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OK, let's do the show.

Lock the gates. All right, let's do this, how are you? What the is what the fuck buddies, what the fuck next? What the fuck? Arista's what's happening? I'm Mark Maron. This is my podcast, WTF. Welcome to it. If you're new to the podcast, we've been at it since 2009, creating interesting conversation. All over the map. For for over a decade, well over a decade, we're doing this a long time, thank you for listening.

How are you look today? On the show, here's the deal. We get pitched guests from a booking agent and Hunter Biden. Was pitched, he's got a book out, Beautiful Things, a memoir, it's out tomorrow. So I talked to my producer, Brendan McDonald says within 100 feet of my guy, I don't know, do we need to get into that? Do we need to get tossed around? By the cultural tsunami that followed that guy and what is that guy really and who is he?

And I don't I have no sense of him. And so I was like, no, we don't need it.

You know, he'll be all right without doing our show. And I don't know. I just don't know. It doesn't feel good. And then it started bothering me.

Like I judge this guy. Based on what? Based on nothing I've ever seen him.

I've never heard him talk. I know he had a drug problem. I know that the right wing machine. Sought to destroy him or destroy his father through him. They had this horrendous drug problem and I just assumed that he was like a sociopathic douchebag.

Yeah, that was I mean, white, that that's what I got in my head.

But then then I started it started to bother me.

I was like this Hunter Biden thing, you know, it was just sort of eating at me.

I'm like, look, man, I've you know, I'm a recovering guy.

I don't really know what this guy's story is now. I started thinking about, like, what is it got to be like to be trying to recover when you're being used as some sort of whipping boy by the right, by all the right wing press being judged by the right and left. But they're seeing you as some sort of portal into into some nefarious conspiracy. And they're hammering and hammering and hammering.

How do you how does a human, let alone a drug addict trying to stay clean, deal with that? So, you know, I started thinking about, like, what is it like to be this guy? How did he handle it? This crack addicted son of our current president. And look, I started to think I know how to talk to these guys if he's got a little sobriety, I know how to talk that. I know how to talk to drug addicts.

I've I've met these guys before. I know low.

Addicts who've dug out. I just started to think like, well, get me the book. You know, and I read the book and it just. I'll tell you, man, it's as most people probably have no idea, really, thankfully, what it's like to be in deep addiction, like to really not have any control over it, but to feel that need to do that stuff.

That you no longer are concerned about yourself, the depth of self destruction and depravity, I stayed in that groove.

I'm like, well, let's see who this guy is.

Let me reach out to this Hunter Biden as a sober guy and have this conversation.

Let's do it. You know, at the bottom of all this is like I like to have conversations with people about who they are, what they come from, what they do, what they want, how they got to where they are. You know what I do here? And I just knew that, you know, out of the gate, this was going to be just from doing a little research before I read the book, I knew that he was like a total mess with the marriages and the relationship with his brother's widow.

All the accusations of him using, like he clearly traded on his family name to help with jobs. I didn't think he committed any crimes in doing that. But it seems pretty obvious that he did use his name for personal gain, though I assume that it's hard to know. I mean, he he is a Yale educated lawyer, but he is abiding by I imagine that gets a little blurry.

But it was because of this that he was an easy target of people looking to to hurt Joe Biden, to hurt Joe Biden's political prospects. He was the easiest target. In fact, Hunter was.

And if you look into it, which I did a lot of this stuff the right wing tried to use against him was transparently just an attempt to hurt his father, nothing else.

They basically tried to run the crooked Hillary playbook on Joe Biden by turning Hunter's business dealings into this financial conspiracy that involved Joe Biden and and dubious corrupt forces in the Ukraine. And, you know, it was such a flimsy case that Trump.

Got impeached by trying to manufacture it. And lot are the accusations against Hunter were just just tabloid fodder that attacked his character for being a drug addict, like all that shit with his his laptop.

I mean, who the fuck cares about his laptop? Even the people who said they looked at this stuff on the laptop couldn't come up with anything. The guy had an insanely. Dark struggle with drugs, but he did survive that end and he has, to this point, survived this onslaught of political contempt, but he's not out of the woods in any real way.

I mean, he has a reprieve, as we call it, in the recovery racket around that stuff. And if he if he does the work, you know, he can stay sober. But I mean. The Justice Department currently is looking into his taxes. There's an investigation that could end up with him in prison. You know, there's still a lot of struggle on the horizon for this guy. So I just want to I want to make that clear, because that was my sense outside of all of the made up shit, there's some very tangible, very real.

Problems. And my intention in this conversation is not to clear his name. Or set anything straight for the right wing attack machine. It's not what we're doing here. So that's the kind of stuff I was thinking about going into this. And then I read the book and and I'll tell you what changed when I read it. But first, let me let me assure all my guests about something. I talk about my sobriety a lot.

But if you've seen me while we've been talking on Zoome drinking out of these Tallboy cans that look a lot like beer, maybe if you watch my life, I want to make sure you know that I'm not off the wagon. It's actually just mountain spring water. And yes, yes, it's called liquid death. Why is it called that? Because it murders your thirst. That's why. Think about it. It's a can of water. There's no cap to put back on.

You've got to drink that whole thing and kill that thirst dead. But also liquid death means death. The plastic plastic is bad people. Did you see that segment on John Oliver about all the plastic we're actually ingesting? It's horrible. Instead, liquid death is in aluminum cans, which are actually profitable to recycle and don't just wind up in landfills like most of the plastic you think you're recycling. And look, I thought this was all a little much when I first got it, I thought, why the hell did someone do this to plain water?

What kind of weird gimmick is this? But I'll tell you what, I drank the shit out of those cans and I just got more. You can get liquid death in stores all over the place. They're now available at 7-Eleven nationwide. Go get some liquid death and murder.

Your fucking thirst, man.

So. I read Hunter's book. And it's very clear who this guy is, and I hadn't I don't I don't think I'd realize just how deep into addiction he was and just how recently going out a couple of years clean.

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

I still wasn't sure that he was OK.

And I brought that into the conversation. And I really didn't know what to expect because I had not seen him talk. I did.

I've met a lot of drug addicts in my journey in sobriety and also in using you. I made assumptions about this guy's character. As I said at the beginning, I didn't know if he would be sort of, you know, like if he was going to work me, if he was going to hustle me, if he was going to charm me, if he wasn't going to be candid with me, if he was a sociopath, I didn't know.

What is he a good guy? That seems like a long shot. And right when he got here, you know, I asked him if you want a coffee. Because we all want coffee, all of us addicts, you just say you want coffee. Yeah, of course I want coffee. I always want coffee. We taken it. Two sugars. No milk, sugar. I do a black, but this guy, as I said, is only a couple of years out of it.

I have a couple of sugars in that coffee. You know, he he's definitely been humbled, I don't think he's got another life in him, I think he's used them all up.

I do feel, after talking to him a bit concerned about sobriety and his well-being, oddly, because I don't know him, but that's just the nature of what we do is recovering people.

But I found him to be a very sensitive guy, very raw and and open.

His new book is called Beautiful Things. A memoir releases tomorrow. You can get it wherever you you get your books.

And it's it's a it's an incredible document about more than anything else, grief and the effects of grief.

In life and then just addiction, it's out tomorrow, we can get it wherever you get books. This is me talking to Hunter Biden. Folks, you wish you could get live sports, breaking news and a mountain of entertainment all in one place, do you? Who doesn't? Well, now you can. That's right. Paramount Plus isn't just another streaming service because it's got something for everybody. You can go straight from game day to movie night with Paramount.

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It's good to see you. Thank you. I read the book and I got to be honest with you as a as a guy who's done his share of drugs at the point where you are, where you say you can't take a break.

Yeah, I got to take a break because I'm not the trigger in too much. Yeah. Yeah.

You were a pretty legendary crack head man.

Oh, God. I swear to God. I mean, I shouldn't be here.

No, it's crazy, you know, because, I mean, I'm coming up on, I guess is my 22nd year.

Yeah. Yeah. I listen to you all the time. Are you here? You know, at the drugstore.

What do you how are you doing it? Do you feel like you're out of the woods? How are you doing. Are you doing the thing? Are you doing the regular way now? Secret meetings?

Well, I have been you know, we have a mutual acquaintance, you know. Moby yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What about he's helping you out? Yeah.

Well, I mean, there's like a whole crowd of people here. Yeah. And I didn't I mean, he was a friend of a friend and he just showed up at the house before covid was like, hey man. Yeah. You need somebody to talk to, you need somebody to take you to a meeting. I'm here. Yeah. I first got clean and sober sober in 2003.

And that was the first that was it goes back that far. Yeah. So and and you know, I mean, I ran a big book meetings. I literally three hours every Sunday. I never missed a meeting and probably like five years. I mean, I was like I was serious about it.

And what led up to that one? It's like the one thing I have a hard time putting together in the book is like the timeline, the cash. Yeah, yeah. And the bouncing around like, you know, where it got bad when it got bad. Yeah. Because I know when I was using that, what becomes very tangible is that you're going to become untethered from a moral compass or the reality that you once knew that there's a line.

Yeah. Where you're like if I cross that line then I'm you know, there's there's no safety.

It's all going to be gamblers who walk after this. Yeah. Yeah.

And it's sort of a commitment to a life. And you're pretty clear about that.

You're like, yeah, at some point you're at the end. Yeah, I was. I'm this guy. There's no getting better. That's it. Yeah. And that's that's like a horrendously terrifying. Yeah. Because it's sort of like in retrospect you remind me a little of leaving Las Vegas, like you can't seem to succeed in killing yourself, but you no longer care if you do or not.

