The Hunter Biden Interview

Our conversation with Hunter Biden. (00:00) Why Did Hunter Sit Down With Candace Owens? (12:34) The Dark Side of Social Media (35:21) The Importance of Self-Reflection (39:49) Addiction and Sobriety (1:23:28) The Thing Far More Important Than Politics (1:31:51) The Dangers of AI (1:35:27) The Evils of Benjamin Netanyahu Paid partnerships with: Redmond Salt: Use code TUCKER for 15% off your first order at https://redmond.com/tucker Curativa Bay: Take your health back into your own hands. Get 15% off at https://CurativaBay.com/Tucker American Financing: NMLS 182334, nmlsconsumeraccess.org. APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.327% for well qualified borrowers. Call 800-685-5696 for details about credit costs and terms. Visit http://www. AmericanFinancing.net/Tucker. Ethos: Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/TUCKERBattalion Metals: Shop fair-priced gold and silver at https://battalionmetals.com/tucker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 0:34Speaker 01

  Hunter Biden, thank you for doing this.

• 0:35Speaker 02

  Dr. Carlson.

• 0:36Speaker 01

  I haven't seen you in 11 years. Though I've talked about you. As you know.

• 0:41Speaker 02

  In the meantime.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  In the meantime. And then I wake up in the morning and you're doing Candace Owens.

• 0:48Speaker 02

  I love Candace.

• 0:49Speaker 01

  I do. I do too. I do too. And I've taken a lot of abuse for saying that. But I do. I know her and I do. I think she's a great person.

• 0:56Speaker 02

  As a person.

• 0:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:57Speaker 02

  Forget the politics and anything. And largely why I'm sitting here. We've known each other for, you know, quite tangentially for 30 years.

• 1:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:10Speaker 02

  Is that she is a human being, is a really, really good person. And thoughtful and generous and has a deep faith. And I just vehemently disagree with some of her positions. And it used to be that way.

• 1:34Speaker 01

  I remember.

• 1:35Speaker 02

  Remember? I mean, when you and I knew each other, it wasn't as if our politics were much different.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:43Speaker 02

  And but everything has, everything changed. And I attributed to one thing. We can get to that, but.

• 1:52Speaker 01

  What's the one thing?

• 1:52Speaker 02

  To Donald Trump. And I think he, I think he, I, everybody says, you know, he's a symptom of the disease. And the reality is, is that I think he's one of the most transformational individuals in our political history for, all for, for ill. And I think he had such an opportunity to do great things. And he just decided that all he was gonna do was for himself. And but anyway, regardless, we have two hours to talk.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  We're from the same place.

• 2:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  I grew up with your, with your high school girlfriend, I think. So, I mean, I, you know, we're, I'm very familiar with the world that you're from, because I'm sort of from it too. And I noticed the change during Obama. And I'm not blaming Obama. I'm not blaming anybody. But the society changed. It was like, all of a sudden, if you didn't like Obama, you were a racist. And I felt like in our neighborhood, that was the violence. You couldn't say anything about Obama that wasn't positive. Do you remember that?

• 2:58Speaker 02

  No, I mean, I, I think that I had a completely, probably different perspective on that. But I don't, I don't discount if you say that you felt that way.

• 3:11Speaker 01

  Well, it was before then, like if it was Clinton.

• 3:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:14Speaker 01

  You know, I knew a lot of Clinton staffers. And you could be like, really? Monica Lewinsky? And they'd be like, Monica Lewinsky or Bush. You know, really? The Iraq War? Yeah, the Iraq, you know, it was like.

• 3:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:25Speaker 01

  But people seemed to lose their sense of humor in 2008. I remember, at least my neighbors did. It was like, what did you? I'm sorry, did you say something about Obama that's not flattering? And that to me.

• 3:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, I can see how you would get that. You know what I mean? I mean, you're, you're a public figure. You're on TV.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  I mean, at like dinner.

• 3:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I know. But I mean.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  And it was the ladies who were all about Obama. Remember that? It's like all the, this whole thing of like, well-educated, humorless, rich, white ladies? That all began during Obama.

• 3:54Speaker 02

  That may be the case. I, that wasn't, it understandably was not my experience.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  No, that it wasn't. So, how did you wind up deciding to speak in public? And with, first of all, with Candace, which I strongly approve of, but I just, like, how did that happen?

• 4:09Speaker 02

  So, the, the first interview that I did was with Andrew Callahan. And who is a brilliant, in my opinion, journalist and documentarian. And I didn't know anything about him, but I had a lawyer that had done some work for him, that had also done some work for me. And he said, hey, you should check this, this guy out. And, and I did. And what I, what I noticed about Andrew is that I believe he has a real finger on the pulse of what's happening, particularly to a certain demographic, like draft age, 18 to 35-year-olds. And, and he has a wider audience also. And.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  It's funny that you say draft age. That's, that's an interesting way to put it.

• 4:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. We may, we may be coming up to, anyway.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  Do you think we're gonna get a draft?

• 5:04Speaker 02

  Uh, no, no. I don't think that they have the, I, I, no, I don't, I don't think.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  Because that's what, like, I physically joined the protest at that. I mean, that's so crazy.

• 5:15Speaker 02

  Well, I think you should physically join the protest now. I mean, you're already there. And, but anyway, I met with, I, I watched a lot of the stuff that Andrew did. I, I really liked it. And, and I went on and, you know, I think that the thing that kind of shocked people was my willingness to be completely open about all of the, about everything. Is that I don't, I welcome any question. I always say that addiction is, is never an excuse, but it's often an explanation for, for some of the things that people, the narrative that they've been told about me. And they did a beautiful thing to me that was, that was ugly in the moment,

• 6:00Speaker 02

  which was, they completely exposed me in a way that I don't know of any public figure or, or a person associated with a public figure, particularly family, has ever been exposed. You know, I mean, they literally stole 22 years of my entire digital footprint, from every deleted image to every deleted text to everything. And, and in that total exposure, there was nowhere to hide. And for me, I realized is that the only way to out was through is owning the things that were true and, and speaking truth to the things that were false.

• 6:44Speaker 02

  And, and I did that with Andrew. And I thought it would just be a one-off. But then I, a guy named, well, you, you're close with him. And I, I consider him a friend by text. I don't want to sully his reputation.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:00Speaker 02

  Is Sean Ryan. And I, and I sat down with Sean Ryan. And I, and Sean is kind of, you know, MAGA adjacent. He was between 2020 and 2024. And, and he had said some pretty rough things about my dad. Not so much about me, but about my dad that I vehemently disagreed with and to this day vehemently disagree with. But I thought that Sean was a great listener. And, and I really appreciated his willingness to not allow what he had been instructed to believe to infect the way in which he listened.

• 7:43Speaker 02

  And, and I sat down with him and we did close to six hours. And you kind of, I know that it's like, seems like this is a very public thing by virtue of everybody watching here. But the fact of the matter is, is these experiences in this long format can be very intimate.

• 8:01Speaker 01

  Oh, big time.

• 8:02Speaker 02

  And, and, and that was my experience with, with Sean. And we, and we connected on the thing that I have been able to connect with, with almost everyone, like universally, which is addiction.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:21Speaker 02

  And recovery. And for me, thank God, it's recovery. And I, and I've been sober, clean sober for, and somebody said, stop saying clean. So, I've been substance-free and sober for, for over seven years now. And I don't think people knew that. I think people conflated my, my past addiction with my, my father's presidency and just assumed that I was still using. Because, you know, I mean, New York Post, you know, I think they, they printed 1.5 articles about me a day for almost close to four years. And, and none of it good. And all of it with pictures.

• 8:57Speaker 01

  Not, not positive?

• 8:58Speaker 02

  Not, not, not much of it was positive. No, not at all. Anyway, long story, the long story a lot longer is.

• 9:05Speaker 01

  I'm having that experience with the New York Post at the moment.

• 9:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, by the way. Welcome, welcome to my world.

• 9:11Speaker 01

  I'm not naked, but.

• 9:12Speaker 02

  Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully naked pictures don't come out. I could call some of our friends.

• 9:17Speaker 01

  No one wants to see those.

• 9:19Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, I didn't think so either, but, but apparently they do. So, anyway, long story short, and long story longer. I go and I did this with Sean. And Sean called, and this is public now. I can say it. Sean had dinner with Candace. They live in the same neighborhood down there in Nashville. And he said, you know, I really, really like her. And, and she told my wife that one of the interviews that she most wanted to do was with me, with Hunter Biden. I'm not referring myself in the term person right now. I haven't gotten to that point yet. And, you know, I thought about it and.

• 9:59Speaker 02

  Like you, and we've talked about this a little bit, but like you, Candace has said some really, really awful things, not just about me, but also about my dad, you know, the whole Biden crime family thing, but really, really kind of pointed things. And I believe that if I could sit down with her, not to convince her of anything, but to see that I was just as human as she was and that I own my feelings and I've been incredibly transparent about them. I've been, I have, and I thought that if we could find that, you know, commonality, that we could have an actual conversation and that's what occurred.

• 10:44Speaker 02

  And, and, and I don't agree with Candace still on a lot of stuff. And I almost feel like, like, why do I have to make that, you know, caveat as it relates to it? Because I never used to have to make that caveat. Going all the way back to the beginning of our conversation, how did it change? I truly believe that the level of vitriol, meanness and cruelty in our politics has always been there, but never like this. Never in a way in which it is, it is practiced with impunity. And, and that to me has, I mean, I think that I can market. Now, it's interesting that you say that, that your experience is that, that kind of

• 11:29Speaker 02

  division started in 2008, but nothing like this, Tucker.

• 11:34Speaker 01

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• 13:04Speaker 03

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• 13:45Speaker 03

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• 14:58Speaker 01

  Not even on partisan lines. I mean, the divisions are so intense. I always thought of divisions as racial or religious, you know, you're Protestant marrying a Catholic, you know, or black person marrying a white person. I feel like the divisions now are ideological and political and that's, I mean, this morning I texted Erica Kirk and Candace Owens, both within like an hour of each other, not related to each other, but just because I really like them both and I'm not embarrassed of that. And I've, and I, and that's my right, by the way. I get to like people, whether or not I'm fully aligned with their program, right? That's my view. Yeah. I've taken so much abuse for that. It's like, how could you be friends with two people who disagree with each other? Well, I don't know.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  I am, right?

• 15:44Speaker 02

  What world do we live in?

• 15:47Speaker 01

  Well, that's kind of how I feel. Yeah. That's strongly how I feel. First of all, I decide who I like. You don't get to decide who I like. Yeah. Don't you feel that?

• 15:55Speaker 02

  I do, and I, and I think that what it is, is it's a reflection of this, is that who are you getting that from? You're getting that from other people with, with, with niche audiences with big microphones in front of them. You're getting that from the comment section that I know you don't read, but other, but other people in your organization read from, you know, on X. You're getting that. I think we have literally been torn apart on purpose because not, not because it was that, I don't think that the people that created the social media platforms that rule our lives to this day, thought this is what we're going to do.

• 16:39Speaker 02

  We're going to create something just to tear people apart. What I think that they did was they created a monster in which they realized that it is fueled by division and vitriol and, and conflict and, and making you question yourself. I mean, let me give you an example. Remember that the whistleblower for Facebook, when I think Facebook was still Facebook, it happened like in 2022. She was a senior executive at Facebook and she came up to the Hill, and this is a nonpartisan thing. And she came up to the Hill and she had all of that documentation of internal studies within Facebook that showed that the, that there had been something like, and I forget

• 17:23Speaker 02

  the numbers, so don't hold me to it, but an exponential increase in the, the number of teenage suicides among girls between the ages of 13 and 17 years old. Exponential. That began with the inception of Instagram. And then, not only an exponential increase in actual suicides among teenage girls, but a even greater increase, like if that, if suicides went up triple, girls reporting self-harm went up by like 300% over the course of like a, the inception of Instagram until,

• 18:04Speaker 02

  you know, 2022, when this woman walks in with all the document. And Instagram knew that and knew that it was literally directly related to their algorithm. Sending these messages to girls that they are not worth, that they, they, they need more, that, that they, that they're, whether it's about their bodies or body shaming and continuing to send it over to the algorithm, knowing the negative impact that is happening, but it's because it made them money. It's because you become addicted to that, you know, that response and that, that Instagram would get with that bag of heroin in your pocket known as an iPhone.

• 18:48Speaker 02

  And you know what they did? Nothing. They buried the report. They literally did nothing. I mean, nothing. So my question, and then what happened? This woman whistleblower comes forward, she brings all of the evidence that, that, that Facebook, Meta knows about this. And she said, like, now what do we do about it? And you know what Congress did? Senate, House, no, you know what they did? Nothing. We have done absolutely nothing.

