The Daily Beast Podcast - RFK Jr.’s Sex Poetry Is Sophomoric Cringe: Author

Episode Date: November 25, 2025

Kurt Andersen joins Joanna Coles to unpack the life and controversies of RFK Jr. From college cocaine escapades to audacious poetry and family scandals, Andersen, the author, radio veteran, and co-founder of Spy magazine, traces how recklessness and legacy collide in shaping the polarizing figure. He shares insights on RFK Jr.’s rise in politics, the chaos behind his public persona, and why his choices continue to reverberate through American culture. Along the way, Joanna reflects on how charisma and controversy intertwine, and they explore what RFK Jr.’s story reveals about ambition, legacy, and the Kennedy mystique. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm going to read you. This is poetry that RFK Jr. has sent to Olivia. Your open mouth awaiting my harvest. Drink from me, love. He continues. I mean to squeeze your cheeks to force open your mouth. This poem, you know, first of all, reckless because he's married and he's running for president and like, dude, really? This is...

But it's so a cringe in a particularly to me. adolescent way. Just the sheer awfulness of the poetry in its adolescent way is the thing that struck me. I'm Joanna Coles. This is the Daily Beast podcast. And we have today a wonderful cultural commentator, co-founder of Spy Magazine, former editor of New York Magazine, novelist and radio veteran Kurt Anderson, to break down. all the things. Marjorie Taylor Green resigning, the Mamdani and Trump meeting, who won? We're going to analyse the love poetry of RFK Jr., who you will remember was Kurt's cocaine dealer at Harvard, and we're going to look at the competing memoirs of RFK Jr's digital mistress, Olivia Nuzzi,

and his wife, Cheryl Hines. The both books are out at the same week, which one is going to sell me? and which one is better written. Kurt makes a decision. So, no time to waste. There is a lot going on and we're going to get into it. I think of you as one of the actually rare people who can pull in everything from pop culture, politics, economics, world peace, wars, and make sense out of it. Where do we begin? Should we begin with Zoran Mamdani and Donald Trump? Sure. Whose chair, I thought, looked oddly low behind the resolute desk. Well, the entire setup, I mean, even before that 30-minute encounter with the press,

and the two of them happened on Friday, which was the most extraordinary political moment that I've witnessed in, well, certainly the last decade, really. Oh, okay. Interesting. That's a lot. But, but, you know, yeah, but the fact that Mamdani asked for the meeting, wow, that's a kind of. power move as it happened. And then there he is. Like the old man sitting there looking up at the guy and him just standing, you know, like the good boy that he is. It was, so yes, the body language power dynamics of that were amazing from the get-go.

And then I was just, you know, my jaw dropped, literally as I watched that show. It is a show. It's an episode. And that's one of the reasons. That's one of the reasons, you know, who knows? We only speculate about why Donald Trump behaved the way he did. But one of them, of course, one of the reasons, of course, is that he is about the show, today's show.

What will be exciting? What will keep people riveted? What will get me more attention? Well, not that it was that specifically tactical, cynical, strategic, I don't think, but it's part of what everything he does, right? So, and but I think it was, I mean, who knows? Again, what is genuine coming out of Donald Trump's mouth and brain. But it seemed like a guy, this vuncular old man, like patting him on the thing and all,

just go ahead and tell him I'm a fascist. Oh, it's easier. I mean, like, yeah. I mean, it was remarkable. And my theory on that, and I think by my close reading of the transcript, confirmed it, which is that Mamdani was just played it perfect. in being respectful, right? Called him the president.

President Trump, the president. He didn't go in there with fists raise or anything. He wanted to, you know, get along, as he should have tried to get along. And so he did that. I also think because Donald Trump, my kind of main theory of the case of the way it did, is because Donald Trump is in his bubble. He sees what he sees, and here's what he hears on Fox News and, you know, associated right-wing media sphere.

But he didn't really know what Mom Dani proposed, right? He didn't know old rent-free, so that it didn't sound so bad, probably did Donald Trump in a certain way. But it doesn't sound radical. None of this stuff is radical. But moreover, specifically, I think, Mom Dany came in there and said, you know, when they were sitting alone, I'm sure, said, Mr. President, you know, I really took off by going and speaking to your voters, working class people of color in the Bronx and Queens,

and said, why did you vote for Donald Trump? Why did you vote for Donald Trump? And that was really the basis of my campaign. I'm sure it was something like that. And I'm sure Donald Trump had no clue that that was the viral video that set Mom Donnie off in the fall of 2024. And I think at that point, like, wow, I love this kid. You know, we're the same.

And just like I share some things. things with Bernie Sanders. We share something. We're outsiders and we ran against our party and all that. I think it was just like it was a new brilliant level of flattery. It wasn't just the flattery that everyone does and that, you know, Macron and Zelensky and Europeans do now. Which is just excruciating and it's fawning. It's fawning. It's not sophisticated.

