The Tucker Carlson Show - The Hunter Biden Interview

Episode Date: August 10, 2026

Our conversation with Hunter Biden. (00:00) Why Did Hunter Sit Down With Candace Owens? (12:34) The Dark Side of Social Media (35:21) The Importance of Self-Reflection (39:49) Addiction and Sobriety (1:23:28) The Thing Far More Important Than Politics (1:31:51) The Dangers of AI (1:35:27) The Evils of Benjamin Netanyahu Paid partnerships with: Redmond Salt: Use code TUCKER for 15% off your first order at https://redmond.com/tucker Curativa Bay: Take your health back into your own hands. Get 15% off at https://CurativaBay.com/Tucker American Financing: NMLS 182334, nmlsconsumeraccess.org. APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.327% for well qualified borrowers. Call 800-685-5696 for details about credit costs and terms. Visit http://www.AmericanFinancing.net/Tucker. Ethos: Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/TUCKERBattalion Metals: Shop fair-priced gold and silver at https://battalionmetals.com/tucker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hunter Biden, thank you for doing this. Dr. Carlson. I haven't seen you in 11 years. Though I've talked about you. Yeah. As you know. In the meantime. In the meantime.

And then I wake up in morning and you're doing Candice Owens. I love Candice. I do too. I do too. I've taken a lot of abuse for saying that. But I know her and I do, I think she's a great person. As a person, forget the politics and anything. And largely why I'm.

I'm sitting here. We've known each other for, you know, quite tangentially for 30 years. Yes. Is that she, as a human being, is a really, really good person. And thoughtful and generous and has a deep faith. And I just vehemently disagree with some of her positions. And it used to be that way. I remember.

Remember? I mean, when you and I knew each other, it wasn't as if our politics were much different. Right. But everything has, everything changed. And I, and I attributed to one thing. We can get to that, but. What's the one thing? To Donald Trump.

I think he, I think he, I, everybody says, you know, he's a symptom of the disease. And the reality is, is that I think he, is that I think he, you know, he's, you know, he's a symptom of the disease. And the reality is that I think he's one of the most transformational individuals in our political history for all for ill. And I think he had such an opportunity to do great things. And he just decided that all he was going to do was for himself. And but anyway, regardless. We have two hours to talk. We're from the same place.

Yeah. I grew up with your high school girlfriend, I think. So, I mean, I'm very familiar with the world that you're from, because I'm sort of from it too. And I noticed the change during Obama. And I'm not blaming Obama. I'm not blaming anybody. But the society changed.

It was like all of a sudden, if you didn't like Obama, you were a racist. And I felt like in our neighborhood that was the vitality. You couldn't say anything about Obama that wasn't positive. Do you remember that? No, I mean, I think that I had a completely, probably different perspective on that. But I don't discount if you say that you felt that way. Well, it was before then. Like if it was Clinton, you know, I knew a lot of Clinton staffers.

And you could be like, really, Monica Lewinsky? And they'd be like, yeah, Monica Lewinsky or Bush, you know, really the Iraq War? Yeah, the Iraq. You know, it was like. But people seemed to lose their sense of humor in two. 2008. At least my neighbors did it. It was like, what did you, I'm sorry, do you say something about Obama that's not flattering? And that to me, yeah, I can see how you would get that. You know what I mean? I mean, you're a public figure. You're on TV. No, I mean, it like dinner. Yeah, no, I know. But I mean.

And it was the ladies who were all about Obama. And remember that? It's like all the, this whole thing of like, well-educated, humorless, rich white ladies, that all began That may be the case. That wasn't, it understandably was not my experience. No, I bet it wasn't. So how did you wind up deciding to speak in public? And with, first of all, with Candace, which I strongly approve of, but I just want, like, how did that happen?

So the first interview that I did was with Andrew Callahan, and who is a brilliant, in my opinion, journalist and documentarian. And I didn't know anything about him, but I had a lawyer that had done some work for him, that had also done some work for me. And he said,

hey, you should check this guy out. And I did. And what I noticed about Andrew is that I believe he has a real finger on the pulse of what's happening, particularly to a certain demographic, like draft age, 18 to 35-year-olds. and he has a wider audience also.

It's funny that you say draft age. That's an interesting way to put it. Yeah. We may be coming up to, anyway. Do you think we're going to get a draft? No, no. I don't think that they have the... No, I don't think...

Because that's when I physically join the protest at that. I mean, that's so crazy. Well, I think you should physically join the protest at that. join the protest now. I mean, you're already there. But anyway, I met with, I, I watched a lot of stuff that Andrew did. I, I really liked it. And, and, and I went on and, you know, I think that the thing that kind of shocked people was my willingness to be completely open about all of the, about everything, is that I don't, I welcome any question. I always say that addiction is, is never an excuse, but it's often an explanation for some of the things that people,

the narrative that they've been told about me. And they did a beautiful thing to me that was ugly in the moment, which was they completely exposed me in a way that I don't know of any public figure or a person associated with a public figure, particularly family, has ever been exposed. I mean, they literally stole 22 years of my entire digital footprint, from every deleted image to every deleted text to everything. And in that total exposure, there was nowhere to hide.

And for me, I realized, is that the only way to out was through is owning the things that were true and speaking truth to the things that were false. And I did that with Andrew, and I thought it would just be a one-off. But then I, the guy named, well, you're close with him, and I consider him a friend by text. I don't want to sell his reputation as Sean Ryan.

And I sat down with Sean Ryan. And I, and Sean is kind of, you know, MAGA adjacent. He was between 2020 and 2020. and he had said some pretty rough things about my dad, not so much about me, but about my dad that I vehemently disagreed with, and to the day vehemently disagree with. But I thought that Sean was a great listener. And I really appreciated his willingness

to not allow what he had been instructed to believe to infect the way in which he listened. And I sat down with him and we did close to six hours. And you kind of, I know that it seems like this is a very public thing by virtue of everybody watching here. But the fact of the matter is, is these experiences in this long format can be very intimate. Oh, big time. And that was my experience with Sean.

And we connected on the thing that I, have been able to connect with almost everyone, like universally, which is addiction. Yes. And for me, thank God, it's recovery. And I've been sober, clean, sober for, as somebody said, stop saying clean. So I've been substance-free and sober for over seven years now. And I don't think people knew that. I think people conflated my past addiction with, my father's presidency and just assumed that I was still using because you know i mean new york post you know i think they they printed a 1.5 articles about me a day for almost close to four years and and none of it good in all of it with not not positive not not not much it was positive no

not at all anyway long story the long story a lot longer is i'm having that experience the new post at the moment yeah by the way welcome welcome to my world i'm not naked but yeah hopefully Hopefully the naked pictures don't come out. I could call some of our friends. No one wants to see those. Yeah. Well, I didn't think so either, but apparently they do. So anyway, long story short, and long story longer,

I go and I do this with Sean, and this is public now, I can say it, is Sean had dinner with Candace. They live in the same neighborhood down there in Nashville. And he said, you know, I really, really like her. And, and, She told my wife that one of the interviews that she most wanted to do was with me, with Hunter Biden. I'm not referring myself in the third person. I haven't gotten to that point yet.

And, you know, I thought about it. And like you, and we've talked about this a little bit, but like you, McKenna said some really, really awful things, not just about me, but also about my dad. You know, the whole Biden crime family thing, but really, really kind of pointed out. things. And I believe that if I could sit down with her, not to convince her of anything, but to see that I was just as human as she was and that I own my feelings. And I've been incredibly transparent about them. I have, and I thought that if we could find that, you know, commonality that we could have an actual conversation. And that's what occurred. And I don't agree with

Kansas still on a lot of stuff. And I almost feel like, like, why do I have to make that, you know, caveat as it relates to it? Because I never used to have to make that caveat. Going all the way back to the beginning of our conversation, how did it change? I truly believe that the level of vitrial meanness and cruelty in our politics has always been there. But now, never like this, never in a way in which it is, it is practiced with impunity. And, and that to me has, I mean, I think that I can market. Now, it's interesting that you say that, that your experience is that that kind of division started in 2008. But nothing like this, Tucker. You know, a lot of people hit that afternoon slump and immediately reach for another cup of

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Canadian new vehicle total registrations for calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. Real Canadian Superstore has everything you need this back to school season. Save on lunchbox savers like Ziggy's sliced Ellie Me products for always 375. And get life brand pure Vita shampoo or conditioner for $8 each. At Real Canadian Superstore, when you're ready, we're ready with a whole world and more. Well, I mean, and it's not even on partisan lines. I mean, the divisions are so intense. I always thought of divisions as racial or religious, you know, you're Protestant marrying a Catholic, you know, or black person marrying a white person.

I feel like the divisions now are ideological and political. And that's, I mean, this morning, I texted Erica Kirk and Candace Owens, both within like an hour of each other, not related to each other, but just because I really like them both. And I'm not embarrassed of that. And I've, and that's my right, by the way. I get to like people whether or not I'm fully aligned. their program, right? That's my view. I've taken so much abuse for that. It's like, how could you be friends with two people who disagree with each other?

Well, I don't know. I am. Right? What world do we live in? Well, that's kind of how I feel. That's strongly how I feel. First of all, I decide who I like. You don't get to decide who I like. Don't you feel that? I do. And I think that what it is, it's a reflection of this, is that who are you getting that from? You're getting that from other people with. with niche audiences with big microphones in front of them. You're getting that from the comment section that I know you don't read.

