The Hunter Biden Interview

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35:06I mean, it is just crazy to borrow money. No judgment, but it doesn't make any sense to borrow money at that rate. If you want out, call 800-685-5696, 800-685-5696 or visit AmericanFinancing.net slash 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. Very helpful. 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 yeah and i you know famously advocated for the iraq war and thought that was the last stupid thing i was ever going to do it turns out it wasn't i advocated for all kinds of things that i now regret advocating for um particularly the things that you said about me.

36:05This is a deep regret. No, I do actually, I mean, I regret in the sense that as someone who has dealt with addiction, not quite as in an exciting way as you did, but I've been there for sure. Extend grace to people who are out of their minds. You would think I would do that. I should have done that more. I do regret that. But no, what I'm saying is you look back and like i really thought that i could influence trump and talk about not going into this war that's talk about i think that that's a really interesting no i mean that's that's the core of it right there because you said the things that you said about uh trump after 2020 which are famously out there oh when i got pissed in a text with the producer and then out of context and all that yeah yeah wonderful organization you worked for really ridiculous and 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 why - Oh no, it was a very specific trajectory.

37:18I 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 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 documents 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 feelings 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.

38:04It's the agreement that is the threat, not the disagreement. So I thought that, and I thought, well, Trump is clear. They're trying to put him in jail on these nonsense charges, and they are not. They were nonsense. Well, they're 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. 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.

38:39On the other hand, I'm not sure what follows would be better. So I was really focused on this Iran thing. And I knew that both parties were for it. 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 going to single-mindedly focus on it. That's all I'm going to do with my life. is I'm going to, 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.

39:09I 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 correctly. I was humiliated in front of my wife. I was like, you're doing a good thing. And so, yeah, I was mad at Trump, but I was also really mad at myself. And so that's the story. And I actually am really grateful I went through that 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.

39:52So what next? i have no idea but i i mean i mean really what for me yeah not not just for you but what next for all of us like i am uh

40:08i've been out talking to people and completely different audiences you know across the board and and the most significant reason 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, overwhelm me, is sometimes often exaggerated by virtue of how much attention has been paid to it. You know, there's two years of my life. Some people noticed. 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 the hills in la and we had this little place and and i it was just early in in my recovery and uh trump from the oval office invited in these right-wing influencers these mega influencers 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 and ceiling windows and a group of men with bullhorns and mega hats showed up at the door banging on the door with my then pregnant wife, who was home alone, who literally fled the house.

41:54They 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 we'd left that house because we were in the middle of the night.

42:14And the next house we went to, they found us and this documentary filmmaker ended up being like a, he wrote a whole scripted film. He parked a billboard truck. Where, in LA? Yeah, in LA, in Venice. I was right on South Venice Boulevard. He parked one of those digital billboard trucks in front of my house that ran all of the nude pictures of me smoking crack. Actually? 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. Did you know him? Yeah. No, no. God, no. Some crazy guy. You know, I mean, he was not crazy.

43:00He was, you know, he then went on to make like a whole movie about me. But anyway, my point. Did you see it? What? Did you see it? No, I didn't. I did not see it. Do not go see that movie. I didn't know it existed.

43:18But, you know, my point is that I have the total exposure that I've had has given me this incredible gift. And number one is that by that transparency is that I don't have any more secrets. And the secrets that I felt ashamed of. like just the word crack like you know i mean it it's so heavy it it shocks people um all of the associations that people make out of particularly of our generation yes and um and uh to be able to speak about it openly and what i 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 arrested though he's in jail you know you got to do something about the fentanyl deaths here.

44:42It's everybody. And it's been an incredibly beautiful, beautiful experience. And I say to everybody is that 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 a very human way was her own experience, not personally, but with her family and addiction and the people that she loved. And I don't know anyone that hasn't been impacted by it. That's for sure. Yeah. And I guess what my point is, is that by starting there for me, I feel like our connection as it relates to it.

45:27I've known you've been sober for for over well over 20 years now 24 years this month 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 oh yeah 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 no i think that's that's 100 true 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 is

46:17out on your own now and not understandably like anybody that has a job being beholden to corporate structure, Fox News, is that I feel as if that combined with the incredible ultimate betrayal, and what I mean by betrayal, of the promise, the singular promise that was important to you as it related to Trump. Yes. That we would not get into the potential of ending up in a World War III. or another incredibly devastating protracted war in that region that would expand clearly with the entire global oil supply in jeopardy. It's so crazy. I cannot even believe it happened. It has given an opening for us to be able to have a conversation that is more constructive about a way forward.