This is much more sophisticated, much more like a chess game, I think. I think. And, you know, and then there it went. And it was, it was remarkable. But I think, you know, and again, as everybody says, of course, you know, a month from now, he could be saying, no, he's a communist jihadist. I was right the first time. A month, he's going to do that this week. He might.

My guess is it'll wait until he actually becomes mayor on the first of January, but who knows? So I loved all that. And I think, I thought, surprising, we weren't expecting what we got, which is the art of the great producer, right? That you twist, you deliver a twist. And then I thought there was an element of game recognising game. Yes. They both know. And I thought whoever had taught Mamdani, and I don't know if this is his mother, Miranaya, who's, I think, a wonderful filmmaker.

He just stood there holding his hand, which is actually what King Charles does. And the royal family is taught when you're standing there that you hold your fourth finger. And he just stood there. And it was so calm. He wasn't fidgeting. He didn't look nervous. He didn't sound nervous. And you're like, wow, you're 34.

You're new to this. Yes. And he looked in control. Yep. And as you say, Trump looked small. He was looking up, which was bad, sort of weird for Trump to be in that. Because when Elon was standing there, you know, three. or five months ago. He was sort of fidgeting and looking up to the sky and all that kind of stuff.

And Trump looked in control. But here you looked like the younger man was almost picking up the reins and moving to the next, you know, phase of American politics. Well, and the smile, the fond smile on Trump's face, one never sees that. He rarely laughs or actually smiles in a meaningful, you know, apparently authentic way. And he seemed to be doing that. I mean, I don't know, holiday cheer. He got laid that morning. I don't know.

But like... Would he get laid by that? Well, he does have a wife. But she's not there very often. No, but they have some... I'm just speculating about why he was in such a good mood. The meds? I don't know.

But the other thing that occurred to me, this kind of... And I think it could be true. which is he has become beloved by and of, you know, young bearded Muslim guys in the Middle East, right? I mean, you know, and he's been hanging around with them and they're giving him, you know, many hundreds of millions of billions of dollars. And he's thinking like, he may well say, yeah, these guys are okay. And I don't know, they're supposedly bad guys, but I like him. They like me. I just, I mean, it sounds stupid.

And vaguely racist and all those things, well, you know, it's Donald Trump. Right. I think it may be part of it. Like, oh, yeah, this guy, this guy reminds me of some guy I met in Qatar. I don't know. Well, very possibly. And also, I do think there is a sort of generational thing where, and I've noticed this in business, actually, where men are incredibly competitive, but the older man, younger man dynamic is better than Trump sitting there with Macron.

or even, you know, the German Chancellor or Kier Stama from the UK, where they're closer in age that they still feel like they're doing the silverback thing. Totally. Whereas this is a grandfather reaching down to the younger man saying, you know, you don't have to answer that question. Yes. I loved it. Yes, yes, yes.

It was, again, maybe it was only that one momentary pleasure of last Friday. But my gosh, it was just remarkable. And I don't think, you know, we'll see. I don't think was purely a tactical showrunner choice, although it was that as well. Yeah. Well, and it's not mutually exclusive, right? The other thing I thought was interesting was him and Trump kept saying, you know, New York's at a sort of pivotal moment. It could go well.

It could go badly. And you felt actually he was genuinely interested in the city going well because he benefits from that. Yes. Well, and the other thing I'm sure he had no idea about when. when Mom Doni obviously told him like, oh, you know, I want to make more housing to make housing more affordable. And it won't all be social housing. It will be, they'll be private developers involved. And Trump, I don't think, probably say, maybe I can get in on that.

I'm sure that's what he was. I literally thought that's what he's thinking. Oh, building construction projects for me. Yeah, yeah. So I think, but again, I think in his bubble where he just trucks in, you know, New York Post and Fox News headlines of the country. communist, the socialist, the whatever, we're all leaving New York. I think he was suddenly like, as we know, he believes, he agrees with the last guy he talked to repeatedly as a thing. He does, right? Well, he's just talked to this guy. And the guy was nice to him. And he's supposed

to be a bad guy, but he was nice to me. So I like him. And by the way, Donald Trump has instincts, but no beliefs, as we know, no ideology, no. So like, he doesn't care. You know, I mean, that's how he gets along with strong men of every description. It's because he doesn't care. Okay, maybe they kill a guy. Well, whatever. That happens. You know, it's easier for him to get along with bad guys,

as he imagined Mom Donnie was, thanks to the daily front page of the New York Post for so long. So, you know, it's unlike his cult, unlike his true believers, He's a true believer in nothing who has true believer in nothing. That's a great line. Also, I thought Mam Darnie's discipline in coming back to the message of affordability, every single answer he did. And actually, by the end of it, I was convinced that he believes in the affordability thing. He Trump or he, Mom Darnie?

