#666 - Sen. John Kennedy

This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von

Senator John Kennedy joins Theo Von for a humorous and heartfelt chat about Louisiana roots, Washington politics, comedy, sports, and life lessons. The conversation blends personal stories with sharp wit and candid refle

Key takeaways

• Authenticity matters more than performative politics

Transcript preview

Today's guest is the United States senator representing the great state of Louisiana. He currently resides in St. Tammany, Paris, which is the place that I'm from. This is episode 666 of this podcast, but we stand with the Lord. He's got a book out called How to Test Negative for Stupid and why Washington never will. It's an honor to spend time with one of the most humorous senators in our history, Mr. John. Kennedy. But man, I'm going to be. But man, it's a little bit. What an honor is to see you. I'm a song. I was singing. I'm on. And uh, and uh, and yeah, thank you, man. You're quite welcome. Thank you, John for representing our state. And, uh, thank you, John, for representing our state. And, uh, and I appreciate that. We've had a lot of good Louisiana. And, and I appreciate that. And I appreciate that. on here. Mark Norman is a famous comedian Dustin Poirier, our UFC legend Kevin Gates, Busy, who's a rapper out of Baton Rouge. The Suicide Boys, for sure, Scrim and Ruby, and you. So it's an honor, man. What brings you over to Nashville, actually? I know you went to Vanderbilt, right? I did go to Vanderbilt. I'm Bill Haggerty. and they're having a big function tonight and he asked me to speak and I said sure I'll come I'll just fly in and it just so happened we were doing your show so it all worked out perfectly oh that's awesome man yeah so we'll go wherever we're going guys I'll change into a suit and go over there and speak and you know cut up and natural's gotten so big Theo has it yeah has it changed it I mean it's just it's turning to a real I'll say it's turn into a real I'll say it's turn into a real I'll say tourist destination, I feel like even more probably than it was when you were here. Yep. Yeah. Well, it's all, Nashville even when I was here was a banking and insurance center. Okay. Now it's so much more. It's health care, it's tech. It's for the while Nashville's the fastest growing city for young people in the country. Now it's probably still on the top ten. I think it's yeah it's still a good place to a bummer scowl off of somebody too. You got it. You got it, man. You know. You know. That's never lost. That's never lost it's a. It's a Yeah, and it's, you know, Knoxville used to be the big city and Knoxville's still pretty big, but now Nashville's kind of where the action. It's always been country music. Yeah, a lot of good comedians came out of Nashville. Yeah, that's a good point. You don't even think about that, Nate Bar-Gats, he's one. Oh, I know that you grew up near where Jerry Clowers from and he's my favorite comedian. Yep. I grew up in a little town called Zachary. Yeah. Yeah. Did you ever get to see Jerry. on TV. Yeah, that's it. Never met him. Yeah, he was like an idol of mine growing up. Funny. Oh yeah, dude. He was one of the best. He still is. I just saw an auction actually over there auctioning off his suit that he wore and I think I'm gonna get that. I don't know if I'll ever wear but I think I'm gonna get it. Do you still do comedy shows? Oh yeah for sure. I just finished a tour and then I'm just taking a break right now. I'm a when you were young? I think you know I was over at LSU and I was sitting I lived in a place called the Commons over there and it's like an apartment complex over there and it's just walls. Really in college you just get walls. There's not you know they'll have falsets in walls you don't get a lot when you get an apartment and I remember sitting I remember sitting out there one day with the neighbors and I was just cutting up and this one guy Kevin he's like man you should be a comedian and I don't know if I don't if I don't ever really thought I played Jerry Clara for me when we go on drives and I think I just kind of put it together for me at some point you know and I wanted a job where you could like comedy was nice because you always got to get away it was like you got to perform here you got to perform there you do a lot of quips man you have a huge sense of humor did you ever think about it to try it? I just I just try to meet myself. Yeah you have a huge sense of humor. You know I have this saying I don't remember who first told me, but when I was growing up somebody told me, said, Kennedy, you always be yourself unless you suck. And if you suck, there's nothing we can do to help you. And I've never forgotten that, you know? That's a good line, man. And a lot of folks in Washington think they need to pretend to be somebody else and be very erudite and sound like a senator. And that's okay for them, but it just doesn't work for me. Yeah, I'd find it too hard. I think I don't know if, I don't, it's hard for me to find something that's too fake, it just hurts me kind of or something. Well, the American people can smell a phony man. Yeah. They can smell a phony man. Yeah. They can smell a phony a mile away. Yeah. But