47:25That's my feeling. I strongly agree with that. You know, one thing that might make you feel a little better about your life is buying life insurance. Because 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 100 % online. You get a quote in seconds.

47:58You 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 coverage. Some policies start as low as$30 a month. Ethos also has a 4.8 out of 5-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 slash tucker ethos t-h-o-s.com slash 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 you went through a lot i have really only one question one thing that has bothered me for years now yeah um uh 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 yeah you're familiar with right i can't you know i can't remember 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 you don't know if it's real and then i heard somebody calls me goes you're on the laptop and because you had written a letter of recommendation for college for my son yeah who didn't end up going to the school or even getting in whatever it didn't help it turns out thanks but anyway i knew that it was real because who would who would know that we knew each other yeah right no one no one could fake that and that our wives were 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.

50:04So, 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. Yeah. Who are shopping this stuff to me at Fox News. Yeah. 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 of the American media was not real. So I just want to ask you point blank, did you drop off laptops?

50:40No. 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 McIsaac. It's wild. So John Paul McIsaac, who's legally blind. Yes. Who on the day when the laptop became public, sat 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 the lab partners, 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.

51:37And so Rudy Giuliani is working with a guy named Andrei Derkash, 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 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. So how did this... Before John Paul McIsaac was ever a twinkle in anybody's eye. I believe that. The story, that was always the weak part of the story.

52:22Like, he drops off laptops and forgets them. So even John Paul McIsaac, okay, there is no such thing as a laptop. The laptop that he eventually turns over a year later, 18 months later, to the FBI. guy 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 right and he knows that he's lived there his whole life instead what he finds through this guy apple bomb uh and and uh is uh 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.

53:49It's like, it's way too large. Came off the cloud. Exactly. They hacked my cloud. They, there's a, I read about this in this book. I thought that from day one. So on Substack, 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 side, the Israeli side. There is a Russian-Ukrainian side of it. And then there are the U.S. 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. Well, once the material starts circulating, the data from the cloud, all kinds of people get involved and they're shopping it for different reasons.

54:41And I agree. Yes. But my point is - But who stole it? Well, from the cloud? Yeah. Well, I don't know. You have as good a guess as mine in terms of actually who was the original hacker of that information, who has the capacity to be able to do it. And so, you know, I have my - But you don't have evidence. I don't have 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 some kid in his basement and figured it out. But here's the point. Overall, here's the thing, is I get caught in these conversations about all of this.

55:28but the reality is this of what was distributed that was authentic it's all mine all those emails yeah yeah i got it 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 this positive and I challenge anybody because it's all out there. The entire digital football. 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.

56:15They don't actually delete, is what you're saying. They clearly don't. I mean, voicemails from my dad to me. But that's not the only voicemail that was out 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 even contacting one of his staffers. So either I'm incredibly, incredibly, incredibly good at 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.

56:58Because I showed you mine, and you didn't find a goddamn thing. 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 associated with addiction is proved by the laptop. So is the world getting more stable or less stable? That's a rhetorical question. We're not in charge of the world, but you are in charge of, in fact, responsible for your own family and your savings. The dollar has lost nearly a third of its purchasing power in six years.

57:38That's crazy. You know what hasn't? Gold. And that's one reason you should think about gold right now. It's about 25 % below its high from earlier this year, which is amazing. Gold, relative to its power and endurance, is pretty cheap right now. Central banks are reducing their reliance on treasuries and increasing their holdings of, yes, gold. Ray Dalio, founder of the world's largest hedge fund and a friend of ours, recommends holding up to 15 % of your portfolio in gold. We started Battalion Metals to give Americans an honest, fair-priced way to buy metals. BattalionMetals.com slash Tucker is the place to go to learn more about buying metals, gold and silver, precious metals, IRAs, secure storage, all of it.

