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Speaker 1: Well, joining me now is a familiar face to many

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Speaker 1: of you. It's Leland Vitter. He is a anchor at

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Speaker 1: News Nation, long time before that, longtime correspondent and journalist

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Speaker 1: for Fox News, and he's out with a new personal

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Speaker 1: memoir of sorts. It's called Born Lucky, A dedicated Father,

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Speaker 1: A grateful son, in my Journey with Autism. It's a

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Speaker 1: very moving book. And if you're somebody, if you're a parent,

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Speaker 1: if you have a child struggling with some of these issues,

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Speaker 1: I think you're going to find this story in this

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Speaker 1: book quite inspiring. And with this issue in the news,

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Speaker 1: it is worth looking at how families deal with this,

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Speaker 1: not how governed. We're going to look at this from

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Speaker 1: a family perspective, not necessarily a government perspective. Leland, Welcome

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Speaker 1: to the podcast. Nice to see you.

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Speaker 2: Great to be with you.

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Speaker 3: I think we would say, is I've watched you for many,

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Speaker 3: many years on radio. They would say, right, you know,

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Speaker 3: longtime listener, first time call. So it's great, great to

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Speaker 3: be with you.

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Speaker 1: So you know, I had I found your book very

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Speaker 1: compelling and it reminded me of my friend. And I'm

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Speaker 1: sure you know this story because you're probably familiar with

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Speaker 1: them with my friend Ron Fournier, longtime political journalists that

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Speaker 1: the Associated Press, who wrote wrote a book about his

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Speaker 1: journey with his son and the battle that they had

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Speaker 1: and how and just your stories about how Principles were

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Speaker 1: treating you and your parents and there, and it's just

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Speaker 1: it's just such a reminder how little the public does

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Speaker 1: understand autism, understand childhood development issues, and how little we

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Speaker 1: understand is how you can overcome them, right, And I think, yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I think that to me feels like the purpose

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Speaker 1: of this book.

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Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, yeah, Look you said it right, and I

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Speaker 3: think you've picked up on it. Chuck when you said,

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Speaker 3: for any parent, grandparent, aunt uncle, who has a kid

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Speaker 3: who is struggling, because it goes way beyond autism to ADHD, anxiety,

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Speaker 3: physical disabilities, just the general bullying that goes on now

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Speaker 3: and is so aggressive and there's so many kids who

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Speaker 3: are struggling having such a hard time. And when I

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Speaker 3: was diagnosed, you know, when my parents and I write

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Speaker 3: this in the book, right, they know there's something wrong

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Speaker 3: with me. If a kid would touch me, I'd turn

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Speaker 3: around and slug them. I was really repellent to kids.

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Speaker 3: And they go into one of those little psychology testing centers,

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Speaker 3: you know, linoleum floors, crummy chairs, We've all been there,

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Speaker 3: stale coffee, old magazines. And they bring me back and

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Speaker 3: take one to take me over to, you know, play

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Speaker 3: with blocks or whatever.

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Speaker 2: They talk to my parents and they look at my parents.

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Speaker 3: They said, we really can't imagine what's going on inside

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Speaker 3: his head.

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Speaker 2: And my dad goes, is there anything we can do? Anything?

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Speaker 3: You know, he's desperate, And she goes, generally, not, what

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Speaker 3: year is this? This is the mid eighties, right, not

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Speaker 3: just it wasn't understood.

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Speaker 1: What it was. I was just gonna say, like, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's I was my under I felt like this is

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Speaker 1: a classic story of the eighties. I don't think that's

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Speaker 1: the response the school gives you. If this is two

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Speaker 1: thousand and seven or two thousand and eight, what do you.

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Speaker 2: Think, Yeah, I think that's I think that's fair.

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Speaker 3: I think those still to this point, there are so

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Speaker 3: many parents who feel helpless because there is this idea,

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Speaker 3: right in my dance, is there anything we can do?

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Speaker 3: And she said generally not, but you know, if the

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Speaker 3: kids smart me wants it, there are a few things,

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Speaker 3: but there is now even more in our society, this

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Speaker 3: desire to put kids who have any type of special

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Speaker 3: need in bubble wrap, right, to give them medicine, and

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Speaker 3: to say meet them where they're at, and you have

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Speaker 3: to accept them is who you are, they are, and

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Speaker 3: you have to tell them that this is the superpower

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Speaker 3: and all of these things that if my dad had

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Speaker 3: done to me, I would have had no chance to

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Speaker 3: operate in the world that I operate in now, because

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Speaker 3: his method was not about adapting the world to me.

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Speaker 3: It was about adapting me to the world. And he

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Speaker 3: was brutally honest about it, right, Chuck, And that's not

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Speaker 3: something parents are told to do. You know, when I

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Speaker 3: was in seventh grade, I wanted to play tennis. My

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Speaker 3: dad was a phenomenally gifted athlete, still is, and I

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Speaker 3: writing born lucky. How he took me to a couple

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Speaker 3: of tennis lessons and after the third or fourth one,

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Speaker 3: he looked at me and he said, I'm your father.

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Speaker 2: I love you.

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Speaker 3: I will come to every tennis lesson. I will drive you,

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Speaker 3: I will cheer you on. You will never be able

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Speaker 3: to play tennis.

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Speaker 2: You just can't do it.

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Speaker 3: You don't have the coordination, you don't have the hand,

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Speaker 3: eye coordination, you don't have the depth perception, you don't

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Speaker 3: have the motor skills, it's never going to work, which

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Speaker 3: considering I really hope that tennis was my way into

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Speaker 3: asking this girl out. I was heartbroken, but I knew

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Speaker 3: then my dad would always tell me the truth. And

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Speaker 3: then when he said you can do something, boy, that

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Speaker 3: meant something all of a sudden.

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Speaker 1: It's interesting what you just said about you felt. You

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Speaker 1: said your dad wanted you to adapt to the world

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Speaker 1: that you live in, not make the world adapt to you. Right, boy,

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Speaker 1: if this is not sort of what I would argue.

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Speaker 1: You know, we sit here and we have these these fights,

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Speaker 1: sometimes through left right prisms, but I don't think we're

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Speaker 1: having left These are because that's how in many ways,

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Speaker 1: that's how I was raised where and now you know,

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Speaker 1: especially if you're from a if you're if you're seen

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Speaker 1: as from a group that isn't part of the majority,

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Speaker 1: whether it's a religious minority, whether it's a gender minority,

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Speaker 1: whether it's you know, something else. Those that succeed are

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Speaker 1: the ones that learn how to adapt to the world

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Speaker 1: as it is and then slowly but surely fight for

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Speaker 1: acceptance versus h trying to turn you know, three hundred

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Speaker 1: and forty nine million people to your way right, right,

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Speaker 1: which is which is something that you know, if everybody

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Speaker 1: behaved that way, we'd never get anything done as a country.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that's a perfect point.

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Speaker 3: And I think it's one of those things, right, You've

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Speaker 3: got to meet people where they're at, and the world

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Speaker 3: is where it's at. Especially you know, when I was

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Speaker 3: a little kid, and I think about this story for

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Speaker 3: fifth grade about my dad really realizing there's a problem

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Speaker 3: fifth grade going to a small private school. He comes

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Speaker 3: over to check on me. I'm getting bullied every day.

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Speaker 3: I'm coming home crying every day my sister.

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Speaker 1: And this is that private school. Yeah, your parents are

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Speaker 1: paying yea in theory extra right, well, you know, you know,

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Speaker 1: or at least more personalized more. I mean, why did

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Speaker 1: we move from public to private? It was for that

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Speaker 1: right too.

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Speaker 2: To be fair, though, you know, my parents didn't tell anybody.

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Speaker 3: They didn't tell anybody that I was diagnosed with anything

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Speaker 3: because my dad said, I didn't want you to be

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Speaker 3: defined by it, and I didn't want you to all

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Speaker 3: you have that. And I think people can say, you know,

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Speaker 3: good things are bad things about that, but it certainly

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Speaker 3: was a different way, and it now forced me to

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Speaker 3: know that I could work through anything but fifth grade

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Speaker 3: private school. He comes in to see the pe teacher.

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Speaker 3: I'm in pe and my dad goes, hey, how's he

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Speaker 3: doing in This guy who he knew, big big former

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Speaker 3: football player knew my dad from football, said I think

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Speaker 3: he's doing better today, you know better this week.

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Speaker 2: He goes, great, let's go see him in pee.

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Speaker 3: And the guy goes, I don't think that's a good idea,

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Speaker 3: and they're looking down on all the fields and dad

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Speaker 3: goes wise as well. He says, I've had to put

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Speaker 3: him with the girls because I had to protect him

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Speaker 3: from all the boys. So you think about that from

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Speaker 3: a father's perspective, a fifth grade father hearing that the

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Speaker 3: only way for the pe teacher to protect his kid

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Speaker 3: is to put him with the girls.

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Speaker 2: My dad said okay, thanks and walked off.

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Speaker 3: But I think that sort of shows you where I

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Speaker 3: was at in my social ability to interact with Some

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Speaker 3: people are sort of magnetic in their attraction of friends

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Speaker 3: and kids.

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Speaker 2: I was repellent.

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Speaker 1: So I remember my friend Ron describing the issue with

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Speaker 1: his son, which was you know that you had to

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Speaker 1: learn social cues right it sounds like that's what you,

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Speaker 1: that's what you your father really helped you with, which

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Speaker 1: is sure to how to read other In some ways

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Speaker 1: we don't realize that we're We quickly learned how to

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Speaker 1: read people, but not everybody can. And sometimes you, just

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Speaker 1: like you might need extra help to learn nectually read words,

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Speaker 1: some people need extra help to read social cues. Right,

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Speaker 1: is that a fair description?

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Speaker 2: Very fair?

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Speaker 3: And I needed both, you know, two halves to an

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Speaker 3: IQ test, twenty points spread between the two halves represents

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Speaker 3: a learning disability.

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Speaker 2: I was between genius and.

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Speaker 3: Mentally retarded, so half the test I was genius, half

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Speaker 3: the test test I was mentally target so seventy plus

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Speaker 3: points spread. So I needed a lot of help learning

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Speaker 3: how to read words and forcing through that. And then

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Speaker 3: also you pointed out social skills. So one of the

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Speaker 3: things my dad did was he would take me to

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Speaker 3: lunch with mister Todd.

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Speaker 2: Right. And it was easy because I didn't have any friends.

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Speaker 2: I didn't have anything else to do with my life.

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Speaker 2: My dad was my only friend.

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Speaker 3: And I loved interacting with adults because I could talk

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Speaker 3: to them about things that I talked to my dad about,

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Speaker 3: about politics, about sports, about not so much sports, but politics, business,

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Speaker 3: all that kind of stuff.