being off of comedy has been nice because I've had more time and watch. I've been watching some of the soccer. You've been watching the world. Yeah. Yeah. intense because they just felt like big money and and I don't know that we even bid we might have put in a bid from New Orleans yeah but it was expensive and you had to offer incentives the World Cup's a big deal you know we're not we're not big that kind of football we don't follow it much in America but it and the rest of the world it is the thing man oh yeah it's been nice to see I just I actually I went to a game down the other night. It's fun to watch. Dude it was so cool man. And they treated us like so nice down there and just like yeah it was the first World Cup game that they'd ever had in Guadalajara that Mexico had played in and man I got to go with my friend Johnny and Samantha and it was just man. These guys are incredible athletes. Unbelievable athletes. It's like they're running for so long. They're running for so long. It's start. You're stop. It's contact. It's a lot. It's. It's a lot of. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. want that's what I think the whole time I'm like these bastards can go after this they can eat whatever and they can eat whatever they want probably forever like they've done enough exercise yep like they're kind of grandfathered in to have to have an abs I think tennis is another sport that demands incredible endurance is for the rich though I think John well I remember when I was in school in England I went over and bought standing room only tickets at at Wimbledon. And I got to watch Arthur Ash on one of the outer courts, who's as close as you and me. And this guy was in such incredible, he wasn't muscular. You know, John McHenry, if you met, I saw Jimmy Connors one time, wasn't muscular. Yeah, and they were from lower class backgrounds, they just started early. Huh. Yeah, I've got, look, any urban kid, I'm gonna put a racket in their hand. They, that is, that, that is one, that, that is one, that, that is one, that, that, that, that is one, that is one, that, that, that, that, that, that, that is one, that, that, that is one, that is one, that, that is one, that, that is one, that, that is one, that is one, that, that is one, that is one, that, that is one, that is one, that is one, that is one, that is one, that is one they take over fast. But it's discipline man. It's just repetition every day every day and you've got to be able to handle pressure. Yeah I don't think I'd be good at it. You got to be able to handle the pressure. I don't know. Because you're playing people that are as good as you are and it's it becomes a mental game. Yeah, especially at that high level man. I think that's what people don't realize about a lot of these sports like when you get to a high level it's a matter of inches. It's a matter of inches. It's a bit of a moment. It's inches and it's mental. If you even see these soccer games you'll see the ball goes through and it's like there's like an arm a leg a shoal ahead so many things that are just I mean half a millimeter away from it you know every single shot. Yeah I've enjoyed watching the World Cup it's been good it's been a it's been a nice time to have extra free time because that's going on. You live in Madisonville. Yeah. Madisonville and Mandeville. Okay. Of course it's it's grown a lot since you grew up there. Oh yeah, I go back a good bit. It's just well you know. Yeah it's just you all you can't really tell the difference now between Mandeville, Madisonville, and Covington. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah my stepdad goes over there to a coffee house over there by friends right there on the lake and has coffee. I know what you're talking about. It's in an old house. Yeah, something like that. I can't think of that. I've had meetings there before. Yeah, it's nice man. I used to live right of her buddy of mine, his family let me live in their basement over there. Which living in the basement in Louisiana, it's a, it's dangerous. You can flood. And you can find varmints in there. Oh, definitely, man. Your hair is clean in there, man. Your hair is clean. Your hair is clean. You know. You know. You. You're right. about that she called me the other day. I was in the middle of a hearing and it was she was hysterical and she showed me a picture that there was a six foot rat snake on my and my on my deck and I said just leave him alone you want him you know don't hurt him. She said I'm I'll call the neighbor and they'll kill him I said don't do that he's a rat snake even if you even if you could pick him up he might bite you but it won't hurt. Yeah. If you're a rat, he'll eat you. Yeah, you got a problem, man. You know, he will eat you and spit out the bones. But they always got something over there. I used to work over at Friends on the Lake. You know where that is? I know Friends well. Yeah. So before they remodeled, it was just one story right down. It's high fluting now. Oh, it's, yeah. It's high end now. It's fancy now. It's fancy. It's, it's fancy now. It's, now. It's, now. It's, now. It's, now. It's, now. It's, now. It's, now. It's, now. It's, now. It's, now. It's, now. It's, now. It's, now. It's, now. It's, now. It's, now. It's, now. It's, now. It's, now. It's, now. It's, now. It's, But