HUNTER BIDEN Talks Recovery, Gaza, Family

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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Somewhere out there is a Chevy truck. And the person who drives it, well, is a Chevy person. You probably know one, your buddy, your sister, ones who always show up. They're the first to rise, the last to leave. They always have that little extra something, and maybe you've got it too. Chevrolet, together let's drive. Visit chevy.com/trucks to explore the lineup.

• 0:29Speaker 01

  Before this,

• 0:33Speaker 01

  there's this.

• 0:37Speaker 01

  As you celebrate the game, take a deeper look at its roots. The people grow in the grass, paving the lots, welding the goalposts, inspecting every football. The hardworking people that make every Sunday possible. Carhartt is proud to outfit the crews behind the game. Visit carhartt.com/jointhetrades to learn more.

• 1:00Speaker 02

  It took a long time to get there, but the gift of being completely and utterly exposed in,

• 1:09Adam Friedland?

  I know dude.

• 1:09Speaker 02

  Humiliated in the public square, the global public square.

• 1:12Adam Friedland?

  But like exposed like.

• 1:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, and exposed in every way.

• 1:15Adam Friedland?

  In the grass.

• 1:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're welcome.

• 1:17Adam Friedland?

  Dude, that's odd.

• 1:18Speaker 02

  Oh, thanks. Yeah, cool.

• 1:20Adam Friedland?

  It would have been worse.

• 1:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, that would have been very worse.

• 1:23Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, if it was me, I'd be like, no.

• 1:26Adam Friedland?

  It was cold. I was in the pool.

• 1:29Speaker 02

  Okay, stop, stop, stop.

• 1:30Adam Friedland?

  Hunter Biden, I was in the pool.

• 1:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was in the pool. He just got out of the pool.

• 2:05Adam Friedland?

  Welcome back to the Adam Friedland Show. My guest this week is Hunter Biden. Hunter is a businessman, he's an artist, and of course, he's the son of former President Joe Biden. This is Hunter's son Beau, named after his late brother, the former Attorney General of the state of Delaware. And this is Adam Friedland, the greatest interviewer in the English world. And of course, this is James, he helps with the cameras. I'm Adam Friedland, and this is the first interview that Hunter Biden has ever given in his life. Ladies and gentlemen, Robert Hunter Biden, everyone. Give it up for him, let's make some noise.

• 2:53Adam Friedland?

  Thanks for coming. I kept you and your wife on the phone the first time we talked for like an hour.

• 2:57Speaker 02

  An hour and like 30 minutes.

• 2:58Adam Friedland?

  Was it all right?

• 2:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was okay.

• 3:00Adam Friedland?

  Was it annoying?

• 3:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, not at all.

• 3:01Adam Friedland?

  Why? Because I was being too funny?

• 3:02Speaker 02

  Not at all.

• 3:03Adam Friedland?

  I was being too funny?

• 3:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 3:04Adam Friedland?

  I went to my first Christmas once at my friend's parents' house, and the dad got mad that I was being too funny because the mom was laughing too much.

• 3:13Speaker 02

  Is that what they told you?

• 3:14Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, that's what he was like.

• 3:14Speaker 02

  You were too funny?

• 3:15Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, I was being too funny.

• 3:18Speaker 02

  That's the reason why you were annoying?

• 3:19Adam Friedland?

  No, no, it was the whole killing of Christ situation, I think, probably. But you're like out there nowadays, how's it feel?

• 3:27Speaker 02

  Good.

• 3:27Adam Friedland?

  You're in public life.

• 3:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:29Adam Friedland?

  I kind of feel like you're smashing it.

• 3:31Speaker 02

  Well, I've been in public life, but not by choice, for a long time.

• 3:34Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, but it's on your own terms, I would say, right?

• 3:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 3:38Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:39Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 3:39Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, I think you're like, you've taken to it really well.

• 3:42Speaker 02

  No, thank you.

• 3:42Adam Friedland?

  I told you the first time we talked, you have to get off of Twitter, though.

• 3:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, too late for that.

• 3:48Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, well, you're gonna get sick of it.

• 3:51Speaker 02

  You know, I don't, I like post and I like do a couple of replies, and then I just leave it.

• 3:57Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, it's a really, it's a terrible place.

• 3:59Speaker 02

  It's awful, oh my God, it's like so toxic.

• 4:01Adam Friedland?

  You missed it when it was funny, it used to be funny, yeah.

• 4:03Speaker 02

  Well, I didn't, I didn't have it then.

• 4:05Adam Friedland?

  You're joining like during the like Sodom and Gomorrah era of Twitter, yeah.

• 4:09Speaker 02

  Exactly. Well, you know what's interesting, though? As much as there is like this really, really toxic troll environment, the, every once in a while, you get this really like beautiful and like important like comment, or at least important to me, and you know, usually around recovery or someone like, you know, connecting with you over something.

• 4:33Adam Friedland?

  Really?

• 4:34Speaker 02

  It's actually deep, yeah.

• 4:35Adam Friedland?

  You read them? You read the comments?

• 4:38Speaker 02

  Not all of them, but.

• 4:38Adam Friedland?

  Because most of them are like, Anne Frank wrote the diary in ballpoint pen, which wouldn't have existed, you know? That kind of thing, yeah.

• 4:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. Well, I replied to one yesterday, no, I replied to one yesterday, a woman said, "You're so full of shit, this is all, your father is either a hybrid reptile, or a clone, or he's one of those people that have been replaced, that are wearing a mask." And I had a legitimate question, which was, number one, is what is a hybrid reptile?

• 5:10Adam Friedland?

  Gas electric, like a Prius.

• 5:11Speaker 02

  That's what I said, is it like a Prius?

• 5:13Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 5:17Speaker 02

  If I get to choose which one I would be, I would definitely be a hybrid reptile, unless it was like a lame like garden snake or something like that, yeah.

• 5:24Adam Friedland?

  Wait, so the reptile comes from a different planet or something?

• 5:26Speaker 02

  That's why I also asked that question, I said, are the reptiles aliens, or are they, you know, are they from here, on Earth?

• 5:34Adam Friedland?

  Do you feel bad for that person? I feel really bad for that person.

• 5:37Speaker 02

  You know.

• 5:38Adam Friedland?

  It's an adult person saying that?

• 5:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:40Adam Friedland?

  If it was a 12-year-old fucking with Hunter Biden, shout out to him.

• 5:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:43Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, but like if that's in a, a lot of people are like that these days.

• 5:47Speaker 02

  It's amazing.

• 5:47Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 5:48Speaker 02

  It's amazing. You know, it's amazing that the entire ecosystem of that, that I don't think it is nearly as many people as we're led to believe because of the way the algorithm like, you know, pushes that forward.

• 6:02Adam Friedland?

  It's a lot of bots, too, from what I understand.

• 6:04Speaker 02

  I don't know if the bots do that, though. Do they do the whole clone thing? Like the whole like conspiracy theory of.

• 6:09Adam Friedland?

  Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah, they push, they push that, yeah.

• 6:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:12Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, and then they make, yeah, I think it was maybe COVID, probably. Like, the phone existed before COVID, but during COVID, there was only the phone. And I think it made everyone kind of loopy.

• 6:25Speaker 02

  By the way, I believe that, not just as it relates to the way people interact on social media, but I believe that as it relates to our, the way we interact with each other at all.

• 6:37Adam Friedland?

  Or we don't, yeah.

• 6:38Speaker 02

  Or we don't, and it, COVID broke something that we haven't even begun to figure out what it is. But you can think about it like, just in terms of like, you know, if you were, if you were a kid, or you were coming to age during that period of time, you missed like three years of your life, you know, and really important period of time. Crucial years of being able to form your own, you know, ideas and opinions. And you're stuck in your, you know, in your basement without anybody to really interact with, except some creepy, you know, butt on a, you know, on your phone.

• 7:15Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, well, I think, yeah, people don't acknowledge that that's traumatic, it's been traumatic for that generation, right?

• 7:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:22Adam Friedland?

  They just talk about their penises and vaginas and getting them changed, right? It's like kind of perverse, the only way we talk about kids.

• 7:28Speaker 02

  You said that to me before.

• 7:29Adam Friedland?

  The only way we talk about kids is about their genitals. We don't talk about like, hey, it must have been really hard to be sitting around with your parents for two years. But like genuinely, and this is anecdotal, but like I don't know anyone personally that died of COVID, but I know so many people that relapsed, committed suicide, overdosed, and like, I think there is a collective trauma that isn't acknowledged like, like in popular discourse. And genuinely, like if you think of it, like January 6th and Floyd were like the, either sides like kind of like, like kind of like expression of like, we kind of want to get out of the house and like,

• 8:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:08Adam Friedland?

  You know?

• 8:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:10Adam Friedland?

  Like Floyd was the first moment, I think, that you could like be a responsible citizen and not be in lockdown, maybe?

• 8:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:18Adam Friedland?

  I don't know.

• 8:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I agree with you. I think part of it was just that incredible amount of pent-up energy, but it was also a lot of pent-up anger.

• 8:29Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 8:30Speaker 02

  You know, and the way in which, I say to everybody as it relates to, you know, so much of this, and I know that the typical response to this is like, oh, you blame everything. I'm not blaming everything on Donald Trump, but he broke something in us. He, I mean, simply the way in which we, in every other crisis that I can think of, that was universal like that, which impacted everybody, we figured out a way to come together.

• 8:55Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 8:55Speaker 02

  And I mean, I think about it, how old were you in 9/11?

• 9:00Adam Friedland?

  I was freshman in high school.

• 9:01Speaker 02

  Okay, and so you have fully were able to absorb what that meant, and.

• 9:07Adam Friedland?

  It was when America got sad.

• 9:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, America got sad, but America also, like, everybody hugged each other.

• 9:14Adam Friedland?

  Well, it's just every year was like.

• 9:16Speaker 02

  In America.

• 9:16Adam Friedland?

  Sick. Every year before that in my life was sick. And we were like, this is the best year ever, and next year is going to be even better year. And America was like, we're rocking. And then every year, it feels like after 9/11, it's gotten a little bit worse.

• 9:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, but after 9/11, my point being is that there was, there was a, it wasn't a universal crisis in the sense that every single person was impacted in their own daily lives. But it was something that was universal enough that everybody mourned what happened on 9/11.

• 9:52Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 9:53Speaker 02

  And it brought everybody together. Now, they kind of ruined all of that, but the, but my point being is that with COVID, he sowed so much division just about in the way in which people should interact. I mean, he just started, he started fights between people that never existed before, that never had to exist, and like just created this mass sense of confusion.

• 10:17Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 10:17Speaker 02

  And I think he does that with everything, because, you know, chaos is his friend, and.

• 10:24Adam Friedland?

  He's like Loki.

• 10:25Speaker 02

  What?

• 10:26Adam Friedland?

  He's like Loki.

• 10:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. That's exactly right, yeah.

• 10:30Adam Friedland?

  I don't know why I said that.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  The god Loki, the Norse god.

• 10:33Adam Friedland?

  The Norse god, yeah.

• 10:34Speaker 02

  It just goes and sows chaos. See, you know what? You didn't think I would know what you were referring to, that's why.

• 10:41Adam Friedland?

  What are you talking about? You're smarter than me, Hunter. Wait, okay, let's, I want to start the interview, but like, they're related.

• 10:48Speaker 02

  Wait, we're not, this isn't it?

• 10:49Adam Friedland?

  No, no, no, this is me and two best friends just jamming out, two alphas, just talking about like what is left to be, just pack leaders. Let's, let's actually start the interview. You know that everyone thinks Delaware is just bullshit.

• 11:04Adam Friedland?

  It is, dude. Yeah. It's the first state. Half of you guys are sucking up to Philly.

• 11:09Speaker 02

  Wait, the home of tax-free shopping.

• 11:11Adam Friedland?

  What do you mean?

• 11:12Speaker 02

  By the way, and you get to pay $4 going in and $4 going out.

• 11:16Adam Friedland?

  You haven't done anything since the first.

• 11:18Speaker 02

  I think it's up to $5 on the toll now.

• 11:20Adam Friedland?

  Oh, great, dude. First of all, you get traffic every time, right? It's bullshit. You're in Jersey, you're cruising.

• 11:26Speaker 02

  By the way.

• 11:26Adam Friedland?

  You hit your bullshit state, traffic.

• 11:28Speaker 02

  As you're going through, just stop at the Biden Service Center, right there.

• 11:31Adam Friedland?

  Really?

• 11:31Speaker 02

  Which, by the way, people don't know is named after my brother.

• 11:33Adam Friedland?

  What do they have? Roy Rogers?

• 11:35Speaker 02

  They got, uh, no, I think, I don't think they, they do have the Starbucks there.

• 11:40Adam Friedland?

  Wow, that's sick, actually, to have a, to have a, one of those roadside things.

• 11:44Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 11:45Adam Friedland?

  Uh, it's for Bo.

