WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 864 - Lawrence O'Donnell

Episode Date: November 15, 2017

Lawrence O'Donnell is on MSNBC every weeknight talking about the chaos and tumult of uncertain times. He's no stranger to historic national turbulence, as he came of age in the Vietnam Era and received his draft notice shortly before the U.S. withdrawal. Lawrence talks with Marc about those times, which are the subject of his new book, but also about his Boston upbringing, his father's career change from cop to defense attorney, his job in the U.S. Senate, and his time writing for The West Wing. 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.

It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category.

And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talked to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Lock the gates! all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking

ears what the fuck nicks what's happening my name is mark maron this is my podcast wtf how's it going lawrence o'donnell is on the show today lawrence you may know him from his nightly show on msnbc you yeah he was uh he's a he's an author he's here to talk about a book he's a former senate staffer he was a writer for the west wing he was an actor and stuff like big love and monk and he's got a book out, Playing with Fire, the 1968 election and the transformation of American politics. He's going to be here in a minute. I'm going to try to turn this ship around. There's got to be some good things.

You know, I'm trying to be optimistic about the future, trying to be practical. I swear to God, god you know my life right now i'm trying to to box stuff up and uh get stuff uh together and i'm throwing out a lot of stuff and i really just don't give a fuck about it anymore i never thought that day would come to where i just all these tchotchkes and bullshit things that have just been hanging around. Like I'm like a cat. I'm no different than a cat really. With everything that's in my room.

I don't have a lot of shit, but in the garage I have a lot of shit. But it's just what I'm comfortable with. Like if I remove large swaths of the shit in here, I'll be awkward and uncomfortable. And I wouldn't know where to sit i wouldn't know where to to rest i i'm just like i get comfortable with the shapes in my environment and now i'm moving the shapes i'm throwing stuff out i'm moving the shapes i'm emptying rooms it's fucking it's weird but i do not give a fuck and i think maybe that's a sign of growth maybe it's just a fact that i'm i'm older and i don't see any reason to carry this shit around anymore sometimes you just want a blank slate you just want to an oh like you want just a mattress on the floor that

moment where you get everything out and it's just a you and that lamp and that mattress on the floor and you're like why didn't i do this from the very beginning because you have a lifetime of garbage that you amass and collect and for some reason you can't get rid of it there's days where i'm just sort of like i want everything god i don't want to feed these fucking cats anymore i don't want any of it and then there's days where you know i read the news and i'm like i don't know i just talked to uh tanahasi coats in here and we were talking about a james baldwin quote that he had he had said gave him relief and uh i i guess on some level it does but james baldwin said uh you should be aware that failure is a distinct possibility. I don't know if we're going to turn a corner.

We might not turn a corner. And then what does that look like? Do we just adapt? It's so it's so like chest crushing. All of it. I don't know what to do some days other than think about leaving but you know there is there's there's the macro and then there's the micro you know what i mean like there's still good moments right we've got some good moments don't we have good moments folks a few good moments

all right i don't know why i don't just tell you i'm moving i'm moving i'm moving out of this crumbling small adobe two-bedroom cabin i live in i'm moving somewhere else and i should be excited i am excited i got a different house and it's very exciting but i've been here a long time and i'm dug in here and i'm dug into this garage and i'm dug into everything that's you know in the garage and in my life and in my house but i haven't done any work on the house really other than a driveway for years it's falling down then the idea is sort of like well what do i do i'm still gonna work here i don't know what to do with the house just yet but i am going to another house and i don't know why i haven't been telling you about it i just feel like you know there's so

much else going on in the world what do i gotta share why should i share anything i'm excited about i was looking for a long time kind of half thinking about doing it. And then I just found a place and I'm going to do it. And it's a big thing. I've only bought one house. This was the only house I bought. And I've worn it out. I've worn this house out.

But I can't really start recording at the other place for a while. So I'm going to be here in the garage for a while. And I'll let you know what happens. But that's why I'm going through all my stuff. There's a lot of heartbreak and a lot of weirdness in this house. There's a lot of ghosts. There's a lot of bits and pieces from several different relationships. There's bits and pieces of several different big ideas about how I should live and who I'm living with.

There's bits and pieces of my life going all the way back to college in this garage. And it's like, I don't know what to take. I don't know what to leave, but I'm excited. And maybe I don't feel like I deserve it or something. Maybe all this work, I just got to the point where I'm like, you know, I'm not married. I don't have children.

What am I doing? What am I waiting for? Isn't, you know, getting a new place one of the exciting things people do? So I did that. And now I'm overwhelmed, anxious, terrified and in chaos. But I'm excited and it's a good thing. And I don't know. I would have just stayed here like a cat.

But then I started to think like, do I want to die in this house? Is this where I want that to happen? Am I just going to die along with this house? Am I just going to watch myself crumble as this place crumbles? As bolts fall out of window hinges, I just going to watch myself crumble as this place crumbles as bolts fall out of window hinges I just get used to it and wait for the drop on the floor and then stick it back in

when I close the window as roofs leak do I just start to watch myself hunch over walk slower in this house nope I'm fucking moving it's a big deal so there it's out of the bag i'm happy

about it i'm nervous about it i'm overwhelmed but i i feel like i worked hard and i'm gonna go and live in a in a nicer house okay there i said it why am I ashamed to say that? So stupid. Oh yeah, I got this other thing I wanted to share with you. A nice story. I like this story. It's from an email. But I think it was touching. My eight-year-old is in tears over Buster's return.

That's a subject line. How am I not going to pop that open? Hello, Mark. I wanted to let you know that my husband and I are longtime fans. We often listen in the car, and our eight-year-old son was with me last week when he discussed Buster running away. We have three rescue cats who are all brothers. They're about 18 months old. And when my son heard you say Buster was missing, he burst into tears and said we needed to find a way to help. I later found him in his room making

missing buster kitten signs mind you we live in the suburbs of chicago and i told him this gesture was very kind but i doubt buster would make it this far from home this morning while listening to you on the way to school for him and work for me we heard buster was back and he cried tears of joy for you and asked that i pass along the message that he is so happy for you to have him back. Oh, boy. I hope this message finds you well. And please never forget that you have fans big and small all over. All my best.

That's a that's a sweet one. Look, I look. I'm glad he's back to seriously. So Lawrence O'Donnell, So Lawrence O'Donnell. The Lawrence O'Donnell. Intense guy. If you watch his show on MSNBC. Means business.

He's got his sights focused on some... He's going for it. He wants to take this fucker down. That's no doubt. But he's done a lot of other stuff. He's lived an interesting life. And he grew up in Boston. And's he's managed to temper that a little bit but he comes from boston so uh so it's good i was excited to talk to him so this is me talking

to uh lawrence o'donnell new book is playing with fire the 1968 election and the transformation of american politics all All right? Okay. Be honest. When was the last time you thought about your current business insurance policy? If your existing business insurance policy is renewing on autopilot each year without checking out Zensurance, you're probably spending more than you need. That's why you need to switch to low-cost coverage from Zensurance before your policy renews this year. Zensurance does all the heavy lifting to find a policy, 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.

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You have like a life out here too, right? Do you have a house and a car? I have a house and a car in Santa Monica, yeah. You shoot the show in New York. Yes. All the time. Yes. Isn't that getting tiring? I do it here. Oh, the show in New York. Yes. All the time. Yes. Isn't that getting tiring?

I do it here. Like, I'll do it. Oh, you can do it here. I can do it here. Like, I'll do it here. You know, if I'm here for a weekend, I'll sometimes do it here on Monday. Do you consider this your home?

I do, because I don't have another home. I have hotel rooms. And so it's my home. So, you know I I'm gonna try not to just engage you on political matters but but like I read some of the press for this and I look through this book and and I just talked to Ken Burns oh yeah and Lynn Novick I watched all of the Vietnam War documentary and this this there's backstory in that that shows up here in your book because

it's history and i i found comfort in that uh it seemed like things were pretty bad then like i i think you know i know things are bad now but when i watched that because i was too young and too like uninterested or apathetic to really wrap my brain around it. But the country was about to come apart. Yes. And that's what this book is about, really. Yes. Right? It's about heading into that.

Yes. So you think it was worse then? Oh, yes. Almost incalculably worse. And you remember it? I lived it. Because you're a little older than me. Yeah, I went to Vietnam funerals.

Right, so you were in college in 70. You started in 70, right? Yes, yeah. I know I was there in 72 because that's when I got my draft notice. You did? Oh, so you got one of the last ones. One of those ones where it was just sort of like, go die. That's right.

We don't even know what's going on there anymore. That's right. Go die. You got one of those draft notices. I got one of those. So what happened? So I got the draft notice, and I had to go to South Boston. Southie.

So I got to go down there for my physical. And so these guys there who were dressed as women and trying to get out of it and pretending to be mentally ill and all this stuff. And by this time, they'd seen everything. And so you could not just walk in there in a dress and get out of the draft. Not anymore. Covered in peanut butter. Yeah, like that would work in 67.

