Wild Secrets of Trump's Most Deranged Goon: Author | The Daily Beast Podcast

I don't even know what. It begins to talk to you about his relationships with women. I think it's another addiction, like the alcohol and the drugs. Certainly it's something that he's tried to live with and stop. He talks about in his diaries, though, but he doesn't take responsibility for it. Which drove me crazy. That he talks about it being the fault of the women. Women were mugging him. That was his term for seduction. It's an addiction, like the heroin and like the, you know, the other drugs that he was doing.

I'm trying to cope. This is the Daily Beast podcast. I could not put down the book that was written. by our next guest, Isabel Vincent. The book is RFK Junior The Fall and Rise, and it's based on his own diaries, which his late wife, Mary Richardson, took hostage during their divorce battle. And, well, it offers a really nuanced, complicated picture.

of a man who has against perhaps his own. expectations, become much more important in all our lives. He's in charge of the health of all Americans, which is why the book is important and it's compelling. And, well, let's get into it with Isabel Vincent. But before we do a quick request that you smash. the subscription button on your wall wherever you're getting your podcasts,

because we're independent media and we really appreciate your support. So, Isabel, I couldn't be more excited to talk to you on your publication day. Thank you very much for coming in. I couldn't put this book down. I read, I couldn't stop reading it. And also, what I loved about it was that you see him. through the layers of his experience. So he emerges as a more sympathetic.

figure, a tragic figure, a tragic figure who had so much expectation on him. and who burned his way through people, through women, through heroin, through opportunities, through remarkable chances. And yet, here he is suddenly in a job. He's patently ill equipped to handle. And yet he's managed to answer one of the questions. he has for himself, which is what is my legacy? What am I doing here? How do I live up to my name? So let me let me start by asking you about the diaries.

How did you get the diaries and how did you decide to use them? I got the diaries in a year after his second wife, Mary Kennedy, committed suicide. And I got them from, a very trusted source. who had known her for a number of years. She had found the diaries and given them to my source. And had she given them to her for safekeeping?

No. She she was involved before Mary died. She was involved in very protracted, very bitter. divorce, negotiations with with Bobby Kennedy. And one of the things that she was very upset about was that. he was not disclosing, the family assets to the Kennedy family assets. And those were the the Kennedy's assets are in a kind of trust. that was set up by Joseph Kennedy in 1949.

He, he set up something called the Park Agency, which has since changed names, but it functions. like a bank for all of the Kennedys, and it's always been rather obscure. So at that, at that time, she was trying to figure out or her. lawyers were trying to figure out what exactly his assets were. And so there was a lot of, you know, he obviously didn't want to, disclose, disclose that. So she felt that the diaries which listed his liaisons.

with all of these women, especially that part, then she was going to use. that as leverage, that she was somehow going to threaten to make that public. if he didn't negotiate, in a fair manner with her. So she took the the diaries as hostage, basically. Correct. And then they came into your possession because a friend of Mary's. gave them to you. How did you make the decision that it was okay to take his personal diaries.

that had been taken by his ex-wife and use them as the spine of the book, because it adds a remarkable layer to understanding him. So I totally understand what you did as an author. I'm just interested in the process of of is it the right ethical thing to do? I don't know if it's the right ethical thing to do, but certainly I I'd seen many stories about Bobby Kennedy, and I felt that he was caricatured in all of these stories. Suddenly he's an important public figure. He's secretary of health and Human Services.

He's run for president. Surely we should know what kind of person he is, what he's thinking about. So I felt almost like it was a public service. And certainly when we got the diaries, in 2013, we had a very amazing, very extraordinary meeting. As I look back now at the post, in which our editors were like, well, what is the public good of this? You know, we're going to expose his trysts. Who's going to care? Why are we doing it?

And, you know, at the time, when he was at the time, he was, an environmental lawyer and crusader for for Riverkeeper. At the time, he wasn't. he was a public figure, but not quite the public figure that he is today. And the response was, well, the Kennedys, the Kennedy men have had this history. of philandering that nobody's ever really been able to prove. And here we are, in his own words, the proof that he was at,

at one point, he was, documenting trysts with 37 women. And, you know, in a very short space of time, seeing up to three women on, you know, on one day. Yeah. So that's how we rationalized it. We were, at the time, only interested in his sexual exploits for the New York Post. It was, you know, very flashy. I spoke to him at that time, and he, said to me that I couldn't possibly have seen the diaries. He was very upset, but then he went from sort of denying.

that they were his diaries to in a subsequent story, we wrote about what he really thought about Democratic politicians such as Jesse. Jackson and his own, former brother in law, Andrew Cuomo. He went from denying it to apologizing. for what he had said in his unedited thoughts in his diaries. So we knew then that, you know, without I mean, not that. we were not that we were doubting that they were his diaries. But after he admitted to that, then we knew for sure that they were right.

