Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1282 | Autism Isn’t a Superpower — or a Death Sentence: A Story of Tough Love | Leland Vittert

Episode Date: December 29, 2025

Leland Vittert, American journalist and anchor for NewsNation, joins Allie to discuss his book "Born Lucky: A Dedicated Father, a Grateful Son, and My Journey with Autism." Through the interview, Leland discusses his secret diagnoses with autism as a child while his parents rejected accommodations and taught him to conquer adversity head-on. From relentless bullying throughout school to Middle East war zones and network news, Leland credits his dad’s “adapt to the world” philosophy for his success. Heart-wrenching, hope-filled stories prove that hardship forges character, tough parental love yields resilient adults, and God redeems every struggle. Buy Leland's book "Born Lucky: A Dedicated Father, a Grateful Son, and My Journey with Autism" here: ⁠https://a.co/d/f0dba1y⁠ Buy Allie's book "Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion": ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.toxicempathy.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- Timecodes: (00:00) Intro (02:50) Nicknamed "Lucky" (08:30) Growing Up with Differences (13:45) Hands Off Approach Parenting (19:50) What Makes a Great Teacher (24:50) Journalism Career (29:40) Working in the Middle East (36:40) Learning Through Adversity (42:30) Current State of Journalism --- Today's Sponsors: Dwell Bible: Head to ⁠ https://get.dwellbible.com/allie/?utm_campaign=sponsorships&utm_content=&utm_medium=podcast&utm_source=allie_beth_stuckey&utm_term=⁠ to get started today and get 25% off an annual subscription or 50% off a lifetime subscription.  The Wholesome Company: Go to ⁠wholesomeisbetter.com⁠ and use discount code ALLIE at checkout for 20% off your order.  --- Episodes you might like:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Ep 1278 | Former FDA Official Unveils Pharma’s Shocking Lies About Depression | Dr. Josef Witt-Doerring ⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/relatable-with-allie-beth-stuckey/id1359249098?i=1000741051536⁠ Ep 1273 | Autism Fraud, Islamic Corruption & a Crucial Tennessee Election ⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/relatable-with-allie-beth-stuckey/id1359249098?i=1000739184571⁠ Ep 1123 | Why Boys Are Failing Kindergarten | Guest: Dr. Leonard Sax ⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-1123-why-boys-are-failing-kindergarten-guest-dr/id1359249098?i=1000684140603⁠ --- Buy Allie's book "You're Not Enough (and That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love": ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.alliebethstuckey.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Relatable merchandise: Use promo code ALLIE10 for a discount: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

If you are looking to refinance or maybe you are looking to get into the home that you need or your family wants right now, then you need to call my friends at Fellowship Home Loans. Mike and Brian are the real deal. They are going to bring you excellent service and help you get in the financial position that you need to maybe get some extra margin in your finances. If you need to refinance or to make sure that you get the mortgage that you need for the home that you are looking to purchase. They do their business by the book, not just by the book, but by the book, by biblical principles. Those are the kind of people that you want to trust with such a big decision like this. If you go to fellowshiphomeloans.com, you'll get $500 of credit at closing.

That's fellowship homelones.com slash alley, term supply, see site for details, fellowship home loans, mortgage lending by the book, nationwide mortgage bankers, DBA Fellowship Home Loans, equal housing lender, NMLS, number 819382. In an age when having a diagnosis is almost a badge of honor, Leland Vittert is telling a different story from his perspective. As someone who is diagnosed with autism, he says that the adversity that he went through growing up helped him become the successful journalist and reporter that he is today because his parents, while they loved him, refused to coddle him, the lessons that he learned, especially from his dad about hard work. about overcoming difficulty are so incredibly important for us today. You are going to be so moved by this gut-wrenching story and also encouraged as a parent, as a friend to ensure that we are helping people reach their highest potential in everything

they do. You are going to love this conversation with our new friend, Leland Vittert. Leland, thanks so much for taking the time to join me. It's been a long time. Good to see you. It has been a long time. Okay, I want to talk about your story. You're a newscaster.

You've been in the news business for a long time, but a lot of people don't know that when you were little, you got diagnosed with autism. That's a big part of your story. It's a big part of the story. It's one I never told until I was about 43 years old. Yeah. And that was a big part of my parents' philosophy growing up, which was we're not going to let you be defined by a diagnosis. We're not going to let you define yourself by a diagnosis. Yeah. And my dad, from when I was eight years old, decided to try and adapt me to the world rather than the world to me.