• 19:22Speaker 01

  Well, it's just suicides of our people. I mean, not a big deal.

• 19:25Speaker 02

  But that's what I'm trying to say.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  Bonkers.

• 19:27Speaker 02

  And, and, and as it relates to our politics is the same thing. We are being fed the, the, the equivalent of a suicide pact by organizations and companies that are run by, by the way, literally a handful of very, very, very, not just generationally, but wealthy people to the degree that we haven't seen since the robber barons, it's the turn of the, in 1900s and late 1800s. And those people, I'm not saying are evil, but what they have created is a tool. And a tool can be either a, a hammer can, can build a home or it can tear down a, your house.

• 20:08Speaker 02

  And they build a tool and they're make more money by tearing people down. They make more money by dividing people. They make more money and so they just let the algorithm rule. And it's, and it's tearing us apart. And I'm not saying that's the only problem. Not myopic enough to say that all of, all of the issues that we have, but going back to Donald Trump, because for me, the one existential threat that I think that we face as a country is Donald Trump. I am not this believer that Trump is a, is merely the symptom of a disease.

• 20:50Speaker 02

  I believe that Trump is, is, is central to why this disease has gone from a local epidemic to a pandemic in the, in the United States of America.

• 21:08Speaker 01

  It's not a defense of Trump to ask then, why on the big failures of the Trump administration, the real ones, the ones that, you know, history will record like this war, there's been no pushback from the other side at all.

• 21:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  So that tells you, I mean, I, you know, you could say lots of things about Trump are bad, but getting us into a war we can't win and which Americans are dying in Iran that will only diminish America's power and bankrupt us. I mean, that's the only exit really.

• 21:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:39Speaker 01

  And make Iran stronger. And like, no, no Chuck Schumer is like, yeah, it's bad. But of course he endorses like, the whole leadership structure endorses that. So like, can't really say, like, they like Trump now.

• 21:53Speaker 02

  Yeah. I don't know if they like Trump.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  Maybe it's like he's obnoxious or whatever, but he's doing what they want.

• 21:59Speaker 02

  I think it's a little bit of a, well, by the way, I, I don't disagree that, that there is an enormous failure, failure of the, of what I call the, the elite oligarch Epstein class of Washington DC.

• 22:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 22:17Speaker 02

  That are, that you and I both know.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  Very well.

• 22:20Speaker 02

  Yes. And that have, that are as interested in protecting their, their corporate overlords as they are in protecting anything. And I mean, just take like the, the, the issue of stock trading. Okay.

• 22:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:37Speaker 02

  My dad in, in 1972 took a vow that he would never own a stock or a bond. And he kept that vow since 1972 in over 50 years of public life. And he retired from the presidency as having probably the lowest net worth of anyone that had ever entered the presidency. And meanwhile, he got tagged with this idea that he, you know, is the Biden crime family and that, you know, all of, all of that crap. But my point being is this, is that how is it that we have not been able to pass a law?

• 23:14Speaker 01

  I couldn't agree more.

• 23:15Speaker 02

  And I know you do agree. But how is it possible? And it's not just Republicans.

• 23:20Speaker 01

  That pass a law that prohibits members of Congress.

• 23:24Speaker 02

  Yes, of course.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:25Speaker 02

  I mean, it's the most common sense thing in the world and to be in the administration too. It should be anybody with the access to the most valuable insider information of all. And meanwhile, not only are we not passing the law, Donald Trump is selling $100,000 early access to his true social tweets, which is just a front running for insider trading, literally in the open. And that's what I mean, that the quantitative qualitative difference of Donald Trump as compared to anything I've ever experienced in, in, in, in politics before

• 23:58Speaker 02

  is the sense that the rule of law is, is, is, is only, applies as a, as a weapon rather than as the prophylactic for, for the, the constitution to be able to operate in a way in which the founders envisioned it.

• 24:22Speaker 01

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• 25:50Speaker 00

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid and risked 350,000 Virginians healthcare to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  There's almost no arguing with your point. That's true.

• 26:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:24Speaker 01

  I would just say, I think it's been that way for a long time. And this is open now. It's open. It's just obvious. If you're selling truth, social access.

• 26:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, man. But it's like, we did like, come on. I saw this guy. There's this, there's this incredible guy on TikTok and he's a, the professor, but he goes, it's a, it's a red cup garage. He's like a, and he, have you ever seen this? Well, you don't have any of this. He explains things by using red solo cups.

• 26:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:57Speaker 02

  And he, he has this thing, everybody go look at it. It's all of the money that every president, and of the 45 that came before Donald Trump made in the presidency. Okay. And it's four blue solo cups. Okay. And then all of the money that Donald Trump has openly said that he made in his financial report in the first 500 days of the presidency. And it is over $3 billion and it takes the entire wall.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:33Speaker 02

  It's like, and.

• 27:34Speaker 01

  I mean, I, you can't argue that. I mean, presidents shouldn't make any money in office. Like, what is this?

• 27:39Speaker 02

  No. And by the way, this whole idea of a bunch of, and so that's what I mean by the qualitative and the quantitative difference. And the idea that, that there are still a group of people out there that voted for Donald Trump because they thought that they were going to be able to change things. You know, we talked about this a little bit and before we came on. But my hero, and I know that you are a, to, as it relates to, in, in public life, people that is one of them, with all of his faults, was Teddy Roosevelt.

• 28:11Speaker 01

  Great.

• 28:11Speaker 02

  And Teddy Roosevelt.

• 28:12Speaker 01

  I've got a signed picture of him over there to my great grandfather.

• 28:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. I, I, I got something for you, by the way. But the Teddy Roosevelt, by all accounts, came very close to abusing the power of the executive.

• 28:33Speaker 01

  Oh, you think?

• 28:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, you think.

• 28:34Speaker 01

  He certainly did.

• 28:35Speaker 02

  But he did it because he realized that in order for this experiment to be able to continue, you could not have a, a, a unfettered oligarch class.

• 28:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 28:49Speaker 02

  That drained all of the wealth of a country and put it into their pockets while the other 99. Now, by the way, and people don't understand this, I'm not talking 1%. I'm talking the point 01%.

• 29:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 29:07Speaker 02

  There are only nine thou, like a little over 9,000 families in this country who are billionaires. Out of 350 million people, you know what the, the, I, this is shocking to me. You know what puts you in the top 1% of incomers in this country?

• 29:25Speaker 01

  No.

• 29:26Speaker 02

  Annual? $750,000.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  That's the top 1%?

• 29:30Speaker 02

  1%. So the people that I'm talking, I'm not talking about taxing or redistributing wealth among the top 1%. I'm not talking about it even in the top 0.5%, which would be like $10 million. I'm talking about the 0.01%. Literally about a little under 10,000 individuals in this country that control and that have almost like 40% of the entire wealth of a nation who decide.

• 30:03Speaker 01

  9,000 families have 40% of the entire.

• 30:05Speaker 02

  I think, somebody do the numbers for me. I probably screwed that up completely. But in an ordinate amount of the, of, of the entire considered wealth of this country.

• 30:16Speaker 01

  Well, you can't have democracy under those circumstances.

• 30:18Speaker 02

  No, you can't. And Teddy Roosevelt knew that. And what he did is he went out and he used the power of the executive to be able to go out and bust the trust and, and redistribute that wealth. It was called it the square deal. And then he used the power of the executive to do things that are, every single one of us still benefits from today, which is for instance, the national park system.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:40Speaker 02

  The entire national park system was the, was the brainchild of one person, as it related to one island, which was Audubon. And he came to Teddy Roosevelt and he said, hey, look, we're losing a, this magnificent place, this island off the, in the, in the Gulf, off the coast of Florida. And it, because it has, it's a bird habitat that has, I don't know, like, like half the species of wild birds. And he comes to Teddy Roosevelt and Teddy Roosevelt just goes out and he says, okay. And he turned it into the first national park, I think. And, and then he went out and he did that across the country. I mean, can you imagine doing that today?

• 31:25Speaker 01

  No.

• 31:26Speaker 02

  No. And, but you, can you even imagine the people in, not the people, Donald Trump having a thought about using the power of the executive to benefit anyone but himself first?

• 31:46Speaker 01

  No.

• 31:46Speaker 02

  No, and that's the thing.

• 31:48Speaker 01

  But I also look back on the last 25 years, 20 years anyway, and I can't really think of many big executive initiatives that like benefited the majority.

• 31:57Speaker 02

  No, neither do I, and that may be a question about the the unitary executive and the and and but no one has ever done it in a way in which the there, you know, where literally, I believe that everything that he has done, it contains not just a, you know, an underlying current of how does it benefit him personally, it is the first thought of everything that he does.

• 32:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's true.

• 32:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  The problem I have with focusing on Trump, and I'm trying not to be defensive because obviously I campaigned for Trump and with Trump and spoke at the Republican National Convention and defended Trump for a decade on Fox News, so I'm definitely implicated in it, obviously.

• 32:40Speaker 01

  But it's not just defensiveness, I think two things, one, focusing on Trump as the source of all evil in the world drives you crazy, like I saw that happen to my neighbors.

• 32:49Speaker 02

  I don't believe that, just, you know, I don't believe that he is the source of all evil.

• 32:52Speaker 01

  Right, but you know, people who feel that way, who literally, I've I had one of my closest friends went off the deep end.

• 32:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:57Speaker 01

  Just like, ah, Trump, and all of a sudden Trump's under the bed and it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, it's monomania.

• 33:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:03Speaker 01

  But I also think it's it's like.

• 33:05Speaker 02

  He was under my bed. Just.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  Okay, that is funny. You win.

• 33:10Speaker 02

  Along with some of his his friends.

• 33:13Speaker 01

  That is so good. But second, it's like exculpatory to the rest of us, it's like, I don't know, we I watched a lot of crappy stuff happen in DC when over the 35 years I lived there and I didn't even recognize it as crappy at the time, and we're all kind of implicated in this, we've had a lot of bad leaders, actually, or mediocre leaders, I don't know, we've had a flamboyantly corrupt leader like this, and we haven't ever, that's true, we've had a lot of low grade, kind of like, what's in it for me, leadership, and we tolerated it, and we celebrated things that were not impressive at all and pretended they were impressive and, oh, so brave and all, this is like, it was all crap, actually, we're kind of, this is the end of like a long cycle of mediocrity, that's all I'm saying.

• 33:58Speaker 02

  Okay, so I I I've owned up.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:00Speaker 02

  Okay, to, like, for instance, is, I I'm absolutely certain that my engagement in Washington DC, as, you know, when I took on Burisma, when my dad was vice president as client at the end of the year, is like, it was a stupid thing to do.

• 34:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:20Speaker 02

  You know, because I wasn't fully aware of the of what a swamp it was, and and the narrative that would be able to be spun, it was a, it was, it was a horrible idea. Now, I had my reasons, okay, but they're not good enough, I own that, I own the idea that I do believe that there is this revolving door in Washington DC that needs to be shut, in which people come in and out of administrations, we know them all.

• 34:47Speaker 01

  They're trading on access.

• 34:48Speaker 02

  And they're not bad people that are trading on access, I did not trade on access, you can look through 22 years of my, but I know this, I know that I received incredible

• 35:02Speaker 02

  privileges that no one else in the world, including to the point of my pardon, no, literally, there's no one else in the world that was in my position, that their father happened to have the authority and the power to do it, and I realize how privileged I I am.

• 35:19Speaker 02

  But I think that there is a, I think that there needs to be a reckoning with, if I'm willing to do that, I think that you, and I saw the the, and I, like, I like Thomas Massey, I like where where, and Marjorie Taylor Greene is going, I like that there are people that have kind of woken up to the, but a lot of, the reason that we're here is because of of Fox News, a lot of it has to do.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  Well, we're in a war right now because of that we're losing because of Fox News, I couldn't agree more.

• 35:58Speaker 02

  And so I I I just think that, I don't think that every problem this country faces is because of Donald Trump, I don't think that he is the, you know, the source of all evil, I don't even remotely believe that, I do believe this, though, we are at an inflection point in this country, whether you, it's because of the technology as relates to AI, and as it relates to our debt, and the fact that Donald Trump is responsible for what, 20% of the entire debt of the entire nation over the course of the, you know, since its inception?

• 36:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's bonkers.

• 36:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's bonkers.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 36:37Speaker 02

  And we are in desperate, desperate need of leadership.

• 36:41Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 36:42Speaker 02

  And so I am, I I want, I want to reach across to everybody and say, like, look, let's figure out what the things that we can agree on, instead of like pointing, you know, the, and constantly, and one of the things that I think that we can agree on is that we are, we have the exact wrong leadership at the exact wrong time.