Well, well. And also and I want to come on to his relationships with women. a bit later in the discussion. But in a sense, the most interesting things in the diaries. are him talking about his own burden. of legacy and of him understanding. And of course, these were written before he becomes, Secretary of Health. and Human Services, that he basically squandered his life. and squandered his opportunity, and he was disgusted with himself.

And then you have a lot of details of him praying, of him talking to God. And it really adds this sort of complexity to him, which I think. you don't see. very often, frankly, you don't see very often in a biography. of someone who's still alive. because normally they bequeath their papers. or their diaries, you know, to. someone who's writing the book after they've, after they're long gone. Where does he fit exactly in this incredibly large story?

And I'm assuming one of the challenges of writing it. was that you were always or nearly always writing about someone called Kennedy. So you had to kind of spell out. which Kennedy was, because there's so many of them. Yeah. So he has ten brothers and sisters. Two of them died. And, you know, these very tragic ways and David. and Michael, David overdosed on drugs and Michael, squeezed into a tree, and died on impact or more soon after that.

Well, and that's also a terrible scene where you have Rory, his sister, doing mouth to mouth, and he's bleeding and she's, like, covered in blood. Right. And then she spits it out into the. So I mean, it's so visceral. And then his children are praying around him. Exactly. And he, of course, is in the middle of a, separation. because he's been accused of sleeping with a 14 year old babysitter. for several years. Correct. All of that context.

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And be sure to use the code beast at checkout. after you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. So please support our show and tell them we send you. When I. started reading, about what he was writing about. his father, he, to your point, he felt he failed his father. You know, the great Robert Kennedy, the great senator. who was assassinated after he'd won the California primary. Democratic primary for president?

He calls him daddy in the diaries. And there's like. And when he does that, there's an element of like, oh, my God, you know that since he was 14, he's. had this weight of of this legacy on him. And he, he feels that he has failed his father. You know, one thing I did I did a lot of research into old photographs. I found photographs in life magazine of his trip right after his father's death. He goes on a trip to Kenya, with Lem Billings, who is a Kennedy acolyte.

and, a very close family friend who becomes a surrogate father. And the photographs are haunting. They show him he looks like something out of the Lord. Lord of the flies. He looks like something out of a Jungle Book. He's just, you know, he's wearing, He's in the jungle wearing surfer shorts, and that's it. And he just looks totally lost. He looks like a very vulnerable kid.

He doesn't even look 14. And so when I saw that, I was like, wow. He's really I don't think people. realize the burden he's carried his whole life. And and it kind of it kind of explained why he became a drug addict, why, you know, and he he also grew up in a family again, ten brothers and sisters, a distant mother, who was, you know, pregnant with her 11th child when her husband is assassinated.

Doesn't have a lot of time for the others. He sent them all off to, to most of them, off to boarding school. So he's pretty much alone. And then he's got this surrogate. father telling him, you are the only hope for this family. You are the one who's going to be president one day. So there's a lot of pressure on him as a young as, as as a kid. And the family itself is also split into all sorts of little kind of cliques. Where does he where does he fit? For example, I was very surprised to see he was this close to John.

F Kennedy junior and Carolyn Bessette as he was, who were his other, sort of close. relations within this enormous dynasty. I think he was also he's also very close to Kerry Kennedy, his younger sister. And there have been a lot of contretemps between them, especially after he wrote the book about, Fauci. and he started on this crusade, left the Democratic Party.

She has denounced him publicly, but. I don't know, for some reason, I feel that's kind of all for show. They have a very close bond. And yes, he did have a very close bond with JFK Jr. So much so that JFK junior left him $250,000 in his will. This he notes in his diary right after, right after the plane crash. And and and the funerals that left. JFK Jr and Carolyn Bessette and her sister Lauren dead. So but there was a there was a sort of split between the,

Robert Kennedy children and John Kennedy's children. So you have Jackie Kennedy almost trying to keep her kids away. from the raucous kind of Skakel Kennedys, you know, the, the Ethel Skakel, his mother, her brothers were these wild, crazy men who, there's another article I found in life magazine. where one of her older brothers decides he's going to kill a whale.