Right. No, it isn't going to work now, you know. And so, you know, I go through this whole thing. Are you telling me you were dressed as a woman and you turned away? No, I couldn't think of anything, so I went in dressed as me. Yeah. And I passed the physical. And so then the process was you go home.

Yeah. And you wait two weeks approximately. Yeah. Then you're going to get a letter that says, you know, be at South Station Saturday morning at 5 a.m. for the bus to Fort Dix for basic training. Oh, my God. Just like that? Just like that, right? And I'm at home, and I'm trying to figure out what to do and how to deal with this. And the one thing I was sure of was I'm not going to go.

That I'm not going to do. Really? You decided that. You had resolve around that. Yeah, and it was I'm going to go. Yeah, and it was, I'm going to go, I'm going to, you know, end up in federal court like Muhammad Ali and go to prison. I'm glad you had a precedent for you. Yeah.

Or am I going to go to Canada? Am I going to go to Sweden? But I'm not going to South Station in two weeks. And, you know, my father was a lawyer by then. He was a cop and he went to law school nice he was a lawyer by then and and he had represented uh some of the very first uh mafia people who'd ever gone to trial in america in in boston in boston the irish mob or the no no italians so he knew people like if you go if you go to danbury yeah you will eat well yeah and uh because you know because Jerry and Julo will take care of you. So it was like all this stuff was going on. Food's an easy favor.

And then bang, like 10 days into this, Nixon ends the draft. That day, over, done. Oh, man. And you were just sweating. Yeah. You were going to have to go meet with some mobsters. Right. But there's all these people who are alive today.

Yeah. mobsters right and but there's all these people you know who are alive today yeah uh those guys that i was over at the uh induction center with in south boston all of them yeah lived and they all you know none of them joined the army because they wouldn't have been there getting drafted if they wanted to join the army uh many of them went on to have grandchildren who don't know how lucky they are that that person lived. Yeah. And now they live. Yeah. And after watching that Vietnam doc, knowing that at that point that there was everyone, everyone knew that there was no point.

Yes. And that people were still dying and still being drafted. It was a lost cause. Well, and the worst thing of it all is the people who knew there was no point included the presidents who did this yeah all of them i mean lbj from the beginning yeah like even kennedy they were like that's it no it's not yeah and and nixon and kissinger they knew you know and you know and remember the crime nixon commits yeah is to continue the war the crime Nixon commits is to continue the war. The crime he commits is to say, for me to get elected, there can't be any breakthrough for peace. I won't win if LBJ has a breakthrough for peace.

Therefore, I want this war to extend. So he goes behind LBJ's back, right? But to say I want the war to extend, remember, is to say I want thousands more American soldiers dead so that I can win the presidency. Yeah, kids. So, okay, so that in itself, that level of moral bankruptcy, you think that so far transcends Trump's level of moral bankruptcy? Well, I think Trump has shown himself to be a person who would do exactly the same thing. Right.

I mean, you give him that setting and it could be worse. Sure, right. It it could be worse. Sure, right. It absolutely could be worse. And so, but what we saw was what we now know is a president was elected in 1968 in the middle of a war thanks to collusion with a foreign power. That's how he was elected. The South Vietnamese.

Yeah. And the North. He communicated to both. But specifically, the best line of communication power so that's how he was elected the south vietnamese yeah yeah and the north he communicated to both but specifically the best of the best line of communication was to the south but this uh woman lbj didn't want to make it he didn't want to make hay about it for the sake of the country the good of the country yeah right yeah so wait now your dad was a cop when you were a kid he was a boston cop and years, though? When did he? You know, after the war, so, you know, the late 40s, early 50s, he was a Boston cop. And so when I was born in the early 50s, he was a Boston cop.

No kidding. Yeah. What part of Boston did you grow up in? I grew up in Dorchester, which is like way above where my father grew up. My father grew up in Roxbury. Actually, my father grew up. West Roxbury? No, no, no.

That's like the Conan O'Brien neighborhood. That's like the classy. People went to college in West Roxbury. Oh, I didn't know if it was bad then, though. No, no. So, Roxbury. West Roxbury. But Roxbury is a whole other thing.

And so, he grew up very poor because his father died when my father was about 11 years old. Were they first generation, your grandparents? No, no, no. My grandfather, my father's father came over here when he was a year old. So, yeah. Okay, yeah. So he was born in Ireland. Yeah.

And so my father had a really, really tough life and ended up luckily becoming, for him, becoming a Boston cop because, you know, they never fired cops. So now you have a paycheck for the rest of your life, right? Yeah. But he's a wise guy because, you know, he's, that's what we are. And so he's- The O'Donnells are or the Irish? Well, the Boston Irish. Well, the Boston Irish.

Yeah, the Boston Irish. There's just, there's, you know, it's a culture that's a clench fist. I lived there for years and I was terrified. I don't have to convince you. I was terrified. I was paranoid. And so he's a wise guy and he's sitting there in the witness stand as a Boston police patrolman, right? And he's getting cross-examined.

For what? For anything. For anything, right? And he's getting cross-examined by these lawyers and he's sitting there thinking i could do that i could do that that guy i could do that he's making more money he's barely a high school graduate okay he did yeah he did terrible in high school he's sitting there thinking he's smarter than every lawyer in the courtroom. Yeah, yeah. Right. And it turns out he is. And so he's the first Boston cop ever who goes to college and law school nights. And back then, he didn't even finish college. He went to an unaccredited college, Suffolk University.

He went for two years. That was enough for the unaccredited law school at Suffolk University to let him into the law school so he then you know gets through law school and uh and becomes a lawyer so really for you know my functional memory you know my old man was a lawyer which was a a giant giant difference in my neighborhood where everybody else's father was a cop or did he become like the the neighborhood lawyer no no he became a big time boston criminal lawyer like that like he's the guy you go to and like no shit yeah he became the guy it was fascinating you know because he when i was a kid you could never get the slightest hint that anyone he was representing might have done it like that's out of the question you know and um

and a disturbing number of them you know went to jail unjustly as far as i know right you know yeah yeah yeah and uh so yes and and there was a lot of um you know there's a lot of adventure and in the way he did it you know and and he uh he went much more with gut than scholarship. I mean, just amazing things that he pulled off that I watched him pull off. But that was the period where Whitey Bulger was running everything, right? No. Okay, here's the illusion of Whitey Bulger. But you grew up in Dorchester, right?

Yeah, yeah. Whitey Bulger was the next place over in South Boston. South, right. And, you know, my oldest brother's wife once had a date with Whitey Butler. Really? How many brothers? They grew up in the same housing project. How many?

I have three older brothers. That's it? Yeah, and a younger sister. Yeah. Okay. So you did the Catholic thing. They did what they had to do. Yeah, but my mother underpopulated.

She only had five kids. Each of her sisters had nine. Okay. One of your cousins. My mother was lazy about this. She had a job probably no she did she didn't most of the time she ended up uh working in my father's office and and bringing some sense to that and so and some much-needed calm i might say was he a chaos guy

he was uh very chaotic and he was uh filled with all kinds of rage that would come out, you know, almost every other day. And I was about 12, I think, when I discovered the source of that, which I wrote about in my first book. But he was 11 years old. Yeah. And his father was a boxer and his father killed himself. And the kids, his twin brother and his older brother saw this happen and it was a it was one of those things you know where they they his older brother patrick tried to take the gun away from his father's patrick was like 12 and they chased

you know he chased the kids into the park and grabbed the gun away. And so they witnessed this, right? And I discover this when I'm 12 years old and I go, oh, now I get it. Now I get why he's yelling about where are the gray socks. You know, like, because his behavior in many instances was just mysterious. Like, what is that rage about? Because it isn't about the subject. Well, that's sort of like where, like like borderline personality disorder comes from yeah sense of abandonment that like

just like how why wouldn't everybody kill themselves what right and and and and the and you know he he's he forever at after that point for me became in many ways whenever he entered the kind of you know the difficult behavioral zones yeah he was just this little boy he was this i was watching a lost little boy yeah who was lost in the worst way and who was filled by the way with shame for life because he couldn't say he couldn't stop him no no no because of the horror there. Yeah. The bigger part of it was the cultural shame. Of having a dad killed. Well, first of all, within the religion, that is a mortal sin.

Right. His father could not be buried in the Catholic Church because he committed suicide. So this is a kind of cultural shame. It could never be admitted. And when I realized that I was going to have to write about it and tell that story in my first book, my brothers were very worried about this because it had never been discussed in the family in any real way. And let sweeping grandpas lie. That's right. Never been dealt with.

And they just kept, you know, my brother Michael is saying, the old man's going to go crazy. He's going to go crazy. He sees that in this book. Oh, he's still around? Oh, yeah. And so. So you're all terrified of him. Well, I wasn't because I wasn't at that point.

I certainly was when I was 10. Absolutely. It was like, you know, like he would come home and you would just have to wait. Oh, yeah. Is he on fire? No. Okay, good. All right.

Let's eat. I know that one. But my father was the first one to read that book. Yeah. And he read it in a night and he kind of woke me up in the middle of the night and just said he loved it. Oh. And he completely understood, since he's a big character in the book, why that had to be explained to understand him.

