Lionel Nation - The Cory Story: Booker's Engaged and Nobody's Buying It

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Sept. 3, 2025 - Lionel Nation

26:21

The Cory Story: Booker's Engaged and Nobody's Buying It

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	I want to start off with a couple of things right here.
	First of all, welcoming you to this.
	I want to start off by saying right off the bat that I am not in any way in possession of any absolute knowledge as to anyone's avowed actual or real sexuality.
	Unenton regarding the particular topic that we're talking about.
	I'm not, I'm I'm I'm just not.
	It's not my thing.
	It's not what I'm about.
	But what this is about is something that bothers me more than anything else.
	It's about when people lie to me and people think I am stupid.
	It absolutely drives me crazy.
	And I want to talk about that very quickly.
	But before I do, as I have been, because it's critical right now, let me tell you something.
	I am getting the word from folks like you cannot believe.
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	But in the event you need help, if you are without food, without water, without power, you're on your own.
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	Now, let me go back to what I was saying, my friend.
	Excuse me, because this is every my my site is going crazy today.
	I'm so did you hear about Owen Schreuer and uh and uh Alex?
	Wow, wow.
	I was watching that.
	My God, what's that about?
	We'll talk about that later.
	I love gossip, I love intrigue.
	Sorry, it's away it goes.
	Anyway, every every so often, my friends, in American politics, something happens where I guess we we get handed uh a love story.
	And American politics wants you to know this, and it's wonderful.
	A senator announces an engagement, a governor introduces their new partner, or or presidential hopeful uh shows off a spouse in the campaign trail.
	And it's great, and these stories are are a lot of times staged as if they're meant to to humanize, but they often feel suspiciously overproduced, almost like campaign ads disguised as romance.
	And now you might have heard this.
	Corey Booker's engagement, he's engaged to a girl who looks just like Rosario Dawson.
	Remember his boo?
	Remember Rosario Dawson, the actor.
	Uh this story yesterday's making the rounds, they're jumping up and down.
	I he was giddy, and we wish him well.
	But we see once again the collision of psychology, pop culture, and politics in this theater of love.
	Now, I uh again, again, I'm I'm responding to this as a consumer of a consumer of news, a consumer of fact.
	And I don't want to always be cynical.
	I don't want to always say like, oh, that's not real.
	That's not well.
	Uh uh I I don't know.
	I don't know, but it If ever, if it was fishy, I wouldn't be surprised.
	I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if if uh I mean let's face it, there's always a little schmaltz involved.
	But Booker has long been a curiosity.
	Bachelor politician in an age when family images are currency.
	A lot of people who, after a certain age, most people are, I mean, even Elon Omar, she might marry her brother, but you know.
	It's he don't see too many.
	I mean, he just don't see bachelors, which is fine.
	He's faced all kinds of inquiry regarding his private life, uh, questions about his sexuality.
	I don't know if that's important.
	Lindsay Graham, too.
	You hear this.
	We don't know anything.
	But we do know what we know, just living life.
	Is he just a late bloomer?
	Does it even matter?
	Sociologically, no.
	It is not sexuality itself that matters, but the way society interprets signals in the absence of information, and also the way sometimes these things are portrayed almost like lies.
	Like they think we're stupid.
	Does that make that make sense?
	Now we don't know these things.
	We there were questions about Obama, Lindsay Graham, about uh listen, there were Barney Franks, Pete Booty Giggity Giggity, say what you want.
	He said, Look, he came out and he said there are members of folks in the in the uh Trump administration uh who are gay.
	I I want to make sure I get the numbers right or the names right.
	Uh it still could be a political uh liability, but it shouldn't be.
	But politicians understand this deeply, which which is why the pageantry of uh of marriage is often you know wielded like like some slogan.
	You know, stability, normalcy.
	These are my kids.
	Here we are.
	It's Christmas time.
	Even when Nixon did it.
	Remember when Nixon did it when he did the old uh checker speech.
	It was pretty it was pretty rough stuff, but he but he did it.
	He did it, he tried his best, and uh the number of gay people uh in the Trump administration and cabinet.
	Now, I just I just asked our friend at Chat GPT to let us know.
	And uh it says, I again I want to be careful, I don't want to, I I think I remember, I don't want to speak out of turn.
	Again, just I'm always I'm doing the let the Larry David.
	I I I I'm not saying Richard Grinnell, acting director of uh national intelligence.
	He's first openly gay cabinet member, Scott Bessant, and uh that's it.
	Scott Bessant, uh he uh he also ranks as the sixth openly gay individual to hold the cabinet position in history.
