SmartLess - "President Joe Biden"

Episode Date: November 2, 2022

Welcome to SmartLess… with The 46th President of the United States, Joe Biden. Need we say more?Please support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Well, welcome. This is, this is a very, very special nerve-wracking, odd, unique, incredible episode. This is amazing. And why? Let's just stay at the top. Why? And then I want to get in. Well, they know, because by this point, they know that the President of the United States is approaching the ring. Okay. So talk to me about coming here and getting here, because I got here an hour earlier because I thought it was going to be massive traffic and blah, blah, blah. And so, and it's,

the steps you take to get through with your car was mind-blowing. Well, you also had some flares on your record. You had to get here now. Yeah, you did have a few outstandings. A bunch of questions for you. Right, right. You had a few things. Will and I just got to roll up, get the mirrors underneath the car and that's it. Yeah.

I had the dog sniffing all parts of me. Oh, no, I know. But wait, so no, but the guy, by the way, one of the guys doing, this is true, doing the check on the security check on the car. He says to Jason like, Hey man, big fan. And then he sort of leaned in and then he was just out of your shot. Jason looks at me and goes, nothing for you. Nothing for you.

He actually leaned down and look who was riding shotgun and then just kept walking. No, he didn't. But he said, nothing. Jason goes, nothing for you. And then the guy walked back and I thought, oh, he's placed the face. He's going to come back and the guy said, and just keep your windows rolled down and going forward. Yeah. And it was, and it was, it was a great moment.

It was a great moment. And then, and then the next guy said, he said to me, he was a big fan of murder. They didn't say murderville. He said, of your improv. And then he said, oh, and then he looked at it. So Jason goes, I love Ozark. And to which I said, is that still on the air? Because it's been a minute.

And then we approached the woman with the bullhorn out there yelling, yelling protests. And she gave me an earful. So we're at a hotel in Los Angeles because Well, let's definitely be cagey about it because they're going to come after us now. After we've already done it. Two weeks after. But I mean, just for the future, we should. For the future.

It might be a hotspot then. You think that people can't clue into the fact that the president's here? What gave it away? The beast out parked in the middle of Hill Guard? What are you doing? 75 trucks outside. Did you guys just come fresh from, were you just lobotomized from Dunland? You're so nervous.

Rise to the moment. I'm up. I'm up. I'm in. I'm in. Well, this is exciting. The president of the United States is our guest today, which is absolute. Let's do a small little humble review on what the hell is going on. I mean, when you're a kid and you watch TV and you see, oh my God, there's the president. And then you learn about history and like, oh my God, I fast forward to this moment right now. It's kind of mind blowing and I'm very nervous.

I was feeling really, really good about us. And then, and then I saw he did an exclusive with Tapper yesterday. And I'm like, well, fucking Tapper got him. I mean, maybe this isn't that big of a deal. Well, Tapper is a bit of a heat seeking missile, isn't he? Maybe this isn't as big of a deal. It's kind of huge. No, old Tapper shoes deserves it.

Yeah, but we do. I mean, he's a friend of the show, but Tapper. But this is undoubtedly, this is ridiculous. We have the president. Can I tell you this? I told my dad that we were doing this. Me too. And how'd you do that? What'd you do? Put a message in the bottle and throw it in Lake Michigan?

Hoping he drives his powerboat by it? Hoping that one of his kids from his new family picks it up. Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous. My dad was so impressed and he was so blown away. There's very few things. And you know, you get to do a lot of cool things in what we do. And my dad was like, when I said, yeah, we're interviewing the president, he said, really? Like in this way of like, you?

Yeah. Like I got to start listening to this. Yeah, and I get it. And it is. I mean, who is this? First of all, for you guys, all jokes aside, I wasn't born in this country, but I can appreciate it. But as young as Americans who have come, this has got to be a great moment for you. Well, this is unbelievable.

Because it is for me. And I'm a new American. But just aside from this podcast, it's like, I get to meet the president of the United States. Like it's insane. I mean, it's so crazy. We started this thing as just a completely, you know, remote kind of situation where we stayed in contact. And now we are. And try to make Sean feel better because he was so depressed.

Exactly. Still working on it. But now we are for the first time in person. And we're not in our pajamas. We're in nice clothes. And there's all this stuff that needs to be returned by noon tomorrow. And Jason asked me if I'd tuck the tags in. But for good reason.

Yeah. Little babies grew up. Yeah. Well, guys, tighten up, tighten up. I think I see some people coming in. All right, listener, listener. Next time we talk to you, we're going to be in the midst. It's still us, but we are going to be acting a little weird because obviously.

Right? It's weirder than right now. Yeah. Can you feel the nervous energy, listener? I'm actually really honestly truly nervous. Yeah, no me too. All right, here we go. All right, let's tighten up

and we'll talk to you in a second when... We come back on an all new, very special... Smart... Less. Smart. Less. Smart. Less.