I'll, Moby Dick. So he goes to the Azores, hires, a crew, and you see all these pictures of, like, this giant whale sort of bleeding to death. and and the, you know, and and. and the skakel, the skakel relatives sort of surfing on the blood. I mean, it's it's insane. So also, you know, a lot of the family tried to keep their kids away. from Bobby and his brothers and sisters because they were all a bunch of,

you know, they're all doing drugs. I read in a couple of. biographies that the Shriver really tried to keep their kids away. You know, whether they were successful or not, they weren't always. But, but it wasn't. See what I mean? David ends up dead from a drug overdose. Michael skis in a game. A ski football game into a tree. I mean, they have an edge of in unhinged ness about them.

Obviously. Michael Skakel gets accused of, well and sentenced for the death of Martha Moxley. I mean, this is a very unruly family, right? And one of the things about David that I also found sort of heartbreaking. is that on the day his father is assassinated, he's. they forget about him in a Beverly Hills hotel room. He's watching all of the aftermath. of his father's assassination on television.

And then finally, like, two in the morning, somebody remembers that. he's there by himself, and he's like 12 years old at the time, and he's devastated. He can't even speak. So this is you know, a little bit of the. the negligence that these kids grew up with. And so you wonder why this happened to them as teenagers. and then why they were screwed up as adults. Funerals and memorials make, well, there's so many of them in the book that he attends.

And in fact, it turns out that he feels very obligated to go to people's funerals. And he takes it very seriously, and he's frequently a pallbearer. I was going to ask you if you would read this paragraph or these two paragraphs, because I found them fascinating, as he's. trying to wrestle with his own place. In life, I always want it to be useful to meet the expectation of the gifts. I'd been given, he wrote in his diary on May 27th, 1999,

under a thickly underlined heading reading service. But he recognized that he was largely a failure. because everything he did revolved around, quote, vanity that proceeded from ego. I've seen people in my sobriety attend funerals. and face crisis and make themselves the centerpiece. The crisis is about them and their suffering. They shout and create drama to call attention to themselves. They show up at the funeral. and make a scene, or don't show up at all to make their absence a controversy.

I recognize similar kinds of behavior in myself. At the dinner table, my brother will tell a story and I will tell a better one to top his. I will want the attention of someone, and I will show off. He willed himself to sit back and wait for God to tell him to act. He wrote, I must sit still and get in touch with God. Praying for the ability to be useful. I need to look for opportunities to quietly help rather. than looking for opportunities to shine brightly.

But sitting still would prove to be almost impossible for Robert. Kennedy Jr, the crusading lawyer and environmental activist. Perhaps it was his unchecked ambition to shine brightly. that would lead to one of the worst tragedies in his family. I mean, it's just I found that. such an insightful paragraph and his understanding. of what would make him, you know, come to terms with the legacy and the fact that he hadn't yet met it.

And now, of course, he certainly at least become a cabinet secretary, if not president, although it looks like he'll run for 2028. So. can you talk us through. the decision he makes to run for president? I mean, he's been sort of successful at Riverkeeper, but one of the things that people like about him is that people. will come to galas because of who he is, and he can bring members of his family.

And that adds a layer of glitz that most board members. or people involved with such environmental organizations don't have. So he's done that. He he's managed to divide river keepers by trying to hire. this guy who's in fact, you know, been stealing rare birds eggs. I mean, that's another story in itself. But talk. talk us through his decision to run for president.

I think the decision was always there. He talks in like 25 years before he he even does it. He talks about wanting to do more with his life. He's on a cross-country trip giving all sorts of speeches. People are coming up to him and saying lawyers are coming up to him and saying, you so inspired me, you. It's because of you that I left my law practice and became. an environmental lawyer. And he says in his head, he says in his diaries,

I wanted to be more than just a gentleman environmentalist, as he puts it. I wanted to do good in the world. I wanted to change people's lives. So this has always been been there. So this is just a logical extension. of what he's been thinking about all of these years. I mean, it's it was really interesting to me that he kept a journal. while he was in prison in Puerto Rico for civil disobedience advocates.

