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Bill O’Reilly’s giving up his day job. He’s leaving “The Radio Factor” and passing the baton to Fred Thompson. Thompson has an incredibly serpentine career path. Actor. Senator from Tennessee. Actor. Presidential candidate. Actor. And now, radio talk show host. The Washington, DC-based “Fred Thompson Show” will focus on politics and pop culture. He’ll have guests and take phone calls. It will premiere on more than 125 stations March 2. One one hand, we’re not really sure if the slow talkin’ southerner will be a very compelling radio host. On the other hand, his wife Jeri Kehn is hot. Good...

Yesterday, I got together with Fred Thompson's wife, Jeri Thompson, for a phone interview as she traveled around Iowa. Unfortunately, near the end of the interview, while she was running low on time, she hit a bad cell. At that point, I lost her permanently and wasn't able to reconnect with her to get in the final 2 or 3 questions. Still, I think you will enjoy the interview, which has been edited slightly for the sake of grammar, clarity, and brevity.

1. Jeri Kehn was born on Sept. 30, 1966, in Hastings, Neb. Her family moved to Naperville, Ill., when she was 3. Growing up, Jeri spent summers on her grandparents' farm in Nebraska. 2. Her parents divorced when she was around 12. Her mother, Vicki, a librarian, married Ronald Keller, a music teacher, about three years after her divorce. 3. Jeri is a 1984 graduate of Naperville North High School. While at Naperville North, she was a member of the school's dance squad, the Starlettes. During Jeri's junior year of high school, the Starlettes won the state championship. 4. She...

This is a rush transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," November 20, 2007. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated. Watch "The O'Reilly Factor" weeknights at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET and listen to the "Radio Factor!" LAURA INGRAHAM, GUEST CO-HOST: One candidate is seeing some challenges, though, in the polls. And that's Fred Thompson, who was in last place in the latest New Hampshire survey, second place in most national polls. And joining us right now from Washington is Jeri Thompson, the wife of Fred Thompson. Jeri, it's great to see you. JERI...

CHARLESTON — West Virginia supporters of Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson expect to welcome his wife to the Mountain State on Monday. Jeri Thompson is scheduled to meet with supporters and volunteers in Charleston, though the campaign’s state chapter says details were still being finalized. Thompson would be at least the third presidential candidate’s spouse to include West Virginia on the 2008 campaign trail. Former President Bill Clinton raised cash for his wife’s Democratic bid while in town for last month’s Jefferson-Jackson Dinner keynote appearance. The wife of Democratic White House hopeful John Edwards was to headline an October fundraiser...

Though she protested at Maria Shriver's women's conference last week that she is really not involved and mostly into the mom thing with her young children, it was clear in the Golden State this week that Jeri Thompson -- a former political consultant -- is front and center, literally, at her husband's press events in Sacramento and San Francisco, where she sat and observed it all. In Sacramento, Mrs. Thompson took to the hallways before the event, armed with a big smile and a firm handshake, gamely introducing herself, energetically circulating among the crowd of conservative legislators who had endorsed...

In a startling admission, the wife of Fred Thompson, the Republican presidential contender, confessed last week that the “bone-crushing” pressure on candidates’ wives was like “walking down the street with no clothes on”. She was “terrified of embarrassing Fred”, she added. “It would break my heart.” Jeri Thompson, 41, was attending a conference on women chaired by Maria Shriver, the wife of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who quizzed her on her reputation. “I’ve read everything, from you are the campaign mastermind to you are the campaign strategist, you are the trophy wife, you are everything,” said Shriver. “Which is the right depiction...

No one thought Jeri Kehn could do it. Back in 2000, the dishy young Republican operative, then 33, had Washington wags atwitter over her high-profile quest to capture the famously footloose Fred Thompson. Divorced from his high school sweetheart in 1985, the senator and erstwhile actor, then 57, had become one of the hottest tickets in town. A deep- drawling, broad-shouldered six-and-half footer, Thompson had a devastating Southern charm, with a gilding of movie-star glamour. Country music bombshell Lorrie Morgan, cosmetics queen Georgette Mosbacher, conservative pollster Kellyanne Fitzpatrick, and Time columnist Margaret Carlson were among Hollywood Fred's better-known, better-heeled paramours....

Here's how Jeri Kehn Thompson felt when she learned her husband, the former senator named Fred, had decided to run for president: “I felt so sick. I was depressed. I didn’t want to throw my husband to the snakes.” We learn this and more in a kind of coming-out interview in People magazine, coming out today. It's titled "No Trophy Wife" because, absent any information to the contrary, many in American society make assumptions about a 65-year-old man being married to a beautiful woman 24 years younger. The story opens with the former Jeri Kehn in sweatpants and ragged nails...