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Speaker 2: And we'd go to much with mister Todd.

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Speaker 3: And this is a perfect example because I would just

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Speaker 3: be badgering the hell out of you with questions, how

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Speaker 3: do you book your guests, how do you decide what

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Speaker 3: politicians telling the truth?

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Speaker 2: How do you come up with your questions?

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Speaker 3: On and on and on, and my dad, rather than

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Speaker 3: sort of saying you know, okay, lucky, stop or enough,

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Speaker 3: he would tap his watch, and that was my moment.

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Speaker 1: To be that was a social cue. He was teaching you.

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Speaker 2: That was a social queue.

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Speaker 3: So to tap his watch, that's my method message to

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Speaker 3: stop talking, but also to bookmarkt right, because then we

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Speaker 3: would go back and he'd say, okay, mister Todd was

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Speaker 3: talking about going on vacation with his kids or taking

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Speaker 3: his wife out to dinner on Saturday night. Why did

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Speaker 3: you think that was the right time to ask him

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Speaker 3: about his show or politics or whatever it was. And

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Speaker 3: it was teaching me how to understand and see the

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Speaker 3: world through as you point out, the natural social skills

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Speaker 3: that so many other people have. It's a small example,

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Speaker 3: but it was a way to actually teach me in

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Speaker 3: real time. What was happening rather than just say, look,

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Speaker 3: you know he can't he can't come out with anybody,

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Speaker 3: which at the time I really couldn't. But at the

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Speaker 3: same time, if you say to a kid okay, stop, okay,

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Speaker 3: not now, okay, whatever, it embarrasses the kid.

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Speaker 2: And so that was the line he had to toe.

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Speaker 1: Was there a moment for you where it was like

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Speaker 1: you right, got it? Yeah? Or is this a gradual

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Speaker 1: thing where all of a sudden your dad said, do

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Speaker 1: you realize that you know, you're no different than anybody

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Speaker 1: else out there in the world.

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Speaker 2: Ook.

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Speaker 3: He always made it clear to me that I was different,

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Speaker 3: and what he would tell me, you know, through the

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Speaker 3: bullying and isolation of high school.

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Speaker 2: I have had a teacher in eighth grade.

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Speaker 3: Who said to me in an art class, you know,

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Speaker 3: tables and art around, you know, in front of the

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Speaker 3: whole class. He said, you know, if my dog was

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Speaker 3: as ugly as you, I'd shave its ass and make

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Speaker 3: it walk backwards. And I came home that night he just, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 3: try that one on for size.

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Speaker 1: Gosh, that's something you don't forget.

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Speaker 3: I guess, no, no, you don't, And I don't forget

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Speaker 3: his name either, But we didn't put it in the book.

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Speaker 3: I walked across the street back home that afternoon. My

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Speaker 3: dad was waiting for me, as he was every every

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Speaker 3: time that I came home from school, every day twenty

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Speaker 3: and I was just crying. I said, I was just

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Speaker 3: humiliated today and told them what had happened. And he

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Speaker 3: talked me through it and worked through it.

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Speaker 2: And what was interesting at the end.

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Speaker 3: Of the conversation every night he'd say to me, Look,

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Speaker 3: the qualities that make you unpopular now and that you

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Speaker 3: are picked on now and that make you humiliated now,

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Speaker 3: is what's going to be your strength later on. And

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Speaker 3: it wasn't ever about academics. It wasn't ever about being

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Speaker 3: smart or successful. It was about character and hard work

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Speaker 3: and self esteem was earned, not given right.

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Speaker 2: You know. I started as a kid doing two hundred push.

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Speaker 3: Ups a day at six or seven years old, because

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Speaker 3: Dad was like, I can teach you that hard work

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Speaker 3: is rewarded and that goals matter. So that that was

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Speaker 3: where he would He was very clear to me that

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Speaker 3: I was different. I think you'll appreciate this, Chuck. Living

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Speaker 3: where you and I both live now, I used to

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Speaker 3: say I never liked anyone who liked high school, because

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Speaker 3: the values of high school are so screwed up that

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Speaker 3: if you like high school, there's something wrong with you.

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Speaker 3: And there's a little bit to be said about that

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Speaker 3: about Washington too, if you really like.

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Speaker 1: One student council. I know, I have a friend of

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Speaker 1: mine who grew up in Arlington, Leland. You'll appreciate this.

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Speaker 1: I don't mean to interrupt your train of thought there,

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Speaker 1: but she loves to remind like she's a native Arlingtonian,

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Speaker 1: which means she's grown up in Washington, much different than

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Speaker 1: ninety percent of the people that live in this community

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Speaker 1: of the DMB. And she said, just remember, everybody who

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Speaker 1: comes to Washington wanted to be student council president. Doesn't

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Speaker 1: mean they ever became student council president, but they all

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Speaker 1: want it.

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Speaker 2: So you have.

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Speaker 1: The point is it's a town of busybodies, right like

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Speaker 1: it is. It is, it is, it is, It is

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Speaker 1: that part of high school on steroids.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, look, you know, the best training for a Washington

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Speaker 3: newsroom may have been middle school.

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Speaker 1: I think some people in Congress would say that as well.

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Speaker 3: I think Congress is the only one who has a

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Speaker 3: lower approval rating than the media right now.

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Speaker 1: But it's interesting you say this about high school and

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Speaker 1: about Let me ask this though, why'd you go public

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Speaker 1: with the story? You know, I didn't I didn't know this,

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Speaker 1: and I wouldn't have I would have never picked up

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Speaker 1: You know, sometimes I'd like to think, oh, so and

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Speaker 1: so you know, you hear this phrase on the spectrum? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and at this point I don't love the phrase because

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Speaker 1: aren't we all on the spectrum? It just depends, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, we're all on the spectrum. So it's

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Speaker 1: this weird shorthand that we've given to Hey, they're a

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Speaker 1: little bit off center from whatever spectrum is and all

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Speaker 1: this stuff. But why'd you choose to share your story?

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Speaker 1: Because in some ways it sounds like your dad's goal

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Speaker 1: was to help you adapt so that you didn't have

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Speaker 1: to constantly say I'm different, treat me different.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, no, look, I mean you think about where my

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Speaker 2: dad was.

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Speaker 3: I think you have to sort of baseline this seventh

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Speaker 3: grade start a new school. My parents are hoping for

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Speaker 3: this change, sitting in they get called in two or

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Speaker 3: three weeks into school, thinking like, hey, this is just

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Speaker 3: a normal check in, right, you have kids, and you

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Speaker 3: know what you know this is like and everybody sat

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Speaker 3: in the principal's office, and the principal looks, starts the

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Speaker 3: meeting off cold of my parents, you know, most.

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Speaker 2: Of the school here.

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Speaker 3: In fact, everybody here really thinks Lucky is quite weird.

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Speaker 3: That's a seventh grade principaletize.

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Speaker 1: You know. I saw that line, you know, and you're

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Speaker 1: just sitting there going, yeah, how do you become a

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Speaker 1: principal writing about a kid that way? Yeah? Like it

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Speaker 1: really well, I'm not trying to like, you know, sound

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Speaker 1: like you fire all these people, but my god, right.

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Speaker 3: And then right, and then you know, so arrow number

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Speaker 3: one through my parents' heart, and and look they know

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Speaker 3: that in some ways it's true that I was really

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Speaker 3: different and really odd. And then she follows up with

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Speaker 3: and I think he and frankly, I think he's pretty

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Speaker 3: weird too.

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Speaker 2: So what told you is that people who were supposed.

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Speaker 3: To protect me we're gonna weren't going to and thought

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Speaker 3: it was my fault. Again, great training for a news

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Speaker 3: but uh, the reason I went public with it is

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Speaker 3: because I think we are in a reckoning about parenting

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Speaker 3: in America, and I think parents need to know there

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Speaker 3: is real hope. George Will wrote the forward to this

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Speaker 3: and he said, this is the proof of the mountain

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Speaker 3: moving power of printal love. And I think parents have

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Speaker 3: been told for so long, you know, let the village

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Speaker 3: raise your kid, you know, let let let your kid

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Speaker 3: be them and and sort of the experts know better,

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Speaker 3: and there's this new methodology and on and on and

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Speaker 3: on and told parents basically not to take control.

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Speaker 2: And mine did.

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Speaker 3: And I thought it was a really important story for

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Speaker 3: people to hear.

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Speaker 1: I well, that is a that is a great way

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Speaker 1: to frame it, because you know, the fact is this

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Speaker 1: is true not just when it comes to parenting, which

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Speaker 1: is the parents need to take more control, right, And

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Speaker 1: there's there is this like perception that somehow you don't

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Speaker 1: have the ability to change things. It's also true with

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Speaker 1: the healthcare system, right if you don't take control of

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Speaker 1: your own medical care. And by the way, remember that

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Speaker 1: the doctors work for you. You don't work for the doctors.

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Speaker 1: These people work for you. You don't work for that

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Speaker 1: type of mindset. But you, the parent, have a lot

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Speaker 1: more station here and that you also have a lot

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Speaker 1: more responsibility when it comes to your kids. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I look at when you when you it feels like

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Speaker 1: we have a a lot of broken young men out

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Speaker 1: there right who are susceptible to all sorts of violent

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Speaker 1: ideologies or violent actions. Perhaps some of this is social

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Speaker 1: media or you know, whatever we're doing here, but you know,

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Speaker 1: there is a through line that I notice in some

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Speaker 1: of these people, whether it's a school shoot and all

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Speaker 1: that is, there is some sort of lack of parenting

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Speaker 1: or a parent not in the picture, or a parent

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Speaker 1: sort of not seeing things. What I find your story

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Speaker 1: to be inspiring. It's a reminder that the parent needs

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Speaker 1: to take control here, because nobody else is going to

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Speaker 1: love this kid enough to do the kid right. Only

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Speaker 1: the parent.

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Speaker 2: One thousand percent. I mean, there's so many different ways

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Speaker 2: to go with that.

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Speaker 3: Right when I was diagnosed with autism, I said this,

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Speaker 3: you know, in the book, they didn't really know what

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Speaker 3: it was.

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Speaker 2: It wasn't a spectrum.

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Speaker 3: Was either you're profoundly autistic or you're nothing and a

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Speaker 3: pervasive elemental dislay.

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Speaker 2: Whatever.

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Speaker 3: Now it's one in thirty one kids boys, one in twelve.

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Speaker 2: Do you think, by the way.

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Speaker 1: What is what is your understanding of it? Are we

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Speaker 1: learning to diagnose it better or is it increasing in

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Speaker 1: the society.

