Comedian Julie Klausner shared her full version of the story about former Ohio Gov. John Kasich taking her seat on a flight from New York to San Francisco in her podcast.
Using colorful language, Julie Klausner—known for her role in the sitcom “Difficult People” on Hulu—gave a detailed account in her podcast, “How Was Your Week?” about Kasich stealing her seat on an Alaska Airlines flight when he got bumped.
She said a pilot needed to fly last-minute aboard the plane and Kasich was consequently bumped from his seat, according to Cleveland.com. Instead of taking the downgraded seat, the former presidential candidate took the comedian’s, the publication reported.
Omg this is insane. Kasich was asked to move to premium from first class & took my seat instead. I volunteered to take a later flight instead of fighting. @alaskaairlines, your employees are the BEST, sweetest people. And thanks, airport employees, for working without pay today. https://t.co/vmnBEIds0S
— Julie Klausner (@julieklausner) January 16, 2019
According to Klausner, the ordeal actually started in the Alaska Airlines lounge at JFK airport where she said she heard Kasich talking loudly on his cell phone, “bragging about is recent deal to become a contributor with CNN.”
Her next encounter with him was aboard the plane. Klausner said she boarded the flight later than normal and found him sitting in her first class seat.
— Julie Klausner (@julieklausner) January 16, 2019
Klausner didn’t know what to do and waited for her seat. Kasich reportedly didn’t respond while she talked with the airline staff about how to fix the problem. While she waited, she said airline employees told her Kasich was rude to them. Ironically, they mistook him as a politician working for President Donald Trump, while in reality, Kasich is a vocal Trump critic.
She ended up deciding to take a later flight to avoid confronting him about her seat since “people could’ve just taken out their cell phones and taken videos of like me and John Kasich getting into it,” she said in her podcast. “And I don’t wear makeup when I fly, and I don’t want those videos going online. So I did the right thing.”
Klausner, who identifies as liberal, said once she read up on Kasich and his political views, she decided to post about the incident on Twitter.
“The funny thing about it is when I tweeted about it, I realized people on both sides hate him,” Klausner said. “Because I guess Republicans hate him because he’s like, you know, not fascist enough, and then obviously people on our side hate him because he’s just a bad person.”
“Just having interacted with him or interacted near him, I never met anyone so [expletive] and obnoxious and just dripping with disdain for people who in his mind aren’t as important as he is. I hope he—I don’t know. I hope he goes away forever. He sucks.”
View this post on InstagramA new episode of my podcast is up at HowWasYourWeek dot com or wherever podcasts are found. ????♀️
When details of the incident first emerged, Chris Schrimpf, a spokesman for Kasich, attributed the whole ordeal to confusion, according to Cleveland.com.
“There was confusion about seating, the airline had given a pilot the Governor’s seat and then chaos ensued,” Schrimpft said. “He’s sorry someone lost a seat.”
An Alaska Airlines spokesperson, who was contacted for comment by the publication, thanked Klausner for “helping diffuse an awkward situation” by taking a later flight.