Because he always did. Did he know it? Was it something surprising for him that you put it? Yes. It was surprising to him that it was in there. Oh, that's great. But I think in the flow of the book, it probably wasn't surprising when that paragraph started coming up

because I was explaining him and I was explaining motivations and I was explaining choices he made. Yeah. And I think, and he's such, he was such a smart, he was very, you know, he was essentially, you know, unschooled, but he had a great head for writing and for literature. Yeah. And so I think he understood the flow of a story.

And I think he understood why this is happening on page 180 of this book. Sure, but did he, do you think you made psychological and emotional connections that he hadn't made so him reading your book was sort of a revelation? I think it must have been. That it must have been. It's a tough line to toe. One thing you're discovering is, oh, this kid of mine who's now, I don't know, 30 or something, these are his observations of me. Yeah. You know, and as I sit here, I have no idea if my daughter at 30 were to write a book that included me. Yeah.

I don't have any idea what adjectives would be used. Right. Or, I mean, I know what facts could be told. And what scenes don't exist because I've never done that, you know. But I don't exist because i've never done that you know but sure i don't i don't know you have no you don't know how no matter how empathetic you are you cannot know what her experience of you is you don't know what they isolate you don't know what the isolated camera is on what's the repeated thing yeah one thing and you and and and look i found out one fact about my father's

history and i used it to explain a lot almost everything um i don't know if if my daughter has a fact or a set of facts or something about me that she then uses to explain stuff the big nightmare was you just should just disagree with you politically my father the commie no she's with me on that oh good good she's with me on that you got her there you made sure she learned the right way. Right. But I am related to Trump voters. You know, you can't come from Boston and not be.

You know, you can't come from my part of Boston. And as me, like, coming from narcissism, you know, I emotionally understand some of it. Mm-hmm. You know, like, and I think anybody who has a big ego emotionally understands, you know, the relief of being a dick. Yes. It doesn't last long. And most of us have shame about it. Right.

But there is that moment where you're like, fuck you. Right. And you're like, he deserved it. Right. And then a year or so later, a week later, a day later, I'm like, yeah, I'm sad. I was out of line. He's never out of line, this guy. Yeah.

line yeah not he's not never out of line this guy yeah the difference by the way culturally about that in boston is that here are the things i'd never heard in my entire i i never heard any of these words till i got to college please never heard that word never heard the word thank you and i never heard the words i'm sorry ever we were just uncouth but no one was confused like no one was confused whether you were grateful for this thing if you didn't say thank you yeah there was a basic kind of soul level communication but where those words seemed unnecessary how do you track that though like with the because like i'll tell you i and i've talked about it a bit before when i was going to college in boston there was a period there where i was just a you Jewish kid in the middle of just Irish townies everywhere.

And I got very- I'm so sorry. It's all right. I grew to like them. Like, I go back now, and there's nothing more unique than the indigenous population of Boston. It's true. There's nothing like it. And for a while, it was terrifying, and now I kind of romanticize it.

But I go to Ireland, and I don't have any of – I feel so comfortable in Ireland. I'm a Jew, and I'm like, this is the greatest place. It's so green. These people are so humbled by history and sort of sweet and melancholy but not nasty. How do you explain the gap? And sort of sweet and melancholy, but not nasty. How do you explain the gap? I have pondered it my whole life. By the way, when I was a kid, the mayor of Dublin was a Jew.

Benjamin Briscoe. It is inconceivable that in my lifetime there would be a mayor of Boston who was a Jew. That was unimaginable. I think it could happen now because Boston's changed dramatically, and that's wonderful. But did you think, but it wasn't because, like, I didn't, here's the weird thing, and I didn't mean to interrupt you, but someone asked me the other day, I was on a podcast, someone asked me about the, you know, more so the New York guys,

the guys you associate with Trump from New York, these guys that are like, hey, what's up? You know, like the assholes. like in in there there's the boston version but like i don't did you find do you think they're fundamentally anti-semitic or just what happened oh deeply but here's but here's what's so interesting about it it was a purely theoretical thing because we had never met one yeah we wouldn't know what direction to go to find one. And so I think I was about. Let's go to Newton. We didn't know where that was.

Okay. There was no direct subway line. But so, yes, in my neighborhood, Jew was a verb. Okay. And so the prejudice, though, I realized when I was in high school was completely theoretical. Yeah. And I realized at the same time that Moe, the pharmacist on Adam Street, is Jewish. Right.

No one knew that, you know, because he had some non-Jewish last name. Right. It never crossed anyone's mind. Oh, Mally. He changed it. And Moe was beloved. Yeah. And he let people, you know, take the prescriptions without paying and catch up with them and all this.

Mo was a phenomenally wonderful man. And so everybody loved him. And I know that if I could make an announcement, by the way, everybody, Mo is Jewish, they'd go, oh. And it would really, there'd be a pause because their anti-Semitism, which was universal, as far as I could tell, was theoretical. Right, but I find now that what we're finding is, and what I find that's scary about, you know, what the remnants and the never-ending sort of legacy of any type of racism is that, yeah, you could have done that. And they would have went, oh, but he's a good one. He's the good one, yes. Yes, that's probably what they would have done. And I was unique.

I was so lucky about, because my father did, was a wise guy who decided I'm not going to be a cop, I'm going to be a lawyer. Because what that meant was at Suffolk Law School, he connected with a fellow student, Sam Cinnamon, who was Jewish. And I had this wonderful Jewish man in my home when I was a little boy, you know, just kind of learning to speak English. And also within my home, there was an absolute ban.

And it never had to be said. It was never said. But there was a ban on the racial slurs and all that labeling. And I only realized there was a ban when I was in someone else's house and his father was a Boston cop. And we're sitting there in the kitchen and he's talking to, so the two parents are over there at the sink and they're talking. And I hear him go, I hear him say this N word. Yeah. And I thought he had just said, fuck.

I thought it was like, oh, you can't say. It was like I was stunned by it. Right. And it was that moment when I realized, oh, my house is exceptional. Yeah. There's nothing worse than hearing that used casually. It's just to be in a moment with somebody who feels comfortable enough or just dug in or that it's just what they say to hear that that word used casually or any sort of racist word there's that moment you're

like what do i do now you're like well now couple it with he's talking about someone he arrested okay so right away like that's that's where I first learned the disparate treatment that black people suffer at the hands of police. But where does it turn for you? Like, so your old man wasn't a drinker? No, my father never had a drink in his life. And did you ever find out why? I've always suspected that his father was probably a bad drunk. Did you ever get any closure or any explanation of where your grandfather was at when he did that and why he did it?

No, the only way my father would ever talk about his father was in the most heroic praise. Just what a heroic, wonderful, you know, just pure praise. Suspended before he picked up that gun. Well, I don't believe it. I don't believe it. I don't believe it. You know, it's his rewriting of who his father, who he wanted his father to be. His father, the boxer. I'll never know.

The boxer. Yeah, his father, the boxer. I'll never know. I'll never know really. I don't think I'm ever going to have some view of his father because my father was the access to that. What about your uncles? Don't you have uncles or aunts? They're all gone.

And no one talked to them about it either. My father's sister is still with us, but no one's ever talked to them about it. It's just... You're the journalist. I can't go to my father's sister and say, hey, let's talk about that day. You know, and by the way, she was an infant. So she didn't... She didn't know.

She wasn't a witness. All right. So what drives you to get involved with politics? I mean, who were you, you know, where you started to realize, like, this is a thing that you could do? It was pure accident. I had no interest in it. I wasn't drawn to it in any way. Were you protesting in the 60s?

Yeah. In high school, I was going to the anti-war demonstrations, you know. Yeah, in high school, I was going to the anti-war demonstrations, you know. And in college, and I had this weird freshman year in college where I was on the baseball team. At Harvard? Yeah, because I was okay at baseball. And I'd be going down to practice. And it's like, I am missing the peace demonstration on the Boston Common today. What am I doing?

What kind of childish shit is this? And there's this wonderful Thoreau line where Henry David Thoreau says something about, you know, when you become a man, you put away the things of a child. And I remember that line, put away the things of a child. And I'm walking, you know, across. I got a baseball glove in my hand and I'm going, what am I doing? You know, it was. And that's the way it was, you know.

And. But were you awake and aware as a freshman? Totally. You were. In high school, I was. In high school, I was awake. See, that's it. Everybody was.

You couldn't be a sophomore in high school in America and not be worried about this. Because in my case, my older brothers all had draft cards in their pocket. None of them went? My oldest brother joined because he was advised that if you get drafted, you have no control over it. If you join, and he was a college graduate by the time he joined, you might be able to get a soft assignment, which he did, and never left the United States.

