Guest: Kathleen Kennedy Townsend

Yes, that’s no typo.  I had the honor and thrill to get to spend the afternoon with Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.  Oldest daughter of Bobby Kennedy and former lieutenant governor of Maryland.  Long story short, her bad luck was my good luck.  She was stranded here a couple extra days because of the weather out east so she had me style her hair and I snuck in a quick podcast with her.  She was witty, charming and of course a very sharp intellect.  After listening here you may want to watch it on YouTube to see some added photos she spoke about.  

Making No Cents with Tom Sena

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Make a nice step with Thomas Tina.

SPEAKER_00 0:07

All right. Thanks for tuning in. Guess who we have here today? I'm a little giddy, sorry. This is Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. Kathleen was here in town uh doing uh taking a little uh run at the Omaha Irish Cultural Center. She got an award. Did you not?

SPEAKER_01 0:27

I did.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Well, thanks. Welcome. Thanks so much for doing this.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

I'm very listening. It's fun. It's exciting. It's great, great to be back in Omaha. Great to be back in Nebraska.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Well, we're we're we'd love to have you. And uh I feel like she's we put her on the spot a little bit because I just got I just had the honor of doing her hair. And so what so she couldn't possibly say no to doing the podcast. I actually got to go to the event uh at the Cultural Irish Cultural Center. And uh you gave a great speech. I love the theme that you touched on because it is it's kind of been a little bit of a running theme that I've been touching on on this podcast. Um I can get a little salty in regards to our political, our current state of affairs. Um, I won't go there today, but what I usually end my podcast is is looking for something to hold on to. Um, I mean, an olive branch, like at some point, there will be a day after what is currently our current administration, what is going on. Um and at that point, we have to try and figure out well, how how do we come back together? How do we reach across that aisle? How do we how do we move on from this point in time?

SPEAKER_01 1:40

You know, um tomorrow I'm going to Mississippi and I'm going to Ole Miss. And that was the place where James Meredith entered the Ole Miss, first black American. Two people were killed, 200 people were injured. Um and my father was vilified when that happened, hated. And four years later, he went back. Uh he spoke to 5,000 students who gave him a standing ovation. And during his speech, he quoted Jefferson Davis, who was the head of the Confederacy. And he talked, and that what Jefferson Davis said is that we're all brothers and sisters together. And that we have to work with one another. And during that speech, my father said quoted the idea that we're really brilliant when not we just believe what ourselves, but we bring together both ends of the spectrum. And that and he said that to students at Ole Miss in Mississippi, where before he went down there, the papers were saying they killed the Ron Kennedy. So the genius is not just to talk to your own people, but to reach out to people with whom you disagree. And he showed an example of that. And I think if you if your listeners look at in their hearts and their minds and say, Isn't it wonderful that we can reach across the aisle, reach across to family members with whom we disagree? Wouldn't that be a better world? I bet a lot of your listeners, for instance, are Christians. And they say And then you think about who was the best who did the most just read Jesus' message when Jesus was alive. The woman at the well, who was married seven times and was living with an unmarried man. And a lot of people would say how terrible you're living in sin.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

But Jesus talked with her. And she just helped convert her entire village. So it teaches all of us don't make judgments. Reach out, sit down, enjoy water together.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Well, I think you're right. I mean, obviously you're right. These aren't just platitudes, you know, or bumper stickers. These these are things that have been proven over time. I mean, you're going back to days of Christ. I mean, and it always it that we could we could always come back to them because of the truth, because we know they have been proven. It it does work. We are stronger united than divided. Lincoln created a cabinet of his enemies, uh, that whole notion.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

And um not just politically, it's in ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

We make mistakes every day, and we have to live with ourselves, and we have to love ourselves, even when we do make mistakes.

