kitchen tables, and they're talking like we're talking. You know, you hear our story, how we grew up, how Barack grew up, and you get a chance for people to unpack and get beyond race. All the Smoke featuring Michelle Obama. To hear this podcast and more, open your free iHeart radio app search all the smoke and listen now the u.s open is here and on my podcast good game with sarah spain i'm breaking down the players the predictions the pressure and of course the honey deuses the signature cocktail of the u.s open the u.s open has gotten to be a very wonderfully experiential sporting event to hear this and more listen to good game with sarahs spain and i heart women's sports production in partnership with deep blue sports and entertainment on the i heart

radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts Brought to you by Novartis, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports Network. This is an IHeart podcast.