So joining was part of the strategy of avoiding the war like actually joining trying to get a cushy assignment in germany or something you know that was part of it isn't that interesting though that that what made everyone so aware uh uh you know aside from the media environment being much more intimate you know in terms of or much less expansive yeah uh is that there was this real risk that you were going to get called up to go get killed or go fight either you were going to die or your boyfriend was going to die your cousin you know all my brothers older than me and i never heard a word when they were in college age and i was still in high school i never heard one word

about career planning or what are we going to do. Not a single word from anybody who was that age in my neighborhood. It was 100% about how do I avoid Vietnam. And there were a tiny handful who just went. They didn't want to, but they would join the Marines. They just kind of obeyed the older rules. they would join the marines you know they just they just kind of obeyed the older rule but but it seems to me that as the 60s went on and into you know the 70s that you know even if some of them thought it was the right thing to do initially because they believed the government that that's

that what really defines the political culture that we're still living in is that that broke down because of ellsberg because of you know information getting out that the belief in the government doing the right thing did just uh eroded i think the the belief in the government doing the right thing was gone by 1968 by the end of 1968 yeah by the end of 1968 so anybody and in this book he still pulls it yeah anybody who enlists at that point is enlisting because they think they have no choice or they're enlisting because they think it is the right thing to do even if this is a mess so okay so you you got your mitt in your hand you got your glove you can and you and you do you activate so what do you

study i end up through a process of elimination uh studying economics and i had a simple rule for myself which was I want to I want to take because you know when I opened the college course book yeah there were thousands of courses there on it my first week freshman year and there were languages I did not know existed I saw the word Urdu in this book you know as a language for the very first time must've been while it's Harvard your dad must have been kind of blown away was that a normal thing no that was a gigantic uh gigantic cultural achievement for us in my neighborhood harvard was the punchline of a joke right a friend of mine would would always say and this was true

by the way uh my father works at harvard station yeah and he was the guy who was making change for the tokens and um and so it was it was like it was it was a really weird thing i have to say like when i got uh the admission there and i got this form of early admission that they had for local kids uh basically local kids only and boston kids only and the kids from the rich prep schools and they would tell you really early like around thanksgiving you know you're in and so i actually applied to one college i never applied anywhere else just harvard did you go to a prep school no i don't know i i had big problems in high school i ended up going to three high schools got kicked out of uh one what was the problem a discipline it was uh wise guys go to high school

you know i mean in our first high school that i went to, all my brothers went to this high school in West Roxbury, kind of a higher class neighborhood, a Catholic high school. And it was kind of new. It was the new high school on the block. And they were competing with Boston College High School, which was the prestigious Jesuit high school. And this was run by the Irish Christian Brothers. And the way they competed with Boston College High School was to sit the parents down because it's brand new. My brother, Michael, I think was in like their first class.

Sit the parents down and say, in effect, in polite, you know, clerical language, we will beat the fucking shit out of your kid more than any other teacher anywhere. It was like, we will beat them better where do i sign you know so so the cops and the firefighters and all they're all signing so we're all there and these guys were famous for like their torture tools and like these these canes they would use to spank you and no kidding oh yeah yeah and it was it it was intense. And they had literally an up staircase and a down staircase. And so my brother and I were not particularly terrible. I mean, we didn't get in fights and stuff like some of the other guys.

But at the end of like halfway through like sophomore year, they wrote a letter in the middle of the summer, like August. They just wrote a letter to about 25 of us and said, you know what? Don't come back. We've thought about it. We've had some time at the beach. We can't stand the idea of you guys walking back in here. And so we, in the middle of the summer, had to scramble and find another high school. So you were smart ass, just disruptive?

Yeah. I mean, just smart ass, actually. Oh, I mean, like we would just skip school and go play pool yeah you know and uh i remember one time were you were you getting shitty grades no i was doing pretty good you know i was doing i was doing reasonably well but here's the funny thing about that uh expectation yeah and guidance right so i have what by the time I'm a freshman in high school, I've got three older brothers who've gone through the same school and the same freshman year.

They say the following to me. You won't understand the math. You won't understand the science. You won't understand the Latin. The English and the history, that's just reading. You'll understand that. I go, okay. And I'm telling you this is the- Big vote of confidence, that's just reading. You'll understand that." I go, okay. So,

and I'm telling you this is the- Darrell Bock It's a big vote of confidence. Richard Averbeck That's my expectation. So, here's the strange thing. I'm in the second week of Latin class, and I still understand everything. Darrell Bock Yeah. Richard Averbeck And I think, this can't last. Darrell Bock Right. Richard Averbeck This has to-

Darrell Bock It's going to fall out at some point. Richard Averbeck This has to- it can't happen, right? And I'm in the third week of math class. I understand it all. It's obviously not going to continue, but I understand it. So it's like if I had just had one person somewhere in my life who said, you're going to do very well. You know, like I wonder what, would I have gotten even better grades? I don't know. No one was giving you that. Zero.

Zero, man. Wasn't that. No, he was a terrible student he just was hoping i mean he just was what you can he didn't know he would have no idea how to help me with a math problem right so it was just and i and you know there's a cultural thing there too uh which which was summarized for me flawlessly by carol o'connor on the murray griffin show when i was about 13 right okay yeah all in the family's the biggest show in the world and carol o'connor on the merv griffin show when i was about 13 right okay yeah all in the family's the biggest show in the world and carol o'connor has finished season one and he went off to the

abbey theater in dublin yeah for the hiatus right now he's back shooting season two he's the biggest tv star in the world he's sitting down with merv griffin who's also irish these two irish guys okay merv says to car Carol O'Connor, oh, when you went, because Carol O'Connor had trained at the Abbey Theater in Dublin. Oh, when you went back to the Abbey Theater, it must have been the return of the conquering hero.

It must have been so wonderful. There's a little pause and a breath, and Carol O'Connor says, oh, Merv, you know, the Irish would always prefer you come home a failure. And I went, oh my God, it's my whole culture in a sentence. It's the whole thing right there. And so what my brothers were telling me is,

don't feel bad when you flunk Latin and science. You're not going to understand chemistry. No one ever has. Well, what do you make of that? What is that? Why the cultural impetus? Why is it that way? If it's a joke, and I know that there are hardened people in the Irish,

or they've taken their share of shots, and that they're like... But what is it about it culturally that that would be it? Is it a Catholic thing? Because success was a new experiment. This was new to them. I mean, just think about it in my own my own family i mean my father's comfort it's understandable yeah failure is understandable success is like what do we do with that i am i am first generation college graduate in my family my mother didn't go to college yeah my father didn't graduate from college i'm first generation my my brother michael kevin the billy they're they're they're the first ones and in my neighborhood by the time we were graduating from high school approximately a maximum of half of

the kids were headed to college and maybe half of them were going to finish and so we didn't have two generations of experience with the full run of education. There was no physician in our family history. There was no lawyer. There was nobody who made a living in a necktie. And so it takes a while. You don't immediately adopt the values and the framework of the academically successful world just because, okay, now you kids get to go to high school. But you don't think that it came down through years of the politics of the British Empire and then just this sort of idea that it's ingrained in the culture that life isn't fair. Yes. Oh, yes. That's for sure.

And that you just accept it. Yeah. And if you get lucky, it's not going to last. Well, and also the other thing that Carol O'Connor is saying there is they will know how to talk to me if I'm a failure. That's right. They won't know how to talk to me if I'm not. Right. They have every word to say to the failure.

They'll tell them jokes. Have a drink. Everything. Yeah. They have everything. That's right. They have no vocabulary for success. It's comfortable.

Because they have no experience with it. And the so-called successful person is suspect to them. How did that happen? Do you have that in you? No. Do you have an insecure, like, is there anything inside of you that you are not comfortable with success? Oh, no. Not at all.

Not a bit. you are not comfortable with success? Oh no, not at all. Um, not a bit. You can, if you want to,

if anyone wants to give me any more, I will, I will take whatever, whatever you can give me. I mean, you always like that. Yeah. Because I, because this is an evolution,

you know, I don't have no idea what I would be. I really don't have the vaguest idea what I would be if my father had remained a Boston cop. I don't have any idea what I would have thought the horizon was. I, I don't know. And, uh, but, but i've got a lot of um you know i got a lot of poison dna in me and stuff and a lot of a lot of stuff you know from my neighborhood that i use now as an excuse for the way i am you know i i kind of yeah you got you got a lot of fuck you and you yeah and

and and and sometimes when i watch i'm watching rachel it gets into you i'm like how fuck you is he gonna be tonight well i well what you're watching is someone who's trying to suppress that 24 hours a day i mean so i mean i you know it literally in my neighborhood, if you stopped at a traffic light in 1967 and my people didn't know you, there was a very strong chance that there would be punching on your driver's window of your car. And they would punch their way through the window of your car. And you'd be sitting there so shocked that it would take you a while to realize i should drive away because this is what's happening yeah yeah because there's this drunk irish 17 year old who's going bang and he doesn't care that his hand is getting all ripped out right so i i was watching that as a as a little kid and i and i i didn't i never liked it i never liked it and and everybody in my neighborhood was ranked on how tough you are.

And so literally, like, who's the toughest kid in the second grade? Lawrence O'Donnell. Who's the toughest kid in the third grade? Billy O'Donnell. Who's the, you know? So, and my brother Michael was the toughest kid in his grade. So we kind of inherited those titles. By the time I'm in fourth grade and Tom Broderick comes in as a transfer from South Boston and he's bigger than me.