That is exactly it. I mean, it was almost it was almost as if that movie was playing right. Right in front of my eyes. Right. It wasn't a concerted effort to go out and jump off the bridge. Right. But I might as well have gone out and jumped off a bridge. It was it was a much slower way. Yeah. But, you know, when I first got sober in 2003, it was drinking and. Right.

And it was you know, when I was twenty three. Thirty three. Thirty three. Yeah. Thirty three. Got sober. Stay sober for just close to eight years. Oh see it's real quick. I got my sobriety date was the day Johnny Cash died and I went to rehab, picked up the 12 steps. Yeah.

It was very you know, it saved my life and I mean absolutely 100 percent. And by the way, it didn't only save my life then, it saved my life this time being able to have some of those tools.

Yeah. At the outset, I stayed sober through the program the first go.

Yeah, but I had a counselor.

My first rehab. Yeah. And he told me a story. He got sober, he got really into the program. He became kind of a speaker. Yeah. And was flying all over the country. Became a big time. Yeah. Big time was a counselor and he was on a plane and seven, seven years sober he's on a plane back from some speaking engagement on, you know, the sober life he got on the plane. And he said like four days later, he woke up in, you know, in a different in a different fucking city.

And at seven years. Yeah. So seven years in. Yeah, I'm on a plane. Yeah. I myself, no one else around. The flight attendant rolls up with the cart. Yeah. This is hey you know, would you like a drink. Yeah.

And I said I'll have a Bloody Mary just like, like it was another day. That was another day. Yeah. That started this because relapse is so goddamn insidious.

Well yeah. And then and once you've had like if you got seven years of program then you got to drown that out, you got to drown out whatever the fuck.

And you're lying to everybody and you think nobody can tell you're drinking. So then I went back to rehab and then I, and then I relapsed again. But what was that?

You know, I don't know how many people, you know, know the full story of of the sort of ongoing tragedy of your family.

Yeah.

How old were you when your mother was killed? I was just about three. So it's you and the. Are with with your brother and your two sisters now, my one sister, the one sister who was younger than you. Yeah. And your mother.

Yeah, and she was a year, about a year and a half younger, but was born a year and a day apart. Yeah. February 3rd and 4th.

And then Naomi Christina, which we called Kaspi Kaspi was in, it was in the car and we were out buying a Christmas tree. And it was right after my dad got elected in 1972. It was twenty nine years in the Senate. Yeah. To the Senate. And we got broadsided by a tractor trailer and and we both spent a lot of time in the hospital together. And but my mom my sister died in that in the accident. Yeah.

And I you know, I always I never you know, this whole, you know, you know, in the program that a lot of guys still say, like, you're an alcoholic because you're a goddamn alcoholic, you're an addict because you're an addict. It doesn't have anything to do with anything else. And I kind of adopted that because I felt really guilty about the idea of seeing anything as trauma, you know, when trauma.

Yeah, yeah. Because so much of my life was I mean, I had incredible life growing up as a kid, you know, I mean, my I said we remarried my mom, Jill. Yeah. Yeah. When I was seven, eight years old. And, you know, but I have my aunts and my uncles were raised by my whole family.

Did you ever do any MDR or anything like that? No, I haven't. I just you know, I did a little bit of it, a little bit of it.

And one of the I mean, I've done oh, I haven't got a professional I mean, I've done everything from you know, I was abrogate I to read about that old school shit, but like because I just wonder, like, do you because there's some there's some element to it.

And I'll I'll be honest, like you, I'm reading the book and you're you're talking about, you know, growing up in the Senate, you, Bo, you and Bo and, you know, the loss of Bo, which we will talk about. But, you know, when when you start right.

When you start talking about crack, like all of a sudden it's like you're in you're in it. Yeah. There's there's a there's an immediacy to the writing.

There's a passion to it. Yeah. Because there's something ever present, like, you know, when you think about crack or you do crack or drugs or whatever your thing was, you know, you're not it's different than nostalgia because that was a guaranteed thing, man. I mean, it's like the way you describe it, it's like you could always count on crack. Yeah. Yeah. That'd be like if you got the good shit.

Yeah. And then the rest of this stuff trying to sort of frame the darkness of your life. And, you know, I never felt that you were saying that you were drinking or using drugs because of that. I just I just felt that you drank and you use drugs because you drank and you use drugs.

Yeah, but but I guess my question is, do you ever feel like really feel not just like speculate that the traumatic.

Loss of your mother created, you know, a tangible void, one hundred percent is it have you ever seen a doctor in Cabramatta watching a TED talk?

And I haven't. Yeah, I've read about half of his book. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's the first person I saw that explained it that that spoke to me about trauma being like the center of all addiction, really. And and it made me open my eyes to the idea that, you know, there's a lot more work than just watch.

This is an obvious than just abstinence, you know. I mean, I had all the tools of 12 steps, which I think are, you know, at least saved my life.

Yeah. A number of times. But the the work that I hadn't done, which, by the way, part of this book was doing that work. Yeah. It was really going through and talking about those things and talking about the accident and talking about losing Beau. And I am absolutely certain now is that, you know, like I talk about that, you know, talk about it when we're in the room that that God sized hole that you're trying to fill.

Sure. And and that to me is that trauma is is it's not the excuse. It's not the it's not the reason. But it's certainly the thing that I think I'm trying to figure out.

Well, that sense of like, you know, there one day gone the next and the brutality of the accident and then just sort of that, you know, like I imagine that your sense of, like, need had to be, you know, intensified throughout your life. I mean, I felt that in the way you talked about your brother and sort of the relationship there, that, you know, that you do seem to rely on people a lot.

Yeah, yeah.

And by the way, and that relationship, the the when I lost Beau, I mean, I think I definitely convinced myself my whole life is the one thing that I couldn't possibly lose was my brother. Yeah. As I just couldn't be without it.

And I say to people, when he died, it literally felt like I lost like half my vocabulary. I didn't know how to I didn't know how to talk to people. I didn't know. I felt like like half a person for real. And I didn't. And this was just like five years ago.

Six years ago. Yeah. So you're in your 40s. Yeah. Yeah. Forty, forty five or forty five. Yeah.

And when you guys were growing up with like because I have to assume obviously your father like once I guess when he met Jill, that, that probably leveled him off a bit.

Right. Yeah. And all of us I mean, you know, people I think out of courtesy like say my step mom or my you know, she's my mom. Right. And we reform to family and and we had a great family. And I mean, my family is incredibly close. I mean, like when my mom died, my uncle, my uncles, Frankie Jimmy moved into the you know, made the garage door around Halmet. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, my uncle Jimmy's my best friend in the world. Yeah. I mean, I, I you dad's brother. Yeah, my dad's brothers. Yeah. And I mean you guys. The Irish clan. Yeah we are.

Yeah. Yeah, very much so. Except my mother who's Sicilian and she makes everybody remember it all the time but.

Yeah but yeah.

You know my grandparents I mean I saw my grandparents every day. I you know, I slept with my grandparents house, my we call them my mum and data on my dad's side every, you know, three days a week until I graduated high school really.

And everybody was in Delaware and everybody in Delaware and our everybody was in literally twelve minutes of each other.

That's like I remember that with my grandparents. Everybody was in New Jersey. They were within, you know, 45 minutes away when somebody made dinner. Everybody would show up for dinner. Yeah.

I mean, and that has always been us.

And when Beau died, I think it's unimaginable for any of us. Beau and I had become such a center of the of the of the story of my whole family. Well, how did that start?

Like you guys obviously, you know, after you're your biological mom was killed, that, you know, what do you think it was about Bowe's, you know, fortitude around it to handle it in sort of like, you know, somehow look out for you the way he did is you're only a year apart, but there seems to be a difference in disposition.

Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. You know, that's a question I, I haven't spent much time thinking about the ways in which Beau and I were different because I've spent I never saw a separation between us.

Now we were really different. And look, my brother was no saint, but he was about as close to it as you get.

I mean, really, I mean, we called him the sheriff. Yeah. You know, literally. I mean. And I mean, he was the guy that literally walked walk into a party and said, you know, OK, you stop drinking. Yeah, that person would stop drinking. Right.

And he was never a you know, I mean, and he was funny as shit. I mean, he had the greatest sense of humor. And it was just a choice that he made. And I made the choice to drink.

And he drank. He just didn't drink. No, he I mean, he literally didn't have a drink until he was 21.

So never through high school and and not until he was a senior. And then he drank for, you know, like socially.

And your old man, he doesn't drink at all. He didn't drink at all either. Why is that? Yeah, I think because, you know, I think he saw other people that we were, you know, that not that we're close to or their family. Their family. Is it in there? Yeah.

I mean, we come from a big Irish family, a bunch of Finnigan's. And I actually the Finnigan's now learned, you know.

I mean, we're incredible. Incredible. That's your dad's mom.

My dad's mom, Catherine Eugenia Finnegan, who is the it was the source of all all good in in our family. But my my my grandfather's side. You know, Joe Biden, senior. Yeah. You know, there's a lot of alcoholism. And I think my dad, I think saw that. I don't I don't know exactly why he chose not to.

But you're so your grandfather, Joe Biden senior was it was alcohol. No, he was not an alcoholic. But but I think his uncles, his you know, I mean, so so a lot of people died young of things that we're we're not really sure of. So.

Right. So so you think your old man saw that and just saw it.

Yeah, exactly.

And I think the Bo, you know, kind of got that, got that same message in I don't know how people and it's just like I don't know, I mean the first time I drank, all I knew is that, you know, I was four foot eleven. I weighed 90 pounds. I was a freshman in high school. And I asked the, you know, the five foot eight senior girl to the prom that she laughed at me.

Yeah. But I got up the nerve at the party to go ask her to the prom. From drinking. Yeah, from drinking, you know what I mean? And so in that moment, I was both embarrassed but really proud of myself. Yeah.

