WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1215 - Hunter Biden

Episode Date: April 5, 2021

Marc only knew Hunter Biden from what he saw in the news. He never heard him speak, he had no sense of who he really was, and he wasn't sure he cared much about the troubled son of a President. Then he read Hunter Biden's book. The sad, tragic, honest, disturbing and concerning story at the heart of the real Hunter Biden made Marc want to talk with him, face to face. Hunter and Marc have a conversation about grief, desperation, tragedy, trouble and deep drug addiction. It ends up in a good place, but that place is fragile.  Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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covering only what you need, and policies start at only $19 per month. So if your policy is renewing soon, go to Zensurance and fill out a quote. Zensurance. Mind your business. Lock the gate! all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what the fuckeristas what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf welcome to it this is my podcast wtf welcome to it if you're new to the podcast we've been at it since 2009 creating a interesting conversation all over the map for uh for over a decade well over a decade

we're doing this a long time thank you for listening you? Look, today on the show, here's the deal. We get pitched guests from a booking agent, and Hunter Biden was pitched. He's got a book out, Beautiful Things, a memoir. It's out tomorrow. So I talked to my producer, Brendan McDonald. He says, what do you think of Hunter Biden? I'm like, I don't know know do we need to get into that do we need to get tossed around uh by the the the cultural tsunami that follows that guy and what is that guy really and who is he and uh i don't i

have no sense of him and so i was like, nah, we don't need it. You know, he'll be all right without doing our show. I don't know. I just don't know. It doesn't feel good. And then it started bothering me. Like, I judged this guy based on what? Based on nothing.

I've never seen him. I've never heard him talk. I know he had a drug problem. I know that the right-wing machine sought to destroy him or destroy his father through him. They had this horrendous drug problem. And I just assumed that he was like a sociopathic douchebag. You know, that was my I mean, what that that's what I got in my head. But then then I started it started to bother me. I was like this Hunter Biden thing, thing you know it was just sort of

eating at me i'm like look man i've uh you know i'm a recovering guy i don't really know what this guy's story is then i started thinking about like what does it got to be like to be trying to recover when you're being used as some sort of whipping boy by the right by all the right wing press being judged by the right and left. But they're seeing you as some sort of portal into some nefarious conspiracy. And they're hammering and hammering and hammering. How does a human, let alone a drug addict trying to stay clean, deal with that? So, you know, I started thinking about, like, what is it like to be this guy?

How did he handle it? This crack-addicted son of our current president. And, look, I started to think, I know how to talk to these guys. If he's got a little sobriety, I know how to talk that. I know how to talk to drug addicts. I've met these guys before. I know low-bottom addicts who've dug out. I just started to think like, well, get me the book. And I read the book and it just, I'll tell you, man, it's as most people

probably have no idea really, thankfully, what it's like to be in deep addiction like to really not have any control over it but to feel that need to do that stuff that you no longer are concerned about yourself the the depth of self-destruction and depravity i stayed in that groove i'm like well let's see who this guy is. Let me reach out to this Hunter Biden as a sober guy and have this conversation. Let's do it. At the bottom of all this, it's like I like to have conversations with people about who they are, what they come from, what they do, what they want, how they got to where they are you know what i do here and i just knew that you know out of the gate this was going to be just from doing a little research before i read the

book i knew that he was a like a total mess with the marriages and the relationship with his brother's widow all the accusations of him using like he he clearly traded on his family name to help with jobs. I didn't think he committed any crimes in doing that, but it seems pretty obvious that he did use his name for personal gain, though I assume that it's hard to know. I mean, he is a Yale-educated lawyer, but he is a Biden. I imagine that gets a little blurry. But it was because of this that he was an easy target of people looking to hurt Joe Biden, to hurt Joe Biden's political prospects. He was the easiest target. In fact, Hunter was.

and if you look into it which i did a lot of the stuff the right wing tried to use against him was transparently just an attempt to hurt his father nothing else they basically tried to run the crooked hillary playbook on joe biden by turning hunter's business dealings into this financial conspiracy that involved joe biden and and uh dubious corrupt forces in the Ukraine. And, you know, it was such a flimsy case that Trump got impeached by trying to manufacture it. And a lot of the accusations against Hunter were just tabloid fodder that attacked his character for being a drug addict. Like all that shit with his laptop. I mean, who the fuck cares about his laptop? Even the people who said they looked at this stuff on the laptop couldn't come up with anything.

The guy had an insanely dark struggle with drugs, but he did survive that. dark struggle with drugs, but he did survive that. And he has to this point survived this onslaught of political contempt, but he's not out of the woods in any real way. I mean, he has a reprieve, as we call it in the recovery racket around that stuff. And if he does the work, he can stay sober. But I mean mean the justice department currently is looking into his taxes there's an investigation that could end up with him in prison you know there's still a lot of struggle on the horizon for this guy so i just want to i want to make that clear because that was my sense you know outside of all of the made-up shit there's some very tangible very real problems and uh my intention in this conversation is not to clear his name or set anything straight for the uh right wing attack machine it's not what we're doing here. So that's the kind of stuff I was thinking

about going into this. So I read Hunter's book and it's very clear who this guy is. And I hadn't, I don't, I don't think I'd realized just how deep into addiction he was and, and just how recently don't got a a couple years clean. And I got to be honest with you, at the end of the book, like, you know, sometimes when you read these books, it's sort of like,

well, that's, you know, he's got a little hindsight and that was an uplifting story. I'm glad he kicked it and he's, you know, and I learned a lot from it. But at the end of this book, I got to be honest, I was still concerned about this guy.

I still wasn't sure that he was okay and i brought that into the conversation and i really didn't know what to expect because i had not seen him talk i did you know i i've met a lot of drug addicts in my journey uh in sobriety and and also in using you know i made assumptions about this guy's character as i said at the beginning i didn't know if he would be sort of uh if he was going to work me, if he was going to hustle me, if he was going to charm me, if he wasn't going to be candid with me, if he was a sociopath. I didn't know what. Is he a good guy? That seemed like a long shot.

And right when he got here, I asked him if he wanted, because we all want coffee, all of us addicts. You just say you want coffee? Yeah, of course I want coffee. I always want coffee. Where are you taking it? Two sugars. No milk, sugars. I do it black.

But this guy, as I said, he's only a couple years out of it. He's going to have a couple sugars in that coffee. You know, he's definitely been humbled. I don't think he's got another life in him i think he's used them all up i do feel after talking to him a bit concerned about his sobriety and his well-being oddly because i don't know him but that's just the nature of uh what we do is recovering people but I found him to be a very sensitive guy, very raw and open. His new book is called Beautiful Things, a memoir, it releases tomorrow.

You can get it wherever you get your books. And it's an incredible document about more than anything else, grief and the effects of grief in life and then just addiction. It's out tomorrow. You can get it wherever you get books. This is me talking to Hunter. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats.

Well, almost, almost anything. So, no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs and mozzarella balls, yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats. Get almost almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details.

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fighting Recreation sees apply. Fighting. Well, it's good to see you, man. Yeah, thank you. I read the book, and I got to be honest with you, as a guy who's done his share of drugs, at the point where you say, I got to take a break. Yeah. I got to take a break because I'm about to, it's triggering too much. Yeah.

Yeah, you were a pretty legendary crackhead, man. Oh, God. I swear to God. I mean, I shouldn't be here. No, it's crazy, you know, because I mean, I'm coming up on, I guess this is my 22nd year. Yeah, yeah. I listen to you all the time. Oh, you do?

Yeah. Oh, so you know what the story is? Yeah. How are you doing it? Do you feel like you're out of the woods? How are you doing it? Are you doing the thing? Are you doing the regular way, the secret meetings?

Well, I have been, you know, we have a mutual acquaintance. You know Moby? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. What yeah what about he's helping you out yeah well i mean there's like a a whole crowd of people here yeah and i didn't i mean he was a friend of a friend and he just showed up at the house before covet and he's like hey man yeah you know you need someone to talk to you need someone to take you to a meeting. I'm here. Yeah. I first got clean and sober in 2003. That was the first.

It goes back that far. Yeah. So, and, you know, I mean, I ran big book meetings. I literally three hours every Sunday. I never missed a meeting in probably like five years. I mean, I was like, I was serious about it. And what led up to that one? It's like the one thing I have a hard time putting together in the book is like the timeline the cash

Yeah, yeah, and the bouncing around like, you know where it got bad when it got bad Yeah, because I know when I was using yeah that what becomes very tangible is that you're going to become untethered from a Moral compass or or or the reality that you once knew to become untethered from a moral compass or the reality that you once knew, that there's a line where you're like, if I cross that line, then there's no safety. It's all going to be gambler's luck after this. Yeah.

And it's sort of a commitment to a life. And you're pretty clear about that. You're like, yeah, at some point you're like... At the end. Yeah, I'm this guy. There's no getting better. That's it. Yeah, that's it.

And that's like horrendously terrifying. Yeah. Because it's sort of like, in retrospect, it reminded me a little of leaving Las Vegas. Like, you can't seem to succeed in killing yourself, but you no longer care if you do or not. That is exactly it. I mean, it was almost as if that movie was playing right in front of my eyes.

Right. It wasn't a concerted effort to go out and jump off a bridge. Right. But I might as well have gone out and jumped off a bridge. It was a much slower way. Yeah. But, you know, I first got sober in 2003. It was drinking.

Right. Hell of a dream, man. And 2003, it was 33. 33? Yeah, 33. Got sober, stayed sober for just close to eight years. Oh, so you had some real time. I got my sobriety date was the day Johnny Cash died.

And I went to rehab, picked up the 12 steps. Yeah. It was very, you know, and it saved my life. Yeah. I mean, absolutely 100% saved my life. And by the way, it didn't only save my life then, it saved my life this time. Being able to have some of those tools at the outset, I stayed sober through the program. The first go.