Wow. And that is the born lucky story. And the reason I'm willing to talk about it now at 43 years old, going to therapy on national television is not exactly a bucket of fun. It's sort of like sitting in a bathtub full of scissors. It won't kill you. But it's not comfortable. Enjoyable, yeah. is if I, by sharing the darkest, deepest, most awful parts of my life, which are in Born Lucky, if that can help other kids, if that can help other families to know they're not alone, then it's worth it. If that can provide hope to other families, and it doesn't matter if it's ADHD or anxiety or bullying or whatever the difficulties that kids are going through growing up, born lucky is real hope of what parents can do. And the reception, you know, people have asked me,

how's the book doing? I don't measure it in sales. I measure it. written letters. And I've gotten hundreds of letters from families of kids dealing with autism, peanut allergies, anxiety, physical disabilities all saying how this has changed their perspective on their kid. Wow. So it's called Born Lucky, and you were given the nickname Lucky when you were little. Tell us why. So I was given the nickname Lucky when I was born. As a mom, you'll appreciate this. It was my mother's first pregnancy, 1982. She was older. She was 35. And when she went to her last appointment, they could see that I was breach.

I was upside down. Before sophisticated ultrasounds, the doctor said, I've got a bad feeling. I think you should have a C-section. And this is when natural birth was very in vogue. There was all this research that doctors were prescribing C-sections because it was more convenient,

all the things. And my mom made a fateful decision. She said, if I'm not going to take my doctor's advice, I should get a new doctor, not take his advice. Less than later saved me, saved my life a couple times in the Middle East.

But it goes in for the C-section, and there's, you know, the curtain, and I'm being born on this side of the curtain, and my dad and my mom, or on this side of the curtain, and my mom is holding my dad's hand, and she hears, oh, my God, from the doctor. Not what you want to hear in a delivery room. Oh, my God, this is a lucky baby. Oh, my God, this is the luckiest baby. And my dad kind of peeks his head out. It's like, everything okay.

And the doc goes, give us a minute. And then the nurse goes, oh, my God. And my mom about broke my dad's hand. clenching down on it. And they said, this is the luckiest baby we've ever seen. And it was, the umbilical cord was tied in a knot and around my neck. So had I been more naturally, I would have been dead. Wow.

And the next day up in the little like nursery area, my mom's hospital room, wherever it is, there's this little whiteboard outside the hospital room that says, you know, Leland Vitterd, how much I weigh, last time I pooped, whatever it is. And the doctor came up and crossed out Leland and said, call him lucky. Wow. So up until when I was 18 years old, I introduced myself to everyone as Lucky Vitterd. And I thought it was a fitting title of being born lucky. So many people would think about autism is this great challenge and how terrible and

affliction and everything else. And I want to make it clear how lucky I felt to have the parents I had, to have the dad who had dedicated himself in the way I did, to have the family. I did that came around me. And at what point did your parents say, okay, I think that there might be something going on with him and we might need to see a doctor? It's a great question. There were signs.

I didn't talk until I was well past three. Took me to a speech pathologist. And this is way before the diagnosis culture that we have right now. There was a lot of, well, you know, just let them go along. At about eight, they were told I needed to be evaluated. So as a mother, you would know what that would mean in the difficulty there. So they brought me to one of those medical testing buildings, all been there, linoleum floors, old magazine, stale coffee. They waited for a couple of hours.

And the woman comes back and says, this kid's got real, real bad problems. So it'd been years since I'd been invited to a play date or a birthday party or anything like that. But you were in school, typical school. I was in typical school, but with lots and lots and lots of problems in typical school. If a kid touched me or looked at me the wrong way or whatever I turn around and slug them. So I mean, I was, I was, you know, pretty aggressive. Temperamental sensitive. Big sensory issues. If I had socks on I didn't like or a jacket on I didn't like or whatever, I would just melt down. Day would be over. And then the test showed these big learning disabilities or what we now call learning disabilities. So IQ test is. is two halves of a test averaged together. A 20-point spread is a learning disability. My spread between the two tests was a 70-point spread. So basically, in the parlance of the day, from genius to mentally retarded. And the woman says to my dad and my mom, it is very difficult to understand what's going on inside his head. Now, my wife would tell you it's still very difficult to understand what's going on inside my head. But when they looked at this, she said it's the biggest

point spread we've ever seen. You basically have to meet your son where he's at. He just is who he is. Sorry to interject, but was there a pattern in which areas you were scoring so high in, genius level, and which areas you were really struggling then? They have it in the test in terms of like, I think it's called knowledge and performance. The standards have changed. There were certain areas of math that I was quite good at. There were certain areas of language that I was terrible at. So they, I had great vocabulary, but I couldn't spell,

like these kinds of issues. So the woman says it's the biggest point spread we've ever had. Kind of just need to meet your son where he's at. There's not much you can do. Which to my dad was unacceptable, if for no other reason than where I was at was a disaster. And at that point, he said, is there anything we can do?

And she said, not really. So he said, I'm going to try my best to adapt my son to the world because the world's not going to adapt to him later on. And, you know, they wanted to make all these accommodations and therapies and on and on and on. My dad said, that's not the way real life is going to be. So no therapies, no accommodations. They never told anybody. You know, they never told a school administrator, a teacher, any of their friends. You know, never told me until I was in my 20s.

