Unpacking the Myth of John F. Kennedy Jr.

You don't want to be an influencer?

Hello.

Hi, everyone, from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.

This is on with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher.

Today, we're going to talk about John F.

Kennedy Jr., his life, his legacy, and what our culture's ongoing fascination with him says about America.

John, nobody who knew him called him John John, was world famous from the moment his conception was announced.

For years, he was considered the world's most eligible bachelor, and his entire adult life was spent at the intersection of media, celebrity, and politics.

He founded George, a glossy magazine that covered politics with a style usually reserved for Hollywood.

He seemed to foresee that power and entertainment were bound to collide in unexpected ways long before the rest of the political press caught on.

He's also the subject of a new documentary series from CNN called American Prince, JFK Jr., that airs for three consecutive weekends.

The first episode just premiered last Saturday, and my guests are Gary Ginsberg and Carol Radzewill, two close friends of John's, who feature prominently in the documentary.

Gary met John at Brown University, and he was a senior editor and legal counsel at George.

Ginsburg went on to become an assistant counsel to President Clinton and a senior executive at News Corp and Time Warner.

He understands the inner workings of media and politics as well as anyone, and I've known him for a very long time.

He also was a consulting producer on American Prince and the author of First Friends, The Powerful, Unsung, and Unelected People Who Shaped Our Presidents.

Carol is a former journalist.

Her work at ABC News won a Peabody and multiple Emmys.

She's also a former cast member of The Real Housewives of New York and her late husband, Anthony Radziwill, was JFK Jr.'s cousin and best friend.

Radzewill is the author of three books, including the best-selling memoir, What Remains, and she recently launched a newsletter on Substack.

Our expert question comes from Sasha Eisenberg, a former intern and editor at George Magazine.

He's a journalist and author of The Engagement, America's Quarter Century Struggle Over Same Sex Marriage, Stick Around.

Support for this show comes from ServiceNow, who are enabling people to do more fulfilling work, the work they actually want to do.

You know what people don't want to do?

Boring busy work.

But now, with AI agents built into the ServiceNow platform, you could automate millions of repetitive tasks in every corner of your business: IT, HR, customer service, and more.

And that means your people can focus on the work that they want to do.

That's putting AI agents to work for people.

It's your turn.

Get started at servicenow.com/slash AI-agents.

Thumbtack presents.

Uncertainty strikes.

I was surrounded.

The aisle and the options were closing in.

There were paint rollers, satin and matte finish, angle brushes, and natural bristles.

There were too many choices.

What if I never got my living room painted?

What if I couldn't figure out what type of paint to use?

What if

I just used thumbtack?

I can hire a top-rated pro in the Bay Area that knows everything about interior paint, easily compare prices, and read reviews.

Thumbtack knows homes.

Download the app today.

Support for this show comes from Robinhood.

Wouldn't it be great to manage your portfolio on one platform?

With Robinhood, not only can you trade individual stocks and ETFs, you can also seamlessly buy and sell crypto at low costs.

Trade all in one place.

Get started now on Robinhood.

Trading crypto involves significant risk.

Crypto trading is offered through an account with Robinhood Crypto LLC.

Robinhood Crypto is licensed to engage in virtual currency business activity by the New York State Department of Financial Services.

Crypto held through Robinhood Crypto is not FDIC insured or CIVIC protected.

Investing involves risk, including loss of principal.

Securities trading is offered through an account with Robinhood Financial LLC, member SIPIC, a registered broker dealer.

Gary and Carol, thanks for coming on on.

Thanks for having us.

And so for younger listeners who weren't around to witness it, explain the mythology around JFK Jr.

and why he captured the American imagination.

Gary, you go first.

Well, I think for a younger generation that really only knew John, if they knew him at all, as the kid who saluted his dad's coffin and was perhaps the world's sexiest man alive, I think it was important to tell a much more nuanced, full story about John, because he was more than just that.

He actually was somebody, first of all, he was a great, great guy.

He was a good friend.

But he had a vision about politics that I think is really important for today.

He thought of himself as kind of a post-partisan.

He didn't believe in partisan politics.

Even though he was a lifelong Democrat, his family embodied the Democratic Party.

He really thought that effective policymaking would be done through post-partisanship.

And he wanted a magazine that brought far more people into the process than traditionally read political magazines.

You know, at the time, political magazines were black and white.

Almost all men.

either came from the right or the left.

And he said, I want to disrupt that.

I want to make it far more accessible so that women read it.

He started George magazine, which obviously, I guess that's kind of assumed by this, but he started a magazine that appealed to women, appealed to the entirety of the country.

Usually political magazines were only read by people on the coast.

He wanted to make politics accessible so that there was greater kind of, I guess, a coming together of people around critical policymaking.

And that's what we desperately need today.

And I thought it would be very relevant.

I went the opposite direction, Carol.

So in today's fragmented culture, it's impossible to capture the collective attention.

The way he did, and in various ways.

Does anyone come closest, Ivanka Trump?

No.

Alex Soros has money and political power, but not the look, I guess.

I mean, and he's married someone who's well-known.

Is there anyone who comes close in that regard?

Like a couple like.

We call him America's prince in this in this thing.

I mean, I don't think anyone has come close.

Certainly not Don Jr.

No.

No.

I think they're trying.

I feel like the Trump family is trying to create some dynamic.

They would love it.

I think they are.

But they just, like, no one is considered like, what is royalty in America now?

It's really,

it kind of died with him.

It did.

Even within his own family, even within the Kennedy family, no one assumed the mantle of like American prince.

Not R.F.K.

Jr.

Definitely not RFK Jr.

Double Lap.

Double Lap.