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58:24When did you find out that the contents of your digital life were in circulation? That day that the New York Post released it. You had no idea? No idea. None. What were you doing that day? How did you find out? So it was like two weeks before the election, right? October. So up until that day you had no clue? Because the FBI had the material. None. None. No clue. Zero. Zero. I'm sorry I stepped on your answers what were you doing that day when you found out I was with Melissa and Bo was uh let's see about eight uh six months old and a friend of ours we were in LA and a friend of ours said hey come out to uh Palm Springs i got a um airbnb on like a golf course there and it's really cool you guys 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 b 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 uh 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 with any time 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 so everybody felt it was incumbent upon them if they supported trump and mega to find hunter you know to go and find where's hunter and so we drive out to um palm springs and uh we get there and we unpack you know put my bag in my room and there's uh like a little plunge pool out of the back of this little house and um 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 saying somebody has your laptop?

1:00:36And you know, it took me years to piece it all together. And so one of the things that 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 creating and also allowed me to get out of myself and not be consumed by the shame

1:01:15of my addiction and all the failings 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 I've done a lot of writing and it took me a long time to figure this out. Like what happened? How did this, who was involved? And there's all of these names and there's like a list of 20 Russian names and 20, I mean, all of this stuff.

1:01:50And 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. And the thing about it is this, is that it was a complete and utter surprise to me. I was a little over a year into my recovery. I kind of made it through what I thought 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.

1:02:43You're not allowed to publish nude photograph of anyone without their consent, no matter what, 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. Of course, they don't make that point. And that's why they took it down. But then that became the story. you know the suppression and this idea that 40 um uh former uh 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 not much 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 that first of all yeah you know The intel people are the most dishonest people in our society.

1:03:53By the way, I'm not going to argue on behalf of anybody. All I know is let's just stick to me. No, but I'm just saying the point of that statement was to suggest that the contents were not real. Well, you may think that, but it definitely did not say that. And all I know is this. 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 literally the courthouse steps in Newcastle County with Bernie Carrick, 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 pretend it like there was a laptop.

1:04:32And the one thing he said was this contains images of minor children, 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 but 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's probably one of the smartest decisions i made not in conjunction with anybody, but literally me and Melissa sitting there.

1:05:20And I said, I'm going to tell this guy everything. I have to get it off my chest. I can't have this hanging out there as my dad moves through a presidential campaign and let the chips fall where they may. And it totally scooped them. 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 and can i just say one thing though that this is what i experienced during that time the allegation that there was abusive minors yeah 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 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 yeah so and you've gone through it but they're all such 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 well that's such a serious crime that i think it's just common sense that if there was evidence of that you think that it's common sense but i'll tell you what about about 40 million people on um on on x don't think that you know i mean it's like there was an abusive minors in there if there was evidence you know how many people call me a pedophile to this day anyway yeah i'll i'll spare you but i'm not and what but i agree with you that's exactly right and you know it's um but they were pushing that so hard and all the intel guys are I go, it's Russia.

1:07:04It's like, you lie. You lie. Because they called me. I sent one of my producers out to go meet with one of, a guy connected to Netanyahu. 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 the ones penetrating our political system. It's like, you lie. Everyone knows what's actually happening. 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 yeah i didn't you're right i just want to say i'm was part of the problem also but i knew it but that's a thing tucker yeah is it is it i so so we're here now yeah no i didn't know how no i'm saying what i'm saying but we're here now yeah 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 i'm i am it it is thought that the child molestation thing or whatever yeah like all the stuff that they were saying or any of it you know what i mean like the the um well people addicted to drugs especially cocaine i know for a fact get pretty dark that's just a fact they do They do.

1:08:26They definitely do in it. Oh, yeah. And the cocaine thing. By the way, it's all there. You can watch it all. I guess I don't need to tell you that. You can see the motel rooms. You're not the only person I've seen this. Yeah, exactly. But there's a big difference. It screws up your sex thing. Yeah, there's a big difference between that and the reality of what's out there, which is the worst thing that you can possibly say about anything. And that's my point. My point 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.

1:08:56Because remember, we're still in that kind of COVID period and people. And so we're out there and I get this call and it just like, your whole world kind of like, you know, 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. Oh, definitely. Is the reality that you're. And that's what Rudy Giuliani was saying. And, and. Were you ever close to going back on drugs during this period? No, no. And, and because I knew this. Is that I, I don't want to give people the impression that it's not available to them.