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Speaker 2: I think the answer to that is both. And what

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Speaker 2: I find interesting is is that.

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Speaker 3: There's lots of theories about what autism, what it's not.

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Speaker 3: You know, Oh no, it's not rising, it's just we're

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Speaker 3: diagnosing more. Oh no, it can't be vaccines.

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Speaker 2: Don't know this.

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Speaker 3: There's nobody who will tell you definitively this is what

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Speaker 3: it is. This is why we're seeing this. And by

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Speaker 3: the way, you Leland, who clearly was diagnosed with what

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Speaker 3: we now know to be autism, just got married to

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Speaker 3: this wonderful woman who you want to have kids with.

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Speaker 3: Here's we know that it's a higher chance that I

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Speaker 3: will have an autistic child, but we don't know why,

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Speaker 3: and we don't know if there's anything that can be

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Speaker 3: done either during pregnancy or.

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Speaker 1: That means that implies it's genetic.

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Speaker 2: There's some genetic component, right, But at.

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Speaker 1: The same time we are having this debate about is

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Speaker 1: it outside chemicals or something like that.

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Speaker 3: No, I mean, I think the answer is we don't know,

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Speaker 3: and I think, you know, I think that intel science

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Speaker 3: can tell us the answer to that. We need to

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Speaker 3: keep looking. It should be you know, we've cured a

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Speaker 3: not cured. You can live now with AIDS. Is no

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Speaker 3: longer a dessence, dozens of cancers you can live with

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00:20:00,040 --> 00:20:02,159
Speaker 3: over the past forty years. That we're destined is we

402
00:20:02,240 --> 00:20:04,720
Speaker 3: can replace your joints and have you become a bionic man.

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Speaker 2: Diabetes, all this stuff and autis and you know it did.

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Speaker 3: It's not vaccines, but he could, like, come on, guys.

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Speaker 1: There's a reason results matter more than promises, just like

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00:20:23,680 --> 00:20:26,800
Speaker 1: there's a reason. Morgan and Morgan is America's largest injury

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Speaker 1: twenty five billion dollars for more than half a million clients.

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Speaker 1: It includes cases where insurance companies offered next to nothing,

410
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Speaker 1: just hoping to get away with paying as little as possible.

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Speaker 1: Morgan and Morgan fought back ended up winning millions. In fact,

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Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania, one client was awarded twenty six million dollars,

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Speaker 1: which was a staggering forty times the amount that the

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Speaker 1: insurance company originally offered. That original off for six hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty thousand dollars twenty six million, six hundred fifty

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417
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424
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Speaker 1: interviewed Michael Osterholme. It was an expert on pandemics and

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Speaker 1: all this stuff. And he has a very good way

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Speaker 1: that he describes science. He says, science isn't truth. Science

427
00:21:34,560 --> 00:21:37,840
Speaker 1: is the pursuit of truth, right, And we also have

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Speaker 1: to be humble about science, meaning it does change as

429
00:21:42,280 --> 00:21:46,520
Speaker 1: we learn more, right, And that's it. And the fact is,

430
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Speaker 1: like we thought AIDS was a death sentence, as you

431
00:21:49,320 --> 00:21:51,560
Speaker 1: point out, we thought cancer itself was a death Now

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Speaker 1: now all cancers aren't. You know, we're getting there. It's

433
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Speaker 1: from my father died of hepatitis C in nineteen eighty eight.

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Speaker 1: If he gets diagnosed with appetitis seed, today you take

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Speaker 1: a pill and you're fine. But in nineteen eighty eight,

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Speaker 1: by the way modern medicine we sort of you know,

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Speaker 1: in the eighty eight, you know, you know, I would

438
00:22:11,320 --> 00:22:14,480
Speaker 1: have said, oh, the eighties are and yet in hindsight, right,

439
00:22:14,560 --> 00:22:18,640
Speaker 1: that's like, you know, it feels like the nineteenth century,

440
00:22:18,760 --> 00:22:19,359
Speaker 1: and it compares.

441
00:22:19,400 --> 00:22:20,199
Speaker 2: It's a great point.

442
00:22:20,359 --> 00:22:22,880
Speaker 3: What is I think, you know I had I had

443
00:22:22,920 --> 00:22:26,000
Speaker 3: doctor Jah and not doctor Jay Boticharia.

444
00:22:26,040 --> 00:22:28,760
Speaker 2: I have doctor John tonight.

445
00:22:28,840 --> 00:22:31,399
Speaker 3: It's amazing how TV works that way. But a Bouticharia

446
00:22:31,400 --> 00:22:34,240
Speaker 3: ahead of the NIH that was his message. He goes,

447
00:22:35,080 --> 00:22:36,879
Speaker 3: we have to be humble enough to say we don't know,

448
00:22:37,800 --> 00:22:41,520
Speaker 3: and he said very few scientists are. But to pick

449
00:22:41,600 --> 00:22:43,760
Speaker 3: up on what you were saying about fatherhood and everything else.

450
00:22:44,440 --> 00:22:48,800
Speaker 3: This tells fathers you can make this enormous difference, and

451
00:22:48,840 --> 00:22:51,800
Speaker 3: you should. And I again, over the past ten or

452
00:22:51,800 --> 00:22:54,040
Speaker 3: fifteen years, fathers have been really sort of told to

453
00:22:54,080 --> 00:22:56,600
Speaker 3: take a back seat and that, you know, not to

454
00:22:56,680 --> 00:22:59,639
Speaker 3: sort of demand more of their sons and demand that

455
00:22:59,680 --> 00:23:03,239
Speaker 3: there's stand up and take responsibility. And I don't, you know,

456
00:23:03,359 --> 00:23:04,920
Speaker 3: doing two hundred push ups a day when you were

457
00:23:05,080 --> 00:23:06,159
Speaker 3: five or six years old.

458
00:23:06,119 --> 00:23:06,560
Speaker 2: Is not you know.

459
00:23:06,680 --> 00:23:10,800
Speaker 3: I'm sure now he would be counseled against that because you're,

460
00:23:10,920 --> 00:23:11,800
Speaker 3: you know, doing whatever.

461
00:23:11,920 --> 00:23:14,440
Speaker 2: And it was a very different way.

462
00:23:14,440 --> 00:23:17,160
Speaker 3: And I write in the book, you know and born

463
00:23:17,240 --> 00:23:20,159
Speaker 3: lucky that how lucky I am also that I had

464
00:23:20,440 --> 00:23:24,120
Speaker 3: two parents eighty you know, and a family say together,

465
00:23:24,119 --> 00:23:26,400
Speaker 3: my parents have been married for fifty plus years. Tell

466
00:23:26,400 --> 00:23:29,240
Speaker 3: the story about how they got engaged in a rip

467
00:23:29,320 --> 00:23:31,280
Speaker 3: joint after three dates.

468
00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:36,879
Speaker 2: But they you know, that's not discussed at all.

469
00:23:36,960 --> 00:23:41,440
Speaker 3: Eighty percent of kids who have a disability of some type, right,

470
00:23:41,520 --> 00:23:45,359
Speaker 3: especially autism, in these other issues, eighty percent of them

471
00:23:45,440 --> 00:23:46,440
Speaker 3: their parents get divorced.

472
00:23:47,720 --> 00:23:48,160
Speaker 1: It's hard.

473
00:23:48,200 --> 00:23:51,080
Speaker 3: Look, you see, nobody talks to Nobody talks about how

474
00:23:51,119 --> 00:23:51,959
Speaker 3: important that is.

475
00:23:52,280 --> 00:23:56,040
Speaker 1: And you do a parent some parent, and look, I don't.

476
00:23:56,240 --> 00:24:01,240
Speaker 1: I'm I'm very hesitant to judge those decisions, right because

477
00:24:01,280 --> 00:24:05,880
Speaker 1: none of us are in that bedroom. Okay, but you do.

478
00:24:05,960 --> 00:24:09,320
Speaker 1: We see instances of this where one parent is willing

479
00:24:09,359 --> 00:24:13,440
Speaker 1: to devote themselves and the other parent maybe isn't right,

480
00:24:13,560 --> 00:24:16,159
Speaker 1: or the other parent feels overwhelmed or whatever it is,

481
00:24:17,160 --> 00:24:23,159
Speaker 1: and when they walk away, they think they're helping and

482
00:24:23,200 --> 00:24:25,480
Speaker 1: they're making it worse. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like

483
00:24:25,520 --> 00:24:27,680
Speaker 1: that's the message. I mean, I don't want to get

484
00:24:27,680 --> 00:24:31,640
Speaker 1: into specific examples out of privacy concerns, but there's some

485
00:24:31,880 --> 00:24:34,720
Speaker 1: there's a lot of examples that way, where I think

486
00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:37,040
Speaker 1: when you have a single parent where the other parent

487
00:24:37,040 --> 00:24:41,280
Speaker 1: walks away because it's just too hard, right in their heads, right,

488
00:24:41,600 --> 00:24:44,639
Speaker 1: it is too disruptive, you know. The sad fact is

489
00:24:44,680 --> 00:24:47,520
Speaker 1: this is the reminder that we don't give out drivers,

490
00:24:47,520 --> 00:24:49,959
Speaker 1: We don't give out the equivalent of a driver's license

491
00:24:49,960 --> 00:24:53,680
Speaker 1: to be a parent, right, And if we did, that

492
00:24:53,720 --> 00:24:56,159
Speaker 1: person probably wouldn't have qualified to be a parent if

493
00:24:56,200 --> 00:25:00,160
Speaker 1: they're willing to walk at the first sign of struggle.

494
00:25:02,200 --> 00:25:05,840
Speaker 1: But that is it is. It's funny you say it

495
00:25:05,880 --> 00:25:08,480
Speaker 1: that you were lucky to be born with two parents

496
00:25:08,560 --> 00:25:12,760
Speaker 1: willing to throw themselves into you, and if you didn't,

497
00:25:12,960 --> 00:25:15,000
Speaker 1: you might not be where you are today.

498
00:25:15,520 --> 00:25:16,399
Speaker 2: One thousand percent.

499
00:25:16,440 --> 00:25:18,080
Speaker 3: And look, you know, it's important to keep in mind

500
00:25:18,119 --> 00:25:20,119
Speaker 3: this isn't a prescription, it's not a cure, it's not

501
00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:22,040
Speaker 3: anything else, but it is it is a.

502
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:24,280
Speaker 1: Sure story, my story for you.

503
00:25:24,640 --> 00:25:25,240
Speaker 2: It's my story.

504
00:25:25,280 --> 00:25:26,520
Speaker 3: It worked for me, it worked for my Dad's a

505
00:25:26,520 --> 00:25:29,760
Speaker 3: story of hope. And look, you know my dad wrote

506
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:31,800
Speaker 3: the afterword, which I think is.

