Pod Save America - “Raise Caitlyn Jenner’s taxes!”

Episode Date: April 26, 2021

President Biden prepares to roll out an ambitious agenda ahead of his first address to a Joint Session of Congress, the potential recall in California gets more attention now that Caitlyn Jenner has declared her candidacy for governor, and Republicans trot out some truly ridiculous arguments against D.C. statehood. Then, Tommy talks to Hunter Biden about his new book, Beautiful Things.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, please visit crooked.com/podsaveamerica. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, President Biden prepares to roll out an ambitious agenda ahead of his first address to a joint session of Congress. The potential recall in California gets more attention now that Caitlyn Jenner has declared her candidacy for governor. And Republicans trot out some truly ridiculous arguments against D.C. statehood. Then Tommy talks to Hunter Biden about his new book, Beautiful Things. But first, you don't have to watch Wednesday's joint session speech alone.

We're reviving the group thread. Yay, group thread. Exciting. I missed it. I missed it too. So come follow along with us and some other folks from the Crooked Media universe. The whole family is going to be here at youtube.com slash crooked media on Wednesday night night 9 p.m eastern 6 p.m pacific uh come join us it'll be fun all right let's get to the news on wednesday evening joe biden will mark 100 days in office with his very first address to a joint

session of congress we'll dig into the speech in a second but i do want to start with the political context virtually all the major news organizations released polls over the weekend that give the president an average job approval of about 54%, with 41% disapproving. Basically the mirror image of Trump's polling at this point in his presidency. Nearly 70% of voters are pleased with Biden's handling of the pandemic and majorities approve of both his COVID rescue plan and his infrastructure plan. But he only gets around 30 percent for his handling of border security and immigration. That's his worst issue. And his approval among Republican voters is around 10 percent. I'll stop there to give you guys a chance to react. Tommy, anything in these numbers

that you found surprising or at least notable? Yeah. You know, also, I know we like pretend 100 days is a big mark, but you'd think that these media outlets would talk and space out their polling since it's very expensive and clearly redundant here. But I digress. So just a polling dump. Yeah, it's just like we don't need all the same numbers. So a couple of things jumped out at me. One, 78% of Republicans strongly disapprove of how Biden is handling the job. That is higher than the equivalent number of Democrats who strongly disapproved of how Trump was doing at this point. And it's almost double the comparative number for Obama in 2009. To me, that just shows how deep and how damaging the Trump election lie really was. And I think if reporters or anyone

else that want to wring their hands about polarization, look no further than that number. Polarization is really the theme of this whole thing. I mean, Dan made this point in his newsletter, but Biden has done an incredible job handling COVID. He's gotten shots in arms faster, and he mailed cash to millions of people. But his approval rating now is just barely over his election number, which speaks to how hard it is to move numbers these days. You also see it on the numbers within the economy. So 58% of Americans rated the economy negatively. That's unchanged from a previous ABC poll in September of 2020. I'm talking about the ABC poll here. But what's interesting here is Democrats' views on the

economy went from 18% positive in September to 49% positive today. Republicans viewed the economy positively. 69% of Republicans viewed the economy positively in September, and 35% of them view it positively today. So the numbers stayed in the same place. But the parties just completely flipped their views of the economy based on who is in charge. So that just speaks to how, you know, we're just being pulled in the direction of whatever team we're on. So the good news for Biden is the COVID rescue package remains popular. The infrastructure spending he wants to do is wildly, shockingly popular. It's even popular to raise taxes on businesses to pay for it. So a lot of good things for him in terms of his agenda and the things he wants to do.

The challenge is just going to be the fact that the country is just supporting whatever team they're on. And that's a tough place to be if you're trying to move numbers. I do want to stay on that for a second, because I think, as you said, and as Dan pointed out too, polarization sort of is the defining characteristic of politics today. I think it's being driven primarily by the different information ecosystems we all inhabit, right? Like the idea that 70% of the country approves of how Biden's handling the pandemic. And it's the number one issue on voters' minds in a lot of these polls. And yet it's not driving the approval rating necessarily. The approval rating is at 54%, which is just a couple points above his vote share in the 2020 election, which was 51%. And

also, even when you get into questions of ideology, most voters still think that he's somewhere in the middle. Right. Forty two percent say he's moderate in the NBC poll. Forty eight percent say his views are just about right in the Washington Post poll. So it's not like you've got a bunch of voters out there saying they don't like him because he's because of his ideology, because he's too liberal or too conservative, whatever. whatever, it's partisanship. It's pure partisanship driving these numbers, which makes you realize that Biden is playing on a very narrow, narrow field between now and 2022 and now in 2024. And there aren't many minds that he can convince or Democrats can convince either way, no matter what they do, good or bad. Lovett, what did you think? What did you think about that? Yeah, I think I would see it differently than that.

So I'm not disagreeing with what you're describing when you call it polarization, but it's really not polarization. I think what we're seeing is like a Fox News tax. The grace period that a Democratic president would get from Republicans or a Republican president would get from Democrats just didn't happen. Even Barack Obama in 2009 had higher approval rating numbers amongst Republicans at the beginning of his term. And I think what you saw over the course of the Obama administration over eight years is the rise of this Fox News ecosystem, which had always been there, obviously, with right wing talk and right wing radio. But like the rise of Facebook, the rise of these closed information ecosystems, what you see is Republican support for Barack Obama starts dropping from where it was low 30s, high 20s. It starts to drop and drop and drop. And then it crater stays around 10, 15, whatever. So low number. And it never comes back up. It never comes back up. And Joe Biden has not

been afforded the same grace period because the the information ecosystem is now so closed that there's no space for that to happen. And like, you know, his approval rating amongst independents is in the 60s. Approval rating among Democrats is in the 90s. His approval rating among Republicans is very, very low. And people will say, oh, like this is a mirror image of what happened under Trump. But independents under Trump stayed relatively low. They moved between like, you know, the 30s and the 40s. When I said mirror age, I mean, it's like Trump is different than sort of Trump is outside the what you'd expect from typical polarization, because Trump's approval rating was shit at

this point. Right. But that's like you said, it's purely because of independence. The Democrats and Republicans for each successive Democratic and Republican president, you're seeing that even more Democrats are approving of the Democratic president, and even more Republicans are approving of the Republican president as we go on to successive presidents, with the independents basically being the only group that sort of swings back and forth. Right. But what's what's interesting is in the numbers is the Democrats and the independents move a little bit more together because they're living more in reality than this

Korndoff group of Republicans. And so when we call it polarization, really, it is this, you know, 30 to 40 percent of the electorate that is now fully isolated itself. And they will be at zero for a Democrat and they will be in the 90s for itself. And they will be at zero for a Democrat and they will be in the 90s for Republican. And we just have to accept, you know, I see I see some pundits say, oh, you know, Joe Biden's approval rating may be above 50, but it's the lowest for any new president. But that's the tax. That's like the Fox News tax that they're that we're going to have to accept. And the electorate is behaving like election day is tomorrow the entire time. You know, polarization spikes, polls, people move apart before presidential elections. Now that's

just sticky and that's just continuing. Right. I do think, Tommy, I don't know if you agree with this, but like to me, this validates Biden's strategy, or at least it explains Biden's strategy so far, which is like do a lot of big things, pass a lot of your policies, which are popular, without politicizing them, or at least to the extent that you can, right? Like, he's always talking about how his plans will help Republicans and, you know, the Republicans support his plans. He also tries to stay out of these culture wars to the extent that he can, while still standing up for progressive values. Like it does seem like the Biden people understand that with their with their approval rating among Republicans as low as it is, and they're not really going to fix that. They can't afford to

piss off either independents or Democratic based voters. Yeah, I mean, in the CBS poll, they asked, like, do you want to see congressional Republicans try to compromise and find common ground, blah, Republicans try to compromise and find common ground, blah, blah, blah. 70% of voters want to see the parties find common ground. When then you ask these same voters in the CBS poll, and what have the Republicans in Congress done? 61% of them said they oppose Joe Biden as much as possible, whereas 58% of them said Joe Biden is trying to compromise. So I think that absolutely validates the Biden strategy, despite all the hand wringing about like, how does Joe Biden is trying to compromise. So I think that absolutely validates the Biden strategy, despite all the hand wringing about like, how does Joe Biden define bipartisanship? He's kicking the shit out of Republicans in Congress when it comes to this exact metric.