• 11:46Speaker 02

  Me, my brother and Walt Whitman.

• 11:47Adam Friedland?

  He was a pedophile, no?

• 11:49Speaker 02

  What?

• 11:49Adam Friedland?

  Nothing.

• 11:49Speaker 02

  Oh, stop.

• 11:50Adam Friedland?

  Okay, so, yeah, half of you guys think you're Philly. The other half of you guys should be Maryland.

• 11:55Speaker 02

  Wait, speaking about Walt Whitman.

• 11:57Adam Friedland?

  You have two beaches.

• 11:58Speaker 02

  It was, I don't know if that's the truth at all.

• 12:01Adam Friedland?

  Famous, he's, he's saying that he, he thinks, famous pedophile Walt Whitman, who has a, has a, off the New Jersey certified. I would love that if I was a famous pedophile. Okay, uh, no. Uh, which was your beach? Dewey or Rehoboth?

• 12:15Speaker 02

  Rehoboth.

• 12:16Adam Friedland?

  Rehoboth.

• 12:16Speaker 02

  Well, actually.

• 12:17Adam Friedland?

  The gay one.

• 12:18Speaker 02

  No, uh, yeah.

• 12:18Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:19Speaker 02

  But the, uh, well, you know what? When I was growing up, the, the, um, the, the largest gay community of, of the beaches was Lewis.

• 12:27Adam Friedland?

  Really?

• 12:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, which is on the bay.

• 12:28Adam Friedland?

  So when did the gays come to Rehoboth?

• 12:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't know when they, the, the gay community absolutely made Rehoboth like the incredibly cool, cool place to go.

• 12:39Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 12:39Speaker 02

  It's really cool down there.

• 12:40Adam Friedland?

  It's good for the real estate when the gays show up, right?

• 12:43Speaker 02

  So says you, Adam. So, yeah, exactly. From the man from Brooklyn.

• 12:48Adam Friedland?

  Have you ever been, have you ever been to Ocean City, Maryland?

• 12:51Speaker 02

  Of course. So, my aunt had a house in Fenwick, which is the last beach right before Ocean City.

• 12:57Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah. Have you been to Secrets? That bar that has sand on the floor?

• 13:00Speaker 02

  No.

• 13:00Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. That's just a, like, the cops are just ready to arrest. They're outside all, all night. They're just like, just send the arrest.

• 13:08Speaker 02

  Any summers, literally. The Delaware State Troopers just have a field day down there during the summer.

• 13:14Adam Friedland?

  Have, do you think every single interview you've ever had has opened up with, uh, you being asked to recount the greatest tragedy of your early life? It seems to be that, like, every interview, you sit down, you're like, so my mother and sister died tragically. I was at the hospital. Me and my brother survived.

• 13:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:31Adam Friedland?

  You and Bo were bonded by that situation.

• 13:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:35Adam Friedland?

  And, um, did that kind of forge that bond between the two of you guys? I mean, it's kind of a stupid question to ask.

• 13:40Speaker 02

  I would, I would like to think that we would have been as close no matter what, but, you know, I mean, that, uh, that made us close in a way that, uh, yeah, it made it, it made us much closer. Or we at least, it, it shared experience that, that, um, that was unique to us and kind of informed the way in which we treated each other for the rest of our lives. And, and what I mean by that is, I mean, Jesus Christ, I used to fight with my brother all the time. I mean.

• 14:14Adam Friedland?

  We were boys.

• 14:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, and, and, um, I mean, we were, we were brothers and we fought like brothers and we argued like brothers, but, um, but there was never, ever a, even remotely a question that, no matter what, uh, he was there for me and I was there for him.

• 14:34Adam Friedland?

  I think you have something that's like, kind of, there's a concept of the, of people in the Democratic Party as being like, kind of, there used to be like tough bastard, like Democrats.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:45Adam Friedland?

  Right? I'm from Nevada, like Harry Reid was like a boxer, you know? I think you have something like where you're like, you're like, you know, suck my dick, you motherfucker. I'm not gonna say, I don't know why that came out, but like, you have kind of a, like an edge about you where you're like, you're kind of, you're both progressive and you're like, also just like, like, you wanna dance? Go ahead and make my day.

• 15:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:05Adam Friedland?

  You're like Dirty Harry.

• 15:06Speaker 02

  Dirty Harry.

• 15:08Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, you're, you're a dirty, you're a dirty man. Uh, no, I mean, I think there's something about you where perhaps also, like, society has evolved on the concept of, uh, substance abuse and I think a lot of people in the middle of the country know people or are people.

• 15:26Speaker 02

  Everybody does.

• 15:27Adam Friedland?

  Right? But like.

• 15:28Speaker 02

  Adam.

• 15:28Adam Friedland?

  You know, Ulysses S. Grant was like, uh, someone that suffered from alcoholism and it was, it chased him his whole life and it was a, it was a demon. And in those days, it was a moral failing, right? We didn't see it as, as a disease. I think culturally, even people on the right have evolved on that subject. And I think that people can identify with you perhaps.

• 15:50Speaker 02

  I have, what, the, the most amazing thing about, uh, and, and I, and I really mean this, is that, and it took a long time to get there, but the, the gift of being completely and utterly exposed in, um.

• 16:08Adam Friedland?

  I know, dude.

• 16:09Speaker 02

  Humiliated in the public square, the global public square.

• 16:12Adam Friedland?

  But like, exposed, like.

• 16:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, and exposed in every way.

• 16:14Adam Friedland?

  Congrats.

• 16:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're welcome.

• 16:16Adam Friedland?

  Dude, that's odd.

• 16:17Speaker 02

  Oh, thanks, yeah, okay, cool.

• 16:20Adam Friedland?

  It would have been worse.

• 16:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, that would have been very worse.

• 16:22Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, if it was me, I'd be like, no.

• 16:26Adam Friedland?

  It was cold. I was in the pool.

• 16:28Speaker 02

  Okay, stop, stop, stop.

• 16:30Adam Friedland?

  Hunter Biden, I was in the pool.

• 16:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was in the pool.

• 16:32Adam Friedland?

  I just got out of the pool. I mean, come on, what am I gonna, I'm gonna feel sorry for you about your trouble, your problems?

• 16:38Speaker 02

  But I'm saying, wait, let me get back to, let me finish the point. Okay, let me finish the point, okay? And we'll move on from that, all right?

• 16:45Adam Friedland?

  Just, it's a nice.

• 16:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay, move on. Is, now, now you, uh, I lost my train of thought.

• 16:50Adam Friedland?

  I'm sorry, dude. I'm a dickhead. No, you're talking about you've been exposed so thoroughly to the world, yeah.

• 16:56Speaker 02

  The gift of it, the gift of it is that.

• 16:59Adam Friedland?

  So you would call it a gift?

• 17:00Speaker 02

  There's no barrier between me and anybody on the street.

• 17:03Adam Friedland?

  Right.

• 17:03Speaker 02

  You know, even like for me or for you is that, for anybody, on a, at some level of variation, when you meet somebody that's famous, there's kind of a, like a wall between you and them. Like, you want them to be what they are on the screen or what they, uh, you know, what they came off as on the book or.

• 17:20Adam Friedland?

  Exactly.

• 17:20Speaker 02

  And in that, there's a little bit of an anxiety to meet the people that you kind of, uh, like, see as separate from you. With me, there's no separation. They've seen everything. So, that, like writ large, I think makes a barrier between me, where people come up to me and they just tell me their stories. And every single one of them involves some kind of a struggle, usually, um, you know, particularly around addiction, particularly around recovery, around trauma. And you realize is that everybody is, like, everybody's going through it. It's not, you know, 50 million Americans suffer from addiction on a daily basis. And that means that if it's 50 million people actually suffering from it,

• 18:02Speaker 02

  is that 350 million people are impacted by it. I mean, there's nobody that's not impacted by it.

• 18:08Adam Friedland?

  Have you ever been in like NA and someone's doing a share and you're like, come on, bro?

• 18:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:13Adam Friedland?

  You're like, that's your rock bottom? Like, Jesus Christ, what a loser.

• 18:17Speaker 02

  I actually say that.

• 18:18Adam Friedland?

  You're, you're, in your mind, you're like, fuck this guy, dude. And he's like, and then I was late on my taxes. And you're like, oh, Jesus Christ.

• 18:25Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 18:26Adam Friedland?

  Tell me when you're like, when you're, tell me when you're in a motel off I-95, buster. I was like, reading about the first rehab you went to.

• 18:34Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 18:35Adam Friedland?

  I would love to just lie about saying I'm an addict just so. It sounded, you were in Antigua?

• 18:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:41Adam Friedland?

  Sounded nice.

• 18:42Speaker 02

  No, it actually is really like, um.

• 18:44Adam Friedland?

  Sounds like a, kind of a prize for being an addict.

• 18:47Speaker 02

  It was really low-key.

• 18:48Adam Friedland?

  Really?

• 18:48Speaker 02

  And it was, uh, it was like one of the cheapest places to go. But that's not a reason. The reason I chose it is because it was in, in Antigua.

• 18:55Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, it sounds nice.

• 18:56Speaker 02

  But you know, it started, it was the one.

• 18:58Adam Friedland?

  Eric Clapton.

• 18:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

• 19:00Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 19:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:00Adam Friedland?

  My, uh, my friend actually went to a, a place that he started for, uh, musicians, cause he's like a musician. So he has a, uh, kind of something in, I think, Tennessee that, uh, that, like, uh.

• 19:15Speaker 02

  Eric Clapton does?

• 19:16Adam Friedland?

  Eric Clapton, yeah.

• 19:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 19:18Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 19:18Speaker 02

  And so that was this too, is that half, half of it was, um, like scholarship from people from Antigua.

• 19:26Adam Friedland?

  Did you get scholarship?

• 19:27Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no.

• 19:28Adam Friedland?

  No, that would have been bullshit.

• 19:29Speaker 02

  Part of the deal that he had with the ID, with the island, where he built the rehab, is that half the beds were reserved for scholarship for free for people, anybody in, and any Antiguan citizen could go to the rehab for free.

• 19:43Adam Friedland?

  Oh, really?

• 19:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 19:44Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. Did he ever come down, chill? Maybe gig?

• 19:47Speaker 02

  No.

• 19:48Adam Friedland?

  Little Derek and the Dominos?

• 19:49Speaker 02

  But he does.

• 19:50Adam Friedland?

  McCree? He does?

• 19:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:51Adam Friedland?

  Really?

• 19:51Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, even back then, like, he would come like once or twice a year and spend like a week there.

• 19:56Adam Friedland?

  Have you met him?

• 19:57Speaker 02

  No, no. He kind of, he kind of lost his mind in, well, from my perspective.

• 20:02Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. Well, he's been, he's lost his mind before that. In the 70s, he was like on stage drunk and he was like, if you're fucking Jamaican, get out of here.

• 20:10Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 20:11Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, he's like, if you're a fucking immigrant, get out of here. Cause I, I know everything about rock.

• 20:15Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 20:17Adam Friedland?

  No.

• 20:17Speaker 02

  No.

• 20:18Adam Friedland?

  I know, I mean, I just know like useless stuff. Do you play guitar?

• 20:21Speaker 02

  No.

• 20:22Adam Friedland?

  No?

• 20:22Speaker 02

  I wish I did.

• 20:23Adam Friedland?

  Really?

• 20:24Speaker 02

  I wish I played some interest, I mean, something.

• 20:27Adam Friedland?

  You don't play anything?

• 20:28Speaker 02

  No.

• 20:29Adam Friedland?

  Come on, bro. A girl never hurt you so bad that you were like, I need to learn knocking on heaven's door?

• 20:34Speaker 02

  No, I didn't. Exactly. I just played it over and over again.

• 20:38Adam Friedland?

  You're right about your dad taking you to like the Senate and you and Bo being like two little Irish demons running around.

• 20:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, we were, we were really well behaved.

• 20:46Adam Friedland?

  Did you get, you were well behaved?

• 20:47Speaker 02

  A hundred percent.

• 20:48Adam Friedland?

  No way.

• 20:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:49Adam Friedland?

  And this is based on prejudice for the Irish that I'm saying that, no.

• 20:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 20:53Adam Friedland?

  No, but, but like, uh, you never got in trouble in the Senate? You guys never, you never, come on.

• 20:58Speaker 02

  No, not at all, for real. Like, we had so much love for that place in, in.

• 21:04Adam Friedland?

  You never like pushed Strom Thurmond down a staircase?

• 21:06Speaker 02

  No, not at all. By the way, he was strong.

• 21:08Adam Friedland?

  Battleship Potemkin, stop.

• 21:09Speaker 02

  You know what he used to do? He used to, he, he used to bring Bo and I into his office.

• 21:12Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, and he was like, black people shouldn't vote.

• 21:14Speaker 02

  You know that little?

• 21:19Speaker 02

  Thank God, he did not say that. But he had this, uh, you know those little push-up wheels?

