Speaker 1: I'm joined today by presidential candidate Hunter Biden.
Speaker 2: I'll run, but only as your VP. I think everybody's
Speaker 2: carrying around a bag of heroin in their pocket and
Speaker 2: it's called an iPhone. I'm not stepping off the stage
Speaker 2: for fucking anybody.
Speaker 3: This is Gavin Newsom.
Speaker 2: I'm Hunter Biden.
Speaker 1: I'm joined today by presidential candidate Hunter Biden.
Speaker 3: Twenty twenty eight. Come on, Hunter, what's going on?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: No, no, you got more buzz out there than that.
Speaker 1: You got the President of the United States, Donald Trump
Speaker 1: talking about your candidacy for president.
Speaker 2: I had to give you. I had to give you
Speaker 2: a break for just one day at least. Here's the deal.
Speaker 2: Here's the deal. I'll run, but only as your as
Speaker 2: your VP, because the truth doesn't matter. Is the Vice
Speaker 2: President's residence is a lot cooler? It lot e's your
Speaker 2: job too?
Speaker 3: Is it legitimately? Is it?
Speaker 1: Is it a better residence that I mean you were?
Speaker 1: You have you have unique status to be able to
Speaker 1: actually it is.
Speaker 3: Make that case.
Speaker 2: The White House is the grandeur of the White House
Speaker 2: is it never gets old. But the but you really
Speaker 2: do feel like you're in a gilded cage. You know,
Speaker 2: it's so and and and the grounds of the of
Speaker 2: the VP residents are really private and it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: That was, in fact, the last time we saw each other.
Speaker 1: I was, I was with you your your dad brought
Speaker 1: me upstairs and h in the residence.
Speaker 3: And to your point, that's you know, it's as grand
Speaker 3: and extraordinary as it is. No one wants to be.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: The last thing anyone wants to hear is someone saying,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not all that. But to your point,
Speaker 1: that's a little claustrophobic. I mean, everybody around not a
Speaker 1: lot of sense of freedom or privacy.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, so get used to it. I was I
Speaker 2: was hoping when I saw you that you we would
Speaker 2: just dig in, that you would you know, I get
Speaker 2: you one of those secret rooms. Stay.
Speaker 1: Your dad brought me up by the way, Evan. Now
Speaker 1: I'm talking out of school here, but he taught me.
Speaker 1: He was on a tour that I think that was
Speaker 1: for him. He was walking into closets. He said he
Speaker 1: hadn't been in years and years, and he was discovery.
Speaker 1: He's like, let's see what's behind this door, and there's
Speaker 1: a bunch of clothes that were stored. He goes, I
Speaker 1: think that put that in six years four years ago.
Speaker 1: It was what he was in one of those moods
Speaker 1: where I think your mom had to come up to
Speaker 1: get him because he was taking too much time with me.
Speaker 3: That's which was fun.
Speaker 2: Well, that's that was a common occurrence and still is.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So look, you've been making a lot of news lately
Speaker 1: and and I think surprising a lot of people as well.
Speaker 1: I mean, you showed up and I appreciate you showing
Speaker 1: up where you've been showing up. I spent three hours
Speaker 1: with Sean Ryan myself, and there you are with Sean
Speaker 1: Ryan forming avcl someone who was out there very critical.
Speaker 1: In fact, I remember walking to Sean Ryan set and
Speaker 1: right up above the door it said let's go Brandon
Speaker 1: when I got there, so I understood exactly where his
Speaker 1: politics were. And then like lo and behold, you show
Speaker 1: up on my feet and you're there with with with
Speaker 1: with Ryan, and you were there with Candice Owens recently
Speaker 1: and back on X and and and blowing up the internet.
Speaker 1: And so you know, the obvious first question, Hunter is
Speaker 1: what the hell is going on?
Speaker 3: Welcome back to uh?
Speaker 1: You know the bright lights and UH and what was
Speaker 1: what's what was the trigger? Man, what was the inspiration
Speaker 1: to come back out and really tell your story?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I am. Uh. The way that I number one is,
Speaker 2: you know, I learned a little bit and I'm I'm
Speaker 2: I'm being serious a little bit from you. I watched
Speaker 2: that uh, that interview that you did with Charlie Kirk,
Speaker 2: and you know he had that line, uh when you
Speaker 2: guys were talking about how progressive is how democrats are
Speaker 2: afraid to go into the lines then of the he's
Speaker 2: you know, lung and I thought, shit, I'm not, you know,
Speaker 2: because because what are you gonna say that hasn't already
Speaker 2: been said? And there's an incredible freedom to the uh
Speaker 2: to having been stripp bear in the public square and
Speaker 2: and lashed a thousand times and still be standing. And
Speaker 2: you know it's not by any you know, courage or
Speaker 2: you know. Uh, you know, I didn't go to RESHI
Speaker 2: cash for seven years and trained to be a monk.
Speaker 2: But but what I did learn is that there's an
Speaker 2: enormous freedom in in owning your whole story. And and
Speaker 2: so I felt more than anything, what I had an
Speaker 2: opportunity to do is talk to the fifty million Americans
Speaker 2: who are suffering on a daily basis from from addiction.
Speaker 2: And you know, it's not something that that any of
Speaker 2: us are unfamiliar you're with, I mean, anybody. Everybody's got
Speaker 2: a best friend, a mom and dad, brothers, sister, a
Speaker 2: love family member that or themselves that have that have
Speaker 2: suffered from addiction. Now, not everybody was a crack addict,
Speaker 2: but addiction is addiction and it is one of the
Speaker 2: things that probably one of the singular things that that
Speaker 2: that binds us all. So whether it was Sean Ryan
Speaker 2: who opened up to me about his own struggle with addiction,
Speaker 2: and or Kendae Owens, who I thought that if I
Speaker 2: had the opportunity to sit with her personally, that she
Speaker 2: would see the humanity of it. And because you know,
Speaker 2: I don't think these people are bad people, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean they have very different political views than I have,
Speaker 2: and I think that you have. But you know what
Speaker 2: is that we're all just trying to figure it out, man,
Speaker 2: you know, And I think that that's the reason in
Speaker 2: more than anything, Like I'll tell you what I'm doing
Speaker 2: now is that I joined a organization called Peak Path
Speaker 2: Health and it's a rehab But what we're doing they
Speaker 2: brought me on to build their foundation, and the foundation
Speaker 2: is going to focus on aftercare, which I think is
Speaker 2: the big missing gap in the recovery industry. Is you
Speaker 2: get your thirty days and then you go back to
Speaker 2: the same situation that you were in and your chances
Speaker 2: of making it are really really slim. But these aftercare
Speaker 2: programs and kind of long term stays not where it
Speaker 2: is a like a confined space like a rehab in
Speaker 2: which you can get job training and wellness. You know,
Speaker 2: a lot of the work that my sister does with
Speaker 2: people that are coming out of prison or out of
Speaker 2: rehab in terms of teaching them wellness techniques, everything for
Speaker 2: meditation into just common nutrition and things like that, all
Speaker 2: of it makes a difference, particularly in a in a
Speaker 2: community of people where you know, recidivism or relapse, whatever
Speaker 2: you want to call it, is about you know, seventy
Speaker 2: five to eighty five percent. So yeah, so that's the
Speaker 2: reason you know, they gave me a stage I'm going
Speaker 2: to use it.
Speaker 1: Was there was there a trigger? I mean, was there
Speaker 1: a conversation. Was there a moment where you said, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm done being you know, my story being
Speaker 1: told by everybody else because you've been sober now it's
Speaker 1: been seven years. You just posted it's been seven years
Speaker 1: June first, twenty nineteen. And so throughout the presidency, throughout
Speaker 1: your father's presidency, were you were cleaning sober? Yet you
Speaker 1: were again your ass kicked twenty four to seven the
Speaker 1: cover New York Posts more than any human being in
Speaker 1: modern history. You just, you know, these guys, just debandon
Speaker 1: these guys ging Rich, I mean, well not well Gingrich, sure,
Speaker 1: but Julie, these guys and the weaponization of that laptop
Speaker 1: or whatever, you.
Speaker 3: Know, all of that, and you were quiet.
Speaker 1: You were quiet then why you know what was the
Speaker 1: moment where you said, I'm going to defend myself. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna write my own story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was well, I felt like I had enough
Speaker 2: distance from the politics of the administration. Uh you know
Speaker 2: why now, like why right now? You know I needed
Speaker 2: I needed that year to get my you know, to
Speaker 2: get my feedback underneath me. The reason, you know, you
Speaker 2: know this is that the presidency, Uh, in my choice
Speaker 2: to be vocal or not, it wasn't it wasn't about me.
Speaker 2: I know, I'm fully aware that nobody really gives a
Speaker 2: shit about Hunter Biden, but they gave a ship about
Speaker 2: was power, but they gave a shit about was presidency
Speaker 2: and they attacked the one thing that they knew my
Speaker 2: dad loved the most. It's his family. And you know,
Speaker 2: I mean that's a a a play that is as
Speaker 2: old as politics. But it was on a on a
Speaker 2: on a biblical scale for me. But it really wasn't
Speaker 2: my place. You know. I heard Tim Miller and who,
Speaker 2: by the way, who I like? And I mean I
Speaker 2: like what he's doing, so I don't want to get
Speaker 2: into a uh, you know it spat, you know, with
Speaker 2: with people that are I think preaching and fighting the
Speaker 2: good fight, and I really do. And but he he
Speaker 2: made he said, you know, well, Hunter Biden was such
Speaker 2: a distraction and why was he such a distraction? And
Speaker 2: you know, you know it's you know, this is partially
Speaker 2: his fault that we lost, because you know, he just
Speaker 2: couldn't stay out of the you know, out of the news.
Speaker 2: And I was like, oh man, so if I could
Speaker 2: have stayed out of the news, I sat in my
Speaker 2: garage up in Big Rock, in in our home state
Speaker 2: of California, and and painted for four years. I didn't
Speaker 2: do a single piece of business or you know, I
Speaker 2: went to Yell Law school, and I didn't use my
Speaker 2: law degree one time in the four years that my
Speaker 2: dad was president. And I painted, and you know, and
Speaker 2: I did well in painting. You know, I sold some
Speaker 2: paintings and all to people that everybody eventually, through subpoenas,
Speaker 2: was able to figure out. And you know, I made
Speaker 2: about two hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year. But
Speaker 2: the fact of the matter is is that I stayed
Speaker 2: to myself and it was never a choice to be
Speaker 2: a distraction. So I didn't feel like it was my
Speaker 2: place at that time during the administration to go on
Speaker 2: Twitter and fire off a few zingers, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, Like, you know, it's just I have too
Speaker 2: much respect for the office and the people that work
Speaker 2: there and the just the amount of time that they
Speaker 2: commit to doing what's best for the administration, what's best
Speaker 2: for the country, and what was best for my dad.
Speaker 2: So I kind of out.
Speaker 3: And was that I mean, was that debated?
Speaker 1: Did you have conversations saying, look, they've crossed the line
Speaker 1: now for the you know, tenth time enough.
Speaker 3: It's not about me.
Speaker 1: It is about my dad, and I need to protect
Speaker 1: the integrity of our name, our family and just the
Speaker 1: bullshit that's out there. I mean, were there moments where
Speaker 1: you said, you know, okay, now I've got to come
Speaker 1: forward and and say something, but he held back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean yeah, yeah, I mean I understandswer to
Speaker 2: that is. Yeah. You know what one of those times
Speaker 2: was when they were they you know, they played that
Speaker 2: game where they wanted me to come testify before Congress,
Speaker 2: and I said, sure, I'll come, and I'll do it publicly.