And, you know, I felt like for a moment, you know, that moment when all is right in the world and and then you chase that little you know, I found the most insidious drug I ever used was alcohol. Yeah. I mean by far I mean, it's the only drug that, you know, you could die from, you know, withdrawn from. It's only drug.

It also you can kind of do it around regular people. Exactly. And it's literally and you know, and it's hard to avoid it. Yeah.

But the the thing that grabbed me in a way that nothing else ever had was crack.

Yeah. When when you're growing up, though, like, I'm just curious as to because, you know, you spent a lot of time. You're like in some ways because your father is the president now and he was the vice president for eight years. But in some ways, I have to assume that from a very young age, when you grow up in politics, in, you know, your dad, the senators, popular senator, everybody knows him.

He you know, he's well respected in the state.

Like on some level, there's this idea, like, you know, when you start getting targeted by the right and everything else, that that there's some part of you that because I know you know that you're the son of the president and I know that, you know, you were the son of the candidate was going to be president, the vice president. But on another level, I mean, there's a weight to that.

But you also I think when you grow up like you did, that president is just the biggest promotion you can get. Yeah, you know what president is.

But you're around presidents, you're around senators, you're around government. So it doesn't it doesn't register quite the same way. Or am I wrong now?

To a certain degree you are that that's what I wrong.

You're right that it doesn't register until it happens. Right. And because it's exponentially different.

I mean, when they become vice president, when they become vice president, from senator to vice president, exponentially different and then become president, exponentially different. And what I mean by that is that, you know, we grew up in Delaware. My dad commuted every day. Yeah. And on the yeah. On the Amtrak, which I was on the board of that the Amtrak. But the community first gig as well that your first gig is.

No, no. I was I was ten years into being a lawyer, you know, I mean, as one of the other things, I've served on well over a dozen boards. Yeah. I mean, I was chairman of the Board of the World Food Program, US, which, you know, supports the U.N. World Food Program, which is one of the Nobel Peace Prize. I mean, it's the largest humanitarian organization I started on, like beyond a you know, a healthy number of reports and most of them all nonprofits.

Right.

But so he's gone to the anyway, he's commuting to work. He's commuting to work. And in Delaware, like, you know, and I would be, you know, when we were like 16, 17 years old and you get pulled over for speeding, it wasn't like, you know, there was. No trepidation on the part of the Delaware state police officer to literally walk up to the car and like, look down and say, oh, your dad is going to kill you, you know?

Right. Wait till I tell you. I tell Joe I'm going to see him down at the train station.

And, you know, he was Joe and small, so small, 750000 people.

It's like growing up in a town. And, you know, everybody knew us mainly because of the tragedy. But it's so small. And we were always with my dad by choice, always with my dad, like he'd go to the capital.

I hang out well, I mean, we'd we'd go down to D.C., but literally get off the train, go to his office, his kids, you know, run around the Russell Building and then, you know, ride the subway cars between that in the Capitol and, you know, and then get back on the train with them and go home right now.

Your playground. Yeah. Yeah. And and and we never lived in D.C.. Yeah. And so I didn't grow up knowing any other, you know, senators, kids, you know. And, you know, my dad was listed as the, you know, the five hundred and thirty fifth poorest person in Congress.

And I mean and, you know, I think he left he left the Senate with less assets than anyone in the history of the body.

It strikes me that, you know, he's he's like a real civil servant.

I mean, one hundred percent, you know, all of the qualities that I think are the good qualities that people see in my dad. It's it's not only not I mean, it's real beyond even that, you know, and it's that a lot of that a lot of pressure for you.

I mean, you watch what you say as a kid growing up.

Well, that's right. He just walked up to him. Yeah, but but at some point when he started to realize your expectations out of yourself and perhaps what you thought your your father's expectations were, I mean, when did you start to weigh on you that you had a sort like you didn't know what to do and you felt compelled to follow in the footsteps of your father?

And it seems like your brother was a little more focused on politics.

Yeah, and he took a lot of that. I don't think any of us ever felt pressure. I always felt for children of people that are in powerful positions. Yeah. As you can see, if they don't have that relationship with with the dad like Bo and I had with my dad. Right. It must be such a burden. Yeah. I didn't ever view it that way. If I was more certain that he wanted to go into politics, you know, I mean, I grew up wanting to write and paint, you know, what I wanted to do.

What did you do that when you were a kid? Yeah. All the time. Yeah. And like in high school, like like what were you like in high school? I mean, aside from getting drunk, did you hang out with the freaks and the artists?

They are both. I mean, I played football and you know, but I hung out with the guys in the smoking pit and I mean it when they started, I was I yeah, I remember.

Yeah, they had to. Yeah, exactly. Like I remember. Like in my school you can smoke everywhere. Yeah. But in high school I'm a little older than you. I was able to move through. I never, I was never a jock of any kind, but I definitely was able to talk to everybody freaks, jocks 100 percent.

And that was you know, I mean I know when I when I applied to law school, I also applied to the writing program at.

Would you go to undergrad? I went to Georgetown. Oh, right. That's right. You're at Georgetown. Yeah.

And so I write well, I went to Georgetown, I graduated Georgetown and I went and did a thing called the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. What was that? It's like a domestic Peace Corps. I did it out in Portland, Oregon. My original posting was going to be to a Native American reservation in eastern Washington State.

But the volunteers that were there decided to stay. So this Jesuit priest and he said, I'm from Portland, Portland's really cool.

So I went to Portland. We got a problem with the hipsters coming in. Yeah. We need you there. Yeah, exactly the way that was just at the beginning.

I know that was like nineteen ninety one 92, 93. Well I mean now see that's well that's interesting question.

Like so like how do you know to do something like that. I mean you know, you graduate Georgetown, you're probably drinking pretty hard right now.

I mean, I mean I drank but I also did well and you know, I spent a lot of time doing things that, you know, I was, you know, worked for the Center Center for Immigration Policy and Refugee Assistance. I started.

How does that happen? Like, how do you think you know how it happens for me? I mean, well, no. One, because that's what I wanted to do. I know when I went I knew when I went into college, the only thing that I was certain I wanted to do was go to the Peace Corps. That's what I wanted to help people or to travel, which, you know, to help people.

Yeah.

I didn't think I'd be traveling to places that most people wanted to. And then there was this really cool Jesuit priest, Tadzhik that lived on that. When you go to Georgetown, there's a Jesuit priest lives on every floor. And and, you know, I tell you the truth, I mean it. Go and I drink Bushmills. And he had started a thing called the Jesuit International Volunteers, and that was in Micronesia and in. Nepal and a couple other places, and he asked me if I wanted to help him start a summer program.

And so I did that and we went to Belize and we started the summer program for kids and then Greg Belize and and he talked me out of doing Peace Corps. He said, if you want to do something for people, yeah, there's a hell of a lot of people here at home that you need that could could use to help.

Now, it's just a message of the Jesuit school or was it just because you grew up in a family that was doing service? Both.

I knew what I wanted to do and I ended up in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, which is not ecumenical. You don't have to be Catholic. You're part of it. You live with other volunteers. At the time you made 80 bucks a month. You lived in a house, you pulled your money for food. And, you know, that was, you know, in 1992. I don't know what the monthly stipend is now. Right. The idea was service.

And and so I worked in the basement of a church that I sat in a little office and people would pick up the phone from the from the neighborhood that didn't have groceries or they couldn't get their lights turned on. I'd advocate for them.

But you also wanted to to write and express yourself and be a painter. And so you took a year. I did that and applied to the graduate school. Yeah, exactly. And I applied to my brother was at Syracuse at that time. And that's in the law school. Yeah, law school. And so I applied there and I applied for law. Yeah.

For law and but they had a great writing program at the time. Raymond Carver was Raymond Carver. Yeah. Yeah. And then Tobias Wolff was there. Raymond Carver I think. Yeah. For I applied.

But are you, are you a big Raymond Carver fan. Yeah, I was really it seems like, you know, like your entire life for chapters in a Raymond Carver way.

But there seems at this point there's a you're in the middle of a relatively happy ending. But, you know, it's between a Raymond Carver and a Stephen King short story, to tell you the truth.

But the so I applied there and and to do a double degree in creative writing program. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, I thought about applying to the Iowa Writers Program and that's one. And but then I got married and was with the baby on the way.

Now how did you meet her at the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. That's Kathleen. Yeah. Yeah. And you met her in Portland. Yeah. And and you just started dating and, you know, you weren't out of control in any way yet.

Now now you're just a normal. I was normal until something year old, 23, hanging out in Portland. Yeah. A lot of time. Apelles books drinking, you know. Yeah. A bottomless cup of coffee. Yeah. Thinking. Yeah I think don't a lot of thinking doing the reading. Exactly. Did a lot of thinking. Worried about the Jesuit priest down in El Salvador and you know what I mean. Right. Sure. I mean a lot of that.

So now do you got married because she was pregnant or.

Yeah but we we were in love. Yeah we were in love. Yeah. And and, you know, and Naomi, my my daughter was born in December of 1993. And I decided though to you know, have been up in Syracuse was I was in the Winterland of Syracuse rather than closer to home. Right. Which I decided to go to Georgetown and go to law school. So you went to law school? That I did my first year at Georgetown and then I transferred to Yale.

So you're saying to me that that the the primary incentive was to to to provide for the family?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, I don't regret any any of it, you know. I mean, I don't regret any of it. Yeah.

That part of my beautiful part of my life and and and we spent two years in New Haven. I graduated from Yale because I just thought I was prepared to go. Did you Sally's pizza or the other one you went to Sally's? Actually, you know what the coolest thing was, is that we had a little baby.