Yeah. But I had this counselor in my first rehab. Yeah. And he told me a story. He got sober. He got really into the program. Yeah. He became kind of a speaker.

Yeah. And was flying all over the country. Sure. He became a- Big time. Yeah, big time. He was a counselor. Yeah.

And he was on a plane. Yeah. And seven years sober. He was on a plane back from some speaking engagement on the sober life. Right. He got on the plane and he said like four days later, he woke up in a different fucking city. And that's seven years.

So seven years in, I'm on a plane. Yeah. I myself. Right. No one else around. The flight attendant rolls up with a cart and says, hey, would you like a drink? And I said, I'm a bloody Mary. Just like it was another day.

It was another day. That started this, because relapse is so goddamn insidious. Well, yeah, and once you've had like if you got seven years of program then you got to drown that out you got to drown out whatever the fuck else and then you're lying to everybody and you think nobody can tell you're drinking so then i went back to rehab and then i and then i relapsed again but what was that you know i don't know how many people you know know the full story story of the sort of ongoing tragedy of your family. How old were you when your mother was killed?

I was just about three. So it's you in the car with Beau, your brother, and your two sisters? No, my one sister. The one sister who was younger than you and your mother. Yep. And she was about a year and a half younger. Bo and I are a year and a day apart. Yeah.

February 3rd and 4th. And then Naomi Christina, who we called Caspi. Caspi was in the car. And we were out buying a Christmas tree. It was right after my dad got elected in 1972. He was 29 years old. To the Senate. Yeah, to the Senate. And we got broadsided by a Christmas tree. It was right after my dad got elected in 1972. He was 29 years old. To the Senate. Yeah, to the Senate.

And we got broadsided by a tractor trailer. And we both spent a lot of time in the hospital together. But my mom and my sister died in the accident. Yeah. And I always, I never, you know, this whole, you know, you know in the program, a lot of guys still say, you're an alcoholic because you're a goddamn alcoholic. You're an addict because you're an addict. It doesn't have anything to do with anything else. And I kind of adopted that because I felt really guilty about the idea of seeing anything as trauma, you know?

As trauma. Yeah. Yeah. Because so much of my life was, I mean, I had an incredible life growing up as a kid. You know, I mean, I said we remarried, my mom. Jill. Yeah. Yeah.

When I was seven, eight years old. And, you know, but I have my aunts and my uncles who were raised by my whole family. Did you ever do any EMDR or anything like that? No, I haven't. Oh, you know, I did a little bit of it. A little bit of it. And one of the, I mean, I've done.

I have been a goddamn professional. I mean, I've done everything from, you know, ayahuasca to Ibogaine to five in the morning. Yeah, I read about that. It's some old school shit. But like, because I just wonder, like, do you, because there's some element to, like, and I'll be honest, like, you know,

I'm reading the book and you're talking about, you know, growing up in the Senate, you and Bo, you and Bo, and, you know, the loss of Bo, which we'll talk about. But right when you start talking about crack, all of a sudden it's like you're in it. Yeah, there's an immediacy to the writing. There's a passion to it because there's something ever-present. Like when you think about crack or you do crack or drugs or whatever your thing was you know you're not it's it's different than nostalgia because this that was a guaranteed

thing man i mean it's like the way you describe it is like you could always count on crack yeah you know what i mean like if you got the good shit yeah and then the rest of this stuff trying to sort of frame the darkness of of your life and and you know, I never felt that you were saying that you were drinking or using drugs because of that. I just felt that you drank and you used drugs because you drank and you used drugs. Yeah. But I guess my question is, do you ever feel, like really feel and not just like speculate, Do you ever feel, like really feel and not just like speculate that the traumatic loss of your mother created, you know, a tangible void? A hundred percent.

Is it? Have you ever watched, have you seen Dr. Gabor Mate? Yeah, yeah, I've read his stuff. He did like TED Talk. I haven't, yeah, I've read about half of his book. Yeah, I've read about half of his book. Yeah. Yeah. And as a first person I saw that explained it, that that spoke to me about trauma being like the center of all addiction. Really? And and it made me open my eyes to the idea that, you know, there's a lot more work than just which which this isn't obvious, than just abstinence. I mean, I had all the tools of the 12 steps, which I think at least saved my life a number of times.

But the work that I hadn't done, which by the way, part of this book was doing that work. Yeah. It was literally going through and talking about those things, talking about the accident and talking about losing Bo. And I am absolutely certain now is that, you know, like I talk about that, you know, talk about it when we're in the rooms, that God-sized hole that you're trying to fill. Sure. And that, to me, is that trauma. And that, to me, is that trauma. It's not the excuse.

It's not the reason. But it's certainly the thing that I think I'm trying to figure out. Well, that sense of, like, you know, they're one day gone the next and the brutality of the accident and then just sort of that, you know, like, i imagine that your sense of like need had to be you know intensified throughout your life i mean i felt that in the way you talked about your brother and that's sort of the the relationship there that you know that you do seem to rely on people a lot yeah yeah and by the end and and that relationship, the the when I lost Bo, I mean, I think I definitely convinced myself my whole life is the one thing that I couldn't possibly lose was my brother. Yeah. As I just couldn't be without him. Is that I say to people when he died, it literally felt like I lost like half my vocabulary.

I didn't know how to I didn't know how to talk to people I didn't know I I felt like um uh like half a person for real and I didn't and you're this was just like five years ago six years ago yeah so you're in your 40s yeah yeah 40 uh 45 or 45 yeah and when you guys were growing up with like, cause I have to assume obviously your father, like once, I guess when he met Jill, that, that probably leveled him off a bit. Right. Yeah. And all of us, I mean, I, you know, people I think out of courtesy, like say my step-mom or my, you know, but she's my my mom right and um we reformed a family and and and we had a great family and yeah i mean my family is incredibly close i mean my when my mom died my uncle

my uncles frankie and jimmy moved into the um you know made the garage they still around apartment yeah yeah i mean my uncle jimmy's my best friend in the world. Yeah? I mean, I... He's your dad's brother? Yeah, my dad's brother. Yeah. And, I mean... Are you guys an Irish clan? Yeah, we are. Very much so. Except my mother, who's Sicilian.

She makes everybody remember it all the time. But, um... Yeah. But my... Yeah, you know, and my grandparents... I mean, I saw my grandparents every day. I, you know, I slept over at my grandparents' house. We called them Mama and Dada. Grandparents, I mean, I saw my grandparents every day. You know, I slept over at my grandparents' house.

We called them mom and dad on my dad's side every, you know, three days a week until I graduated high school. Really? And everybody was in Delaware? Everybody was in Delaware. An hour? Everybody was in literally 12 minutes of each other. I remember that with my grandparents.

Everybody was in New Jersey. They were within, you know, 45 minutes away. Yeah. When somebody made dinner, everybody would show up for dinner. Yeah. I mean, and that has always been us. And when Bo died, I think it was unimaginable for any of us. Bo and I had become such a center of the story of my whole family. Well, how did that start?

Like, you guys obviously, you know, after your biological mom was killed, what do you think it was about Bo's fortitude around it to handle it and sort of like somehow look out for you the way he did? You're only a year apart, but there seems to be a difference in disposition. Yeah. I don't know. You know, that's a question. I haven't spent much time thinking about the ways in which Beau and I were different.

Right. Because I've spent, I never saw a separation between us. Now, we were really different. And look, my brother was no saint, but he was about as close to it as you get. I mean, really. I mean, we called him the sheriff. Yeah. You know, literally. I mean, really. I mean, we called him the sheriff. Yeah. You know, literally.

I mean, all his friends. And I mean, he was the guy that literally walked into a party and said, you know, okay, you stop drinking. Yeah. That person would stop drinking. Right. And he was never a, you know, I mean, and he was funny as shit. I mean, he had the greatest sense of humor.

And it was just a choice that he made. And I made the choice to drink. And he drank. He just didn't drink. Oh, no. I mean um he drank he just didn't drink no he i mean he literally didn't have a drink until he was 21 so never through high school and um and not until he was a senior and then he drank for you know like socially and your old man he he doesn't drink at all he didn't drink at all either why is that yeah i think because that you know i think he saw other people that we were you know know, that were close to or their family.

You got family? Is it in there? Yeah. I mean, we come from a big Irish family. A bunch of Finnegans. And I've actually, the Finnegans, I've now learned that, you know, I mean, we're incredible, incredible. That's your dad's mom? My dad's mom, yeah.

Catherine Eugenia Finnegan, who is the source of all good in our family. But on my grandfather's side, Joe Biden Sr., there's a lot of alcoholism. And my dad, I think, saw that. I don't know exactly why he chose not to. So your grandfather, Joe Biden Sr., was an alcoholic? No, he was not an alcoholic. Oh. But I think his uncles and his, you know, I mean.

Yeah, yeah. A lot of people died young of things that we're not really sure of. Right. So you think your old man saw that and just said, I didn't do it. I'm not going to do it. Exactly. And I think that Beau, you know, got that same message.