Speaker 2: And I the only way that I'll do it is
Speaker 2: if you do it in front of the cameras and
Speaker 2: in committee, you know, and we can broadcast it live.
Speaker 2: And and people inside the White House were really opposed
Speaker 2: to that, and and that was probably the one time
Speaker 2: in which I said too bad, because at that point,
Speaker 2: you know, it just it so bothered me that they
Speaker 2: were able to get away with and continue to get
Speaker 2: away with this thing, like right now, what they're doing
Speaker 2: with the this Epstein you know, uh investigation at the
Speaker 2: Oversight Committee, which is no investigation. You know, they're not
Speaker 2: even you know, they released transcripts four days later. People
Speaker 2: come out and you know, they characterize it the way
Speaker 2: they could characterize it, and the press has already moved
Speaker 2: on to something else, and that's exactly what they did.
Speaker 2: But at that time, that's remember I went up to
Speaker 2: I went up to the hill and I went over
Speaker 2: to the UH to actual live committee, and I walked in.
Speaker 2: I sat and sat in the audience, and all of them,
Speaker 2: I remember, h Nancy Mace was saying, this is the
Speaker 2: this is the epitome of privilege, you know, And I said,
Speaker 2: he won't even tell. I said, I'm right here, I'm
Speaker 2: right I'm ready to go. And of course they didn't
Speaker 2: take me up on it. But there were times that
Speaker 2: I was very, very frustrated, but again it wasn't my call.
Speaker 2: And and UH and I'm and I'm really I'm grateful
Speaker 2: for exactly where I am right now though, because I
Speaker 2: don't know in that Maelstrom, whether I would have been
Speaker 2: out there and would have been all about all defensive,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, It would have been like, oh,
Speaker 2: well that's not true, and that's not true, and why
Speaker 2: I can't admit to that, and I can't do this
Speaker 2: and and this now like I'm not running for anything
Speaker 2: as much as you know, the I think the the
Speaker 2: trolls on our side are triggering a hundred derangement syndrome.
Speaker 2: I call it now HDS. It's it has replaced TDS.
Speaker 2: But I'm not running. And you know, like, so I
Speaker 2: did a post today about you know, like it's the
Speaker 2: idiocracy two point zero, you know, I mean like this,
Speaker 2: and and I thought it was funny by the way I.
Speaker 1: Saw it today, I was I thought it was one
Speaker 1: of our posts, and they said, no, it's it's Hunter's post.
Speaker 3: I'm like Jesus, yeah, you know the way it got me.
Speaker 1: Thinking seriously, maybe you know, maybe on you know, Monday,
Speaker 1: the President's birthday, I may want to take a day off.
Speaker 3: Maybe you can take over my feet.
Speaker 2: I'm all in, I'm all in. You know, it's funny
Speaker 2: everybody thinks that there's like this, you know, Uh, like
Speaker 2: I got it. The d n C is working on
Speaker 2: my behalf. I feel like saying, when is the ever
Speaker 2: the DNC ever worked on it? And anybody's behd let
Speaker 2: alone mind uh but the uh, it's just me with
Speaker 2: my my my uh two little thumbs here. But it's liberating,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, and part of it is this,
Speaker 2: you know, I think that somebody wrote an article in
Speaker 2: the American Conservative about uh that somebody sent me about
Speaker 2: this little run I'm having on Twitter, which you know,
Speaker 2: all all good things has come to an end. I
Speaker 2: can't keep up this space on my own. But and
Speaker 2: they said, you know, and it was actually pretty insightful
Speaker 2: in many ways, and it just said, it's all about authenticity.
Speaker 2: It's like, what are you going to do to a
Speaker 2: guy that basically claims it all? You know what I mean,
Speaker 2: that takes ownership for all of the things and fights
Speaker 2: back when you know you are you know, when you
Speaker 2: when you open yourself up for a punch, what are
Speaker 2: you going to do? And that's kind of like how
Speaker 2: Trump was back in you know, And they make the
Speaker 2: connection where I don't. I think they really fail is
Speaker 2: in that part is that the difference between being audacious
Speaker 2: and authentic is is real. Donald Trump has the audacity
Speaker 2: to say that he's six toot three and weighs two
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty four pounds when we both know he's
Speaker 2: five eleven, three hundred. You know. Donald Trump has the
Speaker 2: audacity to say the very fine people on both sides.
Speaker 2: Donald Trump has the audacity to say that he's going
Speaker 2: to end the war in Iraq in one day. Donald
Speaker 2: Trump has the audacity to lie to your face, and
Speaker 2: you know, piss on your leg and tell you that
Speaker 2: it's training. That's not authenticity. And I think that the
Speaker 2: American people have fundamentally confused that not and it's not
Speaker 2: their fault. God, I I look. I think everybody's carrying
Speaker 2: around a bag of heroin in their pocket. And it's
Speaker 2: called an iPhone. Okay, it is the dopamine hit of
Speaker 2: choice for three hundred and fifty million of us. And
Speaker 2: what we do is that we are fed this lie
Speaker 2: that this country's divided, that everybody hates everybody, that they're
Speaker 2: never going to be able to get along, that you know,
Speaker 2: if you believe this, then then you're a trader. And
Speaker 2: this is treason. And Hunter Biden is a is a pedophile,
Speaker 2: rapist blah blah blah, and governor knows him as you know,
Speaker 2: turning every school into a trans blah blah blah. It's
Speaker 2: not real, man, You and I both know it. It
Speaker 2: ain't real. It's literally what we're being fed by a
Speaker 2: handful of oligarchs that controller technology companies. I mean, I
Speaker 2: always give the example, do you remember this when the
Speaker 2: whistleblower came out from Facebook and she testified in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two or twenty twenty twenty three, and she testified
Speaker 2: that Facebook knew well, knew full well that their algorithm
Speaker 2: was almost directly responsible for this for the exponential spike
Speaker 2: in suicides among girls between the ages of thirteen and seventeen,
Speaker 2: exponential a three hundred and thirty percent, I think increase
Speaker 2: in that, which, by the way, continues to this day.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: And you know what we did about it? Not a thing,
Speaker 2: by the way, all of us. I don't mean just Congress,
Speaker 2: I mean all of us. What did we do about it?
Speaker 2: You know what, We still got the phone in our pocket.
Speaker 2: And by the way, I'm as guilty as that as anybody.
Speaker 2: And I just think, like, if we can get people
Speaker 2: to realize that is that we don't hate each other,
Speaker 2: we're being told to hate each other. And so that's
Speaker 2: why I want to go on candas owns. I want
Speaker 2: to go talk to Tucker. I even want to go
Speaker 2: to talk to people that I literally, I mean, my
Speaker 2: first question in the movie was why he's such a
Speaker 2: Nazi to Nick Quents, you know what I mean. I
Speaker 2: want to talk I because God, you know this, and
Speaker 2: I'm talking too much, But that's my job as a
Speaker 2: Biden is eighteen to thirty thirty five year olds draft
Speaker 2: age generation. They're angry, man, They're really angry. And we
Speaker 2: can sit here and say they're stupid and they don't
Speaker 2: know what they're talking about, and they're so dumb that
Speaker 2: they fall into the trap of like is like these
Speaker 2: people and these people that they're online, they're not man.
Speaker 2: They just want to belong, they want to feel like
Speaker 2: they have some control. And I'll tell you what, A
Speaker 2: generation of people that lost two years of their life,
Speaker 2: the most important years of their life in COVID, and
Speaker 2: we don't even remotely recognize the trauma of that. And
Speaker 2: I think that that's what we're living through. And at
Speaker 2: the same time, the exact wrong person came along to
Speaker 2: the stage and literally lit the match. And that's who
Speaker 2: we have right now. So you know, I think it's
Speaker 2: I think what you're doing in the way that you're talking,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's inspiring to me.
Speaker 1: So I appreciate all that and so much to unpack
Speaker 1: Hunter and what you were just saying. And I'm curious,
Speaker 1: you know, I just in the context, just in a
Speaker 1: contemporary space. You know, we're were talking after the main
Speaker 1: primary what do you think in the context of authenticity
Speaker 1: versus the audacity frame of Platiner as a as you know,
Speaker 1: an example, I mean, you know, the Democrats struggling a
Speaker 1: little bit to reconcile. You mentioned Nick Flentest, and obviously
Speaker 1: the Platiner tattoo, and you know some of the prior comments.
Speaker 1: What do you what do you make of him in
Speaker 1: the context of of all this that you're describing.
Speaker 2: Take him at his word that that and which by
Speaker 2: the way, is not something he's not saying something new
Speaker 2: today that he wasn't saying four months ago or five
Speaker 2: months ago, which is this. He was a veteran, a
Speaker 2: combat veteran, and and he came back, you know, he
Speaker 2: had some real issues and with PTSD and and that
Speaker 2: trauma and whatever way that he was working it out.
Speaker 2: He I think has been really really open about is
Speaker 2: that he wasn't a good person. And here's what I know.
Speaker 2: It takes a lot of of stamina at least I'm
Speaker 2: not gonna say, uh, I think courage too. I'll give
Speaker 2: myself that to to get back up and and and
Speaker 2: build a better life. And I don't uh, I'm I'm
Speaker 2: ninety nine point nine percent certain is that Graham Platner
Speaker 2: is no Nazi, you know, And and I don't think
Speaker 2: that he's a racist in any way. I hear the
Speaker 2: way that he talks. I think that his relationship with
Speaker 2: his wife is his relationship with his wife. The entirety
Speaker 2: of that controversy is, you know, it's all about you know, leaked,
Speaker 2: consensual you know stuff, I mean stupid. Maybe you would
Speaker 2: have a problem. Uh not you, I mean anyone would.
Speaker 2: I would have a problem. But like you know, I
Speaker 2: always say to people, like show me your phone, give
Speaker 2: me access to your eye cloud, let me let's let's
Speaker 2: let's let's go through it and pull everything that we
Speaker 2: can that is inappropriate, that is off color. That is,
Speaker 2: you know, uh, that selfie that you took when you're
Speaker 2: drunk off your ass and you know you send it
Speaker 2: to your blah blah blah, Like show me your phone.
Speaker 2: And if that's the standard by which we are going
Speaker 2: to judge people, particularly people in an elected office, then
Speaker 2: I don't think we're going to have many people in
Speaker 2: elected office. And so as a relates to Grant Platter
Speaker 2: I focus on this is that I have not heard
Speaker 2: anything in any way that would say to me.
Speaker 4: That that that he is a abusive, misogynistic, or anti
Speaker 4: Semitic or racist person.
Speaker 2: And I have heard this from grand Platner though, that
Speaker 2: he thinks we should all have free health care. I
Speaker 2: have heard this from grand Platner also that he thinks
Speaker 2: that we have to radically change our politics. I have
Speaker 2: heard this from grand Platner that working people are getting
Speaker 2: fucking screwed. I have heard this from grand Platner that
Speaker 2: we aren't all. That they have us at each other's
Speaker 2: throats and we should be at their throats. I have
Speaker 2: heard this from grand Platner that he thinks the oligarchs
Speaker 2: and the tech tech are tech overlords and billionaires are
Speaker 2: really really really making it the playing field unfair for
Speaker 2: working class people. That's what I've heard from grand Plattner.