He was trying to stop the Navy from bombing the island, in, in their, bombing practices. And and he talks about his legacy. He talks about how his dad would have been completely disappointed with him. And so this is a theme that carries on throughout his life. So I am not. I was not surprised at all that he decided he was going to run for president. It's just it's a logical extension of Riverkeeper. Then the vaccine, you know, finding his base.

with Sarah Bridges and the whole notion that vaccines lead to autism. Correct. And then the fact she book, which really was this rallying. cry of the government, has been lying to us, and I'm going to change that. So this was a book he wrote during Covid or towards the end of Covid wracked. And I think that was what sprung into action. It, it made him sort of more of a household name.

And from there he launched his presidential campaign. Well, and it coalesced his supporters, I think. Right. He found a political base, which he'd basically been looking for. because he was going to run, for the Democrats. Well, I guess he did run for the Democrats. Then that became very clear it wasn't going to work. And of course, the irony in all this is that it's very hard to imagine. that his father would be proud of him because he spouts largely nonsense. I mean, nonsense about vaccines, you know,

he's he's doesn't have a grip on the science. I mean, there's an argument that his new food. pyramid is I mean, there's a new food pyramid every five years. Who knows at this point. But his whole his whole anti-vax, anti-science, cutting science budgets, driving scientists abroad, diminishing the incredible work that's gone on to develop. new drugs and new understanding of of illnesses.

It's the most ironic legacy you could have as the Minister. of Health and Human Services. But he thinks he's right. And he's, as you said, he's started this revolution. with these like minded people who've just come out of the woodwork. So, I mean, I was really surprised to see, or maybe not surprised, but. in the battleground states, this was a guy who was getting up to 12% of the vote. when he when he dropped out of the race and embraced Trump.

So his message is somehow. resonating with a part of America that felt that they weren't being, listened to. And so this this is what was really interesting to me. Well, and also that he was able to, take advantage of the Covid moment. when people did feel that government had overextended and that. they were forcing people to wear masks when it wasn't clear that masks.

at a certain point were making any difference, that the schools were being closed for too long, that life. in many of the states, but certainly the big Democratic states, were put on hold in a way that they weren't in another state. So he was able to take advantage of all that. What do you. I mean, famously, Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of obviously JFK, who, did that video against him, warning people. about him and saying he doesn't understand what he's talking about.

He's a menace. He was a terrible influence on lots of his cousins. Was he impacted by that personally? Was he hurt by that? That's a really good question. I don't think so. Because she talks she talks in that letter about how they'd been a close family, and I really don't think they'd ever really been a close family like that. Her, except with her brother, John, JFK Jr.

But I don't think that she really figured. into the closeness of that of that family. So I don't I don't know that he was impacted and certainly the. I did a story about Jack Schlossberg, his, Caroline's son running for Congress. And I remember reaching out to, Kate. Kennedy, one of his daughters, saying, what do you guys think about this? And, you know, the response was, well, we think he's unhinged. And and I had had, you know, so his own daughter talked about him being unhinged.

No, no, talks about Jack Schlossberg being unhinged. So these are not people who are particularly close. Like they, they lost. the the the family connection way back. And again, I go back to the JFK side. Always found the Skakel Robert Kennedy side. just too out there and crazy and and without any kind of,

boundaries. And so I don't think that it really bothered him that much. He was annoyed by it, I'm sure. But, whether that was surprising, I don't I don't think so. There's a lot of bad blood there. Right. So. I don't even know. where to begin to talk to about his relationships. with women, because women clearly find him very compelling.

We've, you know, I co-host a podcast with Michael Wolff who spent some time. with him, back in 1980 when they were riding around Alabama together. And he said any opportunity to have sex, RFK junior would take. an every woman that he met wanted to have sex with him. Basically, he was very charismatic. So to what extent do you think that has impacted him? I think it's another addiction, like the like the alcohol and the drugs.

Certainly it's something that he's. tried to live with and stop. I mean, he talks about he talks about in his diaries, though, but he doesn't take responsibility for it. Which drove me crazy when I was reading them, is that he talks about it being the fault of the women. Women were mugging him. That was his term for seduction. It wasn't, you know, he was this helpless victim. But then, you know, he would have these, like, throwaway.

lines where he was in LA visiting all of these stars for, these celebrities, who were giving money to Riverkeeper. And he would say, you know, I messed up again in LA. It always happens when I'm here. So he, he himself recognizes that maybe. it's not a good thing to do, but it's almost like he can't help himself. And it's, it's it's an addiction. Like the heroin and like the, you know, the other drugs that he was doing. Right. And also he has a very Catholic sense of guilt about it.

