The Hunter Biden Interview

>> Hunter Biden, thank you for doing this.

>> Carlson, I haven't seen you in 11 years, though I've talked about you. >> As you know, in the meantime, it's big time. >> And then I wake up in morning and you're doing Candace Owens. >> I love Candace. >> I do too, I do too, I'm taking a lot of abuse for saying that, but I do.

“>> I know where and I, and I do, I think she's a great person.”

>> As a person, yeah, that forget the politics and anything. And unfortunately, why I'm sitting here, I've we've known each other for, you know, quite intentionally for 30 years. Is that she, as a human being, is a really, really good person. >> And, and it's thoughtful and generous and has a deep faith, and I just

vehemently disagree with some of her positions. And, you used to be that way. >> I remember, remember? >> I mean, when you and I knew each other, it wasn't as if our politics were much different. >> Right. And, but everything has, everything changed, and I, and I attributed to one thing.

We can get to that, but what's the one thing? >> I took Donald Trump, and I think he, I think he, everybody says, you know,

he's a symptom of the disease, and the reality is, is that I think he's one of the most

transformational individuals in our political history, for offer, offer, for ill. And I think he had such an opportunity to do great things, and he just decided that all he was going to do was for himself. And, but anyway, regardless of what we do, we're from the same place. >> Yeah. I grew up with your, with your high school girlfriend, I think.

So, I mean, I, you know, where, I'm very familiar with the world that you're from, because I'm sort of from it, too, and I noticed the change during Obama. And I'm not blaming Obama, I'm not blaming any, but the society changed. It was like, all of a sudden, if you didn't like Obama, you were a racist, and I felt like in our neighborhood, that was the advice you couldn't say anything about Obama that wasn't positive.

Do you remember that? >> No, I mean, I, and I think that I had a completely, probably different perspective on that. But I don't, I don't, I don't, discount, if you say that you felt that way. >> Well, it was before that, like, if it was Clinton, you know, I knew a lot of Clinton staffers, and you could be like, really, Monica Lewinsky, and they'd be like, I'm

Monica Lewinsky, or Bush, you know, really they rock war, you know, it was like, but people seemed to lose their sense of humor in 2008, I don't, at least my neighbors did. It was like, what did you, I'm sorry, do you just say something about Obama that's not flattering? >> And that, to me. >> Yeah, I guess you, you would get that, you know what I mean, I mean, you're, you're a

public figure, you're, you're, I mean, I mean, I mean, I know, I know, but I mean,

“>> And it was the 80s, you're all about it, but remember that, it's like, all the,”

this whole thing of like, well, educated, humorless, rich white ladies, that all began during them. >> That may be the case, I mean, that wasn't, it, it, understandably was not my excuse. >> That was it, and so how did you wind up deciding to speak in public, and with

first of all with Candace, which I strongly approve of, but I just want to count of that

happened. >> So the, the first interview that I did was with Andrew Calian, and who is a brilliant and my opinion journalist and documentarian, and I didn't know anything about him, but I had a lawyer that had done some work for him that had also done some work for me, and he said, hey, you should check this, this guy out, and, and I did, and what I, what I noticed

about Andrew is that I believe he has a real finger on the pulse of what's happening, particularly to a certain demographic, like draft age, 18 to 35 year olds, and, and he has a wider audience also, and it's funny that you say draft age, that's an interesting way to put it, yeah, we may, we may be coming up to, anyway, do you think we're going to get a draft? >> No, no, I don't think that they have the, I don't, I don't think, because that's

one of the, like, I physically joined the protest of that, I mean, that's so crazy.

“>> Well, I think you should physically join the protest now, I mean, you're already there,”

and, but anyway, I met with, I, I, I watched a lot of stuff that Andrew did, I, I really liked it, and, and, and I went on and, you know, I think that the thing that kind of

whatever, is that I don't, I, I welcome any question, I always say that addiction is never

an excuse, but it's often an explanation for, for some of the things that people, the narrative that they've been told about me, and they did a beautiful thing to me that was, that was ugly in the moment, which was, they completely exposed me in a way that I don't know of any public figure, or a person associated with public figure, particularly family, has ever been exposed, you know, I mean, they literally stole 22 years of my entire digital footprint,

from every deleted image to every deleted text to everything, and, and in that total exposure,

“there was nowhere to hide, and, and for me, I realized is that the only way to out was through”

is owning the things that were true, and, and speaking truth to the things that were false,

and, and I did that with Andrew, and I thought it would just be a one-off, but then I, the guy named, well, you're close with him, and I, I consider him a friend by text. I, I don't want to sell his reputation, you know, his Sean Ryan, and I, and I sat down with Sean Ryan, and I, and, and Sean is kind of, you know, MAGA adjacent, he was between 2020 and 2024, and, and he had said some pretty rough things about my dad, not so much about

me, but, um, about my dad, that I, I vehemently disagreed with, um, into the state, vehemently disagreed with, but I thought that Sean was a great listener, and, uh, and, and I really appreciated his willingness, um, to not allow what he had been, uh, instructed to believe, to, in fact, the way in which he listened, and, uh, and I sat down with him, and we did close to six hours, and you, you kind of, you know, I know that it's, it's like, seems like this

is a very, public thing by virtue of everybody watching here, but the fact of the matter is, is these experiences in this long format can be very intimate, oh, big time, and, um, and, and, and, and that was my experience with, uh, with Sean, and we, and we connected on the thing that I have been able to connect with, with almost everyone, like, universally, which is, um, addiction, yes, and recovery. And for me, thank God, it's recovery, and

I, um, and I've been sober, uh, clean sober for, I said, stop saying clean it, uh, so I've been substance free and sober for, um, for over seven years now, and I don't think people

“knew that. I think people conflate it my, my past addiction with my, my father's presidency”

and just assumed that I was still using, because, you know, I mean, New York Post, you know, I think they, they, they printed a 1.5 articles about me today for almost close to 40 years, and, and none of a good, and all of it was not, not positive, not, not, not, not much that was positive. No, not at all. Anyway, long story, long story, a lot longer is having that experience the New York Post at the moment. Yeah, by the way, welcome. Welcome to

my world. I'm not naked. Yeah, hopefully, hopefully, make a picture. Don't come out. I can call some of our friends. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to see those. Yeah. Well, I didn't think so either, but, but apparently, they do. So anyway, long story short, it long story, longer. I go, um, and I do this with Sean and Sean caught, and, and this is public now. I can say it is Sean had dinner with Candace. They live in the same neighborhood down there

in Nashville, and he said, you know, I really, really like her. And, um, and she told my wife that one of the interviews that she most wanted to do was with me with a hundred-biden.

