Sibling Revelry with Kate Hudson and Oliver Hudson - Jon and Andy Favreau

Episode Date: March 10, 2022

Jon and Andy Favreau sit down with Kate and Oliver this week on Sibling Revelry. They discuss being the most well-behaved children, what it was like for Jon working in the White House, how Andy got into acting after studying criminal justice, and more.Executive Producers: Kate Hudson and Oliver HudsonProduced by Allison BresnickEdited by Josh WindischMusic by Mark HudsonThis show is powered by Simplecast.This episode is sponsored by:Everlywell (everlywell.com/sibling)Future (try future,com/sibling)HelloFresh (hellofresh.com/sibling16 PROMO CODE: sibling16)Coors Light (coorslight.com/hudsonCoinbase (coinbase.com/sibling)Check out the new season of Jon’s podcast “Offline” http://go.crooked.com/offlineSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. September is a great time to travel, especially because it's my birthday in September, especially internationally. Because in the past, we've stayed in some pretty awesome Airbnbs in Europe. Did we've one in France, we've one in Greece, we've actually won in Italy a couple of years ago. Anyway, it just made our trip feel extra special.

So if you're heading out this month, consider hosting your home on Airbnb with the co-host feature. You can hire someone local to help manage everything. Find a co-host at Airbnb.ca slash host. The Super Secret Bestie Club podcast season four is here. And we're locked in. That means more juicy cheesement. Terrible love advice.

Evil spells to cast on your ex. No, no, no, no. We're not doing that this season. Oh. Well, this season, we're leveling up. Each episode will feature a special bestie, and you're not going to want to miss it. My name is Curley.

And I'm Maya. Get in here. Listen to the Super Secret Bestie Club on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. In early 1988, federal agents race to track down the gang they suspect of importing millions of dollars worth of heroin into New York from Asia. Had 30 agents ready to go with shotguns and rifles and you do that me. Five, six white people pushed me in the car. I'm going, what about that out? Basically, your stay-at-home moms were picking up these large amounts of heroin.

All you got to do is receive the package. Don't have to open it, just accept it. She was very upset, crying. Once I saw the gun, I tried to take his hand, and I saw the flash of light. Listen to the Chinatown Stang on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Kate Hudson. And my name is Oliver Hudson. We wanted to do something that highlighted our relationship. And what it's like to be siblings.

We are a sibling reverie. No, no. Sibling reverie. Don't do that with your mouth. Sibling rivalry. That's good. Ollie, this was so much fun. I actually have known John for a bit.

He actually helped me right to speak. He was Obama speechwriter for many years And then went on to found Crooked Media And his brother Andy who is an actor We had them on I've known Andy Andy actually I screen tested with Andy Yeah for a show

That's crazy They're literally like the world's most well-behaved children We couldn't get anything at him like What did you do bad? Like well maybe I misspelled a word They're like They were really close growing up, John felt really

protective of Andy. They've never even had a big fight. But what's interesting is, is you would think like a podcast where like everything was like great and so nice would be boring. But in fact, they're really fascinating

guys and the way they grew up and they're sort of entry into politics. And Andy's such a cool guy. He's such a really cool laid back guy. And then of course you got John who was in the trenches. I mean, he was in the White House. Yeah, but Andy, Andy studied, you know... Criminal justice.

Right, and then he went to grad school. And then he's like, hey, fuck this. I'm going to be an actor. I know. But so they're, you know, they're like the smart he met. They're like the handsome smart guys. Yeah, they're very handsome boys. But it was really wonderful, and I just loved having them on and really insightful.

And you're going to like it. Just listen. Please enjoy John and Andy Capram. Hi, guys. Dogs and babies. Hey, Kate. I missed everything. Oh, we might as well just turn it off.

We figured it all out. Someone's on a staycation and someone's working. It kind of sounds like me and Ollie, have to say. No, I mean, it's true. Andy and I are very similar. I'm feeling a similar type of dynamic. I know, John, we've met. We have met.

But I don't think Andy, we've met. Have we met? Kate, you won't remember. We met so long. We met like 10 years ago when I first Kate. We would love. We had a small thing. You don't remember.

It was just a couple dates. Ten years ago when I first moved to L.A., I somehow wound up at your house for a game night through Michael Kivas. Yeah. Like everyone's connected through Kiva. I know. That's how we met because I helped you write a speech for an event that you were speaking at with your mom. That's right.

You were like introducing your mom. That's right. And I, back when I used to do speeches for hire. That's right. And I was like, she paid you. No, I didn't even, I can't. I can't, I can't. No, I just, I just was like, I just put my hands together and was like, please help.

But Andy tested for the show. That's where we met. Yeah, that's the last time we saw each other. Like two years ago, right? It's a good thing you didn't get it and fucking didn't make it to air. It didn't go. Well, you know, it didn't make it

because I didn't get it. That's right. This was the issue. Look, you know what? Probably would have been different. That's how I like to look at things. That's my mentality. Oh, yeah.

I mean, as soon as I didn't get it, I knew it wasn't God. Yeah, you're like, oh, fuck it, no. It's not happening. For those who don't know the fabulous, I'm going to sort of just chime in here about you guys. John, you have been a speech

for a long time. You were President Obama speechwriter. You met him as a senator, correct? Yes. I met him his first week in the Senate. Well, that's when I interviewed with him for a job in the Senate office. I met him during the 2004 convention when he gave that the speech that everyone remembers from the Boston Convention. Who wrote that speech? He did. He wrote that speech on his own. He did. And when he won and became a senator, that's probably contractually obligated to say that. No, because I didn't work for him then. He had no speechwriter. And then when he won

the Senate race and became a senator, his staff convinced him to hire a speechwriter. And he's like, I write all my own speeches. I don't need a speechwriter. And they're like, you're going to be very busy. You're not going to be able to write them all yourself. Hire someone. So that's how I got to know him in 2005. That's pretty intimidating, though, I guess, when you have

someone who is so eloquent, who write so eloquently and who actually orate so eloquently to then write something for that guy. And And then he'd be like, what the, John, what is this shit? It's intimidating, but it was also helpful. Like, I feel like I had a leg up because I was writing for a writer and someone who would like written two books.

So I knew how he thought, how he wrote. And he was also very kind and generous and patient with me. So he actually eight years working for him. He never yelled at me once, which was amazing. Wow. But did he ever throw away your speeches being like, oh, all the time. It would be in a very nice way he would do that. He would just say, you know, I have some other thoughts,

and then he would have, like, 10 written pages of his own that he would give me and say, turn out of the speech. I sometimes would think that, like, any great orator, any person who can actually be good enough to speak it is actually usually good at writing in their own voice as well. I would think that those two things might go well together. That is correct, though I think he started as a, a writer more than he did his speaker.

And he didn't really learn to be a great orator until around that 2004 convention when he sort of broke onto the national stage. And before that, if you talked to his staff, like, he wasn't a great speaker running around Illinois campaigning. But he was a fantastic writer for his whole life.

John, before we get into your guys' childhood and stuff, what are you doing now? Now I run a company, a media company called Cricket Media. I host a podcast here called Pod Save America. We know that one. Everyone knows. With our friends. So we do that. We have a nice little company.

We're right here in Hollywood, and we got like 20 podcasts now, politics, pop culture, sports, all kinds of different things. Okay, Andy, let's talk about you. So you followed in our footsteps. You are an actor. Yes. And are you currently working on anything right now? Are you in the audition? Yeah.

I was able to get some decent work over the... pandemic, which was nice. I did, I'm going to be on the last season of Grace and Frankie. Oh, fun. A few episodes there. I did a couple episodes of 9-1-1 Lone Star, and I

have a big movie coming out, big Michael Bay film that I did called Ambulance. That's going to be pretty sweet. Cool. That's exciting. Yeah, it's great. How was the Bay movie? That was great. That was like an interesting thing where

like I was up for that movie back in you know like January February and you know I was sort of in the back of my mind that this might happen and then all of a sudden

like months went by and it didn't and then I saw like that the movie had wrapped on his Instagram and I was like what's going on here? I just talked to my manager what's going on and they're like I don't know I don't know and then six months later

I got a call and they're like do you remember that movie you auditioned for back in the winter Well, you did get the part. They're shooting all of your scenes at Michael Bay's house, and it's going to be one day. It's back on, so get ready, and you're shooting on Monday. Wait a minute.