Yeah. And I looked if you see a picture of me from there, I was twenty three, but I looked maybe six years old.

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

Yeah. Yeah. I love Sally.

Yeah. Yeah. They made, we lived right there. Oh yeah. Uncaught Street. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, yeah. I just got introduced to the whole scene the whole day when I played there not too long ago. And there's that other place that Pepes. Pepes is the other pizza. Yeah. What about that weird hamburger machine.

Oh that the first ever hamburger. Yeah. Yeah exactly. I used to go there with my guy that is like an uncle to Roger every every Wednesday. Yeah. We don't ask for don't ask for cheese.

Nothing. Yeah exactly. Take it on toast. Yeah. Yeah. It's a weird thing you know it's a novelty item and they're wondering is I. It's one of the things been there forever, like they used to be a place in Harvard Square called the Tastee, which was on the corner, was just this little counter. It was OK, but it's the novelty of it. You probably have your face when you eat in that hamburger usually anyway.

I'm sure we're interested in a lot of people in our talk of Yale and Harvard. Sure.

We're talking hamburgers here because we're talking about hamburgers and pizza. There's no leaders. I mean, hamburgers. It's just a location of two places.

All right. So now your family man, and you're doing you got to do to to get into the world where you can support your family. Yeah. You let go of the Raymond Carver dreams. Yeah. The sitting at the coffee shop, writing, thinking. And now you're about to enter the game. Yeah. And how does that go?

So you graduate the law to graduate with a law degree. How's the booze at this point? When do you graduate?

1996 law school and two kids. By then no one is the one. Yeah. And and then making the decision of whether to go work for a big law firm. Yeah. Because I paid for my law school. Right. I paid for my college too. And figuring out how to be able to handle the loans. And then, you know, I, I'd worked at the summers at some big law firms I worked at, got offers from Skadden Arps and you know, like anyway.

Now are you feeling at this point like it? Well, it's still pretty early, but I mean, do you feel at this point that your name is getting you anywhere?

Well, I mean, it's it's really hard to separate the two, but I know this is it. I kind of got I mean, I when I was at Yale Law School, and so, I mean, like, I wasn't, you know, I was doing all right.

Well, you did all right.

I did real well. Yeah. And and and I was I'm proud of that. Yeah. I mean, I worked my ass off because one of the things is, is that, you know, I tell you what, I don't care what your name is, say, you know, whether it's acting or anything. Yeah. Is it you know, your name can be, you know, whatever.

You know, if you show up in your Tom Cruise's kid and, you know, you may get the first movie, but you're not getting the next ten, you know, that is true.

And by the way, I mean, I don't know of any profession in the world in which, you know, it's like I don't know many dentists that their dad wasn't a dentist.

Well, right. If you're a shitty dentist, you don't last very long.

That's right, everyone. But I think at some point, you know, when your wife started to get away from you and then not, you know, became too big for you to manage that, I think you did learn as your father grew in stature. Yeah. That that the name did offer you some cachet.

Yeah. But to your point, figuring out how to filter that right is one thing when your dad's a United States senator. Right.

Figuring out how to filter that is another thing when he's a whole nother thing when he's vice president and when you've got a habit, a yeah.

Yeah. So when you do land a job with that first gig as a lawyer, I went to work for a bank, MBNA, which is the largest credit card bank in America at the time.

I went to work as a lawyer. Oh.

And then I and I couldn't take it. But you took some shit for that.

From the right, I'm Michelle Malkin wrote an entire book about how my dad was, you know, a bought off by the credit card companies. They were the you know, I mean, the banks at the time, the largest employers in the state of Delaware. And but regardless, I went back and and a lot of really good people. I mean, but I I only lasted for about a year and a half there.

And because it was just too much or now, because it was like I mean, I went from, you know, thinking that I was going to, you know, you know, write novels and, you know, and paint and and, you know, maybe work as a public defender. Yeah. To go directly into working for for a credit card bank.

Doing what? I was a lawyer. Doing contracts. Yeah.

I mean, you know, the contracts affinity Makini, you know, immediately soul deadening is what you do. Yeah, exactly.

And and again, like I got to make it clear, because Delaware is a small place, I love the people that were there. I mean, really good people. But it wasn't for me. Yeah. Where in my MBNA pin. Yeah. And you know, my blue suit with the white shirt and the specific tie on a daily basis.

And so I left and I went to work for the I went down to Washington and got a job with the Clinton administration and thinking again along the lines of public service, what are we doing for them?

I worked I was I ended up working for Bill Daley, the Department of Commerce, and I was the longest title in in government and the executive director of E Commerce, Commerce Policy Coordination.

For the office of the secretary, that's what my card actually said. Wow. So what do they call it? E-commerce, two sided card. Yeah, flip it over. Exactly.

So when does when does it start to get away from you? When do you have that? So. Right before I took that job. Yeah.

Finegan Yeah. And and the second key. Yeah. Finnie she's her name is Finnegan Finnegan. James Finnegan. Naomi Yeah. And my third is Masae. Yeah. And but I have the second and the administration ends, you know, and we're all waiting for the next administration, which is going to be the Gore administration right now.

But that doesn't have the numbers issue. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. A numbers issue. Yeah.

And I had to figure out what was going to do and I decided what I was going to do because I had a bunch of buddies that were, you know, riding high on that on the dotcom bubble. And so what I did was I started my own law firm and to focus on that and then e-commerce. Yeah. And then, you know, and then the bubble burst on that. So I had to figure something else out.

And what I figured out was a friend from there was president of one of the Jesuit universities so I could use some help. We have a we send teachers into this school and the toughest part of Philadelphia and we're looking for help with federal funding. And I said I'd help him. And so then I created a law firm that was 90 percent of my business, was representing Jesuit universities that were trying to get things like mobile dental clinics and I mean a whole host of service oriented, service oriented.

But I was making money and I was doing OK.

And what happened was a church got some bread, they got some bread, the Catholic Church and the money. Yeah, exactly. But, you know, the incredible thing about Jesuit universities, they're the only schools that are still like is the only school still in inner city Detroit. And, you know, I mean, there's not a at the time I was doing it, there was not a dentist office in the city limits of Detroit except for Detroit Universities, which is a Jesuit university.

Detroit Mercy Dental School. Yeah. So we got mobile dental.

Anyway, that's when I my drinking started to be to get out of control. And yeah, because, you know, you're hanging out in D.C. and decided to I was going to try to do it. My dad did. Which is commute back to Delaware. Yeah.

Because it could afford a house there rather than in D.C. and you know, then I'd stay down a little bit longer and then I'd go to that, you know, go across the street to the Bombay Club and have, you know, 16 too many drinks.

And just like, you know, it's like I remember I like, you know, I remember, you know, that like he's been a long time for me, you know, and the obsession is is gone. But, you know, getting into that routine where, you know, if you've got one thing that I think a lot of people don't understand about drug addiction and alcoholism, if you don't know what it feels like to want that shit in the way that an addict wants it, you can't understand what the fuck we're talking about.

Exactly.

And yeah, exactly. And it's like a lot of people kind of like, you know, you have a little problem.

It's like you're you don't get it. Yeah. Like were you just all day long you just waiting for that drink just to get out so you can walk across the street and sit in a fucking half empty joint. You. I'm good. I'm good now.

Yeah exactly. You know, the best description I've ever.

One of the best is I heard Mike Tyson talking about it and he said, have you ever been really hungry?

Yeah, well, think about it. That you're starving. Yeah.

If you haven't had food in 40 days. Yeah. And somebody you know the cheeseburgers right over there. Yeah.

That insatiable like feeling. I mean, there's no there's no conscious thought that goes into it, but it's like it's deep and it's weird.

It feels like, you know, I'm going to get whole.

Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, that's the thing too is that you know, and that's when I realized that I needed to get help, was then when it wasn't just a mental obsession, when it became a physical obsession. Yeah. When I wake up in the morning and I and I'd and I'd have to, you know, reach under the bed for the, you know, the pain of Smirnoff that I had just to be able to get into the shower.

Wow.

And so that's when I that's when I quit that for the first time. Yeah.

You're like little shit man. Yeah.

I mean like yeah that was my high bottom. Yeah. And I should have stuck right the fuck there. I should have stuck there. I had the chance and everybody, everybody told me that I went to and that said don't do it. Yeah.

Like you know the guys who come back in and sit down and say I just went out and I tested, I tested it. Yeah. And you know, I just got out of jail. All right. Just, you know, or, you know, three divorces later. My liver's almost gone. Yeah, exactly. Or they're dead or they're dead.

And so many of them. So many I know, man.

There's people it's like you mentioned, permanent midnight in your book, Jerry. One of my good friends, yeah, oh, really? Yeah, yeah, and like that guy survived, I can't talk about triggering my kids or Jeri's.

He's a warrior. He's a survivor. Yeah. You know, I mean. Well, that's the other thing, Mark, is that, you know.

Yeah. Is it I ain't alone. No, like I'm not like like my story. It's not like it, it's rough and it seems rougher because of who my dad is. But the fact of the matter is, is that I mean, how many how many a million just lived.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, I definitely know many of you, but like, you know, you guys are alive to tell the story. How many of you do I know that died. Yeah. Who the fuck knows. I mean, it's like worse than ever now.

Yeah. So all right.

So you go so you clean up in 2001, 2002, 2003.

So when do you like what what how the hell when did you join the service.

Oh yeah. You know, that was one of those that was one of those decisions that, you know, my my brother had gone into the Army National Guard and had gone to Iraq. And but this is before he went to Iraq. And I'd always wanted to do it, but I didn't think I could. And I started the idea of doing it when I was sober. Yeah. And I unfortunately acted on the idea when I was not. And so you joined are you so active?

