Politics

Teddy Turner: Jane Fonda turned father, Ted, into a liberal

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Jane Fonda was the primary factor in Ted Turner’s transformation into a liberal, according to the media mogul’s conservative son Teddy Turner.

“I was raised in a different time at the Turner household … a very conservative household with capitalism and all of that kind of stuff,’’ Turner told Steve Malzberg on Newsmax TV’s “The Steve Malzberg Show” on Thursday.

According to Turner, it was his father’s 1991 marriage to actress and left-wing activist Jane Fonda (nicknamed “Hanoi Jane” for posing with an Viet Cong anti-aircraft gun and speaking out against America’s participation during the Vietnam War) that turned him into a liberal.

“He started becoming more and more environmentalist and then Jane helped move things over as well,’’ Turner told Malzberg. “Then when you start hanging around and everybody you’re hanging around with is liberal, then you tend to move more liberal.’’

Turner, who is currently running for Congress in South Carolina as a conservative Republican, has been working to distance himself from his father’s politics.

“Yes, I’m Teddy Turner. You can’t pick your parents,” he recently said while introducing himself at a Republican gathering, according to Politico.

Fonda and Turner divorced in 2001.

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Caroline May