Wow. And so what did your adolescence look like? Your parents know. Right. Maybe they're trying to work with you more because obviously they want you to do well. But what did school look like for you? Yeah. That I think is the part that's kind of taking people's breath away.

You know, a few sort of moments in Born Lucky that kind of explain, I think, a lot of what kids go through. Fifth grade, this was my third school, I think. my dad comes over one day to the school to see me and check on how I'm doing. Here's I'm at PE, goes up to the PE fields. It's a little small school, and they've got a bunch of fields sort of tiered down. And the PE coach was a guy my dad knew from another school and said, hey, where's lucky? And the guy said, oh, I think he's doing better these days and on and on. And my dad goes, great, let's go see him.

And the guy goes, I don't think that's a good idea. This is the coach. I guess is why not? He says, well, he said, I had to put him with the girls for the past month. So imagine as a father of a fifth grade boy here, and the only sort of place his son can be is with the girls. That was about the same time that as my sister and I would walk home every day from that school. So fifth grade, my sister was in kindergarten. And I asked my sister, when we were working on Born Lucky, what's the earliest memory you have of me, of your brother?

She goes, oh, that's easy. fifth grade fall of fifth grade year i was in kindergarten meaning liberty and i would come to her classroom pick her up and we would walk home actually through all those athletic fields that i was playing with the girls at and we get to the woods on our way home and i would start crying every day and she says my first memory as a kindergartner is holding my older brother's hand as we walked home and he was crying every day so got pulled out of that school middle of fifth grade and you were crying because just the bullying you know, sort of just the relentless social torture. Yeah.

Is that why you were moved with the girls? Yeah. Because the boys were picking on you. Yeah, both physically and emotionally. And then seventh grade, new school, my parents get called in in the second week. So they're hopeful things are going well in this new school. And the teacher or the principal says to my parents, right when they sit down in the principal's office, everybody at this school thinks lucky is very weird, arrow number one.

And then she follows up, and frankly, I do too, arrow number two. So now anything that happens at the school is my fault, right? And I think the thing that's been sort of stunning to a lot of people is how the teachers treated me. You know, teachers are supposed to be the ones to protect you. And in eighth grade at this school, I was in art class. It was not going to become Picasso. So that's probably still true today. But the art teacher didn't like something I had done or said or painted or whatever.

And he says in front of the entire class, you know, Viterate, if my dog was as ugly as you, I would shave its ass and make it walk backwards. Oh, my gosh. To an eighth grader? To an eighth grader? To an eighth grader in front of the entire class. So if the teachers feel like they can do that, you know what the kids can do, right? And this is at like a good private school.

Good private school. Yeah. So you and I were talking about this before we got started. I went home that night, as I did every night, and sort of unloaded emotionally on my dad. He would sit there for hours and kind of let me unload emotionally, take out the physical, emotional beatings I had taken all day on him. But the next day he made me go back to school. And I think that was really the story of my adolescence of that adversity is your friend and my dad's philosophy. was if you embrace adversity, embrace it honestly. And boy, was it so much harder for him to hold my hand through it, right? It would have been very easy for him to say, oh, he's got this diagnosis, he's got this problem, he needs this accommodation on and on and on and on. Much easier for him

and for my mother and for my sister. But it would not have taught me the ability to get through things later on in life. First sponsor for the day is Dwell Bible app. I absolutely love Dwell Bible. This is how I listen to the Word of God when I don't have time to sit down and do the, you know, 30-minute to hour-long Bible study that I like to do with my journal. All of that is awesome. But sometimes our days get really busy and really stressful and we can find ourselves making excuses for not reading the Bible. But dwell makes that possible even when you're super busy because you can listen to the

word of God when you're dropping off your kids at carpool or when you're on a walk or when you're doing dishes. This means there is no excuse not to read and listen. listen to the Bible and meditate on God's Word. We need that and this makes it really easy. They've got an awesome deal going on right now. If you go to dwellbibble.com slash Alley, you can get 25% off your subscription or if you buy a lifetime subscription to dwell. You can get 50% off by going to dwellbible.com slash alley. I want to hear you talk more about that because this is certainly a novel approach. Like as a mom, certainly our instinct is to shield

our kids from all of that pain. Also to march up to the school and to like, I mean, I want to bully that teacher. I want to bully that teacher right now, however many years later, that's just such an awful story. But your parents chose not to do that. They chose to allow you to endure that adversity. And I know there's a balance. Obviously, there is a point at which parents have to protect their kids, but your parents kind of chose a hands-off approach. I don't think it was hands off. I think it was very hands-on. Like, to you.

To me. Right, right. Every night my dad would sit with me for hours. And I found out, actually, as we were writing, born lucky, not even from my dad, but from my mom, that there were a lot of nights that my dad would go downstairs in the living room by himself after dark when my mom was asleep and just starts sitting there crying himself. So I'm going to cry. Well, I have many times talking about that. I have many times talking about this, but dad's idea was to hold my hand through the adversity. Yeah.