So it happens. He he jots down in the back of his diaries, I mean, it's so. sort of slightly juvenile grid that he has. of how far he goes with each woman. And Mary, having. organized the diaries to be given, must have known about some of this. She says that he gaslit her, and the extent of his, infidelities.

Seems almost industrial. I mean, at one point, this of throw a throw away paragraph in the in the book, which I think I've got. which I'm going to make you read out because I sort of laughed at it. because it was such an amazingly understated. It's it's this paragraph. Kennedy's personal life continued to be chaotic. By the end of 2001, he had recorded trysts with 37 women, 16 of whom.

had received a ten next to their names in the ledger at the back of his diary, which Mary believed was his code for intercourse. So 16 women in one year. It's quite an impressive tally. And then you've got the others where there's been some action, but. not the full, not the full journey, as it were, in one year. And so that was part of the complexity, obviously, of his marriage with Mary. Right. And what's interesting too, in those ledgers, sometimes he will.

he would write the name of a woman, and it was often the first names, and he would put down victory, exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point, which didn't mean that he'd gotten his way with them, but. that he'd had resisted, which, you know, again, was very interesting to me. So it. she dies by suicide. Her family asks for an investigation into it. Can you talk a little bit about the marriage and.

and why they would ask for an investigation? Well, the marriage was, By the time Mary committed. suicide, the marriage was. practically nonexistent. He wasn't living at the house in Bedford anymore. He was, I think he was living in LA with Cheryl Hines. most of the time because they started their relationship. during the time that they separated. But they, hadn't gotten divorced.

And Mary died a Kennedy wife. The divorce never happened. And she never I mean, being a Kennedy was very important to her. Mary had wanted to be a Kennedy since she was 14 years old. She met Kerry Kennedy at school. They were roommates, at boarding school. They were roommates at Brown University her whole life, from the time. she was 14, was, you know, focused on the Kennedys at Hyannis Port. And, at Hickory. Hill, you know, it was Bob Collier, cello,

who had a really interesting quote about Kerry and Mary. He called Mary Kerry's lady in waiting. She was always with her, and she was always happy to do, you know, to be part of these Kennedy events. So, yeah, it was it was, it was very it was part of her identity. And when she was suddenly shut out of that because Ethel wouldn't. let her come to Hyannis Port anymore, because they were getting divorced. Because they were getting a divorce. She was devastated.

But from what I. From the people I spoke to shortly after she died, she was also on. She's also doing really well. She was going to AA meetings. She was writing everything down. She seemed to be in a good place. And so people were surprised by the suicide. And I think her siblings were surprised by the suicide. And they, hired a firm to investigate.

Well, first of all, because none of her stuff. had had been available to them, they didn't see it. They didn't see her computer. They didn't see her phone. All of these things had been either taken by the police, who showed up at the house. or taken by Bobby. There was no suicide note that anybody had spoken of. And she had she had four children, with Bobby. So they hired an investigation firm that asked a lot of questions.

about whether Mary could tie a nautical knot. And, I saw the I saw the emails back and forth. Pretty much I think the answer is yes, that she could, because she had grown up in Hyannis Port doing all these sports with them. So there were there was stuff like that, but then it just completely shut down. when I tried calling, her family, they completely shut down. They never talked. But even years later, it was like, what are you talking about?

I, you know, I don't know what you're talking about. When I mentioned the investigation. So that was inconclusive. Also, the police report, the. the Bedford police report, it has a lot of redactions. And I tried to get, police report without redactions. I'm stunned that a public document like that would be so redacted. And what what was redacted? So one of the things that was redacted that was really annoying was, the police talk about the police interview.

Somebody who says that two days before Mary died, somebody came to the house, somebody came to her home. And, you know, and, and had this conversation with her. We don't know who that is. That person is completely redacted. So who was that? Was that somebody who upset Mary? I don't know, but I think. I think it would be nice to know, because the.

people are. still so concerned with that suicide. It was, it was harrowing because she again, she had four children, had four children, and one of whom, Kyra, the daughter, had already gone. to live with Cheryl Hines, which, according to your book, devastated. Mary. She was devastated that the kids were getting closer. to Cheryl Hines than they were to her. So Cheryl Hines was posting on social media.

Oh, I'm bonding with Finn, you know, the youngest of the kids, and we're going to a football game or whatever. In her own book, Cheryl Hines talks about how Carol went to live with her. in her last year of high school because she wasn't getting along. She wasn't doing well. And in, in Westchester, I mean, you probably can't. blame her for her parents were going through this awful divorce, so she goes to spend the school year with her.

