Roger Simon – Epoch Times columnist and creator of the interview series “The Presidential Roller Coaster” – joined The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy Thursday to share new details about his latest interview with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
TRANSCRIPT
Michael Patrick Leahy: Good morning, Nashville. It is 7:06 AM; we are broadcasting live from our studios on Music Row in Nashville, Tennessee; it is Thursday, July 20th, 2023.
We are delighted – capital “D” – Delighted to welcome to
Roger Simon: And neon, I hope?
Michael Patrick Leahy: We are delighted to welcome to our microphones, our very good friend, my former boss at PJTV.
We’ve known each other now for 14 years. We were teenagers when we,
Roger Simon: Isn’t it more than that? Well it feels like more
Michael Patrick Leahy: Yes – feels like more–
Also Academy Award-nominated screenwriter, novelist about to have a new book come out, and also, depending on the day, the most read columnist at the Epoch Times.
Senior editor there, Mr. Roger Simon. Good morning, Roger.
Roger Simon: Good morning, Michael.
Michael Patrick Leahy: I’ve been looking forward to this because, you know, you’ve got this thing going on where you’re doing the cinéma vérité with the presidential candidate. It’s called what, “The Presidential Roller Coaster” – is that what it’s called?
Roger Simon: Yes.
Michael Patrick Leahy: And so you, you’ve done a little video clip with Vivek Ramaswamy.
Roger Simon: Yes, but it wasn’t a “little video clip,” it was 24 minutes.
Michael Patrick Leahy: That’s what I meant: 24 extensive minutes of very good programming.
And it was a lot of fun to watch that – very much to cinéma vérité.
And, and so last weekend he went down to Memphis and you, you interviewed Bobby Kennedy Jr.
Tell us all about that adventure.
Roger Simon: Well, you know it was really interesting, and I liked RFK, Jr quite a bit as a man.
Because look, when doing these kind of interviews, it’s not exactly like, you know Michael and I know each other real well for, as he said, 14 years.
We’re sitting opposite each other here at iHeart.
And it wasn’t that kind of interview. What I’m doing – trying to do – is getting a little sense of the person as well as the issues, of course.
This is a very interesting, complicated man – very intelligent with more background in the history of our country than I’ve ever run into in a political candidate.
Michael Patrick Leahy: That’s very interesting.
Roger Simon: It’s very interesting.
But this guy knows his American history inside and out, and he probably got it around the family dinner table at Hyannis Port as a six year old.
Michael Patrick Leahy: I can tell you this, I was in a class with him at Harvard, and what’s interesting about that way back then he was writing a paper that became a book – a biography of a judge I think Frank Johnson, who was the judge a Republican in Alabama, who had all the critical civil rights rulings, back in the 50’s and the 60’s.
Well, so he’s very, he’s a very thoughtful guy.
Roger Simon: Very much so. But he is the antithesis of what the Democratic Party has become.
Michael Patrick Leahy: He’s a Kennedy Democrat.
Roger Simon: He describes himself as a Kennedy Democrat. But a Kennedy Democrat, ironically, has more in common nowadays with people like Donald Trump or Vivek Ramaswamy.
He’s adamantly in favor of the freedom of speech. And of course that is the heart of our country, and that’s what’s being lost by the Democratic Party. We saw it just as yesterday as they came down on Jason Aldean.
Michael Patrick Leahy: Oh my goodness.
Roger Simon: I mean, how absurd was that?
Well, they did Jason, a big favor in terms of sales.
But nevertheless, so Kennedy, and we also talked a lot about – and this was the heart of my interview and quite deliberately, so.
I do a little joking around at the beginning of these things to give it that vérité look.
Michael Patrick Leahy: A little vérité.
Roger Simon: And the heart of it was a lot of discussion of the CIA and the FBI – how they have subverted their positions in our culture.
You know, Kennedy is a huge critic; believes the CIA had something to do with the assassinations.
Michael Patrick Leahy: Of his–
Roger Simon: Both
Michael Patrick Leahy: His father and his uncle.
Roger Simon: Yeah.
Michael Patrick Leahy: Wow.
Roger Simon: And you know, I didn’t believe that back when I was younger.
Unfortunately, I’m now beginning to believe it.
As I’ve said many times, I now apologize to Oliver Stone.
Michael Patrick Leahy: Well, that is interesting. That’s interesting.
Why don’t we come back, let’s get the details of the trip down to Memphis, how that all came about how you spent time with him and then what the reaction at this Freedom Fest where he spoke was to Bobby Kennedy Jr.
Okay. This is the Tennessee Star Report.
He’s Roger Simon; I’m Michael Patrick Leahy.
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Robert F. Kennedy, Jr” by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