So I think, you know, ultimately, like, I think we make too much of these bipartisanship numbers in these polls. Like, sure, people want to see Washington get along and, you know, play nice. But in reality, I think they'll, they care much more at the end of the day about the sort of policy things we're talking about, like the COVID relief bill, than they do, you know, tone. Well, that's, I think, I feel like you can look back and say, okay, well, they decided to pass the COVID relief bill without a single Republican vote. How has that affected the approval rating of the COVID relief bill? It's incredibly popular. It doesn't matter.

Once it's passed, it's passed. You know, what's interesting is you see that the bigger issue now is that the infrastructure plan, while popular, is less popular than the COVID rescue plan. And part of that is it's not because, oh, Joe Biden hasn't gone after Republicans on the infrastructure plan. It's enough people don't know what's in it. And also, I think that with the American Rescue Plan, you have the checks and people could understand that they were going to get a check in the mail. Part of this whole fucking thing, why it drives me nuts that we keep talking about infrastructure and how to define everything as infrastructure as opposed to just jobs, is people need to know what's in this plan for them.

Yeah. Like the Biden strategy is very simple. It's like, let's do things that make people's lives better, that they can see is going to make their lives better. And even with polarization as it is, we're going to go into 2022 knowing that we could be fucked in the midterms just because of the way polarization is. But from now until then, we're going to get everything done that we possibly can to improve people's lives, to give us the most fighting chance possible in the midterms.

Yeah, I mean, like you see on the infrastructure, the infrastructure proposal that two to one people support making major changes to get Republican votes. But it's like, well, if there's no real understanding of what Republican changes would be versus Democratic changes, what actually are the ideological divides on the issue? Of course. Yeah, sure. Major changes. I don't know.

Whatever. Yeah. Major changes to get Republican votes. Sounds good to me. It. Of course. Yeah, sure. Major changes. I don't know. Whatever. Yeah. Major changes to get Republican votes. Sounds good to me. It's play acting. Yeah, it is. Let's talk about Wednesday night. The president's first speech to Congress isn't technically a state of the union.

It's just referred to as an address to a joint session. So there's that. Biden is delivering his later than most presidents and to a smaller in-person audience because of COVID protocols. Only 200 people will be in attendance. Members of Congress can't bring guests. No cabinet members. Only Chief Justice Roberts from the Supreme Court and only the chairman of the Joint Chiefs

from the military. The speech will also mark the first time that two women, Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi, have ever sat behind the president on the dais. Love it. You want to talk about what you and I endured while writing these monstrous speeches and what the goal is supposed to be? Well, I feel like every administration starts out with a plan to deliver a shorter, tighter, message-driven, non-laundry list version of this speech. And then that plan meets the reality of

all the different pieces of the agenda that need to be included and that they're like the State of the Union or the Joint Address. Like it becomes a deadline. Everybody loves a deadline and it becomes this kind of organizing moment through which a bunch of different fights play out. But of course, that internecine arguments over policy agenda items doesn't tend to redound to like exquisite writing you know does it tend to lead to the best rhetoric it's tough i mean we did you know that's why you you try to keep it as short as possible you try to uh inject moments of levity which thank god you were there for a long time in the white house and you helped with this i think we have a clip of one of your your best jokes from the state of the Union. Oh, I know.

This is unbelievable. Play that now. We got rid of one rule from 40 years ago that could have forced some dairy farmers to spend $10,000 a year proving that they could contain a spill because milk was somehow classified as an oil. With a rule like that, I guess it was worth crying over spilled milk. I'm confident a farmer can contain a milk spill without a federal agency looking over his shoulder. Now, let's be clear here.

That was your joke. That was your joke. That was your joke. My joke, which I think was deemed too edgy. It was too edgy for the State of the Union. It wasn't. It was just a different, worse joke. But my joke was, I don't see why we're making such a big deal out of a problem that can be solved with Oreos. That was my joke.

Wow, yeah, you can see why that really would have cleaned things up if we if we just added that in there too i i just yeah no that was that was my joke it was fucking terrible um i will blame everyone else in the everyone else in the federal government for seeing the speech and not one person flagged that not one person flagged that awful joke including barack ob. It worked. It worked. It was fine. It was fine. I thought I was going to quit the next day. Tommy, what do you think that the small in-person audience and lack of guests does to the speech?

And also, apparently, I saw this in Punchbowl the other day, a bunch of Republicans in the House and the Senate have already said they're not going to attend. Yeah. So, I mean, I guess if Congress, if they can't bring guests, that means that Matt Gaetz can't bring another Holocaust denying journalist, which is a thing that actually happened. I don't totally get these COVID protocols. I mean, especially if they're all vaccinated, but whatever. Those who watched the Oscars last night probably got a decent dry run of how it might look and feel different, which is just smaller. There's a little less energy in the crowd. It's just like the room feels bigger. I wonder if Biden can bring guests because often the White House has a guest sits in the box of the first lady. And those individuals bring some of the biggest emotional

moments in these speeches, right? You can imagine Biden bringing out a veteran who'd served multiple tours in Afghanistan to thank him or her for their service and highlight that the war is ending. And those are usually resonant and sort of like get clipped for the news. Again, like if these Republicans no-show, I think that it ultimately is not that big of a deal. But I do think that will add to Biden's case that he is being more bipartisan and reasonable. And then these Republicans just are like petulant brats who no-show the joint session. I mean, that seems very silly to me. I would note it in the speech to try to fuck them. I would do it in a very nice way. But if there's a bunch of them, it doesn't come and be like, and look, I'm trying my hardest to work with Republicans on all these priorities.

Some of them didn't even want to show up tonight. I hope that can change. Sorry, you couldn't make it. Twist the knife a little. Lovett, I don't know if you remember, but in the first year we did this, Obama floated. You know, he's like, I think one of the most annoying things about the State of the Union is that like one side gets up and claps and the other do. And then there's everything's interrupted with applause. And maybe we should tell Congress in advance, we should talk to Nancy and Harry and say, you know, don't have them stand up and no one should clap. and so it could just be like a shorter speech that's like more emotional and i think immediately like axelrod and gibbs and everyone was like yeah that's not a good idea what was the

year but what was in their year where they were like let's not sit let's not sit on opposite sides of the aisle let's each go with a republican yeah everyone like every every democrat republican like brought an opposite member of the party trying to sit so it was like some fucking performative theater bipartisan bullshit that was terrible but i like i think that the lack of people in there um the fact that there's not going to be as much energy and applause speaks to the need to have an even shorter speech as usual that's more thematic and less and that includes less applause lines, which, by the way, Biden has done this before. He's practiced this because his whole campaign, he was robbed of huge crowds that you usually get during a presidential campaign. It's

the way he gave the convention speech. It's the way he gave the election night speech. So he's sort of practiced in this. But I do wonder if it's going to be shorter because of that. And I think it could be more effective that way. I do also think, well, first of all, what I would what I hope is happening is if Republicans refuse to go, Nancy Pelosi is like, OK, those will just be more applauding, standing Democrats in the space. Yeah, like I do think it can be a shorter speech. It's also like it is every time you see a space that's usually usually filled that spread out, it reminds everyone of the gravity of the moment and why he was elected and the task before him. I think it is. Yeah, there's gonna be masks to like Kamala and Nancy will have masks on.