I mean, I wasn't I mean, I was in that cycle, right? Yeah. It's like. Yeah, I mean, that's one of the part of the things that people don't understand is you get, you know, at least back then you get you know, you get 60 days on your belt and you think like, hey, what I should do is join the Navy at the age of 40.

Well, you're but you're one of those guys with the big ideas and you do it when you're fucked up. I know. I mean, yeah, but I was sober.

I mean, like, I was so but but this is the first time since a long time I realized.

Yeah. Why they say don't make any decisions, don't make big decisions in that first year.

Yeah. And and do a relationship to make a big decision.

Don't hang out with the fucking guys anymore. Yeah exactly. I immediately grabbed hold of a woman and I in and I married her, I hung on to her for dear life. I married her and then she left a drained husk eight years later.

Hated me. Still hates me. Yeah.

Yeah that's sober. Yeah. Yeah I know. I know. And I you know, I mean thank God in this time is that the is that I haven't made any of those decisions, you know, I mean Melissa literally saved me and and in that moment your current wife. Yeah. I knew that I was going to that. God Almighty I had to hang on. Oh, Jesus Christ. You got to be pretty beat up, dude.

Yeah. I mean I mean, after a certain point, I mean, I know you talk about, you know, being able to bullshit and lie and everything else, but you've got to be humbled.

Oh, I mean I mean, in a way that is is uh it's it's pretty, pretty awesome. Humbling we.

Yeah. So yeah. Well because like I read the book like in at the end of my Jesus, I'm a little concerned. Yeah.

Yeah. By the way, you're not the only one. You're not the only one I don't think. But by the way, I don't think he's out of the woods now. But by the way. Yeah.

Then when the book ends, I'm clearly not out of the woods, OK?

That's when the hard work starts. OK, you know, I say that I like said everybody. I think I read it in the book. Yeah. Is that is the truest thing I ever heard is that getting sober is easy. All you got to do is change everything. Right. Yeah. And and I can tell you. That. The ability to change everything requires, at least for me, not only getting honest with people around me, but getting honest with myself and for the first time I've been I've been allowed to I give myself permission to do that now.

You know, it's a hell of a lot easier when your story is being, you know, concocted. Story of you out there is even worse than the story that I write in the book. Yeah. You know, did you pick up your laptop or.

Yeah. You know, the creepiest thing is, is I have no clue. It's real. Only thing I do know is that the intelligence community just came out with a report that said the entire thing is Russian disinformation. And I tell people, just give me my book. Yeah. I mean, it's all right there. I've got nothing to hide. Right.

The funny thing is, it's like, you know, like given how much shit was stolen from you over the years when you were high tech mean.

I know exactly. Who knows? Only thing I do know is that Rudy Giuliani supposedly sleeping with it, which is creepy enough just to even think about why I don't know how the hell like I mean, like but like, I just I wanted to talk about the Navy Reserve.

Yeah. Because, like, that seemed to be the turning point because you got what happened. You got busted. Yeah.

Well, I was you know, I did a drug test that I felt I had no idea truthfully how I felt it because I knew that the drug test was coming.

I still don't know what was a blow.

Yeah, that's. Yeah, it was cocaine. Yeah. Yeah. And at this time I was not smoking crack. I was drinking heavily. But that's the most goddamn embarrassing thing I've ever. Wow.

At that point it was like, well at this point is it like is your brother concerned about. Yeah. Is your father like what are we going to do is. Oh no, no there's never that. She's the thing. The thing with my family is there's never like, you know, like a discussion behind my back, like, what are we going to do about Hunter?

It's like, you know, where where the fuck is Hunter?

I mean, like, you know, my dad calls me every day. He calls me every day through this whole period of time. If he doesn't get me on the phone and he text me 32 times, I mean, he literally you know, I'm worried. Yeah. I mean, worried, but he's always his whole life.

Yeah. You know, I think, you know, something that you learn when you when you lose people that you love is that, you know, if you get a chance to call your people that you care about most. Yeah. You do it. And it was you know, and so my point is, is that there was never a feeling of like, oh, my God, I let my dad down.

All I knew is that that I let myself down. Yeah. And that they were there to help pick me up.

It just seems like with not unlike many addicts, you you start letting yourself down over and over again and you get used to it and then you just see yourself as a piece of shit. Yeah, exactly. And then, you know, you can't get out from under it. Yeah. Yeah.

So but so this is the beginning of the end of the marriage, right. Yeah, I think so.

You know, I mean Jesus Christ, divorce is so hard and you know, my girls, my, my daughters are so amazing and they love their mom and they love me like so much.

You get along with her. Yeah. Now. Yeah. It's OK. Yeah. You know, but like you said, put it this hard, put it through a lot.

It's a hell of a lot.

And you know, it's, I always say the courage to get sober is one thing, the courage to stick around. Somebody's trying to get sober.

How many how many rehabs you go through with her. Oh. Let me see, at least six different, you know, at least six different programs, so I could just wear them down.

Yeah, I mean, I did. I did. And then. And then. And then you relapsed and then you lie about it and then you fess up to it, but you keep drinking, you know, like and then you have to think, oh my God. And then ultimatums are laid down because that's what they tell you you need to do.

I my first marriage ain't got no kids, so it's different.

But like, it just got to the point where it's like, I'm never going.

There's no way she's going to forgive me after a certain point.

And I don't want to live in that exactly that, you know, live the contrition that will never be received.

Exactly. And it's not their fault. No, no. You fucked it up.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's the truth is that I'm not even two years clean yet.

And so figuring all that out in my head is that I know. I know I had a hell of a lot of amends to make to a lot of people. You're doing the thing, though, right?

Yeah. All right. Yeah. Yeah.

So here's what I was trying to see is like, you know, now all of a sudden, you know, you get attention from from the right wing over, you know, MBNA initially, but you're attached to your father.

You're you know, you're Joe Biden's kid now.

And now you're wrestling with, you know, massive alcoholism. And then, you know, once crack gets into the picture and, you know, you buy yourself like a huge house.

Yeah, well, in 2006, right?

Oh, no, I didn't it wasn't a huge house, but it was expensive. Yeah, exactly.

My point being is that, like, you know, I you know, what I did was like three girls to go to private school. And I'm, you know, and I buy a house and, you know, Spring Valley to the school and want to be in Washington instead of. Right. You know, in Virginia. And I don't have any savings. And so it's literally, you know, what I'm what I'm making is going to, you know, paying for house tuitions to pay for the vacation that you want to take for me to live that life.

Right. So when did the international hustle start? Not until after Beau got sick. And so.

Oh, so like 2004 you were just doing. Oh, right.

So you so the other gigs were like, you know, you start a hedge fund with your uncle and I try to start and that didn't work and it didn't work out.

I was sober, I was sober then it just it just didn't work out, you know. I mean, one thing is that you think that, you know, D.C. is bad. Go to Wall Street. I mean, it's just like, oh, my God, we did some lobbying.

And you work for a contract. Well, I did that. My my my core business was lobbying on behalf of the Jesuit universities.

OK, OK. And then, like, once your dad becomes V.P., you can't do that.

And I didn't work for Amtrak. That was a nonprofit board organization. I mean, you don't you don't get paid at all. Right. That was like I was appointed by George Bush to do that. Oh, OK. Yeah.

So I guess the point is, like, again, when your dad becomes VP, it takes a shot at your business 100 percent.

And so I drop because the Obama campaign had made and the McCain campaign made such a big deal about lobbying and what they used to call earmarking. Yeah. And things. And so I, I completely changed my business and I dropped all my lobbying clients. Yeah. So that that wasn't an issue. I worked on behalf of a big engineering company and that, you know, just to do business, you know, where was that?

They were based out of Wichita, Kansas. But they do I mean, they built, you know, roads and in and bridges and state.

And what exactly do you do for these places? For them? I guess it yeah. What I was doing, I was a consultant for them, so I know any well, what it means is, is that if they wanted to go into into the city of Baltimore or the new stadium. Right.

You know, I would help them. I would figure out with them, you know, who the people are, the regulatory environment, you know, because I was a lawyer, too. And so, you know, who are the people to talk to? What are the regulatory hurdles?

But at this point, like, are you feeling sober? You're sober, but are you feeling desperate?

Well, I mean, I have to I have to pay the bills. And they're big, right? Yeah, but I wasn't desperate. Yeah.

I mean, you know, and that's true. That's 2008. Yeah. Yeah.

When I start that new business and you know, I had a good I built up a really good business.

Yeah. And I was proud of that business.

And then when does it, when does it start to get. It seems that you know China and the Ukraine is the portal through which the right wing runs the the big the big racket through you. Yeah. And like it seems to me that you are so like, you know, in need of money and bordering on being out of control. Yeah. That the idea that you could manage a conspiracy.

Oh I mean that's the most ridiculous thing is that I mean literally it's so it's so banal.

I mean, as it relates to Ukraine, just take this. Is that the thing that drives me crazy? Yeah. Is this idea that I never had a job when it's. Somebody like, plucked me out of the, you know, you know, a target and decided that this is the way that they're going to, you know, create a a criminal empire, something. Yeah.

You know, I was at least on 14 boards. I served on 14 birds in major positions. And and some of them I was ahead of the corporate governance committee. I was I was a lawyer at that time. I was working for a council boy Schiller inflection, which one of the biggest law firms in the world. What is the benefit of being on a board with so many?

Well, because it was all service oriented. So I did the you know, the World Food Program USA, the Center for National Policy. I was on the you know, I mean, a whole different bunch of boards. I was on, you know, Jesuit JBC, Northwest Advisory Board, Catholic Charities. Right. You know, I mean, made you look good.