507
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:35,080
Speaker 1: That was right. The first thing I thought of when

508
00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:37,119
Speaker 1: I started reading, is I wonder how your dad feels

509
00:25:37,119 --> 00:25:39,800
Speaker 1: about all this being public? And then of course you

510
00:25:40,200 --> 00:25:41,439
Speaker 1: reward the reader with that.

511
00:25:42,040 --> 00:25:44,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, the afterward from my dad and the forward from

512
00:25:44,200 --> 00:25:45,800
Speaker 3: George will and I had to fill two hundred and

513
00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:49,960
Speaker 3: forty pages in the middle. But he noted in the

514
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:52,160
Speaker 3: afterward that the real hero in this is my mother,

515
00:25:52,320 --> 00:25:56,760
Speaker 3: right and because she held not only me but him together.

516
00:25:56,840 --> 00:25:58,840
Speaker 3: And you know, I didn't know this until I wrote

517
00:25:58,840 --> 00:26:01,600
Speaker 3: the book. Okay, So I decided to write the book

518
00:26:02,119 --> 00:26:06,240
Speaker 3: and tell this story, and I think, you know, try

519
00:26:06,240 --> 00:26:08,760
Speaker 3: to inspire and give people a lot of hope. And

520
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:10,760
Speaker 3: I told you about all the times that you know,

521
00:26:10,760 --> 00:26:17,119
Speaker 3: I would come home humiliated, bullied, pushed around, isolated.

522
00:26:16,560 --> 00:26:18,840
Speaker 2: At school, and I would take it out on my dad.

523
00:26:18,880 --> 00:26:19,040
Speaker 2: You know.

524
00:26:19,080 --> 00:26:21,800
Speaker 3: We'd go to my bedroom and he'd sit there and

525
00:26:21,840 --> 00:26:24,719
Speaker 3: listen to me, just hammer away about how angry I

526
00:26:24,880 --> 00:26:26,840
Speaker 3: was and how upset I was and how hard this

527
00:26:27,119 --> 00:26:28,600
Speaker 3: was and why am I having to do this and

528
00:26:28,640 --> 00:26:29,800
Speaker 3: why am I having to go through it?

529
00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:31,920
Speaker 2: And he'd put me.

530
00:26:31,880 --> 00:26:34,480
Speaker 3: To bed or leave and I'd read or whatever. And

531
00:26:35,040 --> 00:26:38,320
Speaker 3: I found this out now twenty five thirty years later.

532
00:26:38,880 --> 00:26:41,760
Speaker 3: He'd go downstairs, be ten eleven at night. My mom

533
00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:45,080
Speaker 3: would have been asleep or watching TV whatever goes to sleep,

534
00:26:45,280 --> 00:26:46,880
Speaker 3: and she'd come out and find him in the living

535
00:26:46,960 --> 00:26:50,360
Speaker 3: room all dark, just sitting on the couch crying himself,

536
00:26:51,080 --> 00:26:54,800
Speaker 3: having internalized everything that I had been through.

537
00:26:55,480 --> 00:26:58,320
Speaker 1: She was his counselor yeah, and then you know.

538
00:26:58,280 --> 00:27:00,520
Speaker 2: He would then talk to her. I mean, it really is.

539
00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:04,360
Speaker 3: I think, you know, the the amount of the role

540
00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:06,200
Speaker 3: that my mother played in what we talked about, that

541
00:27:06,440 --> 00:27:07,840
Speaker 3: I had two parents and that they.

542
00:27:08,200 --> 00:27:13,439
Speaker 1: Changed your Has this changed your relationship with your mom today?

543
00:27:13,480 --> 00:27:16,719
Speaker 2: The more you learn, you know, it's a great question.

544
00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:20,000
Speaker 3: I never went to therapy right now, now every kid

545
00:27:20,040 --> 00:27:21,760
Speaker 3: has a therapist, and on.

546
00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:26,600
Speaker 1: The look, I that's you know, and to me, if

547
00:27:26,600 --> 00:27:29,240
Speaker 1: you have somebody to talk to, you have a therapist. Yep. Well,

548
00:27:29,720 --> 00:27:32,400
Speaker 1: and that's what therapy need is for us. For those

549
00:27:32,440 --> 00:27:33,600
Speaker 1: that don't have somebody to talk.

550
00:27:35,760 --> 00:27:38,399
Speaker 3: No, I don't either, But it was just it was

551
00:27:38,440 --> 00:27:41,560
Speaker 3: just funny, you know, the typically in these situations, and

552
00:27:41,600 --> 00:27:44,159
Speaker 3: even I think kids who have great parents they have

553
00:27:44,240 --> 00:27:47,080
Speaker 3: a therapist. And but anyway, I never ad anything. So

554
00:27:47,119 --> 00:27:49,080
Speaker 3: this has been like going to therapy on national television.

555
00:27:49,160 --> 00:27:52,520
Speaker 2: Right But my.

556
00:27:54,320 --> 00:27:56,200
Speaker 3: Dad and I still talk three or four times a day.

557
00:27:56,520 --> 00:27:58,120
Speaker 3: I still call him every night to say good night.

558
00:27:58,480 --> 00:28:03,280
Speaker 3: He is still my best friend, and that's.

559
00:28:03,119 --> 00:28:04,280
Speaker 2: Just him and I.

560
00:28:04,280 --> 00:28:06,080
Speaker 3: I don't know how else to say it is our

561
00:28:06,119 --> 00:28:10,680
Speaker 3: relationship changed because of it. No, I think certainly in

562
00:28:10,800 --> 00:28:14,320
Speaker 3: the course of writing this book and I talk about

563
00:28:14,800 --> 00:28:17,040
Speaker 3: and tell the story of Rachel and I meeting and

564
00:28:17,080 --> 00:28:19,160
Speaker 3: her sort of realizing.

565
00:28:20,080 --> 00:28:22,800
Speaker 2: That as we got to know each other better that

566
00:28:22,840 --> 00:28:24,040
Speaker 2: there were clearly.

567
00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:26,959
Speaker 3: Moments that I would revert back and there still are,

568
00:28:27,119 --> 00:28:30,320
Speaker 3: right to sort of my old tendencies when I'm less

569
00:28:30,359 --> 00:28:35,400
Speaker 3: disciplined than I should be, and her learning to accept that. So, yeah,

570
00:28:35,440 --> 00:28:38,960
Speaker 3: I mean, I think I've gained through hearing the stories

571
00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:42,160
Speaker 3: and experiencing the emotion, not as a kid living in it,

572
00:28:42,200 --> 00:28:43,760
Speaker 3: but reliving it as an adult.

573
00:28:44,480 --> 00:28:45,400
Speaker 2: I've gained an.

574
00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:50,800
Speaker 3: Enormous more amount of respect and gratitude for my parents

575
00:28:51,280 --> 00:28:53,640
Speaker 3: than I already had, which was significant.

576
00:28:54,680 --> 00:28:58,680
Speaker 1: So you offer it up, So I would love for

577
00:28:58,720 --> 00:29:02,920
Speaker 1: you to share. How did, yeah, how did you decide

578
00:29:03,280 --> 00:29:09,840
Speaker 1: how to share your your autism with your now wife?

579
00:29:11,520 --> 00:29:13,640
Speaker 2: I think it just sort of came up, right.

580
00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:17,520
Speaker 3: My parents didn't tell me until I was like twenty four,

581
00:29:17,680 --> 00:29:20,040
Speaker 3: twenty five that I had been diagnosed with what we

582
00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:24,880
Speaker 3: now know to be autism. Right, and Rachel and I

583
00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:28,720
Speaker 3: met and got set up on a blind date. Somebody

584
00:29:28,720 --> 00:29:30,520
Speaker 3: said I'm going to find you your wife. The next

585
00:29:30,600 --> 00:29:32,400
Speaker 3: day that person sent me a picture of Rachel and said,

586
00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:33,200
Speaker 3: I found your wife.

587
00:29:33,800 --> 00:29:37,720
Speaker 2: And there you go. I don't remember, like a Okay,

588
00:29:37,760 --> 00:29:38,840
Speaker 2: we need to talk, you know.

589
00:29:39,720 --> 00:29:42,200
Speaker 3: Turns out that I have whatever it was, I think

590
00:29:42,240 --> 00:29:46,080
Speaker 3: probably just came up in conversation. But she has an

591
00:29:46,120 --> 00:29:51,400
Speaker 3: e Q that's off the charts. Mine was near freezing.

592
00:29:51,480 --> 00:29:53,960
Speaker 1: Probably did she pick up on it.

593
00:29:54,240 --> 00:29:56,080
Speaker 2: I mean, I think she picked up on that. There

594
00:29:56,280 --> 00:29:58,520
Speaker 2: was you know, sort of a peculiar you know. So

595
00:29:58,640 --> 00:29:59,280
Speaker 2: there were.

596
00:29:59,320 --> 00:30:02,960
Speaker 3: Different can and sees, and I've gotten pretty good at

597
00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:05,960
Speaker 3: hiding them. It still comes out sometimes, and there's times

598
00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:10,120
Speaker 3: that she'll say, Okay, like you know, you're not seeing

599
00:30:10,120 --> 00:30:13,000
Speaker 3: this right, or hey, you need to be more thoughtful

600
00:30:13,040 --> 00:30:16,400
Speaker 3: about whatever, that kind of stuff. And you know, I

601
00:30:16,840 --> 00:30:19,520
Speaker 3: tell for people who watch this and are interesting. I

602
00:30:19,560 --> 00:30:23,080
Speaker 3: tell the story in the Book of the Faithful interview

603
00:30:23,080 --> 00:30:26,640
Speaker 3: on Fox News after the twenty twenty election, when I

604
00:30:26,680 --> 00:30:28,640
Speaker 3: went at it with Aaron Prainey, who was a Trump

605
00:30:28,720 --> 00:30:33,720
Speaker 3: spokesperson over the Trump claims that he had won and

606
00:30:34,040 --> 00:30:37,720
Speaker 3: was just going after her and look, I think probably

607
00:30:37,800 --> 00:30:41,120
Speaker 3: in the moment, did I know that that wasn't really

608
00:30:41,160 --> 00:30:45,120
Speaker 3: what Fox wanted me to do. Probably, But I think

609
00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:49,600
Speaker 3: there's part of condition personality, whatever you want to call it,

610
00:30:49,640 --> 00:30:51,800
Speaker 3: that I kind of didn't care.

611
00:30:51,880 --> 00:30:53,640
Speaker 2: You know, I'd always been taught to do the right thing.