I'm sure. Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's it's I think the last part of, you know, hopefully we're moving out of this pandemic. And if we are, this will be one of the last major events in which it is defined by the reality of the pandemic and that will be infused in the speech. And I think only adds to the credibility he has gained on this issue as somebody largely respected even by a lot of Republicans for his leadership on COVID. I do think in terms of what he needs to achieve, I would probably spend less time on what we've already achieved with the pandemic. Like people understand that his approval rating is very high on that. And, you know, one of the reasons I think the American Rescue Plan was able to pass so easily is they sold that bill really well and including what was in that bill really well. And everyone understood that. And I don't think people

know that about either the American jobs plan or the American families plan. And I would spend a lot of time just really making sure that every single person at home knew exactly what they were going to get out of these bills and how their life was going to change. That would be my main goal. I don't know if you guys think there's anything else they should be, he should be trying to do. I mean, I like that you guys are still lobbying for shorter speeches and less work from retirement. I respect that very much. Three of us were talking about tone. I mean, this is my personal take based on no data, no focus groups, just literally what I want to hear. I think that over the last year plus, Biden has done an amazing job consoling the nation through COVID. The cliche about Bill Clinton was he felt your pain. But the reality with Joe Biden is that he has endured more pain and all this genuine heartbreak

and more than anyone should have to endure. And what's admirable about him as a human being is the way he's channeled that into empathy for others. But I would really like sort of what Lovett was saying. I would love to see the balance tip heavily on the side of optimism here. But I would really like sort of what Lovey was saying. I would love to see the balance tip heavily on the side of optimism here. And I don't think it has to be blind optimism or lofty rhetoric about how we've always succeeded, blah, blah. It can be contingent optimism, meaning you can say, we've gotten 200 million shots in arms because we passed the COVID relief bill. People could stay in their homes because we sent them checks. We let them defer mortgage payments.

I am so optimistic about the future of this country and the economy, but we need to pass this infrastructure bill to get to that even better place. But I don't want to see us wallowing in how awful things have been because I think people are pretty well aware of how shitty the past year and a half has been at this point. And I think at least I am just desperate for whatever feels like reality, the new or getting back to like sort of new reality. I just could not agree more. I mean, I was feeling it watching the beginning of the Oscars last night, right? It's like, and, you know, ratings for the Oscars are down, ratings for all these award shows have been way down. And, you know, my own completely untested theory is part of it is everyone has suffered this past year, many people far more than others, people have grieved, and everyone's dealing with that in their own lives. And when you're tuning in to some public event, there is a limit to how much I think we all want to be reminded of that all the time. It is appropriate to have a moment of silence for those we've lost and to talk about the people we've lost and the grief we're going through. There's absolutely a moment for that.

But then you really do have to lift people up at some point because it's just tough to watch. And it's tough to keep reminding yourself over and over for that. But then like you really do have to lift people up at some point because it is it's just tough to watch and it's tough to keep reminding yourself over and over of that. I also, you know, there's this like some of the polling around youth approval of Biden has like started this conversation about like just the transformative nature and surprisingly transformative nature of these first 100 days. And a lot of people have also noted this, that maybe Joe Biden's, one of his superpowers is he makes every position he takes seem like a moderate consensus view. It's just, it is infused. It's part of his history. It's part of his age. It's part of his fact that he's an old white guy. But this is also an opportunity, I think, to like, to make moderate, an expansive progressive

definition of politics, like to make an argument for the scope of what he's doing in a larger way. Yes, talk about the policies, talk about what they'll do. But like, now that I think he has the kind of now full backing of Democrats and a lot of respect from progressives as he moves into this next phase of trying to get infrastructure done, trying to get this family plan done. Like, I think it's an opportunity to make a larger case like this is my philosophy. This is my ideology. And stating the claim like for this new Democratic consensus in front of the biggest audience he'll have for a very long time. Well, I'm sure he'll do that when he almost certainly will talk about his

American jobs plan and his new American families plan, which reportedly calls for as much as $1.8 trillion in spending on national child care, universal pre-K, tuition-free community college, paid family and medical leave, bigger Affordable Care Act subsidies, and a four-year extension of the child tax credit that would cut child poverty in half. Biden will also reportedly finance the plan by proposing higher taxes on the wealthy, specifically a higher capital gains tax and a higher top marginal income tax rate. This may sound like a lot of great stuff in one bill, but just to give you an idea of how challenging this will be for Biden, he already got a letter from 17 Democratic senators asking

him to add health care reform to the American Families Plan, including an expansion of Medicaid, lowering the eligibility age for Medicare, and negotiating lower drug prices. Lovett, what do you think the pros and cons are of adding all that to the American Families Plan? Like, should Biden add health care? And why do you think he wouldn't? Well, it's not the health care bill. It's a different set of policies. Like, I want to do those things, too. But there's a, you know, I think Saki's talked about this in the briefing room, that this bill isn't the sum total of all the administration's priorities. If the view is like we should be doing these health care pieces first, like that, there's an argument to be made for that.

But on the other hand, at the same time, you have Joe Manchin saying he's not ready to do all kinds of things to pay for this. He's not sure about the expense. Like there are bounds on both sides of this issue. I get pushing to make it more expansive and turning this into a kind of more omnibus health care bill too. But like getting this giant, massive change to the way in which we do family leave, medical leave, child care, it's a big, giant proposal.

And like we can make it even bigger. But like, I don't know, it just seems like saying like, why isn't this everything is like, is tough to justify. It is tough, because I think, you know, I know that Jen said, it's not the end of his agenda. But it sort of is the last train leaving the station before the I mean, right, we only have two more reconciliation bills, we have the American jobs plan that's got to go in one. And then you basically got to have the American families plan go in the other. And then that's all she wrote. Unless again, we're like hoping for the miracle of getting rid of the filibuster for just any old legislation. But they're not

gonna be able to probably do another budget bill. There might be one more that you get in right before the midterms, but it's hard to do it in a midterm year, right? You could do it at the beginning. You could, like, I don't totally understand why the beginning of 2022 is a period of time where Democrats feel like they can't legislate. Yeah, I'm wondering if the American Families Plan, I think that the American Families Plan reconciliation bill might be stealing it from the beginning of 2022. That's how you're getting in an extra one in 2021.

The parliamentarians,arians like you can do any you get we're on we are unlimited. We get all the reconciliation bills we want. Yeah, it changes every other day. It's really tough. And I think that like the Biden people are thinking they probably, you know, learned another lesson from from the Obama administration is they've learned many like, do we really want to dive into a big health care fight on top of everything else if we're going to shore up and expand the Affordable Care Act with all these extra subsidies. That said, expansion of Medicaid, lowering the eligibility age for Medicare, and negotiating lower drug prices, incredibly,

incredibly popular things, super important, would change a lot of lives. But that's not to say that, of course, all the other things they're going to do in the American Families Plan wouldn't also change lives. I mean, this is some pretty big stuff. Universal pre-K, tuition-free community college, the child tax credit alone, basically Social Security for kids making it permanent would be a huge, huge legacy item. So it's tough. It's really tough. So, Tommy, Republicans are freaking out about the higher taxes on the wealthy, of course, which Axios referred to as eye-popping. Are these tax hikes eye-popping? How should Biden handle the coming tax attack on this? I think that he should lean into this fight.