it's just grown so much. Oh yeah and bad owes I used to go bad owes get me a little burger I still good bad owes is still there could be a chocolate mold over there so got it Oh so much sugar in my face I couldn't blink my damn eyes for an hour But I you know but it was worth it man But I worked at friends and I will tell you this they were a waiter Oh no I was a bus boy for are you're yeah I was never I was never promoted that was my want me to you know that was some of my energy but um but it was a good time over there and when they would cook duck when the chef would cook duck every now and then they had duck on the menu and back in the bus boy section where the ice machine was they had these uh these um they had some missing bass boards down there and these raccoons would come out of the wall so one of the busboys would have to sit back there with a broomstick and just beat them back in it literally just beat them back into the wall where they were cooking duck we had love duck. We had an outdoor cat for a while. Oh yeah. Wild but he can, but I would bring cat food out there. And it was always gone so quick and finally when I went out there one night and just kind of eat it, a raccoon was coming out of the woods. Just snar from that stuff. We're pretending to be a cat. We've got raccoons, I back up to the woods. We've got raccoons, deer. I went out one night to take out the garbage, opened up the top. Yeah, yeah, they act like it's theirs. Yeah, exactly. And now raccoons, they're kind of cute, possums, huh? Yeah. Those things scared. We'll see a cross bit of a catcoon every now and then you'll see a couple of them start cross-pollinating out there. If the, if the humidity gets high enough, you'll see some of them animals start mixing species. We've got everything. Oh, yeah. We've got an alligator. We've got more alligators, then we've got people now. Is that. Is that true now. It's just 25 years ago. They were getting and watch the Democrats try to get them to register to vote. Yep. It wouldn't surprise me. Wouldn't surprise me. Sorry to interrupt you, but I was gonna forget that joke if I didn't say it. Yes, Louisiana has more alligators than people. Dear God, get the kids away from the river. But tourists love them because they will, these boat tour guides go out and they feed them. And so when they see the boat. they come immediately and the tourists just eat it up they think they're taint they're not it's perversion to me brother i don't mess with the devil and i don't mess with his pets that's one way i that's how i operate i don't mess with those types of things that's for sure um but yeah it's nice for you to be here nice to just have a taste of home in the building man you started working you were taping now yeah is that okay yeah fine i just didn't know oh yes sir sorry Kennedy, thank you. And you're not related to Bobby Kennedy or any of those Kennedy's, right? Well, if I am, I'm the poor side of the family. Okay, I don't think I am. My dad was from Oklahoma, and my mom was from Central Louisiana. How did they meet? How did your parents meet? Well, my dad, Phil, was from a Depression family. Eight brothers and sisters. Wow. He left home. How did you meet, hard for me to believe today. to go to another town that had a high school. He lived with relatives. He worked as a janitor at night to pay his way. He went to the University of Oklahoma. We just won the Natty Championship, baby. That's right. Let's go. He worked his way through school, got a degree in petroleum engineering. We came to Louisiana to work in the oil fields and met my mom. He went away for four years. He was in World War II. But I, my dad was my hero, man. Was he? Yeah, he really was. What was his name? Preston Kennedy. I named my son after, my dad used to tell me, Theo, he would say, son, when I was growing up, I have three brothers. He'd say, son, you'll never understand love till you have a child. And I'd say, I'd say, come on dad, you know. He'd say, no, it's not like the love of a love of a good of a spouse or a sibling or a girlfriend. And until you have children, you don't know that, but he was right. I named my son after Preston. And he's a good kid. There was a time growing up when I figured my son was either going to go into concert promotion or a minimum security prison. I wasn't sure which. But he, he's a good kid. Yep. Oh, that's awesome. That's my late dad. There you go, Preston. And the other Preston, huh? Yep. Amen. Yep, that's a great picture. I've got that somewhere. That was my younger days. That's when my dad was still alive. Oh, bless him, man. We were, he was, we were raised in Zachary. Oh, yeah. About 3,000 people. Mm-hmm. And that's close to Liberty. It's, it's sort of close to liberty. We're, it's close to liberty. We're, it's close to liberty. We were, it's close to liberty. We were, it's close to liberty. We were, it's, it's, it's close to liberty. We were, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's is about 40 miles away, it's close to Baton Rouge. Okay, yeah. Oh yeah, I knew where it is now. Now when I grew up, Zancery is big now, it's like 15, 20,000. There were like 