Um, I'm not referring myself in the third book. I haven't gotten to that point yet. And, you

know, I thought about it. And, like you, um, and we've talked about this a little bit, but like you, the Candace, it's a really, really awful thing. It's not just about me, but also about my dad, you know, the whole Biden crime family thing, but really, really

“kind of, uh, pointed things. And I believe that I, if I could sit down with her, not to”

convince her of anything, but to see that, uh, I was just as human as she was, and that I own my feelings. And I've been incredibly transparent about them. I've been in, I have,

conversation. And that's what occurred. And, and, uh, and I don't agree with Candace still. I don't want to stop it. And I almost feel like, like, why do I have to make that, you know,

caveat as it relates to it? Because I never used to have to make that caveat. Going all the way

“back to the beginning of our conversation, how did it change? I truly believe that the level of”

vitriol meanness and cruelty in our politics has always been there, but never like this, never in a way in which it is, uh, it is practiced with impunity. And, um, and that to me, as, uh, I, I mean, I think that I can, um, market. Now, it's interesting that you see that, that your experience is that, that kind of division started, um, in 2008, but nothing like this, Tucker. You know, a lot of people hit that afternoon slump, but immediately reach for another cup of coffee, guilty,

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“or check the pin comment. Many ways to get it, and you should. Not well, I mean,”

not even on partisan lines. I mean, the divisions are so intense. I always thought of divisions as

racial or religious, you know, you're Protestant marrying a Catholic, you know, or black person wearing a white person. I feel like the divisions now are ideological and political. And that's, I mean, this morning, I texted Erica Kirk and kind of so on. Both within like an hour of each other not related to each other, but just because I really like them both. And I'm not embarrassed of that. And I've, and that's my right. By the way, I get to like people with or not. I'm fully

aligned with their program. Right. That's my view. Yeah. I've taken so much abuse for that. It's like, how could you be friends with two people who disagree with each other? Well, I don't know. I am. Right. What world do we live in? Well, that's kind of how I feel. Yeah. That's strongly how it. Yeah. First of all, I decide who I like. You don't get to decide who I like. Yeah. Don't you feel that? I do. And I think that what it is, it's a reflection of this, is that who are you getting that from?

You're getting that from other people with, with, with niche audiences with big microphones in front of them. You're getting that from the comments section that I know you don't read. No, but other, but other people in your organization read from, you know, on X. You're getting that. I think we have literally been torn apart on purpose because not, not because it was the, I don't think that the people that created the social media platforms that rule our lives to this day.

Thought, this is what we're going to do. We're going to create something just to tear people apart. What I think that they did was they created a monster in which they realized that it is fueled by division and vitriol and conflict and, and making you question yourself. I mean,

“let me give you an example. Remember that the whistleblower for Facebook when, I think Facebook”

was still Facebook. It happened like in 2022. She was a senior executive at Facebook and she came up to the Hill and this is a nonpartisan thing and she came up to the Hill and she had all of that documentation of internal studies within Facebook that showed that there had been something like, and I forget the numbers don't hold me to it, but an exponential increase in the number of

that began with the inception of Instagram. And then, not only an exponential increase in

actual suicides among teenage girls, but an even greater increase, like if that, if suicides went up triple, girls reporting self-harm went up by like 300% over the course of like a the inception of Instagram until 2022 when this woman walks in with all the documentation. And Instagram knew that and knew that it was literally directly related to their algorithm. Sending these messages to girls that they are not worth, that they need more, that they,

that they're, whether it's about their bodies or body shaming and continuing to send it

over to, oh, them, knowing the negative impact that is having, but it's because it made the money is because you become addicted to that response and that Instagram would get with that bag of heroin in your pocket known as an iPhone. And you know what they did? Nothing. They buried the report. They literally did nothing. I mean, nothing. So my question, and then what happened, this woman, whistleblower, close forward, she brings all of the evidence that Facebook

meta knows about this. And she said, like, what do we do about it? And you know what Congress did?

Senate passed, no, you know what they did? Nothing. We have done absolutely, what's just

“some other sides of our people. I mean, not a big deal. But that's what I'm trying to say.”

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

or it can tear down your house. And they build a tool and they make more money by tearing people down. They make more money by dividing people. They make more money. And so they just let the algorithm roll. And it's tearing us apart. And I'm not saying that's the only problem. Not myopic enough to say that all of the issues that we have. But going back to Donald Trump,

“because for me, the one existential threat that I think that we face as a country”

is Donald Trump. I am not this believer that Trump is merely the symptom of a disease. I believe that Trump is is is central to why this disease has gone from a local epidemic to a pandemic in the United States of America. It's not a defensive Trump to ask then why on the big failures of the Trump administration, the real ones, the ones that, you know, history will record like this war, there's been no pushback from the other side at all. So that tells you, I mean,

you could say lots of things about Trump are bad, but getting us into a war we can't win and which Americans are dying in Iran that will only diminish America's power and bankrupt us. I mean, that's the only exit really. Yeah. And make Iran stronger. And like no no Chuck Schumer is like, yeah, it's bad, but of course he endorses like the whole leadership structure endorses that. So like, can't really say like they like Trump now. Yeah. I don't know if they like Trump.

“I think it's like a little bit. I think it's like a little bit. I think it's like never, but he's doing”

what they want. I think it's a little bit of it at a well, by the way, I don't disagree that there's an enormous failure failure of the of what I call the the elite oligarch Epstein class of Washington, D.C. Yes, that are that you and I both know very well. Yes, and that have that are as interested in protecting their their corporate overlords as they are in protecting

in 1972 took a vow that he would never own a stock or a bond. And he kept that vow since 1972

in over 50 years of public life. And he retired from the presidency as having probably the lowest net worth of anyone that had ever entered the presidency. And meanwhile, he got tagged with this idea that he, you know, is the Biden crime family and that, you know, all of all of that crap. But my point being is this, is it how is it that we have not been able to pass a law? I couldn't agree more. I know you do agree. But how is it possible? And it's not just Republicans that

pass a law that prohibits members of Congress. Yes, of course. Yeah, it's the most common sense thing in the world. And it should be in the administration too. It should be anybody with the access to the most valuable insider information of all. And meanwhile, not only are we not passing the law, Donald Trump is selling a hundred thousand dollar early access to his two social tweets, which is just

“a front running for insider trading. Literally, in the open. And that's what I mean, the quantitative”

qualitative difference of Donald Trump as compared to anything I've ever experienced in in in in politics before is the sense that the rule of law is is is is is only applies as a as a weapon rather than as the a prophylactic for for the the constitution to be able to operate in way in which the founders

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It's just obvious. If you're selling truth-social access. Yeah, remember, it's like, come on. It's like, I saw this guy. There's this incredible guy on TikTok. And he's the professor, but he goes, it's a red cup garage. He's like a, and he, have you ever seen this? Well, you don't have any of this. He explains things by using red solid cups. Yeah. And he has this thing. Everybody go look at it. It's all of the money that every president, and the 45,

the K before Donald Trump made in the presidency. And it's four blue solo cups. And then all of the money that Donald Trump has openly said that he made in his financial report

in the first 500 days of the presidency. And it is over $3 billion. And it takes the entire wall.

Yeah. I mean, I can't argue. I mean, the president shouldn't make any money in office.

“What is this? No. And by the way, this whole idea of a plant trust. And so that's what I mean by the”

qualitative and the quantitative difference. And the idea that there are still a group of people out there that voted for Donald Trump because they thought that they were going to be able to change things. You know, it talked about this a little bit and before we came on. But my hero,

with all of his faults was Teddy Roosevelt. And Teddy Roosevelt, I picture him over there in that

great-grandfather. Yeah. I got something for you, by the way. But the Teddy Roosevelt,

“by all accounts, came very close to abusing the power of the executive. Oh, you think?”

Yeah. He certainly did. But he did it because he realized that in order for this experiment to be able to continue, you could not have a unfettered oligarch class that drained all of the wealth of a country and put it into their pockets. While the other 99, no, by the way, and people don't understand this, I'm not talking one percent. I'm talking the point zero one percent. Yes. There are only nine, like a little over 9,000 families in this country who are billionaires.