612
00:30:53,680 --> 00:30:56,680
Speaker 3: My dad always said, do the right thing, no matter

613
00:30:56,720 --> 00:31:00,880
Speaker 3: the consequences, and I, you know, it's sort of all

614
00:31:01,040 --> 00:31:06,040
Speaker 3: social graces and social stop points in your brain were lost.

615
00:31:06,640 --> 00:31:08,000
Speaker 2: Can I blame that on autism?

616
00:31:08,040 --> 00:31:11,200
Speaker 3: I don't know, but it certainly goes to there's times

617
00:31:11,200 --> 00:31:14,120
Speaker 3: that sort of there there are miss social cues.

618
00:31:13,960 --> 00:31:16,480
Speaker 1: So you thought you missed a social cue in that moment.

619
00:31:16,920 --> 00:31:18,440
Speaker 3: I think if you go back and watch the tape,

620
00:31:18,440 --> 00:31:22,480
Speaker 3: it's pretty clear that all of a sudden the guardrails

621
00:31:22,520 --> 00:31:23,000
Speaker 3: came off.

622
00:31:24,840 --> 00:31:28,080
Speaker 1: And so you do you attribute it to your autism?

623
00:31:28,280 --> 00:31:30,480
Speaker 1: Do you attribute it to here's a piece of information

624
00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:32,280
Speaker 1: you know to be true and you can't believe someone

625
00:31:32,360 --> 00:31:32,960
Speaker 1: is denying it.

626
00:31:33,200 --> 00:31:33,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that.

627
00:31:33,840 --> 00:31:36,760
Speaker 3: I think that there's a there's an indignity to that

628
00:31:36,760 --> 00:31:40,160
Speaker 3: that comes over me and sort of and I find it.

629
00:31:40,480 --> 00:31:42,400
Speaker 3: And maybe it was because my dad taught me for

630
00:31:42,440 --> 00:31:45,560
Speaker 3: so long how important telling the truth was and standing.

631
00:31:45,280 --> 00:31:48,640
Speaker 1: Up aunt truth that you got from your father, right,

632
00:31:48,680 --> 00:31:50,520
Speaker 1: And so in some ways that's going to get passed on.

633
00:31:50,800 --> 00:31:53,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I found it sort offensive that she kept

634
00:31:53,760 --> 00:31:56,080
Speaker 3: saying something that was just objectively untrue.

635
00:31:56,520 --> 00:31:58,040
Speaker 2: And there you go.

636
00:31:59,240 --> 00:32:00,960
Speaker 3: I don't ever like to blame you know, I blame

637
00:32:01,040 --> 00:32:03,600
Speaker 3: my autism. But I mean, I'll give you another example

638
00:32:03,640 --> 00:32:05,479
Speaker 3: that you know, people say, you know, well are you

639
00:32:05,480 --> 00:32:07,080
Speaker 3: you know, how did you get over autism?

640
00:32:07,120 --> 00:32:07,239
Speaker 1: Well?

641
00:32:07,280 --> 00:32:08,200
Speaker 2: You never over it, you know.

642
00:32:08,360 --> 00:32:10,720
Speaker 3: Two or three weeks ago, I was with my father

643
00:32:10,760 --> 00:32:13,680
Speaker 3: in law at his golf club and I was putting

644
00:32:13,720 --> 00:32:17,200
Speaker 3: my golf clubs in my travel bag, and I was late,

645
00:32:17,240 --> 00:32:19,120
Speaker 3: and I was focused on something else, and this older

646
00:32:19,120 --> 00:32:20,600
Speaker 3: gentleman come over and wanted to talk.

647
00:32:20,920 --> 00:32:22,560
Speaker 2: And one of the sort of very.

648
00:32:24,720 --> 00:32:26,800
Speaker 3: You know, classic tendencies of autism is that you just

649
00:32:26,800 --> 00:32:28,880
Speaker 3: sort of focus on a task and you just everything

650
00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:32,360
Speaker 3: else gets blocked out and you kind of become obsessive.

651
00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:35,280
Speaker 3: And I was obsessive by getting my golf backpacked, and

652
00:32:35,360 --> 00:32:37,520
Speaker 3: I was horrifically rude to him.

653
00:32:37,840 --> 00:32:40,400
Speaker 1: To the point that even he disrupted your routine and

654
00:32:40,520 --> 00:32:42,680
Speaker 1: that moment, you were like, I can't be disrupted, and

655
00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:43,280
Speaker 1: I just was.

656
00:32:43,800 --> 00:32:45,320
Speaker 2: Focused on I have to get the backpacked.

657
00:32:45,360 --> 00:32:49,600
Speaker 3: And I was really rude, and I afterwards thought, you

658
00:32:49,640 --> 00:32:51,280
Speaker 3: almost in the moment, I knew I should have just

659
00:32:51,320 --> 00:32:52,760
Speaker 3: stopped what I was doing, and if I was five

660
00:32:52,760 --> 00:32:54,840
Speaker 3: minutes late, fine, and I just didn't And it was

661
00:32:54,920 --> 00:32:58,240
Speaker 3: just and I thought to me, you know, boy, you're

662
00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:00,960
Speaker 3: better than this. You know your dad really taught and

663
00:33:01,160 --> 00:33:03,160
Speaker 3: so it's still there very.

664
00:33:03,120 --> 00:33:04,760
Speaker 1: Much so, but you knew.

665
00:33:05,480 --> 00:33:07,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, in the moment, I almost couldn't help myself.

666
00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:11,520
Speaker 1: But not not, but not. All folks that have autism

667
00:33:11,640 --> 00:33:13,720
Speaker 1: know that this is happening to them in a way.

668
00:33:13,840 --> 00:33:18,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I think it's very true. And again,

669
00:33:18,200 --> 00:33:21,360
Speaker 2: born unlucky, not a cure, not a prescription. My story

670
00:33:22,480 --> 00:33:23,000
Speaker 2: I can't remember.

671
00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:25,080
Speaker 3: I it's autism society autism speaks, but says, you know,

672
00:33:25,120 --> 00:33:27,480
Speaker 3: if you've met a kid with autism, you've met one

673
00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:28,680
Speaker 3: kid with autism.

674
00:33:28,800 --> 00:33:32,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that you have to meet. You have to

675
00:33:32,600 --> 00:33:35,040
Speaker 2: understand where people are.

676
00:33:35,680 --> 00:33:40,760
Speaker 1: So when you are, where is it? What do you

677
00:33:40,800 --> 00:33:45,040
Speaker 1: feel like you? Where has it showcased itself as this

678
00:33:45,360 --> 00:33:46,280
Speaker 1: superpower for you?

679
00:33:47,200 --> 00:33:48,920
Speaker 2: I don't know, because I don't know what it's like

680
00:33:48,960 --> 00:33:52,719
Speaker 2: to live without it. I'm always me. I give that.

681
00:33:52,800 --> 00:33:55,400
Speaker 1: I give that same answer when somebody says, when I

682
00:33:55,440 --> 00:33:57,400
Speaker 1: tell people that my dad died when I was sixteen?

683
00:33:57,920 --> 00:33:59,760
Speaker 1: Oh what was that like? I'm like, I don't know,

684
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:01,480
Speaker 1: because I don't know any other way.

685
00:34:02,080 --> 00:34:03,880
Speaker 2: Well, you right, you just.

686
00:34:03,840 --> 00:34:06,200
Speaker 1: Don't know, right, you don't know it the other way.

687
00:34:06,520 --> 00:34:09,399
Speaker 1: You just go right, And that's what you're saying is yeah.

688
00:34:09,440 --> 00:34:11,319
Speaker 1: And in fact, the second I answered the question, you

689
00:34:11,320 --> 00:34:14,040
Speaker 1: answered that way, I almost That's why I just knocked

690
00:34:14,040 --> 00:34:17,000
Speaker 1: myself for it, because I know exactly you don't know

691
00:34:17,120 --> 00:34:20,160
Speaker 1: any different because you're living your life.

692
00:34:20,520 --> 00:34:23,279
Speaker 3: Yeah, and look, you know you you right. You just

693
00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:26,560
Speaker 3: talked about your dad dying when sixteen. That was really

694
00:34:26,600 --> 00:34:28,600
Speaker 3: the defining moment in my dad's life.

695
00:34:29,640 --> 00:34:32,160
Speaker 1: It's the fork in the road for me. Everything goes

696
00:34:32,160 --> 00:34:34,839
Speaker 1: back to that moment. For me. It's now I'm fifty three,

697
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:39,279
Speaker 1: and I still like that. It's a yesterday moment. I haven't.

698
00:34:39,440 --> 00:34:41,759
Speaker 1: You know. The weirdest thing that I'm going through now

699
00:34:41,880 --> 00:34:45,680
Speaker 1: is my son is now older than I was, and

700
00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:49,000
Speaker 1: so now I'm having experienced father son experiences with my

701
00:34:49,080 --> 00:34:51,960
Speaker 1: son as a freshman in college that I have nothing

702
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:54,920
Speaker 1: to compare it to with my relationship with my father

703
00:34:55,440 --> 00:34:58,480
Speaker 1: because he wasn't there. So now they're all new to me.

704
00:35:00,719 --> 00:35:02,600
Speaker 1: I think about this all the time because I wonder,

705
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:05,520
Speaker 1: am I screwing something up? What if I do it?

706
00:35:05,600 --> 00:35:08,120
Speaker 1: You know, I don't have any role model anymore, right, I,

707
00:35:08,640 --> 00:35:10,759
Speaker 1: in my head always had a role model up to

708
00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:11,720
Speaker 1: a point.

709
00:35:12,560 --> 00:35:13,799
Speaker 2: I hear you, I'm not a father.

710
00:35:13,840 --> 00:35:15,720
Speaker 3: I think this is the first parenting book ever written

711
00:35:15,760 --> 00:35:18,520
Speaker 3: not by a father but by the kid, and.

712
00:35:19,960 --> 00:35:22,640
Speaker 1: Which I think makes it more compelling because we do

713
00:35:23,200 --> 00:35:25,600
Speaker 1: a lot of these parenting books are written from the

714
00:35:25,680 --> 00:35:29,439
Speaker 1: parent's perspective, and you don't know whether it really worked

715
00:35:29,520 --> 00:35:32,880
Speaker 1: or not for the child, And I think this book

716
00:35:32,960 --> 00:35:35,359
Speaker 1: is in some ways more powerful because it's written from

717
00:35:35,400 --> 00:35:39,680
Speaker 1: your perspective rather than and you know, it's one of

718
00:35:39,680 --> 00:35:42,879
Speaker 1: those things I'd love to someday ask your father how

719
00:35:42,920 --> 00:35:45,239
Speaker 1: he would have you know, now that he saw your

720
00:35:45,360 --> 00:35:48,719
Speaker 1: version of this, does it change how he may describe

721
00:35:48,760 --> 00:35:50,399
Speaker 1: what he did? If that makes sense?

