Speaker 1: They've had an awakening.
Speaker 2: And I don't care the sincerity of it. I don't
Speaker 2: care whether or not.
Speaker 3: But they've had a public awakening to the idea that
Speaker 3: Donald Trump is a singular threat to this country. And
Speaker 3: so I'll sit down and talk to anybody who's come
Speaker 3: to that conclusion. If you've had the courage to come
Speaker 3: out of the cult that you helped create, and I
Speaker 3: can sit down and talk to.
Speaker 2: You about.
Speaker 3: What we have that more that connects us and divides
Speaker 3: us and finds some common ground.
Speaker 1: God bless. So be it, man. Your task will not
Speaker 1: be an easy one. Your enemy is well-trained, well-equipped, and battle-hardened.
Speaker 4: There is not a liberal America and a conservative America.
Speaker 1: There is the United States of America. Good night, and
Speaker 1: good luck. Hey folks, it's Rick Wilson. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the Lincoln Project Podcast. We're delighted to have you with
Speaker 1: us today, and even more delighted to bring you a
Speaker 1: very special guest. It's Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden has become
Speaker 1: America's spirit animal. He has become a guy who is talking...
Speaker 1: to folks across the political spectrum in a way that
Speaker 1: is blunt and crisp and not political. And people are
Speaker 1: really responding to it at a really fundamental level. So, Hunter,
Speaker 1: you have been out there talking to folks and going
Speaker 1: around the country, talking to people on the left and
Speaker 1: the right and the center, in the professional political world
Speaker 1: and outside of it. And what is it you think
Speaker 1: has been the reason why You've become such a voice
Speaker 1: for so many people right now.
Speaker 3: I'm honored that you would even think that, Rick. I
Speaker 3: appreciate it very much, for real. Coming from you, that means.
Speaker 1: A great deal.
Speaker 3: I think that more than anything is that I think
Speaker 3: people will fundamentally understand, but the talking heads on cable
Speaker 3: news don't understand is that I really truly believe that
Speaker 3: we're not nearly as divided as we are being told
Speaker 3: we are.
Speaker 2: I think that.
Speaker 3: My experience that played out on the cover of the
Speaker 3: New York Post for a seven-year period of time and
Speaker 3: every tabloid and every mainstream media is something that once
Speaker 3: I decided that I was going to speak and speak
Speaker 3: frankly about it, speak frankly about my addictions, speak frankly
Speaker 3: about my recovery and my relationship with my family, who
Speaker 3: I adore and love, that they find much more connection
Speaker 3: in that than they, than any of the, um, uh,
Speaker 3: the things that they're told to believe, uh, uh, separates
Speaker 3: me from them. And, um, and so in that sense,
Speaker 3: I also think that, um, people are just sick of
Speaker 3: the bullshit.
Speaker 1: They just are.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 3: Yeah. You know, people cut, you know, whether it's politicians
Speaker 3: or cable news talking heads or political analysts that come
Speaker 3: out and tell everybody what they're supposed to believe about each.
Speaker 2: Other without any real evidence or any way of showing
Speaker 2: us how we are more alike than not.
Speaker 3: So I don't know if that answers it because I'm
Speaker 3: not quite sure yet what it all means. All I
Speaker 3: know is that I get an opportunity to debate people
Speaker 3: with politics so that they can hear my message as
Speaker 3: it relates to recovery, which 50 million Americans face every day.
Speaker 1: A friend of mine who's on her 23rd year of
Speaker 1: recovery said to me one time, it's a process, not
Speaker 1: a thing. That's right. That's right. And so I love
Speaker 1: that you've made this. In some ways, they caricatured you
Speaker 1: for years. They ignored the recovery part and the hard
Speaker 1: work of that. And it was, oh, here's these pictures
Speaker 1: from whatever, laptop and all that, all the garbage, right?
Speaker 1: In some ways, you being honest about it for people,
Speaker 1: I think for people who are working through recovery and
Speaker 1: working through challenges like that, you've owned it all. And
Speaker 1: you've said, yeah, that was the world I was in.
Speaker 1: That was the world I've gotten through hard work out of.
Speaker 1: And you owned it and it stopped having a lot
Speaker 1: more power in the world than it would have if
Speaker 1: you'd been trying to deny it, trying to hide it.
Speaker 1: That seems like the reflex in American politics now is like,
Speaker 1: hide everything, cover everything up, don't talk about anything, be
Speaker 1: dishonest at every level. And you've walked out there with
Speaker 1: it and said, here I am, and you've owned it.
Speaker 1: I think it's a great story for people.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: One of the things I've been saying, which I think
Speaker 3: is absolutely true, I'd love to get your take on it,
Speaker 3: is that I think Donald Trump has done something that
Speaker 3: a lot more than something. He has infected politics in
Speaker 3: so many different ways. But one of the ways in
Speaker 3: which he did is we've all in some way confused
Speaker 3: audacity with authenticity. We've confused the idea that someone can
Speaker 3: come out and stand in front of you and say
Speaker 3: that they're six foot three and they weigh 225 pounds.
Speaker 1: When we know that if he, if he's six feet.
Speaker 3: On a good day and he's much closer to 285,
Speaker 3: I think that more than anything is that, um, uh,
Speaker 3: in this moment in time, particularly with people that are
Speaker 3: kind of in.
Speaker 2: The draft age, 18 to 35.
Speaker 3: Year olds is that they can, they can sniff, um, uh,
Speaker 3: BS from a mile away. And, um, and I, and I,
Speaker 3: and I think that that is not, um, uh, confined
Speaker 3: to any particular political belief.
Speaker 2: I think that it's across the board.
Speaker 3: And he is so kind of infected at that and
Speaker 3: everything else that I think when someone comes out and
Speaker 3: is upfront about all of the things that are true
Speaker 3: about them that they can't deny, it's not like I
Speaker 3: came to this out of some courage on my part.
Speaker 3: It was It was I said that everybody is that
Speaker 3: I'm in a better place than I've ever been because
Speaker 3: of what I went through.
Speaker 2: But I wouldn't recommend what I went.
Speaker 1: Through to anybody.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And so anyway, I just think that that
Speaker 2: people are.
