BUCK: I did enjoy the My Week with Marilyn movie. I thought that was good for what it was. It was a pretty entertaining movie. Did you see that movie, My Week with Marilyn?

CLAY: I have not seen it, no.

BUCK: Oh, it’s very good. Very well done, actually. I would recommend that. It was better than I thought it would be. Good date movie, that kind of thing. .

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: But you’re Marilyn Monroe history buff I guess?

CLAY: Well, I saw this circulating. I thought it was interesting so I’m a history nerd and one of the most iconic moments of John F. Kennedy’s presidency is when Marilyn Monroe sang Happy Birthday to him. It has now been… It’s the 60th anniversary, this happened 60 years ago today, and we actually had a debate about whether we could play this or not.

BUCK: (laughing)

CLAY: Kind of put my lawyer hat on. This is a historically relevant moment in American history. To those of you who remember, I wanted to give you a little bit of a taste. Here’s what it sounds like. Marilyn Monroe, by the way, we were talking about how tone-deaf I was, Marilyn Monroe not tone-deaf. Here’s her birthday singing to the president.

CLAY: Let me just say this: As a married man, I don’t know how JFK didn’t get killed by Jackie Kennedy as soon as that happened. I don’t know how that didn’t happen. ‘Cause there’s a lot of married men out there. I don’t even know who the equivalent today of Marilyn Monroe is. Can you think who the equivalent is of fame?

BUCK: No, there’s nobody has that level of iconic female, beauty and sensuality, at that level. No. She’s kind of the first, she’s kind of like the Beatles of females.

CLAY: By herself? So yes. That had to be an awkward return home to the White House for John F. Kennedy, JFK, I would think. As a married man I don’t think that probably went very well.

BUCK: Just for the record, the media was a very different world back then. They covered up for so much —

CLAY: A lot, yes.

BUCK: — about JFK’s personal life, his problems, the use of different substances, dalliances to use the euphemism.

CLAY: Totally different era. All that was true. They covered up. Yeah.

BUCK: They covered it all up. They knew about stuff and like, “Oh, we’re not gonna talk about that,” ’cause we want people to believe in Camelot.

CLAY: They covered up that FDR couldn’t walk!

BUCK: Yeah.

CLAY: This was a totally different era.

BUCK: The whole self-serving narrative of journalism as truth-tellers who stand athwart power, the history of American journalism is actually the opposite of that for the most part. It is usually cozying up to and doing the bidding of power, particularly when it comes to political journalism and people with access to the White House because there was a time when if you weren’t with a major news organization, didn’t have access, you couldn’t even get your thoughts out there anyway. So everyone was playing the game, man, and they covered up. JFK, a lot of problems. A lot of problems.

CLAY: No doubt. By the way, 79% approval rating ’cause the media covered up a lot of things.

BUCK: And they want us to go back to that. If the media had their way, America would be 79% approving of Joe Biden as we can’t find baby formula and we have the worst economic crisis happening right now since 2008. Anyway, you could see it. Clay took us to the happy place, ’cause I can’t speak today.

CLAY: I was trying to bring a little bit of historical relevancy.

BUCK: I know. Clay wanted to make it, like, a light historical ending, and I’m salty over here ’cause I need to gargle saltwater, and I can barely speak.