No, Mam Darnie. Right. But it's so hard not to be cynical about politicians. Oh, sure. Sure. But it was just masterful the way he brought. it back. It was absolutely, I've not, I mean, you said it, you thought it was the most important performance you'd seen for 10 years.

It's a masterclass in staying on message. 100%. Which is what he's done, which is what he's done for, again, it's only, he only started running, I don't know, 15 months ago. I mean, but he has done that so consistently, as everybody from James Carville to all these pros say, even if they don't, don't consider themselves Democratic socialists, as I don't think James Carbill does. But like just the sheer staying on message, but not seeming like a regular politician who just boringly stays on message. Right. He's amazing. Oh, he's going to love his hot wife.

And I think Melania will like his hot wife. There you go. They can go off and do things together. Let's go have spa. Let's go have spa. That's very good. Be best in spa. Let's go be best in spa.

All right. So your great friend, RFK Jr., who sold you. Who I met once. Yes. But you met him in a very interesting drug deal. But for new listeners and new viewers, could you give an abbreviated version of your cocaine deal with him when you were both at Harvard to? Because it was hugely popular last time you mentioned it. Well, and if you'd like the fuller version, Atlantic Monthly of September of 2024, I tell the story.

Although you don't have the bit about the straw. That was only for you. That was only for the Daily Beast. And it got so many comments. People were repelled. by the straw anecdote. Good. Anyway.

Anyway, I'd never bought or tried cocaine. Fresh when you're in college, heard a lot about it back then in the early 70s. Found out that Bobby Kennedy was the cocaine dealer of our class. So I don't know, I called a guy who called a guy. And there I was in his room with my roommate, consummating this drug deal for a gram of cocaine for $40. A lot of money in 1973 or whatever it was.

And tried it, looked at his phone book, found Paul the 6th phone number. I love that. Okay, just that people understand, he went out to access his stash. Correct. He and his brother, Joe Kennedy, the third, future congressman, went out to get his stash, yes. When we just like, hey, and he invited us to like smoke as much weed that he had sitting around on his backgammon board as we'd like. And we saw this big address book and looked through it and saw these names of Kennedys and famous people and the then

current Pope. So funny. All the six. And we wrote down thinking we'll make crank calls to the Vatican or something. I don't know what we thought. But anyway, it comes back. We try the Coke. We pay them off. We go away. I had pocketed inadvertently the little piece of plastic dining hall straw with which we snorted the cocaine. And he called me at my dorm room 10 minutes later, angry, appalled, upset that I had taken his straw, man. And I said, what? I didn't say, I'm new to this. What, okay. I'll bring it back. But I did. And, he insisted, and he was angry, and he took it, and he basically slammed the door on me. And, and, but, but he, and he had this whole theory of why the straw was so important to him, not

lucky or anything, but that it had crystals growing in it, was his theory of the case, which was some, some idea that cocaine grows in a crystalline form when it's mixed with mucus on the inside of a straw. I don't know, but that was his, that was, that was, That was the theory of the future chief medical science officer of the United States at the time. Well, and you didn't know at the time that he was also a poet, a fledgling, which we have learned this week, because his digital girlfriend, Olivia Nutsi, a former reporter at The Daily Beast, sadly before my time, because she's a terrific writer, has a memoir coming out about their digital affair. and coincidentally in a publishing bonanza for the women around RFK Junior,

his wife, Cheryl Hines, the actress we know from Curb Your Enthusiasm, also has a memoir coming out. And I thought, and then, of course, the complicating factor is that Olivia Nutsi's produced her book, American Canto, and her ex-fiancee, Ryan Liza, has now taken upon himself to write his version of their relationship. and I'm going to read you from his installments on Substack. And by the way, he, it should be noted, has been a senior respected journalist until... Yeah, he was a political correspondent of the New Yorker.

I worked a little bit of New York Magazine back in the days, yes, indeed. No, he's been around, and so they're both... I mean, these are not just, you know, random people who get into a scandalous set of... Well, and I can't... I can't help wondering, have they set all this up themselves? Is this, because it looks as if Ryan having read her book or at least had access to the episodes, I thought, well, this is not what happened.

I'm going to write my truth, as we refer to it these days. On their journey. Yeah. Right, he's on their journey. But it feels as if perhaps he is really taking issue with her story. They could have concocted the whole thing, and it's a fake row playing out in public for us all to get very interesting. I doubt that very much.

You think it's real? I do think it's real. Okay, so I'm going to read you. This is Ryan has stumbled across some poetry that RFK Jr. has sent to Olivia. I'm going to try and read it with a straight face. It's quite difficult. And I will say, I will probably 20 people sent me this over the weekend saying, have you read? Your open mouth awaiting my harvest.