Speaker 3: Willing to give you the space and and listen if
Speaker 3: you are sincere about your convictions. And just authentic about it. And,
Speaker 3: you know, and that's not something you can fake.
Speaker 1: No, I think that's exactly right. So, you know, I
Speaker 1: was thinking about this interview last night and I was
Speaker 1: thinking about your dad. And I realized in some fundamental
Speaker 1: way the difference between your dad and this administration now,
Speaker 1: the choice that we unfortunately made as a country to
Speaker 1: send Trump back to office, it's not just policy. It
Speaker 1: is about compassion and human connection. And your dad is famous,
Speaker 1: and you seem to have that same gift, I think.
Speaker 1: They're not just like placeholders for you, and they certainly
Speaker 1: weren't for your dad, who just loved people. When he
Speaker 1: was in office and when he was a candidate, when
Speaker 1: he was in the Senate, I always noticed that about him,
Speaker 1: even when I was a Republican. And I had a
Speaker 1: lot of Republican clients and friends and senators, and they
Speaker 1: would always tell me like, I love that fucking guy.
Speaker 1: I fucking love Joe Biden because he's just like, he
Speaker 1: cares about you. He's like, he's a no shit person.
Speaker 1: Is that part of what you're doing here is trying
Speaker 1: to get that message. Like we've got to connect better.
Speaker 1: We've got to, we've got to reach to other people better.
Speaker 1: Cause you're, you're talking to everybody. You're talking to, you know,
Speaker 1: from Candace Owen and Tucker to, you know, me to
Speaker 1: people on the left, right center, it's all over. Is
Speaker 1: that part of this mission is to get that sense of, of,
Speaker 1: of that, compassion and connection back? A hundred percent.
Speaker 3: We have been, uh, told that we are, uh, uh,
Speaker 3: not that, that, that we have this incredible divide in
Speaker 3: this country.
Speaker 1: I'd love to get your take on this. Um, because from, uh, I,
Speaker 1: I think that the, that you guys over at.
Speaker 3: Lincoln project are spot on almost everything. Um, like one
Speaker 3: of the things is that as a democratic party, this
Speaker 3: idea that we're trying to, uh, to categorize our candidates
Speaker 3: in ways that.
Speaker 2: Eliminates them from the mainstream.
Speaker 3: Or, you know, I hear some people saying they're going
Speaker 3: to when when they get to Congress, we're going to
Speaker 3: kick them out of the party and things like that.
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, what are you talking about? I think
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Speaker 3: And everything that I do in terms of the politics
Speaker 3: is to say is that I will sit down with
Speaker 3: anyone who's come to the same conclusion that I have
Speaker 3: come to, that 75% of American people have come to
Speaker 3: about Donald Trump. I think that he is the singular
Speaker 3: existential threat that is facing our country right now. I
Speaker 3: know that people say that he's just a symptom of
Speaker 3: the disease, but I don't fully believe that.
Speaker 2: I think that he is the catalyst for so much
Speaker 2: of this. It is a pandemic.
Speaker 1: A hundred percent, Hunter. I mean, there is a lot
Speaker 1: about Trump that emerged from a, you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of shitty things that happened in our country from, from
Speaker 1: the addiction to Fox and Facebook and all that stuff
Speaker 1: to the Republican parties drift towards like authoritarianism and all that.
Speaker 1: But he has a unique set of, he is like
Speaker 1: a super villain in making people into their worst self where,
Speaker 1: and I, the first time I ever picked up on this,
Speaker 1: I was in a focus group in 2016 and I,
Speaker 1: Heard this guy who was pissed off about the world.
Speaker 1: He had been an Obama voter twice, and he was
Speaker 1: so pissed off about his auto plant closing. And he
Speaker 1: was like, you know, fuck this and fuck that. He goes,
Speaker 1: you know what? If Trump says I can say the
Speaker 1: N-word now, and he did not say the N-word, he
Speaker 1: used the full hard G word, then I'm going to
Speaker 1: do it. And he felt like he was given some
Speaker 1: sort of superpower to be a dick. And Trump makes
Speaker 1: people feel like they can steal. and abuse people and
Speaker 1: mock people who are sick or poor or immigrants. And
Speaker 1: it is a pandemic. It is an evil that I
Speaker 1: don't think our country was really ready for because social
Speaker 1: media made it a billion times stronger than it would
Speaker 1: have been. Because normally in life, if somebody said that,
Speaker 1: you know, they were your neighbor, you'd be like, shut
Speaker 1: the fuck up, Bob.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 1: But, but, but on social media, it's like, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 1: Maga man, seven, two, four, nine, two. You tell them.
Speaker 1: I just, I feel like he really unleashed some shittiness
Speaker 1: in our culture and our, and our national spirit that, that,
Speaker 1: that I, I, I still even 10 years into this.
Speaker 1: Don't know how to fix it. Honest answer.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's my honest answer too, is I don't know how
Speaker 2: to fix it.
Speaker 3: Other than by this is that if we don't look,
Speaker 3: How long did I hear the mainstream press and everybody
Speaker 3: at the New York Times editorial board and, you know,
Speaker 3: or in hindsight, 20, 20, 20 hindsight talk about how
Speaker 3: Kamala Harris screwed up because she didn't talk to Joe
Speaker 3: Rogan or any of the people in the in the sphere,
Speaker 3: the bro sphere, whatever they call it.
Speaker 2: And, you know, and OK, so now I go out
Speaker 2: and I talk to these people.
Speaker 3: And the reason that I talk to them is the
Speaker 3: singular reason of the ones that I've talked to so
Speaker 3: far is this.
Speaker 1: Is that they have come, they've had an awakening.
Speaker 3: And I don't care the sincerity of it. I don't
Speaker 3: care whether or not, but they've had a public awakening
Speaker 3: to the idea that Donald Trump is a singular threat
Speaker 3: to this country. And so I'll sit down and talk
Speaker 3: to anybody who's come to that conclusion. If you've had
Speaker 3: the courage to come out of the cult that you
Speaker 3: helped create, and I can sit down and talk to.
Speaker 2: You about.
Speaker 3: What we have that more that connects us than divides
Speaker 3: us and find some common ground.
Speaker 2: God bless.
Speaker 1: So be it, man.