I'm thinking fighting's overrated. I shouldn't have to prove myself that way yeah because i immediately started to see i could lose and as soon as i understood i could lose in fighting and i could lose teeth and stuff yeah i basically became a pacifist so like in my neighborhood nobody there nobody in my neighborhood thinks of me as the slightest tough guy in the world because I didn't get in a single fight after like fifth grade. That might have been the beginning of politics. Yeah. Like how do I win without getting hurt? How do I charm?

How do I be a diplomat? How do I do this? No, I was really, I was trying, I was always trying to transcend the things in my culture that I did not like. And I saw a lot of stuff in my culture that I did not like. And I saw a lot of stuff in my culture that I didn't like. And I knew I'm going to have to work at this. For yourself personally. Yeah, for myself personally.

Philosophically and intellectually, it was really, really easy. I was in high school. And I read Dick Gregory's autobiography. And Dick Gregory explains why he's a pacifist. Bang, that day, I'm a pacifist forever. And now I know why. And Dick Gregory explains Gandhi to me on this page. I get it 100%. Dick Gregory explains a few pages down why he's a vegetarian. I walk in and I tell my mother I'm a vegetarian. I become a vegetarian for the next 25 years. Really? 25 years? So intellectually adopting a new framework that was not available within my neighborhood was the easiest possible part of it.

And a relief. Yes, and a relief. And I saw, oh, that's the correct way to think. And I'm not even slightly tempted to throw a punch. Right. I don't have any of that. Luckily, that stuff got flushed out of me. All that stuff about throwing punches and luckily that stuff got flushed out of me all that stuff about you know throwing

punches and right and all that stuff and and a lot of it had to do with that i just never drank i was never i was literally never drunk ever not once still uh yeah and it was it was a miscalculation because it was i wanted to like everybody else every kid my age was totally shit-faced friday and saturday night when they were 10 years old. 10 years old. If by 12, you were not getting shit-faced on Friday and Saturday night, people were looking at you. What's going on? What's wrong with that kid? So I tasted it and I hated it.

I drank the beer. It was the most foul thing I'd ever tasted. And I was a very cold logician. I don't want something in my mouth that I don't like the taste of. I'm not having any more. And I didn't give a shit about peer pressure. You've got to stick with it. it yeah that's what i'm told i didn't know that but i didn't care because i wasn't going to stick with it you know commitment and then i made the mistaken

calculation that you know this could work this could really work with the girls because i'll be the one who's not puking yeah like that's gonna my stock's gonna soar because i i won't be puking yeah you know i'm the only one here who's not leaning against a lamppost puking like and did it did it work out no because it turns out they like they had to be drunk too and they like i wasn't going to get them drunk so and they like to take care of the pukers uh they yeah they're very motherly yeah yeah so so after did you you wrote for the lampoon yeah i was on the lampoon uh that was just um a lucky a really lucky thing for me it was back in the day where merit was not what got you on it was really i mean it was merit or good guy i got on in the good guy category like people

just wanted me hanging around but you're a funny guy i was a funny guy to sit around and talk right by the standards of the place and possibly at least 50 of that was my accent and so and how'd you get rid of that accent I had to study and learn to speak American and and it was it was the hardest thing in the world sometimes no I like when it comes out it's it's it's a show of intimacy the more the more intimate I get the more it comes out which is unfortunate because it's the ugliest sound. The more jest it comes out. But no, I drove cross-country between high school and college that summer.

And I get as far as New Jersey and I need gas. And I have to talk to a gas station attendant because New Jersey, you can't pump your own gas and all that stuff. I don't understand a word he's saying. He doesn't understand a word I'm saying. I'm like pointing. It's like I'm in Yugoslavia pointing to a gas tank. I get back in the car and I go, I got to learn this. So I turn on like CBS News Radio and I just sit in the car driving

as if I'm in the language lab listening to French or Spanish tapes. I just listen and it's taken you know, it's taken forever, but it's right there and it cracks, like it'll crack on my show too. And like, I feel it cracking and I try to swallow the word on the show, you know, and then I feel like, oh, everybody sees this, you know. And then of course it flies by and no one quite catches what that was. I turned into a cough or something. So is it a shame thing? Are you ashamed of it?

Are you ashamed of the anger? It's a's a weird thing i know how weird the sound is and and it's also it there's a the label of that sound is stupid like that is the label right and southerners have this feeling too you know i i know southerners who they would when they were kids they would if they were you know had the means they would go to new york with their parents or something and they would, when they were kids, they would, if they were, you know, had the means, they would go to New York with their parents or something, and they would notice, you know, that the hotel treated their father differently because he had this accent. They treated him like he's dumb, you know?

And the bad thing, when I was in my 20s, about the Boston accent, is that people didn't know what it was. So they knew the Brooklyn accent because that had been in the movies. The Boston accent had not. And so you just sounded stupid. No one knew where that had been in the movies. Yeah. The Boston accent had not. True. So you just sounded stupid. No one knew where that was from.

They didn't care. You just plain sounded stupid. And literally, though, to actually be understood. Yeah. You actually have to learn these words in other parts of the country. Or how to say the words properly. Yeah. I mean, you know, like you can say i can say to you know to my brothers uh

say car yeah and they say car and they think they've said exactly what you just said it's like because we couldn't hear it you know boston people couldn't hear the accent we didn't know we had an accent yeah it's funny so uh so what happens after harvard did you graduate with the honors and shit not nothing special i mean everybody does like like to do at harvard well no there's like at that time and still like two-thirds of the class gets at least cum laude you know like if you don't have cum i had the that thing that's the lowest one you got an undergraduate degree in economics yeah yeah and my principle was i wanted to take courses where someone had to teach me. So, for example. Oh, that you didn't because you didn't know anything. Yeah.

You need a teacher for that. Right. You can't just pick up economics books. So I didn't take history courses because I thought I can just read the history myself. I don't have to use my course time for that. I didn't take literature courses because I thought I'll read all that when I finish college. So I know no history and no literature. I never did the homework.

I never read it you wrote a history book uh so these things happen um but but economics i thought i just i it's just a way of understanding the world and i thought it was the most interesting way to understand the world and i never thought it had it would have anything to do with anything i would do occupationally in my life because i had absolutely no occupational ambition whatsoever. None. I had no plan. Nothing.

I was a pack and attendant in Boston when I was a college student. That's how I was making money. Where? Down in the combat zone, as they called it. We were parking for the theater district? Yeah, theater district. The company had a bunch of lots, so there were lots down at the boston garden and you know and um all around town but that was a that was a on

the level business and so when i graduated i it was a cash business then mark a completely cash business and so um and so when i when i graduated i was a parking attendant i went from graduation to the lot the next night. Harvard educated parking attendant. Yeah, I'm on the parking lot. And it was my father, actually, who said to me, you know, I've got this amazing case, this new case, you should write a book about it. This was a very peculiar thing to say because there was no evidence that I wanted to write at all. Had you written?

No, I would avoid college classes if they said you have to write a paper. I hated writing more than I could describe. I don't like writing. I hated it hated it but he had this amazing case this civil rights case of this guy who'd been killed by the boston police and uh and he took on the case for the widow and he had this amazing evidence that he had he had built yeah and he he was he had he was convinced that he was proving the cover up and that they planted a gun and all this stuff. And it's a really dramatic story.

And so I went into his office and I stared at it and I read the police reports in about three hours. And I went, oh, my God, there's a book here. And so that's the first book. Deadly Force. Deadly Force. That's why he's so big in the book. And it was the first book about police killing black Americans and the particular nature of the way that's done the way that's covered up and and everything we don't know about it everything we need to know about it

and it came you know in the middle of the 1980s in a country that outside the black community didn't care about this at all it was impossible to get anyone's attention to it you wrote that what year it came out in 1984. Really? Yeah. And that was the first time you ever wrote? Yeah. When did you graduate college?

1976. Okay. So you were just really just hanging around? Yeah, I was a bum. No, there's sections of my resume that look like prison time. Because it's just these big blanks. It's like, what was he doing? He was on the sofa watching TV.

What do you think he was doing? Thinking. You're thinking. No, but the book took seven years to write. For a couple of reasons, including I didn't know how to write. Yeah. And so, I mean, I literally wrote an entire version of it that the publisher rejected. Said, this is awful.

Did you write it on a deal? Did you pitch it and get a deal? Miraculously, I got a nine thousand dollar advance uh to write the book it's funny like that's in 1977 right you're telling me it's like for a first book the advance isn't much more than that now it was the biggest i'd never i didn't know there was money like that in the world you know and then you know we sold it the book came out we sold it to hollywood and suddenly in one day in century city they hand me a check for a hundred thousand dollars and like oh because you wrote the screenplay no that was just for the book came out we sold it to hollywood and suddenly in one day in century city they hand me a check for a hundred thousand dollars and i'm like oh because you wrote the screenplay

no that was just for the book rights you know just for the book rights right and then you know then there was the money for the script and all that stuff of that i like and that could that might not have gone anywhere book rights couldn't you know right but that's a lot for books so i really liked this business a lot better real fast and the book was a bestseller no it was it so it was a best seller in boston only it it was uh it it did okay it didn't make anything serious like i didn't read it but so the the the sort of story your father is integrated throughout the story of this case yeah because he's the lawyer you're following him as the guy who takes on this case and proves for the first time and this case goes to the United States Supreme Court and back. He went to the Supreme Court? On this case, yeah.