• 37:05Speaker 01

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• 37:45Speaker 01

  a year, it's not just a loan, it's a true financial reset, we recommend American Financing, they're called America's home for home loans for a reason, so get out of credit card debt, I mean, it is just crazy to borrow money, no judgment, but it's just make any sense to borrow money at that rate, if you want out, call 800-685-5696, 800-685-5696, or visit americanfinancing.net/tucker. So I think you're kind of making my point, which is that, you know, finger pointing is unhelpful, except when we point fingers at ourselves, that is very helpful.

• 38:28Speaker 02

  Very helpful.

• 38:28Speaker 01

  Very important to say, that's kind of what I was inarticulately trying to express to you, which is like, it gets the rest of us off the hook to point to one guy and be like, it's all his fault, it's like, actually, it's all of our fault, including mine.

• 38:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  And I, you know, famously advocated for the Iraq War, and thought that was the last stupid thing I was ever gonna do, it turns out it wasn't, I advocated for all kinds of things that I now regret advocating for, um.

• 38:54Speaker 02

  Particularly the things that you said about me.

• 38:57Speaker 01

  This is deep regret. No, I do actually, I mean, I, yeah, I mean, I regret in the sense that as someone who has dealt with addiction, not quite as in exciting ways you did, but I've been there for sure, you know, extend grace to people who are out of their minds, like, you would think I would do that, I should have done that more, so I do, I do regret that, but no, what I'm saying is like, you look back and, like, I really thought that I could influence Trump.

• 39:27Speaker 02

  Talk about that.

• 39:28Speaker 01

  Not going into this war.

• 39:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, talk about, I think that that's a really interesting.

• 39:32Speaker 01

  No, I mean, that's, that's the core of it right there.

• 39:34Speaker 02

  Because you said, the things that you said about Trump after 2020, which are famously out there.

• 39:42Speaker 01

  Oh, when I got pissed in a text with the producer and then Fox News leaked that text.

• 39:46Speaker 02

  Out of context and all that, yeah, exactly, yeah, wonderful organization you worked for.

• 39:50Speaker 01

  Really ridiculous.

• 39:52Speaker 02

  And so, and, talk about how you came around in 2024, not as it relates to, like, you just knee jerk reaction to being opposed to Democrats, but what, why?

• 40:07Speaker 01

  Oh, no, it was a very specific trajectory, I was, I was, this is like such an impossible rich guy thing to say, but it's just a fact, I was in Europe with my kids.

• 40:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:16Speaker 01

  On the Med, the August of 2023, I think, and Mar-a-Lago got raided, and that was like, that was ridiculous, on a documents charge, really, and I'm from the city, so like, I know a lot about the document stuff, and it was like, transparently absurd, they're literally sending armed FBI agents into his bathroom, like, no, and so to me, what that said was, Trump is actually being persecuted by the uniparty, therefore, he is its sincere opponent, and my overriding feeling, since I wrote a whole book on this 10 years ago, is that the problem in Washington is that on the big questions of the economy and foreign policy, both parties agree, it's the agreement that is the threat, not the disagreement.

• 40:59Speaker 01

  So I thought that, and I thought, well, Trump is, they're trying to put him in jail on these nonsense charges, and they are not, they were nonsense, well, their nuclear secrets, that's not true, and I was like, so he clearly is their opponent, so I thought, and this is my sin, I can have an effect, and my goal, literally from that moment up until February 28th, was, I don't want to go with Iran, because I really saw that as the end of a lot of stuff, of the, well, the post-war order, which is kind of ridiculous, but compared to what, you know, I'm kind of against the post-war order, on the other hand, I'm not sure what follows will be better.

• 41:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:34Speaker 01

  So I was really focused on this Iran thing, and I knew that both parties report, Schumer's totally for it, Lindsey Graham's totally for it, they're all colluding against America to start this regime change war with Iran, and I was like, I'm gonna single mindedly focus on it, that's all I'm gonna do with my life, is I'm gonna, and I knew a lot of people in the Middle East, and I thought, oh, man, I can do this, and I realized on February 28th, first of all, I had zero power, okay, but it was mostly vanity, I was like, I have a mission, I can do this, and it was, it was, I overstated my own influence, like, dramatically, in a very embarrassing way, and my own importance, and like, I thought I could do things that, like, I had no control over any of this stuff, and I was humiliated

• 42:19Speaker 01

  correctly, I was humiliated in front of my wife, I was like, we're doing a good thing, and, and so, yeah, I was mad at Trump, but I was also really mad at myself, and so, that's, that's the story, and I, I've, I actually am really grateful I went through that.

• 42:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:36Speaker 01

  Because it puts your own power in context, you think like, you've got all this, you know, whatever, SWAT, and you have zero, none.

• 42:44Speaker 02

  So what next?

• 42:46Speaker 01

  I have no idea, but I.

• 42:48Speaker 02

  No, I mean, I mean, really.

• 42:49Speaker 01

  What, for me?

• 42:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, not, not just for you, but what next for all of us, like, I am.

• 43:01Speaker 02

  I've been out talking to people and completely different audiences, you know, across the board and, um, and the most significant reason of why I decided to go out and talk is that what I realize is that my experience is not only not unique, it's almost universal. Now, to the degree that my experience, my addiction, um, yeah, overwhelmed me is sometimes often exaggerated by virtue of how much attention has been paid to it. Uh, you know,

• 43:38Speaker 02

  it was two years of my life.

• 43:39Speaker 01

  Some people noticed.

• 43:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, some people noticed. Oh, yeah, exactly. God, it was awful. I mean, notice to the degree that, you know, my wife and I were living in, um, the hills in LA and we had this little place and, and I, it was just early in, in my recovery and, uh,

• 44:06Speaker 02

  Trump from the Oval Office invited in these right wing influencers, these MAGA influencers, um, online. And this is back in 2019 and, uh, and he started the Where's Hunter thing. And the next day, the New York Post printed an aerial photograph of the house that I live in, where you could stand on the street below to be able to look through the, the floor to ceiling windows. And a group of men with bullhorns and MAGA hats showed up at the door, banging on the door with my then pregnant wife, who was home alone, who literally fled

• 44:45Speaker 02

  the house. They chased her in a car and literally ran her off the road. And that was my experience for like a two-year period of time until my dad was elected. And then we got Secret Service and, and we'd, we'd, we'd left that house because we, in the middle of the night.

• 45:05Speaker 02

  And a, uh, and the next house we went to, they found us in this documentary filmmaker, ended up being like a, he wrote a whole scripted film. He parked a billboard truck.

• 45:16Speaker 01

  Where, in LA?

• 45:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, in LA, in Venice. I was right on South Venice Boulevard. He parked a, a, one of those digital billboard trucks in front of my house that ran all of the nude pictures of me smoking crack.

• 45:29Speaker 01

  Actually?

• 45:30Speaker 02

  For a week, straight. And then sat on the canal with bullhorns in a canoe and just shouted at my house over and over again for a week. Then we had to leave that house.

• 45:45Speaker 01

  Did you know him?

• 45:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. No, no, God, no. Some crazy guy, you know? I mean, he was not crazy. He was, you know, he then went on to make a, like a whole movie about me. Um, but anyway, my point-

• 46:00Speaker 01

  Did you see it?

• 46:00Speaker 02

  What?

• 46:01Speaker 01

  Did you see?

• 46:01Speaker 02

  No, I didn't. I did not see it. Do not go see that movie.

• 46:06Speaker 01

  Didn't know it existed, but the-

• 46:10Speaker 02

  But, um, you know, my, my point is that I have, um, the total exposure that I've had has given me this incredible gift. And number one is that, uh, by the, that transparency is that I don't have any more secrets and the secrets that, that I felt ashamed of, like just the word crack. Like, you know, I mean, it, it, it's so heavy. It shocks people. Um, all of the associations that people make out of, particularly of our generation.

• 46:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 46:47Speaker 02

  And, um, and, uh, to be able to speak about it openly. And what I've found is, is this deep connection with people. There's no wall between me and them anymore. And, uh, because they know all of my flaws. The ones that you would never want to show anyone. And, and they know I'm willing to talk about them. And in that, they're able to come up to me and say, I mean, everywhere I go, when I was, got off the plane in the airport, someone came up to me, told me about their, uh, their experience in recovery. Thanks for what I'm doing. You know, they're, uh, you know, they got, their brother just got

• 47:28Speaker 02

  arrested though, is in jail. You know, you gotta do something about the fentanyl deaths here. It's, it, everybody. And it's been an incredibly beautiful, beautiful experience. And I said to everybody, I said, I'll talk about the politics, but it's really the bait to be able to talk about the thing that connects us. And so, all the way back, sitting down with Candace, is that the thing that Candace and I were able to connect on, in, in a very human way, was her own experience, not personally, but with her family and, and addiction and the people that she loved. And I don't know anyone that hasn't been impacted by it.

• 48:08Speaker 01

  That's for sure.

• 48:09Speaker 02

  Yeah. And well, I guess what my point is, is that by starting there for me, I feel like, like our connection as it relates to it. I've known you've been sober for, for over, well over 20 years now.

• 48:22Speaker 01

  24 years this month.

• 48:23Speaker 02

  24 years this month. And, um, and, and so your, um, uh, your capacity to be able to understand it at that level and also at a family level-

• 48:38Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 48:39Speaker 02

  Is, makes it a lot easier to like, you know, see the, see the Hunter that you thought that you knew. Um, and I, I think, and by the way, I'm not putting words into your mouth.

• 48:49Speaker 01

  No, I think that's, that's a hundred percent true.

• 48:51Speaker 02

  But the thing for me is that with, with, with you, I, the transformation, not transformation, because it's not a transformation. Anybody that knows you realizes it's not a transformation.

• 49:05Speaker 02

  Is

• 49:09Speaker 02

  out on your own now.

• 49:12Speaker 02

  And not understandably, like anybody that has a job, being beholden to corporate structure.

• 49:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:20Speaker 02

  Fox News.

• 49:23Speaker 02

  Is that I, I feel as if that combined with the incredible ultimate betrayal, and what I mean by betrayal, of the, of the promise, the singular promise that was important to you as it related to Trump.

• 49:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 49:39Speaker 02

  That we would not get into the potential of ending up in a war, a, a

• 49:45Speaker 02

  World War III or another incredibly devastating, protracted war in that region. Uh, that would expand clearly, uh, with the entire, uh, global oil supply in jeopardy.

• 50:01Speaker 01

  It's so, it's so crazy. I cannot even believe it happened.

• 50:05Speaker 02

  Is that it has given, um, uh, an opening for us to be able to have a, a, a conversation that is more constructive about a way forward. That's my feeling.

• 50:18Speaker 01

  I strongly agree with that. You know, one thing that might make you feel a little better about your life is buying life insurance. Cause life ends and the last thing you want is to leave the ones you love hanging. There's nothing worse than that. If you're providing for a spouse or children or parents, it makes a lot of sense. In fact, it's your obligation to think about what would happen if you left. Well, life insurance for our partners at Ethos is a very easy way to solve that nagging problem. Ethos makes the process super fast and simple. It's a hundred percent online. You get a quote in seconds. You apply in minutes. And in some cases you get coverage the very same day. There is no medical exam. You just answer a few simple health questions, nothing too invasive. You can get up to $3 million in

• 51:00Speaker 01

  coverage. Some policies start as low as 30 bucks a month. Ethos also has a 4.8 out of five-star rating on TrustPilot. Over 4,000 reviews. That is pretty good. So for 10 minutes investment, you can figure out if Ethos is the right plan for you. You get a free quote today at ethos.com/tucker. Ethos, T-H-O-S.com/tucker. Application times and rates obviously vary, but we think they're pretty darn good. And always my, I mean, I've certainly talked about you and all the drama that you went through a lot. I have really only one question, one thing that has bothered me for years now.

• 51:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:41Speaker 01

  Eight years or whatever, six years, whatever it's been. Um, and so I just want to ask you directly about it. So the laptop comes out or doesn't come out. I hear that it's in circulation. I get calls from people in that kind of shadowy way that you're familiar-

• 51:54Speaker 02

  Way before, right?

• 51:56Speaker 01

  I can't, you know, I can't remember.

• 51:57Speaker 02

  Anyway, yeah.

• 51:58Speaker 01

  So much drama has happened, but you know, if you're in the news business or politics, like you, you know, people call you, there's this thing, you hear everything all the time and like, how much is true? You don't know. I heard about the laptop and um and then I heard, you know, so you don't know if it's real. And then I heard somebody calls me and goes, you're on the laptop. And because you had written a letter of recommendation for college for my son.

• 52:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:24Speaker 01

  Who didn't end up going to the school or even getting in, whatever. It didn't help, it turns out.

• 52:28Speaker 02

  Thanks.

• 52:30Speaker 01

  But anyway, I knew that it was real because who would, who would know that we knew each other?