Speaker 3: And like everybody else out there that says, oh, you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, I was listening to the Pod Save America
Speaker 3: guys the other day and they were like, you know, oh,
Speaker 3: my God, I can't believe Hunter did this.
Speaker 1: Hunter Biden media tour on all of the various right
Speaker 1: wing hosts and all the different places he's going.
Speaker 2: What are you doing, man? And I'm like, what? You
Speaker 2: are so irrelevant.
Speaker 3: You're so incredibly relevant and out of touch with everyday
Speaker 3: Americans who do not give a shit about the things
Speaker 3: that you're telling us that we need to give a
Speaker 3: shit about. You're sitting here talking about whether or not
Speaker 3: the chairman of the Democratic Party is worthy of the
Speaker 3: job and he needs to get fired and he didn't
Speaker 3: do an after-action report that was good.
Speaker 2: People don't give a shit, man.
Speaker 1: Nobody cares. They don't care about party.
Speaker 3: Nobody sits around. I mean, I tell everybody, you want
Speaker 3: to talk about the Democratic Party? I believe what Will
Speaker 3: Rogers said. He's not a member of any organized party.
Speaker 3: He's a Democrat. And by the way, you know this
Speaker 3: better than anybody. That has never changed. And so we
Speaker 3: sit here and they pontificate and hand-ring over. For instance,
Speaker 3: let me give you one instance in which I think
Speaker 3: where we find that we just do ourselves.
Speaker 2: And who are ourselves?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: But we do ourselves such an incredible disservice.
Speaker 1: Dr. Abdul Al-Sayed is literally..
Speaker 2: If you took out the racist.
Speaker 3: Component of his last name that people attached to it, okay?
Speaker 2: He is literally a model candidate. He is a Rhodes Scholar.
Speaker 2: He is an M.D. He is a epidemiologist.
Speaker 3: He is, by the way, he's like a bodybuilder and
Speaker 3: was captain of like every single sports team in Michigan.
Speaker 1: Born and bred Michigan. He rebuilt the health department after
Speaker 1: the politicians wore it down. Got rid of millions of
Speaker 1: dollars of medical debt.
Speaker 2: Got thousands of blessed kids, including me. Abdul has the
Speaker 2: guts to take all of them on and represent the
Speaker 2: working class.
Speaker 4: He's a doctor.
Speaker 1: He is exactly that.
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, these guys like go around now and they like, Fred, like,
Speaker 3: oh my God.
Speaker 1: We, yeah, it's like, it's insane.
Speaker 3: And we feed into this inside the party, which is
Speaker 3: nothing new, but it's on steroids now.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just get so sick of it. That's
Speaker 1: one of the Republican Party's superpowers is they don't fucking care.
Speaker 1: It could be Max Miller in Ohio who beats his
Speaker 1: wife and they're like, nope, he's our guy. We're sticking
Speaker 1: with him. He's a Republican. And the Democrats do a
Speaker 1: lot more purity checking. And they also do a lot more,
Speaker 1: they also do a lot more like they overthink everything.
Speaker 1: It's like, what if this guy doesn't like this thing
Speaker 1: that Abdul said about this issue? And then they always like,
Speaker 1: they can look at one tiny sliver of data and go,
Speaker 1: this is the absolute fact. And it's rarely the absolute fact.
Speaker 1: He is, and look, I don't have to agree with
Speaker 1: the guy on everything he says. But you got to
Speaker 1: acknowledge he's got that gift in politics. You've seen this
Speaker 1: up close. Some people have the gift. Some people have
Speaker 1: a skill. It's like God love Hillary Clinton, but she
Speaker 1: never had that gift in 2016. She just didn't have it.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right. Barack Obama had it. Your dad had it.
Speaker 1: George Bush, W. Bush had that skill connected. You sat
Speaker 1: down with somebody, you walked out of the room with
Speaker 1: George W.
Speaker 3: Bush.
Speaker 1: You're like, I fucking love that guy. He's nice as
Speaker 1: could be. The purity checking will end up in a
Speaker 1: place where nobody's ever acceptable. Because if anybody gets a
Speaker 1: veto and anybody in the room gets a black ball,
Speaker 1: then nobody's ever going to run. You're always going to
Speaker 1: get the worst possible candidate, the mushiest, boringest, like, milquetoast candidates.
Speaker 1: And you've got to have good candidates in this world.
Speaker 1: You look at Tallarico. The guy's a good candidate. He's
Speaker 1: got the skill.
Speaker 5: We have an affordability crisis because we have a corruption crisis.
Speaker 5: We don't have a government of, by, and for the people.
Speaker 5: Things would be different if we did. We have a
Speaker 5: government of, by, and for the billionaires. The system is
Speaker 5: working exactly as it was intended to work.
Speaker 1: You look at Ossoff, he's got the skill.
Speaker 4: And while the sailors on the Lincoln fight his war,
Speaker 4: while he fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the
Speaker 4: president sleeps through his meetings. He golfs and trades stocks. See,
Speaker 4: he doesn't want to do the job. He wants to
Speaker 4: build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently
Speaker 4: defenseless flying palace gifted by.
Speaker 1: The Emir of Qatar.
Speaker 3: That is exactly right, Rick, and that's what I say.
Speaker 3: I'm a Tallarico Democrat. I'm a, and I, you know
Speaker 3: who else I am? I'm a Zoran Mondani Democrat.
Speaker 1: I hate him. Listen, the guy's got 69% approval in
Speaker 1: New York City. You know, anybody else, anybody else would
Speaker 1: kill for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And you know why? It's because he made
Speaker 2: some promises and he's kept them.
Speaker 3: He's shown that there is competence to his conviction, to
Speaker 3: the practical politics of making.
Speaker 2: The crime rate in New York is an all-time low.
Speaker 3: They balanced the budget for the first time in, I
Speaker 3: don't know, since Mike Bloomberg in you know, 15, 16
Speaker 3: years in a nine-month period of time. He said that
Speaker 3: he was going to open up co-op grocery stores. He's
Speaker 3: opening up five of them.
Speaker 1: He said he was.
Speaker 2: Going to do something about rent.
Speaker 1: He was going to do something about rent. And meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the Democratic.