What was it that the Supreme Court had decided? Well, there was all sorts of evidentiary firsts in this case and procedural firsts that judges just weren't accustomed to. You know, that you're accusing the police department of covering this up. And so, so what evidence is relevant to that was something they had to feel their way through, you know, something you've never been seen before, but had been happening for years. Yes, of course. I mean, the, the, this was the stuff that was being discussed around kitchen tables in, in black communities and nowhere else in America. And, and I wrote the first op ed piece for the New York times about this issue in 1979.

I think it was 79. The New York times had never covered the subject at that point. It didn't exist as a subject. There was no research on it. I had to do my own social science on it. That's so not long ago. No, it's,

it's, it's crazy. It's it, it, it was, and you know, and, and you know, the people And the other people who knew about it were cops. Okay, that's who knew about it, right? And so, and here's, I'll tell you one story from that thing, which is an insight into the world is not as, you know, it doesn't have the dimensions you think it does all the time.

And there's something to be said for gut and experience so jury selection on that case uh i'm in the courtroom as like a an assistant you know and my brother michael is my father's co-counselor on the case by this time right and there's a woman whose husband is a revere police officer reverevere. Revere, next door to Boston. And my father doesn't challenge her, lets her go. And we are sure he's going to use one of his challengers for the wife of a cop. You can't let the wife of a cop on this jury deciding whether these cops murdered a guy. You can't do that. And we think he's nuts.

And he lets it happen. Bang, she's on the jury. And then they break for a recess. I jump up out of my seat in the audience. My brother Michael goes right to him. What are you doing letting the wife of the cop, the wife of the Revere cop in the jury? My old man, like, totally 100% confident as if this is absolute fact. And there's no guesswork involved, he says.

Nobody hates Boston cops like Revere cops. Nobody. And nobody knows what cops are capable of better than their wives. Instantaneously, Michael and I both realize he's 100% right. He's a genius. Yeah. And this woman was with him 100 of the way as a juror she never had one minute of being on the cop side of that case you know yeah and there's

there's nobody at harvard law school who can teach you that you know there's no that's a good story is that in the movie uh yeah i think it's in the movie it was it was a cbs tv movie back in the day of movie of the week. Is that what it came? That's it. So you sold the book rights and then you got a script deal. Yeah. So then I'm in this business and then show business. And then in 1988, there is a writer's guilt strike that lasts six months.

And at that point, you'd just gotten in. I'd just been in, I just scrounging around, just getting a rewrite deal, you know, all this stuff, right? I got a Ray Stark rewrite deal. I'm going fifteen thousand dollars this is so exciting and so there's this strike that that happens yeah and uh senator moynihan uh who i had ended up getting to know through his daughter who was a friend of mine um you dated his daughter no no she she knew friends of mine she went to har Harvard a few years after me. And so she knew people in New York, and we didn't know each other.

And at some point, we knew each other. Yeah. Okay. And then at some point, she invited me to a thing, this dinner thing that her father was doing. I went, yeah, sure. I'll go to that. Yeah. And, you know, Mrs. Moynihan's from Boston, from the Boston area.

She still has a Boston accent. So we warmed to each other right away. It comes back, right, when you know, Mrs. Moynihan's from Boston, from the Boston area. She still has a Boston accent. So we warmed to each other right away. It comes back, right, when you talk to someone? All the time. I get it, and I'm never from there. Right. And so in 1988, exactly when the Writers Guild, 1987 is when the strike started, Senator Moynihan asked me to come into his re-election campaign after he realized that my

union was on strike and i think that was an act of charity it was like this kid needs a check or something right because he's you know and i go okay you know and and and he wouldn't be a scab and i want no one in hollywood to know this because you work so hard to get defined as a writer here right it's so hard to do and my agent now sees me as a writer i don't want my agent to know i'm doing this they'll think i quit the business right it's got to be a secret right and i keep it a secret as long as i can because i work for him in the 1988 campaign which means i sit there and watch because i know nothing i know absolutely nothing and he wins with 68 of the vote it didn't

matter whether i was yeah how long had he been there at that point he this is his third term he was running for you know he he was senator in new york that was a hillary clinton seat right yeah when he left hillary ran for his seat right and uh and he would spend you know three million to get re-elected to that seat uh basically and he was a good guy saw a guy character and new yorkers loved him yeah and and a former harvard professor uh and so every day was like this private you know harvard tutorial at the highest level uh he's just an extraordinary person just an extraordinary you know you know how you see somebody on stage and then the backstage version isn't as big as the

onstage version yeah the backstage version of pat moynihan is way big as the onstage version. The backstage version of Pat Moynihan is way bigger than the onstage version because there's so much more that he knows and has to say. What was your job? I made up a title in the 88 campaign. I didn't have one for a long time. And I read an article about the Dukakis campaign, and I saw the title Director of Communications, and I went, because Mrs. Moynihan's the campaign manager.'m the other guy that's the whole campaign and I go okay I'm

director of communications okay I didn't do anything you did nothing you must have learned something though that that seems to I learned I mostly I learned about the state of New York traveling upstate all over the place but you didn't learn anything about politics I and I learned I learned a certain amount about politics but not not very much, not then. But politics, what I didn't know was how much I knew about politics, because politics is, if you're going to get it generically, it is simply the anticipation of human beings. that revere cops hate Boston cops and their wives know how bad cops can be and all that stuff. So the anticipation of human beings is a generic skill. And I find that most people in politics don't have it. It's the understanding applied to a means to an end.

Yes. Yes. And so I knew more in my gut than I realized, you know, and I was developing more. But I relied entirely on the Moynihan Senate staff in Washington and to tell me, you know, something would happen. And I go, what does this mean? I don't know what this is. They're talking about this Social Security thing. What is that? And Dan Crane and these other people working for me, they just call me up and say, here's what you need to know.

This, this, this. Oh, that's what happened to me with Brendan. Yeah. You know, when I went to Air America. i don't know what is what's going on right and they will break it down for you right and then you get it right because politics is different than government you know they're totally different things yeah they have nothing they are unrelated skills and what i've i've never there are very few people who are good at the politics of campaigning and the politics of governing. That is the rarest possible combination. Obama might be the only one I've seen who combines them both. Bob Dole was great at the politics of governing. We saw what he was at the politics of campaigning for president. Just to pick an example, there's a lot of them. Bill Bradley

was great at the politics of governing, not so good at the politics of campaigning. So that's why he was never president. So you get this little tutorial and you're sort of, you know, in it. And then like, but that's really the beginning. It kind of brings together your two worlds of writing and politics. But I never write a word for Pat Moynihan because no one does. Because he's a unique writer. But you're still learning.

It's just like, because there's this weird thing because now you are a respected uh political pundit and you know and we'll get to the west wing but at that juncture when you when you after you whatever you learned about the legal system and this stuff uh investigatively about your father and boston and everything else does not it That's part of the education of politics. Yeah. So it all starts to add up. Well, the other thing, though, about my entry into politics was I went in there as a writer. At that point, I'm a writer. And I'm saying to myself, yeah, I'll go on to a campaign because I want to see if I find something to write about.

I want to see if I find something to write about. I have this very Plimptonian inclination, which is to do things that I'm invited to do that I do not know how to do. So I didn't ask to work in a political campaign. You know, Pat Moynihan and Liz Moynihan asked me to join their campaign. Oh, that's right. So that's like Plimptonian that he used to become a boxer,

become a bullfighter. George Plimpton would train with the Detroit Lions so that he could run one play in an exhibition game, and he would write a beautiful book about that whole experience, Paper Lion. It was wonderful. And so my life is a set of chapters of Plimptonian exercises that I did not set out to do. I did not ask to do, except for the writer part of my life, which at a certain point, it was my father's idea. And then I did it. And then at that point, this is what I know how to do.

So I'm going forward as a writer. And so, yes, I wanted to write for West Wing and I wanted to write in show business and I wanted to get script deals. That's all stuff that I wanted to do and put myself out for. And every other thing that I've done is an accident. It's just an accident. The working in the Senate, I ended up working in the Senate for Senator Mornan for like seven, eight years, something like that. You did? Yeah. Yeah. I didn't like the 88 campaign when it was over, he said, what do you want? We're at lunch. He said, what do you want? And I thought like, well, I'll have the omelet. And he meant what job do you want? You want you know and he he couldn't make me a federal judge because i'm not a lawyer right so it's like what job do you want and he said well come into the come into the senate office

and you can be we'll call you my senior advisor and uh wow you know this for the guy who needs no advice yeah and and then that the senate job got increasingly important because he moved into these chairmanships and eventually became the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. And so I had to run the staff of the Senate Finance Committee. We had to run that committee, which is taxation, international trade, Medicare, Medicaid, health care, welfare. So we had to do a big tax bill for Clinton. We had to do NAFTA, had to pass through that committee.