Drink from me, love. He continues. I mean to squeeze your cheeks to force open your mouth. Sounds really kind of fun, isn't it? I'll hold your nose as you look up to me to encourage you to swallow. I don't know what he's referring to here. Don't spill a drop. I am a river.

You are my canyon. I mean to flow through you. Oh, I mean to subdue and... tame you my love. Yeah. It's, again, in terms of remarkable moments. I mean, what struck me, what struck me, too, is that my only relationship with my, I mean, I saw him, saw him around college and over time in New York and Santa Fe and elsewhere. You know, I've seen him.

I've only encountered him and talked to him on that one time when I were a freshman in college. And the thing is he was, A, that was reckless committing a narcotics felony in 1973, selling cocaine. But he was reckless in general then. And everyone, I knew many of his close friends, and they were appalled by his recklessness, driving, for instance, turning off the headlights at night and driving through tunnels and things like that. And so he was a reckless adolescent then. This poem, you know, first of all, reckless because he's married and he's running for president and like, dude, really? This is.

But it's so a cringe in a particularly to me adolescent way, this 70-year-old man or whatever he was at a time. Writing this thing to this, you know, woman who's almost 40 years younger than he. So the romantic-y-porn, you know, version of love poetry, I don't know. I mean, who am I to judge anybody of anything? However, it's just, oh, my God. Beyond just the embarrassment of the, you know, revelations about one's sex life or non-sex life or virtual sex life or post-modern. adultery, or whatever it is. Just the sheer awfulness

of the poetry in its adolescent way is the thing that struck me. But then, you know, I pretend to be a writer, and I guess Bobby doesn't. He's just a romantic. He's just a byronic figure. He's just a byronic figure with his eyes

that Olivia calls I think blue as gas, or blue as flame, perhaps gas is less romantic. And he always got the girls, you know. This is, you know, to an extreme and, you know, famously now we know, kind of sex addict way, and sleeping with women in every stop along his various barnstorming tours of America as an activist. As an activist. The thing I find strange about it is the violence in it.

You know, holding your nose, squeezing your cheeks, I mean to subdue and tame you. 100%, which again, like, I mean, an adolescent might not dare to do. An adolescent who unlike people 50 years ago has seen a lot of porn might be inspired to have this violent porn-like, you know, fantasy encounter with this woman. But yeah, no, I agree. I mean, short of, and then I will strike you and punch you or something. I mean, it was hideous in exactly that, you know. You know, yes, practically death-dealing descriptions of this. Well, and also to your point about recklessness, he's sending it to a journalist.

Yes. Profiling him. And who is engaged to another journalist. I got a very interesting note from a viewer, Dimitri, thank you, who has created, I didn't fully understand what it was, but it was a sort of AI. informational thing that focuses on what voters respond to. And his point was that in the age of where porn is available to everybody, people were actually impressed and rather envious of Donald Trump's romantic life.

So his affair with Stormy Daniels, they sort of understood and forgave. his cheating on Marla Maples with Melania, they understood and forgave. They totally understood why he had an affair with Marla Maples when he was married to Ivana. And that sense of, oh, actually, this is impressive. And it's actually a qualifying factor, not disqualifying in the way it used to be. Well, I first noted that when I wrote this piece for the New Yorker in 1988 called the Entertainer-in-Chief, pegged to Bill Clinton and his then Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Right. And seeing it as part of a history of this turning of presidential politics into a subset of show business, right? And what I noted is that his approval ratings went up during this thing. Because, oh, yeah, Bubba, Bubba's a dirty guy getting it. Like, we all want to, you know?

I mean, so I really think it made, it humanized him. And again, as I said in that, he's made the, you know, was a great plot twist for the new season of Clinton, you know, right, as he was about to be re-elected, you know. So, so it has, there is a history of this, of presidential, you know, oh, no, we like that. We like that. Now, man, you know. Kurt, hold on one second.

We're just going to take some ads. And I'm back with Kurt Anderson discussing, well, just, just, discusing. well, just discussing the weirdness of this moment and of Donald Trump. It's so interesting. And then we have at the same time unscripted by Cheryl Hines. Mrs. Robert of Kennedy. Mrs. Robert Kennedy, yes, his third wife, whose story begins, of course, in small town, Florida, and unfolds across the glittering stages of Hollywood and right into the heart of the Kennedy family

and a presidential campaign. And then a bit further down, I'm reading from the Amazon description of her book that the publishers have put out, Cheryl navigates the highs and lows of fame, family, and an unexpected foray into politics, complete with twists no one saw coming. Indeed, indeed.