And he enjoyed doing you know, I actually really enjoyed doing it. And I didn't need it. I wasn't running for anything. Yeah, I was it. And, you know, I mean, it look good to who I mean, nobody was writing about the number of boards I was.

Oh, no, they still don't. Maybe to yourself is what I mean. I made me feel good. Yeah.

Because you like at some point you're you're an active battle begins and the dark you and and the you that is of service the the me that that has to pay tuition and not just tuitions.

Yeah. You know, I mean alimony. It's like yeah. I mean spousal support, child marriage.

I mean that's all comes later. But, but the.

But anyway my point is, is that I didn't have any issue with going to work for a company that was under threat from a an invading Russia.

Yeah. Of its entire existence.

And they came to me as a lawyer at Boies Schiller. And to do charisma did. Yeah.

Charisma did because they wanted to legitimize their business after they I think ultimately that's what it is, because they wanted to expand internationally, because they knew that they couldn't only depend upon Ukraine for their entire business and they were once an appendage of Russia.

I mean, the the the Ukraine was exact. It was an oligarchic structure. Yeah. And so this is post oligarchical structure. Yeah. And they want to, you know, broaden the business on an international level to give them some credibility and exactly. Some freedom.

They kick out Yanukovych to have a democratic election.

There's a whole bunch of reforms. Yeah. But then Putin invades their East Coast. Yeah. Mainly for one thing for their natural gas. Yeah. And so he takes over Crimea and, you know, and so, you know, breezeways independent largest natural gas company and and Ukraine. Yeah. You know, is feeling very threatened. And so Academi as a as a lawyer to help them do I own internal security check to basically determine whether or not, you know, Croal had done a report, which is one of the big international, you know, security investigative firms.

And I had them do another on Nardiello.

That's Nick Krall's dad, the comedian. Oh, is it right? I think so. I think yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, he's got a good.

But anyway, long story short, yeah I done both of those and come to the conclusion that they were, you know they were as things level on the level. Really on the level. Yeah. And there's a guy that was president of the president of Poland, the first democratically. Yeah. Truly Democratic president of Poland, a guy named Kwasniewski who was on the board.

And he is a beacon of democracy, literally is like one of the loudest voices against what's happening in Poland now. And he said he called me and he said, Hunter, would you join the board to do what he said?

Well, number one, it's really important for us to be able to go outside of Ukraine and we need to show that we're different. We're different than this mess. The other one is to Putin is to say, you know, we're we're we're choosing the other side right now. The third one is said, I had an expertize in corporate governance. My role was limited to that. That's what I did when I did the job. Yeah.

Now, I did not take into consideration that this would be a flat out Russian operation to, you know, with all of these guys, I mean, supposedly directly from the desk of Vladimir Putin.

I mean, that's what which which operation to a disinformation about you. About me. Right.

That also what what they then did was what ended up, you know, requiring an impeachment.

Right. Right. Which is try to muscle the government of the Ukraine to open an investigation into you and your father. Yeah. And I it doesn't sound like your father was involved, not God Almighty.

I mean, not even. And by the way, no one has ever found that now. No, of course not.

But but like. But he knows you're doing the job. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But as you say, things like you it OK. Everything all right. Yeah. Well. I did a press release when I joined the board, right, and that was part of it, and he said, I hope you know what you're doing. That's the only conversation we had on it, because at that time, I really did know what I was doing. Yeah, I did not take into account and he wasn't going to run for president that he was going to run for president.

Yeah, exactly. And I was a year away. I was you know, I had been diagnosed. Oh, really? Um, about seven months before that. Yeah. And, you know, glioblastoma.

And that's that prognosis is just no good at that.

And how's your drug use? It was nothing. I mean, I had I was I was clean and sober.

Through then to to win both dies and when that one did, were you working for our partners?

Well, that, you know, was a and is a private equity firm. Yeah. The idea was to create a private equity group, to be able to invest outside of China into, you know, U.S. infrastructure projects and things like that, which, you know, shut down. I mean, again, I mean, it really kind of simple thing. I invested in it. I have never received a dollar from it. Not a dime.

Well, that's I think the one part of the story that nobody really gets into is like you make a lot of bread. You make a lot of money. No, none.

I mean, zero, literally. And, you know, I mean, they have me, like, carrying a bag of I mean, it's like it becomes ridiculous.

Well, how but how did you not drink or use once that starts to happen?

I mean, like, you know, once that didn't start to happen until after, but it didn't now. So that was leading up to 2012, remember I.

Right, exactly. Yeah. And so 2015 and at the end of May, Pope passes away. Yeah, I'm I stay sober.

I've that whole, you know, you know, a little less than two years. I mean, I'm with my brother constantly.

Were you there that you were there in the hospital every day. Oh yeah. I mean I, I never left, I, I, you know, and I would I went with him everywhere and. And that was a slow decline. Yeah, and so, you know, we tried everything when we did that. We you did the anyway, we did everything thinking back on it. I said I would never put him through that again. Why did he not chemo and radiation now?

I mean, here he was. Look, he didn't want to hear the statistics, you know, glioblastoma, stage four multiform.

The you know, the survivor building is, I think, like point two percent or I mean, it's like beyond de minimis and and make it past two years, I think only like something like.

Yeah, one percent of people who make it past two years have severe disabilities. And were you able to.

Get closure all the way. I mean, were you able to Boehner? Yeah, yeah. You know. I am. I don't know how it's a. I know he I know he's here now, yeah, but he felt like he was very far away for a long time after he died because of the drugs.

Uh. Because your own pain, yeah, my own pain drugs make it even, you know, the drugs drive that feeling away, but they make the distance even further, you know?

Yeah, it seemed like he kind of got untethered from yourself completely. Completely.

So both died.

It was a low level burn, which I realize is that from the very beginning, there was a you know, what's the one thing that it's obvious to everybody that is the most important thing in my dad's life is his family. Yeah. And so, you know, I think they looked out there and thought, OK, where's the weak link? And, you know, and it's not you know, I mean, this is a small place. Yeah.

It's not easy to, you know, to difficult to figure out, you know.

Well, you know, the attacks start then and they just kind of ramp up and they obviously become, you know, exponentially worse as my personal life just unravels.

Do you think the idea was to scare Joe out of running? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, 100 percent.

I think that they thought that it would be a big enough distraction because, look, the the essence of their attacks. Yeah. Are literally the there's zero truth to them. But knowing that you've got a son that just died and another one or your other son who's who's near death in many ways.

And if you just keep pounding on him, like, how does a guy survive that? How does how does your father how does somebody survive that? Yeah.

And it must have been killing. Imam Hurtin' is breaking his heart. Oh, God. I mean, just like when I wake up every day and. Oh, my God. Yeah, like that that guilt, that guilt for putting my girls through, that, you know, those days and times which, you know, when you were no idea what. Yeah.

Where I was or, you know, what the hell was going on or, you know.

Well, that whole how many years that was like five, eight, four or five years. 2015.

Yeah. You know, but I go immediately to rehab, you know, two months after Bo. So when did you first smoke the crack?

Not until that next year. So 2000, I think 16, I get it, I really do get it in my mind.

I went through when I was writing it and I had to really, like, lay it out.

I mean, I wrote it out longhand in a part of it, like, OK, what's the you know, how do these all match up? And I had to have somebody else. I asked somebody else to go and like some of my things together to make certain that I'm telling the right things because so much of it actually really bleeds together.

But then, you know, a year after basically paradise, I, I, I in another treatment program.

So that first year I went to a treatment program and spent 40 days there, got out, went back to my yoga, you know, six times a week and and and all of that. And, but then my marriage is completely unraveling. Yeah. And I'm living alone for the first time in my life and separation and agreement that we made and my brother's gone. And I'm living in that that grief by myself for the first time ever. And and and I drink again and then I get back on the horse.

But, you know, closest probably ever came to death with that period of drinking.

It's drinking, you know, at least court dates to court today, at least the court date. I mean, that vaka.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just by yourself. By myself. Just sitting there.

I mean, you know, I mean. Combine that with that level of grief, like I felt like I lost everybody, but then you just pound in like you're not letting yourself come up for air at all.

I don't want to write, you know, I mean, literally, yeah, it would be the strength to be able to get out the door and walk across the street to the liquor store.

I mean, I think about that today, and it still gives me the chills more than anything. Yeah. And then I went into a I went to outpatient program and then I screwed up. But they wanted me to, you know, take a drug test. And I didn't want to take the drug test because I just admitted it to them. And I said, if I take the drug test and it leaks, then I just a second time, it looks like I failed a drug test.

I did my I was actively going through a divorce, yet I want it to be that. And so they said, no, you have to take drugs and she can't come back. And that's the only excuse I needed.

I literally walked out the door, ran into, you know, Rhea, who's in the book, that that whole thing, that whole book turns on this Reia character, like, you know, where like all of a sudden, you know, you have this whole life with your family, with with Beau and the passing of Beau and and you're putting your family through this, you know, nightmare of not knowing if you're going to be OK and, you know, and repeating.

And then you meet this woman and I when I was using I I know what it's like to have a guy that can get you the shit. Yeah. As opposed to. Yeah. You going out into the world to get the shit which you did. Plenty have to. But you talk about this woman in very respectful and reverential like it was a real relationship.

You basically invited a house to a woman who rode around on her bicycle high on crack to live in your house.

Yeah, for months. I know. And it's like, no, you know, I mean, you got to read.

I know. You know. I know you got to read it. Yeah. Yeah.

To get the full no contact with the tone change because it's like, you know, it was you really get the feeling that once you hit that bottom and you live there, that's, that's all you had and that the immediacy of feeding the monkey of honoring the addiction at any cost was what you were living for.

Yeah.

And you met her and she lived the same way. And somehow or another, you know, you had this understanding with each other.