• 21:24Adam Friedland?

  Oh, yeah, for your abs.

• 21:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, and he would, he would show us.

• 21:27Adam Friedland?

  Strom Thurmond?

• 21:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, I swear to God. Like in his 80s.

• 21:30Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. Lindsey Graham was around then? The late Lindsey Graham?

• 21:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, but what, that was when I was, you know, I think Lindsey came in, Senator Graham came, uh, when I was, uh, yeah, in or out of college.

• 21:45Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 21:46Speaker 02

  You know, because he was in the House, um, in, uh, right, in 90.

• 21:52Speaker 02

  Ninety-three or ninety-four, so I was already out. Yeah, but he came up.

• 21:55Adam Friedland?

  It's kinda sad, you never settle down at the right girl.

• 21:59Speaker 02

  You know.

• 22:00Adam Friedland?

  Is that, is that a real person?

• 22:01Speaker 02

  And by the way, I wrote this thing about Senator Graham.

• 22:04Adam Friedland?

  Well, he flipped on you.

• 22:05Speaker 02

  We gotta find Hunter's laptop, right?

• 22:07Adam Friedland?

  In committee.

• 22:08Speaker 02

  But I wrote this thing about him, is that he, um, uh, because I did know him pretty well. Beau and I both knew him pretty well, because he, anywhere Senator McCain was, he was.

• 22:19Adam Friedland?

  Really?

• 22:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, anywhere. Like, he was literally attached to him at the hip. And, um, from the time he came over to the Senate. And, and he's funny, and he's a really personable guy.

• 22:30Adam Friedland?

  Who, Lindsey?

• 22:31Speaker 02

  Lindsey Graham.

• 22:31Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 22:32Speaker 02

  And, um, and there was, there was never any, like, real kind of vitriol in the way that, that he would, um, no real venom to him. I mean, he, you know, he went after Clinton during the impeachment and...

• 22:45Adam Friedland?

  Well, he was good at the job.

• 22:46Speaker 02

  Policy, yeah. But, um, but again, something in Trump broke him. And, um, and one of the things, and I know that everybody thinks this is, I'm kinda joking, but I'm not. There is a, um, yeah, there is a, a group of Republicans that everyone in DC knows who they are. In power, in both the White House now, in Congress and Senate. All men, um, all gay, that are closeted. And I really believe that there is a, like, self-hatred that happens.

• 23:24Adam Friedland?

  It's kinda gay to be, like, right-wing.

• 23:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, and, but I'm being totally serious.

• 23:29Adam Friedland?

  Like, being racist is gay. Like, I don't like that color. Ew!

• 23:34Speaker 02

  You know, some of the things you say, I literally just think of, I think of the clip.

• 23:38Adam Friedland?

  It is a little gay to be racist, right?

• 23:40Speaker 02

  I think of the clip.

• 23:41Adam Friedland?

  To have, like, preferences on colors.

• 23:42Speaker 02

  When I'm laughing adds something.

• 23:45Adam Friedland?

  Well, you're gonna be president, and now you can't laugh at me?

• 23:48Speaker 02

  I can.

• 23:49Adam Friedland?

  Where are you gonna put me?

• 23:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's like, it's like you're...

• 23:51Adam Friedland?

  Where are you gonna put me cabinet-style?

• 23:53Speaker 02

  It's, oh, you know what, uh, um, let's see.

• 23:56Adam Friedland?

  Head of the USO, probably.

• 23:58Speaker 02

  No, there's, there's like these, these are like, there's these, like, hidden cabinet positions.

• 24:02Adam Friedland?

  Hidden cabinet?

• 24:03Speaker 02

  Nobody really knows. It's like part of the cabinet, but not really part of the cabinet.

• 24:07Adam Friedland?

  Like Guring was, in the, at the beginning, before he was head of the Luftwaffe.

• 24:11Speaker 02

  No, not, that's a different cabinet. I'm not talking about...

• 24:13Adam Friedland?

  Cause Guring was like, uh, he was like, uh, Minister-at-large, and he was also fat, too. They must've got...

• 24:19Speaker 02

  No, like, like, head of OSHA or something.

• 24:22Adam Friedland?

  OSHA? Like, not getting heard at work?

• 24:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, something like that.

• 24:24Adam Friedland?

  I would be useless. Everyone would get heard at work. I, it's everyone.

• 24:29Speaker 02

  Oh, make him head of, uh, head of NOAA, the Department of Commerce.

• 24:32Adam Friedland?

  NOAA?

• 24:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a cool job.

• 24:34Adam Friedland?

  No, no, NOAA is the, uh, the oceans.

• 24:36Speaker 02

  And it's everything. It's, it's oceanic, atmospheric, and all of that.

• 24:40Adam Friedland?

  I would be good at that.

• 24:41Speaker 02

  Like, you tell the weather and stuff like that.

• 24:42Adam Friedland?

  I'd be maybe ambassador to a cool place, Brazil, maybe.

• 24:46Speaker 02

  Ooh, that would be cool.

• 24:47Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:48Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, and I'd come back and I'd be like, guys, it's everything they say.

• 24:53Adam Friedland?

  It's great there, guys. Your dad and Jack Kennedy were the only Catholic presidents.

• 24:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right.

• 25:01Adam Friedland?

  It's weird, like, in America, they let, like, us guys, like, the papists and the yids, like, be, uh, Supreme Court.

• 25:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right.

• 25:08Adam Friedland?

  But like, it's just, it's kind of like, it's, it's their country.

• 25:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:13Adam Friedland?

  It's their, it's, like, your dad, there's only two Catholic presidents?

• 25:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:18Adam Friedland?

  And they've both given him a rough time?

• 25:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:20Adam Friedland?

  In different ways.

• 25:21Speaker 02

  Different ways, exactly right.

• 25:23Adam Friedland?

  What do you, have you thought about that before? Like, uh...

• 25:26Speaker 02

  Well, I thought about it when he was elected. Is that, it, because I, I, it's, it's kind of shocking.

• 25:31Adam Friedland?

  It's weird.

• 25:32Speaker 02

  It's shocking in the sense that, you know, like, what is, thirty percent of the country is, is, uh, Catholic, I think. Is that right? Somebody checked their...

• 25:39Adam Friedland?

  Oh, I'm not counting, I would never count.

• 25:41Speaker 02

  You would never count?

• 25:41Adam Friedland?

  No, why?

• 25:42Speaker 02

  Well, I count all the time. I just wonder...

• 25:44Adam Friedland?

  How many Jews are there, though?

• 25:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:45Adam Friedland?

  What? You count us?

• 25:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, there are...

• 25:47Adam Friedland?

  It's not good if you count us.

• 25:48Speaker 02

  Thirteen million four...

• 25:51Adam Friedland?

  Guys, I don't feel safe, man.

• 25:53Speaker 02

  Two of them, two being my family.

• 25:56Adam Friedland?

  So it's thirty percent Catholic, America?

• 25:59Speaker 02

  No, I, I, somebody check that, but I think it's close to that, is, uh... My point being is that there's a rich history of, uh, particularly Irish Catholic politicians on the East Coast.

• 26:14Adam Friedland?

  Tavany Hall.

• 26:14Speaker 02

  In the Northeast that have risen to high levels of state politics and federal politics. But the idea that only two have, um, uh, have become president is interesting to me.

• 26:25Adam Friedland?

  Why?

• 26:26Speaker 02

  What?

• 26:26Adam Friedland?

  Why do you think?

• 26:27Speaker 02

  Oh, I think because...

• 26:28Adam Friedland?

  Cause it's their country.

• 26:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, because it's their country.

• 26:31Adam Friedland?

  Right?

• 26:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:32Adam Friedland?

  When I was watching, like, the Ilha, the Minneapolis stuff, I was a little bit like, like, we were doing Somali daycare fraud when we came here, too.

• 26:41Speaker 02

  We, who, uh, yeah.

• 26:43Adam Friedland?

  Us boys.

• 26:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:44Adam Friedland?

  We're in the Lower East Side doing a little Somali daycare fraud. No, a little bit, no?

• 26:49Speaker 02

  Oh, like Tammany, Tammany Hall, like, are you talking, you guys are my guys?

• 26:54Adam Friedland?

  You do a little Somali daycare fraud.

• 26:55Speaker 02

  Like, the Irish Catholic, yeah.

• 26:56Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, the stuff they're saying about the Somalis is what they were saying about us.

• 26:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:59Adam Friedland?

  The stuff I'm still saying about the Irish. Have you been to Ireland?

• 27:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I have.

• 27:03Adam Friedland?

  It's phenomenal.

• 27:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:04Adam Friedland?

  I went with my girlfriend's family.

• 27:06Speaker 02

  I went with my dad, the only time, yeah, and it was the coolest thing ever.

• 27:10Adam Friedland?

  To do like a white Wakanda kind of thing.

• 27:11Speaker 02

  Oh, totally, yeah.

• 27:12Adam Friedland?

  Tracing the ancestors.

• 27:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's exactly what we did. We literally, do you know that, the, where, okay, so, from, uh, my grandmother's side, my, my dad's mother, my grandmother, Eugenia, Catherine Eugenia Finnegan, Kitty, was from, uh, her family were the Finnegans and the Bluetts. And they came from Mayo and County Louth, um, western, east coast. And in County Louth, the Finnegans that left from there, left on the same ship, from the same port,

• 27:47Speaker 02

  within like a six-month period of time of each other, uh, that Barack Obama's ancestors on his mother's side of his family came from.

• 27:57Adam Friedland?

  So they went to Kenya.

• 27:58Speaker 02

  Right?

• 27:59Adam Friedland?

  No, they didn't go. Did the ship go to Hawaii? I thought, where was it, Indonesia?

• 28:05Speaker 02

  No.

• 28:06Adam Friedland?

  What's he like as a guy?

• 28:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:07Adam Friedland?

  You guys are friends? Barack.

• 28:09Speaker 02

  Who?

• 28:10Adam Friedland?

  Barack. He's kinda your dad's boss.

• 28:13Speaker 02

  I love President Obama.

• 28:15Adam Friedland?

  Is he kinda goaded?

• 28:16Speaker 02

  Right?

• 28:17Adam Friedland?

  Did you have to be at Thanksgiving?

• 28:18Speaker 02

  Did you say goaded?

• 28:19Adam Friedland?

  No, no, that's a stupid question. Did you have to sit with, uh, like, Malia at Thanksgiving?

• 28:23Speaker 02

  My, uh, uh, the, my daughters are best friends with Malia and Sasha.

• 28:28Adam Friedland?

  Oh, so they let you at the other table?

• 28:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, they, they put me at the kids' table.

• 28:32Adam Friedland?

  Cause you were older. That would suck if you're like, all the kids have to sit at...

• 28:36Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 28:36Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, it's just like, you're an adult man, you're like, come on, let me come on.

• 28:40Speaker 02

  By the way, you know, I didn't understand that, yeah.

• 28:43Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. You wrote your thesis paper at law school.

• 28:47Speaker 02

  You were about to talk about the paper that I wrote on the disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine.

• 28:52Adam Friedland?

  Is that where you discovered crack cocaine, when you wrote your law school essay on it?

• 28:56Speaker 02

  No, I, I discovered crack cocaine like everybody who ever discovered crack cocaine.

• 29:00Adam Friedland?

  That would've been funny, if you like, if going to Yale Law ruined...

• 29:03Speaker 02

  Yeah. Ruined me for life.

• 29:06Adam Friedland?

  Do you wish you weren't as smart and got, uh, didn't go to Yale Law, so you would've never tried crack?

• 29:10Speaker 02

  Exactly, no.

• 29:12Adam Friedland?

  But you, you wrote about it, like, its impact on the criminal justice system, right?

• 29:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, so in nineteen ninety-six, when I wrote it, was the, um, the crime bill had been, uh, I think it passed, um, like, a year before, which my dad was a principal piece of it. But you remember, coming out of the, the early nineties to the mid-nineties, is that

• 29:35Speaker 02

  crack cocaine, I mean, just go watch The Wire, I mean, crack cocaine is decimating, um, you know, the, the cities. And the, and the reaction to it was that it was a result of the, the, the drug user. Um, you know, so they, so they targeted the drug user because they decided that what they were gonna do is they were gonna kind of vilify this drug as being so completely different than anything else.

• 30:00Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 30:01Speaker 02

  But it wasn't that. Like, everything in terms of the, the vast majority of violence that is the result of, of, uh, illegal narcotics is in the trade, it is not in the, in the crimes committed, um, by those people that are users. And so, and there's no, I mean, you know, as I was...

• 30:21Adam Friedland?

  Well, it's just racist, right? It's like a way to, like, fuel a mass incarceration?

• 30:26Speaker 02

  No, see, I, I don't believe in the idea of the conspiracy that what they did was...

• 30:30Adam Friedland?

  Reagan, Reagan, what Reagan did, you mean?

• 30:33Speaker 02

  No, no, no, this is past.