Speaker 3: Party or whatever consists of the Democratic Party, which is
Speaker 3: a lot of people that is self-appointed talking heads for
Speaker 3: the Democratic Party, Go out there and they go, oh,
Speaker 3: my God, he's a socialist.
Speaker 2: And I don't know, we're never going to be able
Speaker 2: to run with that.
Speaker 3: And, you know, this is not going to work in
Speaker 3: rural America. You know what works in rural America, from
Speaker 3: my estimation, is tell people you're going to do something
Speaker 3: about the fact that they can't get health care and
Speaker 3: they're going bankrupt because mom just got cancer.
Speaker 1: That's what's going to work. And that's the thing that
Speaker 1: they're talking about. 100% right. When your dad said to
Speaker 1: Obama at the passage of the Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act,
Speaker 1: when he said this is a big fucking deal, he
Speaker 1: was correct.
Speaker 3: Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States of America,
Speaker 3: Barack Obama.
Speaker 1: Even though I was a Republican at that point, we
Speaker 1: fought hard against it. But I will tell you, I
Speaker 1: went in to brief a pair of very wealthy brothers,
Speaker 1: whose names will be off the table because I have
Speaker 1: an NDA still. But you guys can figure out who
Speaker 1: it was. And they were like, how do we kill this?
Speaker 1: How do we kill this? And I was like, you
Speaker 1: can't kill this. We focus grouped it. We polled it.
Speaker 1: We tested it with Republicans. And you know what? The
Speaker 1: minute one of them runs into a preexisting condition or
Speaker 1: a child who can't get coverage at the age of
Speaker 1: 23 or any of the other things that it helped
Speaker 1: reduce health care costs on, you will lose this fight forever.
Speaker 1: And they did lose it forever until Trump this year,
Speaker 1: just out of spite, just out of shittiness, decided they
Speaker 1: were going to cut the ACA subsidies to make Elon
Speaker 1: Musk get a tax cut. And you're at a hundred
Speaker 1: percent that healthcare in the Midwest and in the South,
Speaker 1: there are more people on Obamacare per capita in Florida
Speaker 1: than anywhere else in the country, the red state of Florida. It's, it's,
Speaker 1: it's an issue that underneath the surface is killing the
Speaker 1: Republicans if they'd figure it out. And if the Democrats,
Speaker 1: I mean, look, Medicare for all, it is a great phrase.
Speaker 1: It is a simple phrase. People get it. And, and,
Speaker 1: You know, I just feel like that is a superpower
Speaker 1: if they figure out how to talk about it, you know,
Speaker 1: as a front and center issue going forward. I do too.
Speaker 3: When you say to people what they already know is
Speaker 3: that we are the only industrialized nation in the world
Speaker 3: that does not provide access to free health care for
Speaker 3: preventative and emergency medicine. And the idea that we are, people,
Speaker 3: it's not like you're telling them something new because everybody, look,
Speaker 3: I have independent private health insurance that I have to get.
Speaker 2: It is at least 30% of my monthly budget.
Speaker 1: Oh, sure. And I can't afford it. I mean, we
Speaker 1: had to drop it. I had to drop it for
Speaker 1: a period of time.
Speaker 3: And now I'm back to being insured.
Speaker 1: But..
Speaker 3: It is not an affordable thing, even under the circumstances
Speaker 3: that we have now.
Speaker 2: And what they are doing to it is.
Speaker 3: So egregious, so nonsensical, so punitive, that it is like,
Speaker 3: if we only talked about that, instead, what do we
Speaker 3: talk about? I turn on these shows, and literally, it
Speaker 3: drives me insane. I turn on these shows, and it's
Speaker 3: like a circular firing squad, because they end up talking
Speaker 3: about Hasan Piker for 45 minutes.
Speaker 2: You know what Hassan Piker did?
Speaker 3: Hassan Piker is a live stream guy that has been
Speaker 3: doing it for I don't know how many years. And
Speaker 3: he has thousands and thousands and thousands of hours of
Speaker 3: him just feeling shit into a microphone. By the way,
Speaker 3: but at the same time, you know what Hassan Piker's done?
Speaker 3: he has created a little bit of a movement of
Speaker 3: a group of people that are absolutely opposed.
Speaker 2: To the fascism of Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: And you know what? I want to tap into that.
Speaker 3: I don't want to opt out of it. I want
Speaker 3: to figure out with Assange Piker whether or not we
Speaker 3: can find common ground and fight against the same enemy. Instead,
Speaker 3: what these guys are doing is he's a virulent antisemite
Speaker 3: and everybody is this, that, and the other thing. And
Speaker 3: it's just like, and he said this about 9-11 and
Speaker 3: he said that it's like, my God, let's talk about this.
Speaker 3: These guys will sit down, particularly in the mainstream press.
Speaker 3: They'll sit down and do an interview with a 34
Speaker 3: count convicted felon who was adjudicated to have raped a
Speaker 3: woman and has 30, I don't know, dozens of legitimate
Speaker 3: sexual assault claims, allegations of sexual assault against him and
Speaker 3: is in the Epstein files more than any other human
Speaker 3: being on the face of the earth. They'll sit down
Speaker 3: and talk with him, but it's not okay for me
Speaker 3: to sit down and talk with Tucker Carlson.
Speaker 2: They're out of their minds.
Speaker 1: The divisions in America inside the parties used to be
Speaker 1: a lot less Horrible. You could have Democratic friends if
Speaker 1: you were Republican. You could have Republican friends if you
Speaker 1: were a Democrat. You could have these, you know, partisan,
Speaker 1: cross-partisan friendships and relationships and all that. I don't know
Speaker 1: when it was, and maybe it's the Fox effect. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure. I'm not going to blame Fox for everything.
Speaker 1: They're blamed for a lot. But somehow in the last,
Speaker 1: I don't know, 15 years, 10 years in Washington, now
Speaker 1: it's like you're not allowed to talk to the other guys.
Speaker 1: You're not allowed to go have the beer, the proverbial
Speaker 1: beer with the other guy. You're not allowed to eat
Speaker 1: dinner with somebody across the aisle. It's gotten so fucked
Speaker 1: up and ugly, you know, and it's like once in
Speaker 1: a while I see something that makes me go like, huh?