So, you know, the fact that Biden wants to pay for this infrastructure plan by increasing taxes on businesses is actually more popular than the plan itself. And so what we're talking about here is Trump cut the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. Biden is saying, let's raise the corporate tax rate back up to 28%. I don't think anyone thinks the sky is going to fall then. I don't think that's eye popping. And voters are also broadly supportive of increasing taxes on the very wealthy. And so what Biden wants to do is return the top marginal income tax rate to 39.6%, which is where it was before the Trump tax cut. And then he wants to fix part of the tax code

that is just clearly unfair that says money you make from investments will be taxed at a lower rate than money earned from work, right? So a millionaire who sells a stock that they've owned for more than a year pays a 20% federal rate. That's nuts. Biden will basically make that tax rate the same as what that person would pay on income. And they'll get rid of loopholes that allow rich people to save tons of money on taxes when they die and they pass on assets like artwork or like stocks to their kids. So I think the whole thing is pretty logical. Someone who just passively owns an asset shouldn't pay less tax on income derived from that thing than an individual who's a construction worker or a doctor or some other job. And then like to the eye-popping

description, I mean, the top marginal tax rates were in the 70% bracket in the 70s. They were as high as 94% right after World War II. Those are eye-popping numbers. I think what most people think is that the really eye-popping offensive thing about US tax policy and what it has allowed to happen in this country is the economic inequality. So it's funny, like Republicans, you can tell they're just like desperate to call Biden, you know, sort of a tax and spend liberal. But when you look at the Democrats tax cuts, including the March stimulus, the net effect is to drive down tax rates on low and middle income people so much so this year, that those earning less than $75,000 on average will owe nothing in federal

income taxes. That's where we want to be as a party, cutting taxes for people making less than 75 grand, raising taxes on billionaires who are passing along artwork to their kids. It feels like a no-brainer. I would have a huge portion of the speech Wednesday night taking on this tax issue. I would be running ads about it. I would be goading Republicans into this fight. It is the most popular issue that we could fight on. And like you said, Tommy, the corporate tax increase is more popular than the infrastructure plan. And the tax increase on wealthy individuals and capital gains taxes is even more popular than the corporate tax increase, because, you know, corporations say, oh, if you raise taxes on us, we'll pass them on to consumers. And sometimes people buy that stuff like that. But

raising taxes on wealthy individuals on the top one percent or in the case of the capital gains, like the top point four percent is like a 70 percent issue. Donald Trump was least popular two times in his presidency, two times of all the bad shit he did, the insurrection, the caging children, everything. The two times he was the least popular was when he tried to pass that tax cut for the rich and we try to take people's health care away. That's when he was least popular. And so, like, if Republicans do not want to have a fight, at least the smart Republicans

do not want to have a fight about taxes and Biden should take it to them every single day from now until the midterms. Yeah, I by the way, I assume the reason he's starting with the cap gains rate, ultimately, if you include like the Obama surcharge above the top marginal rate is because he's actually negotiating with Democrats from from from like, wealthier states like that's where this negotiation will largely take place. Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, the Republican position is no taxes on inheritance, no tax on wealth, lower taxes on corporations and the ability for families to perpetually pass

on assets while never paying taxes as those assets gain in value. Like it's a workers party now. It's a workers party like that is like the Republican position, like the official position is for that is oligarchy. Like that's what that does. That creates a giant pool of basically permanently untaxable wealth that grows and grows and grows and is passed down from generation to generation. And that is like aristocracy. That's what that creates a situation in which wealth is rarely taxed and is able to accrue in value over generations without ever actually being taxed as it grows is a recipe for creating an aristocracy. That is what they want to do. And that is what they have succeeded in doing over the past few years. And we have to roll back.

All right. We haven't yet talked about the potential recall election brewing here in our home state, but it's getting a lot more attention now that Caitlyn Jenner announced last week that she's joining the list of candidates who intend to challenge Governor Gavin Newsom if the effort moves forward. The current recall petition was first introduced before COVID hit in February 2020, but it gained steam when a judge lengthened the window of time to collect signatures as a result of the pandemic, and conservatives grew frustrated with Newsom's public health restrictions. Recall supporters say that they have the nearly 1.5 million signatures they need to get on the ballot sometime this fall, but we'll know for sure any day now when election officials finish verifying those signatures. Jenner is one of several Republicans running, including John Cox, who lost to Newsom by almost 24 points in 2018, and a bunch of other goobers who might potentially run, including Trump Twitter troll Rick Grinnell and adult film actress Mary Carey, who ran against Gray Davis in the 2003 recall. All right. First, Tommy, how common are recall elections? How do they work?

And why would a recall be potentially more challenging for Newsom than just a regular election? So one thing that folks should know is that this recall could cost the state up to $400 million. But Gavin is up in 2022, right? So we might drop $400 million to recall a guy a year early. That is so stupid. Also, you can recall a politician for basically anything in California. It's not like impeachment where there's some bar you need to reach. You basically need to get signatures from 12% of the voters who voted in the last election or about 1.5 million people. California is a huge state. You could probably recall Gavin Newsom with just QAnon believers and anti-vaxxers, which is basically what's happening. And as John noted, it's especially easy this year because the organizers got this extra 120 days to collect signatures. So it's likely that we will

go forward with the recall and voters will ultimately be asked to vote on two things. One, should Gavin Newsom be recalled? And two, if he's recalled, who should replace him? Now, the whole fight is over part one. But the thing to know about question two about like who gets on the ballot is it's again, absurdly easy to get on the ballot. You basically have to pay like four grand. In 2003, there were 135 candidates on the ballot. And you could see exponentially more this time. And so like, the reason this is such a bad and dumb process is you just have to win with a plurality. So you could see a Rick Grinnell or a Caitlyn Jenner win with like 15% of the vote.

So the good news for Gavin is it seems very unlikely that this will work. You know, lots of money is pouring in from billionaires and like national political parties. But when Gray Davis was recalled in 2003, Gray Davis was way less popular. And the Democratic registration advantage in the state today is triple what it was then. So it's a waste of time. I think it's really annoying for Gavin and his folks. But we do need to pay attention because there could be another variant. There could be a bad fire season. You never know what could happen. And the people behind this effort are like some dark, dark, weird, crazy people. Like the guy leading the recall effort who filed the petition as a retired cop who posted on Facebook, microchip illegal aliens. It works. Just ask animal control. Like that's like kind of the caliber of person that is behind this. So it's worth watching. Recalls are circuses.

Yeah, no, it's a circus. Yeah. Like so Gray Davis, much less popular state was less Democratic, and it got to 55% on the first question of do you want to recall? And even though there were a ton of people on the ballot, I think Schwarzenegger got like 48%. So it like it coalesced around Schwarzenegger because he was somebody who would actually was a celebrity. Obviously, it was incredibly well known and also had some involvement in politics. Man, you know, this was supposed to be a crank thing. And then the pandemic happened. I will say if they do have the votes and it seems like they do for the recall, this will be the most expensive French laundry visit, most expensive restaurant meal in like human history uh because it really did like

it turned something that was about right-wing politics big vc real estate donors who kind of fund this every time into like a larger question about his pandemic response which is uh you know bummer just to underline some of the um facts tomm us. So, you know, a couple of polls so far, basically the recall, do you want to recall Newsom is polling at around 40% in the last couple of polls recently. His approval rating is currently at 52%. By contrast, Gray Davis's approval ratings when he was recalled in 2003, the only other governor to ever be recalled in California history, he was in the low to mid 20s, low to mid 20s. Of course, he was recalled. So Newsom is still, you know, it's down from Newsom's approval rating earlier

in the pandemic and earlier in his term when he was up at 57, 60, but he's still at 42. And as Tommy pointed out on the registration, Democrats also account for 46 percent of the registered voters versus just 24 percent for Republicans. So that's just the shape of the state, the shape of the electorate just makes it really, really tough. We're also sitting, by the way, right now with the lowest per capita COVID infection rate of any state in the continental U.S. right now. I think only Hawaii is doing better than us. Yeah, look, look, look, governing any state during COVID was really hard. Like we still don't have a handle on why and when these waves came back. So I have some sympathy there. I do think people

were particularly pissed about reopening a little too early and then some of the questions around schools. But I do think by the time this vote actually occurs, that should all be solved. But yeah, I just think the thing to underscore is like 12%, you need signatures from 12% of equivalent of the people who voted in the last election. That just means that like everyone, every governor could be recalled at any time because there's always like 12% of your opponent's base that hates you enough to sign one of these signatures. And if you have some billionaire backing a direct mail campaign or an effort to organize it, it's very easy to do.

And then the judge gives them another 120 days. I mean, this is very, it's a messy situation, but boy, these California rules are stupid. They're so stupid. They're so stupid. What are we doing here? We're going to spend, he's up in a fucking year. What are we, it's like ridiculous going to spend, he's good. He's up. He's up in a fucking year. What are we?

It's like ridiculous, ridiculous. So they are stupid. We, we are living with them. Unfortunately, we cannot get rid of the rules. We're facing this.