Smart. Less. You're making me famous with my granddaughter, guys. I got... This is wild. This is unbelievable for all of us. So thank you for being here. It's such an honor.

Thank you. No, no, it's an honor to be on. I mean, what you guys did to lift people's spirits is important. Well, thanks. It's been a tough time. And we're surprised that just our silly little chit chats are making people grin,

but I guess we'll just, we'll keep at it because a smile is always worth it especially nowadays. And we often have a lot of... We started by getting a lot of our friends on here and people who are performers and people who are... And so Sean won't be able to ask his normal question. Do you have any great theater stories? I got a lot of great theater.

Right? Well, I know Trump. That's the best theater ever. Hey, you know, before we start, I don't have a question. I just wanna say a thank you for something. And I have to read a quote that you said almost 10 years ago. And now that you're sitting in front of me

and it's such an honor and I'm shaking a little bit, but you said... A lot of that's the sugar. A lot of that's the sugar earlier. I, you said, I think Will and Grace did more to educate the American public more than almost anything anybody has done so far and as much as relating... Well, by the way, you did.

To tell you, thank you. And I was sitting on the couch and nearly fell out of my seat. And it just meant so much to me and a million other people, millions of other people that you recognized us and spoke up for us. So thank you. No question.

I just wanted to say thank you. No, no, I didn't think it was a quote, but look, I, but it's the truth. You know, people are afraid where they don't know. Yeah. And they're frightened of it. And they had images that every gay person in the world or lesbian was an extremist on everything.

Right. But it's like... We're just as boring as everybody else. That's true, by the way. Look at this stuff up card again there, look at that. Far more, often far more boring. No, no, but think about it. The first, you made it clear that gay person's interest

and life is not any fundamentally different. I mean, they have the same fears, concerns, ambitions, likes, I mean, it's normal. Yeah. And thank you for giving us the same rights as everybody else. Speaking of Sean, you clearly stated your love for Will and Grace.

Now that makes me think, what other television shows are you able to watch now that you've got a fairly busy job? Is there any TV time for you? Well, the honest to God truth is, it's a joke among my granddaughters who, very little. When I have time on television, what I tend to do is I tend to watch sports or watch the news. And by the way, I don't work harder

and a lot of people work a hell of a lot harder than I do. I don't know about that. But there's just not that many hours. You know what I mean? But I want to look, because we're not bright enough to ask you really smart questions. I'm really, I'm such a big fan of you as just, obviously we've never met before,

although I did shake your hand on a school trip in ninth grade in Delaware and you were very nice. But I want to know, I want to know. Have you been since? You've been so sweet for our class. But like, what time does the day wrap up for you? What, you go upstairs. You want to go bed time.

Well, I want to know what goes on. My staff is laughing, they're behind it. But when you go upstairs, you're not lounging around in that. Is there a transition into, I'm asking because I'm projecting, because I get in my PJs as soon as I get home. You get into the PJs, you let them know what you want for dinner and then you start watching TV with Jill?

Is that, what happens? That's one of the things Jill and I are working out. And I mean this sincerely. Jill, because she teaches full time, is in bed by 9.30 and I used to go to bed 9.30, 10 o'clock and we talk and people go to sleep. I mean, we spend time together. But now I don't get back to my, even in the White House,

I don't get from the Oval Office into my, in the residence, until usually around seven o'clock. We have dinner and then I have, and I'm not a complaint. I give my word, but I have a briefing book that is probably 200 pages. I mean, a big binder like that. Mine has two pages and they're all noodles. No, but the worst part,

you guys got to memorize your lines. But all kidding aside, so I usually get in bed around 11 o'clock. Jill gets up at 6.30 and it goes, works out. I get up at 8 o'clock and work out. But wait, I want to know, I want to know though, when you, is there a time that, when you exercising with Jill,

is there a time where you guys can go away and shut it off and just be like, yeah? Well, we just have to do it because she'd worked so long as well, so we just set time and I tell Annie who runs the show for me and my chief of staff, I'm not doing anything. And so Jill and I, they're getting further apart. I mean, in a sense, but usually we try to do that.

We go to Camp David or go back to our house in Delaware, which is secluded enough off the road, that we just, you know. And can you really not think about work and you really kind of calm down? Is it always there? Yeah, no, well, there's certain things that, I mean, like with the war in Ukraine,

there's a lot of really difficult to, so sure. But no, I'm always available. But they try to protect you, obviously weekends are not off, but you get to go to church on Sundays or you get to do a little sports to your mom. My worst part is they kid me and everybody kids me. I'm one of those practicing Catholics.

My mother come down from heaven if I didn't. But I go to, I go to, I don't tell everybody because they'll beat it, but I go to five o'clock mass in my local church. Or I go to, in Washington, I go over to Georgetown, the Jebys. And I go to, there's a five, well, there's a 430 mass. And I go to mass on Saturday.