And I think what he realized was that I was going to face that adversity later in life, which I did. And if I didn't know how to get through it, and also if I wasn't forced to adapt, I mean, in many ways, you know, socially, I was an extraordinarily awkward, weird kid. I had to learn how to adapt and how to interact with the world as the way. the world interacted, not as the way I wanted to interact with it. Yeah. You know, I had terrible timing. I couldn't figure out when to be serious. I couldn't figure out how to relate to people emotionally the way they were emotionally. I couldn't figure out how to, you know, read a room, when to stop talking.

All of these things, I was going to have to learn. And if you're put in bubble wrap, you're never, and told how wonderful you are all the time. You're never going to learn that, right? So, you know, from the very beginning for my dad, it was how do we teach this kid's self-esteem? So when I was five or six years old, I was doing 200 pushups a night. And you'd get, you know, after a couple months of doing that, you get some kind of reward. But my day wanted to teach me, self-esteem is earned, not given, which is a very different philosophy, I think, than what we see now.

Totally. Yeah, tell me what else your parents did in helping you, because, as you mentioned, it was a hands-on approach at home, hands-off approach when it came to shielding you from the difficulty at school. So what else did that look like in giving you that extra help? that you needed to adapt socially. Right. So my dad figured out early on, I'm not going to have self-esteem from having friends at school because I wasn't going to have friends. I wasn't going to have it from doing well in

school because of the learning disabilities. And I wasn't going to have it from being good at athletics because I wasn't going to be good at athletics, very uncoordinated. So his idea was how do we find things for him to have self-esteem at a young age, so push-ups, stuff like that. The second thing was how to teach this eight-year-old how the world works socially, the social and emotional fabric that so many people understand naturally. And he couldn't do it with kids because no kid would be around me. I was repellent like a magnet. Some people attract people like magnets, but if you put the two poles of a magnet together, they repel. I was repellent magnetically.

And my dad said, okay, I will be his friend. So my dad started spending hundreds of hours with me, thousands of hours. Still is my best friend. What is this? We're recording this at a little before noon. Yeah. And I've already talked to him, I think, three times today. Yeah.

Still is my best friend. So he would then take me out to lunch and we'd go out to lunch with any of his friends. And because I spent so much time with him, I could sort of talk about business and politics and news and those kind of topics. But as soon as we'd sit down at some diner for cheeseburgers and milkshakes, as soon as his friend sat down, I would either start blasting him with questions or blasting him with stories about my push-ups. Yeah. And my dad would tap his watch.

And that was my dad's way of saying, okay, be quiet. So if my dad tapped his watch, I had to stop talking. And I had to bookmark that moment. And the idea was later on, as we were driving home, it was like, okay, when Mr. so-and-so was talking about his weekend and you interrupted it to talk about your push-ups, why did you think he would be interested in that? Well, I don't know, Dad. Okay, and then we would roleplay

what you could have asked Mr. So-and-so about himself. That's good. That would have elicited a better response. It was this very minute-by-minute teaching of the emotional and human dynamic. Wow, that's amazing. Were there any teachers or any individuals that were classmates that you can think of

in your upbringing, that stand out as actually being kind or helping you. It's a great question, and you'll notice when you read the book that we didn't use the names of anybody who was mean, so that our teacher remains nameless. And it's not because I don't remember their names. Yeah, of course.

And my sister certainly remembers the names. Of course. Or the principal who called me weird or anything else. There were a few, and we used their names because we wanted to really highlight what a difference a teacher whose kind and whose understanding can make. Suffice not to say they were a few and far between, but there were a few.

And I remain grateful. And I thought when I was writing the book, I thought it was going to be harder to remember all the awful times. And really, I got the most emotional thinking about sort of the people who were the kindest. You know, I got most emotional in reading the audiobook. you've done that for your books, but reading the audio book and telling the story of when our dog died because of how much she meant to me. And that was the most important part to me. Yeah. Can you tell us, from your experience, what makes a good teacher when you're a kid who just

has such a hard time fitting in? That's a great question. And actually, of 171 interviews I've done, that's the first person who's asked me about that. I've heard what makes great parents, what advice do you have? I really believe that there are some wonderful teachers and people who really want to bring out the best in kids and to really help kids. I think, at least in my experience, most of the teachers who were so evil and cruel to me, it was about them. They were bullies themselves, and this was just sort of a free way to do it. I think that there is an enormous amount of cowardice in education because of lots of different incentives, and that's few and far between. I guess the obvious thing is the teacher's job should be to champion the most vulnerable

among their students, right, not to champion the kids who are doing the best. Yeah. I guess the reason why I thought of it is because although you and I don't have the exact same experience growing up, anyone who's like a little bit different, maybe particularly at like a private school where being uniform like there's just a lot of value on that, anyone who's even a little bit different could have a hard time and, you know, I just didn't stop talking, which is exactly why I do what I do. But I remember also those teachers who instead of just. constantly beating the kid down who cannot remember to, you know, keep up with his homework or whatever it is, positive reinforcement, kindness, friendliness, things like that. It really makes a big difference. And I just remember, you know, I remember my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Russ, so well, just because, like, she was that different teacher for me. And what a difference maker those people can be in the life of a kid who feels different. Yeah. And what, what a difference it can be when someone's really awful and cruel.