You know, I don't know how people, and it's just like, I don't know. I mean, the first time I drank, all I knew is that, you know, I was 4'11", I weighed 90 pounds, I was a freshman in high school, and I asked the, you know, the 5'8 senior girl to the prom. Now, she laughed at me, but I got up the nerve at the party to go ask her to the prom. From drinking. Yeah, from drinking, you know what I mean? And so, in that moment, I was was both embarrassed but really proud of myself yeah um

and you know i felt like for a moment you know that moment when all was right in the world yeah and and then you chase that literally you know i found the most insidious drug i ever used was alcohol yeah i mean by far i mean it's the only drug that, you know, you could die from, you know, withdrawing from. It's the only drug. And also, you can kind of do it

around regular people. Exactly. And it's literally, and, you know, and it's hard to avoid it. Yeah. But the thing that grabbed me

in a way that nothing else ever had was crack. Yeah. When you're growing up, though, like, I'm just curious as to, because, you know, you spent a lot of time. You're, like, in some ways, because, you know, your father's the president now. And he was the vice president for eight years. But in some ways, I have to assume that from a very young age, when you grow up politics in you know your dad's a senator he's

popular senator everybody knows him he uh you know he's well respected in in the state that like on some level there's this idea like you know when you start getting targeted by the right and everything else that that there's some part of you that because i know you know that you're the son of the president i know that you know you were the son of the candidate who was going to be president the vice president but on another level i mean there's the weight to that but you also i think when you grow up like you did that president is just the biggest promotion you can get yeah like you know what president is but you're around presidents you're around senators you're around government so it doesn't it doesn't register quite the same way.

Or am I wrong? No, to a certain degree, you are. I mean, that's what I... Am I right or wrong? You're right. Oh. That it doesn't register until it happens. Right.

And because it's exponentially different. I mean, exponentially different. When they become vice president? When they become vice president, from senator to vice president, exponentially different. And then become president exponentially different. And what I mean by that is that, you know, we grew up in Delaware. My dad commuted every day. Yeah.

On the Amtrak. Yeah, on the Amtrak, of which I was on the board of the Amtrak. But he commuted every day. Was that your first gig? No, no. I was 10 years into being a lawyer. And I mean, this is one of the other things. I've served on well over a dozen boards.

I mean, I was chairman of the board of the World Food Program U.S., which supports the UN World Food Program, which just won the Nobel Peace Prize. I mean, it's the largest humanitarian organization. I served on beyond a the largest humanitarian organization. I served on, like, beyond a healthy number of boards. And most of them all nonprofits. Right. So he's going to the... Anyway. He's commuting to work.

He's commuting to work. And in Delaware, like, you know, Beau and I would be, you know, when we were like 16, 17 years old and you get pulled over for speeding, it wasn't like, you know, there was no trepidation on the part of the Delaware State Police Officer

to literally walk up to the car and like look down and say, oh, your dad is going to kill you. You know? Right, right. Wait till I tell Joe. I'm going to see him down at the train station. And, you know, he was Joe.

And Delaware's small. And Delaware's small. I mean, 750,000 people. It's like growing up in a town. And, you know, everybody knew us, mainly because of the tragedy, but it's so small. And we were always with my dad, by choice, always with my dad. Like you'd go up to the Capitol and hang out. Well, I mean, we'd go down to D.C., but literally get off the train, go to his office as kids,

you know, run around the Russell Building, and then ride the subway cars between that and the Capitol, and then get back on the train with him and go home. So it's like your playground. Yeah. And we never lived in D.C. And so I didn't grow up knowing any other senators' kids. And my dad was listed as the, you know, the 535th poorest person in Congress. You know what I mean?

And, you know, I think he left the Senate with less assets than anyone in the history of the body. It strikes me that, you know, he's like a real civil servant. I mean, he yeah 100% you know all of those the qualities that I think the good qualities that people see in my dad is it's it's not only not where I mean it's real beyond even that you know I mean it's not a lot of was that a lot of pressure for you I mean which which part what stage as a kid growing up? No.

Right. You just looked up to him. Yeah. But at some point when you started to realize your expectations out of yourself and perhaps what you thought your father's expectations were, I mean, when did it start to weigh on you that you had a, like you didn't know what to do and you felt compelled to follow in the footsteps of your father and it seems like your brother was a little more focused on politics. Yeah. And he took a lot of that. I don't think any of us felt pressure. I always felt for children of people that are in powerful positions. Yeah. And you can see that they don't have that relationship with the dad like Bo and I had with my dad, it must be such a burden. Yeah. I didn't ever view it that way.

Bo was more certain that he wanted to go into politics. I mean, I grew up wanting to write and paint. I mean, that's what I wanted to do. Did you do that when you were a kid? Yeah, all the time. Yeah? I mean, like in high school? What were you like in high school?

I mean, aside from getting drunk, did you hang out with the freaks and the artists? Yeah, both. I mean, I played football and, you know, but I hung out with the guys in the smoking pit. You know what I mean? When they still had smoking sets. Yeah, I remember. Yeah, they had to. Yeah, exactly.

I remember like in my school, you could smoke everywhere. Yeah. But in high school, I'm a little older than you. I was able to move through. I was never a jock of any kind, but I definitely was able to talk to everybody, freaks, jocks. Yeah, 100%. And that was my, you know, I mean, I knew when I applied to law school, I also applied to the writing program at Syracuse. Would you go to undergrad?

I went to Georgetown. Oh, right. That's right. You were at Georgetown. Yeah. And so like- Right. Well, I went to Georgetown. Oh, right. That's right. You were at Georgetown. Yeah. And so I gave- Right. Well, I went to Georgetown.

I graduated Georgetown, and I went and did a thing called the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. Where was that? It's like a domestic peace corps. I did it out in Portland, Oregon. My original posting was going to be to a Native American reservation in eastern Washington State, but the volunteers that were there decided to stay. So this Jesuit priest I knew, said, I'm from Portland. Portland's really cool, so I went

to Portland. We got a problem with the hipsters coming in. Yeah. We need you to... Exactly. By the way, that was just at the beginning. I know. That was like 1990, 92, 93. Well, I mean, now, see, that's an interesting question. How do you know

to do something like that? I mean, you know, you graduate Georgetown. You're probably drinking pretty hard, right? Yeah, no, I mean, I drank, but I also did well. And, you know, I spent a lot of time doing things that, you know, I was, you know, worked for the Center for Immigration Policy and Refugee Assistance. I started a program. But how does that happen? Like, how do you think you do those things?

You know how it happens for me? I mean, well, number one, because that's what I started a program. But how does that happen? Like, how do you think you do those things? You know how it happens for me? I mean, well, number one, because that's what I wanted to do. I knew that when I went, I knew when I went into college, the only thing that I was certain I wanted to do was go to the Peace Corps. That's what I wanted to do. To help people or to travel? No, to help people. Yeah, I didn't think I'd be traveling to places that most people wanted to. Yeah, I didn't think I'd be traveling to places that most people wanted to.

And then there was this really cool Jesuit priest, Ted Dziedzic, that lived on, that when you go to Georgetown, there's a Jesuit priest lives on every floor. And, you know, to tell you the truth, I mean, I'd go and I'd drink Bushmills. And he had started a thing called the Jesuit International Volunteers. And that was in Micronesia and in Nepal and a couple other places. And he asked me if I wanted to help him start a summer program. And so I did that. And we went to Belize and we started the summer program for kids in Belize. And he talked me out of doing Peace Corps. He said, if you want to do something for people, there's a hell of a lot of people here at home that could use the help.

Now, is this a message of the Jesuit school or was it just because you grew up in a family that was doing service? Both. I knew what I wanted to do and I ended up in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, which is non-ecumenical. You don't have to be Catholic to be a part of it. You'd live with other volunteers. At the time, you made 80 bucks a month. lived in a house you pulled your money for food and you know that was you know in 1992 i don't know what the the monthly stipend is now right the idea was service and um and so i worked in a the basement of a church that i sat in a little office yeah and people would pick up the phone from the from the neighborhood that didn't have groceries or couldn't get their lights turned on.

And I'd advocate for them. But you also wanted to write and express yourself and be a painter. Yeah. And so you took a year in there? I did that. And you applied to the graduate school. Yeah, exactly. And I applied to...

My brother was at Syracuse at that time. At law school? Yeah, at law school. And so I applied there and I applied to, my brother was at Syracuse at that time. In law school? Yeah, in law school. And so I applied there and I applied. For law? Yeah, for law. But they had a great writing program. At the time, Raymond Carver was there.

Raymond Carver? Yeah. And then Tobias Wolfe was there. Raymond Carver died, I think, before I applied. Are you a big Raymond Carver fan? Yeah, I was. Yeah, it seems like, you know, like your entire life are chapters in a Raymond Carver book. But at this point, you're in the middle of a relatively happy ending.

It's between a Raymond Carver and a Stephen King short story, to tell you the truth. So I applied there to do a dual degree in the writing program. But I had thought about applying to the Iowa Writers Program. Oh, that's a big one. But then I got married, and it was with a baby on the way. How'd you meet her? At the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. That's Kathleen?

Yep. And you met her in Portland? Yep. meet her? That's a Jesuit volunteer corps. That's Kathleen? Yep. And you met her in Portland? Yep. And you just started dating and you weren't out of control in any way yet? No, no. You're just a normal 20-something-year-old kid hanging out in Portland? Yeah, 23-year-old. A lot of time at Pal's Books drinking a bottomless cup of coffee. Yeah, thinking. Yeah, thinking. Doing a lot of thinking. Doing the reading. Yeah, exactly. Doing a lot of thinking. Doing the reading. Yeah, exactly. Doing a lot of thinking.

Worrying about the Jesuit priest down in El Salvador and you know what I mean? Right, sure. I mean, a lot of that. So now, you got married because she was pregnant? Yeah, but we were in love. We were in love. And Naomi, my daughter, was born in December of 1993.

And I decided, though, that being up in Syracuse was in the winterland of Syracuse rather than closer to home, which I decided to go to Georgetown and go to law school. So you went to law school at – I did my first year at Georgetown, and then I transferred to Yale. So you're saying to me that the primary incentive was to provide for the family. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And, you know, I don't regret any of it. You know, I mean, I don't regret any of it. That part of my life. It was a beautiful part of my life. And we spent two years in New Haven. I graduated from Yale because I just didn't get in when I first got there. Where'd you go? Did you eat at Sally's Pizza or the other one?