No. But other people in your organization read from, you know, on X. You're getting that. I think we have literally been torn apart on purpose. Because not because it was the, I don't think that the people that created the social media platforms that rule our lives to this day, thought, this is what we're going to do. We're going to create something just to tear people apart. What I think that they did was they created a monster in which they realized that it is fueled

by division and vitriol and conflict and making you question yourself. I mean, let me give you an example. Remember that the whistleblower for Facebook when I think Facebook was still Facebook? It happened like in 2022. She was a senior executive at Facebook and she came up to the hill. And this is a nonpartisan thing. And she came up to the hill and she had all of that documentation of internal studies within Facebook that showed that the that there had been something like, and I forget the numbers. So don't hold me to it.

But an exponential increase in the number of. teenage suicide among girls between the ages of 13 and 17 years old. Exponential. That began with the inception of Instagram. And then not only an exponential increase in actual suicides among teenage girls, but an even greater increase. If suicides went up triple, girls reporting self-harm went up by like 300% over the course of like a the inception of Instagram until you know 2022 when this woman walks in with all the document and Instagram knew that and knew that it was literally directly related to their algorithm sending these uh messages to girls that they are not worth that they they need more that they that they that they're what

whether it's about their bodies or body shaming, and continuing to send it over to the other than knowing the negative impact that this happened, but it's because it made them money. It's because you become addicted to that, you know, that response and that Instagram would get with that bag of heroin in your pocket known as an iPhone. And you know what they did? Nothing. They buried the report.

They literally did nothing. I mean, nothing. So my question, and then what happened, this woman, whistleblower, comes forward. She brings all of the evidence that Facebook meta knows about this. And she said, like, now what do we do about it? And you know what Congress did? Senate, House?

You know what they did? Nothing. We have done absolutely nothing. Well, it's just suicides of our people. I mean, not a big deal. That's what I'm trying to say. It's bonkers. I couldn't agree more.

And as it relates to our politics is the same thing. We are being fed the equivalent of a suicide pact by organizations and companies that are run. By the way, literally a handful of very, very, very, not just generationally, but wealthy people to the degree that we haven't seen since the robber barons. It's a turn of the in 1900s. in late 1800s. And those people, I'm not saying are evil,

but what they have created is a tool. And a tool can be either a hammer can build a home or it can tear down your house. And they build a tool and they make more money by tearing people down. They make more money by dividing people. They make more money. And so they just let the algorithm rule.

and it's tearing us apart. And I'm not saying that's the only problem. Not myopic enough to say that all of the issues that we have. But going back to Donald Trump. Because for me, the one existential threat that I think that we face as a country is Donald Trump. I am not this believer that Trump is merely the symptom of a disease. I believe that Trump is central to why this disease has gone from a local epidemic to a pandemic to a pandemic in the United States of America. It's not a defensive Trump to ask then why on the big failures of the Trump administration, the real ones, the ones that, you know, history will record like this war, there's been no pushback from.

the other side at all. Yeah. So that tells you, I mean, I, you know, you could say lots of things about Trump or bad, but getting us into a war we can't win in which Americans are dying in Iran that will only diminish America's power and bankrupt us. I mean, that's the only exit, really. Yeah. And like, no, no, Chuck Schumer is like, yeah, it's bad, but of course he endorses.

Like, the whole leadership structure endorses that. So, like, can't really say, like, they like Trump. now. Yeah. I don't know if they like Trump. Maybe it's like he's obnoxious or whatever, but he's doing what they want. I think it's a little bit of it at a, well, by the way, I don't disagree that there's an enormous failure of the, of what I call the elite oligarch Epstein class of Washington, D.C. Yes. That are, that you and I both know very well. Yes. And that have. And that have. that are as interested in protecting their corporate overlords as they are in protecting anything. And, I mean, just take like the issue of stock trading, okay?

Yeah. My dad in 1972 took a vow that he would never own a stocker or a bond. And he kept that vow since 1972 in over 50 years of public life. and he retired from the presidency is having probably the lowest net worth of anyone that had ever entered the presidency. And meanwhile, he got tagged with this idea that he, you know, is the Biden crime family

and that, you know, all of that crap. But my point being is this, is that how is it that we have not been able to pass a law? I couldn't agree more. I know you agree. But how is it possible? And it's not just Republicans. Pass a law that prohibits members of Congress and trading.

Yes, of course. It's the most common sense thing in the world. And it should be in the administration too. It should be anybody with the access to the most valuable insider information of all. And meanwhile, not only are we not passing the law, Donald Trump is selling $100,000 early access to his true social tweets, which is just a front running for insider trading. Literally, in the open. and that's what I mean

the quantitative, qualitative difference of Donald Trump as compared to anything I've ever experienced in politics before is the sense that the rule of law is only applies

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

And then all of the money that Donald Trump has – openly said that he made in his financial report in the first 500 days of the presidency. And it is over $3 billion. And it takes the entire wall. Yeah. I mean, you can't argue that. I mean, presidents shouldn't make any money in office. Like, what is this?

No. And by the way, this whole idea of a blind trust. And so that's what I mean by the qualitative and the quantitative difference. And the idea that there are still a group of people out there that voted for Donald Trump because they thought that they were going to be able to change things. You know, it talked about this a little bit and before we came on. But my hero, and I know that you are to, as it relates to in public life, people that is one of them with all of his faults was Teddy Roosevelt.

Great. And Teddy Roosevelt. A side picture of him over there to my great-grandfather. Yeah. I got something for you, by the way. but the Teddy Roosevelt by all accounts

came very close to abusing the power of the executive oh you think he certainly did but he did it because he realized that in order for this experiment to be able to continue

you could not have a an unfettered oligard class. Yes. That drained all of the wealth of a country and put it into their pockets while the other 99. No, by the way, and people don't understand this. I'm not talking 1%. I'm talking the 0.01%.

There are only 9,000, like a little over 9,000 families in this country who are billionaires. out of 350 million people. You know what the, the, this is shocking to me. You know what puts you in the top 1% of income owners in this country? No. Annual, $750,000. That's the top 1%. 1%.

So the people that I'm talking, I'm not talking about taxing or redistributing wealth among the top 1%. I'm not talking about it even in the top 0.5%, which would be like $10 million. I'm talking about the 0.01%, literally about a little under 10,000 individuals in this country, that control and that have almost like 40% of the entire wealth of a nation who decide. Nine thousand families have 40% of the entire world. I take somebody do the numbers for me.

I probably screwed that up completely. But in an ordinate amount of the of the, of the, of the entire. entire considered wealth of this country. Well, you can't have democracy under those circumstances. No, you can't. And Teddy Roosevelt knew that. And what he did is he went out and he used the power of the executive to be able to go out and bust the trust and redistribute that wealth.

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

And it, because it has a bird habitat that has, I don't know, like half the species of wild birds. And he comes to Teddy Roosevelt. And Teddy Roosevelt just goes out and he says, okay and he turned it into the first national park I think and and then he went out and he did that across the country I mean can you imagine doing that today no no and but you can you even imagine the people in not the people Donald Trump having a thought about using the power of the executive to benefit anyone but himself first. No.

No. And that's the thing. But I also look back on the last 25 years, 20 years anyway, and I can't really think of many big executive initiatives that benefited the majority. No, neither do I. And that may be a question about the unitary executive and the, but no one has ever done it in a way

in which they're, you know, where literally, I believe that everything that he has done contains not just an underlying current of how does it benefit him personally. It is the first thought of everything that he does. Yeah, I think that's true. Yeah. The problem I have with focusing on Trump,

and I'm trying not to be defensive because obviously I campaigned for Trump and with Trump and spoke at the Republican National Convention and defended Trump for a decade on Fox News, so I'm definitely implicated in it, obviously. but it's not just defensiveness. I think two things. One, focusing on Trump as the source of all evil in the world drives you crazy.

Like I saw that happen to my... I don't believe that. I don't believe that he's the source of all evil. Right, but you know people who feel that way, who literally I had one of my closest friends went off the deep end. Just like, Trump! And all of a sudden Trump's under the bed and it's like, whoa, whoa, it's monomania. Yeah.

But I also think it's like... He was under my bed. Just take to be clear You win Along with some of his His friends It's so good But second

It's like exculpatory To the rest of us It's like I don't know We I watched a lot of crappy stuff Happened in D.C. Went over the 35 years I lived there

And I didn't even recognize it as crappy At the time And we're all kind of implicated in this We've had a lot of bad leaders Actually or mediocre leaders I don't know We've had a flamboyantly corrupt leader like this

sudden we haven't ever that's true we've had a lot of low grade kind of like what's in it for me leadership and we tolerated it and we celebrated things that were not impressive at all and pretended they were impressive and oh so brave and all this is like it's all crap actually we're kind of this is the end of like a long cycle of mediocrity that's all I'm saying okay so I I've owned up yeah okay to like for instance is uh I'm absolutely certain that my engagement in Washington, D.C., as, you know, when I took on Burisma, when my dad was vice president as a client at the end of the year, it was a stupid thing to do. Yeah. You know, because I wasn't fully aware of what a swamp it was and the narrative that would be able to be spun.

It was a horrible idea. Now, I had my reasons, okay, but they're not good enough. I own that. I own the idea that I do believe that there is this revolving door in Washington, D.C. that needs to be shut in which people come in and out of administrations. We know them all. They're trading on access. And they're not bad people that are trading on access.

I did not trade on access. You can look through 22 years of mine. But I know this. I know that I received incredible privileges that. that no one else in the world, including to the point of my pardon. No, literally there's no one else in the world

that was in my position that their father happened to have the authority and the power to do it. And I realize how privileged I am. But I think that there is a... I think that there needs to be a reckoning with... If I'm willing to do that,

I think that you... And I saw the... And I, like... I like Thomas Massey. I like where Marjoriello Green is going. I like that there are people that have kind of woken up to the... But a lot of the reason that we're here is because of Fox News. A lot of it has to do with...