1:09:47That, that, but it was a miracle. the miracle of my life at that moment despite that uh despite all of these um uh consequences like like just not not i mean landing like nuclear bombs in my life um is that i was in a better place and continue to be in a better place than i've ever been in my life you know i've been stripped to the bone there's nothing there is no there was no facade like you have to uh the entirety of my ego was uh was destroyed 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 or out of fear. It's like you talking about the vanity.

1:10:45Yeah. Believing that you could change the course of the administration, of history, of being there, and that you could overlook all of the things that you know of him in order to save the world. That's a beautiful thing to hear someone admit to 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 emasculation, that completely stripping of ego. And it wasn't instant. And it wasn't like I woke up the next morning and didn't think the sun would ever come up, which I kind of felt.

1:11:35Yeah. But then Bowie woke up, you know, and I 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 I thought, you know what? I have to choose to live. like like like i i want this life 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 wrote I wrote about it. And I said that if any of my children came to me and told me this story, I would probably have them commit it.

1:12:33But it was truly love at first sight. A long story that I've written about. And I was in active addiction and staying at a hotel. Where? The Petite Hermitage in West Hollywood at the time. I know it well. A neat hotel, yeah. And I was at the pool. I got kicked out the next day. On the roof. On the roof. And these two people sat down next to me where I was alone. I was reading a book.

1:13:11And 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 meet our friend Melissa and I said sure sure and I had no intention of meeting anyone I'd gone to LA basically to choose the coward's way out of suicide which was I knew that the drugs and drinking would eventually take me 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 an incredibly, incredibly dark moment in my life and the darkest.

1:14:03And 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 woman. And I said, I can remember any number. if you tell me a number I can remember it and of course I can't remember a 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 chaselons and the woman said what's the number and I said I knew you were lying and she had a pen in her hand and she wrote it on my hand and um that night i was taking a shower and i think i didn't i can the difference between nine o 'clock and at night and 2 30 in the morning i i mean i i literally was staying up 10 days at a time i mean it was it was awful and uh and uh and i'm about to wash this off my hand i think I think, I should probably really call this woman.

1:15:11So 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 um and for some reason i in the in the morning 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 like to buy you lunch.

1:15:56I didn't realize the time. 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 evening about this what did you nothing literally nothing just her first time yeah and that's it nothing not a picture not anything and um i walk up and now i'm over at the suntep marquee which is up the hill because you know every hotel i'd say i wouldn't 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 missed we don't have another we don't have availability hotel looks empty to me yeah well and so i had moved to over to this other hotel um and this is when i still had a little bit of um uh 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.

1:17:19And 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 saw eyes that saw me. And I said, I know that this sounds crazy, but I'm in love with you. That's the first thing you said to a woman you'd never met before? The first thing. And again, I know it sounds crazy. Yeah. 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, 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 the previous two years.

1:18:19She literally was, I said, about two hours in I said, I'm addicted to crack cocaine. Like I'm killing myself. She said, that ends today. and it didn't end that day it ended the crack ended within uh a week and then the alcohol yeah and the alcohol ended within within uh like uh 20 days that tapering in june i count june 1st as my sobriety date and you know from that moment i said that to her we were married 10 days later that's one of the craziest stories i've ever heard in my life and it and it remains a miracle you know my daughters and um there's nothing that i love more in the world than uh than them and the uh and and they spent i always say the greatest sin of my addiction was my absence from my children.

1:19:23As you know, the one thing about my dad always taught me about is that being available. And during a time in their life when they loved their Uncle Bo, they loved their Uncle Bo as much as I loved them. And he was like a second father to them. And after Bo died, and then 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, I don't, like, my father, my family, my sister, my uncle, my aunt, my Aunt Valerie, my mom, you know, they all tried to save me. I mean, I have the most incredible family in the world. But it took a stranger to see the love left in me.

1:20:21and I don't know why, but it was, 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 I'm a firm believer in that, 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, that it tried to get to us in every other way possible. And then finally they have to smack you over the head with a hammer. I believe that so strongly. That is true. That's a fact. And for me, that is the truth about all of this is that I think that I've been given a gift and the gift of my addiction that brought me to that point where it could totally break me.