• 52:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:35Speaker 01

  Right? No one, no one could fake that. And that are wise friends and all stuff. So um, but it's Washington, you know, everybody there. So then I hear this story about how, then the official story comes out about how the laptop was left. You left a couple of laptops in a laptop repair store in Greenville, Delaware, which I'm a town I'm very familiar with. So, and the guy was blind. Then I interviewed the guy who seemed to totally believe the story, John McIsaac. I mean, he seemed to be telling the truth. But the story did not make sense. Meanwhile, I'm getting, we get approached by Israelis connected to Benjamin Netanyahu. Like, I know that.

• 53:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:14Speaker 01

  Who are shopping this stuff to me at Fox News.

• 53:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:18Speaker 01

  And I'm like, I don't think that that part of the story, the laptop is real. I thought that from day one. But the way that it entered the bloodstream.

• 53:28Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 53:28Speaker 01

  American media was not real. So I just want to ask you point blank, did you drop off laptops?

• 53:32Speaker 02

  No. And this is the thing that I've said over and over again. I have literally zero recollection or memory of ever dropping off a laptop at John Paul McIsaac's. No, the answer is no. And John Paul.

• 53:44Speaker 01

  That's wild.

• 53:45Speaker 02

  So John Paul McIsaac, who's legally blind.

• 53:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 53:48Speaker 02

  Who on the day when the laptop became public, sat in, outside of his shop and gave an interview and flat out says that he doesn't remember seeing me. He couldn't identify me. And also that his security cameras that he has don't have any footage from that time. And so regardless, though, regardless of anything, just this, the laptop, according to Lev Parnas, under oath in his testimony before the House Oversight Committee, was being sought by Rudy Giuliani in Ukraine in, all the way back in 2018. And so Rudy Giuliani

• 54:31Speaker 02

  is working with a guy named Andrei Derkach, who was a MP in Ukraine and a known Russian GRU agent. So Rudy goes over there and basically takes his dossier and receives information that Hunter Biden's hard drive, not laptop, is for sale. And, and the person that they can go to is this other Ukrainian Russian oligarch who is living in Austria. That's what Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman were doing, getting on the plane before they were arrested.

• 55:06Speaker 01

  So how did this?

• 55:07Speaker 02

  Before John Paul McIsaac was ever a twinkle in anybody's eye.

• 55:11Speaker 01

  I believe that. The story, that was always the weak part of the story. Like,

• 55:16Speaker 01

  he drops off laptops.

• 55:17Speaker 02

  So even John Paul McIsaac, okay, from, there is no such thing as a laptop. The laptop that he turned, eventually turns over a year later, 18 months later to the FBI. The thing that he, that is distributed and disseminated, that John Paul McIsaac claims that he got off of a device, was a hard drive. And that hard drive had a limited amount of information. A limited amount of like gigabytes. I don't know the difference between a gigabyte and a whatever. And that goes into the hands, he, he somehow can't find anybody. You, you could, you, you can't throw a stone in Trolley Square without hitting someone that is, that knows me personally.

• 56:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 56:03Speaker 02

  And he knows that. He's lived there his whole life. Instead, what he finds through this guy, Applebaum, and is Rudy Giuliani's lawyer, Bob Costello. He turns over this hard drive. The hard drive becomes the platform from which all of the other stolen information from, which by the way, every single, you know, forensic expert has made it clear, is that there's no possible way, all of the information that was eventually labeled as my laptop, came from one laptop. It's like the, it's way too large.

• 56:44Speaker 01

  Came off the cloud.

• 56:46Speaker 02

  Exactly. They hacked my cloud. They, there's a, I read about this in this book. So on Substack, I'm, I'm like laying all of this out. And, and there's a whole, you know, the NDI, the whole thing about, there's these different silos. There's the Netanyahu style, the Israeli side, there is a Russian Ukrainian side of it. And then there are the US actors that include Steve Bannon, Rudy Giuliani, Miles Gao, and a whole bunch of, you know, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman and all of these guys.

• 57:25Speaker 01

  Well, once the material starts circulating, the data from the cloud.

• 57:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:30Speaker 01

  You know, all kinds of people get involved and they're shopping it for different reasons. And I agree.

• 57:34Speaker 02

  Yes. And so, but my point is.

• 57:36Speaker 01

  Who stole it?

• 57:37Speaker 02

  Well, from the cloud?

• 57:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:39Speaker 02

  Well, I don't know. You have as good a guess as mine in terms of actually who, who was the original hacker of that information, who has the capacity to be able to do it. And so, you know, I, I have my.

• 57:51Speaker 01

  But you don't have evidence.

• 57:53Speaker 02

  I don't have a, a forensic, a digital forensic evidence that it was hacked by this person, or this entity, or this organization, that it was Mossad, or that it was the GRU, or that it was, or that it was some kid in his basement and, you know, that, you know, figured it out. But here's the point. Overall, here's the thing, is I get caught in these conversations about all of this. But the reality is this, of what was distributed that was authentic, it's all mine. All those emails.

• 58:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I know.

• 58:30Speaker 02

  And you know what? You know what not a single one of them proves? Of any criminality of my father whatsoever, of any way in which I ever sent an email saying, hey, Dad, I need you to get this done on behalf of a client of mine. Now, I think that's dispositive. And I challenge anybody, because it's all out there. The entire digital footprint. And I'm not just talking about my emails. I'm talking about, or 20 years of emails. I'm talking about 20 years of text messages. I'm talking about erased voicemails. Like, deleted voicemails, deleted photographs.

• 59:07Speaker 01

  They don't actually delete, is what you're saying.

• 59:09Speaker 02

  They clearly don't. I mean, voicemails from my dad to me. But that's not the only voicemail that was out there. There, but not a single one of them in which I say, hey, when my dad is in office or in power as vice president or president, in which I say, hey, Dad, I need you to do this for me. Or, or even contacting one of his staffers. So either I'm incredibly, incredibly, incredibly good at, you know, inactive addiction as a crack addict, or it doesn't exist. It truly, literally doesn't exist. The entire narrative of the Biden crime family. I mean, I literally, unlike anybody else, is like, I say to everybody, okay, show me your phone. Because I showed you mine, and you didn't find a goddamn thing.

• 59:53Speaker 02

  Not one thing. Every investigative body in the United States of America has investigated me for over 10 years at that point. And not one single thing of criminal activity other than use of drugs. And all of the things that are, that are associated with, with, with addiction is proved by the laptop.

• 1:00:16Speaker 01

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• 1:00:56Speaker 01

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• 1:01:16Speaker 01

  When did you find out that the contents of your digital life were in circulation?

• 1:01:22Speaker 02

  That day that the New York Post released it.

• 1:01:25Speaker 01

  You had no idea?

• 1:01:26Speaker 02

  No idea. None.

• 1:01:28Speaker 01

  What were you doing that day? How'd you find out?

• 1:01:30Speaker 02

  So it was like two weeks before the election, right? October.

• 1:01:36Speaker 01

  So up until the day, you had no clue because the FBI had the material.

• 1:01:39Speaker 02

  None. No clue. Zero. Zero.

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  I'm sorry, I stepped on your answers. What were you doing that day when you found out?

• 1:01:48Speaker 02

  I was with Melissa and Beau was, let's see, about eight, six months old. And a friend of ours, we were in LA and a friend of ours said, hey, come out to Palm Springs.

• 1:02:07Speaker 02

  I got a Airbnb on like a golf course there and it's really cool. You guys have never been out there. And it's like, we're in the home stretch now. It's like, you know, I have survived the, I mean, because even before the laptop, remember, I mean, they were beating the shit out of me. That's when Donald Trump was doing the Where's Hunter thing. I didn't have any, you know, security like I don't have today, but I didn't have then is, you know, it was just me and Melissa and a baby. And anytime we went outside the house is like people would follow us everywhere. And, and not just to follow us, but to harass us. And because Donald Trump was going to his rallies and his big line was, and they were selling shirts, Where's Hunter?

• 1:02:50Speaker 02

  So everybody felt it was incumbent upon them if they supported Trump and MAGA to find Hunter, you know, to go and find Where's Hunter?

• 1:02:59Speaker 02

  And so we drive out to Palm Springs and we get there and we unpack, you know, I put my bag in the room and there's like a little plunge pool out of the back of this little house. And, and I get a call and it's a friend of mine who was also my lawyer at the time. And he said, some guy saying that New York Post is saying somebody has your laptop?

• 1:03:29Speaker 02

  And you know, it took me years to piece it all together. And so one of the things that I, I've done over the course of the last seven years, other than paint, which became literally the, I've always painted, but it was literally the thing that saved my life. It just allowed me to focus and occupy my hands in a productive way in which I felt that I was

• 1:03:55Speaker 02

  creating and also allowed me to get out of myself and not be consumed by the, by the shame and of, of, of my addiction and all the failings

• 1:04:12Speaker 02

  that I perceived in myself at that moment in time, which you know, in early addiction and not just through your own experience, but through the experience of watching others is a really tenuous time. And, and I've done a lot of writing and, and it took me a long time to figure this out. Like what happened? How did this and who was involved? And there's all of these names and there's like a, you know, a list of 20 Russian names and 20, you know, I mean, all of this stuff. And, and so I decided on Substack. What I could do is I could basically do the first draft of that and get the audience potentially to participate and give me more information. So I'm doing that on Substack now.

• 1:04:56Speaker 02

  And the thing about it is this, is that it was a complete and utter surprise to me. I had like, we had, I was, you know, a little over a year into my, into my recovery. I kind of made it through the, that like what I thought that was the worst of it. And then we were just literally thrown in the middle of it. And the worst thing happened was, is that because they were nude pictures, and this is the only reason that Twitter took them down and Facebook took them down, is they violated their own internal rules as it relates to revenge porn.

• 1:05:35Speaker 02

  You're not allowed to publish nude photographs of anyone without their consent, no matter what, for, for whatever reason. And so that's why on the front page of the New York Post and the story associated on the digital with all of the links, were like a ton of nude photos with me, of me. I'm just barely blurred out of the women that were in it all. Consensual, legal, all those things, which of course they don't make that point.

• 1:06:11Speaker 02

  And, and that's why they took it down. But then that became the story. You know, the suppression and this idea that 40 former intelligence officers said it all. It had all the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign. No one in that 40, regardless of what you think of them.

• 1:06:31Speaker 01

  Not much.

• 1:06:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know you don't, but no one in that 40 ever said that the laptop wasn't real. But that's what everybody on the right decided to say.

• 1:06:40Speaker 01

  First of all, you know, the intel people are the most dishonest people in our society.

• 1:06:45Speaker 02

  By the way, I'm not going to argue on behalf of anybody. All I know is let's just stick to me.

• 1:06:49Speaker 01

  No, but I'm just saying like, the point of that statement was to suggest that the contents were not real.

• 1:06:56Speaker 02

  Well, you may think that, but it definitely did not say that. And all I know is this.

• 1:07:01Speaker 01

  When it was.

• 1:07:02Speaker 02

  It became completely out of my control. So therefore now I was not arguing about what was on it. Remember what Rudy Giuliani did? He went to the, the, literally the courthouse steps in Newcastle County with Bernie Kerik and he held a laptop, which there's no existing laptop. He had taken a hard drive or a thumb drive and put it and pretended like there was a laptop. And the one thing he said was this contains images of minor children,

• 1:07:33Speaker 02

  which bullshit. I mean, an absolute, complete and utter effing lie. And that's what he did. Because you know what it didn't have on it? It had no evidence and they had it for over a year at this point. It had no evidence of anything other than I was a drug user. But the problem was, and not only drug user, crack addict. And the problem was, is that I had gone about nine months before and I had done an interview with The New Yorker. And I admitted everything as it relates to my addiction. It was probably one of the smartest decisions I made. Not in conjunction with anybody, but literally me and Melissa sitting there. And I said, I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell this guy everything. I have to get it off my chest.

• 1:08:17Speaker 02

  I can't have this hanging out there as, as we, my dad moves through a presidential campaign. And let the chips fall where they may. And it totally scooped them. And, and so what they had to do is create another narrative around it that is evidence of corruption. So when anybody says Hunter Biden, what's your first thought? Laptop, you know?

• 1:08:40Speaker 01

  Can I just say one thing though, that this is what I experienced during that time? The allegation that there was abusive minors proven on the laptop, that came from the Israelis. I'm just telling you that. They came to me with that. So I know that. And one of the things that enraged me about the statement from those sleazy intel guys is that they blame the Russians for it. Now, maybe the Russians had a hand in it, but it was the Israelis who were pushing that fact, fact. I mean, literally to me. So.

• 1:09:08Speaker 02

  And you've gone through it.