And, in May of that school years, when Mary, commits suicide. So I think Carol went in the summer of 2011. And then Mary, kills herself in May of 2012. And then, of course, Cheryl. Hines and Bobby get married. And how long have they been married for? Before the news of Olivia Nuzzi breaks? So they got married in 2014.

Olivia Nuzzi was 2023. Did you read Olivia Nuzzi book American Canto, which was, in theory, about their relationship, a digital affair? After she interviewed him, I read Olivia, his book with great interest, obviously, and I thought that it was the most honest account. that I'd read of, Robert Kennedy Jr. She writes about her attraction to him, which, you know, nobody wants to admit.

But women do throw themselves at Bobby Kennedy. I've talked to other women. You know, there's something about him. He's Kennedy. He's he's good looking. He's now powerful. So. And I, I think Olivia Nuzzi is a great reporter, a great journalist. I mean, there are things in her book that, that I found amazing. For instance, she's covering presidential candidates. She decides at one point that she's not going to fly,

to go to these events anymore. She's going to get in her car and she's going to drive across America. And I thought the instincts of of her to do that. And you know, I thought, what a great reporter. And then I went and I read all of the stuff. that she'd ever written, you know, about politicians. And I thought, she's amazing. Well, what was it about her observations of him that made you feel, oh, this is the most interesting, honest portrayal of him she writes about.

At one point, she writes about how they're on face time. He's wearing a pink shirt that's like, you know, sort of half done up. And she she writes about her attraction to him. And I thought I could see that, and, and I found it. really honest of her to, to do that because not many people would do it. They would just like, take this. You know, high horse approach and say, oh, no, I, I couldn't be attracted. to somebody like that.

So I thought there was an openness to her book. and the way she, she talked about him, that I hadn't seen anywhere else. All right. So I'm going to ask you to read one thing, and I realize we haven't. talked about his voice, but he's got a spasmodic dysphonia, right. And he talks about perhaps this is God's way. of telling him to be quiet, that he should stop talking. when this this comes up in, like, the late 90s that he struck with this.

because before that he's everything's pretty normal. And he talks about how, you know, this may be God's will, that, you know, I need to slow down. I need to spend more time with my children. Maybe I shouldn't be going across the country, the way I am, but that kind of lasts for five minutes. Okay. So I'm going to ask you to just read Observation by Olivia Nuzzi, which I which struck me as was pretty interesting, like a wild animal. He has been known to fight back savagely when he's cornered.

When he yelled, the soft flame of his voice roared. A lithium fire sparked anger that sparked anger and torched everything. in its path, wrote Nuzzi in her memoir, he yelled himself foreign. The man who yelled was not the man I thought I knew. The man who yelled was the man others had told me to fear. That is so well-written. It's so thoughtful. I mean, it's it's you can see it, you know? That's why I, I thought her book.

should have gotten a little bit, you know, should have gotten more attention than it did. because she gives an honest portrayal of the man she calls the politician. Okay. She doesn't name him, but it's obviously Kennedy. All. Bobby and Cheryl still together. I mean, they appear to be together. You see them being photographed, they're together. And there's all these, like, great pictures of them as a happy couple. I don't think she's attending all of the events that he attends. What I've been told is that you know, it's a marriage of expediency. at this point that he may want to run for president.

Can he have another divorce? To much of America, maybe. That doesn't look good. If you've had. Well, it would be. It would be two divorces and and a death. So, you know, three marriages. So, I think there's a big push for them to remain together for that. And she certainly has, you know, a different profile, as I mean, imagine her as first lady. So I think. there's, you know, there's this symbiotic relationship.

They want to be together for those reasons. It's so ironic that that would be the issue, that he would be concerned about, not the fact that he's restricting access to vaccines. Yeah, I, I think that. I think that given the religion and everything else that I think. he wants to look good to his, to his followers. and maybe his followers, a lot of them are very traditional and conservative. I mean, I said at the beginning that it gives a much more complicated,

nuanced portrait of a man who is at times in his life completely desperate. and obviously had this terrible death of his father hanging over him. As you said, he was 14. Did you like him by the end of the book? I mean, what do you you write as much. as, I guess you know, about what was going on in his life. But I didn't get a sense of what you actually thought about him as a man.

Some days I really liked him. I thought, this is a man who is, you know, very well educated in terms of philosophy, religion, history. I thought, wow, I didn't I didn't know any of this and some days his entitlement, like reading the diaries, were just over the top. And I'm like, can't you get this that, you know, he'd be complaining about his wife. and why Mary would be giving him, a schedule for his kids.