Speaker 1: The other day it was like Elizabeth Warren and Josh
Speaker 1: Hawley were doing stuff about like not letting private equity
Speaker 1: buy up every house in neighborhoods, right? And it was
Speaker 1: what you don't see anything bipartisan anymore because the culture
Speaker 1: punishes it. Those talking heads on TV punish it. Like
Speaker 1: I'm sure there are plenty of liberals pissed off at
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Warren and plenty of conservatives pissed off at Josh
Speaker 1: Hawley for doing something bipartisan. And man, if we don't stop,
Speaker 1: if we don't, if we don't put the brakes on
Speaker 1: that shit at some point, you know, we're not going to,
Speaker 1: we're not going.
Speaker 3: To survive as a country, but Here's the other thing, though,
Speaker 3: is that I think is that I think that we're
Speaker 3: going to have a really great shot at the midterms.
Speaker 3: And I think that I with the caveat being who
Speaker 3: knows what shenanigans that they will pull, knowing that they're
Speaker 3: going to do some stuff that is the voter suppression
Speaker 3: is going to go through the roof is going to
Speaker 3: be through the roof. And so but even with that,
Speaker 3: I think that that we have a chance.
Speaker 2: Attack, attack, attack.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: Attack, attack, attack.
Speaker 3: We have the most target-rich environment. We have the most
Speaker 3: target-rich environment in this Democratic Party in the history of
Speaker 3: this country. We have a singularly awful human being who
Speaker 3: has not done anything for the people that he promised
Speaker 3: that he was going to do something for. And he
Speaker 3: has been punitive in the way in which he's addressed
Speaker 3: the rest of the country to the degree that he's
Speaker 3: literally cancelling major infrastructure projects in blue states and blue
Speaker 3: cities because Joe Biden created them. And we have a
Speaker 3: guy that has literally made the world incredibly less safe
Speaker 3: for everyone. I mean, it is insane that we are
Speaker 3: not literally every day, no matter what, if you believe
Speaker 3: in democracy, not just saying, look at that idiot.
Speaker 2: Just look at that idiot. I mean, just think about this.
Speaker 2: The level of corruption is so insane.
Speaker 3: That it doesn't take much to get people to understand
Speaker 3: what is going on. He is doing things that are
Speaker 3: so just patently, totally corrupt. I mean, in a way
Speaker 3: that is like, I can't believe how crass they are
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 1: And you know what?
Speaker 2: That's the tip of the iceberg of what we're seeing.
Speaker 1: That's why they're trying to cover up all this executive
Speaker 1: privilege shit. The criminal enterprise in this White House, I mean,
Speaker 1: the bullshit they accused you of is rounding error of
Speaker 1: a fraction of one day of their bullshit. I mean,
Speaker 1: they are stealing tens of billions of dollars. They're taking
Speaker 1: bribes at a scale that is literally like, you have
Speaker 1: to go back to Teapot Dome, you know, 120 years ago.
Speaker 1: to get anything even close to what's happening in this
Speaker 1: White House. And Americans fucking hate it. And they're starting.
Speaker 1: It's slow. But Republicans and Democrats are coming together on
Speaker 1: one big thing. They're realizing the economic crisis they're in
Speaker 1: is because of the corruption. It's coming together in their
Speaker 1: heads and fusing because it's like if Trump wasn't running
Speaker 1: a racket, basically, and he wasn't doing these tariffs and
Speaker 1: getting people paid off from all that shit, your economy
Speaker 1: might not suck as hard. They might be in a
Speaker 1: better world. They might not be struggling and suffering in
Speaker 1: the same way. So I think that's exactly right, man.
Speaker 1: I think the corruption is just like, it is the
Speaker 1: killer app for Democrats. And that is one you can
Speaker 1: tie every Republican candidate to out there. Because they have
Speaker 1: never once said a word about Trump stealing billions in
Speaker 1: crypto and all this other shit that they're doing. Kushner
Speaker 1: and Witkoff going around the world getting investments while they're
Speaker 1: negotiating with Russia and Iran and all this. It's insane.
Speaker 2: Truly insane. And the story can be told over and
Speaker 2: over and over again with facts. I mean, I always
Speaker 2: like to point out is who appointed Jared Kushner? to anything?
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, he is the most important envoy to the United
Speaker 3: States representing supposedly the United States interest when he is
Speaker 3: literally being paid $ 150 million a year by the Saudis alone.
Speaker 3: He's gotten over $ 7 billion, I think close to $ 7
Speaker 3: billion invested into a fund, all from Gulf states.
Speaker 2: So whose interest is.
Speaker 3: He representing when he's trying to open up the Straits
Speaker 3: of Hormuz that were open until.
Speaker 1: These morons bombed Iran? And what is happening?
Speaker 3: And this is the thing that I think that people
Speaker 3: just really, truly have to understand.
Speaker 2: Is that all of this is for them to enrich themselves.
Speaker 1: 100%.
Speaker 2: Billions and billions of dollars on trading.
Speaker 3: I made that joke that Donald Trump should receive the
Speaker 3: Nobel Prize for ending the war in Iran 38 times.
Speaker 3: No president has ended the same war more times than
Speaker 3: Donald Trump. And the fact of the matter is, is
Speaker 3: what you see in each one of those times is
Speaker 3: they've literally mapped it.
Speaker 1: There is a... 15 minutes.
Speaker 3: Before the announcement, there's a gigantic trade that is made
Speaker 3: on the market.
Speaker 2: And who do you think is making that trade? It's
Speaker 2: literally them.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: To make billions.
Speaker 3: By the way, while soldiers and sailors, excuse me, sit
Speaker 3: on aircraft carriers, is literally that don't have food, that
Speaker 3: don't have a, that, I mean, they're living this existence
Speaker 3: while we sit around and these guys literally raking money
Speaker 3: like it's Idi Amin running the country.
Speaker 1: It's incredible. That story of the folks out on the
Speaker 1: aircraft carriers and the other ships in the blockade who
Speaker 1: are starving to death, folks. They are not getting food
Speaker 1: to them. Literally.
Speaker 2: Literally. And so here's one of the reasons.
Speaker 3: The answer is, you know, I saw this thing, or
Speaker 3: they do, and I like picking on the Pod Save
Speaker 3: America guys because I think they're weak and feminine.
Speaker 2: And so the reason why I want to pick on
Speaker 2: them is because.