Well, we're in a war right now because of that we're losing because of Fox News. I couldn't agree more. And so I just think that... I don't think that every... problem this country faces is because of Donald Trump. I don't think that he is the, you know, the source of all evil. I don't even remotely believe that. I do believe this, though. We are at an inflection point in this country, whether you, it's because of the technology as relates to AI, and as it relates to our debt in the fact that Donald Trump is responsible for, what, 20% of the

entire debt of the entire nation over the course of the, you know, since its inception. Yeah, it's bonkers. Yeah. And we are in desperate, desperate need of leadership. I agree. And so I am, I want, I want to reach cross to everybody and say, like, look, let's figure out the things that we can agree on. Instead of like pointing, you know, the, and constantly. And one of the things that I think that we can agree on is that we have the exact wrong leadership at the exact wrong time. Homeownership has always been at the center of the American dream. It is an actual asset, a place people work their entire lives to build, a place of stability and security and real value. Right now, though, too many homeowners are stuck

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So I think you're kind of making my point, which is that, you know, finger-pointing is unhelpful except when we point fingers at ourselves. That is very helpful. Very helpful. It's very important to say. That's kind of what I was inarticulately trying to express to you, which is like it gets the rest of us off the hook to point to one guy and be like, it's all his fault.

It's like actually it's all of our fault, including mine. And I, you know, famously advocated for the Iraq War and thought that was the last stupid thing I was ever going to do. It turns out it wasn't. I advocated for all kinds of things that I now regret advocating for. particularly the things that you said about me is deep regret no I do actually I mean I yeah I mean I regret in the sense

that as someone who has dealt with addiction not quite as in exciting ways you did but I've been there for sure you know extend grace to people who are out of their minds like you would think I would do that I should have done that more so I do I do regret that But no, what I'm saying is like you look back and like I really thought that I could influence Trump. Talk about that.

Not going into this war. Yeah. Talk about. I think that that's a really interesting. No, I mean, that's the core of it right there. Because you said, the things that you said about Trump after 2020, which are famously out there. Oh, when I got pissed in a text with a producer and then Foxx. Out of context.

Yeah. And all that. Yeah. Yeah. Wonderful organization you worked for. Really ridiculous. And so, and talk about how you came around in 2024, not as it relates to like you just a knee-jerk reaction

to being opposed to Democrats, but why? Oh, no, it was a very specific trajectory. I was, this is like such an impossible rich guy thing to say, but just a fact I was in Europe with my kids. Yeah. On the med, the August of 2023, I think. and Mara Lago got raided. And that was like, that was ridiculous.

On a documents charge, really? And I'm from the city. So like I know a lot about the document stuff. And it was like transparently absurd. They're literally sending armed FBI agents into his bathroom. Like, no. And so to me what that said was Trump is actually being persecuted by the Uniparty. Therefore, he is its sincere opponent.

And my overriding feeling, since I, I wrote a whole book on this 10 years ago, is that the problem in Washington is that on the big questions of the economy and foreign policy, both parties agree. It's the agreement that is the threat, not the disagreement.

So I thought that, and I thought, well, Trump is clear, they're trying to put him in jail on these nonsense charges, and they are not, they were nonsense. Well, they're nuclear secrets. That's not true.

And I was like, so he clearly is their opponent. So I thought, and this is my sin, I can have an effect. And my goal, literally from that moment up until February 28th was,

I don't want to go to war with Iran, because I really saw that as the end of a lot of stuff, of the, well, the post-war order, which is kind of ridiculous, but compared to what, you know, I'm kind of against the post-war order. On the other hand, I'm not sure what follows would be better. So I was really focused on this Iran thing, and I knew that both parties were for it. Schumer is totally for it. Lindsay Graham's totally for it. They're all colluding against America to start this regime change war with Iran.

And I was like, I'm going to single-mindedly focus on it. That's all I'm going to do with my life is I'm going to, and I knew a lot of people in the Middle East and I thought, oh man, I can do this. And I realized on February 28th, first of all, I had zero power, okay, but it was mostly vanity. I was like, I have a mission. I can do this. And it was, it was, I overstated my own influence, like dramatically in a very embarrassing way. And my own importance. And like, I thought I could do things that, like, I had no control over any of this stuff. And I was humiliated correctly. I was humiliated in front of my wife

I was like I'm doing a good thing and so yeah I was mad at Trump but I was also really mad at myself and so that's that's the story and I actually am really grateful I went through that because it puts your own power in context you think like

you've got all this you know whatever SWAT and you have zero so what next I have no idea but I mean I mean really What for me? Yeah, not just for you, but what next for all of us? Like, I am, I've been out talking to people and a completely different audiences, you know,

across the board. And the most significant reason of why I decided to go out and talk is that what I realize is that my experience is not only not unique. It's almost universal. Now, to the degree that my experience, my addiction, overwhelmed me, is sometimes often exaggerated by virtue of how much attention has been paid to it. You know, there's two years of my life.

So people noticed. Yeah, some people noticed. Oh, yeah, exactly. God, it was awful. I mean, notice to the degree that, you know, my wife and I were living in the hills in L.A. And we had this little place. And I was just early in my recovery.

And Trump from the Oval Office invited in these right-wing influencers, these MAGA influencers online. And this is back in 2019. And he started the Where's Hunter thing. And the next day, the New York Post printed an aerial photograph of the house that I live in, where you could stand on the street below to be able to look through the floor and ceiling windows. And a group of men with bullhorns and Magahats showed up at the door banging on the door with my then pregnant wife, who was home alone, who literally fled the house.

They chased her in a car and literally ran her off the road. and that was my experience for like a two-year period of time until my dad was elected and then we got Secret Service and we'd left that house because we in the middle of the night and a and the next house we went to they found us in this documentary filmmaker ended up being like a he wrote a whole scripted film he parked a billboard truck we're in L.A. Yeah in L.A. in Venice. I was right on South Venice Boulevard. He parked a a one of those digital billboard trucks in front of my house that ran all of the nude pictures of me smoking crack.

Actually? For a week, straight. And then sat on the canal with bullhorns in a canoe and just shouted at my house over and over again for a week. Then we had to leave that house. Did you know him? Yeah. No, no.

God, no. Some crazy guy, you know. I mean, he was not crazy. He was, you know, he then went on to make a, like, a whole movie about me. But anyway, my point... Did you see it? What?

Did you see it? No, I didn't. I did not see it. Do not go see that movie. I didn't know it existed, but then... But, you know, my point is that I have... The total exposure that I've had, has given me this incredible gift.

And number one is that by that transparency is that I don't have any more secrets and the secrets that I felt ashamed of. Like just the word crack. Like, you know, I mean, it's so heavy. It shocks people. All of the associations that people make out of, particularly of our generation.

Yes. And to be able to say, speak about it openly. And what I've found is, is this deep connection with people. There's no wall between me and them anymore. And because they know all of my flaws. The ones that you would never want to show anyone. And they know I'm willing to talk about them. And in that, they're able to come up to me and say, I mean, everywhere I go, when I got off the plane in the airport, someone came up to me told me about their experience in recovery. Thanks for what I'm doing.

You know, they got their brother just got arrested, though. It's in jail. You got to do something about the fentanyl deaths here. It's everybody. And it's been an incredibly beautiful, beautiful experience. And I say to everybody is that I'll talk about the politics. But it's really the bait to be able to talk about the thing that connects us. And so all the way back, sitting down with Candace,

is that the thing that Candace and I were able to connect on in a very human way was her own experience, not personally, but with her family and addiction and the people that she loved. And I don't know anyone that hasn't been impacted by it. That's for sure. Yeah. And I guess what my point is, is that by starting there for me,

I feel like our connection as relates to it. I've known you've been sober for well over 20 years now. 24 years this month. 24 years this month. And so your capacity to be able to understand it at that level and also at a family level makes it a lot easier to like, you know, see the hunter that you thought that you knew. And I think, and by the way, I'm not putting words into your mouth.

No, I think that's 100% true. But the thing for me is that with you, the transformation, not transformation, because it's not a transformation, anybody that knows you realize this is not a transformation, is out on your own now and not understandably, like anybody that has a job, being beholden to corporate structure. Yeah. Fox News is that I feel as if that combined with the incredible ultimate betrayal, and what I mean by betrayal, of the promise,

the singular promise that was important to you as it related to Trump. Yes. That we would not get into the potential of ending up in a war, a war war war, war, three, or another, incredibly devastating, protracted war in that region. That would expand clearly with the entire global oil supply in jeopardy. It's so crazy. I cannot even believe it happened.

It has given an opening for us to be able to have a conversation that is more constructive about a way forward. That's my feeling. I strongly agree with that. You know, one thing it might make you feel a little better about your life is buying life insurance. Because life ends and the last thing you want is to leave the ones you love hanging. There's nothing worse than that. If you're providing for a spouse or children or parents, it makes a lot of sense. In fact, it's your obligation to think about what would happen if you left.

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they're pretty darn good. And always my, I mean, I've certainly talked about you and all the drama that you went through a lot. I have really only one question, one thing that has bothered me for years now. Yeah. Eight years or whatever, six years, whatever it's been. And so I just want to ask you directly about it. So the laptop comes out, or doesn't come out. I hear that it's in circulation. I get calls from people in that kind of shadowy way that you're familiar with. Way before, right? I can't, you know, I can't remember. So much drama has happened. But, you know, if you're in the news business or politics, like, you know, people call you. There's this thing. You hear everything all the time and, like, how much is true you don't know. I heard about the laptop. And then I heard, you know, so you don't

know if it's real. And then I heard somebody calls me and goes, you're on the laptop. And because you had written a letter of recommendation for college for my son. Yeah. Who didn't end up going to the school or even getting in, whatever. It didn't help. It turns out. Thanks. But anyway, I knew that it was real because who would know that we knew each other, right? No one could fake that and that our wives were friends and all stuff. So, but it's Washington. You know everybody there.