SPEAKER_02 5:09

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

And we go forward. And we're not gonna help anybody else if we don't love ourselves, despite the mistakes we make.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Yeah, that's a great message. I know you ended your talk the other day with your with uh the letter that your father had given you uh the day he buried his brother, and uh and it really is it is it is it is this exact thing that we're talking about. I charged you with a great responsibility because you're the oldest grand, you know, the oldest grandchild of the Kennedys. And he said, work for your country and to be kind. And that the be kind was a central part of, you know, he he he put that at the very end, and I believe that you took that in the in the way that he really was obvious that he meant it. It was just that was the central key. And I can I come back to that all the time, even in these, and that there is at the end of the day, there isn't anything more important than that, the being kind and and the message of love. Since I saw you spoke, I I I looked it up and I found it, and I know you have it, you have it framed in your house, don't you? Now, where do you live now? I live in Washington. Oh, you're in Washington?

SPEAKER_02 6:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

So man, you're still are are you do you have an official capacity at all right now in regards to politics at all?

SPEAKER_01 6:21

I started, I'm on the board of I'm the vice chair of something called Maryland Saves. Uh I've been working for 15 years to help people who don't have a retirement plan get a retirement plan. Half of all Americans do not have retirement. And that's largely because they work for small businesses, and small businesses have a difficult time setting up a 401k plan. So I set up an institute at Georgetown University, which would help states pass legislation. And now 18 states have passed the legislation. Omaha's not one, Nebraska's not one of them, but let me tell you what the legislation does. It says if you work for a small business, if a if you're a small business and don't have a retirement plan, you automatically take 5% out of the employee's paycheck if the employee doesn't object, and you put it into a state-run IRA. And so the employee doesn't have to think about how to invest, they don't have to decide which IRA they want. And so it automatically helps the employee start saving money at um 5%. And in some states it goes up to 10% yearly, um, or the employee can object 5%, 6%. And um it and 70% of employees take advantage of that because they need to save, but they didn't know. Most people don't know how to save, they don't know how to choose an IRA. And this, if you work for a large employer, um, the employer does it for you. But if you work for a small employer, now I hear, I asked you when I you were doing my hair, um, does your employer have a 401k? And you said yes. That's unusual for a hairdresser. Right. But you work for a very large hairdresser. Whenever I go to a hairdresser in Washington, DC, she's she's the only person, so she does she couldn't possibly she can do it for herself, but that's it. And that's the case with many uh small businesses. They have three or four people, they're not gonna set that up. That's true. So I want to make sure that every American has the opportunity to save. And what happens in states that do this, a number of employers don't want the government setting taking the money. So they do decide all right, I will set up my own, I will figure out how to do a 401k. So there's a great upswing of um people then going out and finding the bank to help them set up their own 401k. Yeah, I see. I see. It's just a way for the employee to start saving without having to think about it.

SPEAKER_02 9:01

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 9:01

If they're working for a large company, they have a retirement plan because it's done for them automatically. Right. If you work for a small business, it's not done. So that's why half of all Americans don't have a retirement plan.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

No, you're right. Because they work for small businesses. Yeah. And like you said, that's very common for hairstylists across the country. Service industries across the city. Service industries do not have 401k plans. Right. Yeah, we're lucky, yeah, we are lucky here to have that for us. And and yes, once it's there, and if it's if it's available, people usually do take take advantage of that.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

Yeah. And other, you know, sometimes they're married to somebody who has a 401k plan. And sometimes they just don't have they really need that 5%. So they keep it.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

Very good. Well, and we also got we the other reason why we have her is because she got snowed in here. She's uh it's not snowing here, but as you know, it's snowing all over the country right now on the East Coast, from Chicago to the East Coast, and so you got stuck here a little bit. So our advan are you know, we went on that deal. So lucky me. Yeah, oh lucky us too. Thank you. So you were a lieutenant governor of uh Maryland, so you lived there for one. I mean, so I lived in Maryland for 30 years.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

Washington, as you know, yeah, is right next to Maryland. I got you.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

So that's great. And then uh you but you also worked, did you work for the DOJ as well? Did I read that somewhere?

SPEAKER_01 10:20

I was um deputy assistant attorney general, um, where I helped to put 100,000 police officers on the street.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

That's what I thought. You did a you did a lot of work with the police officers there. Well, is there anything else? Is there any other message? I don't want to keep you. I know I I'm so thankful that you got to do this. Is there any other thing that you would like to touch? Oh, I here's one thing I did want to just I just wanted to get your impression on this. So you were your namesake is they call her Kick uh Kennedy, Kathleen Kick Kennedy. Um, what an amazing life this young woman uh lived. Uh or most of her adult life was in in Europe, if I've got that correctly. But uh her they've got some, there are some books out on her. Is there not have has there ever been a movie made about her at all?