You shot all of your scenes in like one day at Michael Bay's house. Yes, yes. That's awesome. This was after, like, totally just putting it out of my mind for six months, thinking that it never happened. Isn't it funny how that works? You know what I mean? It's crazy.

Like you forget about something and shit. comes around like you know as an actor we're always sitting by the phone unless you're kate and it just happens immediately for you that's not true quiet so you know but that stuff that stuff has never happened to me either and this was the first time that something like that happened right we're like wow wow this this really does happen sometimes yeah yeah this is nice no good it's like that little like christmas morning vibe i think i think every actor's just masochistic it's the most tumultuous, like, rollercoaster ride of a career, you know, you're constantly being criticized in the audition process. You get success. Constantly being criticized in success.

It's just critical, criticize, criticizing. I hate watching myself. Like, they, I'm doing, I just finished the show in Albuquerque for Fox. But I love it. Yeah, I love it too. But, but they, they were screening episodes at lunch. And I'm like, absolutely not. I am not going to work. I don't mind that. The thing that kills me with acting is like, You know, when I first started, it was like, you know, if I can just get this guest star, everything's going to be great. And then you get the guest star and you're like, okay, well, now I just need the recurring and things will be great. And then you get the recurring and you're like, well, I need the series regular. And then you get the series regular.

It's never going to be a number. Then you're like, I really need to be Tom Cruise. I don't know. I don't know if I'll be happy if I'm not. Right. But then this whole move to L.A. was a disaster if I'm not. the number one actor in this town. Yeah, but even Tom Cruise is then thinking,

I need to stay Tom Cruise. It's always something. But the, you know, the sooner you realize how insane that is, like the quicker it becomes, you know, it becomes easier for you to just take the failures and the rejection and stuff. Let's start from the beginning, guys. Where are you from?

We are from North Reading, Massachusetts, which is like a suburb 20 minutes north of, Austin. Go hornets. Okay. So you're a Massachusetts, Ollie's wife is born. All my in-laws, all my other family is over there. And then now they're in the Cape. Her parents

are in the Cape, so we're in the Cape every single year. Nice. Every summer. Yeah. Love. It's so idealic. Every time Ollie, like, Face-Times me from the Cape, it's like, he's like, hey, I'm just riding bikes, East Coast style on the ocean. It's important. It's important for my wife for the kids, for our kids

to have that childhood, that experience that she had, you know? So we make sure of that. We don't have an excuse to go back there anymore because our parents after Andy moved out here first to L.A., then I moved out here and they followed us both out here. They live in Thousand Oaks.

Oh my God. We have family in thousands of years. So we don't we don't go back to Massachusetts as much. What was childhood like? What was growing up like the overall vibe? Andy, go for it. Give us the, take us down your street. Like, what is that, what is this? I was just going to say, we got, we got really lucky growing up because we grew up on this street called Tower Hill Road where there were so many kids that were our age or, you know, a year older, year younger that we were very, very close with, who were all like, you know, our best friends.

So our street was, and all of our parents were friends. So we were able to, like, you know, just walk out of our front door, walk up and down the street and pop into each other's yards and, you know, hang out all the time. It was fantastic. We're like your typical small town, New England. Yeah, 100%. That was exactly like my wife. Same thing.

I'm like, you know. I long for that experience. Oh, we're all fucked up and I got all fucked up shit and my dad bail. You know, I've been to like the Hoffman Institute trying to figure out. my shit and my wife it's like like you guys i'm not saying you had this perfect life but she definitely did parents still together grew up in this little small town rode her bike to school everyone knew everyone you know what i mean oh yeah yeah no it was like 20 000 people in the town we graduated with like a hundred people in our class yeah yeah it knew everyone super

tight-knit community still like our parents are still friends with the people in that neighborhood yeah my best friends was it a religious community we went to church we were Catholic but I wouldn't say we were super religious yeah but it was more of a Catholic like a Catholic kind of community Protestant Catholic yeah very white middle class yeah was it the thing like holy shit like Miss Elma's divorced them yeah oh that actually I actually can't think of any of my friends parents that were divorced I was just so sheltered but that I thought that same thing. Yeah, there's no, there's, if there was any kind of minor scandal in the town, though everyone would have talked about it for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Like, was there ever a time when like one of the kids, like smoked weed and everyone knew about it? Yeah. I mean, well, there were like, there were parties. There were like big parties when parents went away. That was like the big thing in high school. Yeah, I mean, we were, we were all still cool.

You know, I'm immediately, I'm immediately like, like, picturing you not being cool. Which is, I mean, I hate to say it, but white and middle class, for some reason, it's just, it doesn't. Maybe we weren't. Back in the 90s, it was a little calmer, I think. Yeah, that's true. And did you guys have a lot of freedom? Was it like a very creative home, an artistic home, or was there discipline, was there rules, you know? It's interesting.

I would say that we had a lot of encouragement. like our parents were always like you two can be whatever you want we're going to help you with whatever you want and like do what's right for you and that kind of stuff but they were there was discipline and they were strict because they were they were cautious

they were you know sort of like careful call us when you're out come home with this time if you're going to be late let us know we're going to work our mother especially like worries about everything kind of thing which was good because we stayed alive which is nice but so it was that kind of it was that kind of relationship Andy what do you

Well, I had a, I was just, I mean, I had a really hard time with school, you know, up through high school. I hated school. It wasn't a good student, you know, couldn't focus or study or any of that stuff. So I had, you know, and John is complete opposite, you know, like didn't even need to study and he got like straight A. So it was just like a totally different dynamic in that sense. I was the nerd, Andy was the jock. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, once I got to college, everything changed. It was so weird how that happened. But I mean, I was like a terrible student, you know, made it to college and then became an excellent student, went to grad school, got like a fellowship, all of that. But I think for some reason it was just like I wasn't, if I wasn't interested in what I was studying, I didn't give a shit. Yeah, I got expelled from high school. Oh, wow. What did you do?

I cheated on a fucking chemistry test. It was bullshit. Hold on a second. Hold on a second. Expelled for that, though. This is what I'm saying. It's not bullshit. It's bullshit that I got expelled for something that...

No, no, no, no. Small. No, it's not. It's bullshit that you got expelled out of the nine people that also cheated. No, no one... There was nine people in the class that cheated and you and one other person that got expelled. They should not expel someone for getting caught. This is the point.

The point is that I'm agreeing with you. I was bad. I was not great in school, but here's what I did do. And I don't know if you can relate to this at all. I didn't just say, oh, fuck it, I'm going to get Fs. I would try to. to figure it out and that meant cheating that meant copying homework i'm like just the hustle of trying to figure it out and i think that that is an important part of growing up as well and and

something that you can use as an adult and especially as an actor just that hustle trying to figure it out get it done however you can you know as part of was part of my education how many How many years apart are you guys? Three years. Three. And John, you're older? Yes. I know.

People always ask that because I... Because Candy's much bigger than me. So what was your guy's dynamic growing up? Like, John, do you remember when Andy was born? Yes. It's one of my first memories. And which is weird because I was only three, so I don't have a lot of memories from that part of my life.