722
00:35:51,400 --> 00:35:54,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it does. Good luck getting to talk

723
00:35:54,600 --> 00:35:55,040
Speaker 2: about it.

724
00:35:56,200 --> 00:35:58,360
Speaker 1: I imagine if you were willing to talk, the two of

725
00:35:58,360 --> 00:36:00,640
Speaker 1: you would be to hear together. But he's this is

726
00:36:00,680 --> 00:36:02,000
Speaker 1: your story to tell that.

727
00:36:02,200 --> 00:36:05,600
Speaker 3: That's what he said, And he really objects to me

728
00:36:06,360 --> 00:36:10,480
Speaker 3: calling him a hero, which I think is interesting. You know,

729
00:36:10,520 --> 00:36:14,439
Speaker 3: he lost his dad at sixteen. Yeah, so I think

730
00:36:14,719 --> 00:36:16,240
Speaker 3: it speaks exactly what you're saying.

731
00:36:16,960 --> 00:36:19,520
Speaker 1: We got about five or so minutes here. Let's talk

732
00:36:19,560 --> 00:36:24,319
Speaker 1: about our industry, the media industry. I'm really rooting hard

733
00:36:24,320 --> 00:36:30,520
Speaker 1: for News Nation, thank you. And it's because what made

734
00:36:30,680 --> 00:36:35,480
Speaker 1: you know there is no one answer to our media problem. Right,

735
00:36:35,520 --> 00:36:39,520
Speaker 1: we need more voice and right it's a yes and situation.

736
00:36:43,360 --> 00:36:47,160
Speaker 1: And yet what you guys are trying to do, what

737
00:36:47,200 --> 00:36:49,560
Speaker 1: i'd like to think I'm trying to do, and what

738
00:36:49,640 --> 00:36:52,000
Speaker 1: I tried to do before, and the and the media

739
00:36:52,040 --> 00:36:55,080
Speaker 1: industry fights against us, which is, hey, you know, I'm

740
00:36:55,200 --> 00:36:59,480
Speaker 1: I'm a person who looks at at politics through the

741
00:36:59,480 --> 00:37:02,799
Speaker 1: prism of cremnalism, meaning when you're trying to govern three

742
00:37:02,880 --> 00:37:06,719
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty million people who are pretty evenly divided,

743
00:37:06,920 --> 00:37:11,560
Speaker 1: you can't do anything rashly. Right, if you want to

744
00:37:11,600 --> 00:37:14,120
Speaker 1: turn an aircraft carrier, you do it slowly, and you

745
00:37:14,160 --> 00:37:15,759
Speaker 1: do it sort of a little bit at a time,

746
00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:17,719
Speaker 1: because you want to bring everybody along. If you do

747
00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:20,279
Speaker 1: it too fast, you will do one step forward two

748
00:37:20,280 --> 00:37:25,200
Speaker 1: steps back. And yet we know in news or and

749
00:37:25,280 --> 00:37:29,360
Speaker 1: information is I always say the people most interested have

750
00:37:29,520 --> 00:37:34,120
Speaker 1: strong opinions, the people least interested, are watching sports or

751
00:37:34,160 --> 00:37:37,920
Speaker 1: are watching something else, right, and yet I get the

752
00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:41,240
Speaker 1: sense you're trying to appeal to that person somewhere between

753
00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:44,560
Speaker 1: the thirty five yard lines. It's center left, center right.

754
00:37:45,040 --> 00:37:47,360
Speaker 1: I'd like to say I'm doing the same thing, and

755
00:37:47,440 --> 00:37:50,240
Speaker 1: yet we know the business is driven by those between

756
00:37:50,280 --> 00:37:52,080
Speaker 1: the goal line and the thirty yard lines.

757
00:37:52,239 --> 00:37:55,320
Speaker 2: Right now, I think it's an excellent analysis.

758
00:37:55,560 --> 00:37:58,480
Speaker 1: What's what do you think works and what do you

759
00:37:58,480 --> 00:38:01,560
Speaker 1: think has been a struggle in this idea of trying

760
00:38:01,560 --> 00:38:04,920
Speaker 1: to create something that's a bit more I don't know

761
00:38:04,920 --> 00:38:07,920
Speaker 1: if you want to call it centrist, moderate, everybody's got

762
00:38:07,960 --> 00:38:12,000
Speaker 1: their own description of it, but sort of somewhere broader

763
00:38:12,040 --> 00:38:14,280
Speaker 1: than what we've seen on traditional cable.

764
00:38:14,800 --> 00:38:17,399
Speaker 2: Well, I would say a few things.

765
00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:20,600
Speaker 3: Number one, I think your analysis is right, yes, And

766
00:38:20,680 --> 00:38:21,200
Speaker 3: I will.

767
00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:22,600
Speaker 2: Add to it that.

768
00:38:24,600 --> 00:38:28,839
Speaker 3: The economic incentives have changed in media, right, because when

769
00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:34,040
Speaker 3: there were three television networks, broadcasters and broadsheet newspapers one

770
00:38:34,120 --> 00:38:34,600
Speaker 3: per town.

771
00:38:35,239 --> 00:38:37,960
Speaker 2: In order to make money, they had to appeal to everybody.

772
00:38:37,920 --> 00:38:39,560
Speaker 1: You wanted to big up audience as possible.

773
00:38:40,120 --> 00:38:44,240
Speaker 3: Then as technology has changed, we've gone from broadcasting to cable,

774
00:38:44,280 --> 00:38:47,800
Speaker 3: to narrow casting to YouTube everything else. So now nobody

775
00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:50,799
Speaker 3: has to watch anything that questions their worldview or makes

776
00:38:50,800 --> 00:38:53,440
Speaker 3: them uncomfortable or whatever it is, because of social media algorithms,

777
00:38:53,520 --> 00:38:58,680
Speaker 3: is actually sort of tailored to you personally. So what

778
00:38:58,800 --> 00:39:03,920
Speaker 3: has been under served is the center because people mistook

779
00:39:03,960 --> 00:39:08,000
Speaker 3: the Center for being bored and uninvolved and uncaring and

780
00:39:08,040 --> 00:39:11,160
Speaker 3: watching sports and just sort of uninterested. And I think

781
00:39:11,160 --> 00:39:13,920
Speaker 3: what we've found is that there is a radical center.

782
00:39:14,480 --> 00:39:17,880
Speaker 3: There are people who are upset with both sides, and

783
00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:21,879
Speaker 3: that sleeping giant of the of most of America that's

784
00:39:21,880 --> 00:39:24,160
Speaker 3: between the thirty five yard lines, as you point out,

785
00:39:25,320 --> 00:39:26,600
Speaker 3: that's in a bell shaped curve.

786
00:39:26,640 --> 00:39:27,839
Speaker 2: That's where most people live.

787
00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:31,600
Speaker 3: They've been awoken, and they don't they do care about sports,

788
00:39:32,080 --> 00:39:34,919
Speaker 3: but now they're scared. They're scared of the extreme left

789
00:39:34,920 --> 00:39:37,719
Speaker 3: and they're scared of the extreme right. So where at

790
00:39:37,719 --> 00:39:41,880
Speaker 3: NewsNation we try to be is in the middle, calling

791
00:39:41,960 --> 00:39:44,840
Speaker 3: out both sides. Both sides get a hard get a

792
00:39:44,880 --> 00:39:47,600
Speaker 3: hard time, And I think, what's different about my show?

793
00:39:47,640 --> 00:39:50,600
Speaker 3: And you know I say this, I got asked or

794
00:39:50,640 --> 00:39:54,560
Speaker 3: invited not to return to Fox News because I've went

795
00:39:54,600 --> 00:39:59,279
Speaker 3: after Donald Trump and I have had Trump send down

796
00:39:59,280 --> 00:40:02,080
Speaker 3: the White House, doubt stories and commentaries I've done and said, look,

797
00:40:02,080 --> 00:40:03,600
Speaker 3: see how great of a job we're doing. Leland says,

798
00:40:03,600 --> 00:40:05,080
Speaker 3: we're doing a great job. So to me, that's what

799
00:40:05,120 --> 00:40:09,480
Speaker 3: a journalist should be. And I think people are yearning

800
00:40:09,640 --> 00:40:14,600
Speaker 3: for and that radical center for for somebody to call

801
00:40:15,000 --> 00:40:18,239
Speaker 3: balls and strikes in a sense on both sides. So

802
00:40:18,600 --> 00:40:22,560
Speaker 3: that's what we're trying to do. And look so far

803
00:40:23,040 --> 00:40:26,360
Speaker 3: it's working two ways. One, ratings are up significantly. We

804
00:40:26,440 --> 00:40:32,120
Speaker 3: beat MSNBC and CNN across the board last weekend.

805
00:40:32,800 --> 00:40:38,800
Speaker 2: And two, I think when.

806
00:40:38,640 --> 00:40:40,400
Speaker 3: I meet people and see them, it used to be

807
00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:42,080
Speaker 3: when I left Fox, like what happened to you?

808
00:40:42,120 --> 00:40:44,120
Speaker 2: Oh, I went to News Nation, News whatever.

809
00:40:46,400 --> 00:40:49,200
Speaker 3: And now I have people coming up to me saying,

810
00:40:49,320 --> 00:40:51,440
Speaker 3: I see you on NewsNation, and I love that you

811
00:40:51,480 --> 00:40:54,239
Speaker 3: give both sides a hard time, and I love that

812
00:40:54,280 --> 00:40:56,800
Speaker 3: I don't agree with you all the time. And it's like, oh, okay,

813
00:40:56,840 --> 00:40:57,640
Speaker 3: so it must be working.

814
00:41:07,680 --> 00:41:10,319
Speaker 1: That's a that's that second part. I mean, you're right,

815
00:41:10,360 --> 00:41:14,480
Speaker 1: it's sort of like frankly, I experienced a brief period

816
00:41:14,480 --> 00:41:16,960
Speaker 1: of that, like you know, for a while too, where

817
00:41:16,960 --> 00:41:20,719
Speaker 1: have you gone? And then now just recently, people are saying, boy,

818
00:41:20,719 --> 00:41:22,360
Speaker 1: you're in my feeds all the time. I now see it,

819
00:41:22,400 --> 00:41:25,520
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, I'm this this thing is is working.