Out of 350 million people. You know what? This is shocking to me. You know what puts you in the top one

percent of income owners in this country? No. And you're $750,000. That's the top one percent. One percent. So the people that I'm talking, I'm not talking about taxing or redistributing wealth among the top one percent. I'm not talking about it even in the top 0.5 percent, which would be like 10 million dollars. I'm talking about the 0.01 percent, literally about a little under 10,000 individuals in this country that control and that have almost like 40 percent of the entire wealth

of a nation who decide 9,000 families have 40 percent of the entire world. I take, somebody do the numbers for me. I probably screwed that up completely. But in an ordinary amount of the entire considered wealth of this country. Well, you can't have democracy under those circumstances. So you can't. And Teddy Roosevelt knew that. And what he did is he went out and he used the power of the executive to be able to go out and bust the trust and redistribute that wealth. It was

called it the square deal. And then he used the power of the executive to do things that are every single one of us to benefit from today, which is, for instance, the national park system. Yes. The entire national park system was the, was the brainchild of one person as it related to one island, which was Autobahn. And he came to Teddy Roosevelt and he said, hey, look, we're losing this magnificent place, this island of the, in the Gulf of the coast of Florida.

And because it has, it's a bird habitat that has, I don't know, like, like half the species of wild birds. And he comes to Teddy Roosevelt. And Teddy Roosevelt just goes out and he says,

“okay, and he turned it into a, and the first national park, I think. And, and then he went out”

and he did that across the country. I mean, can you imagine doing that today? No. No. And, but you can, you even imagine the people in, not the people, Donald Trump, having a thought

about using the power of the executive to benefit anyone, but himself first.

No. No. And that's the thing. But I also look back on the last 25 years, 20 years anyway. And I can't really think of many big executive initiatives that, like, benefited the majority. No, I'd neither do I. And that may be a question about the, the unitary executive and, and, and, but no one is ever done it in a way in which the, the, the, you know, where literally, I believe that everything that he has done contains, not just a, you know, an underlying current of how does it benefit

“him personally? It is the first thought of everything that he had. Yeah. I think that's true. Yeah.”

The problem I have with focusing on Trump and I, I'm trying not to be defensive because obviously I campaigned for Trump and with Trump and spoke at the Republican official convention and defended Trump for a decade on Fox News. So I'm definitely implicated it, obviously. But it's not just defensiveness. I think two things. One focusing on Trump as the source of all evil in the world drives you crazy. Like I saw that happen. I don't believe that just, you know,

I don't believe that he is the source of all evil. Right. But I mean, you know, people who feel that way. Literally, I, I had one of my closest friends went off the deep end. Yeah. Just like, Trump and all of a sudden Trump's under the bed. And it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. It's monomania.

Hey. Oh, and along with some of his friends. It's so good. Oh, yeah. But second, it's like

“exculpatory to the rest of us. It's like, I don't know. We, I watched a lot of crappy stuff happen in”

DC when over the 35 years ago live there. And I didn't even recognize it as crappy at the time. And we're all kind of implicated in this. We've had a lot of bad leaders actually, or mediocre leaders. I don't know. We've had a flame buoyantly corrupt leader like this. And we haven't ever. That's true. That a lot of low grade kind of like, what's in it for me? Leadership. And we tolerated it. And we celebrated things that were not impressive at all. And pretend that

they were impressive. And, oh, so brave. And all this is like, it was all crap, actually. We're kind of, this is the end of like a long cycle of mediocrity. That's all I'm saying. Okay. So I, I, I, I wound up. Yep. Okay. To, like, for instance, is I, I'm absolutely certain that my engagement in Washington, DC, as, you know, when I took on Burisma, when my dad was vice president, as fine at the end of the year, it's like, it was stupid thing to do. You know, because I wasn't fully

aware of the of what it's won. It was. And, and the narrative that would be able to be spun, it was, it was, it was a horrible idea. Now, I had my reasons. Okay. But they're not good enough. I own that. I own the idea that I do believe that there is this revolving door in Washington, DC that needs to be shut in which people come in and out of administrations. We know them all. They're trading on access. And they're not bad people that are trading on access. I did not trade

on access. You can look through 22 years of mine. But I know this. I know that I received incredible

privileges that no one else in the world, including to, to the point of my pardon. No, literally there's no one else in the world that was in my position. That their father happened to have

“the authority and the power to do it. And I realized how privileged I am. But I think that there is”

a, uh, uh, I think that there needs to be a reckoning with if I'm willing to do that. I think that you, and I saw the, the, the, and I, like, um, I like Thomas Massey. I like where, where, um, and Marjorie Chelle Green is going. I like that there are people that have kind of woken up to the, but a lot of, the reason that we're here is because of, uh, of Fox News. A lot of it has to do. Well, we're in a war right now because of that we're losing because of Fox News. I couldn't agree more.

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

over the course of, uh, you know, sense of inception. It's the first. Yeah, it bonkers. Yeah. And we are in desperate, desperate need of leadership. I agree. And so I, and I, I want, I want to reach cross to everybody and say, like, look, let's figure out what the things that we can agree on. Instead of like pointing at, you know, the, uh, and constantly.

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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”

in our particularly 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. 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.

This is a deeper grit. No, I do actually. I mean, yeah. I mean, I, yeah. I mean, I regret in the sense

that as someone who has dealt with addiction, not quite as in exciting ways you did but I've been

there for sure. You know, extend grace to people who were out of their minds. Like you would think I would do that. I should have done that more. So I do, I do regret that. But no, what I'm saying is like you look back and like I really thought that I could influence Trump and talk about not going into

“this war. Yeah, that's talk about, I think that that's a really interesting. No, I mean, that's yeah,”

that's the core of it, right? Because you said the things that you said about Trump after 2020, which are famously out there. Oh, when I got pissed in a text with a few certain folks out of contact and all that. Yeah. Yeah, wonderful organization you worked for, really ridiculous. And so, um, and talk about how you came around in 2024, not as it relates to like you just a knee jerk reaction to being opposed to Democrats. But what, what? Oh, no, it was a very specific

trajectory. I was, uh, I was, this is like such an impossible rich guy thing to say, but it's the fact that I was in Europe with my kids on the med, the August of 2023, I think, and tomorrow logo got rated. 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, it'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, their nuclear secrets, that's not true. And I was like, so he clearly is there, 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 over with Iran, because I really saw that as the end of a lot of stuff of the, well, the post-war order, which is kind of ridiculous, but compared to what, you know,

I'm kind of against the post-war order. On the other hand, I'm not sure what follows will be better. Yeah. So I was really focused on this Iran thing. And I knew that both parties were for Schumer, totally for it, Lindsey Graham, totally for it. They're all including against America to start this regime change, we're with Iran. And I was like, I'm going to single-mindedly focus