• 30:34Adam Friedland?

  Reagan was in the lab, I thought, with Nancy, and they came up with it?

• 30:38Speaker 02

  No.

• 30:40Adam Friedland?

  I thought he invented crack cocaine.

• 30:41Speaker 02

  No, well, you know, that, that is that the-

• 30:43Adam Friedland?

  The Gipper, the Gipper is your favorite president more than your dad?

• 30:48Speaker 02

  The Gipper, yeah. Well, there's a them.

• 30:51Adam Friedland?

  Who's a them?

• 30:52Speaker 02

  There, the Gipper.

• 30:53Adam Friedland?

  The Gipper was a-

• 30:54Speaker 02

  Well, I guess he was-

• 30:54Adam Friedland?

  He wasn't a good actor, though. You like Bedtime for Bonzo? Bonzo, the Chipmunks?

• 31:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:02Adam Friedland?

  What did your dad tell you about a career in politics? Like, I remember, my dad was an architect, and he was like, you can never be an architect, because it's a tough field.

• 31:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:10Adam Friedland?

  What did he tell you and Bo about, like, about, like, his, his, his gig?

• 31:16Speaker 02

  He didn't, I mean-

• 31:17Adam Friedland?

  Did you ever tell Dad, like, I want to step up the family business?

• 31:21Speaker 02

  No, I know, I, I, I, I never, um, that was never my aspiration, yeah.

• 31:27Adam Friedland?

  Did you ever, you had an inkling after Bo died, right?

• 31:30Speaker 02

  No.

• 31:31Adam Friedland?

  You had a little, oh, well, I, I felt really, um, so many people came up to me after Bo died and kind of said, you should step into your brother's shoes, you should come back to Delaware, you should run for something, and, um, and I decided, uh, yeah, to completely blow up my life and go through a crack, yeah. You, you got clean, 2003, I guess, the first time? And your real problem was alcohol, is that correct?

• 31:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:00Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. And then after Bo died was, I guess, the, is that considered your second relapse, or?

• 32:05Speaker 02

  No, because I, I relapsed in 2010, and then I got, um, then I got sober again, and I kind of, would cycle in and out, like, I would get a year, and then I would go on a, you know, a bender, and then I'd get three months, and then it, it, my, my story isn't in any way,

• 32:25Speaker 02

  like, special or unique, it, if you know people in recovery, the, it, it's almost like, you know, like you said, like, I walk into a room, and, and the truth of the matter is, is that when I tell people my bottom, they're like, yeah.

• 32:41Adam Friedland?

  You're one of the limbs.

• 32:43Speaker 02

  What?

• 32:43Adam Friedland?

  You're one of the limbs. Is there one guy who's got the best stories?

• 32:46Speaker 02

  Oh, there's some that have best stories.

• 32:48Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, he's like, he's got an eye patch? He's like, I've been, I've seen things.

• 32:52Speaker 02

  A peg leg.

• 32:52Adam Friedland?

  Oh, I've seen things. This is something that's defined you, like, I remember, like, when Bo died, my, my understanding was Joe Biden's son died, right? And, like, your introduction to the world was defined by, like, the way that people perceive, like, that guy has problems, right? But, like, there is this concept, and I think when I said before that, like, now culturally we do actually collect, like, even on the right and left, view addiction as a disease, I, I think that there was this concept of, um, a member of a political family, Roger Clinton, or Billy Carter, or even Fred Trump Jr., right, uh, having, like, having this in a political family.

• 33:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:35Adam Friedland?

  Have you ever thought about, like, that correlation, or, like, what, what that's about, or, is that just a?

• 33:40Speaker 02

  The correlation between the, the addiction and a political family?

• 33:44Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 33:45Speaker 02

  No, because I think it's universal. I don't know anybody that doesn't have a story from their family of, of addiction. I literally don't, in one form or another, or someone that it's very close to. But usually when I'm in, like, an audience of people, I ask them, you know, anybody that doesn't have someone that they love, that they're, that is, hasn't suffered, or themselves that hasn't suffered from, uh, uh, addiction, or, uh, you know, struggled with addiction, you know, raise their hands. And nobody raises their hand.

• 34:16Adam Friedland?

  Right.

• 34:16Speaker 02

  I mean, almost at least by one degree of separation, you know someone whose life or family's life has blown up. And whether it was in your own family, or whether it was in your best friend's family, or whether it was in your girlfriend's family, or some way in which addiction has, like, impacted their lives in a significant way. Or whether it was just, like, your best friend, or the guy that you went to school with that was your best buddy that committed suicide because, you know, or, uh, you know, overdosed on fentanyl. I mean, it's every, everybody that I know of.

• 34:45Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, it, I was saying before, but I feel like post-COVID, I know a lot of people who have died.

• 34:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:50Adam Friedland?

  It's weird. And I don't know if it's that, the stage in life I'm at where people start to die.

• 34:54Speaker 02

  From what?

• 34:57Adam Friedland?

  From bad drugs.

• 34:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 34:58Adam Friedland?

  Suicide.

• 34:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:59Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 35:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:01Adam Friedland?

  I know a couple of people, bad drugs.

• 35:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:03Adam Friedland?

  Fentanyl.

• 35:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:05Adam Friedland?

  But we, we do actually, I thought about it, we do have addiction in our family, but, uh, we definitely have codependency and, like, that side of the-

• 35:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:13Adam Friedland?

  Do you think Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous is, is like, uh, is a good idea?

• 35:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:19Adam Friedland?

  Getting all them horn dogs in one room? You think that's a good idea?

• 35:24Speaker 02

  I do think it's a good idea.

• 35:24Adam Friedland?

  That sounds like a disaster.

• 35:25Speaker 02

  I do think it is. You know why I think it's a good idea? I'm going to answer your, your question honestly, is this. Is that I think anything in which people, um, uh, don't share, and they keep, um, uh, kind of, uh, personal to themselves because they're ashamed of it, is really, really destructive.

• 35:42Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 35:43Speaker 02

  When, you know, when they, and when they're able to go in and they're able to talk about it with other people that have suffered from it.

• 35:49Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 35:50Speaker 02

  Or suffered from it, or afflicted by it, whatever, whatever word you want to use, they realize that they're not alone, and they then can, you know, like, drop the shame. You know, as I always say-

• 36:02Adam Friedland?

  Also, crack is, like, has a class implication, right?

• 36:05Speaker 02

  Class implication.

• 36:06Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, that's like for poor people.

• 36:07Speaker 02

  And by the way, like, the shocking thing, like, I think it still jars people.

• 36:10Adam Friedland?

  Like a crackhead.

• 36:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that's why they use it all the time.

• 36:13Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 36:14Speaker 02

  Like, if you go on, on Twitter.

• 36:15Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. You told me about that.

• 36:17Speaker 02

  Every single thing. Yeah, the stigma attached to that. So, like, you know, it's, it's, it's not, it's not an uncommon thing, it's not a, um, you know, there, it is, uh, you, you realize you're not alone, and in, in, in that, you're able to kind of set down the, the, the shame, and the shame is the thing that, like, eats you out, you know, from the inside out. And, and it creates such an enormous amount of anxiety, and you can't share it with anybody, and you keep these secrets, and you keep, you know, and you keep going back to those same behaviors, and, and it just becomes this self-fulfilling prophecy and, and, you know, cycle.

• 37:00Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 37:00Speaker 02

  And the only way to, to, to be done with it is to actually, like, realize you're not alone in it. And realize that, you know, holy shit, like, that person made it through. Like, so, that's my number one thing, is I'm starting this thing where I'm, if you go to HunterBiden, like, dot com backslash recovery, and the only purpose of it is for people anonymously to be able to share their stories.

• 37:25Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 37:25Speaker 02

  About, you know, uh, you know, people that are still, their experience, strength, and hope. And that's the thing. And, and, because that's what saved me, is realizing you're not alone.

• 37:36Adam Friedland?

  The, the internet has been, the, I guess, adoption of the internet as a platform has been way easier for Republicans, basically because they can say anything, right?

• 37:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:45Adam Friedland?

  They can lie, they can say a slur.

• 37:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:47Adam Friedland?

  They can do whatever they want. Like, progressives, there's a lot that they can't say.

• 37:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:51Adam Friedland?

  And I think, uh, there's this value nowadays of authenticity. I think by virtue of the fact that we all know, you're, everything is laid bare to the world about you. Uh, I think that's what's, what's coming across to people, perhaps, is that there's an authenticity about you.

• 38:05Speaker 02

  I wish I, I wish I could, um, say yes, it's because I'm-

• 38:09Adam Friedland?

  Because you're a real, you're a real motherfucker.

• 38:11Speaker 02

  I'm a real motherfucker, and I, and it's all about the courage, my, and-

• 38:15Adam Friedland?

  Well, you're also a handsome guy.

• 38:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, thank you.

• 38:17Adam Friedland?

  If you were busted, do you think that people would, like, no. If you're a busted guy, no.

• 38:23Speaker 02

  I don't think, like, uh-

• 38:24Adam Friedland?

  I don't even know what that means, what does that mean? Let's go back to Donald Trump, right, like-

• 38:28Speaker 02

  Where we never were there.

• 38:30Adam Friedland?

  No, no, but, like, knowing about Fred Trump, knowing about Fred Trump, and having that in his family.

• 38:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:35Adam Friedland?

  What could you speculate, like, about, like, what, the impact that that's had on him, right? Like, do you think that there's, to me, to me, I think he shed his humanity once the brother died.

• 38:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, no.

• 38:47Adam Friedland?

  I think that that's when the monster came out, and he was like, he was-

• 38:50Speaker 02

  He's what, what you call in recovery, he's a dry drunk. All of his, all of his behaviors are, um, uh, that of a, um, a, an alcoholic or an addict, that, like, megalomaniacal narcissism, the, the, uh, the aggrandizement, the, the, the, the delusion, the, the obsession with self, the, the thinking that everything that you do is, is, uh, is right, and that you're always the victim. You know, I mean, literally, those are the, all of the traits of somebody that's in active addiction.

• 39:26Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 39:27Speaker 02

  You know, I remember when I was in, like, active addiction, and my, my, and, and I had all the love in the world. So, my three daughters, they arranged an age at the time, the, the worst of it at the end, between, like, 16 and 22, and, um, and they were constantly trying to save me, constantly, constantly trying to save me. And, and, and save me from myself, and, you know, because I was very, very much a part of their lives, like, a, and a, an everyday dad in every way. And, and when I, the greatest sin of my addiction was not any single thing that I did in addiction

• 40:08Speaker 02

  other than removing myself from their lives, is not being present, is not being, uh, not being available, not being there to pick up the phone, not being able to respond to a text. And they tried to save me over and over and over again. And what you do is you, you know, you create this, this alternate reality where you're the victim. Like, I can't believe they believed that about me, I can't, like, and you get angry. And you push back on them, and you say, what the, you know, what the hell do you know? And, and you get, you know, and meanwhile, you know that you're, you know, you got a, um, a handle of vodka in the car, and you're going to buy crack.

• 40:51Speaker 02

  But you're really angry that they would ever call you on it.

• 40:54Adam Friedland?

  Were you-

• 40:54Speaker 02

  And you become so self-righteous in your anger, and that's what I see in Trump.

• 40:58Adam Friedland?

  Because you don't want to admit that you're a crackhead, probably, right?

• 41:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, because you want to protect the thing that you think is the only thing that matters, which is that you be relieved from the pain and suffering that you think you need to alleviate by using a drug. The thing about drugs is this, the question is always why? Why do you continue to do something that is not only destroying you, but is destroying everything you love? It's burning it to the ground? Why do you continue to use?

• 41:24Adam Friedland?

  Uh huh.

• 41:24Speaker 02

  Because at first it works.

• 41:27Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 41:28Speaker 02

  That hole in your chest, for whatever reason, from the time I was four years old, to be the, the kid that didn't, that was afraid to ask the girl to dance, to the, I mean, to the trivial, to, you know, all of it, all of it fear-based.

• 41:44Speaker 02

  Alcohol solved it. The first time I took a drink.

• 41:46Adam Friedland?

  Eight years old?

• 41:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, you know, I mean, I had a glass of champagne. But it impacted me to the degree that I remember it. I remember it distinctly. But my point is, is that it was the exact crutch that I needed until it became like my, the ball and chain.

• 42:05Adam Friedland?

  Right. I had a friend that was addicted to heroin. And he told me that like, at first, it's just like, it was great. But then you have to do it just so you don't get sick.

• 42:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 42:15Adam Friedland?

  So there was just, you're dependent on the substance.

• 42:17Speaker 02

  That's exactly right.

• 42:18Adam Friedland?

  Right? And that's, yeah. What's the funniest thing you ever saw on crack?

• 42:22Speaker 02

  What the funniest thing?

• 42:23Adam Friedland?

  There had to have been something hilarious happen. Or you had to meet some characters.