And then Sunday, we just try to do nothing. Yeah, yeah. That's great. I mean, that's pretty good. I think you have to. Football game or something like that. Yeah. Yeah.

What's your number one sport if you had to rank them that you like to watch? My number one sport is football, but it's changed so much. I was a relatively good ball player in a high school. I was a flanker back, a half back. Really? And I like flank state. And yeah.

I'm just saying. Don't pay any attention. You're just saying word association. Yeah, just saying word association. It's a sport that I watch probably more than any other. Don't catch up. You're not a terrible golfer. I looked up your index.

I used to be pretty good. I haven't played golf on three. Your current index is a six, seven, I believe, which puts you at about a 12 handicap. What is the best part of your golf game? Off the tee, chipping, putting? Off the tee. Off the tee.

Of course it is. Do you hit it far? Well, yeah, three years ago I did. I haven't played much. Yeah, I love it. We added up, they figured out that I try to, when I'm home in Delaware, there's a place I can go where I can play, it's a private club, it's called Fieldstone,

but I play all of this golf and I get in, I've not played 18 holes lately, nine holes. I'm with you on that. We play a lot. Jason and I play a lot of golf. Will's big thing is he thinks golf should be 12 holes. I think it should be 12 holes. I think it should be six and six.

I think that would be perfect. By the way, there's a lot of national debate about that. Is there really? Yeah, there is about. Do you want to appoint me the golf star? Is this something that's- Because he falls apart at 12, usually. He falls apart on the 12th ball and he just starts whining.

And I'm tired. And I like to spend time with my kids. You need to work on your game. By the way, that's my best recreation. My granddaughters. They're crazy about me. Ah, crazy about me. No, you think I'm kidding.

I don't blame them. I don't love that. Every single day I contact every one of my grandchildren. That's amazing. You got to pick one of these three things as the coolest thing about being the man. Is it the White House? Is it Air Force One or is it the Beast?

Which, you can only, you can only- You don't mean Marshawn Lynch. I do not. I'm talking about the car. Okay. Which, which is the, which, which- Air Force One. It's the Air Force One.

It's got to be Air Force One. Yeah, it's got to be, right? Well, the good news is a plane never leaves when I get there. No, no, no. Yes, yes. Do you always get the seat you want? Do you always get the seat you want

or is there sometimes there's someone in it? And you got to go to the back. I would love to see the inside of Air Force One. Sean, I'll take you through it. I would guys, I would go crazy. I was so dripping with begging for an invite. No, I'm- No, I'm serious.

I'm serious. Sean, you're only, you're only, I thought you were gonna say, I'd love to do a Will and Grace reunion on Air Force One. And we will be right back. SmartLiz is sponsored by BetterHelp. Okay. So life is complicated.

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or text smartless to 500-500 to try Audible free for 30 days. Audible.com slash smartless. All right, back to the show. Okay, so people in this country never before has it felt like, and I look back, you know, I spent a little bit of time looking back over the way that people spoke and politicians spoke

and et cetera, especially in the 20th century. And a lot of the same verbiage was used to scare people, to make, put people, to divide people. And it was, and people say, well, no, this is new. Historically, that has been something. But never before has it seemed like common ground was so far off in the distance. And I'm trying to understand why,

because we all share, I had an experience recently where I spent some time with somebody and I didn't find out till later that their perspective on the world was very different from mine. But when he and I were speaking and hanging out one-on-one, we got along very fine. And I thought, wow, isn't that funny?

If I didn't know anything about his politics, he and I got along great. What is it we can do to try to get that back? Because I think that that's something you talk about a lot. Well, I do look, guys. I had no intention of running for president again, for real. Or running for office. I was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania

and joined it and put together an institute up there. And when those folks came out of the fields, literally carrying torches down in Charlottesville, and the last guy said they're good people on both sides and that young woman was killed, I realized that we are at an inflection point in history. And it occurs every three, five, seven generations that what happens in the near term, in this case,

the next two to three, five years, the last several years is gonna determine what it looks like for the next several generations. And the context was, my son had just died. And so we have a tradition in our family. Anyone in the family, any kid can ask for a family meeting. This is a dead series. I'm not joking about this.

As well as my dad's family when I was growing up. And so I got a call from my oldest granddaughter and saying, pop, we wanna have a family meeting. She was a freshman, either a senior at Penn or a freshman at Columbia Law. And then my other granddaughter is Finnegan Biden. She's a brilliant kid. She's at one of my secret weapon.

She was, I think, a sophomore at Penn. And anyway. Couple of dummies, huh? Yeah, well, no, I don't mean that. I meant they were close to me, she was at my house. And then I had another granddaughter who was a senior in high school. And then a granddaughter who was a sophomore in high school

and a grandson who was thinking seventh or eighth grade. And they came in and they sat down and they said, pop, you really should run. And I didn't wanna run because I knew it was gonna be ugly. And keep in mind, just like your children in the show business, what, with your show business, they get used to the barbs, they get used to the accolades. And so they've been their whole life.