Sally's. You went to that? Sally's. Actually, you know what the coolest thing was? Is that we had a little baby. Yeah. And I looked, if you see a picture of me from there, I was 23, but I looked maybe 16 years old. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so people would literally come up to us and say, you know, where are your parents? Like straighten that baby's head up in the stroller. You know, like they shouldn't be leaving that kid with you. But literally it was probably the only people ever that didn't have to wait in line at the Sally's. Not because of anything to do with my name. Yeah. But we would come and we'd have this little baby. And you looked like kids. And there was Flo that in line at the Sally's. Not because of anything to do with my name, but we would come and we'd have this little baby. And you looked like kids.

And there was Flo that worked up at the... Yeah, I loved Sally's. Yeah, yeah. They made that. We lived right there on Court Street. Oh, okay. Yeah, I just got introduced to the whole scene, the whole new pizza scene when I played there not too long ago.

There's that other place that makes... Peppies is the other pizza. What about that weird hamburger machine? Oh, the first ever hamburger. Yeah, yeah. That place. I used to go there with my guy that is like an uncle to me, Roger, every Wednesday. Yeah.

Don't ask for cheese. Nothing. Yeah, exactly. They're pretty good, though. It's on toast. Yeah, yeah. It's a weird thing. Yeah.

It's a novelty item, and you're wondering. It's one of those things It's a weird thing. You know, it's a novelty item and you're wondering, it's like, it's one of those things that's been there forever. Like, there used to be a place in Harvard Square called the Tasty, which was on the corner. It was just this little counter.

The food was okay, but it's a novelty of it and you're probably half shit-faced when you're eating that hamburger usually anyways. I'm sure we're interesting a lot of people

in our talk of Yale and Harvard. Sure. We're talking hamburgers. Yeah, hamburgers. We're talking about hamburgers and pizza. There's no elitism in hamburgers and pizza it's just the location of the two places all right so now you're family man and you do what you got to do to to get into the world where you can support your family yeah you let go of the raymond carver dreams yeah the sitting at the uh

coffee shop writing thinking exactly and now you're you're about to enter the the game yeah and how how does that go so you graduate the law i graduate with a law degree how's the booze at this point when do you graduate um 1996 okay law school and um two kids by then no one just a one yep and uh and then making the decision of whether to go work for a big law firm. Yeah. Because I paid for my law school. Right. I paid for my college too.

And figuring out how to be able to handle the loans. And then I'd worked the summers at some big law firms. I got offers from Skadden Arps. Anyway. Now, are you feeling at this point, like, well, it's still pretty early, but I mean, do you feel at this point that your name is getting you anywhere?

Well, I mean, it's really hard to like, separate the two. But I know this, is that I could have gotten, I mean, I was at Yale Law School. No, I know. And so, I mean, like, I wasn't, you know, I wasn't. And you did all right.

What? You did all right. I did real well. Yeah. And I was, you know, I'm proud of that. I mean, it worked my ass off. Yeah. Because one of the things is, is that, you know, I'll tell you what, I don't care what

your name is. Say you're, you know, whether it's acting or anything. Yeah. Is it, you know, your name can be, you know, whatever. Yeah. You know, if you show up and you're Tom Cruise's kid and, you know, you may get the first movie, but you're not getting the next 10. You know what I mean?

That is true. And by the way, I mean, I don't know of any profession in the world in which, you know, it's like, I don't know many dentists that their dad wasn't a dentist. Well, right. If you're a shitty dentist, you don't last very long. That's right. But I think at some point, you know, when your life started to get away from you and the nut became too big for you to manage, that I think you did learn as your father grew in stature that the name did offer you some cachet.

Yeah. But to your point, figuring out how to filter that is one thing when your dad's a United States Senator. Right. Figuring out how to filter that is another thing when he's, a whole nother thing when he's Vice President. and when you've got a habit oh yeah yeah so when you do land a job where's that first gig as a lawyer i went to work for um uh a bank mbna which is the largest credit card bank in america at the time and i went to

work as a lawyer oh and then i and i couldn't take it but you took some shit for that from the right. Oh, I mean, Michelle Malkin wrote an entire book about how my dad was, you know, bought off by the credit card companies. Now, they were the, you know, I mean, the banks at the time were the largest employers in the state of Delaware. But regardless, I went back and a lot of really good people. I mean, I, but I only, I only lasted for about a year and a half there. And because it was just too much or no, because it was like, I mean, I went from, you know, thinking that I was going to, you know, uh, you know, um, write novels and, um, you know, and paint, um, and, and, uh, you know, maybe work as a public defender. Yeah.

To go in directly into working for a credit card bank. Doing what? I was a lawyer. What does that mean? I was doing contracts. What's the job? Yeah, I mean, you know, the contracts, the affinity marketing. Oh, so immediately soul deadening is what you're saying.

Yeah, exactly. And, again, like I got to make it clear because Delaware is a small place. I love the people that were there. I mean, really good people. But it wasn't for me. I mean, wearing my MBNA pin and, you know, my blue suit with the white shirt and the specific tie on a daily basis. And so I left and I went to work for the – I went down to Washington and got a job with the Clinton administration and thinking again along the lines of public service. What were you doing for them?

I ended up working for Bill Daley at the Department of Commerce and that was the longest title in government, I think. I was the executive director of e-commerce policy coordination for the office of the secretary. That's what my card actually said. Wow. So- When they called it e-commerce. Two-sided card. Yeah.

You had to flip it over. Exactly. So when does it start to get away from you? When do you have that second kid? So right before I took that job, we had Finnegan. Yeah. And- The second kid.

Yeah, Finney. Her name is Finneigan finnigan james finnigan naomi yeah and then my third is maizey yeah and um but i have the second and administration ends you know and we're all waiting for the next administration which is going to be the administration all right um but that doesn't hurt the numbers issue yeah yeah yeah numbers issue and um i had to figure out what I was going to do, and I decided what I was going to do because I had a bunch of buddies that were riding high on the dot-com bubble.

And so what I did was I started my own law firm to focus on that. E-commerce. Yeah, and then the bubble burst on that. So I had to figure something else out. And what I figured out was a friend from, there was a president of one of the Jesuit universities said we could use some help. We send teachers into this school

in the toughest part of Philadelphia, and we're looking for help with federal funding. And I said I'd help them. And so then I created a law firm that was 90% of my business was representing Jesuit universities. They were trying to get things like mobile dental clinics and, I mean, a whole host of- So again, service-oriented. Service-oriented, but I was making money.

Yeah. And I was doing okay. And what happened was- Catholic Church got some bread. What? They got some bread to Catholic Church. Yeah. A little bit of money.

Yeah, exactly. But, you know, the incredible thing about Jesuit universities, they're the only schools that are still like, like it's the only school still in inner city Detroit. And, you know, I mean, there's not a, at the time I was doing it, there was not a dentist's office in the city limits of Detroit, except for Detroit universities, which is the Jesuit universities, Detroit Mercy's dental school. Yeah. And so we got mobile dental. Anyway, that's when my drinking started to get out of control. 2000. Yeah.

And because you're hanging out in D.C. Yeah. And I decided that I was going to try to do what my dad did, which is commute back to Delaware. Yeah. Because he could afford a house there rather than in D.C. And then I'd stay down a little bit longer back to Delaware. Yeah. Because it could afford a house there rather than in DC. And, you know, then I'd stay down a little bit longer and then I'd go to the, you know, go across the street to

the Bombay club and have, you know, 16 too many drinks. Yeah. Just like, you know, it's like, I remember like, like, you know, I remember, you know, that like, it's been a long time for me, you know, and the obsession is, is gone, but, you know, getting into that routine where, you know, if you've got the one thing that i think a lot of people don't understand about drug addiction and alcoholism if you don't know what it feels like to want that shit in the way that an addict wants it you can't understand what the fuck we're talking about exactly and you know and it's like a lot of people kind of like you know you had a little problem problem. It's like, you don't get it. Yeah.

Like, where you're just all day long, you're just waiting for that drink. Yeah. Just to get out so you can walk across the street and sit in a fucking half-empty joint and be like, I'm good. Yeah. I'm good now. Yeah, exactly. You know, the best description I've ever, one of the best is, I heard Mike Tyson talking

about it. Uh-huh and he said have you ever been really hungry yeah well think about it that you're starving yeah that you haven't had food in 40 days yeah and somebody you know and the cheeseburger is right over there yeah that insatiable like feeling I mean there's no there's no conscious thought that goes into it but it's like it's deep man it's weird it's it it feels like you know i'm gonna get whole yeah yeah and by the way that's the thing too is that you know and that's when i realized that i needed to get help was then when it wasn't just a mental obsession. When it became a physical obsession, when I wake up in the morning

and I'd have to reach in under the bed for the pint of Smirnoff that I had just to be able to get into the shower. Wow. And so that's when I quit that first time. That first time. Yeah. You're like low-bottom shit, man.

Yeah. I mean, like, you're yeah yeah that was my high bottom yeah i know and i should have stuck right the fuck there i should have stuck there i had the chance and everybody and everybody told me that i went to and that i said don't don't do it yeah like i can i you know the guys that come back in and sit down and say, I just went out and I tested it and, you know,

I just got out of jail or I just, you know, or, you know, I'm three divorces later. Yeah, my liver's almost gone. Yeah, exactly. Or they're dead. Or they're dead.

And so many of them. So many of them. I know, man. There's people, it's like you mentioned Permanent Midnight in your book. Jerry's one of my good friends. Yeah.

Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like that guy survived. I can't, talk about triggering. Well, Jerry's a, he's a warrior. He's a survivor. Yeah. You know?

