Between Home and a Hurricane

Postcards from New York

“New York is the meeting place of the peoples, the only city where you can hardly find a typical American.” – Djuna Barnes, Ladies Almanack (1928)

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To ground myself, I’ve started counting down to the election with handwritten notes—25 left to go. I’m forcing myself to diary, trying to understand where I’ve been, because I am so frazzled. Someone asked me yesterday what I was doing in New York. I froze. I couldn’t recall.

This past week was another whirlwind. Just six days ago, I was front row at dusk, surrounded by 100,000 people at Trump’s rally in Butler. Among a sea of patriots, I stood shoulder to shoulder with Elon Musk and J.D. Vance—details that deserve their own post. A red-eye flight took me to Pennsylvania, fresh from a sailing event with Team Kennedy in Marina del Rey, possibly the last of its kind. Campaigning by sea has been a long, lovely chapter. It’s sad to see it end. As the sun dipped below the horizon, we gathered around a table on deck. Bobby asked for election predictions and shared the difficult news that his mother wasn’t well.

From Butler, I took a nine-hour train to New York, expecting to get more done on the tracks than in the air, but I was constantly distracted by the passing Pennsylvania landscape. No one warned me it was so pretty. Once I arrived, my next event was canceled. At this pace, you’re forced to embrace uncertainty, so I spent four days wandering the city without a set plan. I wrote, shopped, and relaxed. Somewhere in-between, I got a call from Mike informing me that one of our boys had been suspended for lighting a ball of paper on fire and tossing it across the room—caught on camera, of course. He’d be pulling weeds during those three days off.

Serendipitous encounters are always a perk of wandering NYC streets. Jess and I ran into Elle King and her mother, London, browsing Ralph Lauren. Elle, pregnant and glowing, is expecting her second boy. We talked baby names while we sifted through racks of cable-knit sweaters and striped button-downs. We also tried, unsuccessfully, to piece together a proper hunting outfit for falconry next week. “Spend the money on boots,” London urged. Collectively, they convinced me to buy the American flag sweater that every female politician seems to be wearing right now. So, I’m twinning with Kristi Noem, Sarah Huckabee, Cheryl Hines, and Melania (just to name a few.)

Earlier, on the same afternoon, we stopped for lunch at the Bowery with Amanda de Cadenet. Bare-faced, she was even more stunning in person. After lunch, she slipped into a cab, her perfectly tousled blonde hair catching the light as she clutched a bag full of remedies for her daughter across town.

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My plans shifted with the weather. I debated flying out before the storm hit, worried that airport closures would lock me out of Palm Beach for another series of events (most of which had already been canceled). I changed my mind 45 times. Part of me entertained the reckless desire to confront a Florida hurricane just to cross “catastrophic weather” off my campaign list. Plus, I had an enticing invitation to stay with a glamorous woman who offered to clear out her closet for me to sleep in. If you knew the details, you’d understand the temptation. But in the end, I came to my senses and decided to stay put until it was safe.

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On our last night we stayed in at Arlo’s apartment which is slowly, thankfully, becoming a cozy refuge amidst hectic urban confines. Outside, it smells of coffee and food carts. Inside, it’s the scene you’d expect from two 18-year-olds on their own for the first time: there is mood lighting, pizza boxes in the kitchen and a sketch of Anthony Bourdain hung above the knife strip—as a fitting young chef tribute. Arlo and Porter cooked a delicious dinner for three of us, their tiny space with its red barstools and small island paying homage to their culinary hero, who now oversees each of their trialed creations.

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Palm Beach arrival

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As of tonight, I am in Palm Beach, stepping into the quiet calm after the storm. The air is still and the sky flat gray. Kyle Kemper and his crew picked me up a couple of hours ago and we drove the Kennedy bus through the streets at twilight, their baby on my lap as we passed through town, pausing to place flowers on the doorstep of the Kennedy estate before heading to the beach to catch the last slice of sunset.

Meanwhile, back home, another son is packing for his red eye, carefully arranging the buttons he made featuring Ethel Kennedy’s face. He’ll be joining me soon as we head into the next chapter of the campaign, which, if all goes well, will include a lesson in falconry in Upstate New York.

Below are notes to consider before additional posts publish.

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3 Responses To Nuzzigate:

Text From My Friend Aaron Everitt

“I wanted to tell you how much I appreciated reading your substack today. Your writing is so good. It’s easy to read - in the best of ways.

The story is so difficult to understand from the pure magnitude of what was at stake. I’ve never found the infatuation with sex - so to be that haphazard about your proximity to someone who gives off “dangerous to your mission” vibes is hard to understand.

I don’t invest much in salacious personal behaviors in campaigns- I live in no illusion that these are good people. It was actually one of the things that attracted me to RFK. His admittance from the outset that he’s lived a careless life in regards to much of this was at least an honest assessment. He never elevated himself into some kind of position of holiness - even in his God videos they seemed more referential to how I see grace and redemption than his supplanting of himself as a Christlike figure. So the disappointment in failure is less about the personal elevating I might have misplaced, then it is about the distraction from what has to be accomplished.