Totally. And I think you point out rightly, for people who had a hard time growing up, me, you, the number of people who are nice is far smaller than the number of people who are mean. Yeah, it can definitely be that way. And it changes your perspective as a person, too, when you're dealing with people who are a little bit different. So you graduated high school. You went to college.

What was that experience like? I did. I think college was the first time I started realizing that I needed to change, right? Because my dad spent, you know, all those nights that I was so upset saying, look, when you get older, the same qualities that are making you ostracized and bullied in having all these issues are the qualities that's going to make you successful later in life. He was correct in many ways. He did not tell me in eighth grade that an eighth grade middle school classroom is great, training for a Washington newsroom, which would later turn out to be very true. Still is. But the college experience, my dad used to always tell me this story about when he was a freshman in college, Rippen College in Wisconsin, he had been blackballed from all the fraternities. He never got a bid at any one of the fraternities that was on campus. And it was a way of sort of explaining to me,

right, that he understood the isolation, he understood what I was going through. And the same thing happened to me. I called my dad on a January night at Northwestern. I had gone to all the fraternies I wanted to rush. They all said, you're not getting a bid. I called my dad that night, 930, 10 o'clock at night. It's snowing at Northwestern, bitterly cold. Tears are freezing on my face. And I called my dad, I said, I'm just like you. And then I said to dad, I said, I need to understand that it may not just be everybody else. I'm going to have to change. And that really became the college experience. To me, going to college wasn't really about learning economics, which I majored in her journalism, which journalism school is pretty useless. But it was about learning as a person and trying to

put all of those lessons that my dad taught me into effect. Yeah. And so tell me the rest of your college career graduating, going into the industry that you're still in today. Yeah, graduated college, started working in small market television stations, was in Denver, Colorado when Fox called and said they needed a foreign correspondent. And first, sorry, let me back up. How did you know this is what you would want to do? Because, again, a little bit of a strange dream to have as someone who has struggled socially for so long. This is a very dynamic, communicative role. Glutton for punishment. Yeah. But the one thing about journalism, and you know this as well, if we sort of look at this really broadly, is it is an industry that really bends to hard work.

You know, if you want to be a great doctor, you pretty much have to be great at chemistry and biology and all of these things. I wasn't going to be that. You want to be a great lawyer. Most have to be able to be very good writers and on and on and on. There's some industries that just yield to hard work, and journalism is one of them. So I got an internship when I was a kid in a radio station. And I figured out early on that if you just work hard and outwork everybody, that is of enormous value in journalism. And I began down that path.

And when I was 20, I was 19 or 20 at a local TV station in St. Louis for my internship after my freshman year of college. And some reporter said to me, hey, kid, you're pretty good on TV. I said, oh, okay, thanks. And he says, you may be able to make it to the network one day. Now, that doesn't mean you're younger than me, but in 2000, the network was still a big deal, right? You had Peter Jennings, you had Tom Brokaw, you had Matt Lauer flying around the world on the GEJet.

It was just, it was a different world of television. And so I googled what's the youngest anyone's ever made it to the network? And it was 30. So I said, that's my goal to make it to the network, to be a network correspondent by that time I was 30. and started working in small market television stations. That's not really the way people come up anymore, but it's way back then you did.

I was in Denver, Colorado. Network job opened up in Jerusalem. And it's a funny story and born lucky, because just to show how out of my depth I was when I got this job, I went over for an interview with the Bureau Chief, the Fox Bureau Chief in Jerusalem, and I didn't know the difference of the West Bank in Gaza.

So I drew a crib sheet on my hand of the geography of like the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and everything else. And I get to Israel and I'm, you know, in his, in the meeting with him. And it's so hot and I am sweating so much, my whole hand just runs with ink. And still got the job. Yeah. Show up on my first night with my mom to go look for an apartment in Jerusalem. And what year is this?

This is 2010. So Obama's given his speech. He's declared peace with the Muslim world. Hillary's going to negotiate the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Everything's going to be fine. And I show up and we're at the American Colony Hotel, which is this beautiful compound in East Jerusalem, old world, neutral territory of the spooks,

the diplomats, the journalists, everybody meets there. And hotel and then a big garden where they serve drinks in East Jerusalem, Arab service run by a Swiss company, neutral in every sense of the word. And I'm there in the garden with my mother. We're having a drink. and all of a sudden, just after sunset, there is the unmistakable sound

of automatic weapons fire. So I throw my mom to the ground, and I think, oh, my God, the hotel's under attack, and I cover her with my body, and what do I do? It's before camera phones and stuff, so I'm thinking through all this. And all of a sudden, one of the waiters walks by,

and he looks down at me on the ground, and he goes, everything okay? And I said, no, gunfire. And he goes, oh, he goes, Oh, and he sort of mimes shooting a gun in the air. And he goes, no, no, celebration, wedding, wedding, happy. Oh, my goodness. So I pulled my mom off the ground.