“on this. All I'm going to do with my life is I'm going to, and I knew a lot of people in the”

least, and I thought, oh, man, I can do this. And I realized on February 28th, first of all, I had

zero power, okay? But it was mostly vanity. I was like, I have a mission, I can do this. And it was, it was, I overstated my own influence like dramatically in a very embarrassing way. And my own importance. And like, I thought I could do things that like, I had no control over any of this stuff. And I was humiliated correctly. I was humiliated for my wife. I was like, I'm doing a good thing. And, um, and so yeah, I was mad at Trump, but I was also really mad at myself. And so, that's, that's the story. And I,

right, I actually am really grateful. I went through that, because it puts your own power and context. You think like, you've got all this, you know, whatever, swat, and you have zero, you know. So what next? I have no idea. But 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, I've been out talking to people. And a completely different audience is, you know, across the board. And, um, the most significant reason why I decided

almost universal. Now, to the degree that my experience, my addiction, um, overwhelmed me is

“sometimes often exaggerated by virtue of how much attention has been paid to it. That, you know,”

there's two years of my life. Some people noticed. Yeah, some people noticed. Yeah, exactly. God. It was awful. I mean, I noticed to the degree that, you know, my wife and I were living in, um, the hills in LA and we had this little place and, and I was just early in, in my recovery. And, uh, Trump from the Oval Office invited in these right wing influencers. These, MAGA influencers, um, online and this is back in 2019. And, uh, and he started the wearshunter 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 ceiling windows. And a, uh, group of men, uh, with full horns in MAGA hats showed up at the door banging on the door with my, then pregnant wife, who was home alone, who literally fled the house. They chased her in a car and literally ran her off the road. And that was my experience for, like, a two-year

“period of time until my dad was elected. And then we got secret service and we, we'd left that house”

because we, in the middle of the night. And, uh, and the next house we went to, they found us in this, uh, documentary filmmaker and ended up being like a, he wrote a whole scripted film. He parked a Billboard truck. We're in LA, in LA, in Venice. I was right on South Venice Boulevard. He parked a, uh, one of those digital Billboard trucks in front of my house that ran all of the new pictures of me smoking crack. Actually, for a week straight. And then sat on the canal with

bull horns 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. So crazy. You know, I mean, it was not crazy. He was,

“you know, you know, you then went on to make a, like a whole movie about me. Um, but anyway,”

my point, did you see that? What did you see? No, I didn't, I did not see it till, did not go see that movie. No, I didn't know what existed. Um, but, um, you know, my, my point is that I have, um,

the total exposure that I've had has given me this incredible gift. And number one is that,

by the, that, that transparency is that I don't have any more secrets. And the secrets that that I felt ashamed of, like just the word crack. Like, you know, I mean, it's, it's so heavy. It, it shocks people. Um, all of the associations that people make out a particularly of our generation. Yes. And, um, and 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, not the ones that you would never want to show anyone. And, and they know I'm willing to talk

about them. And, and that they're able to come up to me and say, I mean, everywhere I go, I've got off the plane of the airport. Some came up to me, told me about their, uh, their experience and recovery. Thanks for what I'm doing. You know, they're, uh, you know, they got their brother just got arrested, though, it's in jail. You know, you got to do something about the fentanyl des here. It's, it, everybody. And it's been an incredibly beautiful, beautiful experience. And I said 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 Candice, is that the thing that Candice and I were able to connect on, and in a very human way, it was her own experience, not personally, but with her family and, and addiction and the people that she loved. And I don't know anyone that hasn't been impacted by it. That's for sure. Yeah. And why I guess what my point is is that by starting

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 is makes it a lot easier to, like, you know, see the, see the hunter that you thought that you

“knew. Um, and 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 realize this is not a transformation is out on your own now, and not understandably, like anybody that has a job, being beholden to corporate structure. Yeah, Fox News is that I, I feel as if that combined with the

incredible ultimate betrayal, and I, what I mean by betrayal of the, of the promise,

the singular promise that was important to you as a related to Trump. Yes, that we would not get into the potential of ending up in a war, a, a war worth three, or another incredibly devastating, protracted war in that region that would expand clearly with the entire global oil supply in jeopardy. So it's so crazy. I cannot even believe it happened. Is it has given an opening for us to be able to have a, a, a, a conversation that is more

destructive about a way forward. That's my feeling. I strongly agree with that. You know,

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darn good. And always my, I mean, I've certainly talked about you and all the drama that you went

through a lot. I have really only one question one thing that has bothered me for years now. Years or whatever, six years, whatever it's been. And so I just want to ask you directly about it. So the laptop comes out or doesn't come out. I hear that it's in circulation. I get calls from

“people in that kind of shadowy way that you're from a family. I can't, you know, I can't remember”

yet. So much drama has happened. But, you know, if you're in the news business or politics, like, 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, no, you don't know if it's real. And then I heard somebody calls me because you're on the laptop. And because you would written a letter of recommendation for college for my son, yeah,

if we didn't end up going to the school or even getting it, whatever. It didn't help. It turns out. Thanks. But anyway, I knew that it was real because who would know that we knew each other, right? No one, no one could fake that. And otherwise, her friends and all stuff. So but it's washed in every, 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. And then

laptop repairs storing Greenville, Delaware, which I'm a town I'm very familiar with. So, and the guy was blind, then I interviewed the guy who seemed to totally believe the story, John MacGuys it. 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

bloodstream exactly American media was not real. So I just want to ask you point blank,

“did you drop off lap? No. And this is the thing that I've said over and over again. I have literally”

zero recollection of memory of ever dropping off a laptop at John Paul MacGuys. No. The answer is no.

And John Paul MacGuys, so John Paul MacGuys, who's legally blind. Yeah. So on the day when the laptop became public, sat and outside of his shopping game, 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 web partners, under oath in his testimony before the House Oversight

Committee, was being solved by Rudy Giuliani in Ukraine in all the back in 2018. And so Rudy Giuliani is working with a guy named Andre Derkech, who was a MP in Ukraine and a known Russian gary US. 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 Lepp Parnis and”

Egor Froin were doing, getting on the plane before they were arrested. So how did this before

Tom Paul MacGuysick was ever a twinkle in anybody's eye? I believe that. The story, that was always

the week part of the story, like he drops off the laptop. Even Tom Paul MacGuysick, okay? From there is no such thing as a laptop. The laptop that he eventually turns over year later, 18 months later, to the FBI. The thing that he that is distributed and disseminated, that John Paul MacGuysick 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 gigabytes. I don't know the difference

between a gigabyte and a whatever. And that goes into the hands. He can't find anybody. You can't

throw a stone in trolley square without getting someone that knows me personally. Right. And he knows

that. Look at his whole life. Instead, what he finds through this guy, Applebaum, and is Rudy Giuliani's lawyer, Bob Castello, 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 labelled as my laptop came from one laptop. It's like the it's way too

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

and all of these guys. Well, once the material starts circulating, the data from the cloud, you know, all kinds of people get involved and they're shopping in for different reasons and I agree. Yes. And so my point is you told it. Well, from the cloud. Yeah. Well, I don't know. You have as good a guess as mine in terms of actually who, who was the original hacker of that information, who has the capacity to be able to do it. And so, you know, I, I haven't, you don't have evidence.