But I remember walking out of the hospital. with my dad and us going home and knowing that I had a new brother. And what was that feeling? Like, wonderful. I had nothing but, like, I felt, I grew up feeling very protective of Andy all the time, but we were always, we were always very close. Yeah. From the part we, like, we, as Andy was talking about our neighborhood that we grew up on,

there was a lot of sets of siblings on that neighborhood, and we would all be, you know, hanging out all the time. and all the other kids that we grew up with would like beat the shit out of each other all the siblings and we just like we had our little mini fights here and there we would like bug each other Andy particularly would know how to

get me going but I don't even like I don't think we've ever had like a major fight in our whole life. John accidentally punched me in the face once when we were trying to yeah we were we were trying to do we were learning how to fake punch because we had watched it on

what was it Mickey Mouse Club? The Mickey Mouse Club Yeah, and he popped me right in the nose. That was a good one. I didn't, yeah, I missed. And then I also, we were throwing rocks in the woods once, and I threw a rock really poorly, because, like I said, I'm not an athlete at all. And instead of throwing it in the woods,

Andy had bent down, and I just hit him right in the forehead, and it was like a huge gulf. Yeah, we took him to the... It was a bad thing. Well, maybe that was what was happening through his high school. He was just still healing. They were just constantly beating him up. all the time.

Now, what kind of line of work were your parents in or R in? My mother was an art teacher, and our dad was in sales, and he did, oh, boy, he was in high-tech sales. He was the first tech wave back in the 90s. Yeah, the first tech wave. Yeah. So he was in sales, and he, so he worked pretty hard, and our mom, you know, was home after school. so we'd all kind of come home from school together all three of us now did you do you find that one of you is more like your father and one of you's more like your mother meaning like you know

there's the artist and then there's sort of the tech guy I would definitely not call myself a tech guy no no no I I don't know Andy what I feel like both of us are a mix of both of them yeah I mean I yeah I'd say getting older now I think way more things I do I'm like oh shit that's dad i'm i'm being like dad i do i'm the same well now that i am a dad too i also think that as a lot of dad tendencies i start yeah i start talking like um i say the same things he says yeah weird oh god but our dad is like the like our dad should have been a our dad should have been a politician because i mean he's he was a sales guy but he's like the most outgoing person you've ever met would like work a room of strange

You can talk to anyone. Yeah. Really? Yeah, for sure. And our mom is like a little more reserved, but extremely loving, caring. So they were a good mix. The accents, are we accented? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Big time. Big time. Wicked hat. Okay, so Aaron, my wife, her parents, it's thick. It's crazy. It's crazy. But her and her brother Brooks, now they did grow up in Western Mass, but they have no

accent did you guys how did that work out for you i mean i think we we lost ours you did yeah if you look at like old like home videos of us oh my god we were kids we have the thickest boston accent you're like ben and and matt and yeah it's crazy goodwill hunting it's so it's it's to the point where so i have a 16 month old now and he's starting to say words and he said because he's around my father our father so much he says the one word car like ca like he has a little like mini car that he drive car that he drives around and he's just like car and emily's like uh mark that's our dad's name mark you're teaching our child this boston accent that he's now going to have even though he grew up in like in los angeles

it's so great i love that everly well so oliver i just did this for the first time. It was cool. So I did thyroid for the first time. I was like, okay, I'm going to check out my thyroid, you know, see what's going on. What happens is a kit comes. You prick your finger. It gives you all the instructions. You put the blood in the area that you're supposed to put it. I know anyone who has the regular checkups has done this before. Now you can do it yourself. You send it in to the lab and you get results. So they have a bunch of different things that you can do, right? They have food sensitivity. So maybe it's eggs, maybe it's almonds, maybe it's the unsuspecting banana or carrot.

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week in your fitness regime yeah so i want to talk to you about this future fitness right did you feel late don't lie did you have a lazy day no you didn't i worked out today right before i came home from palm desert what happens if you have you're always in palm desert what happens if you have a lazy day a lazy day i'll get an alert from matt my trainer from future fitness what kind of alert like a text or text yeah he actually he texts me i'll go on to the app and then there's messages and he'll hit me up and saying, what are you doing? I sent you this workout. I've spent time curating this for you.

Why are you not working out right now? And how can he see that you're not working out? Because I have an Apple Watch. And he can actually connect. They send you an Apple Watch. Future Fitness sends you an Apple Watch. I absolutely love this. I think that these guys have created something that's really personal.

And you actually have a relationship with someone who keeps you accountable no matter where you are. And the beautiful thing about it is you can move your body for 10 minutes. Yeah. If you just tell your trainer, I got 10 minutes. they will curate and create a workout for you that's just going to get you going. It's about doing something every day. Yeah. That's the biggest thing about staying in shape is consistency.

Oh, my God. Body, mind, consistency, and also enjoyment. And what I like about this is they can curate things that actually allow you to enjoy the things that you love. Let's say you like to Soul Cycle. Or let's say you have a membership to Soul Cycle and you like it. You don't like to do it every day, but you do it two, three times a week, right? They incorporate all of this into it. So if you're ready to invest in your long-term health and wellness,

you can get started with your future coach right now with 50% off your first three months at tri-future.com slash sibling. Again, that's tryfuture.com slash sibling. So when you were growing up, did you lean ever to the arts, or was it always sports and... I mean, growing up, I never thought about it. acting ever. I mean, not until I was maybe 25 or 26. I was totally, like, I mean, when I went to college, my whole thing was I was going to go into law enforcement. That was my,

that's what I studied. I studied criminal justice in law. I went to grad school for that. That was going to be my path. And then everything changed after I, I had gotten hired by the FBI. And then I thought you were going to say I gotten high. That's what I was like, oh, this is going to be... I got really high. I got hired by the FBI, and then I failed the polygraph exam. Oh. And that was the end of that.

What? Really? Are you, can you share with us what you failed? Explain this. This is the most Andy story ever because Andy is the most honest person that I know. This is the thing. If I had, knowing what I know now, I know exactly what they were trying to do to me, and they succeeded 100%. So basically going into this, so first I went to, first I went to New York

to interview. And I went to New York and interviewed, had a great interview, got the job. And they're like, you have the job. You're going back to Boston for a physical and a polygraph. And then you're cleared and you'll get placed somewhere in the United States. So I was like, great. Okay. Hold on. Hold on. The job of what was your job? So the job was going to be investigative specialist, which, you know, it's tough to be hired as an agent right off the bat unless you have like a very specific skill, like finance or something like that. So the other way to get in to become agent would be like to start as an investigative specialist, which is a lot of like surveillance of foreign people in, you know, people in the United States that the government wants to keep

an eye on and that sort of thing. And then you can sort of become an agent from there. And so I go to, I go back to Boston and they schedule my polygraph. And I, up to this point, I knew, you know, some of the major, like, drug questions they would ask would be like, have you ever smoked weed in the last three years? And I was clean on that. I was clean on everything. But, you know, it was like a three week waiting period before the polygraph.

And I was really starting to think about it a lot and overthink things, like, massively. Because you have to, your SF86, it's called, is this math. this huge application where they dig into your background, your friends, everything, and you can't lie on it at all. And they ask you all sorts of questions. And the polygraph is sort of, you know, a version of that in person. So I go there and, you know, they bring you in. And it's literally something out of TV.

You know, you walk in, you're in an interrogation room with, you know, the mirror and this guy with a gun on his belt. And he's right across from you, and they don't hook you up yet. And he starts going over the questions, and you're not hooked up. And so he starts asking me these crazy questions that, like, they're very simple questions. You know, first he'll say, is your last name really Fabro? Yes. Are you associated with any terrorist organizations? No, of course not.

And then he starts saying stuff like, have you ever driven over the speed limit? And I'm like, yeah, you know, we all. have, right? And he's like, no, that's not true. And I'm like, no, you know how like, sometimes you'll go like four or five miles over the speed limit. And he's like, so you're saying you're a reckless driver. I'm like, no, no, no, no. I didn't mean it like that. Like, I've actually never got a ticket. But you're saying you drive over the speed limit often. Well, no, no, not often. So now I'm like sweating. Yeah. And so then the next question is, have you ever cheated in school? And now I don't want to disappoint him. So I go, no. And he goes, no. And he goes,

No, really? And I go, okay, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. I might have looked at someone else's test before, you know, just to see if they had the same answer. And now I'm like in this web of lies already. And I'm not even hooked up to the machine yet. And he's like, so basically I went to Suffolk University in Boston. He's like, so I could call Suffolk University right now

and tell them that you broke the school's honor code. I said, no, not at all. It's not like that. I never, I know, you know what I mean? So now I'm just like, I'm spinning out. And he's like, okay, let's hook you up. Oh, God. Your heart rate's already like 1605.

