How does that happen? And that's "Hillbilly Elegy" guided people in an understanding of what that's like on a lived day-to-day basis. And JD, to his credit, talks about Scots-Irish heritage about Appalachia and the legacy of what that culture looks like today and how a lot of these people voted for Donald Trump,
I didn't ever, in like a bar, I didn't ever think he would be the vice president-elect of the United States. but if you read "Hillbilly Elegy," JD was much more of a traditional conservative at that time.
And I am looking at citizenship in a couple of years. And I read "Hillbilly Elegy." I'm sure there are a lot of people that read it in this room, which kind explained it to me.
I just want to mirror back your folksy wisdom. Hey, I can say hillbilly . You can't. Can I?
It's kind of wild, honestly to think about. But JD Vance's book, "Hillbilly Elegy," I think was really important for a lot of American elites who were like, "How do these people support Trump?" "Where does this shit come from?" That they really, I mean that if you really think back to that time, it was shocking
or surgical procedures. I was the first reporter that wrote extensively about the drug OxyContin. This is about 15 years ago when it was first appearing as here hillbilly heroin in Appalachia and other places. And then I wrote a book called "Pain Killer," which traced the story of this drug and prescription drug abuse and this really fascinating family, the Sackler
Almost never was the radio on. Well, I always liked weird novelty songs and hillbilly records and old rhythm and blues.
Donald Rumsfeld at a big press conference and said, "You know what? We're going around, we're strapping hillbilly armor onto our vehicles", which was scrap metal. In other words, these soldiers adapting as best they could because the vehicles they had weren't going to do it.
My chief contribution, however, is to be every black person in all the images that The Onion uses in this journalism. In this case, I played Obama’s hillbilly half cousin, Cooter Obama, and threaten to derail his campaign. Obviously, Cooter did not succeed, and others are still attempting to derail the president.
Lee: I had a question; "What do you do with your free time?" I was like, scratch that off the list. Kristin: Here is what I do; Hillbilly Handfishing, Dance Moms, Real Housewives of New Jersey, I mean it's mindless because sometimes I just need to just turn off my brain. You guys understand this, you just need to turn off your brain sometimes, so what better way than reality TV.
- Definitely, it's a huge part of them about who they were, about the screw-you attitude. I mean, that book actually kind of had a renaissance back in 2016 when "Hillbilly Elegy" came out. - Oh, yeah. - I'm sure you remember this.
These are two of my favorites. They found out, the people at DDB found out that literally a hillbilly couple, who lived in the Ozarks, in a cabin without running water had their mule pass away and went out and bought a Beetle to replace the mule.
- Me too, I love that book. - It's crazy that JD, the same guy, because that's, "Hillbilly Elegy" is what I kind of thought of him as. - Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'll tell you, for me, it's actually pretty surreal.
I didn't ever, in like a bar, I didn't ever think he would be the vice president-elect of the United States. But also if you look at the evolution of JD Vance, this is a person who wrote "Hillbilly Elegy." And not a lot of people pay attention to this,
By the way, he's also an executive producer on this show. OK. By the way, Billy said "hobo" just now and "hillbilly " yesterday. I just want to mirror back your folksy wisdom.
And man, even-- I'm a shell, dude. And actually, there was an older brother named Roy that had a radio show every Saturday for 15 minutes-- a little hillbilly show.