Because she was dealing with four little kids at the time. While he was off doing all of his speeches and going around the world. and being an environmental crusader. Great. And she was just, like, really at wit's end. And he couldn't figure that out. At least he couldn't figure it out in his writing. And I thought, come on, you're smarter than that. So it was this sense of entitlement that kept bumping up. against this other side of him, which I think is very.

thoughtful, in many ways. And, learned, I know a lot of people won't agree with that, but, I really wanted to write a nuanced portrait. of Robert Kennedy Jr, because I really think that in order. to understand this moment, in order to understand maybe even Trump's presidency. and why he won, you have to understand who Robert Kennedy Jr is. And he is really a fascinating person.

And one of the other themes that runs throughout the book is. that he never quite has enough money. Correct. And if you looked at his disclosures, when he was, before the Senate, before his Senate hearings, he had to. put out his disclosures and he's got like $1 million in credit card debt. I mean, who's who's got that, right? So, I mean, it's just like it seems to be this kind of profligate spending. On the one hand, and, you know, trying to make ends meet on the other,

because he talks about in a deposition that I saw, he talks about how his family didn't have any money after his father was killed. because they had spent all the money on the presidential campaign. And they were, you know, to to the point where. the kids were having to pay, for the use of Ethel Ethel Kennedy home in Hyannis Port. She was basically. all they were paying her essentially rent to stay there over the summer.

But she wasn't allowed to know that. Exactly. So they so when he talks about. having to do these speeches, like, and being on these boards. where he was paid like hundreds of thousands of dollars, this is how he was, financing his life and his six kids. So he's got two other kids with, Emily Black, and he had four kids with Mary. So he's got to put them through school. He's got to, you know, then pay, I'm guessing child support to the first wife.

So he had a lot of expenses. Well, well. And there was a fascinating bit about how he. So they're living in a house in Bedford. and it's got mold absolutely everywhere. So they basically tear it down and rebuild and build a new green property. But the way they managed to do it is by basically getting everything. for free, which again, was just a sort of eye. opening in terms of just make, and then they make a documentary about it.

to sort of offset the, I guess, sponsorship from people. Can you just talk a little bit about that? Sure. So they, Bobby had bought this house. Well, he's still married to, his first wife, Emily Black. And it was this old clapboard house. And when he married Mary. and they started to live there, their kids were suddenly getting asthma. And also they were having all sorts of problems.

And they realized that they had a mold problem. So they tried to renovate the house. That didn't work. Then they decided just to tear the whole thing down. And Mary, who was an architect, was in charge. of rebuilding this green house. It was going to be environmentally correct, and they were going to use it as an advertisement for what you can do, what you can do with, like these green homes. But they weren't going to pay for everything. So and it and the, the woman who helped them put it together,

the designer wrote a book called The Kennedy Green House and talked about. how they'd gotten their special windows, at a at a discount. They got paint for free, and they used part of the paint in their house in Hyannis Port. I mean, I was just like, really? And they called in all of the favors that they had. And people were thrilled to do it because they thought, oh, it's a Kennedy project. I'm going to get a lot of business by being associated with this.

And then in the end, you know, I called up these people and they didn't. really get that much out of it, but they practically got a free house house. I well and the, the roof tiles are from a mental, defunct mental asylum. Yeah. Yeah, that was an interesting. And their kids would joke about it that they were living, you know, under the roof of a crazy house, which was kind of true. Yeah. But but it was a very Trumpian scenario, I thought, where they just didn't.

pay for things. Well, and also, there's a similar story of Trump. using a cheap paint at one of his properties in Doral. And then when the paint doesn't stick, basically, or when it starts to flake, he then blames the people who did the painting and sues them. And it was just one of those things. where you felt, oh, this is very similar to that. Robert. Kennedy is an opportunist and he's always on the make.

and he's always looking for something and it might be women. At one point it was drugs, another point it was alcohol. And then latterly in his life it's been moneymaking opportunities. and then the opportunity to get into government trading on the Kennedy name. I mean, it's funny to me that all of the Kennedys accuse each of the Kennedys. of trading on the name, but then they all do it. They all hark back to the assassinations. If you listen to Bobby's speeches, while he was campaigning, they they ramble on.