Yeah, well, one of the things about crack is that it's not it's it's number one, it's not nearly as as widespread as it was when we were, you know, kids. Yeah, kids.

Um, but there is there is a thing about it that is that hit on every single obsessive compulsive, addictive part of your being.

Yeah. You know, it's literally, you know, fire.

Yeah. It's you know, I mean, it has all of the addiction of all of the the physical movement of smoking. Yeah. You know, like it is the oral fixation. Yeah. And then it has the, you know, the fixation with that, the sound of the of the lighter going off.

Yeah. Then you have all of your little tools and all of the little things in the original, the ritual of mean. It's got that ritual and then it's got that big bang for its buck at the outset. Yeah. And all of those things.

And you literally if you you find yourself. Yeah.

If you, if you, if you'd like willing to go down that rabbit hole, which I pray God nobody does listening to this because it is awful but it becomes everything. I mean what it does, I mean I spent more time crawling around on the floor in apartments, motel rooms, hotel rooms. You know, the park. Yeah. You know, looking for little white pieces of something. Yeah. Then you can imagine like hours and hours and hours and you can just sit there as long as supply keeps coming in and do it for hours and hours and hours and weeks.

You're not sleeping for weeks. Yeah. I mean, I would literally I think by the end, you know, I was there, I was maybe getting ten hours a sleep a week, a week at best. And you just do it and do it and do it. The only breaks would come when you'd run out. And this is after Rya.

Yeah. And I moved from Washington. It was living basically from motel to motel is you run out and the things that you will do. I mean I had dealers tell me like a meeting at the 7-Eleven on X and Y at four thirty a.m..

Yeah.

And I'd get there at four thirty a.m. and you'd be the only one sitting on the parking lot and the guy would look at through the window and you know exactly what he was thinking. Even if it wasn't what he was thinking, you were absolutely certain that that's what he was thinking. And so you're sitting there, you you go low in your seat, you go home and you act like it's normal. You go in to buy it and it's six thirty and you finally get the guy back on the phone.

And he said, I'm pulling in right now. I'm pulling in right now. If you're in a 7-Eleven.

What do you mean you're pulling in right now? Yeah, yeah, it's not the autobahn. Well, that's the whole other relationship you talked about was with that guy, John. It's very interesting to me that the relationship with Reha.

Yeah, the house was person on the bicycle who you lived with for five months and watch crime shows with and smoked crack with compulsively.

And then you got this guy, John, who was some sort of hustler that seemed to have like a stable of crack heads and and the way you sort of try to understand your behavior and even just hearing you talk about the ritual of smoking crack, it's like and he said it in the book, you're like when people don't understand why drug addicts do what they do, it's because we fucking love drugs.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Like even when you talk about it, I'm sitting here going, oh my God.

A yeah, yeah. A little so funny.

But but like at this point when you, you know, at this point in your life where I have to assume that like your family is sort of like, well, if he dies, he dies. There's nothing we can do.

No, God, no. It's the exact opposite. They really were, you know.

I mean, one of the things I write about in the book is this intervention scene, which happened on, you know, on multiple many levels. Yeah.

Like constantly. But the you know, the big, you know, theatrical production. Yes. And my mom calls me and I'm in one of those motels. And for some reason she gets through to me and and gets, you know, truly through to me and says, come down. We miss you so much. Won't please come down and see us come down.

And I walk in and are to my my my three daughters, my niece and nephew, my mom, my dad and two councilors a from rehab.

But at this point you're like fucking taking a hit every 15 minutes. If you can't, you're no longer functioning were you. Get the money at this point.

Well, I mean, I still had some of my business, but I'm not like, showing up, you know? I mean, it's running out.

It's running out because, like, the scene you depict with, you know, these fucking like I knew like when I was in Hollywood at the Comedy Store in my early 20s, like live in, you know, on someone else's, you know, in someone else's house and hosting these fucking coke parties, the riff raff that would come and go, they'd steal shit. And you like you you kind of like prided yourself on knowing this fucking, you know, weird underworld of I.

For me, it was like these porno people and drug dealers and freaks. And you're like, this is life, man.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And in the moment you embrace that, that's for sure, is that you think that you're like some kind of like, oh, you know, like, I mean it's good to get away from me.

You're like cheesy. But the way I'm here with you like an hour and it's like you're you're a sensitive guy, you're a sweet guy and you allowed yourself to be a mark. I mean, you knew that they were taken you. Oh yeah.

But I don't know of anybody that's an addict. It isn't a mark.

No, I guess so. I guess so. But like there are there's two sides of it. Right. Either you're going to be like the guy with the gun or the guy that just says, I don't care, take my wallet. Yeah. And you're that guy.

Yeah. One hundred percent. One hundred percent. Which is probably lucky. Yeah.

That you're not bad. By the way, that was part of the resignation too, you know, like I was like, yeah. You know, like I knew what I was doing was just it just awful that I was killing myself and it was like so you know, so somebody steals my wallet, like that's the least of my goddamn problems, you know? I mean, but over and over again, it's over and over again.

Over and over again.

By the way, again, like I said, you're addicted to crack the way in which I would crack or, you know, is it you're an easy mark for anybody, let alone because you let alone the predators that make a living out of doing that. And you're easy.

I mean, you're easily identifiable prey because you're walking up to the line, you know what I mean?

You need them. And so you put your head in their jaws and just, you know, like sometimes they bite and sometimes they don't. Sometimes they, you know, I mean, it's just absolutely the most, you know, insidious, maniacal life.

So but like so all this shit is going down. You know, you're being hammered as the the kingpin of this grand conspiracy. The sitting president is impeached by the House trying to fucking hang you out to dry, trying to to to to get you, you know, investigate. That's you you and you. Really the reason why he got impeached. Yeah.

And so, by the way, the book ends when I get sober. Right. And that's when they just start in earnest. And what happens is, I mean, start in on like this. Giuliani starts in on this whole Ukraine thing.

Oh, really? Okay. 2018.

OK, well, let's just I just want to like express my concern. I mean, twenty nineteen to a degree that like so you, you know, you've, you've committed your life to dying a crackhead probably in a hotel room and some sad fucking way.

Yeah. You did some strange cracked out New Yorker interview by the. Probably the thing that saved my life, yeah, is because that is the first time I told anybody outside of my family.

Any idea what was going on?

So was it was the idea there to to to help yourself or to talk to help your dad?

Oh, God. All in all, I knew if I didn't tell anybody, I didn't tell my dad and tell anybody how bad you mean. I didn't tell anybody except, you know, there was a part of me that's still a snob. And it was a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist from The New Yorker. And I thought, that sounds like a great idea.

But you didn't know. And it was like a therapy session.

So I told him, like, the whole thing because it was all about, well, you know, what about this in the Ukrainian?

That it's like none of that's true.

But here, I'll tell you something. That's true. Yeah. You know, I'll tell you something. It's true. This part's true. Yeah.

And I thought, you know what that was like. Fuck it. Yeah. I was going to, like, tell the world this is who I am. All this other stuff, total B.S.. Yeah, but this is who I you reject.

Yeah. Yeah.

And and for the first 75 percent of it and then I meet Melissa.

Yeah. See this here's the concern is sort of like so you're like not even really down. You're still high. Yeah. When you meet this woman. Yeah. Oh.

But I was at my lowest, my lowest low. Like you've been thrown out of another hotel.

Yeah. I mean, I mean that was that, that was I was never thrown out, they just never had a room for me the next day, you know.

I mean, you know, I still you know, I was a valet all through college and so I still have my my, my, my valet friends who are, you know, saved my life. I don't know how many times I just take making certain that, you know, not letting that guy that was clearly coming to do something. You know, I got into the hotel room like, you know, like, you know, taking my keys from me, not being able to find it.

Yeah.

You know, I it's one thing is really important to. Yeah. You know, those times that you're talking about, you were saying, you know, at the end of your, you know, run?

Yeah, you know, one thing is that I think back on it now, and because I wrote the book was such a such a useful exercise for me to also realize so many acts of kindness from virtual strangers. Yeah.

People that literally, you know, like you ask why I didn't like why I was more of a mark instead of a, you know, an aggressor. And is that one of the reasons to number one. That's me, is it? You know, I, I hate meanness, but I'll tell you what, some people that, you know, had no reason, no gain for them.

It's pulled me out of a you know, the way that whatever oncoming bus that it was, it's just happened over and over and over again for me and your uncle.

To my uncle.

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

Yeah.

I mean, he's he is an incredible human being in his own right. And so anyway, long story short, though, is that when I when I meet Melissa, I'm talking to Adam Entous with The New Yorker.

And it's like a it's like a two hour therapy session each night. Yeah. And I'm telling my whole life story.

Yeah. And I get set up on a date which I was dating anybody, you know, you're like you're out of your mind.

I'm out of my mind. And for some reason I decide to call.

But it was weird because it was like some people that were at the hotel. You didn't really know the hotel I never met before in my life.

I got to meet this woman and I said, you know, which I anyway, I call and we set up a time and she doesn't show up and then she doesn't show up again and she doesn't show up again.

She has no idea who I am. No idea. All they knew was me is hunter. But you haven't slept your ad.

You're fucking not. Let me hear my voice in your head.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, there's a whole scene in the book in which I think I had a, you know, not sleeping for six days driving to Prescott, Arizona of the hour. Yeah. That I'll I'll tell you what I think real thing in my life, but I bet.

But you didn't think it was Beau. Yeah, I always think it is Beau. Yeah. Yeah, but you didn't say that in the book. I know. I didn't want to get to California on everybody, but I absolutely felt that way. I still do. I still do. I mean, that's the other part about it is that those little things, it's like yeah. Wow.