So do we think, are you going to be buying, which book is going to sell better? The wife's book or the digital mistress is. Well, I can't, I mean, if I had to bet, I would say, Olivia Nuzzi's book will sell better. You know, I mean, no one would buy Cheryl Hines's book, were it not for this business

and the fact that Bobby Kennedy is now this, you know, loved and loath's figure and all that. I don't know, and I don't honestly care, but I personally, partly because I'm an acquaintance of Olivia Niziz, and partly because she's, had a, as you said earlier, she is a good writer and an amazing reporter. Now, from what I've seen of this excerpt I read in Vanity Fair of the book, you know, they're all, we all, those of us were writers and there are certain things we are better at than others.

And I'm not sure this kind of revelatory romantic memoir is necessarily her forte, but we'll see. I haven't read it yet. I haven't read bits of it. Well, I read bits of it, and I wasn't expecting to like it, and I did like it, and I thought perhaps I should do a short reading. Please. Can I do that? Please. I mean, what's interesting? Shall I snap my fingers and, I don't know, play the bongos as he did this? Well, we could do a kind of musical interpretation of it.

I mean, there's quite an interesting, I mean, given Robert Kennedy Jr.'s background, it's quite an interesting. paragraph. I would take a bullet for you. The politician said. He always said that. Please don't say that, I said. I always said that. So clearly a conversation they had a lot of. From his mouth, the bullet theoretical launched the bullet possible. I did not like to think about it about the armed men at his speech or the armed man who broke into his home or the armed man he paid to guard him from armed men who sought to harm him while the federal government denied his pleas for protection from the security agency whose modern protocols were carved by the same bullet that cut boughs from his family tree and cut the track of the American experiment.

Yeah. It's interesting. I've just started reading this new piece in the Atlantic about Kennedy. Which is 10,000 words. Right, but 10,000 words long. Otherwise, I would have already read it. Yes, indeed. Drop this morning and we're recording this on Monday morning.

Yes. And it leads with... with Cher, the reporter, being with Robert Kennedy on a military helicopter, as he is told by an assistant about the murder of Charlie Kirk, his friend Charlie Kirk. And, you know, given, again, the Kennedy history of assassination, you know, Cher is struck by this and uses it as an incident in his lead. but he is struck by the absolute equanimity of Bobby Kennedy as he learns this. He goes, oh, my God. But then he, you know, he, and it's interesting.

I mean, you know, he is a human being, and he's had these horrible things happen when he was a child. You know, and now he's running for president. And, you know, you do wonder. I mean, again, I think of him as both as a human being and as, you know, I write fiction as a fictional character, kind of. And like the combination, whatever world he's in as a result of having been the nephew and son of these murdered, you know, political heroes of people. And now he's due, now he in his world turned upside down way becoming a candidate in political life running for office and, you know, making people hate him and love him. And, you know, he, in his way, of course, you know, fulfilled his destiny in this twisted way. And so maybe, you know, in his, again, in his, not to just reduce everything to the brainworm, but it's shorthand,

brainwormy, you know, started taking acid at age 14, which is also reported way, maybe he just thinks of himself as this character who is destined for tragedy or something. or I don't know. Or maybe he's just a sociopath who doesn't really care about his best friend getting killed. I don't know. But it is the thing about him as all, and where, of course, we've alighted and left out the horrible stuff he is doing to American science and American public health. Right. Which is really the point. Which is really the point.

And again, you know, yeah, he was a drug dealer. that's how I met him. And he then endorsed a guy who was campaigning, Donald Trump, on the expeditious, almost extrajudicial execution of any drug dealers. He really campaigned on that. And now he's sort of making good on that in the killing almost 100 people at this point, just rent, you know, supposed drug traffickers in these 20 odd boats. So, but so there.

There's that, oh my God, drugs, they're evil. Yeah, sure they are. I and Bobby Kennedy experienced him as evil. But he was a drug dealer and, you know, under the... Well, and a drug addict for many years, a heroin addict. And a drug addict. But even worse, of course, potentially, is what the damage he is doing to this incredible public health medical research system that the United States is at the center of in the world. And so the misplaced horror about the problem of drugs, in this case, is this kind of tragic irony.

Well, and also that they're also restricting or I think actually stopping the Narcon program, which has been really effective in stopping people dying from opiate overdoses. No, and one would again, as I said in that piece, saying this guy sold me drugs, and now he's endorsing this guy, and it's just one example of the crazy hypocrisy of him in his desire and need and yearning for addiction to, perhaps attention. So somebody should ask him, what do you think of your man campaigning to execute all drug dealers like they do in China right away? Again, in this, these things, like, okay, you have had this experience of the miserable opioid addiction for more than a decade. What do you think about getting rid of this stuff, Mr. Secretary of Health and Human Services? It's, it's, again, the, you know. Well, and the damage he's done with his vaccine conspiracy theories, too. I mean, you know, measles making a resurgence in various places.