So then I hear this story about how, then the official story comes out about how the laptop was left. You left a couple of laptops in a laptop repair store in Greenville, Delaware, which a town I'm very familiar with. So, and the guy was blind. Then I interviewed the guy who seemed to totally believe the story, John McIsaac. I mean, he seemed to be telling the truth.

But the story did not make sense. Meanwhile, I'm getting, we get approached by Israelis connected to Benjamin Nanyahu. like I know that. Yeah. Who are shopping this stuff to me at Fox News. Yeah. And I'm like, I don't think that that part of the story, the laptop is real.

I thought that from day one. But the way that it entered the bloodstream of American media was not real. So I just want to ask you point blank, did you drop off laptops? No. And this is the thing that I've said over and over again. I have literally zero recollection of memory of ever dropping off a laptop at John Paul McIsaac's. No, the answer is no. And John Paul McIsaac...

It's wild! So John Paul McIsaac, who's legally blind, who on the day when the laptop became public, sat outside of his shop and gave an interview, and flat out says that he doesn't remember seeing me. He couldn't identify me. And also that his security cameras that he has don't have any footage from that time.

And so regardless, though, regardless of anything, just this. The laptop, according to LeB Partners, under oath in his testimony before the House Oversight Committee, was being sought by Rudy Giuliani in Ukraine all the way back in 2018. And so Rudy Giuliani is working with a guy named Andre Derkatch, who was a MP in Ukraine and a known Russian GRU agent. So Rudy goes over there and basically takes his dossier and receives information that Hunter Biden's hard drive, not laptop, is for sale. And the person that they can go to is this other Ukrainian-Russian oligarch who is living in Austria. That's what Levin and Egar Fuhrin were doing, getting on the plane before they were arrested.

So how did this- Before John Paul McIsaac was ever. a twinkle in anybody's eye. I believe that. The story, that was always the weak part of the story. Like, he drops off a laptop and forgets them. So even John Paul McIsaac, okay, there is no such thing as a laptop. The laptop that he

eventually turns over a year later, 18 months later, to the FBI. The thing that he that is distributed and disseminated, that John Paul McIsaac claims that he got off of a device was

a hard drive. And that hard drive had a limited amount of information, a limited amount of like gigabytes. I don't know the difference between a gigabyte and whatever. And that goes into the hands. He somehow can't find anybody. You could, you can't throw a stone in Trolley Square without hitting someone that is, that knows me personally. Right. And he knows that. He's lived there's his whole life. Instead, what he finds through this guy, Applebaum, uh, and is Rudy Giuliani's lawyer, Bob Costello, he turns over this hard drive. The hard drive becomes the platform from which all of the other stolen information from, which by the way, every single forensic expert has made it clear,

is that there's no possible way all of the information that was eventually labeled as my laptop. came from one laptop. It's like the, it's way too large. Came off the cloud. Exactly. They hacked my cloud. They, there's a, there, I read about this in this book. So on Substack, I'm, I'm like laying all of this out.

And, and there's a whole, you know, the NDI, the whole thing about, there's these different silos. There's the Netanyahu silo. the Israeli side, there is a Russian-Ukrainian side of it, and then there are the U.S. actors that include Steve Bannon, Rudy Giuliani, Miles Gao, and a whole bunch of, you know, Lev Parnas, and Igor Fruman, and all of these guys. Well, once the material starts circulating the data from the cloud,

you know, all kinds of people get involved, and they're shopping it for different reasons, and I agree. Yes, and so, but my point is... But who stole it? Well, from the cloud? Yeah. Well, I don't know. You have as good a guess as mine in terms of actually who was the original hacker of that information, who has the capacity to be able to do it. And so, you know, I have my, I have my, I have evidence. I don't have a, a forensic, a digital forensic evidence that it was hacked by this person or this entity or this organization, that it was Musad or that it was the GRU or that it was the GRU or that. that it was, or that it was some kid in his basement and, you know, figured it out.

But here's the point. Overall, here's the thing is I get caught in these conversations about all of this. But the reality is this. Of what was distributed that was authentic, it's all mine. All those emails. Yeah, yeah. I know. And you know what?

You know what? Not a single one of them proves? Of any criminality of my father whatsoever. of any way in which I ever sent an email saying, hey, dad, I need you to get this done on behalf of a client of mine. Now, I think that's dispositive. And I challenge anybody because it's all out there. The entire digital footbook, and I'm not just talking about my emails.

I'm talking about, or 20 years of emails. I'm talking about 20 years of text messages. I'm talking about erased voicemails. Like deleted voicemails. delete it photograph. They don't actually delete. That's what you're saying. They clearly don't.

I mean, voicemails. From my dad to me. But that's not the only voicemail that was out there, but not a single one of them in which I say, hey, when my dad is in office or in power, as vice president or president, in which I say, hey, dad, I need you to do this for me, or even contacting one of his staffers. So either I'm incredibly, incredibly, incredibly good at, you know, inactive, addiction as a crack addict. Or it doesn't exist. It truly literally doesn't exist. The entire narrative of the Biden crime family, I mean, I literally, unlike anybody else, is like, I say to

everybody, okay, show me your phone. Because I showed you mine, and you didn't find a goddamn thing. Not one thing. Every investigative body in the United States of America has investigated me for over 10 years at that point. And not one single thing of criminal activity other than use of drugs. And all of the things that are associated with addiction is proved by the laptop. So is the world getting more stable or less stable? That's a rhetorical question. We're not in charge of the world, but you are in charge of, in fact,

responsible for your own family and your savings. The dollar has lost nearly a third of its purchasing power in six years. That's crazy. You know, it hasn't gold. And that's one reason you should think about gold right now. It's about 25% below its high from earlier this year, which is amazing. Gold, relative to its power and endurance, is pretty cheap right now. Central banks are reducing their reliance on treasuries and increasing their holdings of, yes, gold.

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None. What were you doing that day? How did you find out? So it was like two weeks before the election, right? October. So up until the day you had no clue? Because the FBI had the material. None.

None. No clue. Zero. Zero. I'm sorry. I stepped on your answers. What were you doing that day when you found out? I was with Melissa and Bo was, let's see, about six months old. and a friend of ours, we were in L.A.

And a friend of ours said, hey, come out to Palm Springs. I got an Airbnb on like a golf course there, and it's really cool. You guys never been out there. And it's like, we're in the home stretch now. It's like, you know, I have survived the, I mean, because even before the laptop, remember,

I mean, they were beating the shit out of me. That's when Donald Trump was doing the Where's Hunter thing. I didn't have any security like I don't have today, but I didn't have then. It was just me and Melissa and a baby. And anytime we went outside the house, like people would follow us everywhere. And not just to follow us, but to harass us. And because Donald Trump was going to his rallies, and his big line was, and they were selling shirts, where's Hunter?

So everybody felt it was incumbent upon them if they supported Trump and MAGA to find Hunter. you know, to go and find where's on her. And so we drive out to Palm Springs and we get there and we unpack, you know, put my bag in the room and there's like a little plunge pool out of the back of this little house. And I get a call. And it's a friend of mine who was also my lawyer at the time. And he said, some guy saying, the New York Post is saying somebody has your laptop? And, you know, it took me years to piece it all together.

And so one of the things that I've done over the course of the last seven years other than paint, which became literally the, I've always painted, but it literally the thing that saved my life. It just allowed me to focus and occupy my hands in a productive way in which I felt that I was creating and also allowed me to get out of myself and not be consumed by the shame and of my addiction and all the failings that I perceived in myself at that moment of time, which you know in early addiction, and not just through your own experience, but through the experience of watching others, is a really tenuous time. And I've done a lot of writing and it took me a long time to figure this out. Like what happened? How did this? Who was involved? And there's all of these names and there's like a,

you know, a list of 20 Russian names and 20, you know, I mean, all of this stuff. And so I decided on Substack, what I could do is I could basically do the first draft of that and get the audience potentially to participate and give me more information. So I'm doing that on Substack now. And the thing about it is this, is that it was a complete and utter surprise to me. I had like, we had, I was, you know, a little over a year into my recovery.

I kind of made it through the, like what I thought was the worst of it. And then we were just literally thrown in the middle of it. And the worst thing happened was, is that because they were nude pictures, and this is the only reason that Twitter took them down and Facebook took them down, is they violated their own internal rules as it relates to revenge porn. You're not allowed to publish nude photograph of anyone without their consent, no matter what, for whatever reason. and so that's why on the front page of the New York Post and the story associated on the digital

with all of the links were like a ton of nude photos with me of me I've just barely blurred out of the women that were in it all consensual legal all those things would of course they don't make that point and and that's why they took it down but then that became the story you know know, the suppression, and this idea that 40 former intelligence officers said it all, it had all the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign. No one in that 40, regardless of what you think of them. Not much. Yeah, I know you don't.

But no one in that 40 ever said that the laptop wasn't real. But that's what everybody on the right decided to say. First of all, you know, the Intel people are the most dishonest people in our society. By the way, I'm not going to argue on behalf of anybody. All I know is let's just stick to me. No, but I'm just saying like the point of that statement was to suggest that the contents were not real. Well, you may think that, but it definitely did not say that. And all I know is this.

It became completely out of my control. So therefore, now I was not arguing about what was on it. Remember what Rudy Giuliani did. He went to the literally the courthouse steps in Newcast. Castle County, with Bernie Carrick, and he held a laptop, which there's no existing laptop. He had taken a hard drive or a thumb drive and put it and pretend it like there was a laptop. And the one thing he said was this contains images of minor children, which bullshit. I mean, an absolute, complete, and utter effing lie.