Speaker 1: Of that, okay? Right.
Speaker 2: I also think that they are not very smart at
Speaker 2: what they do.
Speaker 3: And so they sit around and kind of go like,
Speaker 3: what's Hunter Biden doing this for?
Speaker 2: Well, let me tell you something. Who better to.
Speaker 3: Highlight the corruption of the Trumps than the person that
Speaker 3: they accused of corruption for seven years straight? If you
Speaker 3: could believe every single thing you want to believe, the
Speaker 3: narrative that they spun about me, 98% of which is
Speaker 3: not true.
Speaker 2: You could believe all, even if you believed all of that.
Speaker 1: Who better to be the, to deliver this message.
Speaker 3: It doesn't even come close to what these MFers are doing.
Speaker 1: It doesn't even come close. Everything they accused you of
Speaker 1: is rounding error for one day of their theft. It
Speaker 1: is like, it is, it is. And, and what they
Speaker 1: accused you of was 99% bullshit.
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: So, I mean, this is, I think you're exactly right.
Speaker 1: I think I think having somebody who has, you know,
Speaker 1: who has survived the sins of this world going out
Speaker 1: there and saying, hey, guys, no, this this is way much.
Speaker 1: It's too far.
Speaker 2: OK, let me let me give you let me give
Speaker 2: you a great example.
Speaker 1: Cryptocurrency.
Speaker 2: Cryptocurrency is a tool.
Speaker 1: I believe in cryptocurrency.
Speaker 3: When I was working at the World Food Program as
Speaker 3: chairman of the board of the U.S.
Speaker 4: U.N.
Speaker 1: World Food Program.
Speaker 3: We tried to institute a way in which we could
Speaker 3: have microtransactions through the blockchain so that we didn't completely
Speaker 3: warp economies that refugees were bringing into. And so I
Speaker 3: read this thing called the Internet of Money a long
Speaker 3: time ago and became a real believer in it. Now,
Speaker 3: I wish I had the money to invest in some
Speaker 3: of the stuff that I was a believer in. But
Speaker 3: for instance, I'm a believer in the meme tokens. I'm
Speaker 3: a believer in cryptocurrency. I'm a believer in those things.
Speaker 2: And what do they do? They completely, completely made it
Speaker 2: all out to be a grift. It was a complete
Speaker 2: extraction play.
Speaker 3: They drained the, I mean, they literally took money out
Speaker 3: of the pockets of their retail investors and literally put
Speaker 3: it into their, from.
Speaker 2: The people that cared about them the most. I believe
Speaker 2: what we have to do is we have to play
Speaker 2: their game, is that we have to attack them.
Speaker 3: Where they are the most vulnerable, the weakest. So let's
Speaker 3: go after them in cryptocurrency, not by telling everybody that
Speaker 3: cryptocurrency is a grift. Let's start our own things. Let's
Speaker 3: do our own things. Me, I'll go out and I'll
Speaker 3: talk about corruption. I'll talk about recovery.
Speaker 2: I'll talk about the humiliation that they put me through.
Speaker 3: And why I believe that it's the thing that connects
Speaker 3: us rather than divides us. But I just get so
Speaker 3: sick and tired sometimes. And I'm tired today just because
Speaker 3: I don't know why. And it's probably coming through. But
Speaker 3: I'm tired of listening to... To the people that I
Speaker 3: believe care, I think they care, but they just spend
Speaker 3: so much time sniping at the people that are on
Speaker 3: their team that I just don't understand it.
Speaker 1: I will tell you, you mentioned the pod save, guys.
Speaker 1: There's so much not invented here. If we didn't do it,
Speaker 1: it's not good. No one else can have a valid
Speaker 1: idea bullshit. With a lot of people in both the
Speaker 1: Democratic left and the media, that sometimes you do have
Speaker 1: to rattle the cage. You do something transgressive and loud.
Speaker 1: So I do want to ask you, because I was
Speaker 1: really thinking about this interview last night, and you know
Speaker 1: I worked for George H.W., the elder Bush, another one-term president.
Speaker 1: And I have a feeling, it took a long time
Speaker 1: for him to be appreciated. I have a feeling, I
Speaker 1: really truly believe this, that your dad is going to be,
Speaker 1: it's going to take a minute, but that America is
Speaker 1: going to appreciate the four years of unwinding the sickness
Speaker 1: and the bullshit and the damage Trump did that, that
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't think they necessarily get the scope
Speaker 1: of what he faced when he came into office. And,
Speaker 1: and I'm curious about like, where do you, where do
Speaker 1: you see your dad's legacy? And what do you see?
Speaker 1: Like your, your current, your current work is that wrapped
Speaker 1: up in it to some degree for you? I hope so.
Speaker 2: And, and, and I, and yes, a hundred percent. I'm
Speaker 2: not unbiased about my dad.
Speaker 3: I think that his legacy is, is, uh, will be, um, well, is,
Speaker 3: is secured by virtue of the, the, the man that
Speaker 3: he is in the singular person as a president. I,
Speaker 3: I always tell people, and I don't mean this as
Speaker 3: a criticism to any of the other presidents.
Speaker 2: Particularly the ones I know in, in, in no way
Speaker 2: in that I, many whom, whom I.
Speaker 3: Have deep, deep respect for is that it takes a
Speaker 3: level of narcissism to think that you can become president
Speaker 3: or to become president. And it's, and, and, I think
Speaker 3: that my dad entered the presidency with the lowest level
Speaker 3: of narcissism of any president.
Speaker 1: Dude, I am a historian of presidents. Yes, that is correct. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And that everything that he did, he did from the
Speaker 3: perspective of, and you've heard him say it a million times,
Speaker 3: from the perspective of.
Speaker 2: Sitting around that table in Scranton.
Speaker 3: With his grandfather and his uncle.
Speaker 2: And what would they think? Everything was about working people.
Speaker 2: Everything was about..
Speaker 3: And not in a way like it's, you know, like
Speaker 3: some demographic that he had to try to figure out
Speaker 3: to message to. I mean, he really understood what it
Speaker 3: meant to be in the shoes of someone trying to
Speaker 3: figure out how they're going to make rent and also,
Speaker 3: you know, send little.