All of it, all of it. All of it. It's inconceivable that he should be doing that job, and yet there he is. Yeah, well, and that's a whole other discussion in which I, you know, and it gets back to both in a certain way the Mamdani charisma thing because, of course, Kennedy's have this charisma now, you know, 75-year-old inherited charisma, but there it is. And, you know, Jack Schlossberg. Yeah, let's talk about Jeff. You know, is running for Congress, one of, I don't know, a dozen people running for Congress in this Manhattan district, because he's a Kennedy, because he's a whatever third generation, fourth generation, Kennedy is good looking. And it's a kind of, to me, you know, a rotten charisma in a way.

I mean, nothing, no reflection on Jack Schlossberg when he was attacking his, his, his, his, Bobby Kennedy and all that. It was amusing and good, and I'm glad all the ways that his cousins and relatives found to say he's bad and he shouldn't be elected anything. Well, and his mom did, right? Caroline Kennedy. Indeed, indeed, and his cousins. And that's all fine, but this, like, why are we paying attention to Jack Shostberg? I mean, to the degree, and why? And really, really, you're going to run for the House of Representatives.

and you were just, you know, a struggling actor five minutes ago, and that's your experience, except for being a Kennedy. And so as opposed to, you know, genuine, earned, astonishing charisma of a kind, I'm sure, you know, no, Zora Mandami is not a war hero, but he, like Jack Kennedy in the day, or maybe more aptly, like Bobby Kennedy, you know, had people, it was genuinely politically potent, not just some dynastic inheritance. Like these entitled people have, as Bobby Kennedy had. Frankly, who can forget the video that Caroline Kennedy put out where she talked about RFK Jr. When they were younger, doing smoothies for his snakes of live creatures in the basement.

and her describing him as this dark character, this really dark negative character. And turning other cousins of hers and brothers of his, as she accused him in that video, into addicts. Right, right, absolutely. So her son, Jack Schlossberg, running for Jerry Nadler's old seat, does it help him that his name is Schlossberg, or should he be calling himself Schlossberg, Kennedy or Kennedy Schlossberg?

I mean, because he's got the benefit of being a Kennedy bit, alas, without the name recognition. So on the ballot form, people might not know who he is. They might not. And, you know, I mean, I don't think that's going to be work one way or the other. I mean, the people in this, you know, maybe the densest congressional district in America in the middle of Manhattan, people will know that this is the Kennedy kid. Right. The Kennedy kid. So, I mean, if his name were, I mean, he can't do that.

He can't start calling himself Kennedy Schlossberg, I don't think. But I don't know. He should go back to being whatever, an influencer, I think. And to me, it's the, you know, it's the, you know, when you try to get too many cups of tea out of a tea bag, you're English, you know these things. It's like this is like the eighth cup, you know, in the third generation. So there's almost no flavor left. Well, no flavor and no need to exist as opposed to, you know, young politicians who are earnestly committed to helping people and who, yes, had a famous movie director, somewhat famous movie director as his mother, but is a whole different, you know, is a, is a, is a, is a kind of charisma that is genuinely inspiring as opposed to, oh, yeah, he's sexy, he's glamorous.

As a, you know, and I'm not saying, and I don't want to slag all Kennedy's. I knew John Kennedy, Jr., a little, and spent time with him and, you know, talked to him when he was starting a magazine, gave him whatever advice I had to give. And he was, he was great and unentitled, seeming, of course entitled. He wouldn't have been able to do what he did without being the son of a president. But so, you know, it's not, it's not every Kennedy child and grandchild is a loser at all. Many of them are great in trying to do good things in the world. And of course, Caroline's other child, Tatiana, daughter, wrote a devastating essay in the New Yorker this week, describing the fact that she's very ill and has been given a year to live, which is tragic.

And I think she's also 34. Very talented writer. Fantastic writer. Right. She's a journalist and an environmental journalist. And also sounding off against her uncle because she's gone through extensive chemo, she has to have more vaccinations. And she's now anxious. She can't get the vaccinations because of her uncle.

Right. And, you know, has, you know, immunos issues and all these things that his wreckage at the health and human services and the NIH even were. perhaps, probably, would make her less likely to live. And so, no, that's, it's true and damning and, and, you know, frankly, more, whatever, suitable, appropriate than what, perhaps her brother Jack is doing by saying we need more countercultural people in the Democratic Party or one of the things he said. Anyway, no, she's she is, she is, it's horrible and tragic and she is doing her very best to use

this unfortunate piece of notoriety she's gotten. Kurt, we're taking a quick break for some messages. And I'm back with Kurt Anderson discussing the madness of America. a lot of people are saying, especially with the Epstein files, that Trump now suddenly seems weaker. He's in a lame duck period earlier than perhaps one might have expected. But the election results for the Democrats a couple of weeks ago sort of make him look more vulnerable. Marjorie Taylor Green is leaving. Do we think as people begin to circle Trump, who feels to me a bit like a wounded bull?