The World Trade Agreement had to pass through that committee. Hillary's health care bill tried to get, made it through that committee, but did not make it through the Senate. Welfare reform had to go through that committee. So it was real governance. And this was no longer Plimpton, because I literally am, my hands were on the wheel.

I am flying this plane. But the Plimpton eye never was always there i was always observing it while doing it but it was intensely real when i was running senate committees that's the real thing and you're in the oval office and you are making the deal on exactly what this tax rate's going to be and and that's the real thing and that like that is the nuts and bolts and like you described it with a certain excitement but that is exactly where the you know most americans eyes glaze over yes yes oh mine too i if someone started talking like this to me before i worked

in the senate i just would have get me out of here i can't believe it by the time i'm two years into working in the senate i am sitting on the Senate floor and I am hearing a speech about Social Security taxation. And I'm on the verge of tears. It's it's. Oh, I can't. It's amazing. There's a weight to it. There should be.

Yeah. You know, when you're in that chamber. Yeah. You should feel that. Yeah. The history of it. Yeah. And I feel sorry for the people who are there now because you can't you can't feel it now.

It's become a it's. It's a nonsense place. It's a house of nonsense. So like my job doesn't exist. The title exists. But the people who have the job that I had, they haven't passed a single bill through their committee. They have done nothing. And they don't do anything and they never will. So how did West Wing happen? So when I left working in the Senate, basically kind of consolidated to L.A.

Yeah. And was actually writing a book then that I failed. I got a deal to write a version of my Senate memoirs. And I did such a bad job with it that the publisher canceled the book like a couple of years in and i was on the verge of bankruptcy and and and it was horrible yeah and msnbc came along and said hey would you like to talk on tv about politics for money and i said how much and i said yeah and then i said yes yeah and and so i had that like okay that's that now i'm fending off bankruptcy and then west wing started up in uh basically in the year 1999 um aaron uh aaron sirkin got

the pilot made and then the network ordered episodes and and but actually you know nbc rejected that pilot when it was first written they got they got the pilot they read it they rejected it yeah Yeah, why? Because there's no baby dying in the emergency room. No one pulls a gun. No one's facing the death penalty. It's governing. There's no car chases.

It's guys in neckties marginally disagreeing. And then in the end, getting along. And so it's like there's no show here. I understand completely why they rejected it. And so I was sent that pilot script as soon as Aaron wrote it, because my agent saw that and said, wow, if this thing goes to series, if they make this thing, they're going to need you. Right. This is your thing. And I didn't know Aaron or anyone involved, but he knew they're going to need me. And and so then a year later, NBC makes the pilot because John Wells, who had who was running ER, used his muscle, because he was also an executive producer on West Wing, and he used his muscle to get NBC to make the pilot, which they did not want

to do. And then the same thing happened with episodes, and they got episodes ordered. So the minute they order episodes, I get the call saying, you know, okay, Aaron would like to meet you, because that's when they hire writers. So the fascinating thing for me was I had read the script a year before it was shot. They then send me a videocassette of the pilot that they've shot. And as far as I can tell, in a year, to think about it, Aaron has not changed one word of the West Wing pilot. And I'm looking at this thing, and the script was great. And the thing I'm looking at is even greater because now there's allison janney and there's martin sheen yeah there's richard schiff and brad whitford and

tommy schlamme has this camera flying through these corridors and bringing this thing to life in in ways that my eye didn't see when i was reading the page yeah and so i went in and met aaron and i was you know i was the only member of the Writers Guild in L.A. who'd ever worked in Washington at the time and been in the Oval Office in an actual business meeting. And so I was an easy hire. I was there. Well, what was your impression of him immediately? Oh, I loved him.

He was great. And in the first year, our offices were kind of like right beside each other. We were in this little bungalow where Aaron's there and I'm there. What lot were you on? Warner Brothers. Yeah. beside each other. We're in this little bungalow where Aaron's there and I'm there. And what was it a lot? What lot were you on? Warner brothers. Yeah. And, and so I,

and I said at the time to a screenwriter friend of mine, I'm going to quit this MSNBC thing. Cause I'm full time at the West wing. I'm a writer at the West wing full time. And this old screenwriter said to me, Oh no, no, don't do that.

If you quit the MSNBC thing, then you'll just be another schmuck writer. When you walk in the door now, they all think you know something that I don't know. And you do. They're impressed with you being on MSNBC. So we'd be in the middle of a writer's meeting, three-hour writer's meeting or something at Warner Brothers. And I would get a call about, know can I do hardball at you know yeah four o'clock I go yeah okay and so I would get up and it would look like I'm going to the

men's room yeah and I'd come back and then you know Warner Brothers is here NBC is next door right you know where Johnny Carson studio used to be in Jay's studio and right above that is where they shoot these MSNBC shots easy it's like four minutes away yeah so I would disappear from the table for like 25 minutes which is a long men's room thing but it's not unheard of okay how many writers are in there there's another there's like you know eight or nine writers yeah and i would come back a little orange you know with this makeup makeup thing you know and and resume where we were because it's easy for in a a drama room, it's easy to be stuck for 25 minutes. Yeah. So you come back in, they're right where they were when you left.

You know? So you go, how about this? Yeah, exactly. Ah, great idea. Just a guy standing at a board. Yes. Right. At the same place.

Right. And a bunch of guys kind of sitting around like, ah. Right. But you did both jobs for all those years? Yeah, but the MSNBC thing was nothing. It was literally like I had never gave it a thought. West Wing was, you know, TV writing was my job. That was my real life.

That was a full-time job. And you did it for like four years. Yeah, I did the first two years of West Wing. And then I left and created my own show for NBC, which didn't last long. The one with Josh Brolin? I had Josh Brolin playing a senator, an appointed senator. He's a good actor, that guy. Oh, he's so great.

I love him so much. So good. Working with him was just a dream. And how many seasons? You did one season? We did. We got halfway through a season. That was it.

They pulled the plug? They asked me to come back. They could see my show was sinking, and they asked me to come back. If your show gets canceled, would you please come back? Oh, yeah. Yes, I will, because I will be desperate. me to come back if if that if your show gets canceled would you please come back you know oh yeah yes i will because i will be desperate i will come back right and all this time you're still shooting the msnbc show every day no little guest shots and not every day it was whenever it wasn't a regular show yeah there's days when i'd say no you were just on the payroll as a guy can you be a guest on hardball today no i can't i get it you know my deal was i can always say no i would go weeks at a time without being on at all.

Right. Because my deal was I can say no every time you call me. And at some point you got married and had children during this? And before, yeah, when I was working in the Senate, actually. My daughter was born in the year before I left the Senate. Oh, married an actress? Yes, Catherine Harold. Where'd you meet her?

In New York, in the world of New York. She's funny. She's the greatest, yeah. You guys get along? Yeah. the senate oh married an actress yes katherine harold where'd you meet her uh in new york and in the world of new york she's funny she's the greatest yeah she uh guys get along yeah oh that's good she's fantastic oh good yeah i loved her in uh what was that modern romance was she in modern romance mary harvard in modern romance and what i love about that name is that's albert albert brooks trying to come up with a wasp's name. You know, it's like, in my life, I have never met anyone named Harvard. I think they went extinct, that tribe. But it's like, Albert, oh, Mary Harvard. And wasn't she in one of the Gary Shandling shows?

Yeah, she played Gary's ex-wife in, I think it was season two. Right, of Larry Sanders? Yeah, I was at Larry Sanders, which yeah i was at larry sanders which was the greatest just the greatest thing to watch and you know no one no one wanted her to do it i remember when they were asking her to do it i was still in washington i remember coming out of the white house on a cell phone like the size of you know a toaster and she's telling me you know i love the show because we'd seen season one. I thought it was the greatest thing ever. And they're going, no, it's HBO.

Because in those days, you know, she could get 22 episodes on NBC or CBS. And plus the second payment because they're going to rerun everybody. The money was gigantically higher on CBS than it would have been on HBO. So none of her representatives want her to do what we think is the best show on television when we're watching it. Sure. And so she did it. And you guys split up and like- Yeah, not, I don't know,

I don't know, mid-90s somewhere. I don't know. But you're all right. You're co-parenting. Yeah, the parenting thing, the parenting thing should mean that you are friends and partners for life. It should mean that.

Yeah. And if it doesn't, you better figure out how to make it mean that. I think that's true. And sometimes it's a rough maybe couple years transition. Yeah, we didn't have a rough time. That's good. We really never had a rough time. The people I know.

We always understood what it was. Yeah, it's heartbreaking when shit gets bad yeah and yeah i don't i i've never had that so i don't understand it so all right so you do all the west wing and then you get your own show on msnbc and that's your thing now that's what you do i yeah i guess it's my thing now and you're there every night no i know i know you're right no but see this is and this is the thing i've only realized recently is that how i've never because i didn't ask for it i never asked for it i never asked to be a pundit on msnbc i never asked for a show on msnbc never and what happened is i would go in as a substitute and the ratings would be very strong sometimes like ed or who like the

biggest the reason they said we need you to do a show is that I went in for Keith Olbermann when Keith was the number one show. And I held his rating. It was the same. The rating was just the same. And I didn't know that. They told me that. And so they shouldn't have told me that because I wouldn't have understood my negotiating position. And so they just saw that and they went, oh, we really need you to do a show, which is exactly the way Rachel became a host.