I mean, there are good speeches, but they ramble on about his dad, about his uncle. The same with, Schlossberg. With Jack Schlossberg, who's running for Congress now. On the upper, on the Upper East side. Upper West side. Yeah, yeah, they're all referring back. Yet they accuse each other of of profiting from it. And I'm like, guys, just forget about it. Like you're all doing the same thing. So, so he's certainly done that throughout his life.

and even at Riverkeeper, you know, at one point. they didn't want to keep him on, the heads of Riverkeeper. But they all said, well, no, Kennedy brings in cash. like our our donations. Donations have gone through the roof because of the Kennedy name. So everybody's using the name. Same with the vaccine people, the Children's Health Defense. You know, that little nonprofit went from a few hundred. thousand dollars to, I think, $13 million by the time Bobby ran for president.

I mean, it's insane how, you know, people gravitate to. this family that really is sort of like an American royal family. You know, it really is like an American royal family, isn't it? So, many of the sort of anecdotes, like the bear in Central Park, him chopping off the whale had have been covered. But you have a new one I do, involving a raccoon. I feel like I need to ask you to tell us about it.

Yeah. So the whole bear in Central Park. I wasn't surprised because in his diary, he talks about stopping with his kids. He's got his kids in a minivan. He stops. He sees a dead raccoon. He stops, leaves the kids in the van. and cuts off the penis of the raccoon in order to study it later. Remember, as a child, he wanted to be a veterinarian, and he's musing, you know, what goes through his head is interesting. He actually writes down that people in his family are so strange.

And he's talking about he's talking about Michael Skakel holding a grudge. And you know, what he's. doing is completely weird, but he doesn't think of that as weird. So I don't think he thought of the whale as weird. You know, the cutting up the whale and putting it. in his car or the whale juice is running down the window? No, this is a guy who grew up, you know, his summer jobs, his after school. jobs were at the Washington, Washington, D.C. zoo. And he's been fascinated with animals, his whole life.

He's had a hawk since he was 11. Right. So this is his. He doesn't think it's strange. What what do you think he did with the raccoon penis? I think he froze it like he froze a lot of the roadkill. that he would find and then study it. I mean, it was amazing to me in the diaries, the catalog of fish that he would catch,

and he would annotate it by type, by weight, by length. And then it would be which of his children caught which fish. And then on a fossil hunt he would do the same thing. So you've got pages and pages of. of his adventures in nature. I guess maybe that's not so weird if he's into it. But I just found it. I just found it peculiar. Well, it slightly reminded me of Nick Hornby keeping lists of of songs and music.

he was listening to, but also it's just that of an inveterate diary keeper. I think he's, well, maybe trying to explain his life to himself. There were two last clips I was going to ask you too. It's this last paragraph in the years in which I've pored over Kennedy's. diaries, straining to decipher his untidy collection of scribbles, the Griffin Page of the messy life. that he sought to organize, and those daily entries. I've often wondered whether he wrote with an audience in mind.

This is a man who had been told his whole life that he could be. president one day, that he was destined for greatness. While the diaries had been a tool for self-examination. and for dealing with my spiritual struggles, unquote, as he said, when they first came to light more than a decade ago, they were surely also notes for the books he has written about himself. and his family, further enshrining the vaunted, the vaunted Kennedy legacy. while absolving himself of any real responsibility for the pain. he has caused those closest to him and justifying his actions.

He thinks like a lawyer, creating evidence all the time, said a source. close to the Kennedy family. He thinks like a lawyer, creating evidence all of the time. I thought that was very, very telling. So. 20, 28, but feels like he's more it seems like he's going to throw his hat in the ring. How do you rate his chances? I don't know, I think he will run.

I think imagine he runs for the Republican Party. I mean, a Kennedy running for the Republicans. I mean, I think that would be a really big deal. I think his base would would completely support him. Again, this was a man who got up. to 12% of the vote in battleground states, just before he, endorsed, Donald Trump. I think he has a pretty good chance.

I mean, you don't want to hear that. One of the things. I found most interesting about the book was RFK junior talking. about his relationship with God, his praying, his constant sense of guilt at his infidelities, and his inability to somehow control himself, and the way he talks about sex as being mugged by women.

Anyway, I'm very curious to know what you think of the conversation. You can tell us what you think about RFK junior, though. I think I know what many of you know. But we love your comments. We read nearly all of them, and we love it when you comment. It's a real community of people who care about what's happening to this country. If you enjoyed this conversation, then why not become a friend of the beast. for $5 a month or $60 a year? You get extra content, all sorts of exclusive live conversations,

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