Either they've been a vice president or a senator and their dad or uncle had been attorney general and so on. And so they said, you gotta run, pop, pop, they call me pop. They said, pop, Uncle Bone want you to run, daddy want you to run, et cetera. And I said, what's gonna be, it's not gonna be very nice, honey. And my little guy, a little hunter,

he's now 16 years old, wonderful kid. He took out his cell phone, he said, here's a picture, pop, we know. And he showed me a picture. My wife hates me telling this story, but it's true. And it was a picture with me walking out of the cathedral with my hand on my son's flag-dread coffin, the military escort and my arm around him,

like I used to hold his dad to just reassure me we're walking out. And the caption on the bottom said that Biden molests another child. And they said, we know it's gonna be tough. But here's the point about your question. I think the biggest thing that's changed is technology. There are no editors anymore.

And so, you know, there's a lot been written and I started to write a book about it. I don't, obviously, have time to do it now. That if you go all the way back to Gutenberg and the printing press, it changed the nature of the world and how nations got along. These guys have never read a book, so just keep going.

Well, I know. But look, look, I'm getting a television. But think about how things have changed and every new technological change, it changed the way we interface with one another. Whether it was a telegraph or the radio or then television. But now, the internet for the first time, there's no editors.

There's no editors at all. And so, how does somebody know what is true? Yeah, and the difference between, you know, I think that you should do an executive order where you could do, you can post on the internet on social media, but you have to have your name, your address, and your phone number. And then we'll see if people change their tone a little bit.

Isn't there any way for the FCC or someone to put a rating system or the equivalent of saying, this is just opinion, this is actually facts. Oh, you've wanted this for a long time. Like you should be able to have to hit a certain threshold. You can't just, everything can't look the same. It should have a little qualified Twitter does it or did it with the last guy's tweets.

I mean, we live in an age where people decided to start politicizing science and medicine that it's so absurd. And you go, you know, I'm originally Canadian and I go back to Canada. I am American now, sir. But- If I defect, I'm going to Canada.

Yeah, I will listen. And you can stay with my phone. I'll drive you. Jim and Alex will take you any day. But that idea that like, how, it's absurd. How are we politicizing this stuff that we used to take as facts? Well, look, that's true.

And if you notice the generic polling about the American public, they're 40, 50, 60, 100 worried about the survival of democracy. But it's not just here. It's all around the world. This notion of, can democracy, can it be sustained? But I'm optimistic and I really am.

I love that. No, but I genuinely am because this younger generation, the ones you speak to, up to, I set to 30 when I saw it about the younger generation. No, I'm not being facetious. I'm being deadly earnest. Is the best educated, the most open, the least prejudice, the most giving generation in American history?

And we're going to break through this. We really, truly are. And you think about the things that how ugly things have gotten, but think about how much we've gotten done. I mean, did, you know, when I ran, I said I was running for three reasons. Restore the soul of America, to rebuild the middle class.

And because when the economy is built from the middle out, the poor do have a road up and the wealthy still do very well. And to unite the country. The third part's being the hardest because I went through my career as being the guy who got a lot done with Democrats and Republicans

for all those years I was in the Senate. Hell, I was there for 36. You started when you, you were 29 when you became a Senator. Yeah, and I, and what's got me involved was the, I came from a state to its great shame, was segregated by law. And we have the eighth largest black population in America.

And I was really moved by the civil rights movement as a kid. And I remember we moved down from Scranton, Pennsylvania when Cole died. My dad was not a coal miner, but he was a salesperson. And we moved back to this little town called Clamont Delaware. And it used to be a big steel town. And we lived in what became projects,

but at the time they were apartment complexes that were modest compared to where we had lived. And I went to a little Catholic school called Holy Rosary and it was across the street from the fire station there. And I remember my mom used to drive us up to school. I was in third grade and drop us in the park and allowed to go into school.

And I see this bus go by all the time with only, then we referred to as colored, but black children in it. I didn't understand it. Because they didn't know it. There were hardly any black people in Scranton. And what was that all about? I said, well, they're not allowed to go to school, honey.

They're not allowed to go to the public schools here. And then I ended up being the only white employee in the east side of Wilmington, which is 98% African-American. I was a lifeguard there. And then I got involved in, and that's what got me engaged. So that was very inspiring for you. Well, it was, but it also was very angry.