1:21:20Not 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 laptop or this or defending myself. But the story that I get to tell is that there is such a thing as redemption. and that's not the outward redemption this is not like some this is the inward that you can find the person that is worthy of love in yourself uh all of the things and all of the mistakes that i made in my life and when i i don't mean you know uh all 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 uh you know is 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 um embarrassed you know i mean everything from as something as trivial as like you know fear of you know asking the girl to dance yeah you know and i drank over that and i used over that or fear of you know the of having to um 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 uh 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 and all of that fear is evaporating.

1:23:09I'm 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 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 has more guidance in my life than the serenity prayer. It's being able to really truly understand the things that you can change as compared to the things that you have no control over. Yes. And that's not about feeling powerless.

1:24:01But for instance, what it made me think of is what you just said. Yeah, I know. I agree completely. And you have to - 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. 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 you want to change the world, go home and love your family. Exactly. 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 group of people that are still sick and suffering that are literally to step out that door that are um uh 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 um addicted yeah i agree with that yeah and um 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 double life, you know, for whatever reason, you're not working on behalf of a corporate chill.

1:25:33You're not working on, I'm not, uh, I'm, I'm not pursuing a, um, a goal of which, you You know, I'm a consultant in Washington, D.C., and I, you know, I mean, like, it was all bullshit. It was all bullshit. What was I adding to the conversation? What was I adding to the discourse? What purpose was, you know, any of that at the time? 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 work with an organization called Peak Path Health, which is a great rehab in L.A., but I'm helping set up a foundation for them for aftercare.

1:26:18I work with an organization called Basta Universal, which does homeless prevention and tenants' rights advocacy in L.A. And that's not to say, oh, I'm such a good guy. I mean, because I get paid and I enjoy the work and I think that they're really good people. and I and I'm ready to sub stack because I'm 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 uh 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 yeah 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 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 yes um and I think that you have an opportunity to, and this isn't like, you know, train all, you know, ammunition on the administration.

1:28:01I'm saying the opportunity to find that common purpose. You wonder if it's in the political - Without the vanity of it, and I mean it. No, no, I strongly agree. I mean, we're here for a reason. And once you're passed, once you get out of debt, it's like, what's the point of accumulating money? I really feel that's wrong. And that's exactly the way I feel. Just get me out of the dead. And that's the other thing. People don't like, oh, you're like, I mean, millions of dollars. You know, law firms and others. Yeah, anyway. Yeah, you know about that. But I wonder if like there, nothing you have said, you grew up in a very famous political family.

1:28:49I know you grew up in Delaware, but your world revolved around Washington. You went to school there. You lived there. Went to college there, yeah. Yeah, I went to college there. 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 an immediate, I mean, you can make things better in the margins, but the problems that people face are mostly not political problems. No. Right. So I think that we overstate the importance of like voting for this or that guy.

1:29:26I 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 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 that's my perspective on it. Yeah. 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.

1:29:56That's what I think. Exactly. Exactly. Because it comes from us. We're trying to find the problem out there. Exactly. And it's here. Yeah, we're the problem. Yes. Right? No, I've discovered that about myself. 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 and like I didn't I'm not hard enough on 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. Like, I like I can get into the whole debate about the Democratic Party and whether you're not going to label something Democratic Socialist.

1:30:42This, you know what I think? I like people who believe in what they have a conviction. Yeah. And they're honest about it. I totally agree. I don't agree with everything that Zohar Mandani does. But you know what? He has conviction. He has competence. And, you know, like, I mean, he balanced the budget. Crime is at 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 Zorin Mamdani or Thomas Massey. And I don't agree with 90 % of the stuff that, well, I think I don't, but I don't think that matters in this moment in time.

1:31:22I don't think any of those labels matter in time. I want someone with the courage of their conviction, principles that is, but it 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 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 effing blind. And 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 reach a point in the evolution of humanity?

1:32:10that will be a larger step than in the entirety of the existence of this earth. That's right. 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 hand in, which is a handful of them, and what's happening with AI right now, telling us 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 maximum of another five years, more likely two or three away from super intelligence. And once that happens, we literally have taken a step in the evolution of humanity and of humankind.