What if you're love, if you're Gavin Newsom and you see Caitlyn Jenner enter the race, are you happy? Are you not happy? Like what's your, what's your strategy? If you're Gavin Newsom in this, in this recall election,

which he will likely face. I don't think anybody's happy. I don't think you're Gavin Newsom in this in this recall election, which he will likely face? I don't think anybody's happy. I don't think you're happy about any of this. I will say, like, I do see a bunch of different people kind of like casting out for what to say around Caitlyn Jenner. Like I saw Karen Bass talking about the fact that she didn't think Republicans would get behind a trans candidate. that she didn't think Republicans would get behind a trans candidate. I do think like the fact that Caitlyn Jenner is a former Trump supporter who is now meeting with Trump campaign manager, former campaign manager Brad Parscale, and that her strategy seems to be entirely rooted in like xenophobia and the same kind of Trump politics, death penalty, attacking the DAs,

blaming Gavin Newsom for the decisions of separately elected district attorneys, I think is like where I would be focused on. Like this is a Republican backed, Trump money backed, real estate interest backed efforts. And I would be attacking the whole effort and then Caitlyn Jenner as the face of it for being a right wing Trump backed. Like I see people calling Caitlyn Jenner the Republican candidate. I would think about calling her the Trump candidate, given how much Trump interest is now behind her. And I would be focusing on that. Tommy, what do you think? What do you think about Caitlyn Jenner's entrance to the race? And how would you how would you run against her I mean look Caitlyn Jenner you know jumped into the race

and immediately demonstrated why she shouldn't be running and doesn't know anything about politics like Lovett just mentioned she attacked Governor Newsom for decisions made by the San Francisco District Attorney but in California we vote for our DAs Gavin doesn't appoint them, right? So like, come on, get your shit together. I would like the real, the campaign is on this first question of should Gavin Newsom be recalled? And if I'm his team, I'm going to talk about all the things I did well, I'm going to keep sort of like doing the job well, get shots in arms, get schools reopened, right? Like show competence. And then just say, the way this works is if you vote to recall me, there's a serious chance that you're going to get some hardcore MAGA person, whether it's Caitlyn Jenner or Rick Grinnell, one of the most like unhinged assholes to ever, you know, come out of Republican politics. So like, you know, that's what it could

be like that. The downside risk of recalling gavin newsom is so high given how much these votes get split and the fact that you can win with a plurality that like you know you're you just shouldn't risk it this would be my message yeah i think you're i think that's exactly right it's it's it's me gavin newsom versus trumpian chaos because if if if if you vote and the recall happens any any one of these fucking nutcases could end up being your governor. And by the way, like here's our state, lowest COVID infection rate. All of the public health restrictions will be lifted on June 15th. Needs to make sure that all the kids are back in school by the fall as well because you don't want any other issues.

But if all those issues are solved, right, like if the pandemic sort of starts fading in people's minds or at least some of the public health restrictions part of the pandemic and people are vaccinated, things are going well and the state's got surplus budget right now too, then he can tout the job he's done and say it's either me or chaos and a bunch of MAGA people and that's that.

So, but it's not great. Not great that we're gonna have to deal with the whole that Caitlyn Jenner show for the next however many months I think if you ask like if you talk to Gavin's people off the record like this is very annoying they feel like they're very well positioned to beat question one which is should we be recalled but you just don't know what you don't know like we none of us saw a pandemic coming a little over a year ago, right? Like bad things can happen in the state. He could get blamed for it. And so they're taking it very seriously. They brought a new staff to bring it on, but it's just,

this state is like so close to ungovernable that you throw a fucking recall election on top of that. And it's just, it's absurd. I just can't believe we're doing this. And then there's the question of whether or not you want some kind of democratic stalking horse in the candidates. And like, I like it is going to be inevitably Gavin Newsom's position that you don't want that, that you don't want to introduce the complexity. Yeah, no, they don't want that. They don't want that at all. You don't want to be, but, but one of the lessons from 2003 is you don't want that to all of a sudden you wish you really had rallied behind one person. Yeah. In 03, they had Cruz Bustamante on the ticket and just Schwarzenegger mopped up. So yeah, I don't see like someone, look, celebrity and name ID is everything. We've all learned that

the hard way recently, but I don't know if Caitlyn Jenner is the one to do it. Like Schwarzenegger was certainly next level in terms of fame, but yeah, this thing could cut a million different ways. Yeah. i think that's why gavin is vacuuming up endorsements as fast as he possibly can from democrats so that no one else runs on the other side um caitlin jenner has not received many endorsements including not a single endorsement from not a single word spoken from a kardashian or a jenner chloe kendall courtney it's tough none of them none of them have. None of them have endorsed the effort yet. It's something.

It is a sad state that what we want to say is, this is, of course, ridiculous, and there's nothing to worry about. But we've stopped being able to say that quite some time ago. We all just came from the Trump era. If you want to help stop the um the the recall effort there is a website stop the republican recall.com you can find ways to volunteer and donate to make sure this uh this nightmare doesn't happen um all right one more thing to mention before we get to tommy's interview with hunter biden um the house passed legislation

on thursday that would make the district of columbia the 51st state granting it to senators and appropriate representation in the house the proposal is now in front of the Senate, and Republicans are offering quite a few reasons that they're not happy with it. And Lovett, I believe you've prepared a game for the occasion. The District of Columbia. The museums are free, but the people are not. The House has now passed a bill to make D.C. the nation's 51st state, which would be called Washington Douglas Commonwealth, named after, of course, Douglas Emhoff. The bill heads to the Senate, where Democrats will either change Senate rules and pass the bill with 50 votes, or Joe Manchin will use the powers of Kilgrave to find 10 Republicans to support the addition of one

beautiful new star to the Stars and Stripes. Republicans are scrambling to justify their opposition to granting full and equal citizenship to one of the most diverse regions in the country without saying that they just don't want to create two Democratic senators in perpetuity with a dash of, it's pretty black and that just bugs us. This has led to some pretty ornate justifications for opposing statehood. So let's see if John and Tommy can tell the real quotes from the fake ones in a game we're calling DC is a state of mind. Are you ready?

John and Tommy. So ready. Some of these are real. Some of them are fake. Here we go. There's no, I mean, obviously they're all fake, but some of them were really said. There's no question that DC residents already impact the national debate. For the members here today, how many of you saw DC statehood yard signs or bumper stickers or banners on your way to the hearing today? I certainly did. Where else in the nation could such a simple action reach so many members of Congress? Tommy, I'll start with you. Real. That's real. That's Zach Smith from the Heritage Foundation. Next quote. Look, if you're not fracking, you're not a state. It's as simple as that. But I'm here today to talk about the border crisis. John? Shit. Real. No, it's fake.

I made it up. That was good. That was good. It was the twist at the end. The twist at the end gave it some reality. The fracking thing totally sounds like something they'd say.

Tommy, over to you. D.C. wouldn't even qualify as a singular congressional district because of its low population. Real and said in front of Liz Cheney, who has a lower population, I believe. Yes, that's correct. That's from Congresswoman Nancy Mace. D.C. wouldn't even be the smallest state. It would be ahead of Vermont and, yes, Wyoming. John, over to you. Wyoming has three

times as many workers in mining, logging and construction and 10 times as many workers in mining, logging, and construction, and 10 times as many workers in manufacturing, Wyoming is a well-rounded working class state. Fake. That's real from Senator Tom Cotton. If you put it through the Google translator, well-rounded does mean white. That's how you translate that quote. Tommy, you're absolutely crushing it. Next quote over to you. Enough with the power grab. There are only eight Starbucks locations. Fake because there's way more Starbucks than that. That's correct.

There are only eight Starbucks in Vermont. Alaska has around 20. D.C. has 91. It also wouldn't be a good reason. John, back to you. The founding fathers never intended for Washington, D.C. to be a state. Real. Yes, that's real from Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota, which is one of the smallest states in the country because we made two Dakotas. Fun fact, when President Harrison

signed the papers granting statehood to the Dakotas, there was a rivalry of which one got to become a state first. So they shuffled the papers and it's not recorded. We don't know which state became a state first, South Dakota or North Dakota. Isn't that interesting? Fascinating. I like that. Yeah. It's random.