I mean, it made me angry. And like a lot of folks, my generation. And I love reading how I knew I was gonna run for president and I knew I was gonna be. I wouldn't even, I wasn't even old enough. I mean, I'll never forget. I got really involved trying to bring the Democratic Party in Delaware

into the mainstream and Northeastern Democrats. It was more a Southern Democratic Party. You're a Southern part of my state to Delmarva Peninsula. Talk cats like this, it's just very Southern for real. It's right at the Mason-Dixon line, right? Yeah, it actually goes north-south. Most people don't realize that, but yes, it is. And the end result of all that was

that I got involved, I was a young lawyer. I went to law school and I went to work for a guy who was a local, he was a state rep. He was a great trial lawyer. And one thing led to another and they tried to reform the Democratic Party to make it more, I mean, the Republican Party was more liberal than the Democratic Party.

At the time I was a Rockefeller Republican. Anyway, to make a long story, not quite so long and boring, I was asked to help put together a group of young people to get someone to run for the United States Senate. And I kept working on it. And I went to an off-year convention in Dover, you know, the Democratic Convention. And I was, it was between the evening,

the afternoon and evening session, and I was in a motel, small motel down there, shaven, and I was in the bathroom and I had a towel on and shaven cream and I was bangin' the door. And I opened the door and there's four leading Democrats, two of which I'd never met before, the two former governors and a state chairman

and a head of the Supreme Court who had retired and family, more senators than any family American history, the tunnels. And I was, I thought it was the guys I drove down with. I was 27, 28 years old. And I said, we gotta talk to you, Joe. We just had a dinner together. And I said, okay, gentlemen, I walked in

and quickly got in the bathroom, thinking there was a towel. I all had a towel, wiped the shaven cream on my face, came out and you know, there was desks that are nailed to the wall and the headboards nailed. And I'm leaning against the desk and they said, Joe, we were thinking you should run for the Senate. I said, oh, I said, no, I said,

You said, can I get dressed? No, no, no, I'm serious, it's true story. And the Chief Justice, the former Justice said, I said, I'm not old enough, sir. He said, you obviously didn't do well in constitutional law, Joe. Said you don't have to be 30 to get elected. You had to be 30 to be sworn in.

And I remember going home and I don't know what you guys ever did. Inspired a great professor in high school and college. No, they never did. No, no, no, no. But I mean, there was a guy that I wasn't a good student either. If you're implying they weren't. No, they weren't students at all.

But here's the point, I got from riding home and I stopped at the University of Delaware the next day. I had a professor named David Ingersoll. He was my political philosophy professor. And I said, they used to ask me, this is crazy. And he looked at me, he said, Joe, remember what Plato said? And I'm thinking, what the hell did Plato say?

And he said, the privilege that apparently good people will pay for not being involved in politics is being governed by people worse than themselves. And it was the middle of Vietnam war and a lot of our things going on. One thing led to another. Oh, the penalty for not voting. Yeah.

I used to play with Plato as a kid. Yeah. See, I told you, by the way, I wasn't a good student either. This is just an inside joke to torture them. Mr. President, your ability to, as you always have, across the aisle and broker these great agreements, if somebody who was, what would you say, you were 29 at the time, 29 now coming into politics

with how dynamic this political culture is and the necessity, the vital that we come across the aisle to one another, what would you suggest to them? What's the secret sauce to be able to do that? How do you identify things that both sides could get excited about? You know, because I got elected so young, everybody thought there had to be some secret sauce I had.

I had no, you know, there must have been something. And so I've had, that's about everybody's ever sought the office of the senator, governor, young person in the last 40 years of the economy. They say, you know, what is it? And I say the same thing and I mean it from the bottom of my heart. I said, figure out, what are you willing to lose over?

Yeah. Or don't get involved? Because if you don't know what you're willing to lose over and have something that important to you, don't get engaged, don't get involved running because it can make a lot of money and do a lot better doing other things than being in politics. And so one of the things that does is that, you know,

there's a joke among my colleagues when I said it, no one ever doubts I mean what I say. The problem is I sometimes say all that I mean. We'll be right back. Thank you, Rocket Money for your support. Listener, do you know how much your subscriptions really cost? Most Americans think they spend about 80 bucks a month

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Mr. President, we, this is, you know, we're not qualified or smart enough to ask you great questions. So what we'd like to do, I would love to know just some of the, just the simple sort of human stuff. I want to know, to the extent you're comfortable telling us, like just like the dumb stuff in your life. You want to know his personal stuff?

His personal stuff, yeah. Yeah, he's a person. What time do you get up most mornings? And do you use an alarm clock? I get a staff call. I have an alarm, but they don't trust that. So I need, my routine is there's a great guy who used to be a physical therapist at the, at the White House.

Now he comes in. I, What do you mean he comes in? He comes in and he gently rocks you? He doesn't rock me. I tell you what, he works me when I go up. There's a gym upstairs and so eight o'clock I, I'm up at seven, seven, 15.

I go up and work out from eight until a quarter of nine. And what are we doing up there? We, we, we, we blast him back and buy. Well, yes. As a matter of fact. Oh, I love it. You look like you're in great shape. Yeah.