And that's what he did. Because you know what it didn't have on it? It had no evidence. and they had it for over a year at this point. It had no evidence of anything other than I was a drug user. But the problem was, and not only a drug user, but crack addict. And the problem was, is that I had gone about nine months before, and I had done an interview with the New Yorker.

And I admitted everything as it relates to my addiction. It's probably one of the smartest decisions I made, not in conjunction with anybody, but literally me and Melissa sitting there, and I said, I'm going to tell this guy everything. I have to get it off my chest. I can't have this hanging out there as my dad moves through a presidential campaign and let the chips fall where they may. And it totally scooped them.

And so what they had to do is create another narrative around it that is evidence of corruption. So when anybody says Hunter Biden, what's your first thought? Laptop. Can I just say one thing, though, that this is what I experienced during that time. the allegation that there was abusive minors given on the laptop. That came from the Israelis.

I'm just telling you that. They came to me with that, so I know that. And one of the things that enraged me about the statement from those sleazy intel guys is that they blame the Russians for it. Now, maybe the Russians had a hand in it, but it was the Israelis who were pushing that.

Fact, fact. I mean, literally, to me. Yeah. So. And you've gone through it. But they're all such slaves to do you. Is there anything? It's just, I'm going to clear with your entire, like, you know,

not a single thing in my anything that is in any way true about that. Well, that's such a serious crime that I think it's just common sense that if there was evidence of that. You think that it's common sense. But I'll tell you what. About 40 million people on X don't think that. There was an abusive minors in there? If there was evidence of abuse of minors. You know how many people call me a pedophile to this day?

Anyway, I'll spare you. But I agree with you. That's exactly right. And, you know, it's... But they were pushing that so hard. And all the intel guys are like, oh, it's Russia. It's like, you lie. You lie.

Because they called me. I sent one of my producers out to go meet with one of the guy who connected to Netanyahu. They were behind that. And I felt that everybody in D.C. knew that. But there was so much pressure never to criticize Israel in any way. that they were just like, oh, it's the Russians. They're the ones penetrating our political system. It's like, you lie.

Everyone knows what's actually happening. This was my perspective. And it drove me insane. And by the way, I didn't say that on Fox News. I'll admit it. I didn't. You're right. I just want to say I was part of the problem also, but I knew it.

But that's a thing, Tucker. Yeah, I agree. Is it, so we're here now. Yeah. No, I didn't say we see Israeli. I'm saying what I'm saying, but we're here now. Yeah. And that's one of the reasons why.

Just on a purely selfish basis for me is that, like, I don't know how you could possibly have thought that of me. And by not saying it, I thought that you thought that of me. I mean, it was one of the, it's like, it's like, I am, it is. Thought that the child molestation thing? Or whatever. Yeah, like all of the stuff that they were saying or any of it. You know what I mean? Like the, the, um.

Well, people addicted to drugs, especially. especially cocaine, I know, for a fact, get pretty dark. That's just a fact. They do. They do. They definitely do in it. Oh, yeah. And the cocaine thing. By the way, it's all there. You can watch it all. I guess I don't know you to tell you that. You can see the hotel rooms and that's the thing. You're not the only person I've seen this. Yeah, exactly. But there's a big difference. It screws up your sex. Yeah. There's a big difference between that and the reality of what's out there, which is the worst thing that you can possibly say about any. And that's my point. My point is that I thought I was, over it. I was in Home Springs. I was there for about three hours. It was the first time that Melissa and I had gone away. Because remember, we're still in that kind of COVID period and people. And so we're out there and I get this call and it's just like your whole world kind of like, you know,

just like this kind of void opens up and you just like think that you're about to get sucked into it. Because what's the worst thing that you could ever say about someone? in my opinion, is that. Oh, is the reality that you're, and that's what Rudy Giuliani was saying. And, and, um... Are you ever close to going back on drugs during this period? No, no.

And because I knew this, is that I, I, I don't want to give people the impression that it's not available to them, that, that, that, but it was a miracle. The miracle of my life, at that moment, despite that, despite all of these consequences, like just not, not, I mean, landing like nuclear bombs in my life, is that I was in a better place and continued to be in a better place than I've ever been in my life. So it's like, you know, I've been stripped to the bone.

There's nothing, there is no, there was no facade. Like, you have to, the entirety of my ego was destroyed. Like all of those things that you protect that out of fear, well, you don't realize that they're out of fear, but almost all of them are out of fear. It's like you're talking about the vanity. Yeah. I'm believing that you could change the course of the administration,

of history, of being there, and that you could overlook all of the things that you know of him in order to save the world. Like, that's a beautiful thing to hear someone admit to be, being that introspective to be able to do that. In the same way, I was so emasculated that I had to make a decision to live or die. And in the living, I had to live in that, that emasculation, that completely strict. of ego. And it didn't, it wasn't instant. And it wasn't like I, um, uh, woke up the next morning and didn't think like the sun would ever come up, which I kind of felt. Yeah. But then Bowie woke up, you know, and those little nine month old or six months old at the time.

And I look at this amazingly magnificent woman that has saved me that is lying there. And I thought, you know what? I have to choose to live. Like, like, I want this life. I want this love. I don't want to be afraid. I'm going to choose to live. And then it just became a matter of moment by moment having to make that choice at the beginning.

How did you mean your wife and get sober? I know. It's the craziest story. and I wrote about it. And I said that if any of my children came to me and told me this story, I would probably have them committed. But it was truly love at first sight. A long story that I've written about.

And I was in active addiction and staying at a hotel. Where? The Petit Hermitage in West Hollywood at the time. I know it well. A neat hotel, yeah. And I was at the pool. I got kicked out the next day, but on the roof. On the roof.

And there's two people sat down next to me where I was alone. I was reading a book. And they struck up a conversation as the pool kind of filled up during the day. And at one point, they turned to each of them. No, I never met them before. I said, you have to, you have to be. our friend Melissa. And I said, sure, sure. And I had no intention to meeting anyone. I'd gone to L.A. basically to choose the coward's way out of suicide, which was I knew that the drugs in

drinking would eventually take me. And I had broken all contact with anyone that cared for me or loved me and they called every day and I just didn't answer. Now and I'm sitting there and it was an incredibly incredibly dark moment in my life and the darkest. And for some reason I did this thing. I said, yeah, yeah, just give me your number. I'll call because they insist it. They insisted that I call this woman. And I said, I can remember any number. If you tell me a number, I can remember it. I can remember it. And, um, and of course I, I can't remember a number, but it was my way of getting out of the situation. And I'd left my book there. So like two hours later, I came back to pick up my book at the on the chasing line. And I looked at that. And the woman said, what's the number? And I said,

and she said, I knew you were lying. And she had a pen in her hand. And she wrote it on my, on my hand. And, um, that night was taking a shableness. And, um, that night was taking a shout. And I was take it a shower. And I didn't, I can, the difference between nine o'clock at night and two 30 in the morning, I, I mean, I literally was staying up 10 days at a time. I mean, it was, it was awful. And, and, and, and, and I'm about to wash this off my hand, I think, I should probably really call this woman. So I texted that number. And I said, hey, your friends gave me your number. Would you like to get a drink. At 2.30 in the morning?

2.30 in the morning. And the response I got back was, I'm paraphrasing, but it was like, who the F is this? And it's 2.30 in the morning? No. And for some reason, in the morning,

I felt like that was really, that's rude to do to a woman. Like it's not just like funny, like you made a mistake or like that you, like that, that's, that was really rude. And I don't know where that it came from in me. The feeling that I needed to apologize and say, I would like to buy lunch. I didn't realize the time. And she had no idea who I was. I mean, none. And except for her friends met this guy at a pool. And so she says that

they said, you really need to go meet him. And she said she'd be over for lunch. And then it was one o'clock and then it was two o'clock and then it was you know should be there in half an hour and then it was four o'clock and then it was six and finally sometime did you know anything about this what did you nothing literally nothing just her first time yeah and that's it nothing not a picture not anything and um I walk up and now I'm over at the sunset marquee which is up the hill because you know every hotel I would say I didn't wouldn't do anything wrong it was just like the the the cast of characters that would be in and out of my room, they decided that, you know, in the morning,

we don't have another, we don't have availability. Hotel looks empty to me. Yeah, well, and so I had moved to over to this other hotel. And this is when I stole a little bit of money to be able to pay hotel bills, and I wasn't in the, you know, the Super 8. But I walk up and there's this outdoor seating area, and I see this woman and she was wearing a denim shirt

just like this. And I walk up to the table and I know this sounds melodramatic and like I'm making it up but I looked in her eyes and I saw eyes that saw me and I said I know that this sounds crazy

but I'm in love with you. That's the first thing you said to a woman you never met before? The first thing. And again, I know it sounds crazy. Yeah. And the craziest part is, though, the miracle of it is, is that she didn't run. She saw through me. I mean, she saw it, not through me, she saw me.

And within three hours, I had told her everything that I had not told the people that tried to love me back into existence for the previous two years. She literally was, I said, I said, about two hours in, I said, I have a, I'm, I'm addicted to crack cocaine. Like, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm killing myself. She said, that ends today. And it didn't end that day. It ended, the crack ended within a week and then the alcohol, yeah, and the alcohol. And the alcohol, and, it within, within, like, 20 days. And tapering. And June, I count June 1st as my sobriety date.

And, you know, from that moment I said that to her, we were married 10 days later. That's, like, one of the craziest stories I've ever heard in my life. And it, and it remains a miracle. You know my daughters. And there's nothing that I love more in the world than them. and the and they spent I always say

the greatest sin of my addiction was my absence from my children as you know the one thing about my dad always taught me about is that they're being available and during a time in their life

when they love their uncle Bo they love their Uncle Boe as much as I loved them and he was like a second and father to them. And in his, after Bo died, and then they, they lost me for a period of time. And there's enormous trauma in that. And my point about talking about the girls is that, like, I don't, like, my father, my family, my sister, my uncle, my aunt, my Valerie, my mom, you know, they all tried to save me. I mean, they, I have the most incredible family in the world. but it took a stranger to see the love left in me.