Let's combine them. Let's combine them. Tommy, to you. D.C. would be the only state without an airport, without a car dealership, without a landfill. Real. That is real. That was Congressman Jody Heiss of Georgia. Of course, D.C. does have car dealerships.

And while it may not have a landfill, it does have a repository of trash called the Heritage Foundation. Tommy, you've won the game. It was a real, it was a stunning defeat. It was a rout. It was a rout. When we come back, I don't know, something. John, over to you. When we come back, we will have Tommy's interview with Hunter Biden about his new book, Beautiful Things.

I am very excited to be joined today by Hunter Biden, who is the author of the new book, Beautiful Things. Hunter, thanks for doing the show. Thanks for having me, Tommy. Thank you. So I don't know if you remember this, but we met once before. I'm 100% on a plane to Boston. Do you remember this? Yeah. Okay, 2004. I'm 24 years old. We're seated next to each other.

The flight to Boston to the Democratic Convention. I'd just been allowed to go by my boss. You made the enormous mistake of asking me why I was headed to Boston. And then I think I vomited anxiety and excitement at you nonstop for two hours. So thank you for that. Exactly. You know what? Yeah, I remember we talked about your uncle. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Who was a political writer. Yeah, exactly. And then, and I think about two hours, like an hour 59 into the flight, I said, you know, I realized, uh, I forgot to ask you what you're doing here. And you just said to me, I think, oh, you know, my dad's speaking, you know, you didn't really get into it in any way. Didn't big time me. It was just like, oh yeah, go and see my dad. it's so funny because i i absolutely remember that um uh uh vividly vividly yeah that's so funny god yeah well a long time ago uh so listen thank you for doing this the the book

again uh is beautiful things it is um i felt like it's sort of like two separate books that are that are inextricably connected, right? There's the part about the loss of your brother, Beau, and the stories about the love and resiliency of your family. And then there's an account of battles with addiction and a journey to sobriety. And I was hoping we could start by just talking about Beau, because what became clear to me from reading the book was that you guys were more than just brothers. You often talked about yourself and Beau or yourself and your dad and Beau is almost like one entity that was bound together by love and by tragedy and these connections that were just

unbelievably strong. I was wondering if we could just start by talking about him and that bond you shared with your family, because I do think it's so important to understanding you. Well, I love talking about it. So thanks Tommy. I mean you had met Bo a number of times right Tommy and he was a special person to everybody who met him literally everybody who met him and for me you know I think that Bo and I would have been as close as we were by the nature of my family and the way that we were a year and a day apart. And we were the first born in my family of that generation. And so we were kind of everybody's playthings, my aunts and uncles. But when my mom and sister died, But when my mom and sister died, it drew us even closer together in the sense that we were the focus of everyone's love felt, I feel a sense of guilt almost in,

in talking about that period of time in my life as any, as, as a trauma, because what I remember most, what is at the forefront of my mind is just the incredible amount of love that was given to us but in particular the incredible amount of love that was uh that was my brother period we were together constantly um and we were with my dad constantly we had this rule where we could go to, um, with my dad wherever, whenever we wanted. Um, and you know, we probably took it, took advantage of it a little, um, too much sometimes, but, uh, so we were, you know, we'd be on the train with him down to DC, running around the halls of the Russell Senate building. Um, my dad took the train back and forth every day.

My dad took the train back and forth every day. And then that bond just existed until the day he died. We we literally spoke. I think people somebody wrote a thing like, oh, my God, you know, the president has to call his son every day. Like that must be a burden. My dad has called me every day since the day I left for college. And it's a lot easier to get in touch with me now than it was at other times. But Bo was my rock. And I always kind of considered us two sides of the same coin. And he was as proud of me as I was of him. And it was a... I'm glad you started here because

really, you know, the book is really a love story. It's a love letter to those, to the people that, um, that never gave up on, uh, on me. Um, uh, and it's a story that a lot of families I think will understand because so many people are going through it right now. Yeah. I mean, the book, the book is like a love story about your family. And I feel like I learned a lot about who you are as a group, the character of your father, you know, and it's beautiful in that sense. It's also include some

incredibly raw descriptions of tough times in your life, including when Bo was sick and it was hard to read, but there was part of me that came through this thinking like, it's good for people to read this. Because when my dad died from cancer, I couldn't help but notice how often I saw uplifting stories about people beating it, or it described euphemistically, right, as like, this person fought valiantly against the disease. And at times, it made me mad, because my experience was like fucking hell. You know what I mean? Watching someone like deal with how cruel a disease can be and how painful it can be and how traumatizing that experience was. And you know, you said in the book and you said here, like, you refuse to give yourself the excuse of trauma or tragedy leading to addiction, but it was hard not to read that and just feel like the accumulation of what you had experienced or to see how that could lead to turning to alcohol or a relapse down the road. And I just don't know, I was wondering, you're almost hard on yourself to rule that out. And I kind of wondered why. Yeah. And the thing is, is that I don't

And I kind of wondered why. Yeah. And, you know, the thing is, is that I don't, I don't rule it out. But I never want to use it as an excuse. And I also don't want anyone to come away with the impression, which they won't if they read the book, that my experience is in any way unique. I mean, Tommy, you, I mean, you I mean, that you loved your dad and, and having to go through that is, is, is too often a story that I don't know any that, that has not touched someone in some way, whether it's grief and loss,

someone dying of cancer, or whether it's a tragic loss like the loss of my mother and my sister in an auto accident. And what the book is really, I hope saying to people is you're not alone. And by the way, you know, is that you're not alone in the fact that uh that your um your brother your dad your your daughter lost their battle to cancer it wasn't because they didn't try hard i know that i understand that frustration you had i i would get really angry too not angry angry, frustrated and confused. And, you know, there's too many words

that could possibly describe that feeling. Maybe there's no word that can fully describe the feeling of saying, we're fighting too. Like, what the hell are you talking about? Like, and, you know, and then grief is a really funny thing. And, you know, I knew a way to that was kind of the answer to all things for addicts, for someone that suffers from addiction, what I believe is ultimately a brain disease is is, you know,

people ask, why do you do drugs? Well, because they work, um, and they work until they don't. Uh, it's the fastest way I know of erasing that pain. And, uh, it's the, it's the fastest way to, to, to hold different health for me. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and so like a lot of memoirs, a lot of books, especially if like, you're not a politician, but you're someone who sort of like come from that world. They often sand off the edges or omit the worst details. You clearly did not do that. You talk in great detail about alcohol and drug abuse, including extended periods of like sort of nonstop crack use. Why did you decide to just lay it all out? Was that a tough decision? No, it wasn't. Because when I decided to write the book, I knew that the book that I wanted to write was the full story of the depths of my addiction.

Because I think that the value of the story and the reason I'm so vivid about it was to let people know that they're suffering and sick in the same way that I was. And it's millions of people. It's that they're not alone. It's that I was truly there. I understand, guys. And by the way, to take some of the stigma out of it, take the shame out of it. I mean, I wrote it with the fully cognizant of the fact that my dad was at that time when I wrote the book, the former vice president of the United States and the nominee for, well, he wasn't the

nominee at all, like by the time I had finished the book. But a lot of people didn't think he was going to be the nominee. Well, before I finished the book. But the point is, is that I wanted to let people know that I was there. I was one of those people in that room with them. And someone said to me, we've all been in rooms in which we couldn't die. And what he meant by that is that we've all done things that we're not proud of in our addiction, and sometimes not even in our addiction, in which I wanted to let people know that I was in those rooms too. And I got out, I made it out. Yeah. So there's a period in the book, you know, when you're, you kind of

get back to LA and you sort of, I think you write that you essentially decided to succumb to addiction and kind of give up on, you know, like the sense of self you once had this past life. And that's when the, like the Giuliani attacks about Burisma and everything else really started to ramp up. You're obviously like, you know, using heavily at that point, but were you monitoring these things in real time? Like what was that like to just see this shit just pop up? Now, so, you know, the truth is, is that in a way I had completely insulated myself from it because I was so focused on my addiction. I was so focused when you're in that, at least at the level of addiction that I found myself in, in which I was smoking literally every 15 to 30

minutes. And if I wasn't smoking, it was looking for, you know, a way to replenish my supply. you know, a way to replenish my, my supply. And, and I would get messages in from, from people that cared about me, that loved me. And it said, Hunter, you gotta, you know, address this. You gotta, you know, this story is being written. And it just compounded my determination that, you know, I, you know, I'm the lost cause. I'd given up on myself. I'd given up on, you know, I didn't, I'd lost Bo. My daughters desperately, desperately, desperately were constantly trying to save me. I mean, they're the most constant other than my dad in my life.