Speaker 2: And so I hope I'm right about that, because you know,
Speaker 2: I look at somebody and I know you probably have
Speaker 2: a personal relationship with him, but you know, I watched
Speaker 2: as Zoramndani kind of uh came up and I thought,
Speaker 2: holy shit, like I like what I'm hearing, you know,
Speaker 2: And then when he got elected, I thought, I hope,
Speaker 2: I hope he can deliver, and you know what like
Speaker 2: talk about delivering. I mean talk about delivering, and you're
Speaker 2: thinking about things like you know, you know what I
Speaker 2: would do, what I'm going to advise you to do
Speaker 2: on your first day as president is this, do something
Speaker 2: about rent. Rent. Do something about the algorithms that create
Speaker 2: the uh uh that that create a system that is
Speaker 2: completely unfair because of company the companies like black Rock
Speaker 2: and and and these giant hedge funds and private equity
Speaker 2: funds that have come and bought up all of the
Speaker 2: housing and now are basically in collusion with each other
Speaker 2: to increase rent by eight percent a year across the board,
Speaker 2: almost nationally, without any state or governor being able to
Speaker 2: do anything directly about it necessarily. And you know, you
Speaker 2: know what people are most concerned about, real people, like
Speaker 2: ninety five percent of us is rent. You know, more
Speaker 2: people rent today than as compared to ownership, than any
Speaker 2: time in history. And so if you're thirty five years old,
Speaker 2: married and you have two kids and you rent in
Speaker 2: a house, that eight percent that goes up the next
Speaker 2: year because of some guy. By the way, I'm not
Speaker 2: talking about small landlords. I'm talking about these private equity
Speaker 2: companies that have come and you got to make a
Speaker 2: choice between whether you're going to stay in your house
Speaker 2: or whether you're going to you know, be able to
Speaker 2: buy food, or whether you're going to be able to
Speaker 2: get diapers. And you're working two jobs and your wife
Speaker 2: is working two jobs. It's just you know, people are
Speaker 2: just trying to make it buy Yeah, you got it anyway.
Speaker 3: No, look, I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: And you know, without going down that rabbit hole though
Speaker 1: as substance of it as is, I think it connects
Speaker 1: things in more ways and more days and explains more
Speaker 1: things to your point about the nihilism a lot of
Speaker 1: young people feel, and this this sort of this belonging deficit,
Speaker 1: dignity deficit where people don't feel connected, respected or protected broadly,
Speaker 1: the algorithms sort of dialing up that outrage and people
Speaker 1: dialing back now and giving into that despair, and many
Speaker 1: people and going back to sort of the origin story
Speaker 1: here self medicating and many people you know, struggling in
Speaker 1: historic ways. And I want to go back to that
Speaker 1: a little bit, because you know, this really is, you know,
Speaker 1: your journey is shared by, as you suggest, towards of
Speaker 1: fifty million people. And you know, I just wrote it,
Speaker 1: finished a book and talked about you know, I learned
Speaker 1: so much in the process of writing a book.
Speaker 3: You wrote a book in twenty twenty one, and I
Speaker 3: imagine you.
Speaker 1: Went through the same process of, you know, learning about
Speaker 1: yourself and discovering things that you never knew about yourself,
Speaker 1: your own motivations on the basis of your parents bio.
Speaker 1: Your grandparents bio. How they were born and raised. And
Speaker 1: my grandfather spent four years prisoner war after marching in Corrigador,
Speaker 1: came back broken, alcoholic, and ultimately took his own life.
Speaker 1: And so this notion, you know that you share that
Speaker 1: journey that that Plattner and others. There's grace in terms
Speaker 1: of empathy and understanding some humility of the journey that people,
Speaker 1: all of us are on in different ways. But your
Speaker 1: journey for the last seven years has been pretty remarkable.
Speaker 1: And you talked about painting and and and I think
Speaker 1: big part of the origin story of the painting, if
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken, was that was also part of your journey.
Speaker 1: A catharsis your ability sort of substitute the habitual nature
Speaker 1: of an addiction with a creative outlet and the dexterity,
Speaker 1: the sort of rutinization of that art literally and figuratively
Speaker 1: helping you with that recovery. And so the focus, I know,
Speaker 1: Tim and others focused on, well, all the art that
Speaker 1: you sold, and you talk about it two hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty thousand dollars a year, hardly becoming a multimillionaire as
Speaker 1: a distraction.
Speaker 3: But for you, that was about your life.
Speaker 2: Yeah it was. And you know I painted my whole
Speaker 2: life and since I was a kid and making art
Speaker 2: since I was a kid, and and it was something
Speaker 2: that always gave me a relief and a release. And
Speaker 2: part of that is about you know, people that have
Speaker 2: suffered from addiction before, and you can understand this, which
Speaker 2: is the need to get out of your own head
Speaker 2: is much more acute I think in addicts and any
Speaker 2: than than the rest of us. And you know, and
Speaker 2: painting is that because painting, for me, is that the
Speaker 2: complete and other focus on the It's something that requires
Speaker 2: your mental and physical coordination at the same time. And
Speaker 2: Melissa and I just gotten married. I was newly clean
Speaker 2: and sober and uh and she went out and she
Speaker 2: bought me this table that is back in uh Malibu,
Speaker 2: and and she put it out in this little kind
Speaker 2: of shed that we had in the house that we
Speaker 2: were staying at, the beautiful windows, and she bought me
Speaker 2: some painting supplies and from that day, you know, I paint,
Speaker 2: you know, hours a debt. I wake up, you know,
Speaker 2: usually by uh five six, and I'm at that table.
Speaker 2: When I'm back there, I'm in my studio and I
Speaker 2: and I paint as long as I possibly can. And
Speaker 2: it was it has given me a an incredible sense
Speaker 2: of purpose because the other side of painting is this
Speaker 2: is that the creative act in and of itself is
Speaker 2: a beautiful thing, but when you share it with somebody else,
Speaker 2: it becomes almost an active courage. And I dont mean
Speaker 2: that in the sense of whether you're whether you play
Speaker 2: music or you sing, or you or you're a dancer,
Speaker 2: or you're a painter or is it is really amazing
Speaker 2: to do that in the confines of your own, you
Speaker 2: know room, but there's this really thrilling and enthralling and
Speaker 2: scary thing to do. Then share that with anybody else,
Speaker 2: and that's what I did. It really was a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2: You know that. The name of the book that I
Speaker 2: wrote was that, and the title came from bow To
Speaker 2: when he was dying said he had lost a lot
Speaker 2: of his ability to speak because of the ephasia that
Speaker 2: occurred because the crany old resections. And but we had
Speaker 2: a little like code together, and he would just say
Speaker 2: beautiful things. And he didn't mean beautiful things like possessions.
Speaker 2: He meant beautiful things like family, beautiful things like nature,
Speaker 2: beautiful things like uh, like my love of painting and
Speaker 2: and uh. And that's kind of the where I've I've
Speaker 2: ended up as my entire focus is on trying to
Speaker 2: focus on those beautiful things, which sometimes can come off
Speaker 2: as zingers on X. And when I'm talking about Don Jr.
Speaker 2: That's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1: I think about you, And I mean, obviously you know,
Speaker 1: and you've talked a lot about it, you were in
Speaker 1: a lot about it, and your dad spoke and so
Speaker 1: extraordinarily openly about Boe and but but you know, growing
Speaker 1: up and you guys, you know, just the tragedy both
Speaker 1: of you survived, and the bond that you guys had
Speaker 1: and in the relationship that was you know, you have
Speaker 1: brother the relationships are you know, often close, but this
Speaker 1: was the next level relationship in terms of what you
Speaker 1: guys were forged and and and the experiences.
Speaker 3: You both shared.
Speaker 1: But what was it like just growing up in the
Speaker 1: spotlight of a father who, you know, before he was president,
Speaker 1: vice president, before his vice president was a candidate for president,
Speaker 1: was a dominant force for decades and decades, youngest center
Speaker 1: in history and thirty good even get sworn in when
Speaker 1: he was originally elected. But what was it like growing
Speaker 1: up in a political family? I mean, was it was
Speaker 1: it just you know, peaches and strawberries, It was you know,
Speaker 1: fantastic and privilege or was it you know, man held
Speaker 1: to a different standard?
Speaker 3: How was that growing up?
Speaker 2: Now? You know, growing up in I always say that
Speaker 2: that I in part because of my dad, but also
Speaker 2: in part because of the state of Delaware. You know,
Speaker 2: Delaware is a small place, and I think it's population
Speaker 2: just you know, south of a million still right now,
Speaker 2: even you know, smaller nineteen seventy two when that first
Speaker 2: got elected, probably around six hundred thousand or so. And
Speaker 2: by virtue of that, like you know, my dad was
Speaker 2: Joe to everybody, And by virtue of the accident when
Speaker 2: my mom and my brother and I were in when
Speaker 2: my mom and my sister were killed, is that the
Speaker 2: whole kind of state you know, adopted us and we had,
Speaker 2: you know, literal you know, everybody was an aunt and
Speaker 2: uncle and which was really it was a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2: And so Delaware always felt like family and felt like home,
Speaker 2: and with the same kind of treatment, like if I
Speaker 2: got pulled over by a cop for speed and you know,
Speaker 2: the cop didn't go, well, you know, mister Biden will
Speaker 2: let you off this time, they said to your task's
Speaker 2: going to kick your ass. I can't wait for I
Speaker 2: see him down at the train station. And so that
Speaker 2: we didn't grow up in d C. You know, I
Speaker 2: said something the other day, I said, you know, Mike,
Speaker 2: the way in which they treated Dad. At the end
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty four, after the debate, I said his
Speaker 2: part and the reason was he was never a part
Speaker 2: of that elite insider d C press. And somebody said,
Speaker 2: you know a lot of people said, well, that's the
Speaker 2: most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. You're trying to tell
Speaker 2: me that somebody that spends fifty years in Washington, d C.
Speaker 2: There was chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, that was
Speaker 2: a vice president, that was a president, wasn't inside d C.
Speaker 2: And what I wanted to say is that, well, you
Speaker 2: don't know d C. If you don't know that my
Speaker 2: dad went home every day. That means something. He did
Speaker 2: not show up at the Georgetown cocktail parties. He was
Speaker 2: not at the you know, the the Aaronson's House on
Speaker 2: Sunday with the other Supreme Court justices. And you know,
Speaker 2: I mean like there is a and I know that
Speaker 2: world because I lived there for myself for a while,
Speaker 2: which he never did. And and so for that reason,
Speaker 2: my childhood was uh was was normal and as much
Speaker 2: as it possibly could be, even though dad was a
Speaker 2: United States senator. And you know, now, did we get
Speaker 2: to do some cool stuff? Yeah, I mean we used
Speaker 2: to go down on the train and and hang out
Speaker 2: with my dad anytime that we wanted to. In the
Speaker 2: Senate and uh, you know was one of the most
Speaker 2: increasing I love the Senate. I love the history of
Speaker 2: those buildings, and I loved being there to watch and
Speaker 2: also because of my mom's death, a lot of the
Speaker 2: old uh like really uh names nobody will remember now
Speaker 2: except in their home states. But like Mike Mansfield and
Speaker 2: and and Danny and Oway who is my hero and
Speaker 2: uh you know, and the list goes on. Teddy Kennedy
Speaker 2: uh took us under their wing, which was incredibly privileged
Speaker 2: thing to do. I got to meet men and women
Speaker 2: that I think and body Bob Dole, you know, who
Speaker 2: was a cervic guy, but he loved me, I mean
Speaker 2: me and Bow and we got to go in the
Speaker 2: cloak room and do things and see that and see
Speaker 2: uh history unfold. And it was an incredible childhood from
Speaker 2: that perspective. And what I learned in that is that
Speaker 2: politics done uh nobly is a noble thing and uh
Speaker 2: and I really believe that. And I think everybody goes, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't like politics. Not a good politics.