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

and then finally they have to smack you over the head with a hammer. I believe that so strongly. That is true. It's a fact. And for me, that is the truth about all of this. is that I think that I've been given a gift and the gift of my addiction

that brought me to that point where it could totally break me. Not for me to go out and aggrandize myself in a way in which I tell a different story than what actually happened, but to tell the actual story. That's why I hate talking about the laptop or this or the, you know, defending myself.

But the story that I get to tell is that there is such a thing as redemption. And that's not the outward redemption. This is not like some, this is the inward, that you can find the person that is worthy of love in yourself. All of the things and all of the mistakes that I made in my life. And I don't mean all of the narrative that has been out there, but the mistakes that I've made in my life in terms of relationships in terms of, you know, have all been based in fear. Fear not being enough. Fear of not living up to some expectation.

Fear of being found out. Fear of being embarrassed. You know, I mean, everything from as something as trivial as like, you know, fear of, you know, asking the girl to dance. Yeah. You know? And I drank over that and I used over that. Or fear of, you know, of having. to come to terms with the trauma of losing my mother and my sister, or facing it in any way,

or a fear of being found out that I, you know, like, that I'm not really as good as I think that I am, that I am that person that people, you know, want to view as the privileged fails son that's never done anything with his life. And all of that fear is evaporated. I'm not without fear. I still. But a very different way. And there's no way that I could have gotten here

without having gone through that. And that's the promise of at least not picking up a drink or drug today. Is that maybe I can get there. I'm saying to somebody, I was talking before, I don't think that there's anything that has more guidance in my life than the serenity prayer. Is being able to really truly understand the things that you can change as compared to the things that you have no control over. And that's not about feeling powerless. But for instance, what it made me think of is what you just said.

Yeah, I know I agree completely. And you have to... It's vanity to think that you can change certain. Like, you're in charge of the world now, you're God? I mean, no, you're not. Yeah, and there's that incredible... And I don't know if it's apocryphal or if it's true, that quote from Mother Teresa in which she says,

if you want to change the world, go home and love your family. Exactly. And in loving my family, what I also realize is my family is much larger than my immediate blood. And beyond just my first circle of France, my family is a group of people that are still sick and suffering that are literally to step out that door, that are,

that are, that feel that there is no hope and no way out for them and that they are caught in a cycle of degradation and demoralization and violence because of the drug or the alcohol, which is the worst, in my opinion, struggle that there is um to dick to it yeah i agree with that yeah and um and and and and and but it starts you know in the immediate and then hopefully it radiates out if it's done with sincerity and authenticity and and you're not living a a double life and you know for whatever reason

you're not working on behalf of a corporate chill you're not working on you're not i'm not uh i'm I'm not pursuing a goal of which, you know, I, you know, I'm a consultant in Washington, D.C. And I, you know, I mean, like, what, what, what, it was all bullshit. It was all bullshit. What was I adding to the conversation? What was I adding to the, to the, to the discourse? What, what purpose was, you know, any of, of that at the time? I don't do that anymore.

And that's why I'm an artist, and that's why I write, and that's why I'm speaking out. And that's why I work with an organization called Peak Path Health, which is a great rehab in L.A., but I'm helping set up a foundation for them for aftercare. I work with an organization called Basta Universal, which does homeless prevention and tenant's rights advocacy in L.A. And that's not to say, oh, I'm such a good guy. I mean, because I get paid. And I enjoy the work. and I think that they're really good people.

And I'm ready to substack because I hope to get paid. I hope people go read it so that I can make a living. You know, I was telling you before, my, you know, I really believe in cryptocurrency. I really believe in those things. I want to do something in that space. And, you know, not because of any other thing than I believe in it, but you know what?

I also want to make some money. Yeah. And that's my life now. I get to say that and say, but this is me. I'm not running for anything. You gave me a platform. I'm going to use it. And not only am I going to use it

to benefit myself and my family, but hopefully benefit people along the way. And I would ask the same of you, which I think right now, and not this is like who am I to ask, is that I think that we have such an opportunity to find common ground, to do this a different way.

You are, if not the most, in my estimation, the most talented communicator of your generation. And whatever anybody has to say about you is that there is no doubt, is that you are an incredibly effective communicator, as is Candace, by the way. Yes. And I think that you have an opportunity to, and this isn't like, you know, train all, you know, ammunition on the administration, I'm saying the opportunity to find.

that common purpose. You wonder if it's in the... Without the vanity of it, and I mean it. No, no, I strongly agree. I mean, we're here for a reason, and once you're past, once you get out of debt, it's like what's the point of accumulating money? I really feel that's wrong.

And that's exactly the way I feel. Just get me out of the debt. And that's the other thing. People don't, like, oh, you're like... I mean, millions of dollars. that I know law firms and others and yeah anyway so yeah you know about that yeah but I I wonder if like there nothing you have said you grew up in a very famous political family I know you grew up in Delaware but yeah your world revolved around Washington you went to

school there you live there at the college there yeah yeah went to college there um you know the political system really well. You've said nothing about it, basically. You haven't suggested a political solution to any of this. I don't think that's an accident because I think there probably isn't immediate, I mean, you can make things better in the margins, but like the problems that people face are mostly not political problems. No. Right. So I think that we overstate the importance of like voting for this or that guy. I mean, to me, that's the lesson of Trump. Like, I campaign for the guy. there are things about him I still like. I don't think he's like, you know, he's complicated.

Like everybody is complicated. But it didn't work. It didn't work. It didn't matter that you voted for him. You got the same thing that you were going to get if you voted for Kamala Harris. Like that's my perspective on it. Yeah. And so what does that tell you?

It tells you that you're putting your faith in the wrong thing, which is in a political system, whereas there's got to be a real solution that begins with changing people's hearts. That's what I think. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Because it comes from us. We're trying to find the problem out there. Exactly. And it's here. Yeah, we're the problem. Yes. Right. No, I've discovered that about myself. And so all the people out there that have such a problem with me sitting down with you or sitting down with Candice and like what the, and like I didn't, I'm not hard enough on you. You got to apologize for this and you got to do this. It's like, you know what? F them. Here's my point. It starts with us.

Like, I'm not going to ever change, Chuck. I can get into the whole debate about the Democratic Party and whether you're not going to label something in Democratic Social or this. You know what I think? I like people who believe in what they have a conviction. Yeah. And they're honest about it. I totally agree.

I don't agree with everything that Zrahman Dani does. But you know what? He has conviction. he has competence and, you know, like, I mean, he balanced the budget. Crime is at record low in New York right now. And regardless of what you think about him, is that, like, so from a political perspective, I don't care if it's Zorna Mamdani or Thomas Massey. And I don't agree with 90% of this stuff that in terms, well, I think I don't,

but I don't think that matters in this moment in time. I don't think any of those labels matter in time. I want someone with the courage of the conviction, principles that is, but it all starts here. All starts here. And everybody else can nitpick around whether, you know, all of the labels that we apply to each other

and all of the vitriol and there has to be, like I think there needs to be, you know, accountability for the people that are literally robin us effing blind. And I think that will be accountability for that. that. I think that, but my point is, is in this moment, can we not all see that we are about to reach a point in the evolution of humanity that is, will be a larger step than in the entirety of the existence of this earth? And like, so what does all of it matter? If you have people that drive me crazy like Elon Musk, and every other person that has a hand in, which is a handful of

them and what's happening with AI right now, telling us in, and easily within the next five years, if they haven't already done it, that we're going to reach AGI. And if we reach AGI, then we're not more than a maximum of another five years, more likely two or three, away from superintelligence. And once that happens, happens, we literally have taken a step in the evolution of humanity and of, of, of humankind. And the largest singular step that will ever be taken and are the exponential way in which things will advance from there is completely outside of our control. And the only thing that we can hope for is that we have leaders that are, that have humanity's best interest in

mind. And I don't know. I shouldn't I say, I don't know. I do know. I think we have the exact wrong leadership at the moment. I totally agree. Do you know anybody in your life who you talk to who's like very excited about AI? Because I don't. I don't really know anyone who's really for this. Where's the constituency for this? It seems like the population doesn't want it at all. Yeah, I don't know why anyone would want it in the way that it's being offered to us. Look, what the thing I say is, this. It's not theirs. What their

building is off the back of the output of all of humanity. I agree. It's ours. It belongs to me. It belongs to me just as much as it belongs to a Sam Bushman in the Kalahari.

It belongs to us. From the moment that there was a cave painting that was put into a digital database and the, in a context to the poetry of Shakespeare, to the book that you wrote to my last podcast

transcript. That is what is AI. It's all of ours. Every scientific discovery, every single public dollar, all of it is, we own it. And we somehow are going to make like five or six

individuals in this country trillionaires. by allowing them to literally rob us of that and make it theirs and them decide? Like, do you trust Sam Allman to decide the fate of humanity or any of them for that matter? I've done, you know, thousands of interviews over 35 years and I've never had the feeling of wanting to run out of a room more strongly than I had when I talked to Sam Alman. So he's, he's out of 350 million Americans, he's probably 350 million. millionth of who I trust? Yet.

To control the future of humanity. Yet, here we are. Right? Yeah. Yet here we are. And, and, and, and, and you know what we're doing? Is I'm supposed to hate Tucker Carlson because he's an anti-Semite and he's this, I know you're not an anti-Semite.