1:33:02And the largest singular step that will ever be taken and 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 have humanity's best interest in mind. And I don't know. I shouldn't say I don't know. I do know. I think we have the exact wrong leadership at the moment. I totally agree. I vehemently, do you know anybody in your life who you talk to who's like very excited about AI? Because I don't. I don't really know anyone who's really for this. Where's the constituency for this? It seems like the population doesn't want it at all.

1:33:46Yeah, well, I don't know why anyone would want it in the way that it's being offered to us. Look, the thing I say is this. It's not theirs. What they're building is off the back of the output of all of humanity. I agree. 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 in a context to the poetry of Shakespeare, to the book that you wrote, to my last podcast transcript. That is what is AI. It's all of ours. Every scientific discovery, every single public dollar, all of it, we own it.

1:34:46And we somehow are going to make like five or six individuals in this country, trillionaires, by allowing them to literally rob us of that and make it theirs and them decide? Like, do you trust Sam Altman to decide the fate of humanity or any of them for that matter? I've done 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, out of 350 million Americans, he's probably 350 millionth of who I trust to control the future of humanity. Yet here we are, right? Yeah. Yet here we are. And you know what we're doing?

1:35:38Is 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 100 % know you're not an anti-Semite. No, that's what my point being is that - I would just say so. my point being is is that like if it's anti-semitic to point out that bb netanyahu is evil incarnate then you know what i don't know what to say to i don't know what to say to people anymore i mean all you have to do is just open your eyes just literally open your eyes open your heart for one minute yeah and realize you know i it's such an obvious lie it's like who's even intimidated by that anymore my point is is like how is it possible that they're dividing us on things like that i agree 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 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 so you're saying you got off crack and more impressively alcohol yeah no i'm not i'm not that bad all i'm saying not off your phone no no i am i i'm very 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 yeah 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 uh is that you gravitate towards the negative things people say about you yes way more than you ever gravitate to the to the beautiful things that people say about me.

1:37:40That is so true. So I'm on X, and the amazing thing was, is that 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 outsized characters in this 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 make it through one more day 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

1:38:37and 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 and it and it it was a great lesson for me in the experience that everyone is having, not just on X, but across the board in which we're all being in, and it's, and it's purposeful. The thing that I never fully believed in until I read all 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, is we're not looking at ourselves.

1:39:34And we're not focused on the things that really matter. And one of the things that really matters is we better wake up to the way in which we're being led by the nose and to believe that we all hate each other. 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, the story that Jesus tells about the two men who go to pray at 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 because he is a pig. He's a sinner, unlike, you know, a righteous, good person like me.

1:40:13And 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 just says, have mercy on me. And Jesus says, who is justified before God? 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. Yeah. And look inside and realize that I suck. That's where wisdom and peace come from.

1:40:48Yeah. there's a uh there's a scene in the gnostic gospels and i forget which is in the acts of uh uh i forget acts of philip or something anyway you know that every rhythm gnostic and really you got to that they're the whole trove of uh of uh 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 and uh and uh declared catholicism the the christianity the um state religion of rome um uh they basically effectively chose four gospels and banned all the other ones and they found in I forget the in hominy these 2000 year old texts which were the other gospels written by Mary Magdalene and written by Philip and written by and anyway there's part of one is this Jesus is speaking to the disciples and this is before and he says learn to suffer as I do and um and that is that is everything that all wisdom comes through suffering that is true 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 that you were saying in in luke yeah is that is being able to like not being the person uh casting judgment rather and by the way it's not it doesn't mean that you are uh uh without discretion simply means is that as much as i'm not going to in you know what is the uh the idea of like my empathy overwhelms my my um uh critical thinking.

1:43:03Yes. Is not that. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about, however, is if I can feel this strongly about what they're doing to kids in detention centers in the United States of America, I can also feel just as strongly about, or have as much empathy for

1:43:31for someone who feels like they have been completely left out and without any options that are, you know, are living in Bethel, Maine, that feels that every, that this country has completely let them down and is looking for a hope, something, an object for their anger. And I want to bring them into the fold. You know, I want to be able to talk to them. Those people that I think voted out of anger and that are still looking for, you know someone to be their retribution 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 how do you get off it exactly you said you got off crack in three days or something like that pretty quick yeah well that's the thing is it how do you get off alcohol yeah alcohol is the um 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 in 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 benzodiazepam is that you can die from withdraw from so everybody always you know uh glory you know there's the hollywood version of you know how horrible it is to come off of opiates um or you know um or cocaine and the reality is it's it's really painful and it's uncomfortable and you think you 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 uh need for it and you won't die from withdrawing from it alcohol you'll die you'll go into seizures and um and it stays in your body not just for three days it stays in your body for at least 30 if not more and um and you've created these um you know neurotransmitters in your brain that it's your brain is still crying you know 30 60, 90 days later, still crying for you to drink.