I don't know if you've ever been to a bull fight, but there's that awful moment where the bull is suddenly, wounded and he's kind of stumbling around. And there's a feeling, I think, of Trump, which we saw in the Mamdani press conference of a new generation coming through. And the point I'm getting to is the assumption has always been, I think, that J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio are probably the most likely to inherit the MAGA base. And yet actually, unlikely as it seems, RFC Jr., feels like he's obviously going to run. A lot of the MAGA base love what he's doing with his vaccine skepticism, do you think he could ever actually become president? God almighty.

I've not even spent a second contemplating that. I mean, you know, given everything of the last several years, you sort of don't want to say, no, that's impossible. I would, I would, if I were in, you know, in the betting markets, I wouldn't bet on that happening. And I don't, and, and, you know, depending on the degree to which the, the, the, uh, the Republican Party absent Donald Trump at its head will split up, divide, you know, kind of betray its absolute incoherence at this point.

You know, anything's possible in that sense. And that's the thing. You know, I mean, for the last 10 years now, what the Republican Party has done ideologically is adapt to whatever this person with no real beliefs or principles or, or ideology has instincts about, or, you know, once his vanity, you know, stroked for, I mean, it is all about how do we obey and please and not anger Donald Trump and get him on our wrong side and primarius and purge us from the party. So they haven't spent, you know, any real time that the Democrats have been doing for now a year. of saying, okay, what are we about again? Well, let's figure out what we're supposed to be doing.

What kind of part? What are we believed in? I thought we were against Russia, but no. So as soon as Trump, assuming he doesn't run, try to run again, and he's gone, and he is indeed the lame duck that he seems to be incrementally, more and more each day, that awaits, right? Because there is no replacement for Donald Trump. in terms of the singular, sweet generous, like, you know, superhero demigod quality that Donald Trump really is, and one has to admit it.

He's not just a once-a-generation character. He's one of these one or two or three people in a century character of his, of his, you know, extraordinary powers. So that just won't happen. And so, I don't know, once, you know, so, I mean, you know, is it a Marjorie Chatter Green party? Is it a Bobby Kennedy party? Is it a, is it a J.D. Vance party? I, you know, I mean, and again, we are now in a time when it seems as though people with a certain amount of outsiderdom, charisma, pre-marketed fame, Donald Trump, or whomever, you don't get elected just by reading this script. We saw that with Ron DeSantis' miserable failure to become elected president.

JD Vance, I mean, yeah, sure, he reads the script and he'll say anything and do anything to get along. But the sense of authenticity that, for better and mostly worst, Donald Trump has, is just not there. Or, you know, so Bobby Kennedy, maybe, but I just don't see, you know, most. Most of Donald Trump's voters, some of them are these called Maha voters who like, you know, yeah, are skeptical of vaccines and, you know, all mainstream medical wisdom and everything else. But that's not why he got, that's not why, you know, it's a part of the coalition, but it is not the coalition. and, you know, so I find that highly unlikely that Bobby Kennedy. That he makes it. What about Marjorie Taylor Green?

You said that, you know, the Republicans have been beaten into submission by Trump, who'll primary them, who'll turn against them. She says that she spent millions of her own dollars campaigning for him. She'd been elected five years ago. She is resigning so that she leaves two days after her congressmen. congressional pension kicks in. Good job, Marjorie. Even though she's only been there, what, four years?

Yeah. So do we, five years, I think. So do we think that, well, why do we think she's resigning now? Well, you know, she's a politician. So maybe she has a bigger picture in mind of leading this new post-Trump movement. But my inclination, because I have my little Pollyanna heart, believes in sincerity of some people. I believe, I was so, I listened to her whole, all of her, and read all of her things. And, you know, I think she's a true magan, which is to say sincere about her delusions.

Yeah, sure. She is, you know, she is a politician. She got elected. She understands that. She's not, and she, oh, when, you know, back in the beginning of her. career in the house. She understood like, oh, I can, I can work with Kevin McCarthy and I'll sort of join this new establishment as this ultimate Republican political hack Kevin McCarthy embraces me. Great. So she's not, you know, a dope. But, but again, she's new to politics and this sense of, like,

her disillusionment about like, ah, they're just guys in suits. They don't really believe this stuff. I don't know. Struck me as authentic and genuine. So we'll see. I mean, she may just, like, go off and, you know, get more cross-fit and have a life in northern Georgia. Or the reason she was able to give millions of dollars to other Republicans is because she's an incredible fundraiser. Right. And is, you know, she is a true magan. And as, you know, 10 years in, as Donald Trump just does nothing but, you know, dine with billionaires, either, you know, Saudi and Gulf State billionaires or U.S. billionaires,

and, you know, let them eat cake to the rest. And is not America first in any sense of the meaning of that idea. And, you know, she may be the leading edge of like, of, you know, the, you know, the, of, you know, the, people opening their eyes and seeing the reality. And they're not so deeply in the cult, even though she was literally in the cult of Q&O that they can't finally wake up and go, yeah, this guy is not it. We're moving on. He can't run again. You know, I mean, so.