Definitely not.

So there isn't someone of that regard in politics now.

I don't think there is.

And I think the world or the country desperately needs someone like that.

Really?

A dynasty.

Well, not a dynasty, just somebody who represents hope, idealism, can

galvanize and bring cohesion to politics.

Politics is so separated now.

It is so chaotic.

I mean, I think we need that figure, that kind of transcendental

ugly politics

which John did.

Yeah.

So let's talk, we're going to talk first about the magazine, and then I want to talk about politics, as one wonders what would happen today if had he lived.

Like, he certainly would have been a political player, presumably.

I think so.

Yeah.

So we'll get to that in a sec.

But let's talk about George magazine.

The idea for George was to create, which is the center of this, although it is a lot of handsome pictures of JFK.

I think

was there one you missed?

I don't know.

A lot of shit.

In the magazine, there was a chance to do it.

No, no, no.

I'm just saying the whole documentary is one giant, beautiful picture of the two of them.

And there's a lot of them.

It's a rating-driven business.

I understand, but there wasn't a chess picture you missed.

The idea for George was to create a glossy magazine, as you said, to draw in readers who didn't normally care about politics.

Now, this was in the 90s when magazines drove popular culture, which you point out in the way social media does today.

But it still was a tough sell, and they ended up partnering with David Pecker, who was then CEO of Hachette.

Not the greatest figure in the world, like not the top-level drop-door figure that John was, for example.

Pecker would then go on to buy the National Inquirer, where he would quote catch and kill unflattering sources for Donald Trump.

Talk about the funding and why that was difficult at the time.

And what was it like working with Pecker and why was it so hard to fund the concept?

Well, because political magazines back then, actually any magazine, and John learned this when he went to magazine school, like a year and a half before he started the magazine, is in the first day, the first line that the teacher told all these wannabe publishers and editors is, look, seven out of eight magazines that start fail within the first year.

Chances are, guys, even if you get funding, which is really hard, you're going to fail.

So John knew it's an, you know, it was a tough business back then, very competitive, very costly, and you had to get readership, you had to get advertising, wasn't easy.

Look, they went to Hachette because Hachette was the one that wanted it.

John, as I say in the documentary, got pitches from everybody.

He was able to get

almost any door he wanted because they all wanted to take the pitch from him.

But funding a political magazine that completely broke the mold of what a political magazine was at the time was not an easy sell.

And for John, who had never you know, edited a magazine and Michael Berman, who never published a magazine, it was two neophytes coming coming and trying to get a lot of money to start a magazine because they weren't cheap.

I mean, you know, the business.

Right.

That was the reason they would have these meetings, but not give them the money.

So Hichette was the only one at the end of the day who ponied up the money.

And as I say in the documentary, you know, it wasn't Condi Nast.

Right, no.

And so they knew what they were getting.

And Pecker was smart in that he knew he could use John to sell ads, not just for George, but for his entire stable of magazines.

And he used John to that effect.

And we probably didn't get the money that we should have gotten to produce top quality content.

He just kind of took a lot of that money.

Moved it.

Stuck it over and stuck it over somewhere else.

Exactly.

So George Magazine was JFK's creation, but Carol, you point out in the documentary that it was as much Carolyn Bassett Kennedy's baby as it was John's.

She didn't come from a blue-blooded family.

And like you, she worked at Calder, a discount department store as a teen.

But before marrying John, she worked as a publicist at Calvin Klein.

She certainly upped herself rather significantly.

It was an elegant young woman.

What was it like for her to navigate this world?

And talk about her impact on the magazine, especially its aesthetics.

I mean, Carolyn came from building a big brand in PR, so she was very aware of that world.

She had an incredible aesthetic and style.

When I say style, I don't mean like she wore a nice outfit.

She just lived with style.

She had a style in everything that she did.

And John didn't really have that style.

Like, that was all Carolyn.

So the look of the magazine, all the covers, even the fashion brands that would advertise.

I mean, these are all her relationships.

And I find that

because there's really nothing written about her and she died so young and they were married only three years, that most of the focus on her is like, she's a fashion icon.

She looks good in clothes.

But she was really so much more than that.

So I think in the documentary, I wanted to make that point that this was, you know, she was a real partner to him.

She never was a lady, the lunch.

In fact, at some point, she didn't know what what it was going to be like to be Mrs.

Kennedy.

And she had bought all these suits and she thought, oh, there's going to be fundraisers and lunches.

And then she's like,

Fuck that.

She's not interested in that.

So she gave me all these suits at the time I was working at ABC News.

So it was appropriate for me.

But no, she was a real partner in every way in John's life.

Talk about the magazine cover that probably

you have to have a cover to be influential.

And obviously the first one of Cindy Crawford is George Washington and a midrift is iconic.

And she talked about it in the documentary.

Well, I mean, to have someone like that that had never been done before in a political magazine, to have a beautiful model dressed up as George Washington.

I think the idea was to have all these celebrities dress as

George Washington, but it ended soon.

I think if you think about it,

I don't think Cindy was controversial, except that it had never been done before.

But then Drew Barrymore as Marilyn Monroe, I think, as that cover was a little bit more controversial.

But, you know, that's what you had to do.

And it was a great cover.

And, you know, and John was.

That was the happy birthday, Mr.

President cover.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But like John wasn't above,

you know, I think partly he'd been used so much by his his own.

Which you note in the, in the, he's the use.

And Bissette was pushing up against that.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

So like he was probably taking ownership, you know, of some of these narratives and these stories about his family.

And he was going to use it to his benefit.

And good for him on that.

And Carolyn did not, yeah.