I don't have a, a, a, a forensic, a digital forensic evidence that it was hacked by this person or this entity or this organization that it was Mossad or that it was the GRU or that it was, or that it was some kid in his basement and, you know, you know, figured it out. But here's the

“point. Overall, here's the thing is I get caught in these conversations about all of this. But the reality”

is this, of what was distributed that was authentic, it's all mine. All those emails. Yeah,

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 booklet, and I'm not just talking about my emails. I'm talking about, or 20 years' emails. I'm talking about 20 years of text messages. I'm talking about a race voicemails, like deleted voicemails, deleted photograph. They don't actually delete, what you're saying. They clearly don't. I mean, voicemails from my dad to me, and 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 or even contacting one of his staffers. So, either I'm incredibly, incredibly, incredibly good, you know, inactive addiction is a crack addict, or it doesn't exist. It truly literally doesn't exist. The entire narrative of the Biden crime family, I mean, I literally, unlike anybody else, is like, I say to everybody, okay, show me your phone,

because I'll show you mine, and you didn't find a goddamn thing. Now, one thing, every investigator body in the United States of America has investigated me for over 10 years at that point, and not one single thing of a criminal activity other than use of drugs, and all of the things that are associated with addiction is proved by the laptop. So, as the world getting more stable or less stable, that's a rhetorical question.

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hold and silver, precious medals, IRAs, secure storage, all of it. Battalion medals dot com slash Tucker. When did you find out that the contents of your digital life for in circulation? That day, that New York Post released it. Are you a 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, right? So up until the day you had no clickers, you know, I had

the nine rule. None. No, 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, let's see, about eight, six months old and a friend of ours, we were in LA and a friend of ours said, hey, come out to Palm Springs.

I got an 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 before the laptop, remember, I mean, they would beat the shit out of me.”

That's when Donald Trump was doing the wearershunter thing. I didn't have any, you know, a security like I don't have today, but I didn't have them is, you know, it was just me, Emilesa and a baby and with anytime we went outside the house is like people would follow us everywhere 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, wearershunter. So everybody felt it was

incumbent upon them if they supported Trump and MAGA to find Hunter, you know, to go and find wearershunter. And so we drive out to Palm Springs and we get there and we unpack, you know, put my bag in the room and there's like a little plunge pool out of the back of this little house and I get a call and it's a friend of mine who was also my lawyer at the time and he said "Some guys saying that New York Posts in somebody has your laptop?"

And you know, it took me years to piece it all together.

which became literally the, I'm always painted but it would literally the things that saved my life.

It just allowed me to focus and I could find 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, by the shame. And of of of of my addiction and all the failings that I perceived in myself at that moment at the 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 um 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 and who was involved and there's all of these names and there's like a you know a list of 20 Russian names and 20 you know

I mean all of this stuff and and so I decided on sub-stack 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 sub-stack now and the thing about it is this is that it was a complete and under-surprised to me. I had like I was you know a little over year into my um my recovery. I kind of made it through the that like what I thought there 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 in Facebook took them down

is they violated their own internal rules as it relates to revenge porn. You'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 in the story associated in 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 um consensual legal all the those things would of course they don't make that point.

And and that's why they took it down but then that became the story you know the suppression and this idea that forty um former intelligence officer said it all it had all the home homeworks of a Russian disinformation claim and no one in that forty regardless of what you think of them not much yeah I know you don't but no one in that forty 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 or the most dishonest people and also the way I'm not gonna argue on behalf of anybody all I know is that let's just stick to me no but I'm just saying like the point of that statement was to suggest that the contents were not real well you may think that but it did it's definitely did not say that and all I know is this when it was it became completely out of my control so therefore now I was not arguing about what was on it remember what Rudy do really on he did he went

to the the literally the courthouse steps in Newcastle County yeah with Bernie Karrick and he held the laptop which there's no existing laptop he had taken a hard drive or thumb drive it and put it and pretend it like there was a laptop and the one thing he said was this contains images of

“minor children which bullshit I mean an absolute complete and utter effing why 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 year at this point did had no evidence of anything other than I was a drug user but the problem was and not only drug user crack at it 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 and I said I'm gonna I'm gonna tell this guy everything I have to get it off my chest I can't have this hanging out there as as we my dad moved through a presidential campaign and let the chips fall where they may and it totally scooped them and and so what they had to do is create another narrative around it that is evidence of corruption so when anybody says

what I experienced during that time the allegation that there was abusive miners from the laptop that came from these railies I'm just telling you that they came to me with that so I know that and one of the things that encouraged 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 these railies who were pushing that fact fact I mean literally to me yeah so and you've gone through it

but they're all success or anything that's just I'm gonna 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 tell you what about about 40 million people on on on on X don't think

that you know I mean it's like there was an abusive miners in there if there was evidence of how many people call me a pedophile to this day anyway I'll I'll spare you but I don't know and what I put I agree with you that's exactly right and you know it's um but they were pushing that so hard and all right so guys like it's Russia it's like you lie you lie because they called me I sent one of my producers out to go meet with one of them guy with characteristics in that

Yahoo they were they were behind that and I felt that everybody in DC knew that but there was

so much pressure never to criticize Israel in any way that they were just like uh it's the

Russians the Russians they're they're the ones penetrating our political system it's like you lie everyone knows what's actually happening that this was my perspective and it drove me insane and by the way I didn't say that on Fox News all 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 the Tucker yeah is it I so so we're here now yeah no I'm saying what what what what I'm saying

but we're here now yeah and that's one of the reasons why it's just on a purely selfish basis for me is it 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 all like all of this stuff that they were seeing or any of it you know what I mean like the the well people addicted to drugs

especially cocaine I know for effect get pretty dark that's just a fact they do they definitely do in it oh yeah and the cocaine by the way it's it's all there real I guess I can you can watch it all I guess I don't you know you can see them but I told it and they're not the only person I've seen exactly but there's a big difference between that and in the reality of what's out there

“which is the worst thing that you can possibly say about any and that's my point my point is is that”

I thought I was over it I was in home Springs I was there for about three hours it was the first time

that Melissa and I've gone away because remember we're still in that kind of COVID period and people and so we're we're out there and I get this call and it's just like your whole world kind of like you know it's just like this kind of void opens up and it's 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 the reality that you're and that's what Rudy Giuliani was saying

and and 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 that but it was a miracle the miracle of my life at that moment despite that despite all of these consequences like like just not I mean landing like nuclear bombs in my life is that I was in a better place and continue to be in a better place and I've ever been in my life

as I would think you know I've been stripped to the bone there's nothing there is no there was no

“facade like you have to the entirety of my ego was was destroyed like all of those things that”

you protect it out of fear what you don't realize that they're out of fear but almost all of them are out of fear it's like what you're you talking about the vanity yeah I believe that you

could overlook all of the things that you know of him in order to save the world like

“that's a beautiful thing to hear someone admit to be being that introspective to be able to do that”

in the same way I was so emasculated that I had to make a decision to deliver die and in the living I had to live in that that emasculation that completely stripping of ego and it didn't it wasn't interesting and it wasn't like I woke up the next morning and didn't think like the son would ever come on which I kind

of felt yeah but then by we woke up you know and there was a little nine month old or six

month old at the time and I look at this amazingly magnificent woman that has saved me that is lying there and and I thought you know what I have to choose to live 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 a moment by moment having to make that choice to begin your wife and get sober you know it's crazy story and I

write a wrote about it and I like I said that if any of my children came to me and and told me this story I would probably have them committed but it was truly love it for a site. A long story that I've written about but and I was in active addiction in staying at a hotel and where the petite hermitization in West Hollywood at the time. I know it's a hotel yeah and that was at the pool I got kicked out the next day but on the roof and this is two people

sat down next to me or I was alone I was reading a book and they struck up a conversation as the

pool kind of filled up during the day and at one point they didn't know so they're not never