Everybody's kind of looking at us. And that was my welcome to the Middle East of clearly I was not in Kansas anymore or Missouri. Okay, I want to tell you guys about this product that I've been using that has been super helpful for me. It is called Repreve from the Wholesome Company. It is a drink mixture. So it's a powder that I mix into my water. I really like that it's natural ingredients and it has a calming effect on your body by giving your body the nutrients that it needs just to calm down and to make sure that you're not worked up and high stress all the time, especially when we have so much going on. That's why it has magnesium. It's got a tart cherry extract, lots of other really healthy ingredients that are so good for you. It tastes great. They've got lots of different flavors like lavender. I've been loving this stuff during the holiday season. So much.

going on. It can be stressful the start of the new year. And you just want to make sure that your body has what it needs to be as peaceful as possible. So if you go to wholesomeisbetter.com and you use my code Alley, you get 20% off this product. Wholesome is better.com code Alley. Okay, I want to hear more about your time in the Middle East because I want to go back to something that you said in the beginning. I bookmarked it in my head. When you said that your mom said if I'm not going to take this doctor's advice that I need to get a different doctor, not not take his advice. And you said that came in handy when I was in the Middle East. What do you mean by that? It did. And this is a pretty amazing story. We're out running with the rebels in Libya. So six months,

Barack Obama was correct. Things were calm in the Middle East. And then the Arab Spring kicked off, right? And they threw out Mubarak. Terrible decision in retrospect. The Libyan Civil War started. The United States took the side of the rebels. So I went in and started running with the rebels in Libya in March of 2011. And we were at a checkpoint, one town back from the front lines of the rebels. We're filming and talking to rebels and about to go to the front lines.

And all of a sudden, our security guy who was a Kiwi SAS guy, Maori guy, so just this huge 6-4, 240-pound former rugby player looks around he says, we got to get out of here. I said, well, give us a minute. I got to get a few more shots. He goes, no, now.

And he grabs me and my photographer by the pull straps on the back of our flack jackets and starts pushing us and running us to the truck, throws us in the truck. And I could have protested, but I sort of at that point made the decision. If our security guys are saying, get out of here, we need to get out of here.

Threw us in the truck. We drove about 100 yards back from the checkpoint. And Libyan jet flew over, Gaddafi's jet and bombed. the checkpoint. So had we stayed, we would have been among the casualties there. So how long were you in the Middle East? Four years. Four years. So I did, I did, I did Egypt, Libya, a couple of Gaza wars, a little bit of Syria, and then ended in Ukraine in 2014 for the first Russian invasion of the East. Remarkably, these, these storylines just keep coming back around. Yeah. Here's maybe a little bit

of an odd question. Is there anything about your personality that may be growing up was seen as a weakness that you actually think was a strength when you were over there in the Middle East? You know, Alibeth, it's a great question, right? Because there's this whole idea now that being on the spectrum is a superpower, right? That somehow being a, being autistic, and kids are told, no, this is your superpower. I wish I felt that or knew that, but I kind of don't know anything else, right? People have asked, what was it like dating as somebody on the spectrum? Well, I don't know. I never dated not being on the spectrum. So I don't know if I can answer that. I can say, you know, the things my dad taught me of sort of that hard work yields results, huge. Character is destiny,

which was a big part of my upbringing, of that there's two things you can control in life. I think this is true for any kid. Having a hard time, really three. You can control your attitude. you control your work ethic and control your character. Yeah. And that was really drilled into me by my dad of you take pride in those things, and the rest will sort of take care of itself. Yeah. Because you can't control it.

So those things were extraordinarily important. Yeah. You know, I think it's so interesting, the perspective that you're bringing, that you're talking about how you are able to overcome adversity, you have this diagnosis, it was difficult that you were still able to do these things. But you're not making the argument as so many are that, oh, it's, actually because of my autism. It's because it was the superpower, which I think is a very nuanced perspective on things, because you could either say, just like ignore it all together,

pretend like it doesn't exist, just say pull yourself up by your bootstraps, or you could say it's this wonderful thing that we need to endlessly accommodate. That's neither of your perspectives. It's interesting. Being in the Middle East teaches you life is not a thousand shades of gray, it's 3,000 shades of gray. But I'll give you two points on that. One, in the current conversation about autism, right? I'm always struck by how sort of angry and dismissive the left is of RFK's search for a cause of autism. There was Chris Hayes on a podcast saying, no, RFK Jr. is obsessed, obsessed with finding the cause of autism and really ridiculing that. Well, why wouldn't we be obsessed with it? Yeah. You know, if we could find a way for kids to not go

through what I went through. Hallelujah. I've only been married for six months, but if my wife was pregnant and you gave me a piece of paper and said, you know, your child will be autistic or not, I would check no. And every other parent would too. So I think that is a really important point, or prospective parent, I should say. Number two, and I think I've acknowledged this a lot, but people have asked me after reading Born Lucky in interviews, you know, what's your advice? I don't have any advice. The only advice in the book, really, is the last four pages written by my father, which is a couple of the principles that he used to sort of guide him in this moment.