820
00:41:26,840 --> 00:41:30,040
Speaker 1: It is, but it is a it does feel like

821
00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:32,839
Speaker 1: one of my favorite expressions is peeing and a hurricane. Right,

822
00:41:33,120 --> 00:41:37,719
Speaker 1: Sometimes it feels I'm a look, I grew up so

823
00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:40,479
Speaker 1: far south. It's north. You know, Miami is the sixth

824
00:41:40,520 --> 00:41:43,719
Speaker 1: borough of New York. Right in Florida. You know, I joke,

825
00:41:43,960 --> 00:41:45,880
Speaker 1: we're so backwards in Florida. To go you have to

826
00:41:45,920 --> 00:41:49,839
Speaker 1: go north, to go south, because culturally, the farther north

827
00:41:49,840 --> 00:41:53,920
Speaker 1: you go the But I love me a good Southern

828
00:41:53,960 --> 00:41:57,759
Speaker 1: expression like that, and I cleaned it up a little bit,

829
00:41:58,120 --> 00:42:01,360
Speaker 1: but that is the sense sometimes, Right, you sit here

830
00:42:01,960 --> 00:42:07,240
Speaker 1: and I'll watch I'll watch a story go Haywire on cable,

831
00:42:07,880 --> 00:42:10,279
Speaker 1: and I'll sit there and say, you know, there's a

832
00:42:10,320 --> 00:42:14,160
Speaker 1: lot of other bigger stories happening that are much more consequential,

833
00:42:15,040 --> 00:42:18,640
Speaker 1: and yet we're obsessing over a vote. And I don't

834
00:42:18,640 --> 00:42:21,080
Speaker 1: want to be dismissive of the Epstein story. I'm not

835
00:42:21,120 --> 00:42:23,480
Speaker 1: dismissive of it. I'm not dismissive of what happened to

836
00:42:23,520 --> 00:42:28,880
Speaker 1: the victims. I think they deserve their say. But because

837
00:42:28,880 --> 00:42:31,319
Speaker 1: of the way the incentive structure works in media. There

838
00:42:31,360 --> 00:42:34,240
Speaker 1: was this obsession over covering it, and it was across

839
00:42:34,280 --> 00:42:35,960
Speaker 1: the board. It didn't matter whether it was on sort

840
00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:38,960
Speaker 1: of the legacy cable channels or on this and you're

841
00:42:38,960 --> 00:42:41,200
Speaker 1: sitting there going, you know, these tariffs are a much

842
00:42:41,200 --> 00:42:44,560
Speaker 1: bigger story. What's happening with the Venezuela, whether or not

843
00:42:44,719 --> 00:42:47,840
Speaker 1: the president has authority to bomb a boat in Venezuela,

844
00:42:47,880 --> 00:42:51,640
Speaker 1: whether or not you know, there are much more consequential stories,

845
00:42:52,160 --> 00:42:55,200
Speaker 1: but they're not as entertaining as Epstein, like, how do

846
00:42:55,239 --> 00:42:57,960
Speaker 1: you how do you fight that? I've got the luxury

847
00:42:57,960 --> 00:43:00,600
Speaker 1: where I don't have to have a boss these days,

848
00:43:01,080 --> 00:43:03,680
Speaker 1: but I, if I look, I remember those days where

849
00:43:04,400 --> 00:43:06,279
Speaker 1: all right, I want to do this and if I

850
00:43:06,320 --> 00:43:08,600
Speaker 1: want to do this story, I got to sort of

851
00:43:09,040 --> 00:43:11,240
Speaker 1: do this story so that I can do this story.

852
00:43:12,080 --> 00:43:15,920
Speaker 2: Look, I totally hear you. And that's the challenge in

853
00:43:15,960 --> 00:43:16,960
Speaker 2: the newsroom every day.

854
00:43:17,840 --> 00:43:20,440
Speaker 3: And I and I think, to a certain extent, you know,

855
00:43:20,920 --> 00:43:23,920
Speaker 3: it's the challenge for all of us of what is important,

856
00:43:24,320 --> 00:43:26,600
Speaker 3: right because there is a curators.

857
00:43:26,640 --> 00:43:28,239
Speaker 1: I look at it this way, in some ways we're

858
00:43:28,280 --> 00:43:30,600
Speaker 1: all the same, and that we're all trying to curate

859
00:43:31,080 --> 00:43:35,399
Speaker 1: what we think people should be focusing on Yeah, and

860
00:43:35,440 --> 00:43:37,280
Speaker 1: you know, and and now there's a lot of curators

861
00:43:37,320 --> 00:43:38,919
Speaker 1: out there. We used to have three. As you point out,

862
00:43:39,080 --> 00:43:42,480
Speaker 1: it was Walter, it was mister Brinkley, right, and it

863
00:43:42,600 --> 00:43:46,640
Speaker 1: was whatever combination of unknown people. ABC would come up with,

864
00:43:48,640 --> 00:43:53,640
Speaker 1: well said right, well, yeah till Jennings really right. NBC

865
00:43:53,719 --> 00:43:56,840
Speaker 1: and ABC had had some NBC and CBS had real stability,

866
00:43:57,280 --> 00:43:59,520
Speaker 1: ABC less. So because they were always the number three, right,

867
00:43:59,520 --> 00:44:02,160
Speaker 1: they were always try to catch Walter or mister Brinkley.

868
00:44:03,360 --> 00:44:05,279
Speaker 1: I always call him mister Brinkley. I used his desk

869
00:44:05,320 --> 00:44:08,640
Speaker 1: at NBC, so I have a very fond I Brinkley

870
00:44:09,239 --> 00:44:15,319
Speaker 1: at Russer type of mindset there. But but it is

871
00:44:15,360 --> 00:44:20,239
Speaker 1: a Now there's a thousand of US curators or more.

872
00:44:20,960 --> 00:44:24,279
Speaker 3: Look, I think it goes back to all news is biased, right,

873
00:44:24,320 --> 00:44:26,960
Speaker 3: because it's done by humans, and it's also.

874
00:44:26,840 --> 00:44:28,120
Speaker 1: You know what I like to do. I checked my

875
00:44:28,200 --> 00:44:30,920
Speaker 1: pulse and people ask me about bias, and I'm like,

876
00:44:30,960 --> 00:44:32,600
Speaker 1: you know, we're all born with original bias.

877
00:44:32,960 --> 00:44:33,240
Speaker 2: Right.

878
00:44:33,640 --> 00:44:36,560
Speaker 1: You just talked about you had two parents. Not everybody's

879
00:44:36,600 --> 00:44:39,759
Speaker 1: born to two parents. Not everybody's born right, like you know,

880
00:44:40,000 --> 00:44:44,400
Speaker 1: not everybody's born in a situation that can survive, a

881
00:44:44,520 --> 00:44:50,200
Speaker 1: challenge that's in health or whatever, and it shapes you.

882
00:44:51,120 --> 00:44:53,799
Speaker 1: I would call that a bias right the fact.

883
00:44:54,200 --> 00:44:56,600
Speaker 3: Look, I was always told bias isn't having an opinion,

884
00:44:56,680 --> 00:45:01,720
Speaker 3: it's excluding opinions. That's how That's how I was taught,

885
00:45:02,040 --> 00:45:06,319
Speaker 3: and I keep that in mind actually sort of as

886
00:45:06,320 --> 00:45:09,440
Speaker 3: a north star. And look, bias isn't so much how

887
00:45:09,480 --> 00:45:11,520
Speaker 3: you cover the news, it's what you cover. Is you

888
00:45:11,600 --> 00:45:14,120
Speaker 3: just pointed out because of all your cover is Epstein,

889
00:45:14,520 --> 00:45:17,120
Speaker 3: There's a lot of other stories out there that have.

890
00:45:17,280 --> 00:45:20,200
Speaker 1: Different you've made a decision not to cover, right.

891
00:45:23,120 --> 00:45:23,279
Speaker 2: So.

892
00:45:24,960 --> 00:45:31,319
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think it is. It's huge in

893
00:45:31,440 --> 00:45:35,239
Speaker 3: terms of what is decided to be covered. What I

894
00:45:35,320 --> 00:45:38,080
Speaker 3: think I try to think about, and you know, I

895
00:45:38,120 --> 00:45:43,000
Speaker 3: grew up in Missouri. I come from you know, middle class,

896
00:45:43,040 --> 00:45:46,080
Speaker 3: upper middle class family in the city or Saint Louis.

897
00:45:46,160 --> 00:45:48,760
Speaker 3: Saint Louis, but I spent a lot of time outside

898
00:45:48,760 --> 00:45:51,160
Speaker 3: of Saint Louis and I and I kind of try

899
00:45:51,200 --> 00:45:52,759
Speaker 3: to go back, and I spent a lot of time

900
00:45:52,800 --> 00:45:55,360
Speaker 3: in local news and small markets, and I spend a

901
00:45:55,400 --> 00:45:57,840
Speaker 3: lot of time you know, in Colorado in small markets.

902
00:45:57,920 --> 00:46:00,399
Speaker 3: So I I think that I tend to go back

903
00:46:00,440 --> 00:46:06,360
Speaker 3: to when people are drinking with their buddies on Saturday afternoon,

904
00:46:06,360 --> 00:46:08,640
Speaker 3: when they're watching college football, when they're playing golf.

905
00:46:09,680 --> 00:46:11,480
Speaker 2: What are people talking about? How is it?

906
00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:16,000
Speaker 3: How are their lives being changed and affected? And in

907
00:46:16,200 --> 00:46:19,680
Speaker 3: trying to cover it through that prism, you know why

908
00:46:20,480 --> 00:46:21,439
Speaker 3: this matters.

909
00:46:21,760 --> 00:46:24,600
Speaker 1: You came up through the business, through local markets.

910
00:46:24,719 --> 00:46:24,960
Speaker 2: I did.

911
00:46:25,800 --> 00:46:29,280
Speaker 1: Most people younger than you have not. I know, it's terrible,

912
00:46:29,640 --> 00:46:32,600
Speaker 1: I and I didn't. I came in a different way.

913
00:46:32,840 --> 00:46:36,440
Speaker 1: I was. I worked on a trade publication about campaign politics.

914
00:46:36,880 --> 00:46:39,399
Speaker 1: I remember there was a moment in the house.

915
00:46:39,440 --> 00:46:42,120
Speaker 3: Well I'm going to give you one quick thing, But

916
00:46:42,239 --> 00:46:44,680
Speaker 3: you were out in the field. Sure know what it's

917
00:46:44,760 --> 00:46:48,440
Speaker 3: like to hustle the stories, not in Washington, not you

918
00:46:48,480 --> 00:46:49,560
Speaker 3: know what it's like to be on the trail.