• 1:09:09Speaker 01

  But they're all such sleazy Israelis.

• 1:09:11Speaker 02

  Is there anything, I just, I want to clear with, with your entire, like, you know, not a single thing in my, anything that is in any way true about that?

• 1:09:21Speaker 01

  Well, that's such a serious crime that I think it's just common sense that if there was evidence of that.

• 1:09:28Speaker 02

  You think that is common sense? But I'll tell you what, about, about 40 million people on, on X don't think that. You know, I mean, it's like.

• 1:09:36Speaker 01

  There was an abusive minors in there? If there was evidence of abusive minors?

• 1:09:40Speaker 02

  You know how many people call me a pedophile to this day? Anyway, I'll, I'll spare you. But I'm not, but I agree with you. That's exactly right. And you know, it's.

• 1:09:52Speaker 01

  But they were pushing that so hard and all the intel guys are like, oh, it's Russia. It's like, you lie. You lie. Cause they called me, I sent one of my producers out to go meet with one of, guy connected to Netanyahu. They were, they were behind that. And I felt that everybody in DC knew that, but there was so much pressure never to criticize Israel in any way that they were just like, it's the Russians, it's the Russians. They're, they're the ones penetrating our political system. It's like, you lie. Everyone knows what's actually happening. That, this was my perspective and it drove me insane. And by the way, I didn't say that on Fox News. I'll admit it. I didn't.

• 1:10:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:30Speaker 01

  I didn't. You're right. I just want to say I was part of the problem also, but I knew it.

• 1:10:34Speaker 02

  But that's the thing, Tucker.

• 1:10:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I agree.

• 1:10:37Speaker 02

  Is it, I, so, so we're here now.

• 1:10:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, I didn't say we see Israelis.

• 1:10:42Speaker 02

  No, I'm saying, what I'm saying, but we're here now.

• 1:10:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:46Speaker 02

  And that's one of the reasons why, just on a purely selfish basis for me, is that like, I don't know how you could possibly have thought that of me. And by not saying it, I thought that you thought that of me. I mean, it was one of, it's like, it's like,

• 1:11:01Speaker 02

  I'm, I am, it is.

• 1:11:03Speaker 01

  Thought that the child molestation thing?

• 1:11:04Speaker 02

  Or whatever. Yeah. Like all of the stuff that they were saying, or any of it. You know what I mean? Like the, the.

• 1:11:10Speaker 01

  Well, people addicted to drugs, especially cocaine, I know, free fact, get pretty dark. That's just a fact. They do. They do. They definitely do in it.

• 1:11:19Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:11:20Speaker 01

  And the cocaine thing.

• 1:11:21Speaker 02

  By the way, it's all there.

• 1:11:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:23Speaker 02

  You can watch it all.

• 1:11:24Speaker 01

  I guess I don't need to tell you that.

• 1:11:25Speaker 02

  You can see the hotel rooms.

• 1:11:26Speaker 01

  You're not the only person I've seen this.

• 1:11:28Speaker 02

  Exactly. But there's a big difference.

• 1:11:30Speaker 01

  It screws up your sex thing.

• 1:11:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. There's a big difference between that and, and the reality of what's out there, which is the worst thing that you can possibly say about any, and that's my point. My point is, is that I thought I was over it. I was in Palm Springs. I was there for about three hours. It was the first time that Melissa and I had gone away because remember you're, we're still in that kind of COVID period and people. And so we're, we're out there and I get this call and I'm, and it just like,

• 1:11:58Speaker 02

  your whole world kind of like, you know, you just like, this kind of void opens up and you just like think that you're about to get sucked into it. Because what's the worst thing that you could ever say about someone, in my opinion, is that?

• 1:12:14Speaker 01

  Oh, definitely.

• 1:12:15Speaker 02

  Reality that you're, and that's what Rudy Giuliani was saying. And, and.

• 1:12:21Speaker 01

  Were you ever close to going back on drugs during this period?

• 1:12:26Speaker 02

  No, no. And, and because I knew this.

• 1:12:31Speaker 02

  Is that I

• 1:12:35Speaker 02

  I don't want to give people the impression that it's not available to them that that but it was a miracle. The miracle of my life at that moment, despite that, despite all of these

• 1:12:52Speaker 02

  consequences, like, like, just not, not, I mean, landing like nuclear bombs in my life.

• 1:13:02Speaker 02

  Is that I was in a better place and continue to be in a better place than I've ever been in my life. As I would think, you know, I've been stripped to the bone. There's nothing, there is no, there was no facade, like, you have to, the entirety of my ego was, was destroyed.

• 1:13:24Speaker 02

  Like, all of those things that you protect that out of fear, what you don't realize that they're out of fear. But almost all of them are out of fear. It's like what you're talking about.

• 1:13:35Speaker 02

  The vanity. Yeah. Of believing that you could change the course of the, of, of, of administration of history of being there and that you could overlook all of the things that, that, that you know of him in order to save the world. Like, that's a beautiful thing to hear someone admit to be, being that introspective to be able to do that. In the same way, I was so emasculated that I had to make a decision to live or die. And in the living, I had to live in that, in that, that emasculation. That

• 1:14:13Speaker 02

  completely stripping of ego. And, and it didn't, it wasn't instant, and it wasn't like I woke up the next morning and didn't think like the sun would ever come up, which I kind of felt. Yeah. But then Bowie woke up.

• 1:14:30Speaker 02

  You know, and it was a little nine month old or six month old at the time. And I look at this amazingly magnificent woman that has saved me. That is lying there. And and I thought, you know what? I have to choose to live.

• 1:14:53Speaker 02

  Like, like, like, I, I want this life.

• 1:14:59Speaker 02

  I want this love. I don't want to be afraid. I'm going to choose to live. And I would, and then it just became a matter of moment by moment, having to make that choice at the beginning. Your wife and get sober. I know. It's crazy story. And I write, I wrote about it and I, like, I said that if any of my children came to me and, and and told me this story, I would probably have them committed.

• 1:15:26Speaker 02

  But it was truly love at first sight. Yeah, a long story that, that I've written about, but

• 1:15:33Speaker 02

  and I was in active addiction and staying at a hotel and

• 1:15:39Speaker 02

  Where? At the Petite Hermitage in, in West Hollywood at the time. I know well. Hotel, yeah, yeah. And I was at the pool. I got kicked out the next day, but On the roof? On the roof. And and this, these two people sat down next to me where I was alone, I was reading a book.

• 1:16:01Speaker 02

  And they struck up a conversation as the pool kind of filled up during the day. And at one point, they turned to each other. No, I never met them before. I said, you have to, you have to meet our friend Melissa.

• 1:16:16Speaker 02

  And I said, sure, sure. And

• 1:16:20Speaker 02

  and I had no intention of meeting anyone. I'd gone to LA basically to, to, to to choose the coward's way out of, of suicide, which was, I knew that the drugs and drinking would eventually take me. And and I had broken all contact with anyone that cared for me or loved me. And they called every day and I just didn't answer. Now, and I'm sitting there, and it was incredibly, incredibly dark moment in my life and the darkest.

• 1:16:56Speaker 02

  And for some reason, I did this thing. I said, yeah, yeah, just give me your number. I'll call. Because they insisted, they insisted, they insisted that I call this, this woman. And I said, I can remember any number. If you tell me a number, I can remember it. And, and of course, I, I can't remember the number, but it was my way of getting out of the situation. And I had left my book there. So like, two hours later, I came back to pick up my book. On the chaise longue, and the woman said, what's the number?

• 1:17:30Speaker 02

  And I said, and she said, I knew you were lying. And she had a pen in her hand and she wrote it on my, on my hand. And that night, I was taking a shower and I didn't, I didn't, I can, the difference between nine o'clock at night and 2:30 in the morning, I, I mean, I literally was staying up 10 days at a time. I mean, it was, it was awful. And and, and I'm about to wash this off my hand. I think

• 1:18:00Speaker 02

  I should probably really call this woman.

• 1:18:03Speaker 02

  So I texted that number and I said, hey, your friends gave me your number. Would you like to get a drink? At 2:30 in the morning? 2:30 in the morning. And the response I got back was, I'm paraphrasing, but it was like, who the F is this? And it's 2:30 in the morning. No. And

• 1:18:24Speaker 02

  and for some reason, I, in the, in the morning,

• 1:18:30Speaker 02

  I felt like that was really, that's rude to do to a woman. Like, it's not just like funny, like you made a mistake or like that you, like, that, that was really rude. And I don't know where that it came from in me, the, the the feeling that I needed to apologize and say, I would, I would like to buy lunch. I didn't realize the time I and, and she had no idea who I was. I mean, none. And except for her friends met this guy at a pool. And so she says that they said, you really need to go meet him. And she said she'd be over for lunch. And then it was one o'clock and then it was two o'clock and then it was, you know, she'd be there in half an hour. And then it was four o'clock and then it was six. And finally, sometime in the early Anything about this?

• 1:19:15Speaker 02

  What? Nothing. Literally nothing. Just your first time? Yeah. And that's it. Nothing. Not a picture, not anything. And

• 1:19:27Speaker 02

  I walk up and now I'm over at the Sunset Marquis, which is up the hill because every hotel I'd say, I didn't want to do anything wrong. It was just like the, the cast of characters that would be in and out of my room, they decided that, you know, in the morning, they, Mr. Biden, we don't have another, we don't have availability. Hotel looks empty to me.

• 1:19:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, and so I had moved to, over to this other hotel. And this, when I still had a little bit of money to be able to pay hotel bills and I wasn't in the, you know, the super eight. But I walk up and there's this outdoor seating area and I see this woman. And she was wearing a denim shirt, just like this.

• 1:20:11Speaker 02

  And I walk up to the table and I know this sounds melodramatic and like I'm making it up, but I looked in her eyes. And I, and I saw eyes that saw me.

• 1:20:25Speaker 02

  And I said, I know that this sounds crazy.

• 1:20:32Speaker 02

  But I'm in love with you.

• 1:20:35Speaker 02

  That's the first thing you said to a woman you'd never met before? The first thing. And, and again, I know it sounds crazy. Yeah.

• 1:20:45Speaker 02

  And, and the craziest part is though, the miracle of it is, is that she didn't run. She saw through me. I mean, she saw it not through me, she saw me. And within three hours, I had told her everything that I had not told the people that tried to love me back into existence for, for the, the previous two years. She literally was, I said, I said, about two hours in, I said, I have a, I'm addicted to crack cocaine. Like, I'm, I'm, I'm killing myself. She said, that ends today.

• 1:21:26Speaker 02

  And it didn't end that day. It ended, the crack ended within a week and then the alcohol, yeah. And the alcohol ended within, within like 20 days. That tapering. In June, I count June 1st as my serenity date. And, you know, from that moment, I said that to her. We were married 10 days later. That's one of the craziest truths I've ever heard in my life. And it, and it remains a miracle. You know, my daughters and there's nothing that I love more in the world than, than them and the

• 1:22:06Speaker 02

  and, and they spent, I always say, the greatest sin of my addiction was my absence from my children. As you know, the one thing about, my dad always taught me about is that they're being available is, and, and during a time in their life when they love their Uncle Bo, they love their Uncle Bo as much as I loved them. And he was like a second father to them. And in his, and after Bo died, and then they, they lost me for a period of time. And there's enormous trauma in that. And my point about talking about the girls is that, like,

• 1:22:49Speaker 02

  I don't, like, my father, my family, my sister, my uncle, my aunt, my Aunt Valerie, the, my mom, you know, they all tried to save me. I mean, they, I have, I have the most incredible family in the world. But it took a stranger

• 1:23:07Speaker 02

  to see the love left in me.

• 1:23:13Speaker 02

  And, and I don't know why, but it was, it to me, and I love to think of it this way, by the way, that it was a miracle, that there was something divine about it. And, um, and I'm a, I'm a firm believer in that, in the, in, in that faith, that sometimes the things that we cannot explain are God acting in our life in a way in which it might as well, uh, that it tried to get to us in every other way possible. And then finally they have to smack you over the head with, with a hammer.

• 1:23:52Speaker 01

  Yes, I believe that so strongly. That is true. It's a fact.

• 1:23:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. And for me, that is the truth about all of this, is that I think that I've been given a gift.

• 1:24:06Speaker 02

  And the gift of my addiction that brought me to that point where it could totally break me, not for me to go out and aggrandize myself in a way in which I tell a different story than what actually happened, but to tell the actual story. That's why I hate talking about the, the, you know, the, the laptop or this, or the, the, you know, defending myself. But the story that I get to tell is that there are such, there is such a thing as redemption. And that's not the outward redemption. This is not like some, I mean, this is the inward, that you can find the, the person that is worthy of love in yourself.