She, you know, as any, you know, young married woman, she weeded his social garden and she really did not want people around him that she felt were using him.

Yeah.

She had a pretty keen eye for that.

She did.

Right.

Which of course people would.

So, but there was a media narrative basically portrayed John as a Nepo baby, probably the original one, and an intellectual lightweight.

Given the, you know, the honku flunks and stuff like that, which you note and in the documentary, Kurt.

Anderson, Tina Brown, and Graydon Carter, who edited New York magazine, Vanity Fair and New Yorker, all expressed skepticism as his skills as an editor.

Talk about what was needed because there were sort of errors he made as an editor, too, when he had dinner with Fidel Castro in Cuba and never wrote the story, which one might imagine.

He walked out in an interview with Oliver Stone, who directed the conspiracy film JFK.

He pretty much ignored the Monica Lewinsky scandal because he was a big fan of.

Clinton's,

who was by far the biggest story, absolutely.

So talk about getting the intellectual gravitas to run a magazine.

Yeah, I mean, look, it was, it was a, he was learning on the job, no question.

But he was a guy who liked to take on challenges.

You know, when you say he's a Nepo baby, he actually never thought of himself as a Nepo baby.

He really thought of himself.

I don't think the word existed at the time.

But he, I mean, what was really kind of, I think, was unique about John is he really felt like he had to go out and prove himself.

Right.

He, he was born with every privilege, which you know in the documentary.

Yeah.

And, but he said, you know, multiple times, I got to do it on my own.

I got to figure out what I'm good at.

And if I want a life in public, you know, office, I got to prove to voters that I deserve it.

So I want to go out and do something that's substantive, that creates jobs, that produces a product that's real, tangible.

So I think that George was that vehicle for him to go out and prove to the world that he was a serious guy.

Was he a great editor?

You know, look, he was learning on the job and he made a lot of mistakes.

We all made a lot.

I mean, if you look at the...

the average age of the editors in our first couple of years, probably 26, 27.

But he was a great leader.

he instilled a lot of you know excitement for the task we worked our asses off we were you know look it was a huge success before it wasn't i mean it was the biggest launch in magazine history indeed yeah and we just you know look there was a multiple factors that led to its ultimate demise

a lot of people wanted it to die a lot of people thought that we were challenging the status quo they didn't like it you know the denizens of political purity kind of came after us right out of the gate they said we were dumbing down politics we were, you know, simplifying it.

But we stuck to our knitting.

We kept true to our mission.

It's just we lost ad pages.

Hichette really didn't support it in the way they needed to to make it work because it was a costly endeavor.

It was, you know, four color.

Yeah.

Four color magazines are expensive and you know, it was beautiful.

We still have to.

Right.

And we just were kind of drained of resources and kind of sort of

look at that.

So as editor, John had the power to shape public narratives, as you talk about, wanting to change the way we talked about politics.

And he's also hounded by the tabloid press and powerless to control what was written about him.

That's kind of a paradox.

Is this a way to sort of communicate to the world in a way that he was unable?

They had multiple run-ins with paparazzi, which is obviously unusual for a magazine editor.

Like David Remrick's never been stalked by paparazzi.

I don't believe it.

I don't think they would recognize him if he fell on them.

So talk a little bit about that paradox, because this is, as you said, is an opportunity for him to shape a narrative, a different narrative.

Yeah, he always thought it was fair game for paparazzi.

He got it.

You know, he used to say, look, they got a job to do.

He was an incredibly gracious guy.

And he wanted to give them the shot because he knew that they're, you know, they're sitting out there for five, six hours.

They need a shot to make their money.

And I think Carolyn had a harder time dealing with that than John did for obvious reasons.

But I think, yeah, look, George was definitely a vehicle for him to turn the tables.

So what was the message from your perspective in the ones he edited?

What was the message that he was was going for, the idea?

With this still post-partisanship.

Yeah, I mean, he really believed in this.

I mean, even when we were in college, you know, we were at Brown University, what was in vogue was to hate Ronald Reagan.

And he was the only guy I knew who was going around and saying, hey, wait a minute, you know, Ronald Reagan, there's actually some really good things about Ronald Reagan.

Great communicator, understands how to use the bully pulp, but very firm in his convictions.

People are like, whoa, like, where is this coming from?

He was a bit of an iconoclast when I came to politics.

And he got in his head.

He didn't embrace Pat Buchanan.

No, he did not.

No,

that was a step too far.

But

he did believe.

He was a little bit, I guess, Pollyannish about it, believing that we could get to this post-partisan era.

But as we point out in the documentary, it was at the very time a new Gingrich

contract against America

and rushed limbo.

And so it was the wrong time.

But he had very high aspirations for the

politics inherently partisan?

Yeah, of course.

Yeah.

Of course, that's what I'm saying.

He was an ideal.

He was Murdoch?

I mean, who's the best at it, the best at partisanship, or creating the partisan?

Indeed, I think John would be shocked and disappointed to see just how fractured we are today.

His hope was the exact opposite.

Was it naive to think that way?

I mean, in hindsight, yeah.

But at the time, it was aspirational.

And at the time of his death, John was considering entering politics, a run for governor of New York.

Probably had a good chance of winning.

Ever since President Trump won in 2016, some Democrats have been calling for a party to run a celebrity, or someone like Oprah, The Rock, maybe even Jon Stewart.

Some people feel like electing a celebrity as president has gotten into the mess we're in today.

Where do you come down?

I'm just curious.

You live in celebrity culture.

No, I mean, I'm against all of that.

The idea of a celebrity as president or, you know, the country needs to be run like a business.

It doesn't.

It may be a not-for-profit business.