And I'm fully aware there's so many families who have things that are so much more difficult than what my parents were dealing with at home, whether it's physical disabilities, more severe cases of autism. The list goes on, right? but the one thing that has stood out is Born Lucky isn't a how to cure autism book it's a love story of what great parenting can do and how every parent can help their kid be more I heard from a father whose son 22 years old living in a group home severe profoundly autistic and never be able to live on his own and the kid had some real had understandably a lot of

behavior issues, really angry, very physically sort of upset and unhappy all the time. And his father saw on the reports from the group home that he loved being in the pool. Three times a week, they would take him to a pool, and he was the happiest in the pool, splashing around. And the father said, let's teach him to swim. And the expert said, you can't teach a 22-year-old autistic kid to swim, and he can drown, and he's going to be upset when he gets worried, and we can't do this. He goes, he's happy in the pool. Let's lean into that. Let's try to help him be the most he can be.

The kid now swims an hour and a half, swims a mile and a half every morning. Wow. And he's totally different physically and he's up every morning and dressed in his swim clothes and ready to go. And physically is totally changed. Mentally is totally changed, much happier. All because a father said, no, no, I can help my kid be more. I can hold his hand and help him be more rather than just. sit there and meet them where's at, as you pointed out, just take all the adversity away and make things as easy as possible. Yeah, it's so tempting to do as parents. It's just like we're hardwired

in a way to want to like remove all obstacles from our children's life. It takes actually a lot of discipline and self-control on the parents part to step back. It's much, it's actually much easier to control everything, all variables than it is to step back and let them maybe you stumble a bit because of the lessons learned. But when I look back at my life and I remember the times of rejection or exclusion or difficulty or not making this or getting this or things being unfair, I remember very much the pain. But I also know that is where I grew a lot as a person, not only just like character wise, but also like sense of humor. You develop a really a better overall personality when you are made to go through things.

that are hard. Yeah. Adversity is a blessing. Adversity is your friend. And I think when parents teach their kids the resilience, and to your point, right, that you learn you can do hard things and get through hard things. And I think about when this sort of all came full circle, end of 2020, I got invited to leave Fox News. I was the only Fox News anchor who publicly questioned Trump's claims.

And we now know that about the election. about the election. I just ended a long-term relationship. I had no place to live. I was living in a hotel out of a backpack. And then I almost died of COVID, all within about one month. You almost died of COVID? Yeah, I was in the hospital for a week with COVID. Okay. I didn't know that part of the story. So, but all of these three, you know, everything is sort of people, you know, your primary relationship, your job, where you live in your health, all the big four in one month blown up. Wow. So I have my little back. backpack and I get out of the hospital. I spend a couple days trying to get a little bit of strength

back. I could only walk about a tenth of a mile in a half an hour. And I go down to Florida to my parents' guest room. And I'm sitting there. And one night, I'm watching TV with my dad. And I'm feeling really low, just like I did back in eighth grade, right? And I've just really beat up, just beat up mentally. And I'm lamenting to my father how terrible everything is. He says, you're pretty good feeling sorry for yourself. I said, uh-huh. He says, well, he said, in eighth grade every day, you went back to school. You can do this. You know, you can start over again and keep fighting. And I don't think had I gotten through what I had gone through in school, I would have known that I could do it. I would have been eight, I would have had the fortitude to get back up and to

start fighting again. Yeah. And that, that really was the gift, right? And think about how hard it was on my parents through all that. And in my sister, too, you know, that I think one thing that I've learned in writing the book, but also in the reception of the book, is how families of kids who are having a hard time, doesn't matter, autism, physical, whatever it is, ADHD, bullying, anything. How much the siblings are affected, too. You know, there was, my, my sister went to the same high school I did. I was in 12th grade. She was in seventh grade. One teacher said to her, I hope you don't turn out like your brother. Kids told her to her face, you're the retarded kid's sister. So it was horribly hard on her. And I think what my parents did was make this a

all of family effort, right? It was us against the world. And that part really still sits around today and that core cohesion. And you think about kids who face challenges, 80% of parents of kids who have some real significant disability get divorced. And it can go one of two ways. It can either tear a family apart or it can bring it together. And for y'all, it brought it together. Absolutely. And so after Fox, did you go right to News Nation after that?