Speaker 2: Joey to college.
Speaker 1: He never lost that. Never lost that threat. Never, ever,
Speaker 1: ever lost that.
Speaker 3: And that level of what they, you know, it's... Empathy
Speaker 3: seems to have gone out of fashion in the age
Speaker 3: of Trump, but I don't know of anyone that had
Speaker 3: more true empathy, authentic empathy for real people as a
Speaker 3: president than my dad. With that empathy came an enormous
Speaker 3: amount of competence also. What people are not focusing on
Speaker 3: right now because they're focusing on, and it's understandable, they're
Speaker 3: focusing on what came next in Trump, but You got
Speaker 3: to remember, Rick, you remember.
Speaker 1: I know this for certain you guys remember.
Speaker 3: They said when my dad won, the whole New York
Speaker 3: Times editorial kind of board storyline was is that, well,
Speaker 3: he may have won, but he's never going to be
Speaker 3: able to govern because he lives in an age of
Speaker 3: when compromise and bipartisanship existed. And Joe Biden's too old
Speaker 3: and he doesn't know that that is all gone.
Speaker 1: That was pretty much the Times position. Everybody. Everybody.
Speaker 3: And everybody in the talking head, whether, you know, it said,
Speaker 3: you know, and particularly inside the Democratic Party that said
Speaker 3: Joe Biden just doesn't understand.
Speaker 1: Well, what happened?
Speaker 3: My dad passed more bipartisan legislation than any president in
Speaker 3: a two year period of time since Lyndon Johnson.
Speaker 2: We had a better midterms of.
Speaker 3: Any sitting president, incumbent president than any president since FDR
Speaker 3: in 1932. We want more state houses, more governorships. We
Speaker 3: limited the losses in the House and the Senate. To
Speaker 3: single digits when everybody thought that was going to be
Speaker 3: a red wave. And at the same time, what we
Speaker 3: were able to do is cut childhood poverty in half.
Speaker 3: And what we were able to do is do a $ 1. 3
Speaker 3: trillion infrastructure bill. And what we were able to do
Speaker 3: is the PACT Act. And what we were able to do,
Speaker 3: and on and on and on and on. I believe
Speaker 3: that Joe Biden, number one for his dignity and humanity,
Speaker 3: will stand out as a president. But I also believe
Speaker 3: that his competence at the time will stand out.
Speaker 2: And you know, the thing that people point to as being.
Speaker 3: The thing that most threatens his legacy is, you know,
Speaker 3: the debate and pulling out.
Speaker 2: I also believe if you look at it the way
Speaker 2: at least I do as his.
Speaker 3: Son, I think it was one of the most courageous
Speaker 3: things and most selfless things a president or a politician
Speaker 3: at that level has ever done is willingly, without force,
Speaker 3: give up power.
Speaker 2: Is to hand over in the way.
Speaker 1: That he did.
Speaker 3: And by the way, you know, to say that 107
Speaker 3: days wasn't enough and $ 2 billion is that, you know what?
Speaker 2: If that's on Joe Biden, I don't know what.
Speaker 1: The hell they're talking about. You and I talked over
Speaker 1: that summer. when you know early in that part of
Speaker 1: that summer and I remember thinking you know the health
Speaker 1: stuff is a real thing but the thing that strikes
Speaker 1: me now is all the motherfuckers who tore their hair
Speaker 1: out about Joe and his health are now like well
Speaker 1: I guess something's wrong with Trump and then they move
Speaker 1: right on past it they just do not care it
Speaker 1: is astounding to me we're watching Donald Trump rot and
Speaker 1: die in front of our fucking faces right And the
Speaker 1: same people that were making it the biggest national security issue,
Speaker 1: everything else about your dad's health, just sort of shrug
Speaker 1: it off with this guy. And I'm not talking, folks,
Speaker 1: just about conservative outlets or Fox. I'm talking about The
Speaker 1: Times and The Washington Post. Well, they're a conservative outlet now.
Speaker 1: But all these other outlets that tore their hair out,
Speaker 1: is he fit to serve? They don't seem to fucking
Speaker 1: care that Trump can't stay awake five minutes.
Speaker 3: By the way, I believe that Trump had a serious
Speaker 3: life threatening incident. And this is just from Scuttlebutt that
Speaker 3: I've heard around. And that it has to do with
Speaker 3: congestive heart failure. And remember that period of time when
Speaker 3: he was like not seen for a six day period
Speaker 3: of time?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And everybody just let it go. And he came back.
Speaker 3: And when he came back, he seems to now not
Speaker 3: be able to be in public without giant bruises on
Speaker 3: both of his hands. And he also has been, not
Speaker 3: on one occasion, but on dozens of occasions, literally falling
Speaker 3: asleep in a chair behind the desk while his entire
Speaker 3: cabinet sits behind him and talks. And it's just, it's
Speaker 3: amazing to me. And I don't know what that is.
Speaker 1: I still haven't been able to figure out. Every day.
Speaker 2: Every single day.
Speaker 3: I mean, let me get this story straight too, by
Speaker 3: the way. The president of the United States flies over
Speaker 3: to Turkey and he has a NATO summit and he
Speaker 3: goes with his entire contingency. And like the coward he is,
Speaker 3: he literally fits his fat ass into a food cart
Speaker 3: truck and then secretly goes and lets the rest of
Speaker 3: his staff.
Speaker 2: And meanwhile, Joe Biden... took a flight secretly to Ukraine
Speaker 2: in the.
Speaker 1: Middle of the war. Walked down the streets.
Speaker 2: Walked out on the street. And he is literally allowing.
Speaker 1: For his staff to become... He put them on the
Speaker 1: death plane and ran away.
Speaker 3: And how is it that the entire White House press
Speaker 3: corps isn't the question of the day?
Speaker 2: Mr.
Speaker 3: President, do you think That it was appropriate for you
Speaker 3: to leave us all as literally the target?
Speaker 2: Well, you knew that it was a legitimate target?
Speaker 1: His military aid stayed on the plane. The fucking football
Speaker 1: was on the plane without him. Oh my God, I
Speaker 1: didn't know that. I read that yesterday and I was like,
Speaker 1: get the fuck out. That is insanity of a level
Speaker 1: I can't even, in this world right now, not having
Speaker 1: continuity on that. blows my damn mind. Wait a second.