But I decided to just disappear. And strangely enough, what happened was that Adam Entos, who's a New Yorker writer, got in touch with a friend of mine who is my lawyer, but also my brother's oldest friend and my oldest friend one of my older friends and uh he said i'd like to talk to hunter and the reason i talked to him is because you know i was a a snob i mean it was the new yorker surprise i was like i'm to talk to this guy. Right, right.

You know what I mean? Because I always wanted to write for the New Yorker since I was 16 years old. And he kind of saved my life. It's really interesting. He didn't have any intention of that. But it was really interesting. It opened my heart just crack enough to meet Melissa. Yeah, you really laid it out to him. It resulted in this 11,000 word piece that came out in I think, July of 2019. Putting on my like political hack hat for a second. In a sense, it was brilliant, right? Because as you said, in the book, no one's calling up saying like, hey, we're hearing rumors, the Daily Mail and TMZ are reporting, you just fucking laid it all out there. But did you get a call from the campaign that was like, hey, is this coming? Tommy, you guys would have killed me.

If you guys had gotten wind of this, there is no way that you would have ever allowed it to happen. You would have shut it down so fast. Like I knew, by the way, any professional would have. would have um and uh and i had i had enough sense and i have been around this long enough to know that if i had told anybody inside the campaign that by the way i'm talking to adam entos about all these giuliani accusations but i decided also to get into a full description of the level of my my crack addiction i think people would have literally, um, and, but in fairness, um, and you know, all the players, um, uh, when it did become evident that that's what I had done,

they were fully supportive of, um, of, uh, of, of, of speaking the truth because ultimately at the end of the day, what I realized is this is that, you know what, we're not much different than anybody else as a family. Right. You know, I don't know any family that doesn't have someone that they love, that they respect, that they believe is, is worth it. That has struggled with addiction or an addiction. I include the most addictive drug in the world in my opinion it's alcohol the most destructive and I don't know anybody that that when it came out you know I think

everybody was a little bit shocked because I think what really shocks people tell me is crack yeah i think that more than anything um it carries such a uh it's such a loaded um word and it conjures things that are uh are uh are not necessarily true but it really kind of shocks the conscious um uh a little bit yeah but anyway I think a lot of people saw in me, in our family, saw their families and saw themselves. Yeah, I do too. And look, I've worked in politics for a while. You've been around politics your whole life. Neither of us expects it to be gentle or always high-minded. That said, like to your point about every family experiences some sort of level of addiction, Donald Trump's brother, Fred, died at 43 because of alcoholism. You know, Donald Trump said that had a profound impact on him, but they, they didn't just go after your business dealings.

They went after your substance abuse problems, right? Like that little prick Don jr. Like makes jokes about it, right? Like did that level of viciousness surprise you at all? Because it surprised me i know he's a horrible human being devoid of empathy that like it's still it surprised me on a human level and on a political level because i just thought to myself attacking someone for an addiction seems like a fucking crazy thing to do yeah well just so there's a bunch of a few different ways that I think about it. I think you do, too. You put on your political hat. OK. And you wonder what the hell are they doing this for? Because it seems so vindictive, small and mean.

Like, who are they appealing to? Right. By doing this. And you just try to figure out that part, which is hard to figure out. Because I don't think most Americans are small, vindictive, and mean-spirited. Then you put on the other hat is what's their end game? What's the greater grand strategy here? And you realize there is no greater grand strategy. They are just small, vindictive, and mean. And, but on a personal level, I, I have been, my dad's been a senator since I was two years old. He's been in the, in, in the middle of national politics my entire life, including at the highest levels with you guys in the administration. And I've never experienced or witnessed or know any time in history in which there has been that level of meanness. I don't know.

I mean, Tommy, you're a student of this. I don't know. I don't think there has been. From soup to nuts with me. And so I finally figured out what it was. I really do believe they consciously understood that the most important thing to my dad was me. And his family. Not just me, but me, my sister, my brother, and his family.

sister, my brother, and his family. And if they could attack me and keep me locked in my prison of addiction or do worse to me, to his one remaining son, then it would be almost impossible for him to in some way. But they don't know him. They don't know him. They don't know him. They don't know. They don't know us. And what they didn't count on was that, um, that has always just made us stronger. It made us, um, if we were,

we were, um, steel or reinforced steel by the end of this campaign. Well, speaking as a guy who's, um, day can be ruined by a mean tweet. Uh, I have enormous respect for your resilience there and your father's resilience too. I mean, like, I guess you know, for your dad, for your family, I mean, it must have just been agony watching someone they love so much just be the subject of these attacks. Like, where's Hunter? Like, what is the end game

of the where's Hunter attack? Like, you're gonna like pop your head out of some like bank in Ukraine over here? Like, what the fuck did they think they were gonna find? Excuse my language. I don't my language i don't know i don't know i mean that's the thing is like as i said in the book i'm right here um and you know i mean they've done a really good job of of uh continuously harassing us on a personal level i mean you know bullhorn is outside the house melissa was pregnant and um you know text to your daughter really broke me. Like some random person said a harassing

text to your daughter. I was like, how far have we fallen that someone would do that? Yeah. And that's kind of almost a constant. Particularly during back of the campaign. But it's really crazy, Tony. Just the

actual story of it is I talked to Adam Entos when Giuliani kind of ramps up these attacks, which he clearly is doing this deal in Ukraine, which led to the impeachment and backfired on him. And then all the personal attacks start. But by then, the New Yorker article came out. And so I felt incredibly inoculated by the fact that, like I said, you don't need a laptop. You have my book. Right. And then that was when I met Melissa.

And she started the hard work and I started the hard work of getting clean and sober. Yeah. And so all that period of time when you think that it was like the weight of the world, Zami, is that I knew I only had to do one thing right every day. And that was not to pick up a drink or a drug. When you have that level of focus and you realize how close you were to death and's the title of the book is i get to wake up every day and i started this practice of just literally counting through my head all of the things that i have to be grateful for and um and there were so many uh that at least when I would set the table that way with all the beautiful things that I have in my life, all the other stuff just became, you know, background

noise. Not that it didn't break through sometimes. It wasn't fun, but it was, but you know, it was, it was a beautiful moment in my life at the same time. Right. Right. So, yeah, I want to talk about the recovery elements because I found it, I found it really interesting, really helpful to just to like, kind of understand it better because look, I have a lot of alcoholics in my family. You know, my father was an alcoholic, but he was sober before I was kind of old enough to be aware of it. And it always, like, it always struck me as almost surprising. He was like a guy who flew fighter jets and like drove up motors, right? Like he felt it's funny that someone in your life can feel so in control.