I think we've seen in the last 10 years with Donald Trump, I mean, who was a reality star, and that's really where he made his mark, and that's how people think of him, is has been an unmitigated disaster on almost every level so no i don't think we need oprah to run or jon stewart they need to do what they do best and all these politicians in my view and and i i'm on social media a lot and i get a lot of my news from social media now even tick tock i gotta be honest no most americans and they all seem to be trying to be like influencers and and i notice they're all cursing now ever since trump cursed and now it's given free reign so like they're like being like

you know like a real person down to earth because they're saying like a lot of fucks and stuff yeah like I don't know I don't think our country needs that I think we need a president to lift us up to be aspirational to be someone that we can't really relate to or identify with that's what I think this country needs do you do you think that's going to go back to that because they're not interesting enough right they have to yeah no yeah I think you know our our country is very well entertained and not well informed.

That's a really good way of putting it.

Yeah.

We'll be back in a minute.

Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start?

Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to.

Don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin?

Or what that clunking sound from your dryer is?

With thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro.

You just have to hire one.

You can hire top-rated pros, see price estimates, and read reviews all on the app.

Download today.

This month on Explain It to Me, we're talking about all things wellness.

We spend nearly $2 trillion on things that are supposed to make us well.

Collagen smoothies and cold plunges, Pilates classes, and fitness trackers.

But what does it actually mean to be well?

Why do we want that so badly?

And is all this money really making us healthier and happier?

That's this month on Explain It To Me, presented by Pureleaf.

Support for On with Carrou Swisher comes from Groons.

If you've ever gone down the internet rabbit hole of trying different nutrition solutions, you likely found a bunch of weird conspiracy theories that range from eating everything you can find to starvation.

Thankfully, there is a product that can help improve your skin, gut health, and immunity without the crazy ideas attached to them.

It's called Groons.

Groons are a convenient, comprehensive formula packed into a daily snack pack of gummies.

It's not a multivitamin, a greens gummy, or a prebiotic.

It's all of those things and then some for a fraction of the price.

In a Groons daily snack pack, you get more than 20 vitamins and minerals, six grams of prebiotic fiber, and more than 60 ingredients.

They include nutrient, dense, and whole foods, all of which help you out in different ways.

For example, Groons has six times the gut health ingredients compared to the leading Greens powders.

It contains biotin and niacmi, which help with thicker hair, nails, and skin health.

They also contain mushrooms, which can help with brain function.

And of course, you're probably familiar with vitamin C and how it's great for your immune system.

On top of all, groons are vegan and free of nuts, dairy, and gluten.

Get up to 52% off when you go to groons.co and use the code CARA.

That's G-R-U-N-S dot C-O using the code CARA

for 52%

off.

So, every episode we get an expert send us a question.

Let's hear yours.

I'm Sasha Eisenberg, a journalist and author of books, including The Engagement.

I worked at George as an intern, and I think a lot about how the magazine would cover Washington today.

On one hand, John was far-sighted in recognizing the collision of pop culture and politics that produced Trump.

On the other hand, he was obsessed with the idea of bringing out the fun in politics in a way that maybe made sense in the low-stakes 1990s, but seems seems unimaginable now.

So my question for Gary and Carol is, what would George look like if it had survived into the Trump era?

All right, let's hear from both of you, Gary.

Well, first of all, Sasha was one of John's absolute favorite editors.

He came as a 15-year-old, ninth grader.

John Somme

literally ran after him down the street and said, you've got to come work here.

And he was a total superstar.

So it's nice to hear Sasha's.

I'm glad we kicked him.

Yeah, listen, I mean, John was ahead of his time in seeing that collision between politics and popular popular culture.

I mean, he would, I think, you know, Donald Trump is the absolute embodiment of that.

And I think George would be thriving today, actually, because it hit the moment really 25 years too early.

And in what way?

What would be on the cover right now?

Oh, man, there's so much material, right?

Right.

I mean, you pick it.

You could be on the cover, Carol.

No, no, thank you.

No, I don't think it would sell many copies.

Just as George Washington?

No, no, thank you.

Yeah, you don't want to see my midriff.

What about

it?

No, I think it would.

I mean, you know, he died right at the beginning of what became the digital age.

And I just think that the transformation, the segue to digital age, I think if that was made and made well and made right, I think George would be one of the biggest magazines or whatever they're called now, because I don't think they're magazines, but he'd have a big imprint.

Yeah.

Would it be more sharper-edged and partisan now?

It'd have to be.

Yeah.

I think it would have to be.

That's exactly what I was going to go.

It wouldn't be like right-wing or

progressive.

I'd have a park mix of

satire.

Exactly.

And he'd have really a mix, you know, he'd have AOC on the cover and then he'd have

Peter Thiel.

Yeah.

Something like that.

You just noted magazine, what is a magazine now?

Yeah.

What would he start today if he was doing that?

He wouldn't start a magazine.

Who starts a magazine?

He'd start a media company.

He'd have a podcast.

Right.

He'd have a podcast.

He'd do video.

He'd do.

He would be digital.

Unless he was running for president or then president.

He'd be a retired president.

He'd be a retired president.

He'd be a retired president.

What do you think?

No, he's only 65.

Yeah, but he'd be long.

His time would have been late 2008, 2012.

Who knows?

I mean, look, it's

everything will go right.

No.

Well, he still can be president because, as you know, MAGA thinks he's a lot.

I know.

You know, even I, it's so, it's really menacing and disturbing.

I get pictures from DMs, from people circling like these rallies and saying, this is John.

And then sometimes they circle some other guy in the audience and they claim it's Anthony.

It's really fucking disturbing.

This is your husband.