At the end of the day there’s a lot to be disappointed in by both characters in this drama. It’s an all you can eat buffet of stupidity and carelessness and that’s ultimately dispiriting.

I’ve come to admire your work. It’s both beautiful and good. The way in which you discuss and show topics is better and more realistic than anything produced by the click-fed, advertising monsters in media. You also seem to be proving the adage about the American dream, that if you’re willing to work, the country will reward you.  I admire it and hope you can celebrate the success that comes from honest attempts in good faith to tell a story.

The storyteller is the most forgotten character in our Industrial revolutionized modernity. We want production - both in our factories and in our print. We have to sell, sell, sell to pay for our fancy cars and nice offices from which we can oversee the plebiscites as we print the next round of gossipy mind rot. In that unholy pursuit, we’ve long ago forgotten how to tell a story. Your pursuit and subsequent success in the most noble, and ancient of arts is the best indicia that the souls’ of humanity are predisposed towards the story.

I gather this was not an easy season - so my earnest hope for your own rest and recovery at some point when this chapter of the story slows down and allows for it.

Sorry for the early text.”

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Why did the source of Sex Diaries — New York Magazine — turn all prudish on its own journalist, Olivia Nuzzi?

— Opinion piece BY CINDY ADAMS

“Even ETs on Gliese 12, our newly discovered planet 40 light years away, know that a Kennedy male oozes sex. Goes together like hash and trash.

JFK’s Ambassador Joe dad diddled Marlene Dietrich among his other diddlees. President JFK? Inside many hotels — and women. Forget not bro Ted’s drowned lady friend.

Comes now married Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his alleged rumble with blond, long hair, tall, shapely, gorgeous, designer-clothed Olivia Nuzzi, one of New York Magazine’s best journalists.

I know her firsthand because she wrote a not wildly adoring piece on me awhile back. Can’t say I love her. I just respect her.

New York Magazine — because of cocky Kennedy, on line to halfway run our fabulous government — put her in a timeout. Why? Because she flung a fling with his flang?

She wrote a proper piece. Took no liberties with it. Excellent reporting.

So this top press person is suddenly in trouble while this ex-presidential candidate zips up after — allegedly — zapping other females? Why? Why’d she get the hit?

How NY mag’s Olivia Nuzzi covered RFK Jr. after alleged ‘sexting’ started — and the tweet that’s haunting her

We’re in touch. Temporarily away from the subject and spotlight — and even her own home — she tells me, “I am not speaking on the record.”

OK. I understand. But what has this to do with journalism?

Now every top A-No. 1 female reporter has to look like Bess Truman? Even husband Harry might’ve razzberry’d that idea.”

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Oliver Darcy Says Breaking the Olivia Nuzzi-RFK Jr. Story as an Independent Journalist Was ‘Terrifying’

“When you are at a mainstream media organization, you do have a network; a safety net of people who are checking everything. So when it’s by yourself, it is a little different to push that publish button and you let it fly out into the world,” the Status founder told moderator and TheWrap CEO/editor-in-chief Sharon Waxman. “With a newsletter, especially, it’s a little different even than publishing online in that you cannot edit it. There’s no correction that you can really do afterward, right? It is in people’s inboxes. Once you hit send, it is gone and you can edit the web version, but it’s gone out to as many as thousands of people. So that was also a little terrifying.”

“I don’t have an in-house attorney at the moment, so I had to consult an attorney,” Darcy added of the story’s legal aspects. “I reached out and ended up talking to a couple people who did work with me, basically pro bono. So that was one thing, because if you’re dealing with a sensitive story like this, you want to make sure you’re legally buttoned up.”

“It’s starting to matter less and less where the news breaks, as long as people trust you; if they trust that you have a good track record of reporting accurate information,” Darcy said. “If I publish it on my brand new website and newsletter, or if it’s published on CNN, I don’t really know if there would be any difference if I had published that story at CNN. I think it would have the same exact impact as it did when I published it on my own, and I think that’s really representative of the changing environment.”

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Virginia Giuffre is MAGA?!

I was stunned when a friend sent me this (VG asking Elon Musk his “plan?”) but also, anyone who followed Maxwell’s trial closely, knows Trump was cleared by all evidence and witnesses. When I published Epstein’s inmate Nick, quoting Epstein clearing Trump in one of their jail confessionals, he was ripped out of his cell and moved three times until finally landing in California (more on Nick soon)

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Diddy Trial Set for May 2025

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RIP Ethel Kennedy

Farewell Ethel Kennedy.

Her legacy as the matriarch of the Kennedy family is marked by unwavering resilience, grace, and a fabulous sense of adventure. Reflecting on the challenges she's faced, Ethel once said, "The world will change when hearts change." Throughout decades of triumph and tragedy, she stood firm, guiding her family with compassion and strength.

While all the Kennedys shared touching tributes, RFK’s sentiments cut the deepest.