Speaker 2: I think it's such a cop out. It's like, you know,
Speaker 2: because the truth of the matter is is that the
Speaker 2: only way that we can sustain a constitutional republic and
Speaker 2: this democracy is if we engage in politics. It doesn't
Speaker 2: mean that we have to engage in no holds barred
Speaker 2: partisanship where it's a zero sum game, but we have
Speaker 2: to engage in politics. And my dad was the master
Speaker 2: of finding a way through legislatively with people that no
Speaker 2: one would have thought that he could have done that.
Speaker 2: I mean, and for instance, the you know, like Pep Park,
Speaker 2: the President's emergency plan for as really I mean, if
Speaker 2: it were not for my dad, with with Jesse Hilmes
Speaker 2: being able to bring him on board, for that, I
Speaker 2: would have never gotten done. And all the credit goes
Speaker 2: to U. You know well by the way, as you
Speaker 2: and I both know, all the credit goes to Bono
Speaker 2: and Bobby Shreiver, which is true. Yeah, but that that
Speaker 2: that was my childhood. You know, what was it?
Speaker 3: What was it like Hunter?
Speaker 1: When you mean it must have been radically different as
Speaker 1: vice president, meaning all of a sudden now it's secret service,
Speaker 1: different levels of scrutiny.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, completely different.
Speaker 3: Was that? I mean? Was that did that?
Speaker 1: Was that more of a shock of the system or
Speaker 1: was it you know, because of all those reps and
Speaker 1: because of your deeper understanding of you know, the ways
Speaker 1: of of you know, within that court or at least
Speaker 1: of d C and the whole way.
Speaker 2: It was it was a radical difference and not one
Speaker 2: that I was very comfortable with the pomp and circumstance
Speaker 2: of it. And uh is it can be intoxicating, I
Speaker 2: think at first, and and and then it can be
Speaker 2: very overwhelming when you you're you fully understand that you're
Speaker 2: you're very much not particularly as the son the second
Speaker 2: son of the the Vice President of the United States States.
Speaker 2: It's like, you're not You're not in you know, You're
Speaker 2: not you know, like in the mix, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean with the understandable assumption from people on the
Speaker 2: outside that somehow that you know that you are and uh.
Speaker 2: And I think one of the mistakes that I made
Speaker 2: is that I I stayed in d C. The girls
Speaker 2: were in school by that time. We had been in Delaware.
Speaker 2: I'd moved back down to d C because I had
Speaker 2: started my law froom. I tried to commute like BO did,
Speaker 2: but I had taken a job as an adjunct professor
Speaker 2: at Georgetown University's Master's program on the School Foreign Service,
Speaker 2: because at the time, I was the chairman of the
Speaker 2: board of the World Food Program US, and so I
Speaker 2: was traveling all over the world at like going to
Speaker 2: hotspots like Lebanon and bay Rude during the searing refugee
Speaker 2: crisis and a typhoon, high End and and and all
Speaker 2: these things. And I was teaching at Georgetown, and I
Speaker 2: had my business, and the idea of commuting back and
Speaker 2: forth just became too much for me. As I always
Speaker 2: said to my dad, I said, when I'm late to
Speaker 2: a meeting. People leave when you're late to a meeting,
Speaker 2: they wait. And it was a mistake on my part though,
Speaker 2: because I really I don't I don't dislike DC, but
Speaker 2: the the but it's a company town. It's very much
Speaker 2: a company town, and everything is about, you know, proximity
Speaker 2: to power and and people are not are not shy
Speaker 2: about it, and it's just it kind of SAPs your
Speaker 2: soul to to a certain degree, you know. I mean
Speaker 2: that was my experience. And again though, it's like what
Speaker 2: an honor like to be able to say what it's
Speaker 2: like inside the Vice President's residence, Like like who gets
Speaker 2: to say that? And I don't like or to be
Speaker 2: able to even have remotely at criticism of being able
Speaker 2: to stay over at your dad's house. And it happened
Speaker 2: to be the White House. Like I only stayed in
Speaker 2: the I was only in the White House, Uh, probably
Speaker 2: forty nights because we were out with the U in
Speaker 2: in the great state of California, which, by the way,
Speaker 2: I will tell you this. I've had so many people
Speaker 2: say when are you coming home? And I say to them,
Speaker 2: are you out of your mind?
Speaker 3: There we go?
Speaker 2: I wait every day, it's seventy five degrees in sunny,
Speaker 2: and I'm looking out at the Pacific Ocean and I
Speaker 2: you know, and I'm going to lunch in the Hollywood Hills,
Speaker 2: and I think, like, what where would you ever want
Speaker 2: to live other than maybe, you know, a couple hours
Speaker 2: north of there. I mean, it's amazing. But anyway, the
Speaker 2: it was tough, not tough in the sense of like,
Speaker 2: oh it was a hardship, but it just wasn't my
Speaker 2: style and and and anyway, you know it it uh,
Speaker 2: it kind of all fell apart at one point after died.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and then you started, I mean, that's when
Speaker 1: the sort of spiral of addiction started to take shape.
Speaker 1: And have your best friend to call every day, your
Speaker 1: father's devastated, you know, you know, everybody you.
Speaker 3: Know people even you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's when that I mean, forgive me, but now
Speaker 1: I'm looking back, just that was the time.
Speaker 3: Obviously the marriage came to an end as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, all almost simultaneously. And it was I was
Speaker 2: I was a drift. I was totally drift. And I
Speaker 2: say this not for the shock value of it. I
Speaker 2: was trying to commit suicide, but I didn't have the
Speaker 2: courage to do it. In a way that would have
Speaker 2: been immediate and final. It was when I first smoke crack.
Speaker 2: It was a conscious choice. I'm going to do the
Speaker 2: single thing that is probably the most destructive thing that
Speaker 2: I can do. And I walked out of a of
Speaker 2: a of a rehabilitation center, an outpatient program that I
Speaker 2: had been in for a period of time because everybody
Speaker 2: was worried to death for me and and a whole
Speaker 2: long story, but they wouldn't let me back in the program.
Speaker 2: And then I walked to Lincoln Park, which was, you know,
Speaker 2: uh about two blocks from this program, and I knew
Speaker 2: a woman that had been you know, I had known
Speaker 2: her because I'd worked in the area for you know,
Speaker 2: a worker lived in the area for twenty years and
Speaker 2: everybody called her Bicycles and she was crack addic and
Speaker 2: everybody knew she was crack attic and she was funny
Speaker 2: as shit and she and I walked up to her
Speaker 2: and said, going to buy some pack and she said sure.
Speaker 2: And that was the and then you know, that was
Speaker 2: became at that time a three year odyssey like no other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And for you you know, it's and you can
Speaker 1: imagine for people. I'll speak for myself but I imagine
Speaker 1: millions of others just to hear you, especially you know,
Speaker 1: I mean on the CANISO and podcast to just say it,
Speaker 1: own it and say quote unquote, yeah I was a crackhead.
Speaker 1: Which is a hell of a thing to say, is
Speaker 1: what was said about you. But your willingness to just
Speaker 1: own that again, yeah, is that? I mean, was there
Speaker 1: a moment when it just you're like, you know, and
Speaker 1: I keep going back to this question because it's it's
Speaker 1: a hell of a statement just to to you know,
Speaker 1: to claim something talk about courage, yeah, and humility.
Speaker 3: In that respect.
Speaker 2: So unlike most people that are you know, publicly humiliated
Speaker 2: because it's something they've done, something they've said that or
Speaker 2: you know, whatever it might be, justify so or or
Speaker 2: unfairly is that it didn't happen in a drip trip.
Speaker 2: For me, it all happened at once. All the pictures
Speaker 2: were out, all one hundred and thirty thousand emails that
Speaker 2: were stolen, all thirty thousand text messages, all you know,
Speaker 2: ninety eight thousand photographs and videos, every voicemail that I
Speaker 2: ever left anybody. They had hacked my iCloud and several
Speaker 2: different devices, including a laptop, including another laptop that was
Speaker 2: stolen in Las Vegas, including a phone. And by the way,
Speaker 2: this isn't like conjecture on my part. They all it's
Speaker 2: all out there. They all that each one of these
Speaker 2: people that participated in this operation and they ended up
Speaker 2: getting in a fight with each other and who It's
Speaker 2: like who got what?
Speaker 3: And Hunter who? I mean who? For those that aren't familiar,
Speaker 3: I mean, who are the who? What was it this?
Speaker 1: I mean there was a lot of conversation Russian disinformation.
Speaker 1: We I talked to her about Bannon and you know,
Speaker 1: obviously Rudy.
Speaker 2: So you know that there's this whole thing about hind
Speaker 2: that this idea that that when those forty intelligence officers
Speaker 2: wrote that this has all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation
Speaker 2: and you know twitters, you know, uh, you know Twitter
Speaker 2: sphere kind of and then Maga is you know, like
Speaker 2: you lie to us. This is you know, the laptop
Speaker 2: was real? The laptop and I keep saying, is all
Speaker 2: a red hearing? Is that what the what those forty
Speaker 2: intelligence officials were talking about is that they were talking
Speaker 2: about an ongoing Russian operation that was identified by the
Speaker 2: Justice Department under Donald Trump that involved a guy named
Speaker 2: Andre derikatch Constantine Kulik, tell Azenko, a guy named Dimitri
Speaker 2: Fertash who Rudy Giuliani was taking information from literally Dosier's.
Speaker 2: He filmed it on Oan. He did a documentary in
Speaker 2: real time with him in Leb Parnes and Igor Fruhman
Speaker 2: and about searching for my laptop that was being offered
Speaker 2: for sale inside of Ukraine and Russia and Austria by
Speaker 2: a guy named Dmfi Fertash. That all was happening before
Speaker 2: the laptop repair shop guy was a twinkle in Rudy
Speaker 2: Giuliani's eye, okay. And what happened was is that the
Speaker 2: only thing that the laptop proved a quote unquote laptop
Speaker 2: hard drive, iCloud hack, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 2: The only thing that proved is that I was a
Speaker 2: degenerate crackhead doing degenerate crackhead things. And when I say that,
Speaker 2: all consensual things, you know, because what happened next is
Speaker 2: this is I did the New Yorker interview right in
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen, right when I got a sober. I got
Speaker 2: a call from Adam Intos from the New Yorker, and
Speaker 2: I loved the New Yorker, and I mean, when I
Speaker 2: was a kid, I mean, I always thought that I
Speaker 2: would be able to be a poet and have my art,
Speaker 2: my poetry in the New Yorker and so and the
Speaker 2: only reason I took his call was because of that.
Speaker 2: And I ended up making one of the best decisions
Speaker 2: of my life because Adam is a really fine writer.
Speaker 2: And he listened, and the story ostensibly started about barisma,
Speaker 2: and it ended up being about the fact that I
Speaker 2: was deep into it, coming out of a deep addiction.