919
00:46:49,920 --> 00:46:51,799
Speaker 1: But the reason I bring up local is that I

920
00:46:51,840 --> 00:46:54,759
Speaker 1: really believe the loss of local is why they don't

921
00:46:54,800 --> 00:46:58,680
Speaker 1: trust us as much as they usual. Because local was

922
00:46:58,719 --> 00:47:03,319
Speaker 1: our character reference for the national right. People knew who

923
00:47:03,360 --> 00:47:06,719
Speaker 1: the local journalists were. People's families knew, oh, yeah, my

924
00:47:07,280 --> 00:47:10,399
Speaker 1: son goes to school with his daughter or whatever it is, right,

925
00:47:10,520 --> 00:47:14,200
Speaker 1: They knew they were members of the community, and that

926
00:47:14,280 --> 00:47:17,799
Speaker 1: created a level of trust locally that could never be

927
00:47:17,880 --> 00:47:21,360
Speaker 1: matched nationally because the national didn't live there, right, the

928
00:47:21,400 --> 00:47:25,680
Speaker 1: local lived there. And I also view that local journalism

929
00:47:25,719 --> 00:47:28,439
Speaker 1: is different from national journalism in that on the local level,

930
00:47:28,480 --> 00:47:31,040
Speaker 1: you're there to help people live their lives. Ninety percent

931
00:47:31,040 --> 00:47:33,399
Speaker 1: of the stories local news does is to help people

932
00:47:33,480 --> 00:47:40,080
Speaker 1: live navigate their life in that community. National news is different, right,

933
00:47:40,120 --> 00:47:42,840
Speaker 1: it's about telling you what you need to know in civics,

934
00:47:42,960 --> 00:47:45,080
Speaker 1: like what you need to know about the country as

935
00:47:45,120 --> 00:47:46,880
Speaker 1: a whole, which of course in and of itself, is

936
00:47:46,880 --> 00:47:50,879
Speaker 1: more divisive. Local news much less divisive. But I think

937
00:47:50,960 --> 00:47:53,080
Speaker 1: the loss of local news, as I joke, a man

938
00:47:53,160 --> 00:47:56,520
Speaker 1: named Craig came along and said, you know, classified ads

939
00:47:56,520 --> 00:47:58,680
Speaker 1: ought to be free. YadA, YadA, YadA. We destroyed the

940
00:47:58,800 --> 00:48:02,279
Speaker 1: entire local news ecosystem, right. We didn't fully appreciate how

941
00:48:02,360 --> 00:48:07,680
Speaker 1: much that revenue stream kept so many local publications together.

942
00:48:08,880 --> 00:48:11,120
Speaker 1: And yet I look at our media problem today and

943
00:48:11,200 --> 00:48:14,440
Speaker 1: I think the loss of local is what is the biggest.

944
00:48:14,640 --> 00:48:17,480
Speaker 1: It's sort of like a house can stand up, but

945
00:48:17,520 --> 00:48:20,279
Speaker 1: there's always one pillar that it is keeping the whole

946
00:48:20,280 --> 00:48:23,040
Speaker 1: thing up together. And it turned out local news was

947
00:48:23,040 --> 00:48:25,440
Speaker 1: that pillar, and when we wiped it out, it collapsed

948
00:48:25,440 --> 00:48:30,040
Speaker 1: the entire information ecosystem as far as I'm concerned, which,

949
00:48:30,680 --> 00:48:35,200
Speaker 1: given your experience coming through local, how would you revitalize it? O.

950
00:48:35,200 --> 00:48:38,279
Speaker 3: Look, I got taught in one of the best parts

951
00:48:38,280 --> 00:48:42,080
Speaker 3: of writing Born Lucky is having been able to say

952
00:48:42,840 --> 00:48:45,719
Speaker 3: really nice things about people who helped me, who understood

953
00:48:45,719 --> 00:48:49,279
Speaker 3: that I was a weird kid and socially awkward and

954
00:48:50,480 --> 00:48:52,560
Speaker 3: therefore was a target and protected me or took a

955
00:48:52,640 --> 00:48:54,080
Speaker 3: chance on me in one way or another. So we

956
00:48:54,160 --> 00:48:57,000
Speaker 3: use the names of all the really nice people, And

957
00:48:57,280 --> 00:48:59,200
Speaker 3: I didn't use the names of anybody who was mean

958
00:48:59,239 --> 00:49:02,239
Speaker 3: to me because it wasn't about settling scores, and I

959
00:49:02,239 --> 00:49:03,200
Speaker 3: thought that was important.

960
00:49:03,480 --> 00:49:06,080
Speaker 1: Some people would have done it the exact opposite way.

961
00:49:06,280 --> 00:49:10,719
Speaker 3: Well, I am my father's son, but a guy named

962
00:49:10,719 --> 00:49:13,400
Speaker 3: Brad Remington, who is my first news director in Saint Louis, Missouri,

963
00:49:13,400 --> 00:49:15,359
Speaker 3: when I was an intern at KTBI and then hired

964
00:49:15,360 --> 00:49:17,120
Speaker 3: me as an anchor at KTVR and Denver.

965
00:49:18,560 --> 00:49:19,880
Speaker 2: Content drives viewership.

966
00:49:20,200 --> 00:49:23,840
Speaker 3: If you put out good content, they will come because

967
00:49:23,880 --> 00:49:29,120
Speaker 3: people are the viewer, and people are smart. They are

968
00:49:29,160 --> 00:49:37,560
Speaker 3: extraordinarily interested in their own city, town, state, country, and

969
00:49:37,719 --> 00:49:42,400
Speaker 3: that if you fill that void with good, meaningful news

970
00:49:42,440 --> 00:49:46,959
Speaker 3: and information, people will respond to it. And I think

971
00:49:47,040 --> 00:49:50,440
Speaker 3: that that is the lesson that good journalism is rewarded

972
00:49:50,960 --> 00:49:53,480
Speaker 3: because it's something that people crave and always have.

973
00:49:53,920 --> 00:49:54,920
Speaker 2: People always want to.

974
00:49:54,880 --> 00:50:00,680
Speaker 3: Know what the news is, and I so, yes, it's

975
00:50:00,680 --> 00:50:03,640
Speaker 3: become commoditized. The flip side of that is, I think

976
00:50:03,640 --> 00:50:06,279
Speaker 3: that if you if you offer something special, if you

977
00:50:06,520 --> 00:50:13,480
Speaker 3: if you really offer people compelling, must read, must know information.

978
00:50:13,520 --> 00:50:15,680
Speaker 3: I remember there was research done in the nineteen nineties

979
00:50:15,680 --> 00:50:17,240
Speaker 3: about why people watch local news.

980
00:50:17,320 --> 00:50:18,640
Speaker 2: The number one reason was the weather.

981
00:50:18,960 --> 00:50:21,240
Speaker 3: The number two reason was so they didn't sound stupid

982
00:50:21,239 --> 00:50:24,319
Speaker 3: at the water cooler. So if you can provide them

983
00:50:24,320 --> 00:50:27,720
Speaker 3: that information and that context, well.

984
00:50:27,560 --> 00:50:31,319
Speaker 1: That's a thing that's always a reminder that what we

985
00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:34,480
Speaker 1: really are as educators, we just never call ourselves that.

986
00:50:36,120 --> 00:50:40,040
Speaker 1: I like that because ultimately we're helping. We're giving people

987
00:50:40,040 --> 00:50:43,120
Speaker 1: information they didn't know. Hopefully, if we're a good teacher,

988
00:50:43,160 --> 00:50:45,400
Speaker 1: we're putting it in context. If we're a great teacher,

989
00:50:45,440 --> 00:50:48,520
Speaker 1: we're explaining you know, the origin of it and all

990
00:50:48,560 --> 00:50:51,919
Speaker 1: those things. But ultimately we're educators and are you are

991
00:50:51,920 --> 00:50:53,560
Speaker 1: we good at Are you a good educator? Are you

992
00:50:53,600 --> 00:50:56,399
Speaker 1: a bad educator, but you're educating no matter what you're

993
00:50:56,400 --> 00:50:59,320
Speaker 1: doing when you're in the news and information business. Hey, Leland,

994
00:50:59,320 --> 00:51:00,880
Speaker 1: I have to tell you it's good to get to

995
00:51:00,920 --> 00:51:05,200
Speaker 1: know you because reading the book, I find it, I

996
00:51:05,239 --> 00:51:08,840
Speaker 1: find it weirdly unfair in a situation like this. Suddenly

997
00:51:08,920 --> 00:51:12,200
Speaker 1: I feel like I know a lot about you right

998
00:51:12,320 --> 00:51:16,279
Speaker 1: in this situation, and it almost feels upside down. I mean,

999
00:51:16,640 --> 00:51:20,320
Speaker 1: you've put yourself out here well and so people and

1000
00:51:20,920 --> 00:51:24,880
Speaker 1: I admire it, but it's you gave up a little privacy.

1001
00:51:25,840 --> 00:51:30,520
Speaker 3: Well, if it helps people, and if it helps parents

1002
00:51:30,800 --> 00:51:33,920
Speaker 3: and family members of kids who are struggling, whatever it was,

1003
00:51:34,680 --> 00:51:37,560
Speaker 3: to be more supportive, to show up more for those kids,

1004
00:51:37,600 --> 00:51:41,000
Speaker 3: to know that they're really making a difference, it's worth it.

1005
00:51:41,560 --> 00:51:44,760
Speaker 1: Look the number, you know. The simplest way I've described

1006
00:51:44,760 --> 00:51:46,879
Speaker 1: it is that this is a reminder that parenting is.

1007
00:51:46,880 --> 00:51:53,120
Speaker 3: Everything well, and I hope that there's enough parents who

1008
00:51:53,239 --> 00:51:55,680
Speaker 3: gained something from it that it makes it so that

1009
00:51:55,719 --> 00:51:59,719
Speaker 3: there's some lives that have been changed, and then it'll

1010
00:51:59,760 --> 00:52:02,040
Speaker 3: be worth it. So, I mean, you know, Born Lucky

1011
00:52:02,160 --> 00:52:04,520
Speaker 3: is my story. I always say, you know, it is

1012
00:52:04,600 --> 00:52:08,319
Speaker 3: my book. It's about me, but it's not for me.

1013
00:52:08,440 --> 00:52:12,800
Speaker 3: It's for parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles who

1014
00:52:12,600 --> 00:52:15,120
Speaker 3: who have a kid, and what parent doesn't want to help.

1015
00:52:14,960 --> 00:52:18,840
Speaker 1: Their kid one that's a reminder what we all have

1016
00:52:18,920 --> 00:52:22,040
Speaker 1: in common. Hey, Leland, congratulations, Thanks Chuck,