	And here is the deal.
	I think most of us, and I think I think all of us can say this.
	We don't care about this.
	We don't we don't care.
	But we what we do is we care when people think that we're stupid.
	That's the part that gets me.
	The question isn't whether uh Booker is authentically in love.
	I I don't know what that means.
	We can't peer into his heart.
	But whether political marriages, including this one, often function less as personal milestones and more as a strategic prop, that's a problem.
	And we see through this.
	Now from a psychologist lens, uh the phenomenon reveals a lot of stuff that's kind of weird.
	How how image management, you know, intersects with our deepest social biases, it's interesting.
	Americans crave symbols.
	Americans crave symbols.
	The political symbol spouse is one of the oldest and most reliable symbols that we have.
	Think of Jackie Kennedy's elegant, Nancy Reagan, Michelle Obama's strength, Marilyn, uh Melon uh Bellania Trump's glamour, Bess Truman, Dolly Madison, go down the list, Eleanor Rose.
	Oh, maybe bad.
	Each represented a layer of narrative meant to reinforce and introduce you to the husband's identity.
	And without the spouse, the narrative feels kind of incomplete, even suspicious.
	That's why he's critical.
	A bachelor politician makes voters subconsciously uneasy because they seem unmoored.
	You know, who vouches for them?
	Who who tempers them?
	Who humanizes it?
	You know, Corey Booker has dealt with this tension for years.
	And despite his charisma and his oratory skills, if not his ability to ward off exhaustion through these filibusters, his resume, he's faced quiet but persistent doubts from voters and donors alike simply because he lacked a visible partner.
	And this says more about us, maybe than him, but it's a culture that equates partnership with trustworthiness.
	But more important, we can tell bullshit.
	We know bullshit.
	in pop psychology terms it's a heuristic we assume the married man is stable committed and relatable the The single man, unpredictable, scary.
	And you can go through the history of who were the single fact, right now.
	This is very interesting.
	The um the uh the number of single presidents, bachelors, and were there any gay presidents that we believe.
	The number of single presidents, this is a very interesting thing because it was, and if you think it's interesting now, I mean, look at Grover Cleveland.
	That was another story.
	That was really interesting.
	James Buchanan, the only truly life line lifetime uh bachelor, and by the way, he was very close to to his vice president, Rufus King.
	He might have you know taken care of that.
	Um vice president under uh uh Franklin Pierce, long speculation.
	Thomas Jefferson, uh, his wife died in 1782, decades before his presidency.
	Andrew Jackson, his wife Rachel died just before his inauguration, he served as a widower.
	Martin Van Buren, his wife died in uh 1819, Chester A. Arthur, his wife died in 1880 before he was in, and there's speculations about gay presidents.
	Uh James Buchanan is the only president often theorized uh to be openly gay.
	Letters between him and Rufus King, William Rufus King, were um unusually intimate by the standards of the time.
	The contemporaries referred to them mockingly as Miss Nancy and Aunt Fancy.
	Did you see that one?
	Uh so you have one lifelong bachelor, James Buchanan, four widowed presidents who serve single, and one uh president frequently speculated as gay.
	Now, again, here's the bottom line.
	Does it matter to you?
	Does it matter to you?
	Would it really matter?
	Somebody says, look, this is the way I am.
	I'm okay.
	I don't think I I really don't know if I don't know sometimes how the whole Christian thing works.
	I don't know how people uh respond to that.
	Uh it brings us to the whole beard phenomenon in politics.
	Um arrangements, you know, sometimes whispered about where uh uh a partner is presented for appearances.
	This is huge in Hollywood.
	Rock Hudson, regardless of the depth of the authenticity of the relationship, there are people who arrange things.
	I can tell you right now, and I'm not going to mention the names, but there are three to four, maybe five, very, very big names, where everybody that you talk to in the biz will say, oh yeah, that's that's that's an arrangement.
	Uh as soon as he gets as soon as this one, as soon as the term, I think sometimes you have to produce a child.
	And even though these contracts are considered in many respects void for public policy, there's a lot to be said for that.
	You know, in politics, the suspicion multiplies because the stakes are power, not just uh uh office uh sales is very, very serious.
	And when when uh Corey Booker dated Rosario Dawson, the narrative was irresistible, high-profile senator with a glamorous actress girlfriend.
	But to many, it looked like a script, not a romance.
	They called each other a boo.
	This is my boo.
	Uh the couple posed for photos, gave interviews, and played out a storyline that felt a little too neat, a little weird.
	You know, was it love?
	Maybe what was it?
	Was it useful?