Well, I feel good. I feel good. I, the thing I learned the difference in age, if I let it go for a week, I feel it. I know, right? Again, he's looking at you, Sean. Go ahead. Wait, no, I used to be able to go for a week

and nothing would change. And I was like, no, it's true though. It's not serious. Believe me, we're all over 50 and we notice, we talk about it all the time, how much harder it is getting on top of it now. What's your, what's your kryptonite? If something's in front of you, it's going to get eaten.

What is it? I know what it is. Is it French fries? Oh, I know what it is. Hang on, hang on, I know what it is. It's the same thing. It's ice cream. And I'm going to, and Sean and I are both-

Chocolate chip. Oh boy. That's what I wanted to ask. I like chocolate chips. I'm a ice cream, I will- I'm a dollar's hell. I'm known for my Ray-Ban sunglasses and chocolate chip. I wanted to, so I wanted to also say that the Ray-Bans,

I mean, this is the greatest look of a president, all president- You're the coolest guy in the world. Yeah, of course, we're Ray-Bans. By the way, all those years, when I ran for the first time for the Senate, I had been up to that point, even though I was a practicing lawyer,

in order to get free rent, there was a country swimming club that had 17 acres, a little tiny house on it. And they let us live in the house as long as I would hire all the pool people, right? Sure. But all from the time I was 16, I was a lifeguard, I did all I ever did.

So the headline was, you don't want this guy, the only job he's ever had is a lifeguard. By the way, I'm like, yeah, he's like ripped in pants and wearing sunglasses. By the way, the guy before you, he didn't even need sunglasses. He would just look at it in a clip. I want to, I want to, first of all,

I want, first of all, there's no reason coconut should ever be an ice cream. I just wanted to say that. I like coconut. Yeah, I like coconut. I like coconut ice cream. Coconut is a country pie. Well, coconut pie is fine, but not an ice cream.

I can't do the ice cream. I'm a simple plain veneer. More for us. Anyway, here's the thing. I want to know about suits. How many suits? Yeah, yeah, I had the same question. Right?

You only need like two or three. Nobody's picking. Who's picking the suit in the morning? Yeah, and like me. Really? So you've got a big closet. Yeah, no, I have, I guess I have a, I have. Less than a hundred or more than a hundred?

I have probably less than 15. Less than 15. More than 14. But a lot of ties. A lot of ties. A lot of ties. You can get sassy with the ties. Do you choose ties too?

Yeah. Yeah. Jill doesn't, does Jill ever give you the hairy eyeball? Like, no, please. What do you do with that? Well, she is, if I'm not. I'm sure, you must mean Mrs. Biden. Well, what would it be?

Oh, Jill's fine. The first lady. The first lady. Jill's fine. Joe's fine. Oh, get in the side. No, I'm very nervous. No, no, and, but it's, she gets very upset

if I have not fully shaven or all this excessive amount of hair I have, you know what I mean? What do you do with that? I know how you feel. I think we suffer from the same problem. No, wait, just, you know, I want to get back to just one second. Back to ice cream though.

No, you've obviously accomplished so many, so many amazing things in your presidency so far, one of which is the Inflation Reduction Act, which I was excited about because of global warming, because I hate the heat. I want the temperatures to go down. When it's hot, I get irritable. What's that to do with inflation?

Oh my God. No, it's inside the Inflation Reduction Act. It's the global warming thing. All gonna read one day. But is the ship sailed on fixing this climate thing? Like, is there anything we can do? Oh, should we just give up? No.

You asking the question? No, I meant like what's, is there any hope? Is there any hope? There's a lot of hope. Okay, good. There's a lot of hope because two things, for example, I'm out here. With you at the wheel, there's hope.

Well, I'm out here today with Congresswoman Bass, Karen Bass, and I go over, they have a rapid transition here that needs a lot of work. Well, we're gonna spend $9 billion making a change. But here's the deal. It's estimated to take 124,000 tons out of the air. Let me back up.

If people have a chance to get on a track train and can make it quicker than they can driving their car, they take the train. Yeah, very traffic. And I'm a big train guy. And we've gotten billions of dollars more from, we're spending more on Amtrak than Amtrak initially was spent. And it's all just getting underway.

But it's fundamental changes that are gonna be taking place. And there's so much. And it really does work too. I noticed during COVID, when everyone was having to stay inside here in LA, the skies were, in a week, they were crystal clear. It really does work. I thought you were gonna say,

I noticed too that the roads were really empty and I could just bomb around. No. But they were, the air out here, as you know, his story came out. Well, I know, and this is gonna be a game changer. It's gonna take some... I'm so excited about it.

And by the way, in addition to the $368 billion for climate in that bill, we also have over a trillion, $200 billion that we got passed in the act having to do with dealing with infrastructure. We used to rank number one in the world in infrastructure. We're number 13 for God's sake. We used to, I mean...