I did. I did. So I had COVID. I almost died. And then in that transition period, Fox had basically said, you have a contract, but you can take some time off. And in that time, I started News Nation, which was the opportunity to sort of do journalism the way I always envisioned it,

which was to view the world as right and wrong, not left and right. And we've done well in that pursuit. Yeah. And you just got married, right? I did. I met Rachel, and it's funny how the world works, right? From the lows, lows to the highest highs, I landed in Chicago to start my news job at News Nation. I'm sitting on the plane still moving to Chicago. and I get a text from a young woman I went to college with. Not young anymore, I guess.

She's a mother of two. And she says, hey, I hear you move to Chicago and I hear you're single. So that's right. She goes, I'm going to find you your wife. And I said, I don't want a wife. I just got out of a long-term relationship. I am moving to Chicago. I'm going to focus on my job.

I'm going to have a great time this summer. Live downtown. It's going to be fantastic. She goes, I'm going to find you your wife. And the next day, she sent me a picture of Rachel. And she wrote, I found you your wife. Wow. So, and then we...

And then the rest is history. The rest is history. So good, you know, and look, again, if the adversity had not happened, not embraced it, not accepted it, then meeting Rachel would have never happened. Yeah, that's amazing. Well, we're finishing up in the next few minutes, but I'm so curious, what is your thought about the state of journalism? You just said, you know, you like to view the world between right and wrong, not left and right. You know, there's probably a lot of journalists that agree with you, but a lot who don't. Yeah, journalists make lousy media critics.

So I'm not a media critic. What I can say is that I think we have gotten to a place where no one has to hear an opinion that they disagree with. Between the social media algorithms, the YouTube algorithms, enough cable networks on and on, people can live in these silence. where they are where they're where they're only affirmed and therefore opinions become only more entrenched and there's absolutely a lane for that I grew up listening to rush Limbaugh I love Rush Limbaugh I don't know if that is what leads to sort of what brought out the best in America which is that we came together and we compromised because if you live in silos you think the other silos evil and wrong and un-American um that doesn't lead to good things

What we've found at News Nation, and particularly for my show, is we've found people who come to us and watch us because we give both sides hard times. They want that middle ground of a fair arbiter. Call our show The Fair Show on television, and that we view the world as right and wrong, not left and right. And I think that's a very different thing than's being done, and we're being rewarded for it. It's why News Nation is the fastest-growing network. in the country.

And we would always love to have you on, but you're always busy. You know what? You know why? Because your show is right in the middle of bedtime. And so that is the tough thing. Seriously, yeah, my assistant knows that we always, like, want to get on. And so we'll just have to like find a night, make it happen.

But the bedtime hours tough. Dad can do bedtime. I know, you know what? We are outnumbered. And when you become outnumbered, the three against two is. It's tough. This is like team coverage. You go from man to man to man in coverage.

Yes, exactly. Yes. We definitely do bedtime together, but also we have six, four and two year old. And mommy is extremely popular. I am the most popular person in our home. So it can be a little bit difficult during bedtime. But we'll make it happen. Being in demand is better than the alternative.

Absolutely. It's a blessing 100%. But we'll definitely make it happen. Leland, thank you so much. I was so moved by your story and encouraged as well. well. Can you tell everyone where they can get your book, Born Lucky? Amazingly enough, Amazon has it, or any bookstore near you. And I've been, I've been so humbled by how many people have come on the journey. And I'll leave everyone with this. This story

was about not to be told. And because my dad never wanted to talk about it, never wanted to talk about it publicly. Someone had heard about it, Don Yeager, who your father knows as well, heard about the situation. He called me. He said, I really want to write this book. I said, I'm not writing a book. I'm not talking about this publicly, not doing it. He says, we need to write this book.

I said, why? He says, well, he says, I have an autistic child. And if I had heard this story, I would have felt so differently, and I would have had hope. We would start working on the manuscript. I'm working on it. I'm interviewing my dad. And at every story, he goes, I don't know if we can tell this. I don't know if we can tell that.

I don't know if we can do this. I said, let me write the manuscript. If you don't like it, we won't turn it in. Now, as someone who's had book contracts, you've got to turn something in. So it's Tuesday before it's due. And I give the manuscript to my dad and he reads it and he says, on Thursday, I can't do this. I can't. Wow.

Got 60,000 words due. Chat GPT isn't going to bail you out. Yeah. And I said to dad, I said, let's turn this around. I said, do you remember that woman who diagnosed me and who basically told you there was nothing you could do and there was no hope? And he says, yeah, I said, what if she'd handed you born lucky? What if she'd said, this isn't a prescription, it's not a cure? This is just a story of what a father can do. What would you have done? And he said, I would have read it every week.

Wow. So I said, I think we kind of owe it to folks to put it out there and let the world sort of know that there is hope. Yeah, that's a good pitch. And it worked. Well, thank you so much, Leland. I really appreciate you. Appreciate you. Good to see you. Congratulations on all the success. Thank you. Likewise.