Well, that's the other thing, Mark, too, is that, you know, is that I ain't alone. No, I know. Like, I'm not, like, not like my story it's not like it's rough and it seems rougher because of who my dad is but the fact of the matter is is that

I mean how many how many of me do you know it's just lived yeah I mean yeah I definitely know many of you but like you know

you guys are alive to tell the story how many of you do I know that died who the fuck knows? I mean, it's like worse than it is ever now. Yeah. So, all right, so you go to,

so you clean up in 2001? 2003. So when do you, like, what, how the hell, when did you join the service? Oh, yeah. You know, that was one of those, that was one of those decisions that, you know, my brother had gone into the Army National Guard and had gone to Iraq. But this was before he went to Iraq.

And I'd always wanted to do it, but I didn't think I could. And I started the idea of doing it when I was sober. Yeah. And I unfortunately acted on the idea when I was not. And so- You joined or you- I joined, joined. I mean, I was in that cycle where I was like,

you know, I mean, that's one of the part of the things that people don't understand too, is you get, you know, at least back then, you get 60 days under your belt and you think like, hey, what I should do is join the Navy at the age of 41. But you're one of those guys with the big ideas, and you do it when you're fucked up. I know. Yeah, but I was sober.

I mean, I was sober. Right. But this is the first time since a long time I realized why they say don't make any decisions. Don't make any big decisions in that first year. Don't get into a relationship. Don't make any big decisions. Don't hang out with the fucking guys anymore. Yeah, exactly.

I immediately grabbed hold of a woman, and I married her. I hung on to her for dear life. I married her, and then she left a drained husk eight years later. It hated me. It still me yeah yeah that's sober yeah yeah i know i know and i you know i mean thank god in this time is that the uh is that i haven't made any of those decisions um you know i mean melissa literally saved me and i'm and in that moment,

Your current wife. Yeah. I knew that I was going to, that God Almighty, I had to hang on. Oh, Jesus Christ. You got to be pretty beat up, dude. Yeah. I mean, I mean, after a certain point, I mean, I know you talk about, you know, being able to bullshit and lie and everything else, but you've got to be humbled. Oh, I mean, I mean, in a way that is... It's pretty awesome, humblingly so. Well, because I read the book,

and at the end I'm like, oh, Jesus, I'm a little concerned. Yeah. By the way, you're not the only one. You're not the only one. I don't think he's... But by by the way i don't think he's out of the woods this no but but by the way yeah then when the book ends i'm clearly not out of the woods okay that's when the hard work starts okay you know i say that i like say to everybody i think i write it in the book yeah is that this is the truest thing i ever heard is that if getting sober is easy all you got to do is change everything.

Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I can tell you that the ability to change everything requires, at least for me, not only getting honest with people around me, but getting honest with myself. Sure. For the first time, I've been allowed to, I've given myself permission to do that. Now, you know, it's a hell of a lot easier when your story's being, you know, the concocted story of you out there is even worse than the story that I write in the book. Yeah. But did you pick up your laptop?

You know, the creepiest thing is, look, I have no clue what's real. The only thing I do know is that the intelligence community just came out with a report that said the entire thing is Russia's disinformation. And I tell people, just give them my book. I mean, it's all right there. I got nothing to hide. Right. The funny thing is, is like, you know, like given how much shit was stolen from you over the years when you were high. Yeah.

Who the fuck knows? Exactly. Who knows? The only thing I do know is that Rudy Giuliani's supposedly sleeping with it, which is creepy enough just to even think about. Well, I don't know how the hell, like, I mean, but like, I just, I wanted to talk about the Navy Reserve. Navy, yeah.

Because like, that seemed to be the turning point. Because you got, what happened? You got busted? Yeah. Well, I was, you know, I did a drug test that I failed. I had no idea, truthfully, how I failed it because I knew that the drug test was coming. I still don't know. Was it blow?

Yeah. Yeah, it was cocaine. Yeah. Yeah. And at this time, I was not smoking crack. Yeah. I was drinking heavily. But it was the most goddamn embarrassing thing that I've ever, well, at that point it was. Well, at this point, is your brother concerned about you?

Yeah. Is your father like, what are we going to do? No, no, no. There's never that. See, the thing with my family is there's never like, you know, like a discussion behind my back like what are we going to do about hunter it's like you know where the where the fuck is hunter i mean like you know my dad calls me every day he called me every day through this whole period of time if he doesn't get me on the phone then he texts me 32 times i mean he literally you know there's i'm worried

yeah i mean worried but he's always his whole life. I think something that you learn when you lose people that you love is that if you get a chance to call the people that you care about most, you do it. So my point is that there was never a feeling of like, oh, my God, I let my dad down. All I knew is that I let myself down. Yeah. And that they were there to help pick me up. It just seems like, not unlike many addicts, you start letting yourself down over and over again, and you get used to it, and then you just see yourself as a piece of shit. Yeah, exactly.

And then you can't get out from under it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So this is the beginning of the end of the marriage, though, right? Yeah, I think so. You know, I mean, Jesus Christ, divorce is so hard. And, you know, my girls, my daughters are so amazing. They love their mom and they love me, like, so much.

You getting along with her? Yeah. Now? Yeah, it's okay. Yeah. But like you said along with her yeah now yeah it's okay yeah you know but like you said put it through it's hard put it through a lot a hell of a lot and you know it's i always say it's the courage to get sober is one thing the courage to stick around somebody trying to get sober how many how many rehabs you go go through with her let me see at least

six different you know at least six different programs it just wears them down yeah I mean I did outpatient and then

you relapse and then you lie about it and then you fess up to it but you keep drinking you know and then you have to think

oh my god and then ultimatums are laid down because that's what they tell you you need to do. On my first marriage, I don't got no kids, so it's different. But it just got to the point where it's like, I'm never going to, there's no way she's going to forgive me after a certain point. And I don't want to live in that. Exactly. That, you know, live in the contrition that will never be received.

Exactly. And it's not their fault. No, no, you fucked it up. Yeah, yeah. And that's the truth, is that I'm not even two years clean yet. And so figuring all that out in my head is that I know a hell of a lot of amends to make to a lot of people. You're doing the thing, though, right? Yeah.

All right. Yeah. Yeah. So, like, here's, like's what I was trying to see. Now, all of a sudden, you get attention from the right wing over MBNA initially. But you're attached to your father. You're Joe Biden's kid. And now you're wrestling with massive alcoholism.

And then once crack gets into the picture, and you buy yourself a huge house in 2006, right? Oh, no, I didn't. It wasn't a huge house. Expensive. Yeah, exactly. My point being is that you're nuts getting out of control. Yeah, what I did was I sent three girls to private school and I buy a house in Spring Valley, close to the

school. And you want to be in Washington instead of in Virginia. And I don't have any savings. And so it's literally, what I'm making is going to paying for a house, tuitions for the vacation that you want to take for take. To live that life. Right. So when did the international hustle start? Not until after Bo got sick. And so... Oh, so like...

2014. Oh, right. So the other gigs were like, you know, you started a hedge fund with your uncle and did something. I tried to start a hedge fund. And that didn't work out? No, it didn't work out.

I was sober. I was sober then. It just didn't work out? No, it didn't work out. I was sober. I was sober then. It just wasn't your bag? It just didn't work out. You know, I mean, one thing is that you think that, you know, D.C. is bad. Go to Wall Street. I mean, it's just like, oh, my God.

But you did some lobbying and you worked for Amtrak. Well, I did the – my core business was lobbying on behalf of the Jesuit universities. Okay, okay. And then, like, once your dad becomes VP, you can't do that. And I didn't work for Amtrak. That was a non-paid board position. I mean, you don't get paid at all. Right. I was appointed by George Bush to do that. Oh, okay. Yeah. So I guess the point is like, again, when your dad becomes VP, it takes a shot at your business. A hundred percent. And so I dropped because the Obama campaign had made

and the McCain campaign made such a big deal about lobbying and what they used to call earmarking and things and so I completely changed my business

and I dropped all my lobbying clients so that that wasn't an issue I worked on behalf of a big engineering company and that you you know, just to do business, you know. Where was that? They were based out of Wichita, Kansas. But they do, I mean, they built, you know, roads and bridges and stadiums. And what exactly do you do for

these places? For them, what I was doing, I was a consultant for them. So I'd go in. What does that mean? Well, what it means is, is that if they wanted to go into the city of Baltimore for the new stadium, I would help them. I would figure out with them who the people are to talk to. The regulatory environment, because I was a lawyer, too. And so who are the people to talk to? What are the regulatory hurdles? But at this point, are you feeling- You're sober, but are you feeling desperate well I mean I have to I have

to pay the bills yeah they're big right yeah but I wasn't desperate yeah I mean and you know and that's 2000 in that's 2008 yeah yeah when I start that new business and you know I had a good I built up a really good business yeah and I was proud of that business. And then when does it start to get, it seems that, you know, China and the Ukraine is the portal through which the right wing runs the big racket through you. And like, it seems to me that you were so like, you know, in need of money and bordering on being out of control. Yeah. That the idea that you could manage a conspiracy oh i mean that's the most ridiculous thing is that i mean literally it's so it's sober now i mean as it relates to ukraine just take this is that the thing that drives me the craziest yeah is this idea that i never had

a job and it's somebody like pluck me out of the, you know, uh, targeted and decided that this is the way that they're going to, you know, create a, um, a criminal empire or something. Um, you know, I was at least on 14 boards or served on 14 birds in major positions. And in some of them, I was ahead of the Corporate Governance Committee. I was a lawyer at that time. I was working for, I was of counsel to Boyd, Schiller, and Flexner, which is one of the biggest law firms in the world. What is the benefit of being on a board? Why so many boards? Well, because it was all service-oriented. So I did the World Food Program U.S. I was on the Center for National Policy. I

was on the, I mean, a whole different bunch of boards. I was on, you know, JVC Northwest Advisory Board. I was on Catholic Charities. Right, right. I mean, stuff like that. Made you look good. And you enjoyed doing it. You know, I actually really enjoyed doing it.