And then to know that there's this other thing where they have no control. So, you know, and I never sat down with him and said like, what are the basics? I was wondering if we could do that. Like what, for listeners, like what is AA? What is the 12 step program? Like how does that work? And how does that help someone who's battling addiction? For me, I think I can talk about it in the way that it has helped me. Number one is to realize that you're not alone. I think the biggest thing of walking into a room of other people that raise their hand and say, I'm an alcoholic or I'm an addict, is to realize that,

that you're not the only one. And then to hear in specificity of what it was like for them, what it's like now and what they're doing to get better is a, is such an incredibly liberating thing because many addicts feel when they're, when they're trapped in their addiction, is that no one could possibly understand what it's like or how their problems are greater than the problems that anybody else has. They're so unique that they can't be solved. And what you realize in those groups, in the support groups,

in whichever form, whether it's AA or many others that are out there, is the first thing you realize is you're not alone. And what addiction wants for you is for you to remain alone. It wants to be the only answer that you have. And when you start to realize that there may be another answer, it just is an incredibly liberating feeling. And hopefully you'll hang on to it. Yeah. And you also tried some more sort of intense um, intense approaches, like sort of taking

other powerful drugs like Ibogaine or Ketamine to help reduce addiction. Did that experience help at all? Like, what was that like? I think that every, every piece of it helped. Every time that I, um, uh, reached out for a solution, um, I reached out for, solution, I reached out for, I took a helping hand. I think it had hopefully a cumulative effect. I think that my, and it's all about the level of intention that you put into it. My experience with Ibogaine was very powerful, but not something that I necessarily would recommend to everybody. But I know the science behind it now. And I know the science behind how it is particularly effective in treating people with PTSD, and particularly

as it relates to opiate addiction. I know the science behind the way in which ketamine infusion therapy is helping people with severe traumatic experiences. And I think that there are so many things that we have not explored that could be useful. But the one thing I do know too, is that I don't think that there's any silver bullet. I think that the, and I do know this, is that ultimately at the end of the day, no matter what, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a decision that you have to make day by day, sometimes, sometimes minute by minute. Because, you know, as I said before, the drug that has been the most damaging to me, and I think damaging to all of society, is completely ubiquitous. It's in front of you all the time, which is alcohol.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's marketed to you and everything, whether you know it or not. There's a really stark line in the book where you write, there's a popular theory that an addict needs to hit bottom before he or she can be helped. The addicts I know who hit bottom are dead. That like terrible conventional wisdom, I thought was a good reminder that there is no instruction manual that I've seen for like how to help someone you know, or you love that you see dealing with addiction. You know, in the book, you describe a lot of different, you know, attempts to get sober, including, you know, a surprise intervention by your family that just it doesn't go well, it's really heartbreaking. Do you have advice for folks who might be listening,

who maybe have an addict in their life, and they want to help them before they sort of hit that rock bottom point? Like, is there anything you'd suggest of like how to deal with that? Yes. Number one, don't give up hope. I know how awful it is. It's the pain that an addict can cause. And I'm not talking about when addicts act out in ways that are violent and criminal. I mean, that is something that I think that is obviously you have to protect yourself against no matter what. But if you have someone that you love that is just not getting it and you keep reaching out to help them and they keep rejecting that help, just know this. It's not about you. It's not that your love isn't enough. It's not that you, you know, that you're not enough for

them. It's not about you. It is, it is a, it's a disease of the brain. If you have literally the, the, the neurons that are firing in the, the, what is being told to the addict is that there's only one answer to their pain. There's only one answer, which is to continue to reach for the drug that they've become physically and in many ways psychologically dependent upon. So what I say is this, is that I know this. When I was in the middle of that tunnel of addiction and there was not light on either side, the chances of me finding my way out unless someone came into the tunnel with the lantern to guide me out were zero. And so I just say to all of those people that have someone that they love and that they know is worth saving is just never, never stop trying. Never stop trying. The juxtaposition in the book, I think, of sort of your situation and sort of like the privilege and money you made through consulting, including the Burisma contract, and the reality of the typical crack user or crack seller and the sort of the communities in America, particularly that the drug is ravaged. And, you know, your experience is obviously like pretty atypical, right? Like the money allowed you to fall off the grid.

It allowed you to buy huge quantities of drugs. And at times, it seemed to protect you because when users or dealers are coming in and out of hotel rooms in LA, or when the staff finds paraphernalia, their reaction isn't have him arrested. It's politely kick him out. Looking back, I just wonder how you viewed the money you made through your clients that enabled that addiction and also maybe the ways that protected you from consequences that might have landed a lot of other people in jail me, but the privilege of the fact that I had been very successful up until the point that I wasn't and had the ability to make a choice in many respects of staying in the motel at $89 a night along 95 in Connecticut or at a $300 a night suite in LA. And what I always say is that what we know, what we have to start to,

and this is the conversation I'm all in for, is addiction, drug use is a mental health problem. It is a, it's a problem that can be addressed and we need to be able to start to discuss it as a mental health problem within the structure of our health systems. And it is not a criminal problem. It is not a problem that can be solved or addressed by the criminal justice system. One thing we're absolutely certain, I can say I'm 100% certain about, is the criminal justice system has done nothing to be able to solve our addiction epidemic that we've been in.

And now it's just gotten worse, particularly with the pandemic. And I got the opportunity of high-end rehabs and alternative treatments when 99% of the people, the only answer they have is jail or an institution. Yeah. Do you lobby your dad or like DOJ or lawmakers on sort of these,

the need to decriminalize these things? Because like, I agree with you and it seems like a conversation that's starting but is not picking up steam fast enough sometimes.

Yeah. Well, I understand the question but as you know, I don't lobby my dad about anything. Wrong word. I just mean like,

advocate for you. Look, I mean, I wrote, I know what I believe. I just mean like advocate for you. Look, I mean, I wrote, I know what I believe. I'm ready to engage in the discussion in a public way with you. I know that I think that we just have to start to rethink it. I think one of the people that has been, I don't think has been, I know, knows more about this from a personal level, but also from a policy level is Patrick Kennedy, who's done an enormous amount of work when he was in Congress and still continues to do. really opportune time, Tony, to begin to really look at this. Because like I said,

right now, I don't know if you've seen the numbers from the CDC as it relates to addiction and overdose, not just as it relates to opiate, but across the board during this time of the pandemic. And it is just staggering, staggering. Yeah. Yeah. Last question. So, you know, you, you miraculously, you met your wife, Melissa, in LA, you fell in love, you figure out a way to get sober. I mean, can you tell the story of like, how this happened? How it's going? Because it's pretty, it is, it's a truly miraculous ending to, to the story. Yeah, I know. I'm, I'm, I got to write book two, story. Yeah, I know. I'm, I'm, uh, yeah, I got to write book too, so that people know that it, it, uh, it actually works. Um, but because it is a, uh, it seems miraculous. Well, one of the things I've since written the book and telling the story, what I found is that, you know, I, I'm not the first person that, um, that ever fell in love at first sight. Uh, and, And, and I ended up,

I don't know why I should ever be this lucky. I, I know that I have my guardian angels of my, my brother and sister and my mom. And, and I'd love to think that they had a, that had a hand in it. But what I always say about Melissa is this, is that she did the, the, the, she did, she was a stranger in a, in a, that had a familiar soul. It felt like coming home, but I knew that I had already, I rejected that love from home so many times that it took someone that didn't have all of that my immediate rejection of like literally like I talk about at the at the intervention like I ran

I literally ran away and whatever it was you, my heart was open just enough for me to allow Melissa to start the hard work. And, man, it was hard, Tommy. I'll tell you what. I mean, I was drinking a quarter vodka a day and smoking an enormous amount of drugs and anything else that I could put in my body to just numb myself. and anything else that I could put in my body to just numb myself. And Melissa took my keys. She took my phone. I mean, she took my pants.

I mean, I literally couldn't leave the house. And she had to do that work for a long time. But it ended up in a pretty great place. Well, it's a great book. The book is Beautiful Things. I think everyone should read it because, I don't know, it's rare to read it on its account of addiction and of recovery and of a human story about a family and love. I think it's just very much worth your time.

So thank you for writing it, and thanks for talking to me today. It's great to see you again, Tony. You too. It's been a long, long time. See you on a flight to Boston in a couple of weeks, man. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, exactly. Thank you.

Thank you, buddy. Thank you to Hunter Biden for joining us today. We'll see you guys Wednesday night at Group Thread. And then Dan and I will have a pod on Thursday about the big joint address. Bye, everyone. Bye. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez.

Our senior producer is Flavia Casas. Our associate producers are Jordan Waller, Jazzy Marine, and Michael Martinez. Our senior producer is Flavia Casas. Our associate producers are Jordan Waller, Jazzy Marine, and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somenator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou, Caroline Rustin, and Justine Howe for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Narmal Konian, Yale Freed, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos every week.