• 1:24:50Speaker 02

  All of the things and all of the mistakes that I made in my life. And when I, I don't mean, you know, all of the, the narrative that has been out there, but the mistakes that I've made in my life in terms of relationships, in terms of, you know, has, have all been based in fear. Fear not being enough, fear not, a fear of not living up to some expectation, fear of being found out, fear of being embarrassed. You know, I mean, everything from as something as trivial as like, you know, fear of, you know, asking the girl to dance.

• 1:25:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:25Speaker 02

  You know, and I drank over that and I used over that, or fear of, you know, the, of having to come to terms with the trauma of losing my mother and my sister, or facing it in any way, or fear of being found out that I, you know, like, that I'm not really as good as I think that I am, that I, that I, I, I am that person that people, you know, want to view as the, the privileged failed son that's never done anything with his life.

• 1:25:59Speaker 02

  And all of that fear is evaporated. It's not, not without fear. I still, but in a very different way. And there's no way that I could have gotten here without having gone through that. And that's the promise of, uh,

• 1:26:20Speaker 02

  of at least not picking up a drink or a drug today, is that maybe I can get there. I was saying to somebody, I was talking before, I don't think that there's anything that is, has more, um, uh,

• 1:26:36Speaker 02

  guidance in my life than the serenity prayer, is being able to really truly understand the things that you can change as compared to the things that you have no control over.

• 1:26:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:26:48Speaker 02

  And that's not about feeling powerless. But for instance, what it made me think of is what you just said.

• 1:26:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. I agree completely.

• 1:26:58Speaker 02

  And you, you have to.

• 1:26:59Speaker 01

  It's vanity to think that you can change certain, like you're in charge of the world now? You're God? I mean, no, you're not.

• 1:27:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. And there's that incredible, and I don't know if it's apocryphal or if it's true, that quote from Mother Teresa, in which she says, if, if you want to change the world, go home and love your family.

• 1:27:15Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:27:17Speaker 02

  And in loving my family, what I also realize is my family is much larger than my, um, uh, my immediate blood. And beyond just my just first circle of friends. My family is a, is a group of people that are still sick and suffering, that are literally to step out that door, that are, um, uh,

• 1:27:43Speaker 02

  that are, uh, that feel that there is no hope and no way out for them, and that they are caught in a cycle of degradation and demoralization and violence because of the drug or the alcohol, which is the worst, in my opinion, worst drug that there is.

• 1:27:59Speaker 01

  Alcohol.

• 1:28:00Speaker 02

  They're addicted. Yeah.

• 1:28:02Speaker 01

  I agree with that.

• 1:28:03Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, um, and, and, but it starts, you know, in the immediate, and then hopefully it radiates out. If it's done with sincerity and authenticity and, and you're not living a, a double life, you know, for whatever reason, you're not working on behalf of a corporate chill, you're not working on, I'm not, uh, I'm, I'm not pursuing a, um, a goal of which, you know, I, you know, I'm, I'm a consultant in Washington DC and I, you know, uh, you know, I mean, like, what, what, what, it was all bullshit. It was all bullshit.

• 1:28:44Speaker 02

  What was I adding to the conversation? What was I adding to the, um, to the, to the discourse? What, what purpose was, you know, any of, of that at the time? Um, I don't do that anymore. And that's why I'm an artist. And that's why I write. And that's why I'm speaking out. And that's why I, I work with an organization called Peak Path Health, which is a great rehab in, in LA, but I'm helping set up a foundation for them for aftercare. I work with an organization called Boston Universal, which does homeless prevention and, um,

• 1:29:18Speaker 02

  and tenants rights advocacy in, in LA. And that's not to say, oh, I'm such a good guy. I mean, because I get paid and, and I enjoy the work and I think that they're really good people. And I, and I write a Substack because I'm, I, I hope to get paid. I hope people go read it so that I can make a living. You know, I was telling you before, my, my, you know, uh, I really believe in cryptocurrency. I really believe in those things. I want to do something in that space. And, you know, not because of any other thing than I believe in it, but you know what? I also want to make some money.

• 1:29:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:52Speaker 02

  And that's my life now. I get to say that and say, but this is me. I'm not running for anything. You gave me a platform. I'm going to use it. And not only am I going to use it to benefit myself and my family, but hopefully benefit people along the way. And I would ask the same of you, which I think right now, and not, this is like, who am I to ask? Is that I think that we have such an opportunity

• 1:30:17Speaker 02

  to find common ground, to do this a different way. You are, if not the most, in my estimation, the most talented communicator of your generation. And whatever anybody has to say about you is that there is no doubt, is that you are a incredibly effective communicator, as is Candace, by the way.

• 1:30:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:30:43Speaker 02

  And I think that you have an opportunity to, uh, and this isn't like, you know, train all, uh, you know, ammunition on the administrative, I'm saying the opportunity to find that, uh, you know, common purpose.

• 1:31:00Speaker 01

  You wonder if it's, if it's in the.

• 1:31:02Speaker 02

  Without the vanity of it, and I mean it.

• 1:31:04Speaker 01

  Well, I, no, no, I strongly agree. I mean, we're here for a reason. And once you're past, once you get out of debt, it's like, what's the point of accumulating money? I really feel that's.

• 1:31:14Speaker 02

  And that's exactly the way I feel. Just get me out of the debt. And that's the other thing. People don't like, oh, you're not, you're like, I mean, millions of dollars that I owe, uh, you know, law firms and others and, and, um, yeah, anyway, so.

• 1:31:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know about that.

• 1:31:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:31:34Speaker 01

  But I, I wonder if like there, nothing you have said, you grew up in a very famous political family. I know you grew up in Delaware, but your world revolved around Washington. You went to school there. You live there.

• 1:31:48Speaker 02

  Went to college there, yeah.

• 1:31:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, went to college there. Um, you know, the political system really well. You've said nothing about it, basically. You haven't suggested a political solution to any of this. I don't think that's an accident because I think there probably isn't a immediate, I mean, you can make things better in the margins, but like the problems that people face are mostly not political problems.

• 1:32:11Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:32:12Speaker 01

  Right? So I think that we overstate the importance of like voting for this or that guy. I mean, to me, that's the lesson of Trump. Like I campaigned for the guy. There are things about him I still like. I don't think he's like, you know, he's complicated. Like everybody is complicated, but, but it didn't work. It didn't work. It didn't matter that you voted for him. You got the same thing that you're going to get if you voted for Kamala Harris. Like you, that's, that's my perspective on it.

• 1:32:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:32:38Speaker 01

  And so what does that tell you? It tells you that you're putting your faith in the wrong thing, which is in a political system, whereas there's got to be a real solution that begins with changing people's hearts. That's what I think.

• 1:32:49Speaker 02

  Exactly. Exactly. Because it, it comes from us. We're trying to find the problem out there.

• 1:32:58Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:32:59Speaker 02

  And it's here.

• 1:33:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're the problem.

• 1:33:02Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:33:03Speaker 01

  Right? No, I, I've, I've discovered that about myself.

• 1:33:05Speaker 02

  And so all the people out there that have such a problem with me sitting down with you or sitting down with Candace and like, what the, and like, I didn't, I'm not hard enough on you. You, you got to apologize for this and you got to do this. It's like, you know what? F them. Here's my, here's my point. It starts with us. Like, I'm not going to ever change. Chuck, I like, I like, I can get into the whole debate about the Democratic Party and whether you're not going to label something democratic, social or this. You know what I think? I like people who believe in what they, uh, have a conviction.

• 1:33:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:40Speaker 02

  And they, um, and, and they're honest about it.

• 1:33:43Speaker 01

  I totally agree.

• 1:33:44Speaker 02

  So I don't agree with everything that, uh, uh, Zohar Maldani does, but you know what? He has conviction. He has competence. And, you know, like, I mean, he balanced the budget. Crime is at a record low in New York right now. And regardless of what you think about him, is that like, so from a political perspective, I don't care if it's Zohar Maldani or Thomas Massey. And I don't agree with 90% of the stuff that, that, that in turn, well, I think I don't, but I don't think that matters in this moment in time. I don't think any of those labels matter in time. I want someone with the courage of their conviction.

• 1:34:22Speaker 02

  Principles that is, uh, uh, but it's all starts here. All starts here and everybody else can nitpick around whether, you know, all of the labels that we apply to each other and, and all of the vitriol and there has to be, like, I think there needs to be, you know, accountability for the people that are literally robbing us F and blind. That I think there will be accountability for that. I think that, but my point is, is in this moment, can we not all see that we are about to, uh,

• 1:34:56Speaker 02

  reach a point in, in the evolution of, of, of humanity? That is, uh, will be a larger step

• 1:35:06Speaker 02

  than in the, in, in the entirety of the existence of this earth.

• 1:35:09Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:35:10Speaker 02

  And like, so what does all of it matter? If you have people that drive me crazy like Elon Musk and every other person that has a, um, a hand in, which is a handful of them and what's happening with AI right now, telling us in, in

• 1:35:28Speaker 02

  easily within the next five years, if they haven't already done it, that we're going to reach AGI. And if we reach AGI, then we're not more than a, a, the maximum of another five years, more likely two or three away from super intelligence. Then once that happens,

• 1:35:48Speaker 02

  we literally have taken a step in the evolution of, of, of humanity and of, of, of humankind. And the largest singular step that will ever be taken in our, the exponential way in which things will advance from there is completely outside of our control. And the only thing that we can hope for is that we have leaders that are, that, that have humanity's best interest in mind. And I don't know if I can, why shouldn't I say I don't know? I do know. I think we have the exact wrong leadership at the moment.

• 1:36:23Speaker 01

  Totally agree. I saw vehemently. Do you know anybody in your life who you talk to who's like very excited about AI?

• 1:36:31Speaker 01

  Cause I don't, I don't really know anyone who's really for this. Who, where's the constituency for this? It seems like the population doesn't want it at all.

• 1:36:38Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, I, I don't know why anyone would want the, um, uh, want it in the way that it's being offered to us. Look, the, what the thing I say is this, it's not theirs.

• 1:36:50Speaker 02

  What they're building is off the back of the output of, of, in all of humanity.

• 1:36:58Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 1:36:59Speaker 02

  It's ours. It belongs to me. It belongs to me just as much as it belongs to a Sam Bushman in the Kalahari. It belongs to us from the moment that there was a cave painting that was put into a digital database. And the, in, in, in a context to the, the poetry of Shakespeare, to the book that you wrote to, um, uh, you know, to my last podcast, tape, uh, a transcript. That is what is AI. It's all of ours. Every scientific discovery, every single public dollar, all of it is, we own it.

• 1:37:38Speaker 02

  And we somehow are going to make like five or six individuals in, in this country, trillionaires?

• 1:37:47Speaker 02

  By allowing them to literally rob us of that and make it theirs and them decide? Like, do you trust Sam Altman to be the, to decide the fate of, of humanity or, um, or any of them for that?

• 1:38:01Speaker 01

  I, I've done, you know, thousands of interviews over 35 years and I've never had the feeling of wanting to run out of a room more strongly than I had when I talked to Sam Altman. So he's, he's, he's out of 350 million Americans, he's probably 350 millionth of who I'd trust.

• 1:38:19Speaker 02

  Yet.

• 1:38:19Speaker 01

  To control the future of humanity.

• 1:38:21Speaker 02

  Yet, yet here we are, right?

• 1:38:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:24Speaker 02

  Yet here we are and, and, uh, and, and you know what we're doing? Is I'm supposed to hate Tucker Carlson because he's an anti Semite and he's this, I know you're not, you're not an anti Semite. I'm 100% know you're not an anti Semite. Yeah. No, that's what my point being is that.

• 1:38:42Speaker 01

  I would just say so.

• 1:38:44Speaker 02

  My point being is, is that like, if it's anti Semitic to point out that Bibi Netanyahu is evil incarnate,

• 1:38:55Speaker 02

  then you know what? I don't know what to say to, I don't know what to say to people anymore.

• 1:39:00Speaker 02

  I mean, all you have to do is just open your eyes. Just literally open your eyes, open your heart for one minute.

• 1:39:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:07Speaker 02

  And realize, you know,

• 1:39:10Speaker 01

  That's such an obvious lie. It's like, who's even intimidated by that anymore?

• 1:39:13Speaker 02

  My point is, is like, how is it possible? That they're dividing us on things like that.

• 1:39:20Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 1:39:21Speaker 02

  And I can tell you how it's possible. It's the distraction that is being created by a handful of individuals and the people that work for them to keep us divided through our algorithm. And as much as you're not a, uh, addicted to, um, your phone because you're not on social media and things like that. The vast, vast, vast majority of us are, myself included, is everyone has a pocket full of heroin and they access it literally a thousand times a day.

• 1:39:55Speaker 01

  So you're saying you got off crack and more impressively alcohol.