Yeah. And I didn't need to, I wasn't running for anything. Yeah. I wasn't. And, you know, I mean, look good to who? I mean, nobody was writing about the number of boards I was on. And they still don't. Maybe to yourself is what I mean.

Oh, it made me feel good. Yeah. A hundred percent. Because at some point, an active battle begins in the dark you and the you that is of service. The me that has to pay tuitions, and not just tuitions. Life. Alimony tuitions. Life. Alimony at some point. Yeah.

Spousal support. Child support. I mean, that's all comes later. But anyway, my point is that I didn't have any issue with going to work for a company that was under threat from an invading Russia of its entire existence. And they came to me as a lawyer at Boies Schiller. And to do- Burisma did. Yeah, Burisma did.

Because they wanted to legitimize their business after- I think ultimately that's what it is. Because they wanted to expand internationally because they knew that they couldn't only depend upon ukraine for their entirety and business and they were once an appendage of russia i mean that the the the ukraine was exactly it was an oligarchical structure yeah and so this is post-oligarchical structure yeah and they want to you know broaden the business on an international level to give them some credibility and some freedom.

They kick out Yanukovych. They have a democratic-held election. There's a whole bunch of reforms. But then Putin invades their East Coast mainly for one thing, for their natural gas. He takes over Crimea.

Burisma is the largest natural gas. Yeah. And so he takes over Crimea. And so Burisma is the independent largest natural gas company in Ukraine. Yeah. And is feeling very threatened. And so it came to me as a lawyer to help them do an own internal security check to basically determine whether or not, you know, Kroll had done a report, which is one of those big international, you know, security and investigation firms. And I had them do another, a Nardello report. That's Nick Kroll's dad, the comedian. Oh, is it really? I think so. I think that, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he's got it good. But anyway, long story short, I'd done both of those and come to the conclusion that they were you know they were

as things go on the level on the level really on the level yeah and there's a guy that was president of the um uh president of poland the first democratic yeah truly democratic president of poland a guy named kosnevsky who was on the board and he is a beacon of democracy right literally is like you know one of the loudest voices against what's happening in Poland now. And he called me and he said, Hunter, would you join the board? To do what? And he said, well, number one, it's really important for us to be able to go outside of Ukraine. And we need to show that we're different. That we're different than this mess.

The other one is to Putin, is to say, you know, we're choosing the other side. The third one is, he said, I had an expertise in corporate governance. Right. And I said, if my role was limited to that, that's what I would do. And I did the job, you know. Now, I did not take into consideration that this would be a flat-out Russian operation to, you know, with all of these guys, I mean, supposedly directly from the desk of Vladimir Putin. I mean, that's what the DNI report.

Which operation? A disinformation campaign. About you. About me. Right. And so what they then did was what ended up requiring an impeachment. Right. Which is try to muscle the government of the Ukraine to open an investigation into you and your father.

Yeah. And it doesn't sound like your father was involved at all. I mean, God almighty. I mean, not even a... And by the way, no one has ever found that. Of course not. But he knows you're doing the job. Yeah.

Yeah. Does he say things like, is it okay? Everything all right? Well, I did the press release when I joined the board. Right. And that was part of it. And he said, I hope you know what you're doing. And that's the only conversation we had on it.

Because at that time, I really did know what I was doing. Yeah. I did not take into account. And he wasn't going to run for president at that point. He wasn't going to run for president at the time. Exactly. And I was a year away. Bo was, you know. Bo had been diagnosed.

Oh, really? About seven months before that. Yeah. And glioblastoma. And that prognosis is just no good, huh? And how was your drug use at that time? It was nothing. I mean, I was clean and sober. I mean, I was clean and sober through then to when Boone dies.

And when were you working for BHR Partners? Well, that was a private equity firm yeah the idea was to create a private equity group to be able to invest outside of China into you know US infrastructure projects and things like that well you know shut down I mean again I mean it really kind of simple thing I invested in it I have never received a dollar from it not a dime well that's I think the one part of the story that nobody really gets into is like you make a lot of bread you make a lot of money. No, none. I mean, zero. Literally. And, you know, I mean, they have me like carrying a bag of, I mean, it's like, it becomes ridiculous.

Well, how did you not drink or use once that starts to happen? I mean, like, you know, once- Well, that didn't start to happen until after Bo died. It didn't? No. Oh, so that was leading up to 2016. So remember, I... So right, okay.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And so 2015, and at the end of May, Bo passes away. Yeah. I stayed sober. I've been with that whole, you know, you know, a little less than two years. I mean, I'm with my brother constantly.

Were you there at the... You were there in the hospital every day? Oh, yeah. I mean, I never left. I, you know, and I went with them everywhere. It was a slow decline? Yeah. And so, you know, we tried everything.

And we did the, you know, we did the, anyway, we did everything. Thinking back on it is that I would never put him through that again. Did he not? Chemo and the radiation. No, I mean, he was, look, he didn't want to hear the statistics. Glioblastoma, stage four, multiform. The, you know, the survivability is, I think, like 0.2%. I mean, it's like beyond de minimis.

And making it past two years, I think only like something like 1% of people make it past two years with severe disabilities. And were you able to get closure all the way? mean were you able to bow and i yeah uh yeah you know i am um i i don't know how it's a uh i know he's i know he's here now, but he felt like he was very far away for a long time after he died. Because of the drugs? Because of your own pain? Yeah, my own pain. Drugs make it even, you know. Drugs drive that feeling away, but they make the distance even further, you know.

Yeah, it seemed like he kind of got untethered from yourself. Completely. Completely. So Bo dies. further you know yeah it seemed like you kind of got untethered from yourself completely completely so beau died there was a low level burn which i realized is that from the very beginning there was a um uh you know what's the one thing that is obvious to everybody that is the most important thing in my dad's life it's his family yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, I think they looked out there and thought, okay, where's the weak link? And, you know, and it's not, you know,

I mean, D.C. is a small place. It's not easy to, you know, too difficult to figure out, you know, well, you know. The attacks start then and they just kind of ramp up and they obviously become, ramp up, and they obviously become exponentially worse as my personal life just unravels. Do you think the idea was to scare Joe out of running?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, 100%. enough distraction because look the the essence of their attacks yeah are literally the there's zero truth to them but knowing that you got a son that just died and another one and your other son who's um who's near death in many ways and if you just keep pounding on him like how does a guy survive that how does how does your father yeah how does somebody survive that yeah and um it must have been killing him i mean hurting his feet breaking his heart oh god i mean that's like what i wake up every day I wake up every day and say, my God.

Yeah. Like that guilt, that guilt for putting my girls through that, you know, those days and times in which, you know. When you were fucked up, you mean? Yeah, where I was or, you know, what the hell was going on or, you know. Well, that whole, how many years, that was like five, eight, four or five years. So 2015. Yeah. You know, but I go immediately to rehab,, eight, four or five years. So 2015. Yeah. You know, but I go immediately to rehab, you know, two months after Bo. When did you first smoke the crack?

Not until that next year. So 2000, I think 16. I get it all. I really do get it in my mind. I went through when I was writing it and I had to really like

lay it out I mean I wrote it out longhand part of it like okay what's the you know how do these all

match up and then I had to have somebody else I asked somebody else to go and like how do I piece together to make certain that I'm telling

the right things because so much of it actually really bleeds together but then you know a year after basically, um, uh, Bo dies, I, um, I, uh, I'm in another treatment program. So that first year I went to a treatment program, um, spent 40 days there,

got out, went back to my yoga, um, you know, six times a week and, um, and, uh, and all of that. But then my marriage is completely unraveling. Yeah. And I'm living alone for the first time in my life. And it's separation and agreement that we made. And my brother's gone. And I'm living in that grief by myself for the first time ever. And I drink again. And then I get back on the horse.

But, you know, I'm closest probably ever came to death with that period of drinking. I was drinking, you know, at least a quarter a day. At least a quarter a day. I mean, that. Vodka. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Just by yourself. Just by myself. Just sitting there. I mean, you know, I mean, combine that with that level of grief like I felt like I lost everybody but then you're just

pounding like you're not letting yourself come up for air at all don't want to right you know I mean

literally it would the strength to be able to get out the door and walk across the street to a liquor store

I mean I think about that today, and it still gives me the chills more than anything. Yeah. And then I went into an outpatient program, and then I screwed up, but they wanted me to take a drug test, and I didn't want to take the drug test because I just admitted it to them.

And I said, if I take the drug test and it leaks, then it's the second time that it looks like I failed a drug test. I was in my, I was actively going through a divorce and didn't want it to be that and so they said no, well you have to take a drug test or you can't come back and that was the only excuse I needed. I literally walked out the door, ran into

Rhea, who's in the book. That whole thing, that whole book turns on this Rhea character, like you know, where all of a sudden you know you have this whole life with your family with with beau and the passing of beau and and you're putting your family through this you know a nightmare of of not knowing if you're going to be okay and you know and and repeating and then you meet this woman and i i've i when i was using i i i know what it's like to have a guy that can get you the shit yeah as opposed to yeah you going out into the world to get the shit which you did

plenty of too but you talk about this woman in in very respectful and reverential like it was a real relationship you you basically let invited a houseless woman who rode around on her bicycle high on crack to live in your house. Yeah. For months. I know. And it's – by the way. I know you know. I mean, you got to read – I know you know.

I know. You got to read it. Yeah, yeah, of course. To get the full context of it. No, but that's where the tone changed because it's like, you know, it was – you really get the feeling that once you hit that bottom and you live there, that's all you had. And that the immediacy of feeding the monkey, of honoring the addiction at any cost was what you were living for. And you met her and she lived the same way. And somehow or another, you know, you had this understanding with each other.