Jeri Thompson: The woman behind the man Naperville-raised Jeri Thompson is GOP hopeful's biggest cheerleader Recent months have seen Jeri Thompson painted a variety of ways in the press, from doting mom to trophy wife. She says she knew that would happen, but because she has granted few interviews, it can be hard to tell who she really is. The Sun had an exclusive opportunity to get to know the 41-year-old Naperville native a little better one afternoon last week. She sat down to talk before attending a major Chicago fundraiser for her husband, Fred Thompson, 65. The recently...

Recent months have seen Jeri Thompson painted a variety of ways in the press, from doting mom to trophy wife. The wife of GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson says she knew that would happen, but because she has given few interviews, it can be hard to tell who she really is. The Naperville Sun had an opportunity to get to know the 41-year-old Naperville native. She sat down for an interview before attending a major Chicago fund-raiser. The former Jeri Kehn lived in one of Naperville's downtown neighborhoods with her mom and stepdad, Vicki and Ron Keller. She graduated from...

Forty-one-year-old Jeri Thompson, the subject of much rumor and innuendo since her 65-year-old husband Fred began mulling a presidential run, says she’s never been “an older-man-dater kind of girl.” Speaking to People magazine in her first interview since her husband declared his candidacy, she recalls being initially attracted by Fred’s passion for a campaign finance investigation. Of the allegations that she’s a “trophy wife,” she says it’s “hard not to be defensive” when she thinks back on how hard she’s worked. “I almost think they had to fabricate that trophy-wife stuff because there’s nothing interesting to say,” she said. The...

Sources close to Fred Thompson’s campaign tell The Brody File that Fred's wife, Jeri Thompson will be featured in People Magazine. The article is expected to run next week. Jeri Thompson has pretty much stayed behind the scenes and not granted interviews. Clearly, what the People Magazine article will show is a different side of her, a side that shows her to be a mom of two young children. A lot of stories have been written about her (many of them not very flattering) but let’s remember here that while she’s active in her husband’s campaign, she’s more active in...

If you haven't seen it yet, it is a hillarious riot. He got three standing ovations!

WASHINGTON - Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson on Friday defended his wife's role in his campaign, saying she has only been doing what he had asked her to do. "If some people who got their feelings hurt anonymously now want to go after her instead of me because they might feel like she's an easier target, there's nothing I can do about that," Thompson said. "But I don't have any further need for explanation for anything that she's done. Thank goodness she's there," the former Tennessee senator said in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America." Thompson's initial efforts to...

Vicki Keller was on her way out the door Wednesday when she was asked about her son-in-law's imminent run for the White House. "I don't know what there is to say, really," said the Naperville resident as she headed to Des Moines, Iowa, with her husband, Ron. The couple planned to be with Jeri Kehn, Vicki's daughter, at midnight, when Kehn's husband, Fred Thompson, officially planned to become the newest addition to the GOP presidential race. Although published reports said Kehn, 40, has been urging Thompson, 65, to toss his hat in the ring and is active behind the scenes,...

"That's no first lady, that's my wife!" -- Badabump. -- It's open season apparently on the wives and children of GOP presidential candidates. In a display of judgment worthy of People magazine, Washington Post editors decided the fact that Mrs. Fred Thompson once had a boyfriend when she was single is big news. (Gee, did Michelle Obama? Would Elizabeth Edwards kiss on a first date?) Meanwhile, The New York Times ran a story on the Giulianis' response to Vanity Fair's nasty little gossipy profile of Judith Giuliani, Giuliani's Princess Bride." OK, so the tiara was a bit much. And true,...

Republican Fred Thompson's wife, Jeri, is caught between two images: blond, beautiful companion to her older husband and powerful, behind-the-scenes player in his would-be presidential campaign. Washington in recent days has been abuzz about the 40-year-old second wife of former Tennessee Sen. Thompson after she was pinpointed as playing a leading role in a shake-up in the Hollywood actor's campaign staff. Thompson publicly defended her after articles appeared in The Washington Post and Newsweek magazine. The Post called her a "driving and at times divisive force" within Thompson's nascent organization and Newsweek said supporters of the 6-foot-6 conservative former senator...

Fred Thompson: Criticism of My Wife Should Be Directed at Me “She did what I asked her to do,” the presidential candidate-in-waiting tells NRO. By Byron York Over the course of former Sen. Fred Thompson’s “testing the waters” exploratory campaign, there have been reports suggesting that his wife, Jeri, has played a big role — perhaps too big a role — in the effort. Some observers, mostly anonymous, have pointed to disputes involving Jeri Thompson as the reason for the recent shakeup in the Thompson staff that led to the departures of top aide Tom Collamore and a few others....

One Friday afternoon last month, Jeri Kehn Thompson took attendance at the testing-the-waters presidential campaign headquarters of her husband, Fred D. Thompson. Mrs. Thompson checked to see which staff members were working at their desks, said a Republican close to the campaign, and went on to chide those who were A.W.O.L. The spot-check is just one of many indications that Mrs. Thompson, a former political consultant herself, is taking an active, hands-on role in the effort to propel Mr. Thompson, a former Tennessee senator, into a presidential candidacy. Admirers say the role makes sense, not only because of her background...