• 42:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:31Speaker 02

  You know?

• 42:31Adam Friedland?

  Both, you're both.

• 42:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:33Adam Friedland?

  I'll rephrase it.

• 42:34Speaker 02

  I'll tell you the funniest thing. Not the funniest. Is that, so the person that I originally first bought crack from, it was a woman, and she was in her sixties, but she had survived on the streets in DC for her whole life. And she's one of the most tenacious and incredibly resourceful human beings I've ever met in my entire life. And, and they called her Bicycles, because she would ride around on a bike. And she would sometimes deal crack, and sometimes, if she would get a little, to be able to sell. And, and most of the time, she would try to rip you off.

• 43:15Speaker 02

  Bicycles moved into my apartment with me, okay? And she was literally the funniest human being on the picture.

• 43:23Adam Friedland?

  She became your girl? She was your friend?

• 43:25Speaker 02

  She, she was my buddy.

• 43:26Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 43:26Speaker 02

  And, and, and she, she had this, she had these rules. The rules of crack. And she said, I'm-

• 43:33Adam Friedland?

  The ten crack commandments?

• 43:34Speaker 02

  The crack commandments. It was not only that, she was, she had her PhD in crackology. She said, she would, literally, she, we started to write down the rules. We were gonna write down the hundred most important rules of, of, of being a proficient, an efficient crack addict. And so every, every day, she would add one more rule to the thing. And it probably, we probably laughed more than we deserved to laugh at ourselves.

• 44:00Speaker 04

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• 44:59Adam Friedland?

  This episode is brought to you by Major League Baseball. There's nowhere left to go. Two teams, one championship. Watch the World Series. Yeah, the World Series, presented by Capital One, on Fox and Fox One. No time like October. Visit MLB.com/Postseason to learn more. Do you think that, like, just like, is there anyone you miss? From back, from the, from the wild days? I imagine there are people that you think about.

• 45:24Speaker 02

  There's not anybody I miss. There is-

• 45:26Adam Friedland?

  You gotta miss Bicycles.

• 45:27Speaker 02

  The one person that I wish I could save was, was her.

• 45:33Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 45:34Speaker 02

  Because, I really mean it. She had the most amazing, amazing stories of survival. And not only that, is that there was, there was a, throughout it all, her whole life, by any standard, was a complete and utter shitshow. And from the time she was a little kid. And, I mean, she survived from the age of 12. She was homeless and, and on her own. And she used to, what she used to do for periods of time is she would, she would sleep, she would sneak into police office, like, police stations? And she would hide under the benches at night and go to sleep there.

• 46:19Speaker 02

  She used to, and she used to do the same thing in motel rooms. Like, she would go and, as the cleaning people were coming, and she would go and she would crawl under the bed. And that's how she lived. And she, and she survived. And she survived with this deep sense of what is right and wrong. And-

• 46:39Adam Friedland?

  And a fearlessness, probably.

• 46:40Speaker 02

  What she would do, and a total and complete fearlessness. And, but like, a real incredible humanity to her. Like, there's so many times in which she could have just taken advantage of me in a way that would have been like so many other people did. And she never did. She had an incredible, beautiful humanity to her.

• 47:03Adam Friedland?

  You just reminded me, like, we had Ilhan Omar on the show, right? And she's like, you and her are probably top five, but like, most death-threatened people in the country, probably, right? She was in a refugee camp for four years as, as a kid.

• 47:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:17Adam Friedland?

  Like, she like, left, left, like, walked to Kenya, literally, and was, didn't go to school for four years.

• 47:22Speaker 02

  I've been there, to Dab, yeah.

• 47:25Adam Friedland?

  I think like, because, like, and Republican candidates for office have like, called for execution. There are people in jail for plotting assassinations in like, federal custody. They hate her. And I'm like, how, like, that's just so scary. And she's like, I think she's like, because she was eight years old in a refugee camp, she's like, fuck these guys. Like, she's not afraid.

• 47:47Speaker 02

  At all.

• 47:48Adam Friedland?

  And like, I think that when you were describing that woman, and I think probably yourself, like, you've, you, people look at the past as like, and trauma, as like, something that holds you back. But what I found as an adult is like, all of the stuff that wasn't great about like, growing, stuff growing up, or like, in my past, has only made me more developed as a human being. And like, stronger, and more like, honestly, like, kind of, has been an advantage in certain ways.

• 48:15Speaker 02

  100%, if you make it through.

• 48:17Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 48:17Speaker 02

  If you don't, it'll break you.

• 48:19Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 48:19Speaker 02

  You know? And if you don't let it warp your sense of who you are.

• 48:23Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 48:23Speaker 02

  If you don't let it diminish you. And that was the choice, I think, that you, ultimately, at the end of the day, it becomes your choice. And the way that I put it is, at one point, when the, kind of, when I, when I got clean and sober, and the world just kind of collapsed around me. And the exposure began, is that I had a choice. Either I get out of the bed in the morning and live, or I just curl up and die. And, and when you choose to get out of bed and live, you know, I, it, you know, I mean, it's such an overused saying, but you know, whatever doesn't kill you, you know, can make you stronger.

• 49:08Speaker 02

  And, and I, and I am definitely the, exactly that. Like, your sense of that is that, is, I, I fully accept that as the, why, why I'm do, why I'm doing what I'm doing right now.

• 49:25Adam Friedland?

  Go ahead, let's do the Catholics thing again. Like, there's, is a notion of like, culturally, of like, keep it in the family, right?

• 49:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. Oh, in terms of like, the, the-

• 49:34Adam Friedland?

  Or like, protecting people that are suffering. Like, when your brother had glioblastoma.

• 49:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:40Adam Friedland?

  You know, like, I think part of you protecting him was probably being on the campaign trail with him, right? And giving him something, as a brother, like, giving him something to look forward to as if, like, he wasn't declining.

• 49:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:52Adam Friedland?

  And what was that like to deal with? Like, your brother had brain cancer.

• 49:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. It was awful. It was, it was-

• 50:00Adam Friedland?

  Was there a moment where you're like, you shouldn't be running for governor?

• 50:04Speaker 02

  Well, he wasn't, so he didn't announce. And that's the thing, is like, that whole Jake Tapper, fucking, whatever his name is, who wrote this book, and like, the whole premise is, is that we, we, that we didn't divulge Bo's diagnosis, and, you know? He was no longer Attorney General, okay? And the, the election for governor was two years away.

• 50:27Adam Friedland?

  Also, it's Delaware, it doesn't matter, it's a relevant state. No, we're not gonna do any respect for-

• 50:31Speaker 02

  I will disagree with you on that part of it, okay?

• 50:33Adam Friedland?

  Whatever, dude, I don't care.

• 50:34Speaker 02

  Okay. But one or the other, okay? But it, in between that period of time, it was just a matter of whether he was gonna make the decision to run or not. And so he gets diagnosed with a, with a terminal disease that gives basically a, a 0.2%, you know, survival rate, past two years.

• 50:57Speaker 02

  But we would go into the doctors and he didn't, he would literally leave the room. And, and let me absorb what those prognosis, like the, the estimates were. Because he didn't want to hear it. He literally, he refused to hear it.

• 51:13Adam Friedland?

  But you taking that on is a lot.

• 51:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, but of course I would take that on and, and, and like, and so did everybody else in the family. And so did, I mean, so I'm not, you know, I'm, there's no way heroic for me. But, so, in that, is that he just didn't make a decision. And I know what his thinking was. It was his decision to make. And he kept saying, "I'm gonna run. I'm gonna make it. I'm gonna survive. I'm gonna live. This treatment's gonna work." You, I mean, he just kept the attitude that it, that like, he's not, he's gonna be outside that norm. And he's gonna survive. And we're gonna do an experimental, you know, procedure at, down at MD Anderson.

• 51:57Speaker 02

  From the doctor at Duke. And I would go and talk to the person about, you know, injecting, you know. I mean, we did it all. And every single, he had two resections. And so every single thing was fully 100% both of us committing to the idea that he was gonna make it.

• 52:14Adam Friedland?

  And encouraging him in that way is like, like, "Yeah, fuck yeah, run for governor." Like, I have, I have so much empathy because I, my mom had Ponting glioma.

• 52:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:23Adam Friedland?

  And, um, yeah, so she, it was in the Pons.

• 52:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:27Adam Friedland?

  And she, she passed away.

• 52:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:28Adam Friedland?

  And I was there, and my, my sister was there for two years, taking care of her. And seeing someone, a loved one decline, I, I think that, um, like, uh, I just have a lot of, uh, I know what that's like, to see someone experience cognitive decline. And then, obviously, to connect it, like, that's what, I think, when, in discussion of the last presidential election, it gets stuck in the like, was he experiencing cognitive decline or not?

• 52:54Speaker 02

  Well, my dad now, we're talking about.

• 52:55Adam Friedland?

  With your dad.

• 52:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:56Adam Friedland?

  But I don't think it's like, uh, I don't think that, like, uh, that, I don't wanna go down that road. Because it's, if you're, you say, like, uh, if you're saying that that was a mischaracterized in the public or in, by people.

• 53:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:09Adam Friedland?

  So, you, I, I have every bit, you're, you're speaking to me in good faith.

• 53:14Speaker 02

  Let me talk about it, though, for a sec. Yeah.

• 53:16Adam Friedland?

  But a better question is this. The debate, um, I think your dad's legacy is colored by that. Uh, and his presidency is colored by that. And like, if, like, in your mind, if you had like a time machine, would you have like interceded?

• 53:32Speaker 02

  If I had a time machine?

• 53:33Adam Friedland?

  Would you have gone back and like stopped him?

• 53:35Speaker 02

  Yes, 100%. And not because of, uh, anything other than the, um, what, what, what happened, okay? Which was a disastrous debate. And so you set it up. Every single thing kind of, uh, added to exacerbate it, the, um, the reaction to it. One of them is, is that he was a great debater. And every other debate in through 50 years.

• 54:02Adam Friedland?

  Well, four years prior, he did a great job.

• 54:04Speaker 02

  Four years prior, he did a great job. And four years before that, he did a great job. And three years before that, he did a great job. And then, you know, I mean, he was always known as a great debater. It was so out of character.

• 54:16Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 54:16Speaker 02

  And if you remember, he'd just come off of that, uh, they were all saying the same thing about him before the State of the Union, which was, you know, three months earlier, or two months earlier. And they're saying that, you know, you remember, the whole thing is that Donald Trump said after he gave the State of the Union that he must have been on drugs because it was such a great speech and he went on for so long and, you know. And everybody before that was saying like, "Oh my gosh, you know, he's lost a step and is he gonna be able to get through it?"

• 54:42Adam Friedland?

  He was chilling with bicycles.

• 54:43Speaker 02

  And he shows up, he does the State of the Union, and he has those great, yeah, he has those great, he has those great one-liners to Marjorie Taylor Greene and, and Lauren Boebert when they stand up, yeah. And, and so, when he got up on, uh, and walked out there, I mean, I looked at it and, um, in that moment, you know, I'd never seen my dad look like he was a deer in the headlights.

• 55:06Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 55:07Speaker 02

  Now, here's the deal, okay?

• 55:10Speaker 02

  God, I sounded like him right then. Here's the deal.

• 55:12Adam Friedland?

  Listening back.

• 55:13Speaker 02

  Here's the deal, man. No malarkey. But the, the, the thing about it is this. Is that, now I know, is that, less than, uh, uh, nine months after that debate, my dad, or a little over nine months after that debate.

• 55:34Adam Friedland?

  Just diagnosed?

• 55:34Speaker 02

  My dad got diagnosed with not just stage four prostate cancer, but stage four metastatic bone cancer. Which means that that cancer has been with him before that, for two years, probably. And so, whatever was going on was, was that. Now, did my dad lose a step? 100%. He was 82 years old at the time. Like, when you're, when you're 80 years old, you literally, your game changes, the, your speech pattern changes. But was he cognitively capable and completely aware and able to be President of the United States? Well, that's in the record, right? So, there's not a single person, not a single decision that was made when he was President of the United States

• 56:16Speaker 02

  in which anyone would say that Joe Biden didn't make that decision personally, himself, as President of the United States, as per the Constitution. And that he was engaged in every single major, uh, decision.

• 56:31Adam Friedland?

  Everyone?

• 56:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:32Adam Friedland?

  Because there's one that's not.

• 56:34Speaker 02

  What's that one?

• 56:35Adam Friedland?

  I mean, like, the genocide, you know?

• 56:39Speaker 02

  Oh, oh, we're gonna, we're gonna.

• 56:40Adam Friedland?

  No, I mean, I'm just saying, like, that, to me, I would say this. Now, I'm 39 years old.

• 56:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:44Adam Friedland?

  In terms of the volume of, of legislation that he passed.

• 56:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:48Adam Friedland?

  The performance of the Democrats in the midterms, like, there, I think that there, with the exception of.

• 56:54Speaker 02

  Let's go for it.