Literally, what he saw on that computer in front of him, he must have never seen anything like that in his life. So he hooks me up. And there's something under your seat to monitor if you're fidgeting. There's something around your chest to monitor your heart rate. There's something on your pulse, on your fingers, everything. I'm like, you can't move. And so he's like, let's go over all those.

questions one more time. So he's going over the questions. I'm trying to be very honest. And like, my mind is so fucked at this point. I am like, I'm lying about everything. I'm just like, I don't want to disappoint this guy. I haven't in my head that I'm going to try. Maybe I'll just beat this test and pretend I'm telling the truth.

So crazy. Yeah, so it ends. And he doesn't say anything. And I'm looking at him. And he goes, I'll be right back. He leaves for like 20 minutes. I'm left there by myself. everything's still, I'm like, can I unhook myself?

I don't know if I should move. He comes back in and I'm like, he's not saying anything. I'm like, how did it go? And he goes, not great. He goes, what's going on with you today? And I'm like, look, I just really want this job. I think I got a little fucked up in the head with the, you know, the questions you were asking, blah, blah, blah.

And I was like, well, what do we do? And I'm like, did I fail? And he's like, yeah, you failed. And he was like, you can try and take it again. But they'll probably say no. and it's on your permanent FBI record. So if you wanted to go to the DEA or the Secret Service, it was like, it was over.

They would never take it. That's so crazy. So let me ask you a question. This is such an interesting thing. Like, why didn't, so what you would have passed if they would have said, have you ever cheated on a test? And you just said, yes. Yes, I should have just stuck to it and not felt bad about it.

I should have just been like, listen, I have driven over the speed limit. I don't care what you think. Yeah, are you a reckless driver? You need confidence in those. I mean, I had to go through. I didn't get a polygraph, but I had to do the SF 86 and then have agents talk to me and interview me and everyone I knew for the White House to get top secret clearance

in the White House. And it does get to, I remember getting to the point where they're like, did you smoke weed? Yes, of course, blah, blah, blah. And then they're like, well, when did you smoke weed? Talk about the times you smoked weed. And then you'd have to start talking about times. And they're like, okay, well, it's just you

and a friend smoking the weed. Where did you get the weed from? I'm like, oh, I don't know. Who sold you the wheat? Obama did. Oh, so the weed just appeared, right? Yes, this is a specific talk. You're not going to tell us who your dealer was.

You're not going to lead us to the, and all of the sudden I'm like, what? I'm a drug dealer now. Like, just smoke wheat. What are you talking about? Like, I just want to write a couple speeches, you guys. Leave me alone. Right. And sometimes a little smoke of the doby helps me write these speeches.

Oh, my God. Yeah, so after that happened, I just like reassessed everything. And I was like, you know what? I want to be an actor. I thought. I was like, I think, I think maybe this whole time I just wanted to play a cop. Yeah. You're like, I'm going to go play a fucking FBI agent. Yeah, I think that's probably what I actually wanted to do. So I was like, let's just go fucking take an acting class.

That's so funny. So I took an acting class in Boston. And from there, it all kind of happened from there. Because there was a lot of movies in Boston at that time. And I got involved in some of those and the background work and stuff. And then I moved out to L.A. and continued. I just played an FBI agent, a special agent. Like, literally, I'm so jealous. I just finished that job just now. Clearly, Oliver hasn't done any research because he did not know about this polygraph.

No, no, but I was told things, you know. There was a guy on set. Everything was in the wind. So, John, when you guys were in high school, let's just skip right to high school. Sure. It sounds like you guys were, like, great, cool family. were you guys pretty much

like were you naughty or were you naughty what are you even using that word for we were um I mean like I mean what's the what do you say when naughty I literally picture them like both sort of naked together or something yeah but it's when you say

naughty it's like were they were they good kids did they were the honest kids no we were on the like very well behaved end of the spectrum there's actually a this is before high school but um years later went to this wedding of one of my one of our friends from the neighborhood and I was with my now wife and she's talking to um one of our babysitters this this this uh woman who was a sister of one of my friends who babysat andy and I for a long time and Emily is like what was it like babysitting John andy and she's like uh it was like stealing money from the Favros because I didn't have to do anything and then when it came time for

bedtime instead of me saying to them you have to go to bed the two of them would say all right it's time for bed now we're going to go up and brush our teeth and put ourselves to bed not one minute past eight o'clock oh my god it's a dream

yeah we were that means your good kids that means your parents are great I have a good high school story about being naughty yeah don't say you are not with the word naughty it sounds it is the connotation

is very yeah it's like uh so it's sexual in nature um you know between between john and i collectively we probably had maybe three parties at the house all throughout high school you know not that many um but the one party i did decide to have was i was it was senior year i think summer of senior year going into college our parents were away i decided to have a gathering you know it wasn't it wasn't a it wasn't a bender or anything but i had some people over and um we were taking pick you know back then obviously we still did the disposable cameras and stuff so we were taking a bunch of pictures and whatnot and i uh you know successful party the parents come home from vacation no they have no idea that happened everything was cleaned up perfectly it was

great a couple days later my mom calls me downstairs and she goes i just came back from cvS to pick up our pictures from the vacation and so what happened was she went into CVS she said I'm picking up photos for Favreau they gave her my photos from the party and

it was just and she starts throwing pictures at me like I'm you know like I'm in the interrogation no wonder you failed that test I can't look at him I have I had a similar I actually had a similar thing I don't know if I ever told you this but I

went to take what I thought was my film to go get developed but I got it back and it was all of Oliver and his friends just like blazed taking pictures of their eyeballs so it's just Oliver

with like these like big red eyes and they're just like and his John and like you guys were all oh God I think I still have them in there don't we all feel lucky that we're all old enough that all these pictures were actual pictures and not just pictures on online like that's what would we have

I don't know oh my gosh I think about that all the time I don't know I mean I so bad I have pictures that I know were taken that I've actually seen that I can still see what exactly what they were that if they came out today it would be like oh my god dude like something that wakes you up at two in the morning you're like so what about John when you left for college you know was there Was that a sad moment? Were you guys that close to where now you're gone? Well, I went to Holy Cross, which is in Worcester, sort of close to Longmeadow. And then Andy went to Suffolk.

And so, like, I brought Andy to Holy Cross a few times. I think, like, the drunkest Andy got, or the first time he got really drunk was when he came to Holy Cross and I took him to a party. And then, like, poor Andy was, like, sitting around the toilet all night. And I was like, what did I, what did I do to my poor younger brother? I was like a junior, he was a freshman, I think. Or I was a senior maybe. All part of the younger brother experience. Yeah, right.

But we, yeah, but we saw each other a lot then. Ollie invited me to Boulder. I was like 17. Yeah. I was like, this is obnoxious. I was one of those sisters. I was like, Oliver's going to like, like, I can't believe mom is paying for him to go to college.

Like, in my mind, all I was thinking about was like, Oliver isn't at college. He's just partying. It's like, all. I couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more. And honestly, that's why I called my mom first semester of my sophomore year. And I was like, I need to get out of here. So when you were, when you were partying having fun, which now I wish I did do, did you, did

that where you fell in love with this idea of speech writing and politics? Yeah, I thought for a while that maybe I'd be a journalist because I loved writing. And then junior year at Holy Cross, they had a D.C. internship program where you could go to D.C. and an intern anywhere you wanted. And I interned in John Kerry's office, who was our senator. And that was, it was 2002, so he was getting ready to run for president. So I sat for a semester with his communications director

and speechwriter and political director, and they were all planning the campaign, and it was all exciting to me. So I loved the internship so much that when I came back, it's a holy cross senior year i kept bugging them for a job on the carry campaign any job and then like the night before i graduated they gave me a job as a press assistant on the campaign uh and so i moved to dc two weeks after uh i graduated and i started politics that way but i sort of i sort of just fell into speech writing because i ended up sitting next to the speechwriter for that campaign and when

carey was losing the primary and he was broke and he couldn't hire a real extra speechwriter i was there and they didn't have to pay me more than my $20,000 a year that I was getting. And so I was just promoted thinking that he was going to lose anyway. Hello Fresh, Oliver. Have you been using it?