Like this is my husband who I buried

and my cousin and friends.

For people to say that, for people to believe it, it's insane.

What do you do when that happens?

I delete and block and report.

Right.

I mean, I've blocked so many.

You don't respond to anybody.

Absolutely not.

Yeah.

Absolutely not.

Why do you think people do that, especially with John?

Why John?

I mean, obviously, Bill Gates is putting chips in our head.

Everyone has their own little conspiracy theory attached to them, but it's only a few people.

They want to latch on to the legacy of John and the glamour of him and sort of attach that to Donald Trump.

And, you know, there was...

A couple of pictures, you know, John, obviously being in the magazine business in the 90s, knew Donald Trump.

There's a couple pictures of him.

They just want to use that.

I don't know who started it, but it's really disturbing.

No, it's so creepy.

And to send it to me and his family, it's just, I don't know, these people are just crazy.

Yes, indeed, they are.

And mean.

It's mean.

That one's inexplicable.

Others you can trace.

I get the Bill Gates one.

I get the, because he gave so much money to vaccines, et cetera.

And then it links with a vaccine.

That's right.

By the way, I just got my measles vaccine.

Oh, again, it didn't work, right?

It didn't work because I was in the 60s.

In the 60s, right, yeah.

So I got it tested as soon as RFK got that position.

I was like, I'm not fuck that.

Yeah, I'm not depending on him for anything.

And sure enough, I had no antibody.

So I like last week got my vaccine.

Good.

I'm very glad about that.

So

let's talk about this sort of continuing obsession with J.F.

King Jr.

Here you are making a documentary many decades later, what it says about us as a culture.

One of the things Dr.

Marshi doesn't get into, as we said, the post-mortem role in the QAnon canon, it's too, as we said, it's too nutty to explain, but they think he's alive, just for people who didn't know what we were just referencing.

And a QAnon adherent has bought the copyright to George magazine and revived it.

And it now exists as a funhouse mirror version of the original magazine.

Talk a little bit about this, Gary.

It's disturbing, to say the least.

I mean, what happened was Hearst bought Heschett's magazines, I don't know how many years ago, and decided, obviously, not to publish the magazine again.

So the trademark just went into the public domain and QAnon.

And no one was following it?

No one knowing it.

Why didn't you know about it?

I had no idea.

I wasn't an owner of

it.

It wasn't my fault.

Gary.

Believe me, I heard from a lot of people, like, how did this happen?

But, you know, who knew that the trademark was sitting in her side?

It was QAnon, people.

It was on a market, and they just, they saw it.

They probably bid a dollar, and they got it.

Yeah.

No, it's terrible.

Yeah.

And a lot of people are deeply and rightfully disturbed by it.

And there's nothing can be done about it?

No.

No.

They bought it.

They bought it.

Well, you can be bought back from them.

Who's going to buy it it back?

Well, I don't know, but it's just, it's really, I mean, that is John's terrible.

And that's

part why I think at least I participated in this particular documentary because it was so important to John.

Yeah.

One of the other people who's also very outspoken is Jack Schlossberg, who's JFK's 32-year-old grandson.

And JFK Jr.'s nephew himself looks quite a lot like him.

I think he does.

And he's actually deep into sort of developing his troll presence online.

He's quite good at it.

On Jen Saki's podcast, he said, quote, I think the internet is a place where it's difficult to break through, especially if you're not saying something that's controversially somehow unexpected.

Talk about what he's doing.

I'm just curious.

Do you talk to him about it?

I've texted with him a number of times.

Oh, I mean, I don't, to be honest, I haven't seen him since he was a little boy, but I have seen the TikToks and some of the Instagram stuff.

And,

you know, I think

everyone expresses themselves in a certain way.

And he's very Gen Z millennial.

I don't know, millennial.

millennial.

And he, and he does it, he does it well.

And he's really, I mean, he's so brave.

You know, obviously I went on this reality show and it was nothing compared to like going on TikTok now and like talking your mind about what you and really pissing people off.

Yeah, I've known him his whole life, incredibly well educated.

You know, he can do pretty much whatever he wants.

It's interesting what he's doing now and making a name for himself.

And I hope he, you know, uses it now to,

you could have a brilliant future, whatever he decides to do.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's a little trolly.

He actually asked me, I said, you need to go away for a minute.

Like you're a little too there.

But he's probably right that you don't need to go away.

Would that have been the inevitable evolution of George, that kind of thing?

I can't see.

Trolling?

No, it's not John.

I mean, that was not his style.

No, no, but I mean, it's just hard to

imagine.

It's hard to imagine

tweeting or being on TikTok.

Like, I do see Jack on TikTok, and I'm like, okay, you know, he's definitely got that personality.

But I don't.

John was more long.

He was more long form.

He was long form.

In a short form era.

In a snackable era.

Not sure it would work

today.

Yeah, no, it doesn't.

It wouldn't.

Another thing, Ryan Murphy is producing a series about JFK Jr.

and Carolyn called American Love Story.

Their lives often get the true crime treatment.

Every channel you can think of has done sort of cheap recreation of the accident and what happened.

I'd love to know how you all feel about these shows because it sort of seems like mining them for entertainment in some way.

You know, the unfortunate thing about these shows, these like all these, like Ryan McMurphy.

McMurphy.

I was an intern at the Washington Post with him, by the way.

Were you really?

Yeah.

He was a pain in the ass.

Yeah.

He was just the same.

Well, I mean, he's in the volume business, too, like McDonald's.

But no, I think people watch those shows and they think it's, then that narrative becomes the story.

And that becomes, you know, that's.

I think the social network and Mark Zuckerberg never happened.