Yeah. And somehow or another, you know, you had this understanding with each other. Yeah. Well, one of the things about crack is that it's not, it's, it's, uh, number one, it's not nearly as, as widespread as it, as it was when we were, um, you know, kids, kids. Um, but there is, there is a thing about it that is, that hits on every single obsessive, compulsive, addictive, uh addictive part of your being. You know, it's literally, you know, fire. Yeah.

It's, you know, I mean, it has all of the addiction of all of the physical movements of smoking. Yeah. You know, like it is the oral fixation. Yeah. And then it has the, you know, the fixation with the sound of the lighter going off. Then you have all of your little tools and all of the little things that you need to do. The ritual of it.

It's got that ritual. And then it's got that big bang for its buck at the outset. Yeah. And all of those things. And you literally, if you find yourself, if you're willing to go down that rabbit hole, which I pray God nobody does listen to this because it is awful. But it becomes everything. I spent more time crawling around on the floor in apartments, motel rooms, hotel rooms, the park, looking for little white pieces of something, then you can imagine

hours and hours and hours, and you can just sit there as long as the supply keeps coming in and do it for hours and hours and hours. And when the supply is- Weeks. Weeks. You're talking about not sleeping for weeks. Oh, weeks. Yeah.

I mean, I would literally, I think by the end, you know, I was there, I was maybe getting 10 hours of sleep a week, a week at best. And you just do it and do it and do it. motel to motel, is you run out. And the things that you will do, I mean, I had dealers that would tell me, like, I'll meet you at the 7-Eleven on X and Y at 4.30 a.m. Yeah, and I'd get there at 4.30 a.m., and you'd be the only one sitting out in the parking lot, and the guy would be looking at you through the window, and you know exactly what he was thinking. And even if it wasn't what he was thinking,

you were absolutely certain that that's what he was thinking. Right. He was going to call a cop. And so you're sitting there. You go low in your seat. You go high in your seat. You act like it's normal. You go in to buy it.

And it's 6.30. And you finally get the guy back on the phone, and he said, I'm pulling in right now. I'm pulling in right now. And you're in a 7-Eleven. What do you mean you're pulling in right now? I mean, it's like, what? Yeah, it's not the Autobahn you're pulling.

Well, that's the whole other relationship you talked about was with that guy, John. It's very interesting to me that the relationship with Ria, the houseless person on the bicycle who you lived with for five months and watched crime shows with and smoked crack with compulsively. And then you got this guy, John, who was some sort of hustler that seemed to have like a stable of crackheads. guy john who was some sort of hustler that seemed to have like a stable of crackheads and and uh the way you sort of try to understand your behavior and even just hearing you talk about the ritual of of smoking crack it's like and you said it in the book you're like when people don't understand why drug addicts do what they do it's because we fucking love drugs yeah exactly exactly like even when you talk about it i'm'm sitting here going like, oh my God. Yeah, a little funny pun.

But like at this point when you, at this point in your life where, I have to assume that like your family is sort of like, well, if he dies, he dies. There's nothing we can do. No, God no. It's the exact opposite. Really?

They were, you know, one of the things I've read about in the book is this intervention scene, which happened on, you know, on multiple mini levels. theatrical production was when my mom calls me and I'm in one of those motels. And for some reason she gets through to me and, and, and gets, you know, truly through to me and says, come down. We miss you so much.

Yeah. Please come down and see us. Yeah. Come down. And I walk in and there are two, my, my, my three daughters,

my niece and nephew, my mom, my dad, and two counselors from a, uh, from a rehab. But at this point, you're like fucking taking a hit every 15 minutes. Every 15 minutes.

You're no longer functioning. Where are you getting the money at this point? Well, I mean, I still had some of my business, but I'm not like showing up. You know, I mean, it's running out. It's running out fast. Okay. Because like the scene you depict with, you know, these fucking, like I knew, like when I was in Hollywood at the Comedy Store in my early 20s, like living, you depict with you know these fucking like i knew like when i was in hollywood

at the comedy store in my early 20s like living you know on someone else's you know in someone else's house and hosting these fucking coke parties yeah the riffraff that would come and go they'd steal shit yeah and you like you you you kind of like prided yourself on knowing this fucking you know weird underworld of like for me it was like these porno people and drug dealers and freaks. And you're like, this is life, man. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And in the moment you embrace that, that's for sure. Is that you think that you're like some kind of like, oh, you know, I like, I mean, but it's got to get away from it. You're like, Jesus. But like, I'm here with you like an hour and it's like, you're a sensitive guy. You're a sweet guy. And you allowed yourself to be a mark. I mean, you knew that they were taking you.

Oh, yeah. But I don't know of anybody that's an addict that isn't a mark, though. No, I guess so. I guess so. But there's two sides of it, right? Either you're going to be like the guy with the gun, or the guy that just says, I don't care, take my wallet. Yeah.

And you're that guy. Yeah, 100%. 100%. Which is probably lucky yeah that you're not that hard by the way that was part of the resignation too you know like i i i was like yeah you know like i knew what i was doing was just just awful that i was killing myself and and it was like so you know so somebody steals my wallet like that's the least of my god damn problems you know i mean but over and over again over and over again over and over again but by the And it was like, so somebody steals my wallet. Like, that's the least of my goddamn problems.

You know? I mean- But over and over again, it seems. Over and over again. Over and over again. But by the way, again, like I said, if you're addicted to crack the way in which I was addicted to crack, or, you know, is that you're an easy mark for anybody, let alone- Because you're so fucking-

Let alone the predators that make a living out of doing that. Right. And you're easy- I mean, you're easily identifiable prey because you're walking up to the lion. You know what I mean? You need them. And so you put your head in their jaws

and just, you know, like sometimes they bite and sometimes they don't and sometimes they, you know, I mean, it's just absolutely the most, you know, insidious, maniacal life. So all this shit is going down. You're being hammered as the kingpin

of this grand conspiracy. The sitting president is impeached by the House trying to fucking hang you out to dry, trying to get you investigated. That's you and you're really the reason why he got impeached. Yeah. And so, by the way, the book ends when I get sober.

Right. And that's when they just start on me in earnest. And what happens is, I mean, start in on like this, Giuliani starts in on this whole Ukraine thing. Oh, really? So that's May of 2018. Okay. Well, let's just, I just want to like express my concern i mean 2019 yeah to a degree that like so you you know you you've you've committed your life to

dying a crackhead probably in a hotel room in some sad fucking way yeah you did some strange cracked out new yorker interview by way, probably the thing that saved my life is because that was the first time I told anybody outside of my family any idea what was going on. So was the idea there to help yourself or to help your dad? Oh, God. All I knew is that I didn't tell anybody.

I didn't tell my dad. I didn't tell anybody in the campaign. How bad you were. I didn't tell anybody I didn't tell my dad I didn't tell anybody in the campaign I didn't tell anybody except you know there was a part of me that's still a snob

and it was a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist from the New Yorker and I thought that sounds like a great idea but you didn't know and it was like a therapy session so I told him

like the whole thing because it was all about well you know what about this and the Ukrainian that it's like none of that's true but here I'll tell you something that, well, you know, what about this and the Ukrainian that? It's like none of that's true. But here I'll tell you something that's true.

Yeah. You know, I'll tell you something that's true. This part's true. Yeah. And I thought, you know what? That was my, like, fuck it. Yeah. I was going to, like, tell the world this is who I am.

All this other stuff, total BS. Yeah. But this is who I am. And you reject. Yeah. Yeah. And for the first 75% of it. And then I total BS. Yeah. But this is who I am. And you reject. Yeah. And for the first 75% of it. And then I meet Melissa.

Yeah. See, here's the concern. It's sort of like, so you're not even really down. You're still high. Yeah. When you meet this woman. Yeah. Oh, but I was at my lowest.

My lowest low. You've been thrown out of another hotel. Yeah. I mean, that was, I was never thrown out. They just never had a room for me the next day. Right, right. Because you go day to day, you know. I mean, I still, you know, I was a valet all through college.

And so I still have my valet friends who are, you know, saved my life I don't know how many times. How so? Just making certain that, you know, not letting that guy that was clearly coming to do something bad into the hotel room. Like, you know, taking my keys from me and not being able to find it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's one thing that's really important too. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Like, I, you know, I, it's one thing is really important too. Yeah. You know, those times that you're talking about, you were saying that, you know, at the end of your, you know, run. Yeah. You know, one thing is that I think back on it now and because I wrote the book, it was such a, such a useful exercise for me to also realize so many acts of kindness from virtual strangers. Yeah.

People that literally, you know, like you asked why I didn't like, why I was more of a mark instead of a, you know, an aggressor. Yeah. And is that one of the reasons too, number one, that's me, is that, you know, I hate meanness. But I'll tell you what, people that you know had no reason no gain for them that pulled me out of a you know of the way

whatever oncoming bus that it was it just happened over and over and over again for me and your uncle too my uncle

look my uncle is the most amazing man one of the most amazing people I know. Yeah. He is literally there for everyone. He's my best friend in the world. And my Uncle Jim.

Yeah. He's just, yeah. I mean, he is an incredible human being in his own right. And so anyway, long story short, though, is that when I meet Melissa, I'm talking to Adam Entos with the New Yorker. Yeah. And it's like a two-hour therapy session each night. Yeah. And I'm telling him my whole life story.

Yeah. And I get set up on a date, which I wasn't dating anybody. No, you're out of your mind. I'm out of my mind. And for some reason, I decide to call. But it was weird because it was like some people that were at the hotel. You didn't really know the person. At the hotel, I never met her before in my life.