	Absolutely.
	For Booker, it softened speculation.
	For Dawson, it maybe boosted visibility, but nothing pooped out.
	And mutual benefit doesn't mean authenticity, but it complicates the psychology of it, you know, the the combination of it.
	So if the current arrangement rumors are true, the sociological script repeats.
	You know, engagements neutralize suspicion.
	They neutralize speculation.
	They present a picture of completion.
	But you would think, for the Democrats?
	What did the Democrats?
	These are the same people who are telling us to accept every conceivable form of uh, you know, purple-headed trans, whatever.
	We have to accept all of this.
	Why would Democrats care one way or the other about this?
	That's the part I don't understand.
	It's in it's inconceivable to me.
	If it's true.
	But to the skeptical public, and it is, especially in our hyper online culture, it feels more like image manipulation.
	You know, we've seen too many stage wedding photos.
	Look at Jim McGreevy, the mayor, the governor of uh New Jersey.
	We knew this the whole time.
	Too many campaign trail spouses who disappear the day before election.
	And the pop culture archetype is here.
	You see, in in American pop culture, marriage is still marketed.
	It's the ultimate credibility move.
	The dog, checkers, fala.
	Even Clinton had a dog.
	I think some water dog that I think the secretary ended up, they didn't care about the dog.
	Remember Sox, the cat?
	Reality TV stars do it to secure relevance, and musicians do it to frame errors of their career.
	And politicians too do it too to package themselves.
	I mean, think of how often presidential campaigns feature spouses as central characters in speeches and ads.
	And Corey Booker's supposed engagement taps directly into this archetype.
	See, but here's the rub.
	Here's the thing.
	Audiences are savier.
	We can spot bullshit a mile away.
	And they notice when body language language looks stiff, when it does it when it looks forced, when smiles look rehearsed.
	I've often had my thoughts and my doubts about Matt Gates, but you know, he would have been a hell of a lot better than that's another story.
	When the romance feels in feels convenient, you see, you can't lie to people.
	See, social media culture has trained us to scrutinize.
	That's what you you can't you can't bullshit these people.
	A single awkward photo is enough to launch conspiracy theories.
	So Cory Booker's engagement, you know, real earth-stage, becomes less about love and more about you know the collective obsession that people have with authenticity.
	So why do why do why do politicians still do it?
	Why do people still do it?
	Why do politicians still do it?
	Why?
	If skepticism is guaranteed, why stage it?
	Because again, the heuristic is still more powerful than suspicion.
	A married senator may face whispers of a sham, but a perpetually single senator faces constant doubts about what's missing.
	And it always weighs them down when it comes to natural storylines.
	It weighs them down.
	This is huge.
	You would think that with all of this talk about accepting this and that in schools, why would it matter to Democrats?
	Psychologically, voters use the shortcut that marriage equals maturity.
	Even in 2025, in a country where marriage rates are plummeting, uh that that shortcut, I think still dominates the uh the ballot box.
	And political strategists know this big time.
	You know, they coach candidates to showcase their family show, your family kiss, your family, bake cookies, uh, kiss your spouse on stage, walk hand in hand to route.
	Uh a lot of times when when when Trump will hold Bologna's hands, look, they're holding hands.
	It's it's it's theater, yes, but it's effective theater.
	And Booker's engagement fits neatly theoretically into this playbook.
	But it's a cultural double standard.
	Look, it's almost it's also worth noting the double standard.
	Male politicians are expected to have wives.
	Female politicians, however, are often scrutinized differently.
	They're criticized if they lean on husbands too much.
	They're questioned if they don't have uh if they don't have them at all.
	Hillary Clinton was defined by her marriage as much as her policies.
	Kamala Harris used her husband to soften her public image.
	Yet someone like Condoleez Rice, who never married, is treated as an anomaly, defined by her solitude.
	Why?
	I think she was great.
	In many respects, not regarding the war.
	So Corey Booker's engagement, therefore, isn't just about him.
	It's about a culture.
	It's about a culture that's still the quest, it still connects marital status with moral legitimacy.
	You see, pop psychology tells us, tells us that humans crave patterns.
	Marriage is the neatest pattern.
	It also creates a narrative.
	And the the social psychologist take is also critical.
	What does a social psychologist or pop psychologist say about all this?
	That it's theater with real consequences.
	See, voters who already distrust Booker will see the engagement as fake.
	Voters who want to trust him will take comfort in the story.
	In both cases, the marriage serves its purpose.
	It becomes a mirror of what people already believe.
	So it validates, it substantiates, it endorses, it ratifies that which you already believe.