Yes. I love my Hello Fresh. Especially when you got kids. God, it's so easy. It's the best. It makes it easy for everybody. I can literally be like, Bing, make your own dinner.

Bing is very resourceful like that. True. Bing the other day came down. He cut up some cucumbers, made a miso soup thing with his noodles, did like a whole thing and came into my bedroom because I was up there just like watching Love is Blind. And he just came up with like his whole like. Yeah. I was like what? Wow. That's great. Yeah. He's the best. So Bing. He could do he could make everyone food. Hello Fresh delivers pre-portioned ingredients to your door. farm fresh produce, it arrives within a week, so you get the convenience without skimping on quality. You don't have to go to the grocery store.

You don't have to wait in the long lines. Quick and easy meals. You don't have to waste money or have the excess food. Food waste is insane. Drives both all over my crazy. It makes me crazy. And it's so yummy. It's easy.

They're like 20 minute recipes, really low prep, easy cleanup. And that's, I think, the thing that's nice. Sometimes you want to go the extra mile, but most of the time meal prep is the hardest thing for when you've got as many kids as Ollie and I both do. It's like crazy. Yeah. Oh, it's great. I made these.

I can't remember the exact name of them, but it was like a, it was like a dinner sandwich was like a sloppy Joe type of a thing. I can't remember the name. But everything is right there. I mean, pre-packaged, everything's perfect. You're like, oh, this is so simple. All I need is like a pan and some olive oil. Super, super, super easy. Love it.

So go to hellofresh.com slash sibling 16. sibling 16 and use code sibling 16 for up to 16 free meals and three free gifts Hellofresh.com slash sibling 16 and use code sibling 16 for up to 16 free meals and three free gifts you know what I was thinking well can I tell you what I was thinking first I was just in the desert I just got back from Palm Desert oh cool and it was like 85 degrees there and I put four cores light. I said, oh cool, like I didn't know you were in the desert. You, like, had my son.

I did. I had your son, but I was not drinking Coors Light with your son. But I was in the desert with a group of guys, and I had four Coors Light in my cooler. And I cracked and opened it. And immediately we were like on whole six, whole nine is where you get the turn, where you get stuff. Everyone in my group went and got Coors lights

because they were like, that looks amazing. I'm like, it is amazing. You started at a Coors Light trend. I did. It is the time of year, though. This is like, we're in the hectic time of year where you're like coming into the spring. There's a lot of activity happening now.

Now everybody's like out and about and what have you. And I kind of gets me excited for like baseball and a beer. No, it's true. I kind of feel like there's always a good time for a beer. Of course. A Coors light. There's never a bad time for a course light. Maybe that should be the new slogan.

Yeah. it is made to chill we're still chilling we're still chilling and i still love a blue mountain don't get me wrong it's cold loggered cold filtered cold packaged blue and it's literally made to chill so when i take a second for myself and i'm speaking for my sister as well i reach for the beer that is made to chill get cores light delivered straight to your door with drizzly or instacard going to coarslite.com slash Hudson. Celebrate responsibly. Coresbury and Company, Golden, Colorado.

How do you become a speechwriter? I know I just heard your little, you're sort of the way that you segued into it. But, you know, what are the things that you have to pay attention to to be a prolific, a great speechwriter? I mean, obviously you have to capture the voice of that person. Right? Is that the idea? Aside from being a good writer, you have to be a bit of a mind reader, a bit of a diplomat because every speech, especially for politicians, there's like a whole crew of people that want to be involved. And so you have to take some people's edits and try to push away some other people's edits and you have to, you know, make peace with everyone.

But really, like, to learn Barack Obama's voice, you know, I read both of his books. I went to every town hall he did. I listened to every interview he did. But then I just made sure I had a lot of one-on-one time with him because you've got to not only know how the person speaks and writes, you need to know how the person thinks. And so you have to get so close to the person that you can let... Like, when Barack Obama is interviewed now to this day,

I could probably tell you what his answers are going to be no matter what question he's asked, just because I know how he thinks about things. And if you have that kind of relationship with the person that you're writing for, then I think you can do a good job. And what about just the structure of the speech? You know, I mean, I love to write. I don't, I mean, I'm not really a structured writer.

I just like words. And so, but when you're, you're a great writer, thank you. When you're structuring something like that, how focused are you on sort of the prose and the flowery element of it? And then how much is sort of the structure of the speech and how it's all going to sort of sing? It should be the structure of the speech and the story first. Like, I think the problem with a lot of politician speeches is that it's just a collection of sound bites and a. applause lines that are just like strung together and i think writing a speech should be like telling a story it should be like having a it should be as close to a conversation that you have with someone

who you're telling a story to as possible and once you've got the logic and flow of the story down and the structure of the speech just like a script you know like then once you have that down then you can concentrate on do i want more flowery language here do i want an applause line etc etc but you got i think you got to get the structure does your ego ever does your ego ever get into it where you're like, oh, dude, I'm going to write the fucking, it's happening. I got the line. I got the historic line. I got to not ask what you can, what your country can do for you, line.

Yeah. What's the proudest line you wrote for the Obama presidency? I can't remember if it's a, see, we didn't, Obama and I didn't focus as much on lines. We focused on like, what's the whole speech going to be? What's the story of the speech? But there was a, there was a string of speeches in the primary. where from like winning Iowa, the night that he won the Iowa caucuses, to the night that he lost narrowly to Hillary in New Hampshire

and gave the yes we can speech to the convention speech to when he won the presidency and did the speech in Grant Park, the victory speech. Like every time he won a primary or a caucus or the nomination, me and the other speechwriters would get pretty excited writing those speeches because everyone took those live and they were historic and he got to be soaring. Like, you don't get to do that with a lot of politicians.

I don't even, I mean, since him, I don't think you get to do that with a lot of politicians. And so it was really lucky. Who's responsible for Yes We Can? Yes We Can was a slogan in an ad in his 04 Senate campaign that David Axelod, his chief strategist, wrote into the ad that Obama initially didn't like because he thought it was too cheesy. And then Michelle was like, I don't think it's too cheesy. I think it's good for the ad. so they put it in the ad and then that was in 2004 i brought it back for the new hampshire speech because i was like he had this great slogan from 2004 that he hasn't used anymore like let's try

to do it in a different way and sort of connect it to the history of america and stuff like that so that's how we did it in the uh in the new hampshire speech that that night but why politics like why did you why were you attracted to politics and then and then even to elaborate even you know to continue on where you started and where we are now i mean it's just fucking crazy so i mean i can't tell like i feel andy i don't know if you remember this growing up but i feel like we were a pretty political household in the sense that mom and dad were always talking about politics on the not like they wanted to be politically active but right when there was political news they would talk about it our aunts and uncles would talk about our grandparents would talk about it our

grandfather my my father's father was a state rep in new hampshire um also so it sort of was how we grew up yeah you know and then i felt and then i i think when i went to holy cross and you know holy cross is run by the jesuits and they're like very into social justice i kind of felt us aside from like the political gossip that we all had growing up then i sort of felt a pull to just make the world better as cheesy as it sounds like i wanted to just help i wanted to do things to make a difference, especially like going to school in Worcester and I did a lot of community service in the city. And I just felt like the best way to do this, the best way to make an impact is to actually go into politics. And I also liked sort of the excitement of it too. So it was both an

exciting field and something that I felt like I was doing good. John, John, I'm intrigued to know because you've worked in an administration so intimately. And then now, you know, you're doing something completely different, you know, you've got your company, your media company, even though it's probably a lot of it zeroed in on politics and things. What is you, are you comfortable taking a position on politics? How do you see the Democratic Party that you were in in 2000, when in the Obama administration versus what we're looking at now? Like, do you see a big difference?