• 56:55Adam Friedland?

  With the exception of that, potentially, that's the best president of my lifetime.

• 56:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:58Adam Friedland?

  And people don't recognize that. People remember the debate.

• 57:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:01Adam Friedland?

  They think of him as a Mr. Magoo.

• 57:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:03Adam Friedland?

  It's like Gerald Ford falling down.

• 57:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, but that's not his legacy. Adam, but that's not his legacy. You're right. The bigger part of his legacy is gonna be explaining what happened, um, in Gaza. Okay? So let me go, let's go there. I think that that's the bigger thing that's gonna be, the thing.

• 57:18Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 57:18Speaker 02

  And here's my explanation for that. And I don't speak for my dad, and I don't wanna get into debate with you about it.

• 57:23Adam Friedland?

  I'm not gonna, I don't want to.

• 57:24Speaker 02

  I don't think I disagree with you about it, okay? I believe that what Bibi Netanyahu did and is doing, particularly since my dad left office, is genocide, okay?

• 57:36Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 57:36Speaker 02

  All right? I believe that when my dad was President of the United States, in the wake of October 7th.

• 57:42Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 57:43Speaker 02

  Is incredibly valid explanation for the support for Israel at the beginning of their effort to remove Hamas. If you remember, is my dad got all of those hostages, and he had a deal for the rest of them in, um, in the summer of 2024.

• 58:01Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 58:01Speaker 02

  And Netanyahu literally worked with Trump, I mean, it was, it was straight out of Reagan and, um, you know, the Iranian hostage deal, to keep those hostages in, um, in captivity until Trump came into office.

• 58:14Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 58:16Speaker 02

  That Bibi Netanyahu, I believe that, I still want an explanation for why it took 10 hours for the IDF to, um, to make it to, um, uh, the, the incursion from Hamas, where the, where 100 and however many hostages were, uh, were brought back over the line into Gaza.

• 58:36Adam Friedland?

  I guess like, why are these people occupied for 60 years?

• 58:39Speaker 02

  As someone that grew, as someone that grew up in a, in an environment in which I was led to, uh, what, and still do deeply believe this. I deeply believe that everybody's gotta be really careful. And I'm not here to, you know, uh, I, it's no place for me.

• 58:59Adam Friedland?

  I wasn't intending on this, this, but moving on.

• 59:01Speaker 02

  But it's an interesting conversation, and this is the thing that I don't think anybody talks about because they don't wanna say what they really believe.

• 59:06Adam Friedland?

  Sure.

• 59:06Speaker 02

  And what I really believe is that, you know, the first trip my dad ever took me on, when I was a, um, and my brother too. So when my brother turned 16, the first, he took my brother alone.

• 59:19Speaker 02

  He, my, my dad and him flew to, uh, to Berlin and saw the, um.

• 59:26Adam Friedland?

  Burghat.

• 59:26Speaker 02

  The Berlin Wall.

• 59:29Speaker 02

  He's such an asshole. He saw the Berlin Wall, okay? And they went through Czech Boy Charlie. And then they went to Auschwitz.

• 59:38Adam Friedland?

  In Poland.

• 59:38Speaker 02

  For 16, yeah. For me, the, the, the year later, I went with my dad to Munich. And we went to, um, and we went to Dachau. And then from Dachau, um, uh, we went to Berlin and saw the, the Berlin Wall. And his point being, the two most defining things of his generation, and, and probably mine, were, um, were the Holocaust and, uh, and the Soviet Union.

• 1:00:05Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:05Speaker 02

  And, and the, and the rise of the Iron Curtain. And what I learned, wait, for real, okay? In that, is the story of the, of the creation and, and the, and the, and the moral explanation for the creation of the State of Israel.

• 1:00:20Adam Friedland?

  Sure.

• 1:00:20Speaker 02

  Okay?

• 1:00:23Speaker 02

  Bibi Netanyahu has made a lie out of it all. He has put, in my humble opinion, more Jews in the world at risk than ever before in my lifetime. And this idea that we're still gonna sit here and have an argument about... But I say to all my friends, who think that it's still incredibly important that you recognize that there is such a thing as antisemitism that has been a part of the... Ingestral trauma... Sorry for using a phrase like that. It sounds so silly sometimes.

• 1:01:08Speaker 02

  But incestual trauma, going back 2,000 years, if you were a Jew.

• 1:01:12Adam Friedland?

  The 2,000 years thing is ridiculous.

• 1:01:14Speaker 02

  Say it's 1,500.

• 1:01:15Adam Friedland?

  Because the Emperor Vespasian kicked us out 2,000 years ago. We can come back?

• 1:01:19Speaker 02

  Whatever it means. But maybe ridiculous. But for whatever it means. If you don't have to go back 2,000 years. I know somebody who's sitting right here, whose family came... Jewish family came from Lithuania.

• 1:01:30Adam Friedland?

  Me too. We're all Lithuanian.

• 1:01:32Speaker 02

  I know somebody... I know another one.

• 1:01:34Adam Friedland?

  Well, Melissa and my parents, new Holocaust survivors. They grew up around them, and it terrified them. And they were told that you have to protect Israel so it doesn't happen again.

• 1:01:43Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 1:01:43Adam Friedland?

  But I think that if you go to Auschwitz, if you don't connect that with what's happening to the Palestinian people, if you connect that to antisemitism, but you... Because the truth is this.

• 1:01:53Speaker 02

  100% we agree. And I've heard you talk about it before, and I don't disagree.

• 1:01:57Adam Friedland?

  If you're forming a state in order to to protect against a genocide, and then, by definition, doesn't this undermine the very thesis of the state of Israel? Right?

• 1:02:13Adam Friedland?

  So that's all I'm saying. I wanted to get back to the debate, because I remember watching that and really feeling empathy for Joe. Like, everything was so funny, watching political debates for a long time, especially with Trump, playing the zingers and "You should be in jail" to Hillary, and like him doing like the Joan Rivers stuff to little Marco and lying to... I mean, we had fun with it. And that was the first time I was like, "This isn't fun."

• 1:02:38Speaker 02

  Yeah. Everybody felt that way.

• 1:02:40Adam Friedland?

  See, when you have a parent get older, right? Your relationship changes with them. Like Bo, for instance, you related... You were taking care of him as your brother. Your dad, when they get older, like, as a son, I can't imagine seeing what it's like to see your dad struggling. You naturally want to protect them from... And the fallout of the ridicule that he received, I imagine as a son must have been quite difficult for you. You know?

• 1:03:08Speaker 02

  No, I mean, I was used to that. I mean, that part wasn't difficult for me, because we'd been through it in so many different ways and so many times. And I had been through it in such an incredibly significant way. I appreciate the question, though, and I merely mean it in the sense of, you're right about the other part of it, though. And the other part of it is, is that it is really difficult to, you know...

• 1:03:29Adam Friedland?

  You want to protect them.

• 1:03:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. Just in the same... And what I realized, though, is that he doesn't need my protection. But, you know, one of the conspiracies during that time that was promoted by Jake Tapper and others, and I really mean this, and part of the reason why I harp on Jake Tapper, and I use him as almost like a, you know, the avatar for, you know, the insider Georgetown media elite. You know what I mean? But the real reason I talk about him is because he's a fucking asshole. And personally. And in his estimation

• 1:04:13Speaker 02

  was this idea that, like, I was on the inside saying, "You gotta run, and you gotta stay in this race, and fuck everybody else," and things like that. Which, literally, or that, like, I moved into the White House and I took over the, you know, the West Wing.

• 1:04:27Adam Friedland?

  Very cool.

• 1:04:28Speaker 02

  Yeah. I wish I had the power to do that. And the reality was, which is factually true, is that, number one, is that I wanted him to do whatever he thought the best thing would do, but I really was hoping that he would withdraw.

• 1:04:45Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:46Speaker 02

  For my... Just selfishly.

• 1:04:47Adam Friedland?

  I have to imagine, as a son, that makes sense to me.

• 1:04:51Speaker 02

  I wanted him out. I wanted him back. I wanted him how I have him now.

• 1:04:56Adam Friedland?

  Was your mom encouraging him?

• 1:04:57Speaker 02

  What? No. No.

• 1:04:59Adam Friedland?

  You should have...

• 1:04:59Speaker 02

  No. And so neither one is everybody... And like, literally... And so what they did is they set up all of these hurdles for him. So he had to do the interview with George Stephanopoulos, which he did, and he got over that hurdle. And then he went to...

• 1:05:12Adam Friedland?

  NATO.

• 1:05:13Speaker 02

  And then he did the NATO summit thing, where he talked for an hour and 35 minutes and took 27 questions from the international press about the existence of NATO, and he gave this tour of the forest. And he did that. And then he went, and he got COVID.

• 1:05:26Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:27Speaker 02

  And there's a picture of him getting back on the plane from Las Vegas, where he'd gone out, and I was with him that one day at the NAACP. It was incredible. He walks out in the NAACP, and you have the Black Caucus behind him, and you have the Hispanic Caucus behind him, you have the Progressive Caucus that are 100% behind him. And who's opposed to him? The corporate, elitist wing of the Democratic Party, who answer to all the donors, who basically are saying that, you know, there's like, "You're never gonna get over this." But anyway, he gets COVID, and he makes the decision, like, you know what? They're gonna fight me all the way to the nomination. I can destroy the Democratic Party and not give anybody a chance to win.

• 1:06:11Speaker 02

  Or I can do what I think is one of the most courageous things anybody in a position of power of the presidency has ever done in the existence of the office, and say, "I'm gonna hand over the reins." Without them being taken away from me. And he did that.

• 1:06:25Adam Friedland?

  Do you think it's regrettable? Like, it felt like, just like Kamala... I guess by virtue of the fact she was vice president made sense. But like, a lot of people were like...

• 1:06:33Speaker 02

  What else could you do?

• 1:06:34Adam Friedland?

  You didn't get to choose the candidate.

• 1:06:35Speaker 02

  I know, but what else could you do? Anybody could have run against my dad. He tied up the nomination faster than any single person that's ever been an incumbent in the Democratic Party in the existence of the presidency.

• 1:06:46Adam Friedland?

  Well, he was an incumbent, right?

• 1:06:47Speaker 02

  RFK was gonna run against him, and then you had Dean Phillips was gonna run against him. Well, by the way, though, for real. I mean, you know, you can't think of anybody that could start off with more money and name recognition than RFK if he wanted to challenge sitting president. Teddy did it to Jimmy Carter, and Jimmy Carter beat him. And so my...

• 1:07:03Adam Friedland?

  Well, his dad did it after... I guess Johnson dropped out of that race, right?

• 1:07:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:10Adam Friedland?

  So his dad announced against Johnson, and then his dad... I think his dad would have won, probably, had he not been assassinated.

• 1:07:19Speaker 02

  You think that RFK Senior would have won? Yes, probably. Well, yeah, I mean, coming out of California, is that everybody thought that he was gonna win. Johnson was already out, so he was gonna beat Humphrey, and it looked like he would have gotten the nomination.

• 1:07:32Adam Friedland?

  Anyway, back to your dad, though.

• 1:07:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, back to my dad, is that...

• 1:07:36Adam Friedland?

  Was it just difficult to see him go through that? And like...

• 1:07:38Speaker 02

  Oh, of course it's difficult. It's difficult every time, my dad. I was on some other show, and somebody said, "What would you say if Donald Trump came and sat down? What would you like to say to him?" And you know what my response is? "Go fuck yourself, you motherfucker." That's what I would say to him. Like, what son, what kind of man would you be if you looked... If I were to look at Donald Trump and not say exactly that? I mean, the way in which he talks about, demeans, and treats not just my father, my family, and the people that I love? Like, what kind of man would you be if you had anything to say to him other than that? And so, that's the way that I feel about my dad. I always say, "You can disagree with my dad on politics.

• 1:08:22Speaker 02

  You can disagree with my dad on policy. You can disagree as it relates to what his legacy will say as it relates to his support or lack thereof of Israel." Because he gets it from both sides. But what I can say is this. I know him as a man. I know him as a father. I know that there has never been anyone that has ascended to that office with more empathy, heart, and humanity than Joe Biden. I think that the presidency requires two things that almost every president has exhibited. And one of them is an incredibly healthy ego. Okay? And the other one of them

• 1:09:04Speaker 02

  has always been a narcissism that is borderline delusional. Okay?

• 1:09:09Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, it's crazy to run for president, right?

• 1:09:11Speaker 02

  Crazy. Crazy. Crazy to think you can choose a job. Crazy to believe that you can be that one person out of 250 years to be one of 45, or 46, or now 47, or 48. Crazy to think that. Crazy to think that you can control and be the most powerful human being in the world without that level.

• 1:09:29Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:29Speaker 02

  My dad does not have that narcissism. I think he's the only person that has ascended to the presidency. He has the ego, but not that narcissism. And I don't care whether people believe me or not, but it is seen in this one thing, is the way in which he chose, at the end of the day... He chose the country. He chose his party. And particularly, he chose his family.