And this is a lot of jobs. A lot of jobs. Literally, we've created more jobs in the first 18 months than any present history. 700,000 manufacturing jobs. Where the hell does it say America can't be the manufacturing job in the world? Manufacturing's gone now.

And all that... Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Yeah, and it is a little shocking that how much of that has been lost, and it does fill me with hope with the idea that we can get manufacturing back. Well, you know why it got lost? We used to spend 2% of our GDP

on research and development as a nation. We're down to 0.7%. China's past, other countries are passing us by. But now we're going back to, look, my major goal in terms of the economy was to change the dynamic of trickle-down economy to building from the middle-out, bottom-up, and doing it that way.

And I know I get criticized and understandably for being, quote, the most pro-union president in history. Well, the reason for that is these union folks, everybody thinks they show up and on a job, and you can be a technician. Guess what? You take four or five years, it's like going back to college.

It's like going to school. They're the best in the world. They're the best in the world. And they're all the way, it's cheaper for it. So there's a lot we're doing. And for example, we're going to invest literally several hundred billion dollars in building chips or computer computers.

We invented them. We invented them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So important. So anyway. Trickle-down economics. I want to go find a billionaire and give him 10 grand because I know it'll get to the little guy.

With the, I've got a fairly adult question here. So I've written it out. I apologize for reading. Oh, well, we'll judge if it's adult. With the midterms on our doorstep, okay. Two thirds of the seats that are up for grabs in the midterms are trending to be won by admitted election deniers.

And then that means that elections and consequently democracy as a form of government will most likely be done away with or could be seriously threatened. This is what they're saying that their plan is once elected. So doesn't that current real forecast, even declaration, justify some kind of emergency alert that asks for maximum attention and participation

from every single voter in America? No advocation for Republican or Democrat, just a request to vote in this midterm election. Could I ask you to commit to consider over the next few days using your unique powers president to utilize the emergency alert system for the listener. This is the system that's in place to alert citizens of impending danger.

Yes, it's usually for the weather or killers or kidnapping, whatever. But I don't think it's an exaggeration to categorize this as a light crisis, an existential threat. Just ask the families of the COVID victims what danger is with poor leadership or the citizens of Russia or Ukraine, what happens when the electoral process is merely a facade.

So our TV and radio outlets are required to deliver presidential alerts. And all this would be to simply to air once a night leading up to election day on every TV satellite and cable channel, a quick 10 second card that just simply says, please vote on November 8th. That's all.

That is a great idea. That's the way you can consider. First of all, great idea. And also officially with the president, the longest Bateman question ever, this simultaneously, and it's a great idea. But I understand you needed it. The point you're making is the point.

Just to get people out of the vote. Yeah. And look, you saw, I mean, the best example is the Supreme Court in the Dove's decision said, there's a line from one of the justices saying, women have a right to vote. We'll see it, but basically we'll see if they do. You saw what happened in Tennessee.

Women showed up and vote. Women are out registering men for the first time significantly for this new election. And that was immediate, wasn't it? I mean, that was immediate. And so my generic point is, I think people, particularly younger people, that's what I'm spending most of my time

trying to focus on, people under 30, they in fact understand the vote matters. What I worry about, I worry about the states that have the election deniers and I'm making it harder practically for them to vote. That's what I worry about the Supreme Court decisions on voting that are coming down, that are going to be coming down.

And so, but vote, vote, vote. That's been my, I end all my speeches, everything I talk about. For me to do what you're suggesting, my imagination would end up being a gigantic fight, whether I was using an emergency system designed to save, quote, lives for political purposes. That's not.

No, it's not, but it's not for a Republican or a Democrat. It's just participating in the American process of voting. Just a quick 10 second, boo. Well, guess what? Well, it's great, but guess what? The whole idea is the other team doesn't want people to vote. They don't want open voting.

They don't want to be able to mail in ballots. But they gotta do what the president says, at least until, while you're still president, you could put that little card up there, get everybody voting and save our elections. Well, we're paying to try to put that card up. It'd make a great movie, wouldn't it? Thank you, actor, Jason Bayman.

Hey, can I just say? I'm serious, Jason, you're right. No, he's a great, by the way, it's a great idea, and I really like that. I think that that's pretty awesome. It would be a good use of it, but I think you're right. It would be hijacked, if you will,

by people who would think that you were a blizzard. Well, they should do it one, you know, they're in charge too, I mean, it's just voting. I just want to say, Mr. President, what's crazy for us is we started this podcast in the middle of COVID when everybody else was locked down and we were too, and for us, it was a way to connect. We've been friends for 20 years.

I get to do it with these two guys that I love a lot and who are my best friends. And we just started, we didn't know where we were going. It gives us a lot of joy to know that it gave people, that it uplifted people and made people feel more confident or made people feel more positive in a tough time. You gave them hope, look guys, two things are gonna go down in history.