Speaker 2: How is that even possible, Rick? I don't know.
Speaker 1: You know that protocol as well as I do. I
Speaker 1: don't even know how that's even possible. I don't either,
Speaker 1: but they said the only people he took were Harp, Nauta,
Speaker 1: and Hegseth. And that means the military aid was not there.
Speaker 1: The only people that were... And if it was, I'll
Speaker 1: stand corrected, but that is what the reporting was. And
Speaker 1: I was like, how is this... Wait a second. If
Speaker 1: a guy worked for a Secretary of Defense, how was
Speaker 1: that even possible?
Speaker 2: Wait, Hegseth went on the plane with him too?
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: Oh my God. God knows. God knows. I don't want
Speaker 1: to have holding that, holding that, those codes. Cause.
Speaker 2: Oh my God almighty.
Speaker 3: And so, you know what, you know, I'll talk to
Speaker 3: you about that. I'll talk to anybody about that, who
Speaker 3: sees in that, what I see in it. And I
Speaker 3: don't care whether you're at, you're from the, the, the
Speaker 3: whole spectrum from Nick Flantins to, you know, to Hassan Piker.
Speaker 2: And I'm not saying that they're, that they're equal. I, I,
Speaker 2: Whoever has.
Speaker 3: The energy to see what I see and be vocal
Speaker 3: about it and loud about it in their silos, in
Speaker 3: their audiences, is somebody I'm willing to talk to.
Speaker 1: And if you're willing to stop the... If you're a
Speaker 1: Trump person... And I've had a few of my old
Speaker 1: Republican friends, it's taken years and years and years, who
Speaker 1: have faded away from him in the last year or so,
Speaker 1: reach back out. It's like a really... They think I'm
Speaker 1: going to be mad at them, right? They think I'm
Speaker 1: going to yell at them or be Rick and be
Speaker 1: like my... sharp, ugly humor with them or whatever. And
Speaker 1: I'm always like, I feel, I feel, I feel great
Speaker 1: for you. You're doing the right thing. You've moved on
Speaker 1: from that shit. Good for you. I'm not, I don't,
Speaker 1: I don't want, I'm not trying to extract a price
Speaker 1: from people who leave evil. Once they've left evil, God
Speaker 1: bless them. They can move forward. So Hunter, what have
Speaker 1: you learned in these conversations you've been having with the right,
Speaker 1: like the, the, the, the Tuckers and the Candaces and
Speaker 1: the Nick Wintes types? What have you learned from those
Speaker 1: people as you've been opening these doors and having these conversations?
Speaker 2: Well, the thing that I think the most.
Speaker 3: Educational to me was that they're very, very embarrassed by
Speaker 3: having been so duped by Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: And the reasons for supporting Donald Trump– are not.
Speaker 3: As nefarious as we would hope them to be. You know,
Speaker 3: I had somebody that said, oh, why didn't you bring
Speaker 3: up the replacement theory with Tucker?
Speaker 2: And why don't you?
Speaker 3: Tucker spent a lot of time talking with me about
Speaker 3: how embarrassed he was by the things that he promoted
Speaker 3: and said while he was on the employ of Fox News.
Speaker 2: Things that he doesn't believe and that he's embarrassed.
Speaker 3: And he was very open in that interview about the
Speaker 3: regrets that he had, particularly during that time. And I
Speaker 3: guess my point is that if people are willing to
Speaker 3: provide me the grace and the space to be able
Speaker 3: to tell my story so that it can connect with
Speaker 3: other people that are still out there sick and suffering
Speaker 3: and struggling with addiction, which are millions and millions of us,
Speaker 3: is that I feel that it's incumbent upon me to
Speaker 3: have the grace to be able to at least hear
Speaker 3: their explanation of why they were there and how they
Speaker 3: got to where they are now.
Speaker 2: Because I'm much more interested in where they are now.
Speaker 3: I'm much more interested in the fact that we have
Speaker 3: a common enemy.
Speaker 2: And I mean that in the literal sense.
Speaker 3: If you are an American that believes in a constitutional republic,
Speaker 3: in this democracy, is that we all have a common enemy.
Speaker 1: In Donald Trump. 100%.
Speaker 3: Because he does not believe in the idea of a
Speaker 3: constitutional democracy.
Speaker 2: He does not believe in the idea of a rule
Speaker 2: of law.
Speaker 3: And so I am, uh, you know, I'm willing to
Speaker 3: ally with pretty much anybody in that effort.
Speaker 1: And man, I think you are just a brother. I
Speaker 1: think you are, like I said, America's spirit animal right now.
Speaker 1: And I love what you're doing. Keep it up. Let's
Speaker 1: be in touch anytime. Uh, we can help you push
Speaker 1: something out. Let me, let me know. And, uh, and,
Speaker 1: and keep up the fight and, and seriously, all of
Speaker 1: our love to your dad.
Speaker 3: Um, and, and, and, and I appreciate it. I, you know, I,
Speaker 3: I'll say one thing about that is that I, I,
Speaker 3: I went, um, when I went on that BBC interview
Speaker 3: and I said that he had, um, you know, the
Speaker 3: cancer is red and I want to make clear with
Speaker 3: everybody is that, you know, the original diagnosis is the
Speaker 3: diagnosis is that he had prostate cancer and it metastasized
Speaker 3: to his bones.
Speaker 2: And, He's okay. And the treatment's working.
Speaker 1: But it's awful. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's like one of these things, Rick, that we've talked
Speaker 2: about before. It's like, why don't people talk about it?
Speaker 2: Because you know what?
Speaker 1: We're all going through it.
Speaker 2: There's not a single person that's listening to this right
Speaker 2: now that doesn't have a loved one.
Speaker 1: 100%.
Speaker 2: That either survived or is going through cancer.
Speaker 1: 100%.
Speaker 2: You know, it's awful to watch.
Speaker 3: And it's scarier for a son than it is for him.
Speaker 2: Because he's as tough.
Speaker 1: As he is.
Speaker 2: And he never complains.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Give him my love and pass on our good wishes. Excellent, man.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you guys more. Thanks.
Speaker 1: All right. We'll talk to you soon. Good night and
Speaker 1: good luck.