	As a culture, we have to ask ourselves, why do we why do we still demand the sheer rate?
	Why?
	Because it's because the reason why old things are old fashioned is because they work.
	Why can't a politician stand alone with without being packaged as half a couple?
	Why do we cling to the spouse as some kind of a symbol of stability?
	Why?
	When we know from endless scandals that marriage guarantees nothing about characters, nothing.
	Not only that, but all of the all of the indiscretion.
	The answer lies in our psychology.
	We crave symbols, we trust narratives.
	And even in an era of skepticism, the old playbook of political marriage still works.
	Not because it convinces us, but because it comforts us.
	It provides something even in 2025.
	So Corey Booker's engagement, whether it's genuine romance or calculated prop, it's less about him and more about us.
	It reflects our hunger, our need, our craving for the illusion of stability.
	Even as we roll our eyes at the spectacle, pop culture and politics have merged into one endless performance.
	And in that performance, love is not just blind, it's scripted.
	And I find this fascinating.
	Now, let's change a little bit.
	What do you think about Owen?
	Anybody into Owen Schreuer?
	Don't you love this?
	You know, I think the world of Alex, think the world of General McGregor was on there or general, current should be a general.
	Colonel McGregor was on.
	I think Alex is at the he's the best he's ever done.
	What do you think about that?
	Isn't that fabulous?
	I shouldn't say fabulous.
	There's nothing fabulous about it.
	It's it's kind of sad.
	It's kind of internecine, as it were, but isn't that interesting?
	I always love what's going on.
	See, I I guess I'm used to this world of how do I say this?
	I'm used to this world of um pop stuff.
	I I guess I've been around radio stations.
	I've I've I've known what it's like to be around with people who are, you know, you have uh, how do I say this?
	You have you've got people that you work with and people that you know you kind of trust, and uh you you maybe, you know, things things don't work, and it's very, very critical to have that balance.
	And if there is something that is um, if there's something about it that's not right, it affects everything.
	It affects the quality of the show, it affects the it affects everything.
	This is the most important thing ever.
	And uh I gotta tell you something.
	It's it's something that I've known a little bit about.
	I know a little bit about this, and I know a little bit about The fact that in this business that we live in or that we work with, I know that sometimes people, maybe youth, they get a hair up their ass.
	And uh I don't know the real story, but I gotta tell you one thing.
	If Alex Jones said to him, listen, I don't want you going out and trashing Trump.
	I don't trash Trump, we don't do this.
	If you don't like that, go someplace else.
	It's called stationality.
	Who agrees with me?
	If you have a confused message, if you've got somebody who likes Trump, somebody who doesn't like Trump, it's a mess.
	If you go to a Mexican restaurant, you see spaghetti and meatballs, you're gonna say, what is this?
	It's called stationality.
	Country music plays country music, jazz plays jazz.
	That's the way this thing works.
	That's the critical part about it.
	And that's what people have to understand.
	That's that's the part which I find really, really interesting.
	Really interesting.
	And what's also interesting is when he goes on his own line, and basically, you know, I'm very good friends.
	It was years ago with David David Knight.
	Great guy.
	Uh really liked David a lot.
	And David and I went to the same university.
	Same, I mean, we were like the same exact age, where it's in it's incredible.
	And I know that he and Alex had a had a falling out.
	He never I never really talked about him.
	But Paul Joseph Watson, I don't know where he is.
	I they're not, he's not a part of that.
	But Alex runs the show.
	He's the captain of the ship.
	And that's the thing that people have to understand.
	He's the captain of the ship.
	He runs the show.
	He's doing it.
	You understand what I'm saying?
	He runs the show.
	And if somebody doesn't like Trump, look, sometimes I I have my questions about some of the stuff that Trump is doing.
	But I think it's terrific.
	By the way, last last uh last move.
	Did you catch President Trump yesterday?
	And did he not satisfy 100% every thought, everything you thought about whether he was feeling good, whether he was uh healthy, whether he was uh I thought he was terrific.
	I I thought, oh, Greg Reese.
	Yes, Greg Reese is terrific.
	Or was it's funny you say that.
	I don't know what happened with that, but yes, Greg Reeves was was wonderful.
	But I thought he was great.
	I thought President Trump was fantastic.
	Now, by the way, this morning, make sure you listen to me on WABC.
	First, we're gonna have Warrior Wednesday.
	Mrs. L is gonna be my special guest.
	So listen to her on 77 WABC.
	Go to WABC.com and check that out.
	She is gonna be fantastic.
	All right, my friends.
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	She is so happy.
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