Yeah, that's why it's good that we came out first, I think.

Well, I mean,

it is another reason why I did participate in this to get this, to get more of the real story and more of the human story out.

I don't know.

You know, Mr.

Murphy is going to do what he's going to do and he's going to make his show.

I feel like go make your show and don't pretend that you're paying honor to these people or it's an homage.

And he's been doing a couple interviews.

I think Jack sort of pushed back at some of the stuff and then he said something super absurd and rude to Jack.

And I actually,

you know, because I'm a little shyer, but I commented saying, like, you know, John and my late husband, Anthony, were Jack's godfathers.

Like, to say to

him, I don't understand.

It's odd that you would be defending a relative you don't remember is like insane, offensive, absurd.

It's like, go make your show and people will watch it and you're going to move on and you're going to make 10 other shows.

But don't try to couch it in that you're doing anyone a favor or it's going to be an homage.

And like, stop doing interviews because you suck at it.

Yeah.

Also, the clothes.

People are really upset about the clothes or something.

Yes.

Well, I mean, it looks

like

it's TikTok shop.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It doesn't look like way she dressed.

And also, I got to be honest, like, to

people only know Carolyn through these paparazzi photos.

And she is not what she appears to be in these photos, which is a little like haunting hunted head down and stuff that was a choice she didn't want to look up she didn't want you know in the 90s pictures that you could make a living you know those were worth a lot of money and she wasn't going to give these photographers that photo so she kept her head down but she was not someone in need of protection she was the protector like she protected all of us she protected John so like I just feel like I'm sure if they're basing this TV show on that kind of image,

it's not going to be great.

And I say this knowing full well he's probably like writing right now a character called Carol.

Carol's going to take a turn for the worse.

She's going to have like shingles.

Yeah, shingles.

She's going to have psoriasis.

So talk about Carolyn in that way, because those are the pictures.

She's quite beautiful, elegant, clearly.

Yes.

Could really wear

very elegant clothes and very Calvin Klein and that whole genre.

Talk about her when you just say she was different than that.

She was.

She was considered cold by the media, for example.

Well, she was considered that because she wouldn't sit for an interview.

And also this idea of her as a fashioniste, I guess she has, you know, we have to accept that mantle now because she's gone for so long.

But like if she wanted to be that, she would have

done interviews with Vogue, with Harper's Bazaar, with all of these.

They all asked her.

Everyone was dying to do an interview with her.

She could have, you know, been, you know, a guest editor at Vogue.

And she chose not to do any of that because she felt like she didn't have anything really important to say.

And she knew that they were just interviewing interviewing her because she was John's wife and that wasn't good enough for her.

So you know this idea of her as like this this meek, quiet, like hunted, oh no, I can't handle this is not who she was.

Well explain who she was though.

She was someone who was very

very intelligent and that came through her work with John and George.

She was someone who was very strong-willed, who was not going to bend to anyone else's idea of her.

She got invited to all those socialite parties and stuff.

She pick and choose the ones that she wanted to go to because she didn't want to be seen as that.

And again, she was 33 when she died.

Like, she was like at a moment where she was in a young marriage.

She was figuring out the next thing that she wanted to do to have impact.

And it wasn't all of these things that people were trying to.

She didn't want to be socialite.

She didn't want to be fashionista.

She didn't want to dwell in

that kind of character.

So, you know, it's hard to know what she would do, right?

Because she was taken so young.

But she was just, and she was a very loyal friend she she was a friend that everyone went to for advice she always had good advice she could read a room you called her a pain in the ass in the documentary at least that she was seen like that by people at George yeah well because she was strong will because she was strong willed you know and she'd come in and she had very firm opinions about the look and the feel of the magazine and she'd make her opinions pretty well known and you know some people gravitated to it some people didn't I wasn't afraid to make enemies no no I mean she was fierce, but she had a great aesthetic taste, a great, you know, sense of what popped off a page, great sense of color, and made a lot of really good contributions.

It just, it was, you know, there were people whose job it was to determine that.

She came in, you know, so there was obvious tension when she was there.

But John backed her up 100%.

And I think the magazine looked better as a result of her.

We'll be back in a minute.

Support for this show comes from Pure Leaf Iced Tea.

You know that point in the afternoon when you just hit a wall?

You don't have time for self-care rituals or getting some fresh air, so maybe you grab a beverage to bring you back.

But somehow it doesn't do the trick or it leaves you feeling even worse.

What you need is a quality break.

a tea break.

And you can do that with Pure Leaf Iced Tea, real brewed tea made in a variety of bold and refreshing flavors with just the right amount of naturally occurring caffeine.

With a Pure Leaf Iced Tea in hand, you'll be left feeling refreshed and revitalized with a new motivation to take on what's next.

The next time you need to hit the reset button, grab a Pure Leaf Iced Tea.

Time for a tea break?

Time for a Pure Leaf.

Hey everybody, it's Andy Roddick, host of Serve Podcast for your fix on All Things Tennessee.

U.S.

Open's coming up and we're covering it on on our show.

Can someone knock off Al Garazin Center?

Can Coco Goff win her second U.S.

Open title?

Can Shviatek win her second Grand Slam title in a row?

Can Sabalenka break through and win her Grand Slam in 2025?

You can watch our coverage of the U.S.

Open on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcast brought to you in part by Amazon Prime.

Support for the show comes from Mercury.

What if banking did more?

Because to you, it's more than an invoice.

It's your hard work becoming revenue.

It's more than a wire.

It's payroll for your team.

It's more than a deposit.

It's landing your fundraise.

The truth is, banking can do more.

Mercury brings all the ways you use money into a single product that feels extraordinary to use.