I'm 100% no, you're not an anti-Semite. No. No, that's what my point being is that. I would just say so. My point being is, is that. Like, if it's anti-Semitic to point out that BB Netanyahu is evil incarnate, then you know what? I don't know what to say to.

I don't know what to say to people anymore. I mean, all you have to do is just open your eyes. It's literally open your eyes. Open your heart for one minute. Yeah. And realize, you know, I... It's such an obvious lie. It's like, who's even intimidated by that anymore?

My point is, is like, how is it possible? that they're dividing us on things like that. I agree. And I can tell you how it's possible. It's the distraction that is being created by a handful of individuals and the people that work for them to keep us divided through our algorithm.

And as much as you're not addicted to your phone because you're not on social media and things like that, the vast, vast, vast majority of us are, myself included, is everyone has a pocket full of heroin, and they access it literally a thousand times a day. So you're saying you got off crack and more impressively alcohol. Yeah. No, I'm not that bad.

All I'm saying is... But not off your phone. No, no, I am. I'm very, I'm not nearly... I'm very wary of it. I'm very worried of anything like that. But what I'm trying to say to people is that I'm no better than anybody else. I look at my phone just as much as anybody else.

I don't feel that it is necessarily a problem, but what I do find is, like, for instance, is that you gravitate towards the negative things people say about you. Yes. Way more than you ever grab up to the beautiful things that people say about me. That is so true. So I'm on X, and the amazing thing was, is that I go on X and I start talking about addiction,

but I also start talking about, you know, the absurdity of the moment that we live in and some of the players that are that are outsized characters in this in this morality tale we're living through and and there's these beautiful messages from people about their own struggle and their own addiction and you're my sister um I showed my sister what you wrote about X, Y or Z and you know she said it gave her the strength to make it through one more day. And these beautiful things where people would say, hey, I'm a three-time Trump voter,

but I just want to say, keep on, keep it on, brother. Like, I love you for your, you know, for your recovery. It gives me hope. And there's thousands of those messages. But, you know, what happens is that, you know, the one that catches your eye,

the one that says, you know, you shut up, you know, you crack head pedophile, you know, you're criminal and you stole from it like it's like and it was a great lesson for me in the experience that everyone is having not just on acts but across the board in which we're all being and and it's and it's purposeful the thing that i never fully um believed and until i read all this whistleblower is how intentional it is and as long as we're looking at each other as long as we're trying to find all of the things that are wrong with our life in the other.

And by the way, whether it's the other that's the immigrant or whether it's the other that's our neighbor is we're not looking at ourselves. And we're not focused on the things that really matter. And one of the things that really matters is we better wake up, wake up to the way in which we're being led by the nose and have to believe that we all hate each other. And it's making us worse. I mean, there's just one of my favorite scenes in the gospel of Luke is,

you know, the parable to Jesus, the story that Jesus tells about the two men who go to pray, the temple, and one's the Pharisee and one's the tax collector, and the Pharisee looks over and says, God, thank you for not making me that guy because he is a pig. He's a sinner unlike, you know, a right? is a good person like me. And the tax collector who knows he's a sinner because he's a thief and he knows he's a thief,

doesn't even look up, he can't even look at God and he just says, have mercy on me. And Jesus says, who is justified before God? It's not the man who turns to the guy next to him and says, I'm better than you. It's the man who knows it he's not better than anybody. That's the man who's justified before God. And I just feel like all of life is that story.

when you stop looking at other people and being like, you suck. Yeah. And look inside and realize that I suck. That's where wisdom and peace come from. Yeah. There's a scene in the Gnostic Gospels, and I forget what is in the acts of, I forget, acts of Philip or something anyway.

You know, have you read the Gnostic Gospels? And really, you got to. The whole trove of, of, of, Gospels. I mean, a lot of people would say that it's heresy, but it's the, and, um, emperor, you know, when Constantine unified the church under, and, uh, and, uh, declared Catholicism, the, the, uh, Christianity, the, um, state religion of Rome. State religion of Rome. Um, uh, they basically, effectively chose four gospels and banned all the other ones. And they, found in, I forget the, and hominy, these 2,000-year-old texts, which were the other gospels written by Mary Magdalene and written by Philip and written by, and anyway, there's, part of one is this, is it says, Jesus is speaking to the disciples, and this is before, and he says, learn to suffer as I do.

And that is everything. That all wisdom comes through suffering. That is true. And in that suffering, you're able to love. In that suffering, you're able to see the other. It's the exact what you were saying in Luke. Yeah. Is that, is being able to, like, not being the person,

casting judgment. Rather, and by the way, it doesn't mean that you are without discretion. Simply means is that as much as I'm not going to, you know, what is the idea of like my empathy overwhelms my critical thinking. Yes. Is not that. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about, however, is,

is if I can feel this strongly about what they're doing to kids and detention centers in the United States of America, I can also feel just as strongly about, or have as much empathy for someone who feels like they have been completely left out and without any options that are, you know, are living in Bethel, Maine, that feels that this country has completely let them down. And is looking for a hope, something, an object for their anger. And I want to bring them into the fold. You know, I want to be able to talk to them. those people that I think voted out of anger and that are still looking for you know someone to be their retribution for people who are dependent on alcohol which is a lot of

people I think you're absolutely right to say it's the scariest of all drugs because it's the most insidious it's just ubiquits everywhere how do you get off it exactly you said you got off crack in three days or something like that pretty quick. Yeah, well, that's the thing, is it... How do you get off alcohol? Yeah, alcohol is the... And I mean this in this sense, and I have people push back on me, but I... Alcohol is the most destructive drug that there is, not just by virtue of the fact that it is

as ubiquitous as it is. It is, and physiologically impacts your body. It impacts every organ, every major organ, and in particular, every major pleasure. center of your brain. It's the only drug other than benzodiazepam is that you can die from what you're all from. So everybody always, you know, there's the Hollywood version of, you know, how horrible it is to come off of opiates or, you know, or cocaine. And the reality is it's, it's really painful and it's uncomfortable and you think you might are going to die. But particularly as it relates to cocaine. It's out of your system in 72 hours.

there is no more physiological need for it. And you won't die from withdrawing from it. Alcohol, you'll die. You'll go into seizures. And it stays in your body, not just for three days, it stays in your body for at least 30, if not more. And you've created these neurotransmitters in your brain that your brain is still crying, you know, 30, 60, 90 days later,

still crying for you to, to drink. And the worst part is, all you got to do is walk out your door. And usually it's not more than, you know, particularly if you live in an urban environment, you know, a quarter of a mile from wherever you... And no one looks at you funny when you have a cocktail. No, exactly.

And it's encouraged. And so, for me, it was hard work. is that I this time didn't, I've been to a number of rehabs and in in 2019 after I met Melissa and she said

this ends is that I started, I tapered, she had me taper. How did she know to do that? God, it was completely intuitive. And I mean, it was really, really, you know, incredible. And she tapered me,

and then at, At one point, it got really bad. And I had the, like, true Delary Trevinson, and she called a doctor to come over. What's that like? Literally the feeling that you, if you don't remove yourself from your own body, that you're gonna die, because you are.

I mean, there's the real potential of you dying from Caesars. And it's the most excruciating feeling that I've ever had any kind of pain. And I had gone through it before. but I had done it in a clinical environment in which they just, you know, usually use benzodiazepam to win you that way. And so I had weaned enough,

but not enough to stop that. And so I had to go through it. Where were you? I was, Melissa had rented a house, this little house for us in the, you know, up in the hills. I mean, hard to get to from anywhere. Like I couldn't walk. She took my keys.

She took my wallet. She took my phone. phone. She raised every number from it. She, that didn't have the name Biden in it. She, you know, I mean, she had to do the hardest thing for anyone that is, that loves someone is for a period of time, she had to be my jailer and, and my nurse, and literally, you know, nurse me back to life. And it is, you know, it was incredibly intense at the beginning, you know, 24, seven that you have to be there you know because you literally could take it with alcohol not particularly singularly with alcohol you could you could die how long did it take you to feel better and then it's

just 10 days before i could ever really eat anything and taste it actually yeah you know i mean never have any interest in not being forced to eat something and then um and then you start to you know you have this kind of everything is kind of gray scale you know for even after you get a little bit of a boost around 30 days

and then you try to ride that as long as possible but what happens in your brain is that somebody explained it to me this way is that you have these little messengers that that alcohol sends to your pleasure center to your brain

And so the messengers imagine them as little birds. In a normal person, a bird flies up to the bird house, and that's your dopamine or whatever it is, in a normal, you know, in a normal circumstance, it's like you have a happy experience and, you know, sends two birds up, you know, to live in the birdhouse. And the maximum that you're supposed to ever have is like 10.

It's like the happiest. What alcohol does is it sends 20 birds at a time. And so it creates 20 birdhouses. And then the next time, you want to get, you got to get to 30 bird houses. And then it builds 40 birdhouses. Then you have, then there's a thousand birdhouses.

And when you take the alcohol away, and you have a normal, happy experience, like a cup of coffee in the morning, it only sends two birds. And your brain says, there are 998 other birdhouses that you have to feel for me to feel normal. And you don't have it.

And there's nothing in a normal experience that can possibly, produce that except the drug. And so your brain, the thing that you think that everyone, of course, has to believe is providing you with rational logical information, is saying, if you don't get this, you're going to die. Yeah. And in the case of alcohol, it means it. Yeah. If you don't get this, you're going to die. And by the way, not only you're going to die, you're going to feel like this for the rest of your life. so fix me and so your brain's telling you

and so the first time that you face a trauma or an obstacle or a or something good happens your brain says I know how to make it better I know how to fix it I know how to make you not feel this way I know how to make you not have this anxiety

I know how to make you not have this fear we've done it before do it and that's that is what alcohol at least did as it relates to me. But also, I'm positive the science of it is, anyways, to me, the most dangerous thing. I've lived it, and that's an amazing description and an accurate one, I think.