3,000 people. Oh, yeah. And it was really a small town. And I like, people say, what's a small town like? And I tell them the truth. It's, everybody knows your business. Everybody knows whose check is good and whose husband isn't. Everybody knows you. But I would go back. Some people hated high school. I loved it. Yeah. Happiest day. Oh, high school? Yeah. Oh yeah, because I don't think I don't think people you don't realize at that age that you will never be in a place where you're kind of as protected like in an incubator and have all of everyone you know will be around. Every day they show up even though they're tired or whatever and they're miserable. They didn't do their homework or whatever. And they're it doesn't matter everybody you know will show and that never happens again nope it I had a hundred people my graduating class I we were the bucking that's B bucking bronchos and I cared about two things I cared about my studies because of my parents but I cared more about basketball and I cared about chair leaders and I cared about You don't, but I talked to people all the time, they oh I didn't like high school. Man, I'd go back in a second. Oh, God. Well they busted some guy, they had some guy had a growth deficiency and he, uh, or just the Lord didn't really let him grow up. He was just a Simon Birch of a man, you know. And they busted, he was like 31 and he went back to middle school or something. And he was, they called him on like two weeks into school. That's cool. One of the teachers, one of the teachers, one of the teachers, one of the teachers, one of the teacher, one of the teacher, one of the over the weekend at a back and they busted him. This is a few years ago in Indiana they caught a guy but and people were like that's messed up I said look I don't blame the guy. Well you grew up in Mandeville and Covington it was probably small then. Oh man it's big now but it's. Covington was perfect man I remember we get paddled by the principal. Oh yeah. Bill Brady was our principal and he's the best I saw him. I had a buddy's funeral. You can't do that anymore but I we had it. Did you had it. Did you had it. Did you had it? Did you have like a milk. Did you all? Did you all? Did you all? Did you all? Did you all? Did you all? Did you all? Did you all? Did you all? Did you all? Did you all? Did you all? Did you all? Did you all? Did you all? Did you all? I remember I remember I'll never forget I had a civics class and my basketball coach was my teacher and there was this one guy I won't use his name because he's a friend of mine but he was a great football player and he was having trouble with the exam so he said Kennedy help me with this exam we're sitting next to each other and I'll never forget well okay you know I he'd point to an answer it was a multiple trust I go home I go, huh? And the coach called me. Caught me. Oh, come here. And you just, you, you bend over and he hits you with that paddle with holes in it. And you don't want to, you don't want to cry, but hurts like hell. We don't want to make any noise. You just, yeah. Like any noise you make is not. Then you're uncool. Now you don't do that anymore, but it worked for me. Next time my friend got in trouble, he said, will you help me? I said, no. I think, you know, I've learned my lesson. Yeah, I learned my lesson in our way, man. Here we go right here. It said, Perrysburg Police arrested a Labrador, Labrador Sierra on Monday. That's a man. A 24-year-old suspect was enrolled in high school, allegedly posing as a teenage boy for more than a year and a half. Really? That's pretty wild. 11th, 2024 and May 14th, 2025. Shout out to that young fellow trying to get an education. Good for him, I guess. Yeah, I guess. We don't know why he went back. We don't know why he went back. Now if he went back to finish up a couple of courses? If that's one thing, but you just might want to delve in the background. Yeah, you might want to do a little recon on that fellow. And I also will notice in that photo, I think he was in a prison outfit, so, there may have maybe more to the story. You started as treasurer in Louisiana? Yeah, my first job. Your political career, sorry. Yep. My first job, I worked for a governor, the reform governor named Buddy Romer. Oh, did you really? I worked for Buddy and then Buddy got beat and I had left him to run for attorney general. I lost him. Came in third. My next job was another reform governor named Mike Foster. I had left him to run for attorney general. I lost him. I had one and he asked me to come run basically the tax department and I did that for a while and then I ran for treasurer and I was treasurer for 17 years before I came to the Senate. Wow. Enjoyed it. Learned a lot about finance, a lot about bond issues, underwriting, I managed all the state money. That's not a lot of money to a lot of people, but for Louisiana it's a lot. Yeah, that's a chunk. I enjoyed it. Yeah. I like being a senator, but I enjoyed being state treasurer. What does a treasurer do? So just so we know, so we're clear on it. Well when you're in the state treasurer, just as you'd expect you're in charge of the state's money. States borrow money to build roads or to build prisons or build schools. And you issue