Speaker 2: And that came out in July of twenty nineteen, and
Speaker 2: the first call that he got was from Steve Bannon,
Speaker 2: who said, m Efer, you scooped us, because that was
Speaker 2: their plan. What they were going to do is they
Speaker 2: were going to release all of the images from the
Speaker 2: laptop of me, you know, in compromising sexual positions and
Speaker 2: you know, you know, people taking pictures of me with
Speaker 2: the cracked pipe in my mouth and things like that,
Speaker 2: and that was going to be the October surprise. But
Speaker 2: I took it away from him. And so what they
Speaker 2: did is they concocted this other thing. They held onto
Speaker 2: it all the way up until October of twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: And in the meantime, what had been happening. Is all
Speaker 2: of those Dimitri Fertash, Constantine Cooley, tell A Zenko, all
Speaker 2: of the Andre Diurkash had all been sanctioned by the
Speaker 2: US government by the Trump administration for running a election
Speaker 2: interference operation inside of the United States because they were
Speaker 2: feeding to a guy named Alexander Smirnov a bribery charge
Speaker 2: that Hunter Biden took a bribe on behalf of his
Speaker 2: father from the Ukrainians. And that's what Rudy did. So
Speaker 2: Rudy walks out onto the Newcastle County Courthouse, Delaware, and
Speaker 2: he does two things. He said that this is evidence
Speaker 2: of criminal activity in Hunter Biden and is being paid
Speaker 2: by the Ukrainians like the government, and the Chinese like
Speaker 2: the government, of which neither one of those things is
Speaker 2: even remotely true. And he said, and this contains evidence
Speaker 2: of inappropriate images of children, which obviously is not true. Nope,
Speaker 2: which is like beyond. But you know what it is.
Speaker 2: It's the oldest trick in the book. It literally was
Speaker 2: started by the Nazis and Putin then deployed it in
Speaker 2: two that Rachel Maddow talks about this all the time.
Speaker 2: It's called eliminationist rhetoric. If they can get anyone to
Speaker 2: believe that you're a pedophile, then the ability for them
Speaker 2: to get it. Say, they go out and they say
Speaker 2: that it doesn't bear any resemblance to anything. If ten
Speaker 2: percent of their community believe that, then sixty percent can
Speaker 2: believe that you're capable of bribery. Seventy percent think that
Speaker 2: you're capable of undue influence, I mean, And so that's
Speaker 2: what they did. And it's like everybody else dismisses that
Speaker 2: part about it. But then when you had the New
Speaker 2: York Post come along and they literally all they did
Speaker 2: didn't matter what the headline is, what it was about.
Speaker 2: It was a picture of me in a motel room
Speaker 2: smoking a pipe or or and with my shirt off
Speaker 2: with a woman that was blurred out, and it's like,
Speaker 2: this is your degenerate and tell me that he's not
Speaker 2: also capable of, you know, you know, taking a bribe.
Speaker 2: And that's what they did and to great effects, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, people forget is that I had a My
Speaker 2: criminal prosecution was completely sewn up after four different US
Speaker 2: attorneys and investigating crime tax at the Department of Justice,
Speaker 2: Main Justice, the FBI, the IRS, IRS, criminal Investigations Division,
Speaker 2: and they'd all come to the conclusion that I had
Speaker 2: not committed a felony offense in any way, and I
Speaker 2: was getting a I entered into a plea agreement in
Speaker 2: which I was going to plead guilty to two misdemeanors,
Speaker 2: which were failure to file my taxes on time because
Speaker 2: I had paid all my taxes with penalties and interest,
Speaker 2: and a diversion agreement because they say that I had
Speaker 2: purchased a gun at a time when I should have
Speaker 2: known that I was addicted to a controlled substance, which,
Speaker 2: by the way, is the correct thing, is the correct result.
Speaker 2: And so I signed that agreement, and they signed the agreement.
Speaker 2: And so I have assigned agreement with the US Attorney
Speaker 2: in the state of Delaware approval with krim tax, completely
Speaker 2: independent from Maine Justice or anybody in manjestice making a decision.
Speaker 2: And I go to court and they blow it up.
Speaker 2: They bring in these two prosecutors from Baltimore that had
Speaker 2: never been a part of the case. And after and
Speaker 2: there were four amicas briefs sent into the court, not
Speaker 2: as before any decision was made that said, like from
Speaker 2: the Heritage Foundation, everybody that you know, a list of
Speaker 2: four thousand crimes I had committed. Fox News and the
Speaker 2: Murdoch Empire and everybody in the magosphere like went full
Speaker 2: force for forty six days, which is totally unheard of
Speaker 2: that I would have been had a plea agreement and
Speaker 2: not be arraigned on that agreement within seventy two hours.
Speaker 2: But they delayed it. And when it came to the court,
Speaker 2: the court said, mister Biden, you have an immunity clause
Speaker 2: in here, which is normal for a plea agreement. Of course,
Speaker 2: you don't sign a plea agreement without an immunity's clause
Speaker 2: because you don't want the government to come back and say,
Speaker 2: oh no, we decided that. And it sounds to me
Speaker 2: like the the attorney is saying that that community would
Speaker 2: not apply to you know, X Y or Z. And
Speaker 2: I said, well, it's it's a signed agreement. We're done
Speaker 2: here here on her like this is over. She said,
Speaker 2: well I don't think so, and she and they and
Speaker 2: they purposely blew up the agreement completely and then they
Speaker 2: charged me with things that they've never charged anybody before with.
Speaker 2: But that was the whole kind of trajectory of of
Speaker 2: all of this, and your original question, though, was this
Speaker 2: long lost in my my fifty six year old brain,
Speaker 2: and I don't know if I'm going to be able
Speaker 2: to get back to us, no.
Speaker 1: Hunter, What I mean, was it just the just the
Speaker 1: external political pressure that that this around sound, that sort
Speaker 1: of grievance, the organization of that agreements against you your
Speaker 1: dad that was coming out of you know, Newsmax one
Speaker 1: American News Fox Murdock ink. I mean, it was just
Speaker 1: twenty four to seven that just created the pressure on
Speaker 1: the Justice Department to reconsider the judge. I mean, where,
Speaker 1: why did that? Why why the sudden shift after agreement period?
Speaker 2: It was just political pressure, pure, pure, pure, pure political pressure.
Speaker 2: You know. They literally there were so many death threats
Speaker 2: against the US the assistant US Attorney who was a
Speaker 2: twenty year veteran at the US Attorney's Office in Delaware
Speaker 2: for entering into the agreement, and the U S Attorney
Speaker 2: that she had to go into hiding, and they brought
Speaker 2: in these two guys from Baltimore, the tame two guys
Speaker 2: that that you know, uh prosecuted the Democratic mayor in
Speaker 2: the state and city of Baltimore and the the district
Speaker 2: attorney and like they you know they were riding high
Speaker 2: on you know, this thing and and and that's exactly why.
Speaker 2: And the U S Attorney got just absolutely excoriated until
Speaker 2: the point where he then you know, ripped up the
Speaker 2: plea agreement, which you can't do. But but we're and
Speaker 2: and and applied for didn't apply. He says he's going
Speaker 2: to be special counsel, which is unheard of by the
Speaker 2: way that a sitting US attorney was also a special council.
Speaker 2: It's in complete violation of the statute as written. And
Speaker 2: so he becomes special counsel. And before the uh statute
Speaker 2: of limitations is up on both of those things, they
Speaker 2: charged me with, you know, six feltonies and like, you know,
Speaker 2: what's what what are you going to do? Is I
Speaker 2: say to everybody, is that the idea that uh, the
Speaker 2: chances of beating the federal government, uh, you know, in
Speaker 2: a in a in a criminal case or really really
Speaker 2: really slim. I mean that's why they have you know,
Speaker 2: ninety five percent conviction rates the full force of the
Speaker 2: Justice Department when it descends upon you. It's an awesome
Speaker 2: thing to witness.
Speaker 1: But it's impossible to hear this and just I mean
Speaker 1: it's I mean, most folks listening and watching know this,
Speaker 1: but it's important to mind everybody, this was happening when
Speaker 1: your dad is president of the United States. This is
Speaker 1: happening a Justice department with his handpicked Attorney general. And
Speaker 1: yet your father continues to be criticized for tipping the
Speaker 1: scale of justice and weaponizing the Department of Justice against
Speaker 1: quote unquote his enemies. Meanwhile, his own son is being
Speaker 1: prosecuted along these lines after a plea agreement was already signed.
Speaker 2: Where I'm from, what you say something like that is
Speaker 2: you can't make this ship up.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you put it in terms all of us
Speaker 1: can understand.
Speaker 2: You can't make this exactly. But by the way, Dad
Speaker 2: gets so mad, He's said, you got to stop cussing.
Speaker 2: You got to stop cussing.
Speaker 1: Well, I've never heard you like you did with with
Speaker 1: Andrew when you did that first podcast.
Speaker 2: That was man, you know, by the way, all earned,
Speaker 2: all earned, all earned.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And don't think I'm going to let you go
Speaker 1: without getting into a little bit of those more contemporary
Speaker 1: topics that triggered you back then.
Speaker 3: Not that I'm here to trigger you necessarily.
Speaker 2: But no, no, I'm not triggered by.
Speaker 1: It, but it's but a lot of it is worthy
Speaker 1: of of some of some additional commentary. But but it's
Speaker 1: a good segue then just the Department of Justice, this
Speaker 1: notion of weaponization. Of course we've seen now Trump back
Speaker 1: in office, your father feeling, you know, and I don't
Speaker 1: want to get down the rabbit hole of you know,
Speaker 1: your father, you know, surf shifting his own mindset as
Speaker 1: it relates to the part in at the end of
Speaker 1: the day where you know, he was sort of holding
Speaker 1: the line against it and ultimately realized on the other
Speaker 1: side of this.
Speaker 2: Is is yeah, is this is this is This is
Speaker 2: another thing that I really feel that if I sat
Speaker 2: in front of a lot of these people that are
Speaker 2: an outsized voice within a conservative communities, there is no
Speaker 2: more maggot in my opinion, Okay, And if it is,
Speaker 2: it's a very small percentage of what used to be
Speaker 2: called the Republican Party, but there is still a genuine
Speaker 2: conservative movement out there. And who's going to take the
Speaker 2: mantle of the intellectual forefront of that. I don't know,
Speaker 2: But I can't imagine sitting not sitting in front of
Speaker 2: Tucker Carlson, looking him in the eye and saying, you know, Tucker,
Speaker 2: my dad said that he wouldn't give me a pardon.
Speaker 2: And he was absolutely, one hundred percent genuine about it
Speaker 2: when he would say he wouldn't give me a parton,
Speaker 2: and he said it in a moment in time where
Speaker 2: he thought that he was going to be the next
Speaker 2: president of the United States, and there would be a
Speaker 2: Justice Department that would treat me fairly, and there would
Speaker 2: be a court system that would not be intimidated by
Speaker 2: a tyrant, that would not have an attorney general that
Speaker 2: is willing that it's his own personal attorney, or at
Speaker 2: that time, if you remember correctly, is that Matt Gates
Speaker 2: was going to become the Attorney General of the United States.