Do you, are you happy with the state? state of our of our no so the obama campaign was something special right and we win and there's all this hope and there's all this possibility and we get to the white house and we have all of these crises at once and the white house is it's it was brutal right and the republicans were brutal and the financial crisis was brutal and i can remember in the reelect in 2012 flying around the country with Obama and him saying all we have to do is if we win this if we beat these guys again in 2012 then the fever will have broken and the Republicans from then on will realize that they're going to keep losing if they keep being this obstructionist and this extremist and

they'll they'll start working with us and things will get better and obviously that has not happened at all and it has been hard from that point on politics has felt like being a Democrat, being a progressive, an uphill struggle to say the least. And look, there are, I still do it and I care a lot about it because I feel like there are only two choices. There is keep fighting or give up. And we know what happens if we all give up. So I'm just going to keep at this. And there are moments that you're hopeful. You know, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris win the election. We win the midterms in 2018. Like there are these moments that and past legislation that you care about right and um but on a daily basis it is a

fucking mess as is evident to everyone who is a casual observer um and i think that is true for a lot of reason i think it's partly the extremism of the republican party i think it's the power of fox news and their propaganda machine i also think i'm doing this podcast now called offline which is about the internet breaking our brains like i think that the way we interact with each other the way that we debate each other, the way that we talk to each other, which happens mostly online, is making nuance and subtlety and good faith and empathy and understanding nearly impossible. Because every, you know, there's just like a lot of virtue signaling and shit posting and owning people. And there's very little actual debate about the issues that matter.

And the problem is the issues now, they're so dissected into fiction reality, kind of fiction. kind of reality and these algorithms are feeding us what we want and and and and these algorithms don't give a fuck whether it's true or not and then we're just sort of eating this bowl of just bullshit porridge and now how do we have a healthy debate when you're not debating anything factual or one one thinks it's fact the other doesn't and vice versa it's just a total mess you can't even have a healthy conversation anymore you got to get those likes and retweets That's what it's all about. It's also just like imaginative, innovative thinking, what it's doing to our brains and what it's like the part of the brain that it shuts off.

Like a weird example is I went to go drop my daughter off at school today. I forgot my phone. And so I'm driving and I realize I don't have my phone. I'm like, okay. Ronnie and I were like silent. It was really interesting and kind of weird. You know, we were just sort of silent And then we had like a little conversation

And then I drove home And halfway through the drive home I started talking to myself And I, and I realized that We don't spend time quiet In life, in life, ever. I mean, I say that, I mean, I say that as a, as a zaniel Or we're called zinials.

Did you know this? I'm not. It's that we're a cusper. Yeah, cuspers are. I'm not that. cuspers are a thing you know but i say this is like you know it's just funny how your brain are we don't allow our brains and that is where like you talk about healthy debate you talk about things that actually the times in our lives where we could actually focus on one thing and focus on it

in a way where there's no distraction just doesn't exist anymore i will say and i'm not even fucking around like i when i'm in my car there's nothing on and i'm just quiet with myself and i really Just quiet space in the car. I just drove. I finished this job. We were in Vegas last day. I just drove four hours. Maybe I listened to Stern a little bit.

But for the most part, it was just quiet. I hear the road. I hear the car on the road. And it's just my thoughts, just going. I do that a lot too. Back when I used to bartend, when I'd get out at like three in the morning, their drive home, I need silence. Because it's just like so much.

Your head is just like so full of shit. And I would love to just get in my car and have nothing. It feels good. It's almost a form of meditation. I think Bateman does that too, Jason Bateman. I think when he gets into his car, everything just shuts off. Nothing. It's just cool. It's also like, it's anxiety too, reading that much news.

Like, we were at Andy's for Thanksgiving, the family, and I woke up on Thanksgiving morning, and I looked at my phone, as I often do, and start scrolling. And I saw the first news of the Omicron variant. And I started reading more about it, and I started getting all freaked out. and all through Thanksgiving, Andy, I don't even know if you noticed. I was like so tense because I decided I didn't want to tell the rest of the family

about this new variant because I didn't want to freak everyone out and have everyone to make sure everyone had a good Thanksgiving. But the whole time I'm like have my phone and I'm looking and I'm like, fuck, fuck it looks like it's getting worse. Fuck. Well, when you finally said it, I was like, then the rest of my Thanksgiving is ruined. I was like, wait.

And it's, he's so worried that he's actually announcing it to the family. Oh, no. I know. I only made it to dessert. And then someone says something about a variant. I'm like, there's a new one, guys. There's a new one. I'm so sorry to ruin this Thanksgiving, but we're an Omnacron.

I was also so mad that I was somehow behind on Twitter that I didn't know about the variant. Which is so weird. You're like variant fomo. I got to give you some epidemiologists to follow on Twitter. That'll brighten your day just as much as politics. But Andy, I know what you mean. Or John and both you guys, I know what you mean like you click on news or even just the Apple news icon. And it's just all bad things.

This person's murdered. There's new variants. And I can't take it anymore. I barely read anything anymore when I know that I should to try to educate myself and just be current. But it just, it's all crap. Yeah. I mean, I think about that a lot because on PODs of America, we're trying to, you know, educate people about politics and inspire them to take action. I love your show, by the, for a while.

But we, I have to always calibrate, as does Tommy and John. and Dan, like, how much bad news we want to deliver, how, like, even if it's a serious topic, we try to keep it light. We try to joke around, partly just because, like, everyone gets misery from their phones or from watching the news on television. Like, if you're going to listen to it, we at least have to keep it light or else everyone's going to tune out, and I don't blame them. I also think it goes back to what you were saying about the show that you're doing about

the just the digital era. The thing is, if you really go back to how we're supposed to. to be living as a species, even though we're evolving. I'm got to figure that one out. We wouldn't know things that were happening outside of our community. We wouldn't really, you know, we didn't have the resources. There was only so much that you could put in the newspaper. There was only so much that a news channel, like what makes the news hour, you know.

Now we don't have that at all. There's not a separation. Everything is available. Too connected. And there's always a headline over and over. Well, now our ability to know about the world's misfortune is infinite, but our ability to change it has stayed the same. So that gap has made us feel a little bit more helpless and... Sure, and it's also so fearful.

But you also, what you have is you have a lot of loud voices. And the loud voices do not represent the amount of people out in the world who aren't loud. They're a small percentage. And I think that's the other thing, which is we amplify. the loud voices, but we forget to listen to the solution-oriented ideas. Well, you would talk about public service. You know, you talk about sort of you want to do better, you want to do good. Essentially, that's why politicians get into it, or that's what it used to be.

Now it just seems like a major power grab. Like, there's nothing about helping any constituent. It's just about staying in power however you can. I mean, in your time in politics, even though it hasn't been, you know, 50 years, but have you seen that shift from wanting to actually do something good to now just be a power play? So I think there's a, there's been a bit of a shift. I think it's a couple things. One, the people who just want it for the title and the power are, as Kate was saying, the loudest people who get the most attention. So you hear about them more, you hear from them

more than the people who are just in it for all the right reasons. And two, I think the people who would traditionally go into the job or pursue a career in politics for the right reasons are don't want to do it anymore because it seems like a fucking mess and because you open yourself up to like you know it's not just like you have skeletons in the closet kind of thing it's like a tweet that you you know tweeted a couple years ago is going to come back to haunt you or something that you said that's taken out of context is going to or something you never even did but people think you did you know like yeah there's so many reasons not to put yourself into the spotlight that i think a lot of good people who otherwise would be wonderful public servants are aren't going

to want to serve yeah andy are you going to be canceled do you think at some point once you become super famous why did you even put that out into the ether now there's a target no it's like an FBI you're like back on the polygraph who can find who can find dirt on Andy. Andy is the least cancelable person I know in my life. If Andy gets canceled, then we're all canceled. I'm surprised Oliver hasn't been canceled. Well, I have a theory about

all that. You know, because look at Howard Stern. Howard Stern has done some of the craziest shit ever and he's untouchable because that's the persona that he has created. And so it's almost like, oh, well, he gets a pass. So the cancel culture does not, it does

discriminate, you know? I mean, if you have already been that outlandish, and you are Howard's type of Howard Stern, then he gets a pass, you know. It select, no, cancel call. It selects for the shameless among us. And if you're shameless and you don't care and you're not going to apologize because you say fuck apologies, then eventually you just keep going. You just keep going.