Visit mercury.com to join over 200,000 entrepreneurs who use Mercury to do more for their business.

Mercury, banking that does more.

So let's end by touching on some news items.

Obviously, the most powerful Kennedy these days is RFK Jr.

He just canceled nearly $500 million in mRNA vaccine funding back in January.

JFK's sister, Carolyn Kennedy, called RFK a predator, and he was unqualified to lead the HHS and addicted to attention and power.

How do you deal with the family deal with the legacy might now be RFK Jr.

over someone like John?

Well, that's why we made the Adok, is to remind people that there was some elegance with the Kennedy.

And he's undermining everything that the family, that Kennedy family stood for, really everything on every level.

I knew him well, him and his wife Mary.

I spent a lot of time with them from the time my husband died in 1999 also until like for a decade.

And honestly, I can't reconcile the person I knew who was fierce environmental advocate and

always, I mean, he had that weird thing about roadkill, always.

Yeah, okay.

All right.

Did you eat any of it?

No, but he would pick it up from the road all the time and leave it in his minivan, and sometimes he'd forget.

It'd be like a skunk under the seat, and it was his minivan always smelled like death.

But other than that, weirdness,

I just can't reconcile who it is I thought I knew from this person that has appeared now on the scene.

And I just don't know.

You know,

I haven't been in touch with him since Mary died, and that was sort of the breaking point for me.

So it would be unfortunate if that was the legacy.

I feel like their legacy is so powerful, though.

Their brand is so powerful from the 60s and 70s.

So there isn't everyone who is so powerful is not living, John or his father or anyone else, right?

Yeah, but are they going to remember like history?

It's hard to write in the present.

Are they going to remember RFK?

It's millions of children die, certainly.

Yeah.

Well, right.

You know, or vaccine, you know, measles is back.

Best friend to measles is really now the brand, the Kennedy brand, unfortunately.

Well, I believe that's a good idea.

But you've got the

Timmy Shriver with his cause has done great work.

Caroline Kennedy's written really important books on First Amendment right approval.

Yeah, exactly.

So, I mean, it's not like the Kennedys haven't contributed mightily to be able to do that.

I think once Trump is out of office, I don't know,

there'll be some sort of

rejigger.

Although, after he dropped out of the race, the Trump campaign released a memo hailing it as a win for Republicans and saying that every single state RFK Jr.

vote breaks for President Trump.

Trump seemed to understand celebrity politics, the links with the Kennedys, and what it would mean for him, right?

Why do you think Trump's and RFK's political brands, which are opposite so many miz, work so well together right now?

Aaron Ross Powell, I guess just extreme policies that appealed to extreme people.

Yeah.

It's kind of a underlying.

I mean, he really made his mark being an anti-vaxxer.

That was his whole thing.

And my feeling is like he had exhausted everything he could possibly write and talk about on the environment, which I think always was his true passion, at least when I knew him.

And then, like, okay, it was almost like a money thing.

So, how are you going to, you're going to switch, and now you're going to write 10 books on pharmaceutical companies and vaccines?

And that just became like, it's almost like a, to my head, it's like a business movie.

A grift.

A grift.

Yeah.

And, you know, grifters, see grifters.

Right, right.

That's a really good point.

So, Carol, you just had a reunion with Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live after years of feuding with him.

We now have a reality.

You did?

I pay attention.

We now have a reality TV president, as you noted, celebrities president.

And as a former journalist, you worked for ABC,

former real housewife of New York and a member of the Kennedy Connection.

You understand every angle of this story, the intersection of pop culture and politics.

What would you say your insight to power and celebrity is right now?

And what's your takeaway a quarter century after his death?

Oh my gosh.

I always thought like when John first told me about George magazine, I just immediately thought, this is such a brilliant idea and so ahead of its time.

People probably aren't ready for it.

But like now it's arrived and now I don't know.

It's a complicated question.

I mean, my reality show experience is like totally,

it's just like totally separate than anything I could imagine that I would want in politics.

In fact, like on that show, Real Housewives,

the year that Trump was running during the night, 2016, I was very, very against him and was very vocal about it

on this show, which never had politics on it before.

I even said

that he was, I mean, I called him a buffoon.

This is in 2016.

I mean, I was pretty vocal about it as much as I could.

And Bravo, to their credit, aired it all.

But I don't know, it doesn't seem to have an impact.

Like, you know, he went on to win.

I'd like to come back to a time where politics is a little more boring, to be honest.

It's boring.

Noble.

And noble and something to aspire to, or some people to look up to.

It's almost like the president is like a role model.

Like, he doesn't.

Do you see that happening now?

Given you've been in all these areas.

It's moved more towards the real housewives.

Yes, it has.

No, I don't see it happening now.

In fact, I just heard a rumor.

This is

going to be totally made up, but one of my former cast members is considering getting into politics in Palm Beach.

Right, but that makes sense.

Why not?

And I think if she did, she would win.

I was just like, have you ever considered it?

Carol.

I love that idea.

No, I feel like

I, well, I used to say I curse too much, but now everyone's cursing.

No.

It's like your birthday to Carol Radzwell.

I know, right?

For Senate, right, for Senate.

No, I mean,

I think I'm too much of a hothead, but I don't know.

You know, I want my policy.

Just not saying no.

Hello.

Just not saying no.

Not saying no.

That's what's sort of what Kennedy did, like John Kennedy did.

So, Gary, you were the executive vice president of global marketing and corporate affairs at News Corp, where I met you.

You were working for Uncle Satan, as I like to call Ripper.

You know, I did.

That was my favorite.

Of course.

That was my favorite thing.

It was because he was a vuncular and satanic at the same time.