Speaker 2: Cash Betel has the head of FBI. I would have
Speaker 2: been under the supervision of the of the Bureau of
Speaker 2: Federal Prisons and Probation. The idea that they would not
Speaker 2: have violated I would not look for everything that I
Speaker 2: was convicted for. The idea that I would have gone
Speaker 2: to jail is zero zero under any circumstances. None. I
Speaker 2: was a first time offender. I had never like non
Speaker 2: violent victimist climbs on both of them, I paid all
Speaker 2: my taxes with penalties and interest. Anybody that was in
Speaker 2: my position would have been in a payment plan with
Speaker 2: the IRS through a settled a settlement. There's over one
Speaker 2: point six billion dollars in taxes owed by over a
Speaker 2: million people that make over a million dollars a year
Speaker 2: in the United States right now every year that have
Speaker 2: owed for over five years. By the way, I'm going
Speaker 2: to win the gun case. It's going to get overturned
Speaker 2: in the Supreme Court, I believe, unfortunately in the harmonic
Speaker 2: case that is about to come out right. So in
Speaker 2: a in a whether it was it a Biden administration
Speaker 2: or whoever. And by the way, if it was in
Speaker 2: a mid Romney administration, if it was in a John
Speaker 2: McCain administration, if it was in anybody that was an
Speaker 2: actual Republican and not a tyrant or fascist, my dad
Speaker 2: would not have pardoned me because I could, I could
Speaker 2: fend for myself in that system. I could take the lumps,
Speaker 2: I could continue on and I would be okay. But
Speaker 2: the idea that you would leave anyone, and particularly your son,
Speaker 2: just I mean think about from that respect, literally, you
Speaker 2: all your Fourth Amendment rights are gone. Surch and teacher
Speaker 2: is no longer a constitutional right that you that you
Speaker 2: have an advantage of if you're a convicted felon, the
Speaker 2: ability for a probation officer at any time to enter
Speaker 2: your house without a warrant, to go into your room,
Speaker 2: to do anything that they want to do, to violate
Speaker 2: you in any way they choose, at any time of
Speaker 2: day or night. And it would have been like having
Speaker 2: a gun to my family's head for the next four
Speaker 2: years at least. And so that's why he pardoned me.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a really incredibly rational decision, and it
Speaker 2: was a really difficult decision. And you know how proud
Speaker 2: of my dad I am is. The fact of the
Speaker 2: matter is he chose me over his legacy, because no
Speaker 2: matter what you say, that's going to be the one
Speaker 2: of the first things that is written about him. And
Speaker 2: that's how you know, I say to people, that's how
Speaker 2: much you know my dad loves me.
Speaker 3: Oh, come on.
Speaker 2: He chose me over his political legacy for that reason.
Speaker 1: And I was with him the day you were indicted.
Speaker 1: We had a press conference out here in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: Is driving with him and the bear and I'll just
Speaker 1: that's a private story I'll share with you him talking
Speaker 1: about you, and he cut me off. We were talking
Speaker 1: about something else and he was not thinking about anything
Speaker 1: else except you in that day, understandably, and he was
Speaker 1: trying to indulge me and said some things man that
Speaker 1: for you know, have hardwired me, imprinted on me. That's
Speaker 1: where my loyalty will always be with your dad, just
Speaker 1: the love he as for you, and you know, forgive
Speaker 1: me just as a as a parent anyway.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 3: So I just that's you, you know that.
Speaker 1: But boy, you know, just to be there at that
Speaker 1: moment and to hear that expression and the depth of
Speaker 1: that was was as a father and as someone who
Speaker 1: lost My father was a pronounced brother.
Speaker 3: But let me just.
Speaker 1: Look any seguas to you know, just to the you know,
Speaker 1: all that shit you took twenty four to seven surround
Speaker 1: sound weaponization, all the you know, all of that, and
Speaker 1: here we are fast forward with the Department of Justice.
Speaker 1: We can you know, we don't even need to. We
Speaker 1: can just blow past the January sixth stuff. Obviously, this
Speaker 1: one point seven seven six billion dollar UH Weaponization fund
Speaker 1: and and all the mischigosh there. But you know, come on, man,
Speaker 1: you brought up junior Eric Kushnurse Albania, which coughs border
Speaker 1: piece meme coins USC. I mean you were tweeting about
Speaker 1: that today. Now there's a coin related to the USC.
Speaker 1: We've got, you know, forget the days of Cologne. It's
Speaker 1: Bibles and it's you know, first lady bibles, not just
Speaker 1: Trump Bibles. You've got sneakers, we've got phones. I mean,
Speaker 1: this grift is the likes of which we've You can't
Speaker 1: even can't make this back to this. You can't make
Speaker 1: this s and everything you went through.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they literally they they ruin it all. Like you
Speaker 2: know what I like the UFC watching it. They ruined it.
Speaker 2: They ruin it. It makes it hard, now, do you know
Speaker 2: what I mean? It literally does because everybody's got to
Speaker 2: choose a side. They have to put it on the
Speaker 2: goddamn South Lawn and in the middle of two and
Speaker 2: fiftieth anniversary. I mean, I can't understand why Dana White.
Speaker 2: I don't even think against Dana White, but what the
Speaker 2: fuck man, Like, it's your brand, Like, how are you
Speaker 2: doing this? How are you doing this? How is this appropriate?
Speaker 2: How is this appropriate? And I just don't get crypto.
Speaker 2: Let me take it into crypto. I was red pilled a
Speaker 2: long time ago as it released to bitcoin. I don't
Speaker 2: care that I'm not. You know, meme coins. If you
Speaker 2: talk to anybody between the age of eighteen and thirty five,
Speaker 2: meme token of mean culture and tokens are something that
Speaker 2: they fully completely understand. And you know what, there was
Speaker 2: a lot of promise in that, a lot of freedom
Speaker 2: in that, a lot of an idea in which your
Speaker 2: level of attention could be something in which you could
Speaker 2: monetize that you could do micro transactions and create communities with.
Speaker 2: They've totally distorted it and made it a total grift.
Speaker 2: I mean, look at bitcoin. I love the idea bitcoin
Speaker 2: not coming from I don't know own any bitcoin. I
Speaker 2: don't know. I don't have two nickels to rub together.
Speaker 2: But the fact of the matter is that you have it.
Speaker 2: I went sorry, sorry to get off on this tangent. Well,
Speaker 2: when I was the chairman of the board of the
Speaker 2: World Threugh Program, the US UN World Food Program, largest
Speaker 2: humanitarian organization in the world. I ran the US part
Speaker 2: of it, okay, which was responsible for sixty percent of
Speaker 2: its budget, which we went from when I was chairman
Speaker 2: from one point six billion dollars a year to two
Speaker 2: point four billion dollars a year in which we were
Speaker 2: able to raise and come at a US interest, fed
Speaker 2: eighty million people in seventy three different countries on a
Speaker 2: daily basis. Okay, so I would go to these hotspots,
Speaker 2: so when there was a typhoon or was it a
Speaker 2: natural disaster, or whether there's a war, and we would.
Speaker 2: And World Food Program is always the first on the
Speaker 2: ground because they have all the airlift of the UN
Speaker 2: and so they bring in everybody else. And so it
Speaker 2: was critical. And one of the pieces was is that
Speaker 2: when you bring in refugees into these places, is that
Speaker 2: they cannibalized the local economy, which is usually really unstable
Speaker 2: at the time anyway, and so you bring in all
Speaker 2: of this free food, and all of a sudden, then
Speaker 2: you are these subsistence farmers and these local shops and
Speaker 2: things they get that nobody's going to them anymore. And
Speaker 2: so what we wanted to do is we wanted to
Speaker 2: bring money into the into the communities, into the economy,
Speaker 2: and rather than making the repugees a drain on it,
Speaker 2: is that they're actually adding to it. And we had
Speaker 2: to figure out a way to be able to do
Speaker 2: micro transactions that could be go through cell phones and
Speaker 2: and it became the pilot program was incredibly successful. And
Speaker 2: you realize like in places like Kabira and which is
Speaker 2: the largest you know, former repugee slum in the world
Speaker 2: in Nairobi and it and it is an entire working
Speaker 2: economy and which you can go into a shack that
Speaker 2: is the size of a closet to buy a Fanta
Speaker 2: soda with a flip phone and for the equivalent of
Speaker 2: seventeen cents. That's what cryptocurrency is, the true promise of
Speaker 2: it outside of a banking system and which you have
Speaker 2: to go through VAT or you have to go through
Speaker 2: through you know, like by the way, like do I
Speaker 2: trust that? Or Jamie Diamond, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Like you know what I mean? Like what's the I
Speaker 2: And so anyway, my point is is they sully everything.
Speaker 2: They sully everything, They tarnish everything. I mean, he made
Speaker 2: thirty seven thousand trades in the first quarter of this year,
Speaker 2: thirty seven thousand trades, more than most multi billion dollar
Speaker 2: hedge funds make in a single quarter. And I'm talking
Speaker 2: about like I mean, like he is a hyper trader,
Speaker 2: and and he's trading stocks in large numbers of companies
Speaker 2: like Dell and Navidia and Apple and what she's canning
Speaker 2: out billion dollar contracts too. And by the way, those
Speaker 2: trades directly coincide with whatever action that he's thinking. And
Speaker 2: we do all sit here and go like, well, you know,
Speaker 2: and sorry to do this, but I have too much
Speaker 2: fun doing it. And you know, Jake Brick, Tamblin, Tapper
Speaker 2: sits and goes. But you know what, Joe Biden just
Speaker 2: wrote a book that said that she believed in her husband.
Speaker 2: It isn't that a crime? And it's like, what are
Speaker 2: you all talking about? Excuse my languig. Sorry, he's gonna
Speaker 2: kill me. I swear to I told him. I promised
Speaker 2: I would, I would, I would try to stop cussing.
Speaker 2: But you know, to your point, it's the it's it's
Speaker 2: I think you know it's Steve Bannon thing though, okay
Speaker 2: is that? And you know this and and you're about
Speaker 2: to feel it in a way that's even more intense,
Speaker 2: which doesn't seem possible. I promise you it is then
Speaker 2: than it has been. Is a fire hose of falsehoods.
Speaker 2: They are just opening this bigot and it it becomes
Speaker 2: so overwhelming that even a captured press doesn't have to
Speaker 2: you know, it makes his hard on any of them.
Speaker 2: I mean, what do you focus on? Do you focus
Speaker 2: on the gold shoes, or do you focus on the
Speaker 2: new coin that they just released, or do you focus
Speaker 2: on the six hundred and twenty million dollar Pentagon loan,
Speaker 2: largest ever made to any single company in the history
Speaker 2: of the United States of America, to Don Junior for
Speaker 2: a startup company about rare earth minerals. And they say
Speaker 2: that I wasn't qualified to be on a board. I mean,
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ, I mean, how in the world Jared Kushner
Speaker 2: six point two billion dollars from Golf State, all of
Speaker 2: it from Golf State, eighty million dollars in fees annually
Speaker 2: at a minimum before you get to carry on that investment.
Speaker 2: And he's taken it from people in which he's negotiating
Speaker 2: a war on behalf of the United States of America
Speaker 2: that nobody wanted with ran that their interests are directly
Speaker 2: tied to Eric Trump. One hundred one point five billion
Speaker 2: dollar is really drove own company that made its that
Speaker 2: made its mark in Gaza with their drones selling in
Speaker 2: going public and selling into the DoD because they merged
Speaker 2: with one of Eric's you know, like golf companies or something.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean, I don't even know what
Speaker 2: the hell is, but they're open about it. They're standing
Speaker 2: there ringing the bell at the was. You know, they're
Speaker 2: not on the front page. And meanwhile New York Times
Speaker 2: had me on the front page for I don't know,
Speaker 2: seemed like four six and eighty days street with you know,
Speaker 2: Ken Vogel doing these you know, writing long form books
Speaker 2: about you know, whether or not the influence you know
Speaker 2: what they're talking about. Eighty five percent of that none
Speaker 2: of it had to do with it any time when
Speaker 2: my dad was president. Any of the business deals that
Speaker 2: they're talking about all happened when my dad was neither
Speaker 2: president nor vice president. This whole ten percent for the
Speaker 2: big guy thing. I didn't read that email. Some jack
Speaker 2: I wrote it to me trying to get me to
Speaker 2: be a part of a deal while my dad was
Speaker 2: out of office, even if it was true, which it
Speaker 2: was not. There's no there's not even anything unethical about it.