1:46:07And the worst part is, all you got to do is walk out your door. And usually, it's not more than, you know, particularly if you live in a urban environment, you know, a quarter of a mile from wherever you... And no one looks at you funny when you have a cocktail no exactly and it's encouraged and um so uh for me um it was hard hard work is that i this time didn't i've been to a number of rehabs and in uh in 2019 after i met melissa and she said this ends is that I started, I tapered. She had me taper. How did she know to do that? Got to do it completely intuitive.

1:46:58And I mean, it was really, really, you know, incredible. And she tapered me. And then at one point it got really bad. And I had the like true delirium tremors and she called a doctor to come over. What's that like? literally the feeling that you, if you don't remove yourself from your own body, that you're going to die. Because you are. I mean, there's the real potential of you dying from seizures. And it's the most excruciating feeling that I've ever had of any kind of pain. And I'd gone through it before, but I had done it in a clinical environment in which they just, you know, usually use benzodiazepam to win you that way yeah and so i had weaned enough but not enough to um to stop that and so i had to go through it where were you uh 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 raised every number from it.

1:48:07She, 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, nurse 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 you know because you literally could particularly with alcohol not particularly singularly with alcohol you could you could die how long did it take you to feel better

1:48:53in that instance 10 days before i could ever really eat anything and taste it actually yeah you know i mean ever have any interest in not being forced to eat something and then and then you start to you know you have this kind of everything is kind of grayscale you know for even after you get a little bit of a boost around 30 days and then you try to ride that as long as possible but what happens in your brain is that somebody explained it to me this way. You have these little messengers that alcohol sends to your pleasure centers of your brain. The messengers are imagined with little birds. In a normal person, a bird flies up to the birdhouse and that's your dopamine or whatever it is.

1:49:50In a normal circumstance, you have a happy experience and sends two birds up to live in the birdhouse. And the maximum that you're supposed to ever have is like 10. It's like the happiest. What alcohol does is it sends 20 birds at a time. And so it creates 20 birdhouses. And then the next time you want to get, you got to get to 30 birdhouses. And then it builds 40 birdhouses. Then you have, then there's a thousand birdhouses. 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 birdhouses that you have to feel for me to feel normal and you don't have it.

1:50:38And there's nothing in a normal experience that can possibly produce that except the drug. And so your brain, the thing that you think 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. Yeah. And in the case of alcohol, it means it. Yeah. 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 something good happens, your brain says, I know how to make it better.

1:51:24I 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 is 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. I've lived it. And that's an amazing description and an accurate one, I think. How do you stay sober for seven years?

1:52:04Almost everything that I do is no longer with the idea that I am 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, people always say to me, like, well, can I still go to the bar with my friends? Well, not, no. You know, getting clean and 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 your same group of friends, if they are heavy drinkers, or, you know, or your family.

1:52:49Like, if you can't go to Thanksgiving without everybody getting drunk, maybe don't go to thanksgiving this year trying to get sober and so that in terms of changing everything but staying it 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 and 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 it's look at me you know six and 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 long dead and that's what they were hoping and I truly truly do believe that I believe that they knew that the singular what they perceived as my father's Achilles heel was his family 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 beau 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 what does that tell you about i mean why would one thing i noticed just being living in georgetown as a kid and knowing you know 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 yeah 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 um right yeah and you know we we really were in delaware and um which was different and And, but to your point, is that what I found is this, is that I lived it publicly.

1:55:12But, you know, Tucker, what I found is, is that...

1:55:19I was in a, I forget where I was, a stranger, somebody's driving me. And he told me a story, he told me about their life and their addiction and that their brother was in jail and their father just got arrested and addicts. And I think everybody has those stories. Everybody. That's for sure. Except 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, and I really mean that. Like, I mean, the total evisceration of anything or even the notion that I deserved any privacy.