He was friendly.

He was a great combination.

And evil.

I felt like it was a compliment.

I understand the appeal.

He took it as a compliment, too.

Yeah, so you were described as the Murdoch whisperer.

So I have to ask: President Trump is suing Murdoch for $10 billion over a Wall Street Journal report about a birthday card Trump allegedly gave to Jeff Epsey.

It looks like, in fact, he did.

What do you think is going through his head right now?

Obviously, he just got this legal fight.

He has to now report on his health.

I don't think he is going to capitulate

one iota.

I think he's going to fight this thing till the end because I think they've got this story hard.

They've authenticated.

I assume they've authenticated

the doodle and the truth is he doesn't really need anything from trump anymore i mean

he got everything he needed in the first term he was able to sell fox to disney and have no regulatory reviews which is so crazy have you met

no yeah well there you go so he doesn't like what does he need now i mean maybe if he sells because of the trust issue he might but that's still years away.

So I think he's just, he's in a great position to fight this thing out.

He's a man who likes to fight.

He loves, you know, loves to take on where he's on the right, and he's got no reason to capitulate.

Can you explain for people to understand, I do understand it, where he has the journal, which is the cudgel, which he does real news, and he loves it.

He loves, love, loves it.

And you got to

get great.

I mean, you guys, everybody,

everyone said it's the end of the journal.

No, because the family was not great.

I was like kind of excited for an actual professional to come in.

He's been a great owner of the journal.

That's used as a cudgel.

He keeps it.

He protects it.

Keeps it pure.

Absolutely.

Over at Fox, it's the sort of lick Trump up and down groups most of the time, essentially.

Well, it's really prime time.

New York Post, you never know what they're going to do, right?

Yeah, pretty much.

And they're opening the LA version.

Is that how he's going to keep it?

Because, you know, more than anyone, Murdoch is responsible for Trump in bringing him up.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Yeah.

And I think my guess is, based on some fact, is that he learned to regret it at a certain point.

Well, he certainly did in the emails.

Certainly in 2020, I think he was ready for a change.

I mean, I think I know that, actually.

But, you know, he's a man who loves, he never had a relationship with a president until Trump.

You know, he never had a relationship with Reagan.

The Bushes didn't need him because they had ales.

So he finally has a president that he has an inordinate amount of control over, and he used it.

Right.

Used it really effectively.

But now he doesn't need it.

And so I think it's going to be really interesting.

Does Trump need him?

Much more than

much more than Rupert needs him.

Because they need Fox News, doesn't he?

Yeah.

I mean, the problem is Rupert, nobody can really control the prime time anchors.

The control from corporate is always daytime.

I mean, the primetime is where all the influence is really wielded.

Rupert may not need him, but Fox News needs him.

What happens in the wake of the change, a MAGA after that, after he leaves, presumably?

MAGA after Trump leaves.

You know,

for Fox, well, if you're in opposition, it's always been really good.

What's interesting is that now that they're in power, they're doing great.

But when I was in this game, if you were in opposition, it was really good.

And, you know, MSNBC had a

great run from 16 to 20.

I suspect now that their audience is pretty durable.

Durable over time.

Yeah.

And they're not going to, I think, you know, with him gone, I think Vance or whoever it is will be able to keep that.

That thing, that thing is short.

Because he's so cheap.

He's making money.

He's charmless.

He's charmless.

All right.

Last question.

In the doc, Tina Brown says the character is Destiny.

And quote, JFK Jr.

should not have been at the helm of that plane.

He was told it was not a good time to fly any base and said, I'm going to do it anyway.

He notes this in the piece.

I'm quoting from that thing.

Right.

And I'm not sure that's true.

Okay.

And I challenge that because I haven't seen anything where he was specifically told, you should not fly this plane.

Right.

I mean, I'm not making excuses for him, but I'm not sure that that's right.

In a lot of ways, he embodied a lot of America's best traits, entrepreneurship, risk-taking, confidence, but also recklessness in that regard.

So what is his legacy for you personally as a friend and as someone we can't stop thinking about?

I think that is when I saw those pictures i was sort of brought back carol you go first and give me these words like he was he was my late husband's best friend closest covenant cousin and confidant and obviously carolyn bissette was then one of my closest friend and also confidant um so I'm just sort of sort of micro, you know, I just will,

I see them and him as that.

My cousin, cousin-in-law, my best friend.

And I just, when I think of him, I don't see the macro.

I just see the micro and who he was as a person, as a friend, as a husband, as a cousin.

And, you know, on every level, he was just fantastic.

He was always, it was always fun to be around John.

He was just

a wonderful human being.

And

the world lost a lot when that plane went down.

Gary?

I can't say it any better than that.

I mean, that's exactly how I feel.

I mean, put aside the myth and the, you know, the fame and all that, he was just a great friend.

You know, he was a loyal friend.

He rooted for his friends.

He was fun as hell, incredibly playful.

I mean, the thousands of hours of games and, you know, sports and

he wore his fame with incredible elegance.

On the public stage, he was elegant.

In private, he was elegant.

And I think the world could really use someone like John today.

Yeah.

Let's end on that.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

On with Carraswisher is produced by Christian Castor-Rousselle, Kateri Yoakum, Megan Burney, Allison Rogers, and Kaylin Lynch.

Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts.

Special thanks to Claire Hyman and Eric Litke.

Aaliyah Jackson engineered this episode, and our theme music is by Track Ademics.

If you're already following the show, you already have the measles antibodies.

If not, watch out for brainworms and roadkill.

It smells like death.

Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Karis Wisher and hit follow.

Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from Podian Media, New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us.

We'll be back on Thursday with more.