Speaker 2: But all of a sudden it becomes the tagline and
Speaker 2: people catch on to it. And you know, if you're
Speaker 2: Ken Vogel or Peter Baker or you know these guys,
Speaker 2: is like this false gospel of balance in the media
Speaker 2: is just it's like, you know, a scale has two pans,
Speaker 2: all right, and when you put a weight on one side,
Speaker 2: the other side goes up. And that's a fact. And
Speaker 2: we're supposed to believe that it's always an even way,
Speaker 2: and it's not. There are facts, and there is truth,
Speaker 2: and the truth is they are more corrupt than any
Speaker 2: single administration of all the competent and I'm talking about
Speaker 2: Andrew Johnson. Corrupt more than Andrew Johnson. I mean, go
Speaker 2: back and read your history, and I've read it. No
Speaker 2: one even remotely comes close. My line is is if
Speaker 2: they ever leave the White House, they're going to steal
Speaker 2: the copper pipes.
Speaker 1: Or we've already he's already got the Declaration of Independence
Speaker 1: on in the oval. So I'm not sure he distinguishes
Speaker 1: whether or not it's ours or his.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and by the way, he doesn't even know what
Speaker 2: it is. Remember when he pointed to it and he said,
Speaker 2: you know this, I forget he'd like referred to it
Speaker 2: as the Constitution or something. I mean, it really doesn't.
Speaker 2: He doesn't know the significance of that document and what
Speaker 2: it means to the American people, just like he doesn't
Speaker 2: know the significance of what it means to but at
Speaker 2: that's south lawn, what it means to me, what it
Speaker 2: means to a normal person that has never been able
Speaker 2: to walk on that uh and never had the privilege
Speaker 2: of walking out those doors to that south lawn and
Speaker 2: thinking about that's where the helicopter took off with, you know,
Speaker 2: with Lyndon Johnson when he left. That's where uh. You know,
Speaker 2: that's the same law that Abraham Lincoln. There's the tree
Speaker 2: that that Teddy Roosevelt planted, and he's putting a fucking
Speaker 2: cage and he's putting on a show bread and circus,
Speaker 2: Bread and circus. And by the way, that's all it
Speaker 2: is to him. The gold, the Rose Garden, the Oval
Speaker 2: Office is bread and circus. He knows what he's doing.
Speaker 2: He knows that people are absolutely enthralled by it. And
Speaker 2: again and what it is, it's audacity versus authenticity, And
Speaker 2: I am and I'm certain you know it can only
Speaker 2: last so long. The question is what are we going
Speaker 2: to have to rebuild with that's really what I.
Speaker 1: Think, and and and hunter to that, you know, and
Speaker 1: again I'm mindful of our time.
Speaker 3: You know, the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: You made oblique reference earlier in the conversation about the party.
Speaker 3: I mean, what is what is to you? The Democratic Party?
Speaker 3: What is it? Is there a party? What is the party?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 3: The party? Is your dad? Is it? Is it? Bill?
Speaker 3: And Hillary? Is it interested in the party? Nancy?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's all of it. It's all of it. It's
Speaker 2: it's the it's the one thing I always say. It's
Speaker 2: that Will Rogers line. And I'm not a part of
Speaker 2: I'm not a member of any organized party. I'm a
Speaker 2: Democrat And that's so true. And you know it is
Speaker 2: this is that I've never known in my life. And
Speaker 2: you've been doing this your whole with other wife. When
Speaker 2: have we ever had a Democratic Party before we had
Speaker 2: a nominee, Until we get a nominee, until we get
Speaker 2: somebody deleted, we do not have a Democratic Party has
Speaker 2: never existed. It's never happened before. You know why it
Speaker 2: is because we always are trying to find a way
Speaker 2: and it looks like absolute chaos. But I'll tell you what,
Speaker 2: when we get a nominee, we'll have a direction. Take
Speaker 2: twenty twenty. Everybody sits around and particularly these guys that
Speaker 2: I know that you're friends with, and I'm not going
Speaker 2: to name names, and I'm not friends friends with, but
Speaker 2: I do. You don't want to be enemies, so you
Speaker 2: don't want me to, just as they're so smart and
Speaker 2: they're all the ones that you know, the reason that
Speaker 2: they're the reason that Barack Obama won.
Speaker 3: So you're you're going right, you're hitting the axel rod
Speaker 3: right now.
Speaker 2: No, yeah, I mean he is one. He wrote the speeches,
Speaker 2: he did this, he did that. You know, he's the nominee,
Speaker 2: you know, and twenty twenty would never be Joe Biden,
Speaker 2: never gonna Joe Biden would never win. He's by the way.
Speaker 2: It wasn't because he was too old. Was because you know,
Speaker 2: you needed you know, uh, you know, new fresh blood
Speaker 2: and this that and the other thing. And his policies
Speaker 2: are old and he doesn't he doesn't understand Washington anymore.
Speaker 2: I'll never be able to get anything done. He's delusional.
Speaker 2: He's living in a time that's gone by. You know
Speaker 2: what my dad was. My dad was Joe Biden, and
Speaker 2: everybody knew Joe Biden. He was the most authentic man
Speaker 2: in politics at that time. Joe Biden may have misspoken,
Speaker 2: but very rarely. The truth of the matter was his
Speaker 2: gap was his was everyone else's truth. It didn't matter
Speaker 2: what he said, and everybody would go But you know what,
Speaker 2: it was never a lie. It was never fake. He
Speaker 2: was never pretending And that's why he got eighty one
Speaker 2: million votes because you know what Joe Biden knew Joe Biden,
Speaker 2: or what you knew about Joe Biden is this is
Speaker 2: that if you are a waitress, let's say in Green Bay, Wisconsin,
Speaker 2: and you're raised a Catholic, and you were a practicing Catholic,
Speaker 2: and you worked two jobs and your husband worked at
Speaker 2: the at one of the artifactories down south of there, Okay,
Speaker 2: and you look at Joe Biden and you see all
Speaker 2: these ads about transgenderism. Okay. You know what you knew
Speaker 2: about Joe Biden was he as as confused about it
Speaker 2: as you are. But you know what he also you
Speaker 2: knew about Joe Biden is that if he told you
Speaker 2: that it's not that we are America and we are
Speaker 2: diverse enough that we can have a that this isn't
Speaker 2: an issue. The issue is whether or not you're going
Speaker 2: to be able to send you to school or you
Speaker 2: know what, if you are a truck driver in Scranton. Okay,
Speaker 2: you're a team star in Scranton, and you're you're you're
Speaker 2: a pro life, but you're a Democrat in terms of
Speaker 2: the principles that you have in terms of workingman and
Speaker 2: you know, union jobs and everything like that. You know what,
Speaker 2: you know, Joe Biden's not going to shove his religion
Speaker 2: down your throat or they're the lack there of it.
Speaker 2: That's why he got eighty one million votes because he
Speaker 2: was one of them, and he really was one of them.
Speaker 2: It wasn't it wasn't made up. He you know this,
Speaker 2: He is that and they knew that. And that's why
Speaker 2: he got seven million more votes than anybody that has
Speaker 2: ever run for president, not because he was purely Barack
Speaker 2: Obama's vice president, not because people Look, if it was
Speaker 2: because people hated Trump so much, then what changed in
Speaker 2: four years? In thirty four felony convictions a you know,
Speaker 2: the egg Carol case, you know, stealing documents from the
Speaker 2: you know, classified doct Like people's views didn't change on
Speaker 2: Trump anymore or less, but he got eighty one million
Speaker 2: votes because of that. He got eighty one million votes
Speaker 2: because my dad believed that everybody should have a fair chance.
Speaker 2: And you know what that meant in terms of everybody,
Speaker 2: It meant the people that he even disagreed with, and
Speaker 2: so they were willing to come out to vote for
Speaker 2: him for that reason. And I don't know what these
Speaker 2: guys that are all the smart guys in the room
Speaker 2: are in terms of they're not and never will be
Speaker 2: the leaders of the Democratic Party. You will be, I believe,
Speaker 2: or whoever wins the nomination. I'm not saying that you're
Speaker 2: running and I'm not doing any of this, and I'm
Speaker 2: not doing any of that, I promise I'm not putting
Speaker 2: in the position. But I'm saying if you do, when
Speaker 2: you win, then you come the leader of the Democratic Party,
Speaker 2: and people fall in line, just just like they fell
Speaker 2: in line with the message of Joe Biden in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty and we won by eight million votes. And so
Speaker 2: that's what I think about. You know, you're not as.
Speaker 1: Panicked about the Democratic Party brand in that context that
Speaker 1: it starts to resolve itself as we move through midterms
Speaker 1: and then get to the other side.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know what I mean, I know I'm
Speaker 2: not because you know what, you know, he's a Democrat.
Speaker 2: Zoramm Donny. You know who's a Democrat? Grand Platter? You
Speaker 2: know it's a Democrat. Abigail Stanberger. You know who's a Democrat?
Speaker 2: You know, I mean, I just can keep going down
Speaker 2: the list. You know it's a Democrat, AOC. You know
Speaker 2: it's a Democrat. Bernie Sanders. You know it's a Democrat.
Speaker 2: Is James tel Rico in Texas. You know who's a
Speaker 2: Democrat is Harvey Rissa in California. You know, I mean
Speaker 2: the diversity of the number of people that I just named,
Speaker 2: but all believe in one thing. Is they believe in
Speaker 2: the constitutional republic. They believe in the democracy. They believe
Speaker 2: that people should have a fighting chance. They believe that
Speaker 2: the billionaire class should not be completely in control of
Speaker 2: all of the policies that we're making. Now, do I
Speaker 2: think that we need radical change in leadership once those
Speaker 2: people get into positions of power. Absolutely, we got to
Speaker 2: break the cycle of us being beholden to the corporate
Speaker 2: class in this party. And you and I think that'll happen.
Speaker 2: But you got to add some of these new voices
Speaker 2: in there, and I think it'll benefit us all. I
Speaker 2: have faith that with some truth and reconciliation in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty eight, or even beginning in twenty twenty six now
Speaker 2: in November, that we can stem not to stem the tide,
Speaker 2: but I think that the most incredible changes always occur
Speaker 2: at the This is always the case throughout history. You
Speaker 2: need to go through the pain to It's just like recovery.
Speaker 2: I believe that we all need as a nation be
Speaker 2: in recovery. And in that recovery, what you realize is
Speaker 2: that all the pain that you went through is all
Speaker 2: the power that you have Now. I think the country
Speaker 2: can do the same thing. I truly do believe that.
Speaker 1: The autopsy, what'd you make of the whole autopsy?
Speaker 2: Well, number one, I think that the criticism of the
Speaker 2: of the chairman is so unfair. I mean, I think
Speaker 2: that he's trying to do a job, and I mean
Speaker 2: he just get ripped, you know, riffed both ways and
Speaker 2: backwards and forest. You know, I now understand this idea
Speaker 2: that it is. You know that that it's important to
Speaker 2: do a you know, an internal review of your process
Speaker 2: and what happened and how you can do better. But
Speaker 2: why that has to be a you know, like a
Speaker 2: public spectacle. I mean, what a bunch of bullshit. What
Speaker 2: company would ever do that? Like if you're a company, okay,
Speaker 2: and you had a goal and say, you know what
Speaker 2: it is, New Coke. Okay, New Coke comes out it
Speaker 2: was a spectacular failure. Okay, the CEO of Coke didn't
Speaker 2: it wasn't forced to then go out and say, you know, okay,
Speaker 2: how did it go so wrong? Well, we're going to
Speaker 2: go to the market and what we're gonna do is
Speaker 2: we're gonna late, We're gonna pull down our pants, and
Speaker 2: we're going to tell you how stupid we were to
Speaker 2: you know, to brand ourselves New Coke and you know
Speaker 2: and and kill you know, almost kill this brand. No
Speaker 2: companies ever expected to do that because it's completely counterproductive
Speaker 2: to the brand. So all these people calling for like
Speaker 2: a public lashing, what do they want? You know, it's Gaza,
Speaker 2: you know, what a bunch of bullshit. It's not just Gaza,
Speaker 2: it's Israel. No, what a bunch of bullshit. It's not
Speaker 2: just Israel, you know, it's leadership. It's not what we
Speaker 2: we as democrats are going to figure it out. But
Speaker 2: we're only going to figure it out when we find
Speaker 2: a leader, and we find a leader of the party
Speaker 2: when we end up going through this primary process, and
Speaker 2: I think then that that leader is going to be
Speaker 2: determined upon them and their team of people and the
Speaker 2: people that they bring along to embolden us with a
Speaker 2: message that I hope includes action and some real radical
Speaker 2: plans for uh, for changing things reform. People are angry,
Speaker 2: and people are angry for good reason.