1:56:07I mean, I really like 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 do you think that that was right you know i i look like somebody like miranda divine and just on what level could would if that was if that was ivanka 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 guarantee 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.

1:56:52Everybody has an email in which 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 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 something and it how is that in any way fair however that's what happened and um what's your wife think i mean you oh my god like like she's like talk about she didn't sign up yeah for this yeah like talk about But like, you know, yeah, she is so tough. She's like a, she is a, she is a warrior.

1:57:42Amazing. She is absolutely amazing. I mean, look, I mean, I wasn't, there's no way that I could even prepare for it. And this had been my life. None that I could prepare for it. The fact she didn't run says everything that you need to know about her. Because one much other upside, well, the truth is that Bowie's the ultimate upside. But she is one amazing person. what's your plan you're on a path yeah 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 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 Not because I'm a hero, not because I'm some saint and I want, you know why?

1:59:03Because 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. I mean it, like 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, 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 St. Francis walking among the forest.

1:59:42It's because it's the thing that saves you. The only way to truly get out of yourself is to do for somebody else. is to sit here and for me, the easiest is to find other people that have had the same and similar experience. And it's not like you have to look far. No. I mean, it's around every single corner. There's somebody. And that was the beautiful discovery that I had. So there's that. I want to reach a million people in recovery And I've created this thing at hunterbiden.com 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.

2:00:33Because what helped save me was realizing I wasn't alone. 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 want to continue to practice my art.

2:00:51And ultimately at the end of the day, is that like anybody else, is that I want to have the financial security to be able to not constantly feel as if I have to make choices that I don't want to have to make. Like anybody else, like anybody else in their life. How close are you to financial security? like 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 which is strong wants their money um uh lawyers uh yeah my oh yeah all it's all legal bills yeah and um and uh anyway like tens of thousands of dollars oh no millions of dollars millions of dollars millions I mean just I don't know exactly what it is I think it's between four and six million that Winston-Strawn says that I owe them for for my couple of convictions and anyway yeah yeah it's a lot of money how do you how does that affect you?

2:02:00I don't know I would hope that they oh how does it affect me? it affects me in this way is that But I have to find a sensible solution and a way through. I really have wanted to avoid bankruptcy. Because 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 I can't. it is I don't want it to be the principal motivating factor for everything I do because the truth of the matter is the mountain is such a long climb that I don't see the solution to it right now but one won't present itself and I think cooler heads will prevail and you know and I'll be able to I just have faith.

2:03:06I don't know, man. I just have faith. Not blind faith. Just work hard. I mean, shit, 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 have all of this that I'm trying to do. And then I'm, you know, a whole thing that I've been trying to build is relates in that, you know, I'm working my butt off and doing that. But, you know, they took away my law license, which means that that avenue that I spent, you know, 25 years working towards to graduate from Yale Law School is not open to me right now. And so I have to, in many ways, you know, reinvent myself, but not out of whole cloth.

2:03:52And spending the past seven years, you know, I'm really, really dedicated to my art. I'm really dedicated to the work of writing. You know, you're a brilliant writer, and you know this better than anybody. It is a practice as much as an art. It's a discipline as much as it is. Absolutely right. And so I've been practicing that discipline since I wrote my first book. And so I have a lot to say, and there's ways to be able to do that now. and ways to be able to do that that can, you know, that like, I think it's really important for me to be authentic about everything, but also the ways in which I can do it, in which I hopefully can put food on the table.

2:04:42Last question is about faith. How has this affected how you feel about God and changed your relationship? I don't know whether I would say that it's changed, but it is deep in my belief in, whether you want to call it, I do, as God, is 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. And that connection, that universal connection to everything is what I refer to as God, is us realizing that all of our fear is delusion, is being separated. It's all the idea. And so my faith is in the fact that I know that there is not a sentient being that literally is me.

2:06:13and I don't know if that makes sense to you but I truly believe that there are there has been a

2:06:30a 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. 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 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 yeah you know people are really connected to each other in a real way 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 um but you know i think that there are spiritual practices that i did not 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 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 yes and i did and uh and for now today, it's a beautiful, beautiful thing.

2:08:28It'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 a relationship that, you know, like anybody else, um, and, and 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. Hunter Biden, thank you very much. Thanks.