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Of all of the podcast shows that you've done about politics, what is the most sought after and desired topic from your listeners? Like within politics? Yeah, like what is the thing that you think they're just, they want more of? They want to hear about more. I actually think in the last year, actually, probably from 2020 on, is like voting rights and sort of the state of our democracy in general. kind of this conversation we've been having where like are we still going to have a democracy like especially after the you know attempted coup in the insurrection like people want to know that where people are going to be able to vote that they're not going to have voting restrictions

that their vote's going to count that we're going to have people we're going to make sure that people aren't able to steal an election again um i think that our listeners i hear about that probably more than anything else so i think it's sort of issue by issue do you find that the Democratic Party is starting to split into two sections, ones that are more sort of traditionally libertarian, and then ones that are very socialist? I think that the Democratic Party is always a million different factions. I mean, part of the challenge is as, you know, we're fighting like sort of an extremist faction of the Republican Party, and in order to win in sort of a gerrymandered, you know,

know, anti-majoritarian system that we have right now, you need a large majority of people in the country to vote for you as a Democrat. And so we won in 2020, only by 40,000 votes across a couple states, because that's the Electoral College, by having everyone from center-right former Republicans who voted for Mitt Romney and George W. Bush to the AOCs and the Democratic Socialists of the world. Like, they all had to be in one tent. And if we're going to keep winning elections and stave off potentially the end of democracy with another Trump presidency or something worse. We need to keep all those people in the same tent. And that's a really hard job because you have, like you said, some more people more libertarian. You have socialists. You have

liberals. You have centrists. You have moderates. And like the only way we win is if we all sort of work together. And that's a hard, that's hard, especially in the country this big. You say the end of democracy, but what is that like hyperbolic? Or are you, actually, is that a real thing for you? I mean, and what does that look like, really? Look, I don't think, yeah, I don't think it looks like, you know, traditional fascism that we might know from history. But I do worry that if Trump runs again, which he seems like he wants to,

I think he is the odds on favorite to be the GOP nominee. But what about DeSantis? I think he will crush DeSantis because I think people love Trump. All the polls show him way, way ahead of all the rest of them. So I think unless he dies or is going. goes to jail in a way that he can't run from jail, which is also possible, then I think he's got a very, very, very good shot at the nomination. If he's the Republican nominee, the country is polarized enough that I think we're right back to where we were in 2020, which is he is

probably 30, 40, 50,000 votes away from being a president again. And I think if Trump wins again, I think the second term looks a lot worse than the first because I think even in that first term, some of the people he had in government were not the people he really wanted in government. They weren't super loyalists, now that all those people have left, it's only the fucking hardcore nuts that are going to be left with him in the second term. And they're going to do some scary shit. And it's not going to necessarily be like a fucking Hitler thing, but it's going to, I hope, but it's going to be, you know, it'll be press freedoms degraded. It'll be starting to go after enemies, maybe using the IRS, maybe using some other government agencies. It'll be putting in place

more voting restrictions so that they stay in power. Like, it'll be gradual, but it'll not be sort of the democracy that we have now or that we've known in the past. And it's going to be, I think, really hard for Democrats to win again if that happens. So it's, you know, it's a challenge. Do you miss being a part of an administration? No. I loved what I did. I was incredibly lucky to work for Barack Obama. I think he's a once-in-a-generation talent. I can't imagine if someone like him came along again what I would do maybe you know I could do it again but I was also young then I was in my 20s and I could sleep four hours and work seven days a week and I can't do that anymore and I think because he was so special and working for him was so special that like I kind of want to just put that

where it was in my life and I also just love the job that I'm doing now I mean it's it's it's it's easier than working in the White House what I do now for sure but it's also very very fulfilling so i feel like i'm in like the best job ever so getting back to the brother thing real quick and it's been a long time but are you guys super close now you know are you guys still as close as you ever were you know you are i mean because we yeah i mean i got i one of the reasons when i left dc or when i left the white house and i was in dc and i had to figure out where to go next um a main reason that i came to los angeles is andy was here and i was like I was pushing it, too.

I wanted to come. And so I, you know, once I moved out here, then we, I mean, we were always close, but then we got closer. And now, you know, Emily and I see Andy and Molly and my parents, like, if not every weekend, every other weekend. Because we all live. Hey, you guys, the one thing I'm looking at my notes here that we didn't talk about, which we have to, is your news around the house when you guys were kids. And I guess my question is, do we still do the news around the house? Andy, Emily, Emily spilled this to...

Oh my God. I was like, did they call our parents? That would know. If they called our parents, that would be a fucking nightmare. I don't want to know about it. What is news around the house? We had so many embarrassing stories. When we were kids, I wanted to do like a fake news.

I guess I should have known then that I was going to be a podcaster. We did a fake news program called News Around the House where we had a video camera because our father bought a video camera. We're all excited. So we would set it up and do different news segments around. the house. We do news, weather, sports, and it was just Andy and I and like one of our neighbors, and we'd run around doing

it. The tapes are somewhere, and God, I hope no one ever sees them. Oh, no, you have to find those. I guess I should have to find those. I guess I should have to be an actor. I wanted to be an actor. Yeah, Andy was acting. I should have known that. Yeah, there was the key to our future. Here's the thing, Ollie, if I do get canceled, it's if those tapes come out.

Wait, hold on a second. You guys, we used to make movies when we were kids not dissimilar, but there's one called the naked. What was it? The Naked. one or you're like the naked guy? Oh, but naked. But naked. It's called but naked.

Like we should have known. You know what I mean? Like we should have known really early. It was a great concept. The concept was simple. The concept was simple. It was that when there was kids playing and they made fun of this kid

and they took his clothes, he was in the pool. So he was a naked guest at this house. He runs into the house and disappears. Now we cut to 20 years later. and the man living in the house was one of his best friends and this little boy has been living naked within the walls of this house for 30 years.

And I played the naked guy. Of course you does. I had braces that were all fucking up like this crazy hair and teeth. And he's like running around and there was like these shots through the window of like this naked guy running through our backyard.

I'm going to send it to you. Wow. Yeah, no. I want to take a look at that. Oh, my God. The videos we have, and in most of them, I'm always the victim. Like, we got into real horror stuff, and I was always, like, the one. Getting killed.

That's so funny. I was always the one with just like, all right, guys, this is fun. Let's do our speed round, because this usually isn't speedy. One word to describe the other. This is Andy talking, and I would say empathetic. I would This is John And I would say

Driven Oh One word To describe your relationship Hmm Forever This is John I would say easy

Good one Good one damn it I would say This is so lame fun fun is good I like fun fun's good

who was nerdier we already know it was John well I mean it doesn't a nerd I mean it depends on how you look at it he was a self he was a self-proclaimed nerd

until late high school he said it himself on the show was a dork yeah who was more of a good goody two shoe I'd say me yeah

this is Andy talking I still am Are you? And that's how you know what a goody two shoes is because, like, no one thinks of me as like the badass of the family. Right. Right.

You are. But I am. Like, Andy won't even make a U-turn? No, no. No, no. I'm by the book. And you failed your FBI fucking polygraph? How is this possible?