They said, you got to meet this woman. And I said, you know, which, anyway, I call and we set up a time and she doesn't show up. And then she doesn't show up again and she doesn't show up again. She has no idea who I am. No idea. All they knew was me as Hunter. But you haven't slept. You're out of your fucking mind.

Didn't you ever hear voices in your head? Oh, yeah. There's a whole scene in the book in which I think I had a, you know, not sleeping for 16 days driving to Prescott, Arizona. Oh, the owl? Yeah, that owl. I'll tell you what. It was the realest thing in my life. But you didn't think it was Bo?

Yeah. I always think it is Bo. Yeah. Yeah. But you didn't say that in the book. I know. I didn't want to get too California on everybody. But I absolutely felt that way.

I still do. I still do. I mean, that's the other part about it is that those little things, it's like, wow. But I walk in, and there's this incredibly beautiful South African woman from a big Jewish family in Johannesburg, and I just look, and like I see something I recognize something

I don't know whether I saw you know like I saw you know whatever the unconditional love that my brother had for me yeah I knew that's what I saw I'm not the first person who you know I love at first sight I'm but and within an hour I tell her everything everything. And, you know, to her credit or not, I mean, is that she just said, that's going to end. And I don't know why, Mark. It got, like, it found its way through all of that crack, all of that vodka, all of that grief, all of that sadness, all of that shame, all of that guilt.

It found its way to, and I said, okay. Yeah. And now that's not the end of the story. You know what I mean? It's not that, I mean, then it took, like, holy shit, what does that mean? That means that, you know, Melissa literally, like, she took my keys, she took my phone, she took my clothes, she took my, you know, I mean, she had to basically play my jailer for, you know. To get you to detox. Yeah.

Not just to detox, but then to make certain, you know, I was still, you know, like, she never left my side. She never left the apartment. Right. She never left the room. I mean, and she, for some reason, intuitively knew that she couldn't. I mean, and she, for some reason, intuitively knew that she couldn't. And it's just, I think that anybody to do that for another human being is somebody I want to be with the rest of my life. Yeah, I never really, I didn't, like in the book, like I didn't really, like until I'm talking to you now and feeling like who you are, is like, you were just like so wide open so broken so broken and so like you know

you're just like a just you're just a throbbing sort of heart there yeah you know just like so like the idea because like my first when i read it i'm like you know this is like a junkie thing you know like he's getting off on this moment and he's in trouble yeah but like you know when you explain it you you were just sort of like you were it was you were finished finished and I and by the way right I knew I was finished yeah and I and I saw like I think that's my brother too I think it's my mom I think it's a you know and i know it is them in terms of the um i think it's my dad you know i mean when you're at the bottom of that well you know people every say you know let him hit bottom yeah people i know hit bottom are dead yeah you know my friend used to do a bit about how like when you hit bottom you'd be surprised how much give that

floor has yeah exactly it can go much lower than you think. But, you know, I always have said, and I really believe this, is that finding your way out of that tunnel, you know, when there's no light on either end, without somebody coming back in for you with a lantern is almost impossible, if not impossible. And somebody came in with a light is almost impossible if not impossible and somebody came in with the light and i saw it and i grabbed for it and i and i haven't let go

why like i i hope i hope it you know i'm happy for you and you know and i hope i hope it works out and you got a little baby now how old baby bow named after my brother yeah one year one year it just seems like you know you somehow you know the love got through somewhere. You found that- That's the whole story. Right. What you needed in your heart, whatever you were doing with this pain was killing you over and over again. It seems like your whole family, the ones that were still with you, had a lot of faith in your ability to hopefully get back to who you were yeah yeah and somehow you have you know right now yeah and well that's i mean it's it's a great

story but you know i'm i i still am concerned and i hope you're taking care of yourself no i'm concerned you know i mean i and i really am in the sense of like i have a healthy fear and you should have a healthy and unhealthy, just fear in general. Yeah, fear. No, but I'm saying is, like, I'm not living in that, but it's like, you know, like, I'm leaving here, and I'm going straight home. You know what I mean? I still am close enough and have had enough experience. Do you do the Zoom meetings? No, I don't do Zoom meetings, but I do calls with people that I trusted in the program.

I mean, almost, not almost, every day. That's good. And you talk to your old man every day? I talk to him, yeah, every night before he goes to bed. Oh, that's great. Yeah. And your mom, everybody? Yeah, everybody's great.

My girls are great. They must be amazing. Relieved? Yeah. They're tenuous? Yeah. No, no. I mean, beyond relieved.

I mean, it's just like, you know, I put him through so much. I mean, and I just am so incredibly grateful. And what about like, because I know that, you know, there was very public sort of strange grief driven relationship with your brother's wife. Yeah. And are you guys all right? Yeah, fine. I mean, I adore her. Are you guys all right? Yeah, fine.

I mean, I adore her. And Natalie and Hunter, my niece and nephew, are like my own. Everybody's okay. That got weird for a while, but now you're okay. Yeah, it did. I mean, that was one thing. It was kind of all out of love. Yeah, the grief thing is weird because grief is like you don't know what the hell it's going to do to you. I lost somebody almost a year ago. I know and what a stupid thing to say i'm sorry no

no i get it but like you don't you don't like you know there's no way to judge or to understand behavior that happens in in that need of of of sort of relief from that trauma yeah you know and like my brother got divorced and and married somebody and their exes married each other like you know people do to hold on to something yeah exactly exactly and it just made sense i imagine for a while it did it thought it was like bringing i thought we were kind of it was this is like maybe we're bringing back oh you know what some oh really so you would summon him back right right like maybe between the two of you yeah well the other example it was not really my brother but i know a woman who used to work with a woman who went on some sort of mission you know a humanitarian mission in iraq yeah and was killed yeah and no and the friend at home has like you know she's

made a foundation her whole life has been in the memory of this person yeah and she actually dated that person's yeah boyfriend for a while because of the grief you come together right exactly and i was alone and and uh hallie's her name yeah yeah but everything's good that's good you know i mean uh but you know no one comes in uh you know to uh recovery you know um you know on a roll you know what i mean yeah i know that one yeah yeah and so yeah yeah i just like i just think you you know because i know the one thing in the book and like look i'm no bleeding deacon yeah uh but you know and my program is whatever it is but i do know that in the first five years of my sobriety I was every day with the meeting put sobriety first before anything else yep you know nothing you know and and I was I hammered that shit in my head every fucking day yep and uh by

the way so do I okay 100% I am literally I I am uh I have a a discussion with somebody in the program every single day, mostly three times a day. Yep, got a sponsor. So when are you going to do that fourth? Well, you know what? Part of it was the book and maybe a little bit right here. But that is, look, I don't care what anybody says about the program it's it is uh it saved me sure and it and it's and it keeps saving me and so and all i know is at the end of it is one thing is that that whole you know the promises and and yeah the

obsession will be lifted that's the big one yeah and you can which allows you to be of service to other people and hopefully that that is what the book does i mean it gives me an opportunity you know made me nervous for you but but i'm glad that it's okay yeah thank you you know what i mean thank you as somebody who because like the one thing i noticed was that like when right when you start talking about rhea and when the crack comes in, once you get through the death, it's sort of like the amount of focus to the ritual of smoking crack to the Choi boy and the hard and all the lingo. I was like, oh, boy. Yeah. He loves his shit.

Yeah. You know? Yeah. the lingo is like oh boy yeah he loves his shit yeah you know yeah but uh well no but but we don't you know i i think you're it sounds like you know you're doing what you have to do and and it sounds like you got you know beautiful thing going on and your family feels better and your your dad's president and there's a little you can feel like you're not dragging him a bit. He's got a lot on his plate. But are you still in a little bit of trouble? Oh, no. I mean, there's an investigation.

I think everything's going to be fine. Yeah? Yeah. But it's, you know, let it play itself out. But I'm absolutely certain at the end of the day, everything's going to be fine. Yeah? Yeah. I'm absolutely, I did nothing wrong.

What is it, taxes? Taxes. Yeah. Yeah. And so I really could account. It's tricky, man. It must be. Do you ever, does the weight of that kind of like after everything that's gone on in terms of your name being dragged and you being used as this uh portal to try to damage

your dad that like you know like it seems to me it's one of those situations that yeah it's a difficult on either side if you do get off they're going to be like oh he got off because of his old man yeah and then if you don't get off it's going to be the most painful thing in the world for everybody involved yeah yeah well i i just know that you know i'm cooperating with anything anybody wants to ask me i'm an absolute open book complete transparency it's all out there and what you know and whatever whatever comes i know that there are uh people that are you know professionals and this is what they do and yeah and it's going to come to a conclusion. I know what I've done, and I know that I've done nothing wrong.

And so I'm going to let the process play out. But I'm going to be okay. Okay, buddy. I got to believe you. You know what? I do appreciate, I mean it for real. I appreciate the concern. People listening can't see this but your eyes i see it in your eyes too okay buddy i really do i appreciate it well i well good luck

with the book and uh you know and and uh you know take care of yourself oh for real it's an honor um you know i one of the things since i've been is I listen to you twice a week. Oh, yeah. Good. You kept me tethered to the thing. Yeah. Well, I'll give you my number anytime you need to call. I appreciate it.

Okay, man. All right. Thank you. Yes. That was Hunter Biden. yes that was hunter biden try to stay in touch with him around the sobriety thing um i feel like that he's a pretty tender-hearted guy beneath all this he's definitely not a sociopath or a bad dude. And I believe he knows he's still got a long road ahead of him.

And I wish him well, and I'll help how I can. Do what you can, folks. Hang in there. How about a little guitar? How about it? Let's do it. © transcript Emily Beynon Boomer lives. Monkey. The Fonda. The Fonda. Cat angels everywhere.

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