SPEAKER_01 11:07

No, but she was an amazing person.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

I mean, it's yeah, I I think there's a movie that has to be, I would have to guess that's gotta at some point someone's gotta get the get the rights to that and make that movie. Uh is there a piece of that that you hold? I mean, is the life? Um let's go through it.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Kik um went to England because my grandfather was the ambassador to England, which Franklin Roosevelt thought was a good idea because he was Irish, and there's a long tradition of the Irish knight getting along with the British. So we thought that would be an interesting idea. He brought his children. My aunt Kik got along very well with the British, but a number of the British did not particularly think that was cool to have the Irish there. So she went, one of the stories is she went to one of the large British houses, and they thought they'd be very clever. And so they took her left shoe and just left her with two right shoes. And they thought, what will she do with that? And she just wore the two right shoes right down the large staircase and came to breakfast and said not a word. And they were so shocked that she just could take pull that off and that she wasn't gonna say anything, she wasn't gonna complain, and she just had such grace in the face of their naughtiness that she very much impressed them. Which, what she did, which also is when World War II started, her parents thought she'd come back to the United States, but she wanted to help. So she stayed to help out the soldiers and the people who were fighting World War II. She fell in love with a guy called Billy Hardington, um, who was in line to become the Duke of Devonshire. Um, and they have a house at Chatsworth called Chatsworth, which the roof, the roof, the roof of that house, the roof of that house is an acre and a half. So it's a large, large house. Um, but he's a Protestant. And so my grandmother, Rose Kennedy, who's very Catholic, wouldn't go to the wedding. She was so mad that she would marry a Protestant. And Kick got married anyway, and my uncle Joe Kennedy, who was a a pilot in the American Air Force uh um Navy, went to that wedding um and supported my my aunt. And then sadly, Billy Hardington died in the war. And then Kick eventually, she lost her husband, found another person to get married to, and they were in a plane, and they she also died. Yeah, so it's very, very sad. She had a great spirit, and she was willing, as you can see, uh not to do what her mother wanted her to do, and that's a tough thing, but she was willing to do that. And it goes back to Rose because Rose married Joe Kennedy, her husband, even though her own father didn't want her to marry uh Joe. So love is very important, and I think why don't we end on that note?

SPEAKER_00 14:24

I love it. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much, Kathleen. I appreciate you doing this for me, and it'll it's a thrill of my life. I appreciate it. I still wish my mother was a little was around to to to get to see this. But Jim, do you have a question from the peanut gallery?

SPEAKER_02 14:38

We can't possibly ask her if she's ever been on the Mississippi River.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

All right, he's feeding me something. Uh do you have a story about the Mississippi River?

SPEAKER_01 14:46

I do. So when I was in college, um, I had a crush on my teacher.

SPEAKER_02 14:52

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

And so I said to him, I think we we should I should come and see you more often. And he said, Why? I thought, you are so stupid. And he was straight, you don't think I realized he was like not gonna go out with a student, which irritated the heck out of me. And then I heard he had a girlfriend. I thought double whammy. Oh. So I realized I had to get him away from his class, and I had to get him away from his girlfriend. So how was I gonna do that? And we were reading American literature, I might majored in American history and literature, and we were reading Mark Twain's book called Life on the Mississippi. So I suggested that we build a raft and float down the Mississippi. So we went to Cape Uh Gerardo, Missouri, and we built a 12 by 24 raft, and we floated 500 miles down the Mississippi River to East Capital Parish, Louisiana. You're kidding me. And uh I got it, he he I got him to marry me. Oh and we had four kids. Wow, it worked out. My guys, I guess I'm gonna show you the picture of that raft.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

That is amazing. We got socks. Very good. Thanks, brother. Thank you guys. Thank you. Thrill for me. Thank you. Like I said, wish mom was around to see this. She'd be thrilled.

SPEAKER_02 16:23

Make a nice bag!