“met them before I said you have to you have to meet our friend Melissa and I said sure sure and”

and I had no intention of meeting anyone I'd gone to LA basically to to to to to choose the cowards way out of of suicide which was I knew that the drugs in drinking would eventually take me and and I had broken all contact with every anyone that cared for me and they called every day and it just didn't answer now and I'm sitting there and it was incredibly incredibly dark moment in my life and the darkest and for some reason I did this thing I said yeah just give

me your number I call because they insisted they insisted they insisted that I call this this woman and I said I can remember any number if you tell me a number I can remember it and you know of course I can't remember 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 yet on the chase along to that and the woman said what's the number and I said

and she said I knew you were lying and she had a pen in her hand and she wrote it on my hand

“and that night was taking a shower and I think I didn't I could the difference between nine”

o'clock and at night in two thirty in the morning I mean I I literally was staying up 10 days at a time I mean it was it was awful and and and I'm about to wash this off my hand at that I think I should probably really call this woman so I texted that number and I said hey your friends gave me your number which like to get a drink and a two thirty in the morning and the response I got back was the pair of phrasing but it was like who that F is this and it's two thirty in the

morning no and and for some reason I in the in the morning I felt like that was really that's rude to do to a one 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

realize the time I and and she had no idea who I was I mean none and except for her friends met this guy at a pool and so she says that they said you really need to go meet him and she said she'd be over for lunch and then it was one o'clock and then it was two o'clock and then it was you know it should be there in half an hour and then it was four o'clock and then six and finally something really really about this what did nothing literally not just her first time yeah and that's

“it nothing not a picture not anything and I walk up and now I'm over at the sunset more key”

which is up the hill because you know every hotel I would say I didn't want to do anything wrong it was just like that the the cast of characters that would be in and out of my room they decided that you know in the morning they missed but we don't have another we don't have availability the hotel looks empty to me you know well so I had moved to over to this other hotel and this when I stole a little bit of money to be able to pay hotel bills and I wasn't in

that 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 and I walk up to the table and I know this

“sounds melodramatic and like I'm making it up but I looked in her eyes and I and I saw eyes that saw”

me and and I said I know that this was crazy but I'm in love with you that's the first thing

you said to woman you never met before the first thing and and again I know that's crazy yeah

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

“killing myself she said that ends today and it didn't end that day it ended the crack ended”

within a week and then alcohol yeah and the alcohol ended within within within like 20 days that tapering and June I count June 1st is my sobriety date and you know from that moment I said that to her we were married ten days later that's one of the craziest choice I've ever heard of my life and it and it remains a miracle you know my daughters and there's nothing

that I love more in the world than than them and the and and they spent I always say the greatest

sin of my addiction was my absence from my children as you know the one thing about my dad always taught me about uh is it they're being available is and and during a time in their life when they love their alcohol bow they love their alcohol bow as much as I love them and he was like a second father to them and in his and after bow died and then they they lost me for a period of time and there's an enormous trauma in that and um my point about talking about

the girls is like like I don't like my father my family my sister my uncle my aunt my empowering the my mom you know they all tried to save me I mean they that I have the I have the

most incredible family in the world but it took a stranger to see uh the love it left in me

and and I don't know why but it was it to me and I love to think of it this way by the way that it was a miracle that there was something divine about it and um and I'm I'm a firm believer in that and in in that faith that sometimes um the things that we cannot explain are God acting in our life in a way in which uh it might as well uh it that that it tried to

with a hammer I believe that so strongly that is true it's a fact yeah 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 to brought me to that point where it could totally break me not for me to go out and a grandize 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 you know the”

laptop or this or the you know defending myself but the story that I get to tell is that there are such there is such a thing as redemption and that's not the outward redemption this is not like some I mean this is the inward that you can find the person that is worthy of love in yourself all of the things and all of the mistakes that I made my life and when I I don't mean you know all the the narrative that has been out there but the mistakes that I've made my life in terms of

relationships in terms of you know has have all been based in fear fear not being enough fear not a fear not living up to some expectation fear of being found out fear of being embarrassed now 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 come to terms with the trauma of losing my mother and my sister or facing it in

“any way or fear of being found out that I you know like that I'm not really as good as I think”

that I am that I I am that person that people you know want to view as the privileged fails

and that's never done anything with this life and all of that fear as vapor it's not not without fear

I still but 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 drinker drug today is it maybe I can get there I'm saying to somebody I was talking before I don't think that there's anything that is has more guidance in my life than the serenity prayer is being able to really truly understand the things that you can change as compared to the

things that you have no control over yes and that's not about feeling powerless but for instance what made me think of is what you just said yeah I know I agree completely and you you have the vanity to think that you can change certain like you're in charge of the

world now you're God yeah and no you're not yeah and there's that incredible and I don't know

“if it'sographer if it's true that quote from Mother Teresa and what 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 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 the step out that door that are that are they feel that there is no hope and no way out for them and that they are caught in the cycle of degradation and demoralization

and violence because of the drug or alcohol which is the worst of my opinion worst drug that there it is yeah I agree with that yeah 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 you're not working on here I'm not I'm not pursuing a goal of which you know you know

I'm a consultant in Washington DC and I you know you know I mean like what what it was all bullshit it was all bullshit what was I adding to the conversation what was I adding to the to the to the

why I'm an artist and that's why I write and that's why I'm speaking out and that's why I

I work with an organization called Peak Path Health which is a great rehab in NLA but I'm helping set up a foundation for them for aftercare I work with an organization called Boston Universal which does homeless prevention and and tenants rights advocacy in NLA and that's not to say oh I'm

“such a good guy I mean because I get paid and and I enjoy the work and I think that they're really”

good people and I and I'm ready to sub-stack because I hope to get paid I hope people go read it so that I can make a living you know as telling you before my you know 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 then 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 gonna use it and not only am I gonna 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 might 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 talent

to communicate or 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 and I think that you have an opportunity to and this isn't like you know train all you know ammunition on the administrative I'm saying the opportunity to find that common purpose you wonder if it's if it's in the without the vanity of it I mean I don't know 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 why that's exactly the way I feel just get me out of the”

debt and that's the other thing people don't like oh you like you like I mean millions of dollars so I you know law firms and others and yeah anyway so yeah you know about that but I wonder if like there nothing you have said you grew up in a very famous political family I know you grew up in Delaware but yeah your world revolve around Washington you went to school there you live there with college there yeah yeah I want to college there you know the political stimuli 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 the probably isn't a immediate I mean you can make things better in the margins but like the problems that people face are mostly not political problems they're like right so I think that we overstate the importance of like voting for this or that guy I mean to me that's the lesson of Trump like I campaign for the guy there are things about am I still like I don't think he's like you know he's complicated like everybody's complicated but

but it didn't work it didn't work it didn't matter that you voted for me you got the same thing that you're gonna get if you voted for Kamal Harris like you that's 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 an a political system whereas there's got to be a real solution that

“begins with changing people's hearts that's what I think exactly exactly because”

it it comes from us we're trying to find the problem out there exactly and it's here get we're the problem yes right no I can't buy 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 candies and like what the in like where I didn't I'm not hard enough on you do you got to apologize for this and you got to do this it's like you know what if for f them here's my here's my point

it starts with us like I'm not gonna 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 in democratic social or is this you know what I think I like people who I'm believing what they have a conviction yep and they and and they're honest about it like totally agree I don't agree with everything that uh as one of them I'm Donnie does but you know what he has conviction he has confidence

and regardless of what you think about him is that like so from a political perspective