Rachel Maddow substituted for Keith. She did very well. She held the rating. They said, hey, let's put her on right after Keith. I was on Air America with her. They brought Air America. She got hired to be a newsreader. And then she just became clear.

Like, she, like, you ever watch her do her research? I mean, like. Yes. Yes. Like she, do you ever watch her do her research? I mean, like. Yes. Yes.

I mean, she like for like, she would do this two hour show on radio, which if you break it down, it's not incredibly long, but she would like 10 hours all night. Yes. With papers everywhere. She still do that? Yes. The papers everywhere? So, so, so I finally like agree, like, okay, I'll, I'll, and I didn't want to do it because my daughter was still in high school and I didn't want to be in new york that much and and you know when you don't

want to do something it it means if they really want you to do it then it just gets more and more advantageous the way the way especially if you don't give a fuck yeah and and so um so i finally you know agreed to it and i and i see the way rachel does her work right yeah i look at that and i go okay so so that's what it takes to be number one on you've got to do a minimum of 12 hours of preparation for the show how many hours do you have to do to be number two and it turns out it's nowhere near what you have to do to be number one. There you go. You know, like nowhere close.

And by the way, that's the Irish choice. I was just going to say, there's the Irish. Yeah. Yeah. Number two is perfectly fine with me. It's fine with me. All right, man. Well, good job on the book.

Good job on the show. You're doing a good thing. I don't know what I'm doing on the show. Well, you know what? I got to bring it up only because I saw it. I watched the video. Ah, yes. But you know what?

It didn't surprise me, and you got out easy. What video are you talking about? You know what I'm talking about. Yes, I do. Because I'm a guy. I'm hot-headed, and I've been in that seat before. And you have bad days. And sometimes there's a hammer.

But the truth of the matter is is that like it didn't surprise me and it wasn't that bad okay let me just say i've not talked about it publicly i don't know how but let me just say this that um i hate what i saw on the video i hate what it looks like um because what it looks like to most people is different from what it was but i still hate it and i should know that things look different to people so what did it look like it looks like well people characterized it as look at him berating the employees no this is man overboard yeah when when you're yelling man overboard on a boat you're not yelling at the crew you're going hey man this is a crisis right and i have no hiring irish man overboard on a boat you're not yelling at the crew you're going hey man this is a crisis

right and i have no hiring irish man overboard yeah i am no one's boss in that place they tell me there was way more yelling in the control room at each other try that switch try that's right and they yelled down to other control rooms and the other part of it is and i and i'm i hate trying to like be defensive and get myself out of the box I deserve here, but I'm in a glass-enclosed soundproof studio. I can see through the glass out there that there are some guys out there who are available to go try to find the guy who's hammering somewhere up here on top of my head. So when I'm yelling to them them i'm trying to yell through soundproof glass sure they know me i know them they're not even looking in my direction then they are no one in the control room can talk to them because they don't have headsets on

they finally figure it out so so there was not what it was was uh this man overboard kind of how do we fix this a lot of things going on at once you get the problem in your ear right right and there's a moment in the tape there and by the way that eight minutes last thing that covers the entire hour yeah so there's a lot of quiet calm stuff it's just like it's ongoing there's a moment in the tape where this noise this person keeps talking in my ear it's as if right now if someone if we started picking up someone's phone call right now yeah you know you'd go so so there's someone in my ear and i and i say oh so now i know this can happen like i've been doing this for six years seven years i didn't know that could happen like i now i know this can happen and so i you know i mean it's live right

you're and it's all it's all live and And I come from the worst possible training for live because filmmaking, you know, I mean, a West Wing episode is a, we shot it in 35 millimeter film. We took six weeks to come up with a script. You take six weeks of production. And you know, you've done a series and you go into post-production and you can redo things even in post-production if you have to. Because what you're going for in any episode of television, no matter what it is, what you're going for is perfection. Now, someone might say, I didn't like that scene. You're talking about the writing. Okay. Okay. That's our fault. But no one's saying, boy, the lighting was really dumb in that scene or the, what was the hammering? Like why, when Mark was doing that scene, what was the hammering? Because we took that out and

we have complete control over that. So I came from a world where the thing that appears within the television screen has been worked to its perfection. And now I'm, and I didn't realize that I'm in exactly the opposite arena. And this is how dumb I am. I didn't realize it until now. I didn't realize it until I saw that video and I went, and I went, well, okay, no one told you that that could happen. But you never fully embraced the work of this job to investigate everything that could happen so that you personally, when you go out there, know what this thing is that you're stepping into. Right.

And I never really did so now i know like if i go out there there could be anything and my job is to deal with that you know like i watch anderson cooper and those guys standing out in the rain you know yeah live and they're fine i could never do a second of standing in the hurricane getting rain in my face right talking to i couldn't do one second yeah i'm i'm not a real anchorman but i still have an obligation to get my readiness up to the point where if suddenly there's a rainstorm in this protected studio uh i somehow keep going yeah but it wasn't it wasn't one of the because you can handle breaking news you can handle changing the trajectory of the

story but like when you were there, like, and I've been in those situations where whatever anyone thinks about the job, when you're on television or, you know, you have this downtime and shit isn't working out. It's just sort of like, can we just get this working?

Cause it's annoying, you know? Right. But you know, when I'm yelling things like, you know, call Phil Griffin, it's not at a person.

No, no. And Phil Griffin doesn't think I'm yelling. And so, and in my neighborhood, by the way, if you were talking in any volume less than that, no one thought you were serious. Right. So I imagine from talking to you, the thing that was the most horrifying was you saw your neighborhood come back.

I spent my entire life trying to suppress the stuff that's in that video. And listen, people have known me me 20 years, 20 years, I would say, male, female, 20 years, they would go, so you have a temper? Come on. Really? Oh my God. You're going to give yourself cancer. The only people who've ever seen-

Are you a man of faith? The only people who've ever seen anything that's like that are my brothers. And I will yell at them. They will yell back at me i'll go are you crazy that would be stupid to get that mortgage yeah right and and i have to say that in order for him to think i'm serious like if i don't talk in that town i don't yell at him about what a mistake that mortgage is he won't think i really mean well i think there's an opportunity here lawrence to maybe do a whole show in the tone of that i'll take tape oh but focus it don't focus it in the right place oh

no there's uh there's a west wing writer who is now um an oscar winner josh singer yeah and he had this idea for a show um when we when he and I were writing at the West Wing. And it was to be online because you couldn't do it anywhere else. And it was called You Stupid Fuck. And I would be the host of the show and he would be the guest. He'd be the permanent guest. So why doesn't Obama try to get the Republicans to agree to the health care bill? And every answer I would, and it's the guest questions the host. And I'm sitting at the Johnny Carson desk like this.

And every one of my answers was to begin with, you stupid fuck. The reason, because, you know, Josh Singer went to Yale and Harvard Law School. Okay. He was the only person at the Western because he went to Yale and Harvard Law School that when the door was closed and we were talking about a story, I could say to him anytime I wanted to. You stupid fuck. Because the one thing we were both sure of is he's not a stupid fuck. Right. Right.

Right. But you could just like. Yeah. of is he's not a stupid fuck right right but you could just like yeah you could use that as your opening reaction to his idea about why we should not do an episode and everybody relates to that because that's why we have the president we have now right yes yes it's exactly that anger that you've been hiding it's driven this guy into office no i i've i've i it's it's you know it is it's this thing that anthropologists see. It's like a residual piece of DNA that's still left.

It's been bred out, though. It dies with me. Oh, yeah? Yeah, it does. It's gone. Okay, okay. We'll see. We'll talk to your daughter in 10 years.

No, I promise you it's gone. It's gone. Okay, all right, all right. I believe you. Thanks for talking, man. This was fun. Okay, all right, all right. I believe you.

Thanks for talking, man. This was fun. See, I waited until the end, but I brought up a little thing, and I think he handled it well. I think he handled it all right. Don't forget, if you haven't gotten a copy of Waiting for the Punch yet and you want one signed by me, you can get it at podswag.com slash punch. That's P-O-D-S-W-a-g.com slash punch dig it i want to thank all the people that came out to uh third place books up there in seattle

for the book signing brendan and i had a great time it was great meeting everybody that's a really amazing bookstore up there that place it was nice to be in such a well-stocked and crowded independent bookstore. And as always, again, great to see all the fans of the show. Great to meet everybody. Thank you for coming out. I wish I had more time to spend in Seattle, but I did not this time. I love

it up there. Every time I'm up there, I just want to keep moving north. Keep going. Keep going. On to the islands. On to the islands. Under the islands. Maybe one day. Maybe one day. I will be on those islands.

Maybe that's where I'll end up. I can only hope. Thank you. guitar solo Boomer lives! almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea and ice cream? Yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats. Get almost, almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. It's a night for the whole family.

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