bonds and you hire investment bankers, always and bond lawyers. I was in charge of that. You have to be very careful. The rules, the security rules, you have to disclose everything. We had idle cash. That ain't good in Louisiana, bro. That goes missing quick. But cash comes in and goes out quickly, but I was in charge of investing it in short-term instruments. Sometimes just a day or two. Okay. But when you go. When you've got a cash flow that's in the billions of dollars you're just investing it overnight you can pick up a lot of money if you do it repeatedly we had a lot of trust funds I invested I invested those I spent a lot of time working with the legislature on ideas about how to make government more efficient save money I was in charge of the state's unclean property program were you really do yeah I think I had 200 bucks on something. Thank you. When a business has your money and can't find you, they can't keep it. They've got to turn it over to the state. And I was in charge of. Unless it's the federal government, they're allowed to just keep it. No, the federal government's different. Yeah. They allowed to keep every sick. But I was in charge of getting the money back to people. And the most money I ever gave back to a lady. Man, it was great. She was a retired school teacher teacher teacher in New Orleans. It's a long story, but she didn't know about the money. They were invested in stocks and they grew and grew I gave her a check for 1,26,000 dollars. Yeah, man It was cool And did you walk over there and do it? You mailed her? I called her and told her how we got it She didn't have any children and she said well I want to come to Baton Rouge and get it And so that's where my office was so she came in and she cried Talked about her late husband I gave her the money. I gave her the money to help people. I don't have any children but when I walked her outside to to escort her out she had like 10 nieces and nephews just waiting and I knew that money was going to get spent. Get that check boy. Oh when that check comes in Louisiana when that check comes man it's getting spent. But I'm glad we got some of your money. Yeah. Oh yeah thank you man I needed at the time too you know so I appreciate that. got a job and then senator how long you been working as a senator for ten years okay it's uh some of the most interesting people I've ever been around yeah right now right now it's not pretty to watch right now Congress kind of looks like a breach birth you know what you mean about well three wheels of stock a shopping cart we're not getting along yeah it's hard to reach consensus We'll get through it. But as we get closer to the midterm elections there, it just gets more and more and more political. I think we're going to have another shutdown. I sent on the Appropriations Committee and we're trying to put together a budget, but we're not getting any cooperation. What is the Appropriations Committee? What does that mean? That means I'm in charge of not just me, but others. I'm in charge of drafting the federal government's budget. And my part of it is what's called Energy and Water Development. I'm in charge of the nuclear program. I'm in charge, well my subcommittee is. I'm in charge of the Department of Energy. I'm in charge of the Army Corps of Engineers. And we put together the budget, but I've, you've got to get 60 votes to pass anything in the Senate. So I've got to work with my Democratic colleagues and that sometimes is easy sometimes it's not the closer we Senator Schumer I think is gonna shut he's gonna refuse to let us do a budget I think he's gonna shut down government that guy seems like a crook I mean that's an unfair thing you're fair it's fair it's America you can't believe what you want I don't hate anybody I don't and when I say my prayers one of the things I ask God for hate and it's easy to start hating and wash it and I refuse to hate and that's one of the many things I asked God for and I know Chuck well we went to China together met with President she we don't agree on much and Chuck's entitled his opinion but as I tell him all the time you know he's he's he's how can I explain it he's very Yeah, he's like a five-year-old in a Batman costume, you know, you just want to tell him, chill out. Yeah. But he hates President Trump, doesn't like President Trump. He thinks by creating chaos, it'll help his side in the midterm elections. And I fully expect him to withhold the votes on the budget and shut down government. And that would be, I hope I'm wrong. If I'm wrong, I'll apologize to him. time. Prize Picks is America's number one sports picks app. The app is really simple to use. To get started just pick more or less on two plus players stat projections and lock your picks in. You rather just pick teams? Prize Picks has that now too. Just pick the winner, spread, and total on any major game or fight. And with the summer of soccer, there's no better time to get in on the action. a soccer lineup or just pick the winner of the game and keep it simple. Here's who I'm going with to win the cup. I've got America, come on. Winning the whole tournament and I can take that on prize picks now. Or Mexico. Okay. 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