• 1:09:54Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:54Speaker 02

  That's what he chose. Because when I picked up the phone and said, like, "What are we doing here?"

• 1:10:00Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:01Speaker 02

  And he said, "I'm... I'm, uh... You know, I'm out."

• 1:10:08Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:08Speaker 02

  "I'm gonna make an announcement."

• 1:10:09Adam Friedland?

  He said, "Fuck this."

• 1:10:10Speaker 02

  And so what comes next? Right?

• 1:10:14Speaker 02

  In what world, in what world does your vice president, who's the first woman ever to ascend to the executive office of vice president, happens to be half Indian, half black? In what world does a sitting president not say, "I endorse her"? And in what world does Democratic Party pass her over for who? Who did Tommy Vetter and--

• 1:10:46Adam Friedland?

  Well, Bernie's only-- Like, 104, so maybe--

• 1:10:49Speaker 02

  Well, by the way, but my point being is like, in what world does that not happen?

• 1:10:54Adam Friedland?

  And I have to imagine also that the polling probably on your dad was, he was probably the most favorable--

• 1:11:00Speaker 02

  Of anybody--

• 1:11:01Adam Friedland?

  Of anyone-- Anyone available.

• 1:11:02Speaker 02

  Anybody out there. So, the question becomes, is, I always said to everybody at that point right after, is that if you looked literally at the people that were saying, "You gotta get out, he's gotta get out", you know, like I said, I don't have, I don't have a beef with George Clooney. George Clooney--

• 1:11:18Adam Friedland?

  Oh, you're good with him now?

• 1:11:19Speaker 02

  No, I'm not.

• 1:11:21Adam Friedland?

  You squashed it?

• 1:11:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, no, I'm saying, I didn't, I don't have a beef with him as a, as a human being. And from, from everybody's telling--

• 1:11:31Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:32Speaker 02

  He's an actually really, really decent human being. And he's good to his friends, he's good to the people that he works with. He is really smart, he is, is really dedicated. He believes a lot of the things that I believe in. And you know what? Still, I say, "Fuck you." And, and, and--

• 1:11:51Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, that, I'm sorry to cut you off, but like, that's, I think, what I was feeling. I was like, you know, what is the DNC, right? Like, who, like, I know there was like Jamie Harrison maybe was the guy back then, but like, what is the organization? Because it felt like, why is George Clooney involved? Why are people's, like, it's people's wives and people's families? Like, shouldn't it be like, there should be like a structure to the party right now?

• 1:12:13Speaker 02

  So, the structure to the party, always like, you know, the one thing--

• 1:12:16Adam Friedland?

  It just seems like chaos.

• 1:12:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I say this to everybody, because it's, and it's not original to me. It's Will Rogers, literally, Will Rogers said. Will Rogers said, "I'm not a part of, I'm not a member of any organized party, I'm a Democrat." And that's always been true. It's always been true about the Democratic Party.

• 1:12:32Adam Friedland?

  The cowboy.

• 1:12:32Speaker 02

  Is that the organization only comes into fruition once you have a nominee, and then maybe a president. Otherwise, it is a completely disparate group of people that are jockeying for, you know, authority as it relates to messaging, until you get a nominee, and then it all comes together.

• 1:12:53Adam Friedland?

  Is it a bunch of families that don't like each other? Is that what the Democratic Party is?

• 1:12:56Speaker 02

  No, it's exact opposite.

• 1:12:58Adam Friedland?

  It's like shul, it's like synagogue? It's like, "I didn't like the way she was looking at me." I think it is. The wives are mad at each other? No? I don't know. That's my impression, that it's like shul.

• 1:13:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:13:10Adam Friedland?

  You were out in the world, right? During, and your dad was running, right?

• 1:13:13Speaker 02

  Wait, let me ask you a question. No, wait, wait, let me ask you a question.

• 1:13:16Adam Friedland?

  Go ahead, go ahead.

• 1:13:17Speaker 02

  Because you're, you're here, is this. Is the Democratic Party Zohar Mandani, or is the Democratic Party James Tellerico? Here's what I say.

• 1:13:26Adam Friedland?

  I don't know.

• 1:13:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, here's what I say. It's, it's both of them. Both of their messages work where, where they are. I love Zohar Mandani for what he's been able to do, the competence with which he's governed. I don't like the idea that he has to call himself a democratic socialist, because I think it's self-defeating. But I'll tell you this--

• 1:13:42Adam Friedland?

  He's won.

• 1:13:43Speaker 02

  He's won, and he won because he is a once, he's a generational communicator. But you know who else is a generational communicator, in my opinion?

• 1:13:51Adam Friedland?

  Joe Biden.

• 1:13:51Speaker 02

  Oh, Joe Biden, when he was there. But no, James Tellerico.

• 1:13:54Adam Friedland?

  Oh, James Tellerico.

• 1:13:55Speaker 02

  I mean, he, in Texas.

• 1:13:57Adam Friedland?

  Zohar's more popping right now, I think.

• 1:13:59Speaker 02

  Oh, he's 100% more popping.

• 1:14:00Adam Friedland?

  Maybe I live in New York, he's really popping.

• 1:14:01Speaker 02

  By the way, like I pointed out to somebody, like, you're gonna, like, you're gonna criticize me for, for going after Netanyahu, for being a war criminal? Zohar Mandani is more popular with Jews in America than Bibi Netanyahu. It's not me saying it.

• 1:14:18Adam Friedland?

  It's not.

• 1:14:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:14:20Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:20Speaker 02

  I love, I love the mayor.

• 1:14:21Adam Friedland?

  Well, I think that, I've never seen a mayor that's popular here before. The mayor used to be, I told you on the phone, the mayor used to be a guy that gets booed everywhere. Like, you were out in the world, right? The White House could be just, like, you could be insulated, or DC could be insulated, is very insulated sometimes from the outside world.

• 1:14:38Speaker 02

  Oh, 100%.

• 1:14:39Adam Friedland?

  You being--

• 1:14:40Speaker 02

  I wasn't there, though.

• 1:14:40Adam Friedland?

  Someone that wasn't there, right? I guess the question is like, I don't know what was going on with your dad. Your dad, like, it's not worthy of me being like, actually, he was senile. It's like, what the fuck do I know? And it's not like, that's where this, this conversation always goes.

• 1:14:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:14:55Adam Friedland?

  But the sense, did you get a sense that out in the world, people had, had, were feeling the opposite?

• 1:15:03Speaker 02

  I feel 100% feeling the opposite.

• 1:15:04Adam Friedland?

  And did you like, kind of communicate back to your family, like, guys, people, this is, like, you're trying to win votes, it's an election. It's kind of like, maybe like, this is like, we're losing the faith of the electorate, even if it's not true?

• 1:15:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:17Adam Friedland?

  Like, maybe this is like--

• 1:15:18Speaker 02

  Wait, wait, no, I meant in terms of completely the opposite.

• 1:15:21Adam Friedland?

  What do you mean?

• 1:15:21Speaker 02

  Is that people would come up to me, I was out in California, okay?

• 1:15:24Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:24Speaker 02

  And people would come up to me, and they would be going, "Your dad's gotta stay in." And particularly in the, in the base of the--

• 1:15:30Adam Friedland?

  They're sucking up to you.

• 1:15:31Speaker 02

  In the party-- No, not really.

• 1:15:32Adam Friedland?

  No, because you're so handsome. Sorry, and I'm not to cut you off, but like, the impression I got was that most people have had, especially after the debate, like, most people had lost faith in his cognitive abilities, and like--

• 1:15:42Speaker 02

  That's not what the polling said, but regardless--

• 1:15:44Adam Friedland?

  Right, okay, fine.

• 1:15:44Speaker 02

  Enough people had lost the debate, and we lost the, we lost the communications war on that. And the, regardless of whether it was the establishment, or, or, you know, the DC, you know, inside elite kind of thing, we had lost the, we had lost our ability to break through.

• 1:16:05Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:05Speaker 02

  The question then became, who had a better chance of doing it?

• 1:16:09Adam Friedland?

  And it was a shit election, too, with post-COVID inflation, right? Like, incumbency around the world lost.

• 1:16:15Speaker 02

  Everywhere.

• 1:16:15Adam Friedland?

  Right? In the UK, Labour won.

• 1:16:18Speaker 02

  I think he was the one.

• 1:16:18Adam Friedland?

  Right?

• 1:16:18Speaker 02

  I still think he was the one. And the reason I still think he was the one--

• 1:16:20Adam Friedland?

  Because he's running as a retard.

• 1:16:21Speaker 02

  Is because, number one--

• 1:16:22Adam Friedland?

  Sorry.

• 1:16:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 1:16:23Adam Friedland?

  I mean, sorry.

• 1:16:24Speaker 02

  Exactly, but, but for real, is because he had done it before.

• 1:16:28Adam Friedland?

  Who's, who's your dad's least favorite guy ever in the, in the government?

• 1:16:32Speaker 02

  The least favorite person ever in the government?

• 1:16:33Adam Friedland?

  Who's his fucking, he's like, "Fuck, oh, this fucking guy."

• 1:16:35Speaker 02

  Oh, I mean, that's easy. And he didn't serve that long with them, though, is Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz, I, and I'm not exaggerating.

• 1:16:44Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:45Speaker 02

  There's 99 other senators.

• 1:16:47Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:47Speaker 02

  And I, and I 100% can tell you that 99, 101 out of the 100 think that Ted Cruz is a, is a smacked asshole, as Michael Jimmy would say.

• 1:16:59Adam Friedland?

  This guy.

• 1:17:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. No, I mean, really.

• 1:17:02Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:02Speaker 02

  Like, you know, I mean, he, he is a, he is one creepy dude. Yeah.

• 1:17:08Adam Friedland?

  I, I kind of want to like, I want to talk to you about, in more, more general, about a couple of things.

• 1:17:13Speaker 02

  I thought you were gonna say immortality.

• 1:17:15Adam Friedland?

  Do you believe in that?

• 1:17:16Speaker 02

  Well, I don't know.

• 1:17:17Adam Friedland?

  What other questions are, oh, yeah, you joined the Navy at 42?

• 1:17:21Speaker 02

  Oh, dude, come on.

• 1:17:22Adam Friedland?

  Did that feel--

• 1:17:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, that didn't go very well.

• 1:17:24Adam Friedland?

  How stupid did you feel when you realized you could just download Grindr?

• 1:17:30Speaker 02

  He was waiting for that joke the whole time.

• 1:17:32Adam Friedland?

  It's in the App Store, dude.

• 1:17:33Speaker 02

  By the way, it's kind of true.

• 1:17:34Adam Friedland?

  You had to go into the Navy? You idiot.

• 1:17:36Speaker 02

  I did it, the only reason I did it--

• 1:17:37Adam Friedland?

  You could've just got crushed.

• 1:17:38Speaker 02

  Seriously, because the uniforms, my father wanted me to say--

• 1:17:41Adam Friedland?

  Did you wear the Donald Duck?

• 1:17:42Speaker 02

  Coming as Army National Guard, what?

• 1:17:43Adam Friedland?

  You wore the Donald Duck?

• 1:17:45Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, man, yeah.

• 1:17:46Adam Friedland?

  That's so funny.

• 1:17:47Speaker 02

  There's so much, there's so much cooler than the Army ones.

• 1:17:49Adam Friedland?

  You got the Donald Duck?

• 1:17:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, the Donald Duck, I don't know about the--

• 1:17:51Adam Friedland?

  Did you wear no pants like Donald Duck, or you wore the white pants?

• 1:17:54Speaker 02

  The white pants.

• 1:17:54Adam Friedland?

  That'd be funny, that'd be a kind of funny bit, for all the other senators. Guys, check it out, Donald Duck.

• 1:17:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:18:01Adam Friedland?

  And they're like, "Whew, whew, whew." Did you have pinup girls on your--

• 1:18:05Speaker 02

  Nah, didn't make it that far, didn't make it that far before they kicked me out.

• 1:18:09Adam Friedland?

  Did a lady come and sing for you, and she, her skirt was coming up?

• 1:18:12Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:18:12Adam Friedland?

  That would have been cool.

• 1:18:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:18:14Adam Friedland?

  You're re-entering public life, and I think you're doing a great job at it. And I think you're connecting with a lot of people. And it's kind of, it must be really satisfying because of like, the way people have spoken about you, kind of, over the last 10 years especially, right?

• 1:18:30Speaker 02

  I appreciate that.

• 1:18:31Adam Friedland?

  Um--

• 1:18:31Speaker 02

  No, for real. So, can I say something?

• 1:18:33Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:34Speaker 02

  Sincere? That means a lot to me, that you said that.

• 1:18:37Adam Friedland?

  I mean--

• 1:18:38Speaker 02

  For real, I mean, I'm being totally sincere.

• 1:18:39Adam Friedland?