I know why? Because he was trying to be good. He wants to please. He wants to please so much and be liked so much that he's lying to. people. Yeah, I wanted to tell that FBI agent that I was the

biggest goody two shoes in the world and unfortunately it backfired. Okay, what was the first job for each of you? Very first job. This is Andy talking and I still think about this job to this day because it was one of the best jobs I've ever had. I worked at Hillview

Golf Course in North Reading, which was the public course. I worked there I was like working in the cart barn which is like you pick the driving range tool around on golf carts all day. I worked there with my best friend, Brian Hawks, and we had the best time ever, we'd play free golf,

we'd fuck around on the golf carts all day, we'd get in trouble, and we were getting paid, and it was fantastic. We did that all through high school. I love that so much. I was a cashier at CBS. It was terrible. Not an ad.

What was your first job, Ollie, other than the mailroom because I was I didn't get paid money but I got free entry to like fishing boats when I was working like as a pinhead on the Aquarius oh cool out of marina out of Malibu off the pier nice I didn't get paid money but I got to like sort of fish for free

clean the boats great my first job was at bow and arrows in Manhattan Beach I remember and I it was a clothing store because I was loved my fashion and I got it was this tiny little store that sold like BCBG dresses and I used to see lots of cute hockey players and that was good enough for me guys

Okay who has the most power in your relationship Whoa that seems like I don't mean that in like a weird way I mean that in I'm meaning like

If you're going to be like we're going to dinner and someone's like no we're getting sushi we're not getting Italian food who's going to win I would say the, um, our wives have the most power in both of our relationships. Yeah. Yeah, we don't. It is funny. Like when we do things together, all four of us, Andy and I don't even know that we're seeing the other ones sometimes. That's what I thought. That's what I was just thinking of. Yeah. We don't even know the plans. Emily and all you just figure it all up. What is that in our relationship? It's kind of a weird question, isn't it? Yeah, we don't do a lot of things like go to dinner and stuff. No, I'm talking about power. Like the power dynamic. dynamic like a power dynamic in a sibling relationship i think i found my power in the last like six

months who's the bigger daredevil it's got to be andy because i'm the least although neither of us are i would say neither of us we are both i mean we take no risks i love that yeah oh i guess me and some things not like i'm not going to like jump out of a plane or anything um but maybe i'm maybe i have slightly riskier behavior than andy who is well it's also funny it's also funny you said that because you're like deathly afraid of flying yeah i'm also oh yeah i wanted i wanted to touch on that i forgot that that's about that like are you still afraid of flying i'm always it's never stopped me from going somewhere i'm not that bad but i have you know i have benzos for the flight i like yeah i'm even if i take them if it's bad

turbulence i'll be freaked out it's not it's not so you're afraid of just plummeting 33,000 feet to the ground, basically. Yes. Like if the plane exploded in the air, that would be one thing. But like the idea of this is how I'm going to go and I'm on a plane by myself and it's going, that's just, that's my nightmare. Totally. Let me ask

you, let me ask you, having a kid has that, how has that changed that? Has it made it worse? It's made it, it's so funny. For me, it's, my terror is so high that it's the same. It's constant. But Emily, my wife, she has never been afraid of flying and now she's very afraid of flying because

she's like I can't leave yeah she she almost did the like should we be on separate planes yeah that's how I'm I'm I'm not away with Danny I don't want to be on the same no I know I know I was so I used to be so scared of flying I used to like 80 Xanax and drink a few beers and I'd have about a good five minutes of insanity like yeah where my wife is like holy shit and then I'm like and then I'm out well but then I like then I like then I did that and I have to land in work which I last several years I've had in the white house too I'm like I can't do that no So then I just couldn't do that.

No, then you just got a fucking white knuckle. White knuckle through it. So who is your first, like, celebrity crush? It would be Kelly Kapowski on Saved by the Bell. Yeah. I would say so too. Really? I was going to say the same thing.

Yeah. Big Save by the Bell fans in our house. We watched all the episodes. We grew up watching Steadblin, but we've probably seen every episode maybe three, four times. That's awesome. Favorite book? I don't read. favorite script

my favorite book that's so hard there's so many it's so hard and I don't read that much either I just read the news guilty pleasure vanderpump rules yeah I can watch some reality TV yeah yeah I'm just shitty shitty TV I like that's my like shitty TV too

selling sunset that's my current yeah we've been watching television I love selling sunsets. Sometimes I just put it on in the background because it's so... I like back. I've come to enjoy background TV, which is also bad, but, you know... I like below deck. Below deck is...

Oh, yeah, that's good, too. So good. Okay, guys, let's do the last question. Oliver's going to ask it. We always end our episodes with this, and it's a two-part question. Mm-hmm. And I'll use... You go.

Um, the first part is, if... looking into dealing with each other right if you can do you forget the question why this is so weird because we haven't done a podcast in eight months okay so it's a two part so the two part question the two part question is what is one thing that if you could sort of alleviate from your brother i know but i'm i remembered it that you could alleviate from your brother that you think would actually make sort of the daily life or his life just feel that much better. What would that be that you could alleviate? The other thing is, is what is something that you would love to emulate?

I can tell this is Andy talking. I would alleviate John's Twitter account. And that would probably make his life a hundred times better. Why? Wait, why? Why? Because it drives him insane. Is it just so negative all the time?

No, it's just that it consumes too much of my attention. Right. I should be like living more of my life. Right. Than doing it. I think for Andy, I would... Oh, wait, no, you have to do what you want to emulate. Oh, he does both. Great.

Yeah. What I would emulate. Well, you know, John's a new dad, and I've seen him with Charlie. and I am not a dad yet, but I really would like to emulate how John's been as a dad. That's nice, Andy. I would alleviate some of Andy's

anxieties. I feel like we said that neither of us are that big risk takers and don't have like daredevils or stuff like that. But I think that Andy could, I think if he was a little, little looser sometimes he would maybe be a little uh molly molly would agree with you on that molly would agree with me on that for sure and i would emulate just how committed and driven he is

watching him um pursue acting over the last 10 years has just like always been a model for me of someone who is so committed so hardworking and just puts his head down and keeps going no matter what and like i think that's just such a awesome it's a tough quality um to just sort of develop on your own. But he's had it innately for so long. It's really something to admire. Good. Oh, guys.

Thank you for coming. I loved this. Thanks for having us. It was so fun. Thank you, guys. This was a blast. It's really fun. Sibling Revelry is executive produced by Kate Hudson and Oliver Hudson.

Producer is Allison Bresden. Editor is Josh Windish. Music by Mark Hudson, aka Uncle Mark. If you want to show us some love, rate the show, and leave us a review. This show is powered by Simplecast. In early 1988, federal agents raced to track down the gang they suspect of importing millions of dollars worth of heroin into New York from Asia. Had 30 agents ready to go with shotguns and rifles and you name it. Five, six white people pushed me in the car.

I'm going, what about that? Basically, your stay-at-home moms We're picking up these large amounts of heroin All you got to do is receive the package Don't have to open it, just accept it. She was very upset, crying. Once I saw the gun, I tried to take his hand and I saw the flash of light.

Listen to the Chinatown Sting on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you get your podcasts. The Super Secret Festi Club podcast season four is here. And we're locked in. That means more juicy cheesement. Terrible love advice.

Evil spells to cast on your ex. No, no, no, no, we're not doing that this season. Oh. Well, this season, we're leveling up. Each episode will feature a special bestie, and you're not going to want to miss it. My name is Curley. And I'm Maya. Get in here.

Listen to the Super Secret Bestie Club on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, I'm Jenna Lopez, and in the new season of the Overcomfit podcast, I'm even more honest, more vulnerable, and more real than ever. Am I ready to enter this new part of my life? Like, am I ready to be in a relationship? Am I ready to have kids and to really just devote myself and my time? Join me for conversations about healing and growth, all from one of my favorite spaces, The Kitchen. Listen to the new season of the Overcomber Podcast

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