And she has two daughters in their 20s, both of whom are going to see their health premiums rise considerably probably double or possibly triple. So that also brings it home. I don't understand how Republicans like that. Marjorie Taylor Green, thought that they could sign up to the big beautiful bill, kick the premium, the health premiums down the road and not be expected to get kicked out in the next, in the midterms. I just don't understand it. It doesn't matter if they send a $2,000 check.

If your premiums are doubling, that's literally a lived experience of more money every single month that you are spending for the same thing. Right. And this ongoing absolute insecurity of will I have. have it next year. What will happen? What's going to happen? And, you know, and people say this obvious thing, but it's really true is that, well, Congressmen, Congress people never have to worry about health care. They're going to have it as long as they're elected. Right. Which is another reason that makes them more like unaccountably desperate to get reelected at all costs, probably.

But, you know, there are those like the real, just pure cynics like Josh Hawley, who are playing at being the true working man's friend and breaking with the Republican Party. here and there on union representation and things. And I hate that we're raising health care, but I voted for it. Yeah, but I'm going to try to get, you know, so he is the, he is the trying to have it both ways. Right, as he walks past January the 6th, which is raised. All of that. But trying to be the man of the working else.

But it's interesting when, again, not to bring everything back to Mamdani and Trump, but when Trump has said now, during that meeting with Mom Dani, Donnie and since like, you know, Bernie Sanders and I actually have a lot of things in common, and a lot of his voters were for me. And that's all true, right? And people forget, and I've never forgotten, his final big two-minute ad in his first campaign in 2016, which was could have literally been a Bernie Sanders campaign commercial. Right.

You know, it was about Wall Street and how they're ruining your town and they're taking your jobs away and they're destroying the small businesses and on and on and. and, you know, on and on. And so, you know, of course, he didn't govern that way and never has, and he's governed as a traditional Republican rich guy. We don't want taxes. We don't want regulation guy. But he has, that's part of how he got elected.

That's part of how he convinced this, you know, white working class, part of his key, part of his coalition, to vote for him in 2016. Like, oh, he'll mix it up. He's not a regular Republican. He's finally one of these, one of these national Washington. and politicians cares about us and really sees us and speaks to us. Well, you know, and there are all kinds of ways that people then begin justifying, loving him, continuing.

But I don't know. And the cult will be the call, and it will have, it may be down to 23% at some point, but he will have that. But the other half, let's say, of the 49.5% of people who voted for him last year, you know, are, you know, and Marjorie Taylor Green, who was, as she herself said, I worked hard for him. I believed in him. I'm, and like, and now I'm disillusioned. I don't know.

I don't think she's a, you know, unique figure in the, in his electorate. Right. Well, and she's in the grocery stores looking at prices. Yes, and as you say, I think the children's thing and the children having to pay, you know, whatever, they're having to pay twice what they're paying for health care is a real thing. And, you know, yes, she is enough of a real person of the people and not just pretending or not once was. She's still there, you know, for all of her skill and success as a political figure in the party. So we'll see.

You'll have to come back and we'll do a deeper dive on Marjorie Taylor Green and what she's up to. And whether or not she, you know, joins Erica Kirk and the Republican Party falls into the grip of two blonde women. Yes. Or, speaking of blonde women, Robert Kennedy Jr., the Bobby Marjorie ticket. Bobby Marjorie ticket. Oh, my goodness. And of course, that would be very appealing, I think, to be in some. No, and to the degree. In the horseshoe theory, where there is this, you know, as Steve Bannon has been, like, oh, no, we're about the working people. We're about giving them. Yes, making sure they have health care, like all of the farm. our right parties of Europe do, right?

You know, I mean, the horseshoe, that would be an example of the ultimate realization of the so-called horseshoe theory of politics where the left and right joined together at a certain point. Oh, my goodness. Marjorie Taylor Green, the Bobby and the Marjorie ticket. That has given me something to think about. It's like a spy headline. Well, there you go. Yes, yes.

It seems unbelievable an RFK Junior MTG ticket And yet the minute Kurt said it, I could sort of see it. Oh my goodness. Well, leave us a comment on what you think. Is that even plausible? Is it even feasible? And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast. Join the Daily Beast community on the podcast.

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