Speaker 1: And I you know, I love the tonality and you
Speaker 1: see you've been saying it, and I cannot agree with
Speaker 1: you more in terms of just you know, we can't
Speaker 1: pave over the old cow path. Uh, you know, we
Speaker 1: can't be sort of you know, managed to decline more
Speaker 1: efficiently or effectively. I think people notably and rightfully are
Speaker 1: demanding something. And you use the word radically, which is
Speaker 1: a loaded word, but something dramatic different.
Speaker 3: Let me ask you just.
Speaker 2: You can't say it, but I can. Yeah, you can
Speaker 2: say with that. And that's the beauty, by the way,
Speaker 2: that's the completely unfair advantage that I have over you
Speaker 2: is like, and I really mean this, it's not fair.
Speaker 2: It's like I can say it because I don't then
Speaker 2: have to do it. And and but I really I
Speaker 2: think that I think people are ready for radical in
Speaker 2: the best sense of the word.
Speaker 3: In the best sense. When's your book coming out? Come on?
Speaker 3: Tell me you don't you're not thinking about another book?
Speaker 2: Okay? Yeah, No, I am I and I and I've
Speaker 2: written it and I'm and I'm. What I'm gonna do
Speaker 2: is I'm going to release it on substack in serial form.
Speaker 2: And how cool is that? Like once a week or
Speaker 2: once every few days. And so I wrote two books
Speaker 2: I want. I basically wrote one book about the like
Speaker 2: the internal experience, like from from the end of the
Speaker 2: last book for those like past seven years. And then
Speaker 2: I wrote another book which is kind of like a
Speaker 2: like a like a thriller. Unfortunately, the eating characters are
Speaker 2: like Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon, like what was happening
Speaker 2: in the rooms that I was not in, which is
Speaker 2: really fascinating and interesting. And I'm going to do that
Speaker 2: on sub stack and I and and more than anything,
Speaker 2: this is what I'm doing is that this uh uh
Speaker 2: uh organization that I'm working with now, Peak Path Health,
Speaker 2: is there their rehab up in up in the Hollywood
Speaker 2: Hills and they have about forty beds and the two
Speaker 2: people the right that that run it in are that
Speaker 2: the day to day Dustin and Glennis are it was
Speaker 2: like twenty five years of recovery between them. They've been
Speaker 2: to many rehabs as I have, and they're just wonderful
Speaker 2: people and and they do an incredible job. And this
Speaker 2: idea of a free aftercare in in l A. And
Speaker 2: there's a there's a I think a property that we
Speaker 2: this incredible couple may donate to us, and that's what
Speaker 2: I really want to build. And then the other thing
Speaker 2: that I'm doing in la Is around rent Is is
Speaker 2: Boston Universal, which is you probably know BOSTA is a
Speaker 2: Boston Universal is the largest tenants rights UH, free tense
Speaker 2: rights UH and homeless prevention group in southern l A.
Speaker 2: And i'm their development director UH there because I think
Speaker 2: that there's a real link between people staying in their
Speaker 2: homes and homelessness and addiction that is not always a
Speaker 2: straight line one way or another, and so that those
Speaker 2: are the two things that I'm most focused on.
Speaker 1: I love it so sub Stack, you know, reminds me
Speaker 1: of one of the few things my inheritance with my
Speaker 1: father was hardly as wit and witticism.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 1: It was a few books and your poetry from Yates
Speaker 1: and he said he did leave me one extraordinary book,
Speaker 1: which is Pickwick Paper from Dickens. And it was done
Speaker 1: in pamphlets how they originally published books.
Speaker 3: It was done on a monthly basis, and you would
Speaker 3: just wait for the next pamphlet. So you're of you know,
Speaker 3: you're bringing back a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Literally, that's how I got the idea of doing it.
Speaker 2: And John Irving used to talk about that, you know,
Speaker 2: the the you know world occurring garb and stuff, because
Speaker 2: he did this whole thing about how Dickens used to
Speaker 2: write his books and it would come out in Cereal
Speaker 2: for him. And you know, there's this thing with substack
Speaker 2: where like it's kind of really cool, like you're waiting
Speaker 2: for the next chapter. Whether that's you know, every week,
Speaker 2: and it's every week. It won't there's too many chapters. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you got to be the next year. But I'll do
Speaker 2: it a little bit faster paced, but good. I think
Speaker 2: it'll be really cool.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 1: So last question, I mean, just for all the cynics
Speaker 1: out there, and by the way, I want you and
Speaker 1: Tapper to you got to if you've got to show
Speaker 1: up on Candice Owens and you want to be on
Speaker 1: with Tucker everyone, you and Tamper have to have it out.
Speaker 3: I'm looking forward to that. Yeah, but that may not happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, may not, may not.
Speaker 3: But what to the cynics out there? And you you
Speaker 3: you name Chuck Tapper in.
Speaker 1: Terms of just you know your mom's book and you
Speaker 1: know your dad's coming out with his book later the year.
Speaker 1: I mean, what do you what do you say? Because
Speaker 1: I have strong opinions on this, but just in closing,
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear yours. You know this idea that somehow,
Speaker 1: once you're once you know, we turned the page on
Speaker 1: one administration and family, we're supposed to just move on
Speaker 1: and never hear from them again. This idea that, yes,
Speaker 1: that they don't have a voice.
Speaker 3: What do you what do you make of that? Why
Speaker 3: writing books? Why are they never?
Speaker 2: Look? Okay? I is what I said? Is it like, oh,
Speaker 2: you know what what they were going to do is
Speaker 2: they were going to go and and and and uh
Speaker 2: gin up the sneaker factory, the gold sneaker tackery in Vietnam,
Speaker 2: and that business was taken. So they were going to
Speaker 2: then go into into crypto, but you know that was
Speaker 2: a little bit corner. So they decided on gold plated
Speaker 2: mobile phones. But Dad had a better idea. He thought
Speaker 2: maybe they could sell Biden branded bibles and that's how
Speaker 2: they could make a living. All of those things were taken,
Speaker 2: and so you know what they decided to do. They
Speaker 2: decided to do with every first lady and president in
Speaker 2: modern history has done. They both decided to write a book.
Speaker 2: One has to come out before the other, and so
Speaker 2: Mom went first. And you know who did that also,
Speaker 2: Michelle and Barack Obama. You know else did that? Hillary
Speaker 2: and Bill Clinton, George Bush and the First Lady and
Speaker 2: Georgia Kerbet Walker Bush, I mean, and Barbara Bush and
Speaker 2: Ronald Reagan and Nancy and I mean, like what are
Speaker 2: we talking about here? I mean it's like, like, oh,
Speaker 2: he should should What are they supposed to do other
Speaker 2: than that? By the way, and I'm really proud of that,
Speaker 2: you know why. You know what, you know my dad
Speaker 2: didn't do. He didn't go and joined the board of
Speaker 2: sixteen different corporations. My dad decided what he was going
Speaker 2: to do is he's going to stay true to himself
Speaker 2: like he'd always done. He had never made a penny
Speaker 2: off of his off of being a public servant, other
Speaker 2: than the salary that he got when he became. When
Speaker 2: he left the vice presidency, he wrote a book and
Speaker 2: he had money for the first time in his life.
Speaker 2: And he bought my mom a little house in Rehobe's Beach, Delaware.
Speaker 2: That's what he did with it. And now you know what,
Speaker 2: he's back at his house, the same house that he's
Speaker 2: been in for thirty years in Wilmington, Delaware, with my
Speaker 2: mom and he's writing his book. And that's how they
Speaker 2: are paying the bills and like, and it's great and
Speaker 2: for them, it's great. But what do they want him
Speaker 2: to do? What did they think that he should do?
Speaker 2: Go join the board of Carlisle. Now I'm not, you know,
Speaker 2: you know, start a you know, a multinational you know,
Speaker 2: think tank organization and fly around the globe, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, like, my dad is my dad. He's in Delaware.
Speaker 2: He's writing a book about the most his history, incredible
Speaker 2: journey from a kid from Scranton, Pennsylvania, that had a stutter,
Speaker 2: whose dad was a car salesman, that became the president
Speaker 2: of the United States. And I'll tell you what the
Speaker 2: thing about my dad is this, I think that he
Speaker 2: is unique, unique as president for just one reason is
Speaker 2: that I don't know of any president and that I've
Speaker 2: read about in history that in order to take that job.
Speaker 2: And this is not a criticism, it is just it's
Speaker 2: a fact, is that there has to be some level
Speaker 2: of narcissism and you have to have a you have
Speaker 2: to have an outsized ego to be able to balance
Speaker 2: that with the level of empathy that my dad had
Speaker 2: I found was almost unique. And I'm so proud of him.
Speaker 2: I'm so proud of him. I'm so proud of my mom.
Speaker 2: You know, it's not been easy. Cancer is not easy.
Speaker 2: You know, the way that we left was not easy,
Speaker 2: and and my dad grieves every day for the loss
Speaker 2: of the opportunity to save this country from what it
Speaker 2: has to go through right now. And you don't think
Speaker 2: that we care as a family more than anybody, more
Speaker 2: than anybody about this. We have given not by choice,
Speaker 2: but by choice in my respect, not because of anything
Speaker 2: that I have earned, but this family has given our lives,
Speaker 2: our whole lives to this. Whatever you think about us,
Speaker 2: given our my dad has given his whole adult life
Speaker 2: to this, not for personal gain, not to become a billionaire,
Speaker 2: not to even become a millionaire, not to make more
Speaker 2: than the salary that he was paid. Given his whole
Speaker 2: life to this. I give it up, my life for it.
Speaker 2: You all of it. They took all of it. And
Speaker 2: here we are. And you know what, I'm not stepping
Speaker 2: off the stage for fucking anybody, because more than anything,
Speaker 2: I want to make my dad proud.
Speaker 1: Well, Hunter and I you know this, and I'll just
Speaker 1: add my voice. You know, you know how proud he
Speaker 1: is of you, brother, and and uh and I'm I'm
Speaker 1: proud to have had this opportunity to share all this
Speaker 1: with you and to have this conversation, really share this
Speaker 1: time with you, and uh and.
Speaker 3: I'm really just I'm so I'm so pleased that you're so.
Speaker 1: Willing to be so open and and and and talk
Speaker 1: so authentically authentically about your journey and how it attaches
Speaker 1: I imagine to how so many other people are struggling
Speaker 1: and feeling and and uh and thanks for being so
Speaker 1: raw and thanks for being here.
Speaker 2: Okay, wait, one thing is you know you've heard that
Speaker 2: say a million times, is I'll come campaign for you
Speaker 2: or against you, whatever it helps most, and you know,
Speaker 2: at my stomach, yeah, and he would say it and
Speaker 2: you'd be like, you know, it was it was silly
Speaker 2: because of course you'd want him to come out. In
Speaker 2: my case, it is for real