  I mean it.

• 1:18:40Speaker 02

  Because I haven't heard that in a long time. So, you're saying, when I'm re-entering public life, okay? Well, the fact of the matter is--

• 1:18:47Adam Friedland?

  You've never had it.

• 1:18:48Speaker 02

  And I never, I never left, because it never left me. I didn't, I didn't choose to like, you know, step up on this platform. It's like, I was, I was like tied to a post on this platform for the past seven years, and had the shit beat out of me. And I, and, and then, you know, when the fire died down, I realized I was still standing on the platform, and I get to do something with it.

• 1:19:10Adam Friedland?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:19:10Speaker 02

  Either that, or, you know, kind of slink off. And, I don't know. I said, "Cool." Like, just that experience of you saying that. I've watched you, like, I think you're funny as shit, and I love this show. I really mean it. And, and part of it is, is because it's really smart, but it's also really funny and irreverent.

• 1:19:26Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:27Speaker 02

  And for you to say that just means a lot. I mean it, thank you. Without being--

• 1:19:32Adam Friedland?

  I mean, I mean it.

• 1:19:33Speaker 02

  Such a sycophant.

• 1:19:34Adam Friedland?

  But like, I have to imagine, like, you know, look at Bo, he's, you know, you, you had a dad that was in public life, too, right? And I think your dad spoke, loved it. And I think you loved going to the Senate, running around, you and your brother--

• 1:19:45Speaker 02

  100%.

• 1:19:45Adam Friedland?

  Pushing Strom Thurmond down the stairs--

• 1:19:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:19:48Adam Friedland?

  And you're like, "Battleship Potemkin." And they're like, and he's like, "That's a smart movie to know." He's like, "Oh, you little Irish bastards, you little Irish demons." Yeah, no, no, but people have been unfair to you, I think. You know, like, people have a concept of you that, like, is defined by your, your darkest moments. What compels you to want to be in public?

• 1:20:10Speaker 02

  One of the reasons is that, so there's this whole concept in recovery, and I think it's truly the thing that like sustains you and saves your life. And, and from my experience, almost having truly died over and over and over again, because of my issues with addiction, is that the one thing that keeps you clean, so like, I don't feel any compulsion to drink or use a drug today, okay? And I haven't felt that way in a long time, thank God.

• 1:20:40Adam Friedland?

  Uh-huh.

• 1:20:41Speaker 02

  But--

• 1:20:43Speaker 02

  I also know that I went seven years without having a drink and then I relapsed. And I also know, having been around people in recovery now for 20 years, is that 10 years from now, 20 years from now, is still, it's just for today, okay? The one thing that I know that has worked for people is when you don't live in yourself, is that when you're trying to be of service to somebody else. Now, I want to be first of service to my family. And being of service to my family is telling the story of our family as honestly as possible.

• 1:21:23Speaker 02

  And being a person that is singularly having, able to do that.

• 1:21:29Adam Friedland?

  Right.

• 1:21:30Speaker 02

  As that's one. But also, being of service to people that are, that I, like, I meet everywhere I go. People come up to me, whether they're Mazy's age, or whether they're my age, or whether they're in their 80s, like my dad. And they tell me this story, they lost their son to a fentanyl overdose. Or their daughter was online and she got sucked into, you know, this hellhole and she committed suicide. Or, because they want to tell me about, because they think I understand loss. And you realize, is that, like, there's this deep, incredible connection to people.

• 1:22:11Speaker 02

  And with that being, like, completely sincere about it, is if I just, like, reached one kid, like, one person, and they say, "I didn't drink today because I read something Hunter Biden wrote," or I saw, you know, tell so-and-so to go fuck themselves, or say, you know, like, "I don't give a shit, I was a crackhead."

• 1:22:30Adam Friedland?

  Uh huh.

• 1:22:31Speaker 02

  And so that they can go and say, "I don't give a shit, I was a crackhead," make it through the day. What a fucking cool thing.

• 1:22:37Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:38Speaker 02

  Why not take advantage of that? Why not do something about that?

• 1:22:41Adam Friedland?

  I don't want to ask you about yourself directly, but like, do you think, at this point, in the year 2026, what does, does a Hunter Biden have a path to elected office in America today? Not, don't say, "I want to," but does someone that, like, because I think, initially, before I was researching for the interview, I would say, "Fuck no." What, the crack guy?

• 1:23:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:23:10Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah. But I, I've convinced myself otherwise.

• 1:23:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:23:16Adam Friedland?

  I think, I think actually, in this day and age, yeah, how do you, how would you feel?

• 1:23:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know?

• 1:23:27Adam Friedland?

  A Hunter Biden?

• 1:23:28Speaker 02

  A Hunter Biden. Yeah, I hope so. I hope so, and I think that that's part of the, of the authenticity of it. Is that, I don't, I'm not running for anything. I really am not running for anything. I truly am not. So, I'll answer your question as...

• 1:23:48Adam Friedland?

  Why not? Just fucking, who cares? You can just do it. For fun.

• 1:23:52Speaker 02

  I don't think...

• 1:23:54Adam Friedland?

  I'm just kidding.

• 1:23:55Speaker 02

  No, no, but really, though, I don't think that's the best use of my time. I think that the reason that, you know, I think I have the real opportunity, right now, to actually speak to way more people than I would if I said, you know, "I'm going home to, you know, to wherever and running for mayor." You know what I mean? Then I gotta, then I gotta figure out, you know, which constituency that I gotta, like, I just think that there's a much greater, but do I believe that there's a world in which a Hunter Biden could run? I sure hope so.

• 1:24:28Adam Friedland?

  I think so.

• 1:24:29Speaker 02

  I sure hope so. But that Hunter Biden would have to do this. Would have to say, "I was a crackhead, and here are the pictures." They would have to say, "I screwed up my life, not just, you know, in one instance, but over a two-year period of time, in which I did things that I'm not proud of, and here's what they are."

• 1:24:49Adam Friedland?

  I think this is a good question. I got, and this will be the last question. But what was the best day of your life? And it can't, nothing about kids. But what was the best day? I think that's...

• 1:25:02Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:25:03Adam Friedland?

  Is that a good question?

• 1:25:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:25:06Adam Friedland?

  I liked it when I wrote that.

• 1:25:10Speaker 02

  And it, the...

• 1:25:11Adam Friedland?

  Can't be about your kids.

• 1:25:12Speaker 02

  Kids and family.

• 1:25:13Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, my family.

• 1:25:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:25:15Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, what was the best day of your life?

• 1:25:17Speaker 02

  But it can't be about kids.

• 1:25:19Adam Friedland?

  Can't be about, yeah, your kids. It can be about your family, but not about your kids. It's too easy.

• 1:25:28Speaker 02

  The best day of my life, the thing that, and it can't be about my kids.

• 1:25:34Adam Friedland?

  It can't be about your kids.

• 1:25:35Speaker 02

  Okay. Is the thing that was the turning point in my life, that changed everything, and I didn't know it then, was the day I met Melissa.

• 1:25:47Adam Friedland?

  The day of your what?

• 1:25:49Speaker 02

  I met Melissa.

• 1:25:50Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:51Speaker 02

  And what happened was, is I'd met this stranger, and I'd been in the wilderness of my own making, and suicidal, I mean, fully suicidal. Every day was a real question, was this the day that I wasn't gonna make it? By just virtue of what I was doing to myself. And, and I had removed myself from the lives of the three things that I cared more about than anything in the world, is my daughters. And the shame over that.

• 1:26:32Speaker 02

  And I walked in to meet this woman, for some reason, just a long story about how it happened, because I wasn't meeting anybody. I wasn't meeting any civilians back then. And I see this woman, and I literally looked in her eyes, and I said, "I know this isn't the way to start a conversation, but I, but I love you."

• 1:26:55Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. I'd do that, too.

• 1:26:58Speaker 02

  And instead of running, you know, I was still, you know, I was still an active addiction right then. And instead of running, she listened, and we sat there for hours, and I told her everything. And in that period of time, I told her what I hadn't really admitted to anybody that was in my life, that I've been denying to everybody. I said, "I'm a crack addict, and I don't know what to do about it." And she said, "That ends today." And all the work that the girls had done, trying to get me back and open my eyes to it.

• 1:27:30Adam Friedland?

  Did it end that day?

• 1:27:31Speaker 02

  What?

• 1:27:32Adam Friedland?

  It ended that day?

• 1:27:33Speaker 02

  No, it did not end that day.

• 1:27:34Adam Friedland?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:27:35Speaker 02

  But it, this ends now, and within a week it did. And, and then, within two weeks, I had my last drink. In 10 days, we got married. But there was this thing, and I know what it was, it was like, all of the love of my brother, all of the love of my daughters, all of the love of my mom and my dad, all of my Aunt Val and my Uncle Jim, and my whole family, the people that had been trying to reach me, I literally, like, was able to see in her eyes, knew. And I promise you, it was like, if one of my kids came to me and said, "Hey, you know, I met this, I met this guy, he's a crack addict, and we're getting married, and, you know, we just got married," I'd say, "You're out of your mind."

• 1:28:19Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, I would, too.

• 1:28:20Speaker 02

  But it's the truest thing that ever happened to me, in that moment. And, and that would have to be...

• 1:28:32Adam Friedland?

  We need to cut that, though. Because my girlfriend might hear that, and it's just making us look bad. That was like the most romantic thing I've ever heard in my entire life. What if a girl's gonna hear it, right?

• 1:28:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:28:46Adam Friedland?

  You're fucking the rest of the guys over.

• 1:28:47Speaker 02

  Sorry.

• 1:28:48Adam Friedland?

  He's like, "I wanted to cry."

• 1:28:50Speaker 02

  No, by the way, no girl wants to hear that they just, that they just met a crack addict.

• 1:28:54Adam Friedland?

  Oh, my God!

• 1:28:55Speaker 02

  They just met a crack addict, and he wants to marry her seven days later.

• 1:28:57Adam Friedland?

  Oh, shut up. Look at this Don Juan DeMarco over here, you gorgeous. You're gorgeous. No, I think that's incredibly beautiful. And like, you know, we're all just trying our best, I suppose, and...

• 1:29:10Speaker 02

  Some people need to try harder.

• 1:29:12Adam Friedland?

  Who?

• 1:29:13Speaker 02

  Oh, I...

• 1:29:14Adam Friedland?

  Me?

• 1:29:15Speaker 02

  No, not you.

• 1:29:16Adam Friedland?

  You think I'm me as an interviewer?

• 1:29:17Speaker 02

  I think you're trying your best, and I really do.

• 1:29:18Adam Friedland?

  I'm not, I could've done better.

• 1:29:20Speaker 02

  Seeing that, seeing that you're having a hard time, like, walking us out of the show, I will say this, for real.

• 1:29:26Adam Friedland?

  No, because you were too romantic, and you were fucking over the rest of the guys.

• 1:29:29Speaker 02

  It flustered you, but for real...

• 1:29:31Adam Friedland?

  I'm hard, right? That's why I got the iPad.

• 1:29:33Speaker 02

  I love this show.

• 1:29:35Adam Friedland?

  You do?

• 1:29:36Speaker 02

  I do, God, I do. I mean, I've been watching, I've watched, like, I don't, not all of them, but I've watched...

• 1:29:42Adam Friedland?

  He's watched all of them, yeah.

• 1:29:43Speaker 02

  And the, the one with Chet Hanks in particular, as I said to you, try to live up to that. But the, but truly, your wit, which is a rare thing, wit, not just being funny, but wit, is, I really love.

• 1:30:00Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, I really appreciate the time we've had today. I mean it. I think it's like, I think, yeah, I think you got the sauce. Just fuck around, like, just run for president. Just say, "I'm just doing it because it might be..."

• 1:30:13Speaker 02

  Okay, all right.

• 1:30:14Adam Friedland?

  Just say, "As a bit."

• 1:30:15Speaker 02

  For Adam...

• 1:30:16Adam Friedland?

  Just say, "As a bit."

• 1:30:17Speaker 02

  Okay, look, for Adam, I'm running for president because I'm gonna make him...

• 1:30:20Adam Friedland?

  Your slogan is "As a bit."

• 1:30:21Speaker 02

  Director of FEMA. How about FEMA? You want FEMA?

• 1:30:25Adam Friedland?

  I want you to make me head of federal booty inspectors, female body inspectors.

• 1:30:30Speaker 02

  He will be a head of the FBI, the newly minted FBI.

• 1:30:33Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah. Just the T-shirt from the, from the shore.

• 1:30:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. Thanks.

• 1:30:38Adam Friedland?

  Everyone, give it up for him.

• 1:30:39Speaker 02

  Thanks.

• 1:30:40Adam Friedland?

  How was that? You enjoying it?

• 1:30:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was great.

• 1:30:43Adam Friedland?

  Did I do a good job?

• 1:30:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:30:45Adam Friedland?

  No, it's just, uh...