• 1:39:58Speaker 02

  Yeah. No, I'm not, I'm not that bad. All I'm saying is.

• 1:40:01Speaker 01

  Not off your phone.

• 1:40:02Speaker 02

  No, no, I am. I, I, I'm very, I'm, I'm not nearly, um, uh, I'm very wary of it. I'm very wary of anything like that. But what I'm trying to say to people is that I'm no better than anybody else. I look at my phone just as, you know, as much as anybody else. I don't feel that it is necessarily a problem. But what I do find is like, for instance,

• 1:40:24Speaker 02

  is that you gravitate towards the negative things people say about you.

• 1:40:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:40:28Speaker 02

  Way more than you ever gravitate to the, to the beautiful things that people say about me.

• 1:40:32Speaker 01

  That is so true.

• 1:40:33Speaker 02

  So I'm on X and the amazing thing was, is that I, I go on X and I start talking about addiction, but I also start talking about, you know, the absurdity of the moment that we live in and some of the players that are, that are outsized characters in, in this, um, in this, uh, morality tale we're living through. And, and there's these beautiful messages from people about their own struggle and their own addiction. And you're, you, my sister, um, I showed my sister what you wrote about X, Y, or Z. And, you know, she said it gave her the strength to, to, to make it through one more day.

• 1:41:15Speaker 02

  And these beautiful things where people would say, hey, I'm a three time Trump voter, but I just want to say, keep on keeping on, brother. Like, I love you for your, you know, for your recovery. It gives me hope.

• 1:41:29Speaker 02

  And there's thousands of those messages. But you know what happens is that, you know, the, the one that catches your eye, the one that says, you know, you're, uh, you shut up, you, you know, you crackhead pedophile, you know, you're, you know, criminal and you stole from, and like, it's like,

• 1:41:47Speaker 02

  and it, and it was a great lesson for me and the experience that everyone is having, not just on X, but across the board in which we're all being, and, and it's, and it's purposeful. The thing that I never fully, um, uh, believed until I read all the, this whistleblower is how intentional it is. And as long as we're looking at each other, as long as we're trying to find all of the things that are wrong with our life in the other. And by the way, whether it's the other that's the immigrant or whether it's the other that's our neighbor,

• 1:42:23Speaker 02

  is we're not looking at ourselves. And we're not focused on the things that really matter. And one of the things that really matters is we better wake up,

• 1:42:35Speaker 02

  wake up to the way in which we're being led by the nose, uh, and have, uh, to believe that we all hate each other.

• 1:42:42Speaker 01

  And it's making us worse. I mean, there's this, one of my favorite scenes in the Gospel of Luke is, you know, that the parable to Jesus, the story that Jesus tells about the two men who go to pray the temple and one's the Pharisee and one's the tax collector. And the Pharisee looks over and says, God, thank you for not making me that guy. Cause he is a pig. He's a sinner, unlike, you know, righteous, good person like me. And the tax collector who knows he's a sinner because he's a thief and he knows he's a thief and everyone knows he's a thief. Doesn't even look up. He can't even look at God and he just says, have mercy on me. And Jesus says, who is justified before God?

• 1:43:18Speaker 01

  It's not the man who turns to the guy next to him and says, I'm better than you. It's the man who knows that he's not better than anybody. That's the man who's justified before God. And I just feel like all of life is that story. When you stop looking at other people and being like, you suck.

• 1:43:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:43:34Speaker 01

  And look inside and realize that I suck, that's where wisdom and peace come from.

• 1:43:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:43:42Speaker 02

  There's a, uh, there's a scene in the Gnostic gospels and I forget what's in the Acts of, uh,

• 1:43:50Speaker 02

  I forget Acts of Philip or something. Anyway, you know, have you ever read the Gnostic gospels? And really you got to, they're, they're the whole trove of, uh,

• 1:44:00Speaker 02

  gospels. I mean, a lot of people would say that it's heresy, but, but it's the, and, um, Emperor, you know, when Constantine unified the church under, in, um, uh, and, uh, declared Catholicism, the, uh, Christianity, the, um,

• 1:44:19Speaker 01

  State religion of Rome.

• 1:44:20Speaker 02

  State religion of Rome.

• 1:44:23Speaker 02

  They basically effectively chose four gospels and banned all the other ones. And they found, um,

• 1:44:32Speaker 02

  in, um, I forget the, in harmony, in harmony, they, these 2000 year old texts, which were the other gospels written by Mary Magdalene and written by, um, Philip and written by, um, and anyway, there's part of one is this, is it says,

• 1:44:52Speaker 02

  Jesus is speaking to the disciples and this is before, and he says, learn to suffer as I do.

• 1:44:59Speaker 02

  And, um, and that is, that is everything. That all wisdom comes through suffering.

• 1:45:07Speaker 01

  That is true.

• 1:45:09Speaker 02

  And in that suffering, you're able to, um, uh, you're able to love. In that suffering, you're able to see your, see the other. It's the exact, uh, exactly what, uh, that you were seeing in, in Luke.

• 1:45:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:45:26Speaker 02

  Is that, is being able to like, not being the person uh, casting judgment.

• 1:45:34Speaker 02

  Rather, and by the way, it's not mean, it doesn't mean that you are

• 1:45:40Speaker 02

  without discretion. Simply means is that as much as I'm not going to, and you know, what is the the idea of like my empathy overwhelms my, my critical thinking.

• 1:45:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:45:55Speaker 02

  Is not that, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about however, is

• 1:46:02Speaker 02

  is if I can feel this strongly about what they're doing to, to, to kids in detention centers in, in, in the United States of America. I can also feel just as strongly about, or have as much empathy for

• 1:46:23Speaker 02

  for someone who feels like they, they have been completely left out and without any options that are, you know, are living in, in Bethel, Maine. That feels that every, that this country has completely let them down and is looking for a, a hope. Something. And, and, and object for their anger.

• 1:46:51Speaker 02

  And I want to bring them into the fold. You know, I want to be able to talk to them.

• 1:46:58Speaker 02

  Those people that I think voted out of anger and that are still looking for

• 1:47:08Speaker 02

  you know, someone to be their retribution.

• 1:47:13Speaker 01

  For people who are dependent on alcohol, which is a lot of people. I think you're absolutely right to say it's the scariest of all drugs because it's the most insidious. It's just ubiquitous everywhere.

• 1:47:24Speaker 01

  How do you get off it exactly? You said you got off crack in three days or something like that, pretty quick.

• 1:47:29Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, that's the thing is that.

• 1:47:31Speaker 01

  How do you get off alcohol?

• 1:47:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. Alcohol is the, and I mean this in this sense, and I have people push back on me, but I, I alcohol is the most destructive drug that there is, not just by virtue of the fact that it is as ubiquitous as it is. It is, and physiologically impacts your body. It, it, it impacts every organ, every major organ. And in particular, every major pleasure center of your brain. It's the only drug other than benzodiazepines that you can die from withdrawing from. So everybody always, you know, uh, glor, you know, there's the Hollywood version of, you know, how horrible it is to come off of opiates. Or, you know,

• 1:48:14Speaker 02

  or cocaine. And the reality is it's, it's really painful and it's uncomfortable and you think you may are going to die. But particularly as it relates to cocaine, it's out of your system in 72 hours. There is no more physiological need for it and you won't die from withdrawing from it. Alcohol, you'll die. You'll go into seizures and and it stays in your body, not just for three days. It stays in your body for at least 30, if not more. And

• 1:48:45Speaker 02

  and you've created these, you know, neurotransmitters in your brain that it's, your, your brain is still crying, you know, 30, 60, 90 days later, still crying for you to, to drink. And the worst part is all you gotta do is walk out your door. And usually it's not more than, you know, particularly if you live in a, in a urban environment, you know, a quarter of a mile from wherever you.

• 1:49:11Speaker 01

  And no one looks at you funny when you have a cocktail.

• 1:49:14Speaker 02

  No, exactly. And it's incursed. And

• 1:49:19Speaker 02

  so

• 1:49:22Speaker 02

  for me, it was hard, hard work. Is it, I, this time didn't, I, I've been to

• 1:49:31Speaker 02

  a number of rehabs and

• 1:49:37Speaker 02

  in 2019, after I met Melissa and she said, this ends, is that I started, I tapered, she had me taper.

• 1:49:43Speaker 01

  How did she know to do that?

• 1:49:45Speaker 02

  God, it's completely intuitive. And

• 1:49:51Speaker 02

  I mean, it was really, really, you know, incredible.

• 1:49:55Speaker 02

  And she tapered me and then at one point it got really bad.

• 1:50:00Speaker 02

  And I had the like true delirium tremens and she called a doctor to come over.

• 1:50:04Speaker 01

  What's that like?

• 1:50:07Speaker 02

  Literally the feeling that you, if you don't, if you don't remove yourself from your own body, that, that you're going to die because you, you are. You know, I mean, there's, there's the, the real potential of you dying from seizures and it's the most excruciating feeling that I've ever had of any kind of, of pain. And, and I'd gone through it before, but I had done it in a clinical environment. In which they just, you know, usually use benzodiazepines to win you that way. And so I had weaned enough, but not enough to, to stop that. And so I had to go through it.

• 1:50:42Speaker 01

  Where were you?

• 1:50:43Speaker 02

  I was, Melissa had rented a house, this little house for us in the, you know, up in the hills. I mean, uh, would, hard to get to from anywhere. Like I couldn't walk. She took my keys. She took my wallet. She took my phone. She erased every number from it. She, um, that didn't have the name Biden in it. She, you know, I mean, she had to do the hardest thing that for anyone that is, uh, that loves someone. Is for a period of time, she had to be my jailer. And, um, and my nurse and a, um, and literally, you know, uh, nursed me back to life. And it is, uh, you know, it was it's incredibly intense at the beginning, you know, 24/7 that you have to be there.

• 1:51:29Speaker 02

  You know, because you literally could, particularly with alcohol, not particularly singularly with alcohol, you could, you could die.

• 1:51:36Speaker 01

  How long did it take you to feel better?

• 1:51:45Speaker 02

  And then it's just 10 days before I could ever really eat anything and taste it.

• 1:51:49Speaker 01

  Actually.

• 1:51:50Speaker 02

  Yeah. You know? I mean, ever have any interest in not being forced to eat something. And then

• 1:51:59Speaker 02

  and then you start to, you know,

• 1:52:03Speaker 02

  you have this kind of, uh, everything is kind of grayscale, you know, for

• 1:52:10Speaker 02

  even after you, you get a little bit of a, a boost around 30 days. And then you try to ride that as long as possible.

• 1:52:20Speaker 02

  But what happens in your brain is that somebody explained it to me this way is that you have these little messengers that, that alcohol sends to your pleasure center of your brain. And so the messenger is imagined with little birds. In a normal person, a bird flies up to the bird house and that's your dopamine or whatever it is in like a normal, you know, in a normal circumstance, it's like you have a, you have a happy experience. And, you know, sends two birds up and, you know, uh, to live in the, in the bird house. And the maximum that you're supposed to ever have is like 10. It's like the happiest.

• 1:52:57Speaker 02

  What alcohol does is it sends 20 birds at a time. And so it creates 20 bird houses. And then, and then the next time you use it, you want to get, you gotta get to 30 bird houses. And then it builds 40 bird houses. Then you have, uh, then there's a thousand bird houses. And when you take the alcohol away and you have a normal, happy experience, like a cup of coffee in the morning. It only sends two birds and your brain says, there are 998 other bird houses that you have to feel for me to feel normal. And you don't have it. And there's nothing in a normal experience that can possibly produce that, except the drug. And so your brain, the thing that you think

• 1:53:39Speaker 02

  that everyone, of course, has to believe is providing you with rational, logical information is saying, if you don't get this, you're going to die.

• 1:53:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:53:52Speaker 02

  And in the case of alcohol, it means it.

• 1:53:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:53:56Speaker 02

  If you don't get this, you're going to die. And by the way, not only are you going to die, you're going to feel like this for the rest of your life. So fix me. And so your brain's telling you. And so the first time that you face a trauma or an obstacle or a, or something good happens. Your brain says, I know how to make it better. I know how to fix it. I know how to make you not feel this way. I know how to make you not have this anxiety. I know how to make you not have this fear. We've done it before. Do it. And that's, um,

• 1:54:32Speaker 02

  that is the.

• 1:54:36Speaker 02

  What alcohol at least did as it relates to me, but also I'm positive the science of it is, anyways, to me, the most dangerous thing.

• 1:54:46Speaker 01

  I've lived it and that's an amazing description and an accurate one, I think. How do you stay sober for seven years?