I don't care if it's Zora and Mom Donnie or Thomas Massey and I don't agree with 90% of

“the stuff that that in terms what I think I don't but I don't think that matters in this moment”

in time I don't think any of those labels matter in time I want someone with a courage of the conviction principles that is uh but it's all starts here all starts here and everybody else can nitpick around whether you know all of the labels that we applied to each other and all of the vitriol and there has to be like I think there needs to be a you know accountability

for the people that are literally robin us f-f and blind that I think that 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 in the evolution of of humanity that is uh will be a larger step than in the in the entirety of the existence of this earth right and like so what is all of it matter if you have people that drive me crazy like Elon Musk and every other person that has a a hand in which is a handful of them and what's happening with

AI right now telling us in and 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 of humanity and of of humankind and the largest singular step that will ever be taken and are the exponential way in which things will

“advance from there is completely outside of our control and the only thing that we can hope for”

is that we have leaders that are that that have humanity's best interest in mind and I don't know if I think what I should say I don't know I do know I think we have the exact wrong leadership I am totally agree I saw it immediately 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 who where's the constituency for this it seems like the population doesn't want it at all

yeah I I don't know why anyone would want the I want it in the way that it's being offered to us look at what the thing I say is this it's not theirs what their building is off the back of the output of 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 Sandwichman in the Calhari it belongs to us from the moment that there was a cave painting that was put into a digital database and the in in a context to the poetry

of Shakespeare to the book that you wrote to you know to my last podcast tape a transcript that is what is AI it's all of ours every scientific discovery every single public dollar all of it is we own it and 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 Sandwichman to be the to decide the fate of a humanity or or any of them for

that I've done you know thousands of interviews over thirty five 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 Sandwichman so he's he's out of three and a fifty million Americans he's probably three hundred and fifty millionth of who I'd trust yet to control the future of humanity yet yet here we are all right yeah get here we are and and and and you know what we're doing is I'm supposed to hate Tucker Carlson because he's an anti-Semite and he's this I know you're not you're not an SSM I

“I'm 100% know you know that's what my point being is that that would just say so my point being”

is is it like if it's anti-Semitic to point out that BB Netanyahu is evil incarnate

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

“yeah and realize you know I such an obvious lie it's like who's even intimidated by that”

I mean my point is it's like how is it possible that they're dividing us on things like that 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 addicted to 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 who 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 very I'm not nearly 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 is it you gravitate towards the negative things people say about you yes way more than you ever gravitate to the to the beautiful things that you'll say about that is so true so I'm on X and

the amazing thing was is that I I go on X and I start talking about addiction but I also start

talking about you know the absurdity of the moment that we live in and some of the players that are that are outside characters in in this in this morality tale we're living through and and there's these beautiful messages from people about their own struggle in their own addiction and your my sister I showed my sister what you wrote about X Y or Z and you know she said a 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 and there's thousands of those messages but you know what happens is that you know the the one that catches your eye the one that says you know you're you shut up you know you crackhead pedophile you know your you know criminal and you stole from it like it's like any and it was a great it lesson for me

in the experience that everyone is having not just on X but across the board in which we're all

being and and it's and it's purposeful the thing that I never fully believed 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 but 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 and we're not focused on the things that really matter and one of the things that really matters is we better wake up wake up into the way in which we're

being led by the nose and have 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 to gee the story Jesus tells about the two men who go to pray the temple and ones the Pharisee and ones 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 righteous good person like me and the

tax collector who knows he's a sinner because he's a thief and he knows he's a thief and everyone knows he's a thief doesn't even look up he can't even look at God and just says have mercy on me you know 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. Yeah there's a there's a scene in the nostic gospels and I forget which is the axiom uh I forget axiophilipers something anyway you know the everywhere the nostic gospels and really you got to they're the whole of trove of uh gosh

when Constantine unified the church under and declared Catholicism the Christianity the

“state religion of Rome um they basically effectively chose four gospels and band all the”

other ones and they found um and uh I forget the and homin and how many they these two thousand year old texts which were the other gospels written by Mary Magdalene and written by Philip and written by um and anyway there's part of one is this is it says 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

you're able to love in that suffering you're able to see or see the other it's the exact

“in uh exactly what that you were saying in in Luke yeah is that is being able to like not”

being the person's uh casting judgment rather and by the way it's not mean it doesn't mean that you are uh without discretion it means is that as much as I'm not going to and you know what is the

idea of like my empathy overwhelms my my um uh critical thinking yes is not that I'm not talking

about that I'm talking about however is uh is if I can feel this strongly about what they're doing to to kids and detention centers in in in the United States of America I can also feel just as strongly about um that I have as much empathy for um uh for someone who feels like they they have been completely left out and without any options that you know are living in in Bethel main that feels that every that that this country has completely let them down and it's looking for

a hope something and an an object for their anger I want to bring them into the fold

“you know I want to be able to talk to them um those people that I think voted out of anger”

and that are still looking for um yeah 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 good 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 is as ubiquitous as this it is in physiologically impacts your body it impacts every organ every major organ and in particular every major pleasure center of your brain it's the only drug other than best of diazepams that you can die from

withdrawal from does everybody always you know you know there's the Hollywood version of you know

how horrible it is to come off of opiates or you know or cocaine in three out is it's it's really painful and it's uncomfortable and you think you are gonna die but particularly it's really it's cocaine it's out of your system in 72 hours there is no more physical logical need for it and you won't die from withdrawing from it alcohol you'll die you'll go into seizures and and it stays in your body not just for three days it stays in your body for at least 30

if not more and and you've created these you know neurotransmitters in your brain that your brain is still crying you know 30 60 90 days later still crying for you to drink and the worst part is how you got to smoke at your door and usually it's not more than

you know when looks at you funny when you have a cocktail no exactly and it's encouraged and

“so for me it was hard hard work is it I this time didn't I I've been a number of rehabs”

and in in 2019 after I met Melissa and she said this ends is it I started I tapered she had me taper how did she know to do that got her to completely intuitive and um I mean it would really

really you know incredible and she tapered me and then at one point it got really bad

and I had the like true delirid trements and she called a doctor to come over what's that like literally the feeling that you if you don't if you don't remove yourself from your own body that that you're gonna die because you you are you know I mean there's there's the real potential of you dying from seizures and it's the most excruciating feeling that I've ever had any kind of pain and and I've gone through it before but I had done it in a clinical environment

in which they just you know usually use benzodiazepines to work that way and so I had weamed enough

but not enough to um to stop that and so I had to go through it where were you I was

Melissa had rented a house this little house for us in them 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 she um that didn't have the name Biden in it she you know I mean she had to do the hardest thing that for anyone that is uh that love 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 you have to be there you know because you literally could the take a alcohol”

not particularly singularly without alcohol you could you could die how long did it take you to feel better and then it's just 10 days before I could ever really eat anything and taste it actually yeah you know every number have any interest in not being forced to eat something and then um then you start to you know you have this kind of uh everything is kind of gray scale you know for even after you 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 uh somebody explained it to me this way so you have these little messengers that that alcohol sends to your pleasure center to your brain and so the messenger is imagining with little birds in a normal person the bird flies up to the birdhouse and that's your dopamine or whatever it is and like a normal you know in a normal circumstances like you have a you have a happy experience and you know sends two birds up and you

know uh to live in the in the birdhouse and the maximum that you're supposed to ever have is like 10 and it's like the harvest 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 and then you have uh it then there's 1,000 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 and there's nothing in a normal experience that can possibly produce that except the drug and so your brain the thing that you think 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 you know if you don't get this you're going to die and by the way not only 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 it's the first time that you face a trauma or an obstacle