Number one, more than a million people died. A million people died. And the estimates are those million people had nine close related people, whether they're family or otherwise. The psychological impact on the nation has been profound, absolutely profound. And the other thing is the whole idea

that we're moving, think about this. Graduating from when you graduated from high school, you had your prom, you had, you know, the graduation ceremonies yet. Well, what do these kids have? Kids are graduating. What are the things that they in fact missed that are consequential?

That junior prom, that senior prom, that graduation ceremony, all those parties, all the, I mean, it's like, and it's like the difference. Everybody asked me what was the most exciting thing when you got elected and so on. You know, I was really honored to be, I mean, the greatest honor in the world, okay? But there was no celebration about it.

You're having to do rallies with cars honking. No, no, but I mean it. And that's not who we are. And the other thing people have to remember, our strength lies in our incredible diversity. It's incredible. Absolutely. And other nations are realizing that,

that's why they want to invest here. That's why they want to get engaged here. Or come here for education. Exactly right. And so there's so much, and by the way, I'm convinced we're gonna be able to do a hell of a lot. I love that. Me too.

And I gotta tell you, during a time, I can speak for me, during a time that felt really hopeless and dark. And it felt like a number of years where the sort of the sentiment of the nation was quite dark. Mr. President, you brought a lot of light. So much.

You did bring a lot of hope to a lot of people. Absolutely lightness. And we fed on that. And common sense. And I thank you so much for that. I think that you were able to light it towards you all. Well, the biggest thing, I say one more thing.

One of the things is that people understand that I understand loss. Yes. And I think it's so important that people understand that from that loss, it's never, the pain never goes away, but you can do incredible things. The person you lost never leaves your heart.

I don't know how many times I ask myself, what would Beau do? I'm not joking. And so you just, there's so, people are genuinely empathetic if you give them a shot. And I think just reaching out to people, not me president, but just reaching out to people matters. Think of the number of people who are down and out

and wonder, where in the hell am I gonna go? What happens? Your empathy is genuine, it's sincere, it's infectious, and it's a pleasure to be led by you. Well, you guys are giving me more credit on my thank you. And thank you for the hope that you give to everybody. I really do, I am optimistic. I'm with you.

I'm with you. You know, I will leave you, and we take, you know, we say this to everybody, we have taken up too much of your time. I have a friend of mine who always says, if you're feeling down, call five people and tell them how much you love them. Yeah.

And you know what? It works. It does work. It does work. So give me your number. Yeah, if we can get just, it'll just be a text, I promise that it won't be, Mr. President, thank you so much.

Thank you so much. Thank you guys. No, I really enjoyed it. Thank you. Thank you. Invite me back. Thank you. You got it.

Oh boy. Yeah. Okay. Who was that again, Tom? I turned to Jay, well, we both turned to each other. I almost started crying at the end. Yeah. I almost started crying, I swear to God,

when he was just in the middle. We're just talking about loss. Yeah, and, but even before that, because I had an out-of-body experience about, was like, how did my little dumb ass from Chicago get to this point? At the same moment, I was sitting there, he was telling a story,

and I'm just staring at him going, I'm sitting here watching, giving my full attention to the President of the United States. And he looks you right in the eye. Right. I mean, not a lot of people get to meet him, let alone ask him questions. Because you know, when he's in crowds,

people try to grab him and ask him something really, really fast, but he's on the move, so he can't do it. He has to get him and like, have him there. His, you know, you can tell a lot when you're, you can tell a lot when you're watching somebody on television, or you're watching them on a, you know, talk show,

or you're reading an interview with them, or something like that. You can feel like you can kind of, but being across from somebody, you could, nothing, you can, you can tell everything. He really did seem like the most genuinely empathetic kind. And he truly cares. Yeah.

By the way, it's such a great vibe. And here's the other thing. You know, we talk a little bit about, you know, what side you fall on politically, et cetera, et cetera. You can't blame a guy who has such a great vibe and a passion for the country. And you can hear all the mudsling you want, but when you see someone who's dedicated their life,

has it made a ton of dough? Right. Went into public service at age 29, and has dedicated his life, his whole life to that, through thick and thin. How could you say, yeah. How could you say that what he's doing is anything, but absolutely in the service of this.

And admiration. Yeah, but even just on just people skills and vibe alone, wouldn't you, no matter what party you associate yourself with, wouldn't you want someone like that to represent you? Like he just seems like the greatest guy. That's a great point. That's a great point. He's human.

That's a great point. Even if you don't agree. Right. What do you want? Somebody that like, yeah, has no ulterior motive. The figurehead of the country. It's like, I'm proud of that. He just seems like a decent dude.

You know, just thank you. I know. And of course, in this great person that we're talking about. Not you. Is the president. Yeah, not you. Mr. Joe.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

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