• 1:54:56Speaker 02

  Almost everything that I do is no longer with the, with the idea that I am

• 1:55:03Speaker 02

  like living on a knife's edge. In the early days, though, you really do have to really protect yourself, not put yourself in positions of, you know, I, people always say to me like, well, can I still go to the bar with my friends? Well, not, no. You know, getting clean sober is really easy. All you have to do is change everything. And that everything, and what I really mean by that is that don't go back and put yourself in the same exact circumstances that you were in where

• 1:55:35Speaker 02

  your same group of friends, if they are heavy drinkers or, you know, or your family, like if you, if you can't go to Thanksgiving without everybody getting drunk, maybe don't go to Thanksgiving this year if you're trying to get sober. And so that in terms of changing everything, but staying, it, I promise you, everybody, it gets not only easier, but there's this thing in, in the program that I practice in which they call the promises, in which you will know and experience an ease by which life happens as you are able to live life on life's terms, in which like everything, it doesn't fix everything. Look at me.

• 1:56:18Speaker 02

  You know, six, you know, six felony charges and two trials later and a, you know, and, and it, it shouldn't, it, it didn't, it didn't solve anything. It didn't solve all the consequences that I had to face, but you know what? Can you imagine what my life would be like? I'd be dead. I'm 100% long dead. If I had decided the only way to be able to fix this is to anesthetize myself. I mean, I would be the long dead. And, um, and that's what they were hoping. And I truly, truly do believe that. I believe that they knew that the, um, the singular, what they perceived as my father's Achilles heel was his family.

• 1:57:02Speaker 02

  That regardless of what anybody says about Joe Biden, that there was nothing more important to him than his family and that he had just lost Bo and, um, and that the idea that, that I, I truly believe that they wanted me to relapse, which was equivalent to, to death. I'm, I'm positive they did.

• 1:57:20Speaker 01

  What does that tell you about? I mean, why would? And one thing I noticed, just being, living in Georgetown as a kid and knowing, you know, a million people from political families is the families were all dealing with tragedies that on a bigger scale than normal people. Like there's something about that environment that is really hard on the, on families. And you see it in the most famous political families. They're all a lot of casual.

• 1:57:44Speaker 02

  I don't know. See that, that's one of the things that, that, um, well, number one is I really truly didn't grow up in DC. Yeah. And, you know, we, we really were in Delaware and, um, which is different. And, but to your point is that what I found is this, is that I lived it publicly. But, you know, what I found is, is that, um,

• 1:58:12Speaker 02

  I was in a, um, uh,

• 1:58:15Speaker 02

  I forget where I was and I, a stranger, somebody's driving me and he told me a story and it told me about their life and their addiction and that their, you know, their brother was in jail and their father, um, uh, you know, just got arrested and, and addicts. And I think

• 1:58:35Speaker 02

  everybody has those stories, everybody.

• 1:58:37Speaker 01

  That's for sure.

• 1:58:38Speaker 02

  Except, uh, mine played out on the front page of the New York Post in a way that literally, I don't think it had for anybody, any political family ever. I mean, even the Kennedys to the degree in which they, you know, uh, and I really mean that, like, um, I mean, the total, um, evisceration of anything or even the notion that I deserved any privacy. I mean, I, I really like, I, I look at some people and I say, like, just put yourself in my shoes for one minute. On what level? On what level is it, it, do you think that that was right? You know, I, I look like somebody like Miranda Devine and just on what level could, would, if that was, if that was Ivanka?

• 1:59:24Speaker 02

  And I'm not talking about like, and just take the, her existing 20 year digital footprint, everything that she's ever done. It's like, I guarantee you, and I don't, I don't know. I can't T you. Everybody has a nude. Everybody has a picture that they don't want to see. Everybody has a text message out of context. Everybody has a voicemail they wish that they hadn't left. Everybody has a, um, uh, an email in which it, it doesn't have the entirety of the email chain. Like, you know how many conspiracy theories were born out of the fact that I wrote Buckley a, um, a, a recommendation to a school, which you reminded me he didn't get into? You know what I mean? Like, like out of context, you are able to do some, and it, how is that in any way fair? However, that's what happened.

• 2:00:11Speaker 02

  And, um,

• 2:00:12Speaker 01

  what's your wife think? I mean,

• 2:00:16Speaker 02

  I just was thinking about like, like, she's like, talk about.

• 2:00:19Speaker 01

  She didn't sign up for this.

• 2:00:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. Like, talk about like, uh, you know?

• 2:00:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. She is so tough. She's like a, she is a, a, um, she is a warrior. Amazing.

• 2:00:37Speaker 02

  She is absolutely amazing. I mean, look, I mean, I wasn't, there's no way that I could even prepare for it. And I, and this had been my life.

• 2:00:48Speaker 02

  None that I could prepare for it.

• 2:00:52Speaker 02

  Fact she didn't run. It says everything that you need to know about her because

• 2:01:00Speaker 02

  the one much other upside.

• 2:01:03Speaker 02

  Well, the truth is that

• 2:01:09Speaker 02

  Bowie be, Bowie's the, the ultimate upside. So, but she's, she is, she is one amazing person.

• 2:01:22Speaker 01

  What's your plan? You're on a path.

• 2:01:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:01:26Speaker 01

  It seems like you kind of moved into it sideways, maybe not with a plan. I don't know. But you're clearly moving in some direction where is that headed?

• 2:01:37Speaker 02

  I don't know. And that's one of the things is that I don't, um, I know the things that I care about. I care about reaching people that are still sick and suffering. I really do because, by the way, not because I'm a hero, not because I'm some saint and I want, you know why? Because it's the most rewarding thing that I've ever done in my life. It gives me sustenance. It makes me feel good about myself.

• 2:02:05Speaker 02

  I mean it like, it makes, it, it makes it easier for me to make it through the day. And so it's purely selfish. And that's one of the things about sobriety that I tell everybody is that the ultimate goal is to get to the end, and particularly as it relates to the program that I practice as you get to the end of the steps. And the whole thing is so that you can be of service to somebody else and not because you are sainted at the end and all of a sudden you're Saint Francis walking among the, you know, the forest. It's because it's the thing that saves you. The only way to truly get out of yourself is to do for somebody else.

• 2:02:43Speaker 02

  Is to, you know, to sit here and, and, and, and for me, the easy, the easiest is to find other people that have had, you know, same and similar experience and, and

• 2:02:56Speaker 02

  and it's not like you have to look far.

• 2:02:57Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:02:58Speaker 02

  I mean, it's around every single corner to somebody. And that's what's the beautiful discovery that I had.

• 2:03:06Speaker 02

  So there's that. I want to meet, I want to reach a million people in recovery and I want, I've created this thing at hunterbiden.com, uh, backslash recovery in which anonymously for nothing other than to create a storyboard, a story core is people get to share their experience, strength and hope, because what I, what, what helped save me was realizing I wasn't alone.

• 2:03:31Speaker 02

  And I want to write about it and I'm going to put it on Substack and part of it's free and part of it's subscription. And I, and, and I want to continue to practice my art. And, um, and ultimately, at the end of the day, is that like anybody else is that, you know, I want to, um, I want to have the financial security to be able to, you know, to, uh, to not constantly feel as it, I have to make, um, you know, choices that I don't want to have to make like anybody else, like anybody else in their life.

• 2:04:03Speaker 01

  How close are you to financial security?

• 2:04:05Speaker 02

  Uh, like, oh, I'm a million miles away. I'm, I'm several million miles away. Yeah, I am, but, um, yeah, uh, you know, my, uh,

• 2:04:17Speaker 02

  Winston Strawn wants their money.

• 2:04:20Speaker 01

  Lawyers.

• 2:04:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, my, oh yeah, all, it's all legal bills. Yeah. And, um, and, uh, anyway.

• 2:04:28Speaker 01

  Like tens of thousands of dollars?

• 2:04:30Speaker 02

  Oh no, millions of dollars, millions of dollars, millions. I mean, just, uh, I don't know exactly what it is. I think it's between four and six million that Winston Strawn says I, that I owe them for, for my

• 2:04:46Speaker 02

  couple of convictions and anyway, yeah, yeah. It's a lot of money.

• 2:04:50Speaker 01

  How do you, how does that affect you?

• 2:04:52Speaker 02

  I don't know. I, I would hope that they, uh, oh, how does it affect me? It affects me in this way is that, um,

• 2:05:03Speaker 02

  I have to find a sensible solution and a way through. I really am, uh, uh, I've wanted to avoid bankruptcy.

• 2:05:13Speaker 02

  Uh, because the, the road back from that is just so long and I'm 56 years old, but I don't allow it to consume me. You know what I mean? I really don't and, and I can't.

• 2:05:27Speaker 02

  It is, uh, I don't want it to be the principal motivating factor for, for everything I do, because the truth of the matter is the mountain so, it's such a long climb that I, I don't, I don't see the solution to it right now. But one will present itself and I think cooler heads will prevail and, and, and, you know.

• 2:05:51Speaker 02

  And I'll be able to, um, I just have faith. I don't know, man, I just have faith, not blind faith, just work hard. I mean, shit, I'm, I'm, I'm really working my ass off. I mean, everybody says, oh, go get a job. I have two jobs. I have two jobs and then on top of that, I've had all of this that I'm trying to do. And then I'm, you know, I, a whole thing that I've been trying to build is relates in, in, in, in that I, you know, I'm, I'm working my butt off and, and doing that. You know, they, they took away my law license, which means that that avenue that I spent, you know, 25 years working towards to graduate from law school is not open to me right now.

• 2:06:36Speaker 02

  And so I have to, in many ways, you know, reinvent myself, but not out of whole cloth. And spending the past seven years, you know, I'm really, really dedicated to my art. I'm really dedicated to the, to the, to the work of, of writing. You know, you're a brilliant writer and you, you, you know this better than anybody. It's, it is, it isn't, it is a practice as much as an art. It's a discipline as much as.

• 2:07:03Speaker 01

  Absolutely right.

• 2:07:04Speaker 02

  And, and, um, and so I've been practicing that discipline since I wrote my first book. And, and so I have a lot to say and, um, and, um, and there's ways to be able to do that now. And ways to be able to do that, that can, um, you know, that like, I think it's really important for me to be authentic about everything, though also that ways in which I can do it, in which I hopefully can, um, uh, put food on the table.

• 2:07:34Speaker 01

  Last question is about faith. How has this affected how you feel about God and changed your, your relationship?

• 2:07:43Speaker 02

  I don't know whether I would say that it's changed, but it is deep in my, um, belief in whether you want to call it, uh, I do, as God, is the, the, um, the absolute certainty of this. There is literally in both the theological, but also metaphysical sense, no distance between me and you or anyone. We are all literally connected.

• 2:08:22Speaker 02

  And that connection, that universal connection to everything is what I refer to as God, is us realizing that all of our fear is a delusion, is being separated. It's, it's all the idea. And so my faith is in the, the fact that I know that, um, that there is not a, um, uh, that there's not a sentient being that is not, um, that literally is, is me.

• 2:09:05Speaker 02

  And, and I don't know if that makes sense to you, but, uh, but I, I truly believe that there are, um, there has been a, uh, a, a real thing in my life that has saved me time and time and time again, and that has taught me hard lessons. And that I believe that I cannot explain by other than what I choose to call God.

• 2:09:46Speaker 01

  No question about that. And we do get glimpses of the connection between people, all people. I think that's what we refer to as a transcendent moment, when we like rise above all the things we're concerned with and sort of look down just for a split second, but this happens to people throughout life and you're like, oh, wait a second.

• 2:10:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:10:04Speaker 01

  You know, people are really connected to each other in a real way.

• 2:10:07Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. And when you, when you start to get honest with yourself, like really, really get honest with yourself, and I'm not talking about everybody has to go through what I went through to be able to get honest with themselves. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. But, you know, I think that there are spiritual practices that I did not, I either have the courage or the patience to endure. You know, I'd say like, it's not like I was moving to Rishi Kesh to sit in a cave and meditate for seven years. Instead, what I got is a trial by fire.

• 2:10:48Speaker 02

  And, um, and, and like I said, that the complete eradication of an ego, not by courage or conviction on my part, but by, uh, necessary choice to survive. I had to choose to either stay in bed or get out and live. And if I was going to live, I had to let go of that.

• 2:11:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:11:12Speaker 02

  And I did. And, uh, and for now, today, it's a beautiful, beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing. It doesn't solve everything. It doesn't solve my debt. It doesn't solve my, you know, uh, you know, I, I still gotta, you know, uh, put on my pants like everybody else and, and, and, uh, and I still have, you know, to deal with this relationship that, you know, I like anybody else, um, in, in a family that I love drives me crazy and I love, it's like everybody else. But I don't have to live a lie.

• 2:11:53Speaker 01

  Hunter Biden, thank you very much.

• 2:11:56Speaker 02

  Thanks.