In August 2017, Packer was interviewed by "The Independent" as part of a crowd gathered in New York City to watch the solar eclipse over the U.S. Several months later, he was interviewed in the "New York Daily News" before attending Midnight Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral, saying "It's Cardinal Dolan that keeps me coming back year after year." Several days after that, he was interviewed by Reuters while in Times Square for New Year's Eve, saying "It feels more like Antarctica than New York. But everybody in the world is here."