But.

I walk in, it is incredibly beautiful South African woman from big Jewish family in Johannesburg and a and I just look and I like I see something I recognized something I don't know whether I saw, you know, like I saw, you know, whatever the unconditional love that my brother had for me. Yeah. That's what I saw. I'm not the first person who, you know, love at first sight.

But and within an hour, I tell her everything. And, you know, to her credit or or not, I mean, is that she just said that's going to end and I don't know why Mark it got it.

Like it it found its way through all of that crack. All of that vodka. Yeah, all of that grief, all of that sadness, all of that shame, all that it found its way. And I said, OK, yeah.

And now that's not the end of the story, you know, I mean, it's not it's not that. I mean, then it took like, holy shit, what does that mean? That means that, you know, literally, like, she took my keys, she took my phone, she took my clothes. She took my you know, I mean, she had to basically play my jailer for, you know, to get you to detox.

Yeah.

Not just a detox, but then to make certain, you know, I was still, you know, like you never left my side.

She never left the apartment where I ever left the room. I mean, and she and she for some reason intuitively knew that she couldn't.

And it's just I think that that anybody to do that for another human being.

Yeah. There's somebody I want to be with the rest of my life. And I never really I didn't like in the book.

I didn't really like in time talking to you.

Now I know and feeling like who you are is like you were just like so wide open, so broken, so broken and so like, you know, you're just like just you just a throbbing sort of heart there.

Yeah. You know, just like so like the idea because like my first when I read it I'm like, yeah, this is like a junky thing, you know, like he's getting off on this moment and he's in trouble. Yeah. But like, you know, when you explain it, you were just sort of like you were it was you were finished, finished.

And by the way, I knew I was finished here and I and I saw, like, I think that's my brother, too. I think it's my mom. I think it's you know, and I know it is them in terms of maybe my dad, you know, I mean. When you're at the bottom of that, well, you know, people always say, you know, let them hit bottom. Yeah, people I know hit bottom are dead.

Yeah.

You know, my friend used to do a bit about how when you hit bottom, you'd be surprised how much give that floor has. Yeah, exactly.

It can go much lower than you think. But, you know, I always have said, and I really believe this is that finding your way out of that tunnel, you know, when there's no light on either end without somebody coming back in for you with a lantern is almost impossible, if not impossible.

And somebody came in with a light and I saw it and I grabbed for it and I and I haven't let go.

Why? I hope I hope, you know, I'm happy for you. And, you know, and I hope I hope it works out. And you got a little baby now, baby. Both named after my brother.

Yeah. One year. One year.

It just seems like, you know, you somehow, you know, the love got through somewhere you found like, you know that that's the whole story, right.

What you needed in your heart or whatever you were doing with this pain was killing you. Yeah.

Over and over again. And it seems like your whole family, the ones that were still with you, you know, had had a lot of faith in your ability to hopefully get back to who you were. Yeah. Yeah. And somehow you have. Yeah. Right now. Yeah.

And well, that's I mean, it's a great story, but, you know, I still am concerned and I hope you're taking care of yourself.

No, I'm concerned. You know, I mean, I really am in the sense of like I have a healthy fear and should have a healthy and unhealthy and just fear and. Yeah, fear.

But I'm saying I'm like, I'm not living in that. But it's like, you know, like I'm leaving here and I got I'm going straight home, you know what I mean? Like, I literally don't.

I am I'm still.

Yeah, you know, I, I still am close enough and have had enough experience.

So, you know, do you do the do meetings or.

No, I don't do meetings, but I do calls with people that I trusted in the program. I mean, almost not almost every every day. That's good. You talk to your old man every day. I talk to him every night before he goes to bed. Oh, that's great. Yeah. And your mom, everybody? Yeah, everybody's great. My girls are great. My they must be amazing. Relieved. Yeah. Tenuous. Yeah, yeah.

No, no. I mean beyond relieved. I mean it's just like you know I put them through so much, I mean and I just am so incredibly grateful. And what about like because I know that you know, there was very public sort of strange grief driven relationship with your brother's wife. Yeah. And are you guys all right?

Yeah, fine. I mean, I adore her and and Natalie and Hunter, my niece and nephew, are like my own and, you know, everybody's OK.

That's weird for a while, but now you're OK. Yeah, it did. I mean, it both. You know, I was that was one thing. It was like kind of all out of love.

And he had the grief thing is weird because like, yeah, grief is like you don't know what the hell it's going to do to you.

I lost somebody, you know. I know. I'm sorry to hear. And what a stupid thing to say. I'm sorry. You know, I got it.

But like, you don't you don't like you know, there's no way to judge or to understand behavior that happens in that need of of of sort of relief from that trauma, you know, and like my brother got divorced and married somebody and their exes married each other like, you know, people do to hold on to something.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And it just made sense, I imagine, for a while. It did. It thought it was like bringing I thought we were kind of it was like maybe being in back. Oh, you know, with some. Oh really. Thirty would something like that.

Right. Maybe between the two of you. Yeah. Well the other example, it was not really my brother, but I know a woman who used to work with a woman who went on some sort of mission, you know, humanitarian mission in Iraq and was killed. Yeah. And and the friend at home has, like, you know, she made a foundation. Her whole life has been in the memory of this person. Yeah. And she actually dated that person's.

Yeah. Boyfriend for a while because of the grief you come together.

Yeah, exactly. And I was alone. And how he's your name. Yeah, but everything's good. That's good.

You know, I mean, uh, but, you know, no one comes in, you know, to recovery, you know, you know, on a roll, you know what I mean.

Yeah, I know that one. Yeah. Yeah. You know so.

Yeah, yeah. I just, I, I just think you know because I know the one thing in the book and like look I'm no bleeding Deacon.

Yeah. But you know, in my program is whatever it is. But I do know that in the first five years of my sobriety, I was every day with the meeting put sobriety. First, before anything else, you know, nothing, you know, and I was I hammered that shit in my head every fucking day. Yep. And by the way, so do I 100 percent.

I am literally I am I have a a discussion with somebody in the program here every single day, mostly response three times a day. Yep. Got response. So when are you going to do that for. Well yeah. Well you know what part of it was the book. Yeah. And you know, and you know, maybe a little bit right here but but it is a but that is look, I don't care what anybody says it is.

It saved me. Sure. And it keeps saving me. And so and all I know is at the end of it is one thing is that that whole, you know, the promises and and yeah, the recession will be lifted.

That's the big one. Yeah. Which allows you to be of service to other people.

And hopefully that that is what the book does. I mean, it gives me an opportunity, you know, made me nervous for you.

But but I'm glad that it's OK.

Yeah. Thank you.

You know, we thank you as somebody who because, like, the one thing I noticed was that, like, when you write when you start talking about Reia and when the crap comes in, when you get through the debt, it's sort of like the amount of focus to the ritual. Yeah. Smoking crack to the, to the the the the the joy boy. Yeah. And the hard and all the lingo is like oh boy. Yeah yeah.

He loves this shit. Yeah. Know. Yeah but what now.

But, but we don't you know I think it sounds like you know you're doing what you have to do and it sounds like you got, you know, a beautiful thing going on and your family feels better and you're your dad's president. There's a little you can feel like you're not dragging him a bit. You know, he's got a lot on his plate now. But are you still in a little bit of trouble?

Oh, no. I mean, there's an investigation. I think everything's going to be fine. Yeah. Yeah. But it's you know, I let it play itself out, but I'm absolutely certain at the end of the day, everything's going to be fine. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm absolutely I did nothing wrong. And so what is it? Tax taxes. Yeah. Yeah. And so I got a really good accountant.

It's like it's tricky. It must be.

Do you ever does the weight of that kind of like after everything that's gone on in terms of, you know, your name being dragged and you being used as this portal to try to damage your dad, that like, you know, like it seems to me it's one of those situations that, yeah, it's a difficult on either side.

If you do get off, they're going to be like, I got off because of his old man. Yeah. And then if you don't get off, it's going to be the most painful thing in the world for everybody involved. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I just know that, you know. I'm cooperating with anything anybody wants to ask me. I'm an absolute open book, complete transparency, it's all out there and what you know, and whatever whatever comes out, I know that there are people that are, you know, professionals and this is what they do in there. And it's going to come to a conclusion. I know what I know what I've done, and I know that I've done nothing wrong.

And so I'm I'm let the process play out, but I'm going to be OK.

OK, I got to be doing what I do. I do appreciate. I mean, for real. Yeah. I appreciate the concern, you know, the people listening to this. But your eyes, I see it in your eyes, too.

Okay, buddy, I really do appreciate it.

Well, well, good luck with the book. And you know, and, you know, take care of yourself for real.

It's an honor. You know, one of the things that's happened is I listened to it twice a week. Oh, yeah. You kept me tethered to the thing.

That thing. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'll give you my number to give you any time you need to call. Appreciate it. OK. All right. Thank you. Yeah. Yes, that was Hunter Biden try to stay in touch with him around the sobriety thing. I feel like that he's a pretty tender hearted guy beneath all this. He's definitely not a sociopath or a bad dude. And and I and I and I believe he knows he still has got a long road ahead of him.

And I wish him well and I'll help how I can. And also listen up. Here's some real talk, people. It's time to stop searching dozens of streaming platforms, trying to find what you want to watch. Paramount Plus isn't just another streaming service. It's live sports, breaking news and a mountain of entertainment all in one place. Plus iconic movies and critically acclaimed original series like Star Trek, Picard, The Good Fight and the Stand. Go to Paramount Post.com, slash WTF and try it for free.

Do what you can, folks, hang in there and we'll talk about it. Lives. Monkey. The fond. And angels everywhere. Sammy The Sidestep or. Buster, the boy all accounted for.