How do you stay sober for seven years? Almost everything that I do is no longer with the idea that I am, like living on a knife's edge. In the early days, though, you really do have to really protect yourself, not put yourself in positions of, you know, people always say to me like, well, can I still go to the bar with my friends?

Well, not, no. You know, getting clean and sober is really easy. All you have to do is change everything. And that everything, and what I really mean by that, is that don't go back and put yourself in the same exact circumstance. that you were in, where your same group of friends, if they are heavy drinkers, or, you know, or your family.

Like, if you can't go to Thanksgiving without everybody getting drunk, maybe don't go to Thanksgiving this year trying to get sober. And so that in terms of changing everything. But stay in, I promise you, everybody, it gets not only easier, but there's this thing in the program that I practice in which they call the promises in which you will know an experience and ease by which life happens as you are able to live life on life's terms in which like everything it doesn't fix everything it look at me you know six and you know six felony charges in two trials later and a you know and and it certain it it it didn't it didn't solve anything

it didn't solve all the consequences that I had to face, but you know what? Can you imagine what my life would be like? I'd be dead. I'm 100% long dead. If I had decided the only way to be able to fix this is to anesthetize myself.

I mean, I would be the long dead. And that's what they were hoping. And I truly, truly do believe that. I believe that they knew that the singular what they perceived as my father's Achilles heel was his family. That regard to this one anybody says about Joe Biden,

that there was nothing more important to him than his family. And that he had just lost Beau and that the idea that I truly believe that they wanted me to relapse, which was equivalent to death. I'm positive they did. What does that tell you about, I mean, why would, one thing I noticed just being living in Georgetown as a kid and knowing, you know, million people from political families is the families are all dealing with tragedies on a bigger scale than normal people.

Like there's something about that environment that is really hard on families. And you see it. And the most famous political families, they're all a lot of casualty. I don't know. See, that's one of the things that, well, number one is I really truly didn't grow up in D.C. Right. Yeah. And, you know, we really were in Delaware, which is different.

and but to your point is that what I found is this is that I lived it publicly but you know Tucker what I found is is that I was in a I forget where I was and I the stranger somebody's driving me and it told me a story it told me about their life and their addiction and that their you know their brother was in jail and their father, you know, just got arrested and addicts. And I think everybody has those stories. Everybody. That's for sure. Except mine played out on the front page of the New York Post in a way that literally,

I don't think it had for anybody, any political family ever. I mean, even the Kennedy's to the degree in which they, you know, and I really mean that. Like, I mean, the total. eviseration of anything or even the notion that I deserved any privacy. I mean, I really, like, I look at some people and I say, like, just put yourself in my shoes from one minute. On what level?

On what level is it, do you think that that was right? You know, I look like somebody like Miranda Devine. And just on what level, could, would, if that was, if that was Ivanka, And I'm not talking about, like, and just take her existing 20-year digital footprint, everything that she's ever done. It's like, I guarantee you, and I don't know, I guarantee you, everybody has a nude, everybody has a picture that they don't want to see, everybody has a text message out of context, everybody has a voicemail they wish that they hadn't left.

Everybody has an email in which it doesn't have the entirety of the email chain. Like, you know how any conspiracy theories were born out of the fact that, I wrote Buckley a recommendation to a school, which you reminded me he didn't get into. You know what I mean? Like out of context, you are able to do some. And how is that in any way fair? However, that's what happened.

And what's your wife think? I mean, you... Oh, my God. Like, she's like, talk about... She didn't sign up for this. Yeah. Like, talk about, like, you know, Yeah, she is so tough.

She's like a, she is a, a, she is a, she is a warrior. It's amazing. She is absolutely amazing. I mean, look, I mean, I wasn't, there's no way that I could even prepare for it. And I, and this had been my life. None that I could prepare for it. the fact she didn't run it says everything that you need to know about her

because the one much other upside well the truth is that Bowie beat Bowie is the the ultimate upside

so but she is she is one amazing person what's your plan you're on a path yeah it seems like you kind of moved into it sideways maybe not with a plan i don't know but you're clearly moving in some direction where is that headed i don't know and that's one of the things is that i don't um i know the things that i care about i care about reaching people that are still sick and suffering i really do because by the way not

I'm a hero, not because I'm some saint and I want, you know why? Because it's the most rewarding thing that I've ever done in my life. It gives me sustenance. It makes me feel good about myself. I mean it, like, it makes it, it makes it easier for me to make it through the day. And so it's purely selfish. And that's one of the things about sobriety that I tell everybody is that the ultimate goal is to get to the end, and particularly as it relates to the program and I practice as you get to the end of steps. And the whole thing is so that you can be of service to somebody else.

And not because you are sainted at the end. And all of a sudden, you're St. Francis walking among the forest. It's because it's the thing that saves you. The only way to truly get out of yourself is to do for somebody else. is to, you know, to sit here and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, the easy, the easiest is to find other people that have had, you know, same and similar experience. And, and it's not like you have to look far.

No. I mean, it's around every single corner. There's somebody. And that's what's the beautiful discovery that I had. So there's that. I want to meet, I want to reach a million people in recovery, and I want, I've created this thing. at hunterbiden.com backslash recovery in which uh anonymously for nothing other than to create a storyboard a story core is people get to share their experience strength and hope because what i

would would help save me was realizing i wasn't alone and i want to write about it and i put it on substack and part of it's free and part of its subscription and i and and i want to continue to practice my art and ultimately at the end of the day is that like anybody else is that you know I want to I want to have the financial security to be able to you know to to not constantly feel as that I have to make you know choices that I don't want to have to make like anybody else like anybody else in their life how close you to financial security like I'm a million miles away I'm several million miles away. I am. But, yeah, you know, my Winston-Strawn wants their money. Lawyers. Yeah, my, it's all legal bills. Yeah. And anyway. Like tens of thousands of dollars?

Oh, no, millions of dollars. Millions of dollars. Millions. I mean, just, I don't know exactly what it is. I think It's between four and six million that Winston-Strawn says that I owe them for my a couple of convictions. And anyway, yeah, yeah, it's a lot of money. How does that affect you? I don't know. I would hope that they, oh, how does it affect me? It affects me in this way, is that I have to find a sensible solution in a way through.

I really have wanted to avoid bankruptcy because the road back from that is just so long and I'm 56 years old, but I don't allow it to consume me. You know what I mean? I really don't, and I can't. It is, I don't want it to be the principal motivating factor for everything I do

because the truth of the matter is the mountains. so it's such a long climb that I don't, I don't see the solution to it right now. But one won't present itself. And I think cooler heads will prevail and, you know, and I'll be able to, I just have faith. I don't know, man, I just have faith.

Not blind faith. Just work hard. I mean, shit, I'm really working my ass all. I mean, everybody says, oh, go get a job. I have two jobs. I have two jobs, and then on top of that, I have all of this that I'm trying to do. And then I'm, you know, a whole thing that I've been trying to build is relates, and that, you know, I'm working my butt off and doing that.

You know, they took away my law license, which means that that avenue that I spent, you know, 25 years working towards to graduate from Yale Law School is not open to me right now. And so I have to, in many ways, you know, reinvent myself, but not out of whole cloth. And spending the past seven years, you know, I'm really, really dedicated to my art. I'm really dedicated to the work of writing. You know, you're a brilliant writer, and you know this better than anybody. It's, it is, it isn't, it is a practice as much as an art. It's in discipline as much as it.

Absolutely right. And so I've been practicing that discipline since I wrote my first book. And so I have a lot to say. And there's ways to be able to do that now. And ways to be able to do that that can, you know, that I think it's really important for me to be authentic about everything. Also the ways in which I can do it in which I hopefully can put food on the table. Last question is about faith.

How is this affected how you feel about God and changed your relationship? I don't know whether I would say that it's changed, but it is deep in my belief in whether you want to call it that I do as God is the absolute certainty of this. there is literally in both the theological but also metaphysical sense no distance between me and you or anyone we are all literally connected and that connection that universal connection to everything is what I refer to as God. Is us realizing that all of our fear is a delusion is being separated.

It's all the idea. And so my faith is in the fact that I know that there is not a, that there's not a sentient being that is not, that literally is me. And I don't know if that makes sense to you, but I truly believe that there are, there has been a real thing in my life

that has saved me time and time and time again. and that has taught me hard lessons and that I believe that I cannot explain by other than what I choose to call God. No question about that. And we do get glimpses of the connection between people, all people. I think that's what we refer to as a transcendent moment when we rise above all the things we're concerned with

and sort of look down just for a split second, this happens to people throughout life and you're like, oh, wait a second. Yeah. You know, people are really connected to each other in a real way. Yeah. Yeah. And when you start to get honest with yourself, like really, really get honest with yourself, and I'm not talking about everybody has to go through what I went through to be able to get

honest with themselves. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. But, you know, I think that there are. spiritual practices that I did not either have the courage or the patience to endure. You know, I say, like, it's not like I was moving to Rishi Keshe to sit in a cave and meditate for seven years. Instead, what I got is a trial by fire. And, like I said, the complete eradication of an ego, not by courage or conviction on my part,

but by necessary choice to survive. I had to choose to either stay in bed or get out and live. And if I was going to live, I had to let go of that. Yes. And I did. And for now, today, it's a beautiful, beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing. It doesn't solve everything.

It doesn't solve my debt. It doesn't solve my, you know, I, I still. I still got to, you know, put on my pants like everybody else, and I still have, you know, to deal with a relationship that, you know, like anybody else in a family that I love, drives me crazy. I love, like everybody else. But I don't have to live a lie. Hunter Biden, thank you very much.

Thanks.