I know how to make you not feel this way I know how to make you not have this anxiety I know how to make you not have this fear we've done it before do it and that's um that is the put alcohol at least did as it relates to 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 almost everything that I do is no longer

with the with the idea that I am like living on a knife sage and the early days though you really

do have to really protect yourself not put yourself in positions of you know I people always say to

me like well can I still go to the bar with my friends well not no you know getting cleansed

“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 you're saying group of friends if they are happy drinkers or you know or you're family like if you 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 I promise you everybody it gets not only easier but there's this thing in the

program that I practice in which they call the promises in which you will know and experience in ease by which life happens as you are able to live life on life's terms and which like everything it doesn't fix everything it's look at me I you know six you know six felony charges in two trials later and a you know and it shouldn't it didn't it didn't solve anything it didn't solve all the consequences I had the 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 that only

“way to be able to fix this is to an exercise myself I mean I would be long dead and and that's what”

they were hoping and I truly truly do believe that I believe that they knew that the the the singular what they perceived as my father's Achilles heel was his family that where he are this when anybody says about Joe Biden that there was nothing more important to him than his family and that he had just lost bow and and that the idea that that I I truly believe that they wanted me to relax which was equivalent to to death I'm a 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 and the most famous political families they're all what I don't know see that that's one of the things that that number one is I really truly didn't grow up in DC yeah and you know we we really were in Delaware and which is different and but your point is that what I found is this is that I lived it publicly but you know

took it I what I found is is that I was in a I forget where I was in a stranger so much driving me and it told me a story and it told me about their life in their addiction and that their you know

“brother was in jail and their father you know just got arrested and 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 the way that literally I don't think it had for anybody any political family ever even the can't just do the degree of which they you know and I really mean that like I mean the total um eviseration of anything or even the notion that I deserved any privacy I mean I I really like I I look at some people and I say like just put yourself in my shoes for one minute

and what level on what level is it do you think that that was right

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 can't tease and I don't I don't know I can't tease you everybody has a new everybody has an friction that they don't want to see everybody has a text message out of context everybody has a voice mail they wish that they had left everybody has an email and which it doesn't have the entirety of the email chain like you

know how many conspiracies there is for born out of the fact that I wrote buckly a recommendation to a school what you remind me he didn't get into you know what I mean like like out of context

“you are able to do some and how is that in any way fair however that's what happened”

and what's your wife think I mean you oh my god like like she like talk about she didn't sign up yeah for this yeah like talk about like you know yeah she is so tough she's like

and she is a a she is a warrior get amazing she is absolutely amazing I mean look I mean I

wasn't there's no way that I could even prepare for it and I and this had been my life none did I prepare for it fact she didn't run it says everything that you need to know about her because the one much other upside well this truth is that but we be it's the the ultimate upside so but she she is she is she is an amazing person what's your plan you're on a path

“yeah it seems like you kind of moved into its 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 because I'm a hero not because I'm some saint and I want you know why because it's the most rewarding thing that I've ever done in my life it gives me sustenance it makes me feel good about myself I mean it like

it makes it it makes it easier for me to make it through the day and so it's purely selfish and that's one of the things about sobriety that I tell everybody is that the ultimate goal is to get to the end in particularly as a relates to the program and I practice as you get the end of the steps and the whole thing is so that you can be of service to somebody else and not because you are saint at the end and all of a sudden your saint Francis walking him on the you know the forest

“it's because it's the thing that saves you the only way to truly get out of yourself is to do for”

somebody else is to you know to sit here and and and for me the easiest is to find other people that I've had you know same as civil or express and and and it's not like you have to look far no I mean it's around every single corner there's somebody and that's was the beautiful

discovery that I had so there's that I want to meet I want to reach a million people in recovery

and I want I've created this thing at hunterbiden.com/recovery in which anonymously for nothing other than to create a a storyboard a story core is people get this share their experience strength and hope because what I would 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 sub-stack and part of it's free and part of its subscription and and and I want to continue to practice my art and and

ultimately at the end of the day is that like anybody else is that you know I want to I want to have the financial security to be able to you know to to not constantly feel as it I have to make you know choices that I don't want to have to make like anybody else like anybody else in their life

how close you to financial security like I'm a million miles away I'm several million miles away

you know I am but yeah you know my which is strong once there are money

dollars oh no millions of dollars millions of dollars I mean just I don't know exactly what it is

“I think it's between four and six million that Winston Shons says I that I owe them for”

for my a couple of convictions and anyway yeah yeah it's a lot of money how do you how does that affect you I don't know I I would hope that they oh how does it affect me it affects me in this way is that I have to find a sensible solution in a way through I really have I 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 for everything I do because it's truth of the matter it's the mountain so it's such a long climb that I I don't I don't

“see the solution to it right now but one won't present itself and I think cooler heads will prevail and”

you know and I'll be able to I just step faith I don't know and I just have faith it's not blind faith just work hard I mean shit I'm I'm really working my ass off I mean everybody says I'll go get a job I have two jobs I have two jobs and then I'm top of that I have all of this that I'm trying to do and then I'm you know I a whole thing that I've been trying to build this relates and and and and that and I and I'm I'm working my butt off and doing that you know

that they took away my law license which means that that avenue that I spent you know 25 years working tours 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 it's spending the past seven years you know I'm really really dedicated to my art I'm really dedicated to the to the to the work of of writing you know you're brilliant writer and you you know this better than anybody it's

it isn't it is a practice as much as an art it's an off discipline as much as a little bit

really and and and so I've been practicing that discipline since I wrote my first book and

and so I have a lot to say and and 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 that would also that ways in which I can do it which I hopefully can put food on the table last question is about faith how is 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 um and believe in whether you want to call it that I do as God is the the the the absolute certainty of this there is literally in both the theological but also um 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 fears delusion is being separated it's it's all the idea and so my faith is in the fact that I know that there is not a that there's not a sentient being that is not that literally is is me and and I don't know that makes sense to you but but I truly believe that there are

there has been a a a a a real thing in my life that has saved me time and time and time again

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 transcended moment”

when we like rise above all the things we're concerned with and sort of look down just for a split

second but this happens to people throughout life and you're like oh wait a second yeah you know people

are really connected to each other on 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 want to know my worst enemy 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 it like it's not like I was moving to reachy cash to set the cave and meditate for seven years instead what I got is a trial by fire and and like I said the complete eradication of an ego not by courage

“or conviction on my part but by a necessary choice to survive I had to choose to either stay in bed”

or get out in live and if I was going to live I had to let go of that yes and I did and for now today it's a beautiful beautiful thing it's a beautiful thing it doesn't solve everything it doesn't solve my debt it doesn't solve my you know you know I still got to you know put on my pants like everybody else and and and and I still have you know to deal with this relationship that you know I like anybody else 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 and everybody thank you very much thanks.