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- [00:00]
A
Heart of the nation's capital. This is a Jim Acosta show special report.
- [00:08]
B
All right, welcome, everybody, to the Jim Acosta Show. And we have a very special guest this hour. We're on at a different hour a little earlier in the day, but there's a damn good reason for it. We have Hunter Biden with us. And, Hunter, it's great to see you.
- [00:24]
C
Good to see you. I'm gonna have to put on my glasses so I can see you, actually, so apologize.
- [00:29]
B
That's okay. I'm the same way.
- [00:31]
C
All right. I need my. My library. Look here.
- [00:36]
B
And Tommy Christopher is here, too, newest member of our team on the show. And how's it going? How you been?
- [00:44]
C
Tommy or me? Tommy's been great.
- [00:45]
B
Either one.
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C
I've been following him.
- [00:48]
B
Hunter, how about you? We'll start with you first.
- [00:50]
C
Okay. Start with me? Yeah, I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. Well, I'm. Well, things are, things are. Things are good. And personally, seems like everything else has fallen apart. But you know what? We'll all be okay, because anytime you get Donald Trump in a. In a room full of other world leaders, seems things go really smoothly. I. I hear he's giving away the farm to Erdogan right now, apparently.
- [01:14]
B
Yeah.
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C
Yeah.
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B
And he's already threatened Greenland again, right, Tommy?
- [01:17]
A
Yeah, yeah, he's threatened all of Europe over Greenland.
- [01:20]
B
Yeah, he's gonna take all of us.
- [01:22]
C
Hey, Tommy, you. You got. You got frozen there.
- [01:25]
A
Oh, sorry.
- [01:27]
B
Totally normal stuff. Yeah. I mean, Hunter, when you see this stuff, lots of places where we can start. But when you see Trump on the world stage, what goes through your mind when you see him doing this stuff?
- [01:40]
C
I worry for all of us. That's what goes through my mind. I mean, look, I am. It seems like it just gets old to be able to point out every. Every day. It almost seems like every hour, a new outrage is. Is available for us all to be in shock over. But I feel like I've been watching you for. On 10 years now point this stuff out, and. And it. And it just accelerates. I mean, he goes to. He goes to NATO on a plane paid for by the Qataris, and to the tune of an additional, what, $1.3 billion in taxpayer money that he has to keep when he leaves. He lands to full military honors from Erdogan in Turkey, who is a member of NATO but is arguably a dictator in the making himself. In terms of NATO, that is. He's the outlier. And he then rescinds the ban on the sanctions on Turkey for the F35 project, which would. Because they bought a Russian missile defense system. And then he offends the entirety of NATO, but most importantly our ally Denmark, and says again that he's going to take over Greenland. Yeah, and that's just in the last hour. Forget about what he did yesterday. You know, I mean, I. Look, right before I came on here, I read this long story about how Howard Lutnick's firm, you know, was part of the $1.6 billion deal that the boys were involved in for a rare earth minerals mining contract in Kazakhstan. And I mean, it's just like. And again, that's just today. That's just in the last three hours. By the time I go to sleep, I know there will be six other things. And I think Steve Bannon, you know, I mean, I always say to people, if you want to know what this is all about, just listen to Steve Bannon, because he doesn't hide it. And he says this over and over. He's going to flood the zone. And, and they're just going to flood the zone with stuff that. That makes it almost impossible for people in your profession to keep up with, even if they were so inclined in this new media landscape that we, that we all find ourselves in. And it's just, It's. It's depressing, to tell you the truth.
- [04:33]
B
Yeah, well, and I was going to say, I mean, we saw your epic thread, I think it was on Twitter about the Trump crypto stuff. And you had lots of stuff. I remember going to these Trump rallies where, you know, they would say, where's Hunter? And all this stuff and going off on you and, and alleging all sorts of things. And then here we have the Trump family cashing in to the tune of billions of dollars on crypto while they're the investors are losing of billions of dollars. It's unreal.
- [05:03]
C
It's unreal. And, and, you know, two things on that. One is that one, now that I've kind of come out of my shell here and engaged on the, the incredibly pristine and, and welcoming platform of X, which that sarcasm is, what I found is, is that, you know, I didn't realize to the degree that people
- [05:29]
B
bought
- [05:30]
C
Hook Line and sent Sinker this whole Biden crime family thing, and I want to, like, I, I always start here now, is I don't think people understand that I literally did no business the entire time my dad was President of the United States. The only thing I did was paint and sell paintings to the tune of about, you know, I made about $220,000 on average over the four years that my dad was President of the United States. All of which, all of the buyers became public because they made it part of an impeachment investigation. And I only say that to put into context the level of corruption that is occurring right out in the open. Which means to me that it's only the tip of the iceberg. It's only what they're allowing us to see. And the crypto thing is one that gets me more than anything because I'm a big believer in crypto. I believe in the future of cryptocurrency. I believe in the future of digital assets. I believe in the blockchain. I believe in the idea. I mean, I, I read the Internet of Money a long time ago. I don't own any bitcoin. I wish I did, but. And, and the idea that I was, when I was in the middle of the run in the, the U.S. uN World Food Program, one of the projects that we had there was to be able to create digital currencies among refugee groups so that they didn't. The communities that they were being moved into. And you'd see these microtransactions that were allowed to be, that were allowed to occur basically because of the technology like the blockchain. And so they come in. There's over 150 million people that hold tokens in this country. I mean, in the world. There's over a billion people that are invested in cryptocurrency. And they completely made, they, they, they broken the whole thing. I mean, it is to me like everything they touch turns to crap. And I am, I'm just amazed by the, that they just keep, I mean, they just keep doing it. I mean, the one that stands out to me is Don Jr getting the largest loan ever for one of his underlying companies of a private equity firm that he started 30 days before inauguration. The largest loan ever given by the Department of Defense to a private company. $678 million. And that's just one thing. One thing. And I don't know, Jim, I mean, you and Tommy like what? I don't know if anyone in the fourth estate, single handedly, they can't, but as institutionally has the capacity to hold them accountable or just to hold them to task, you know, I, but I don't know. I'm really, as my daughter would say, I just don't know what there is to be done about it.
- [08:37]
A
Well, you know what?
- [08:38]
B
Yeah.
- [08:39]
A
I might interject if there is, there is the possibility that the Democrats, you there? Take over the Senate and then take over the House.
- [08:48]
C
Hey, guys.
- [08:49]
B
Yeah, we, we got you. Hunter, can you hear me?
- [08:51]
C
Oh, I can hear you now. Yep.
- [08:52]
B
Oh, okay. Yeah.
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C
You just went out there for a second.
- [08:55]
A
So there's a chance the Democrats.
- [08:57]
C
I can't hear Tommy, though.
- [08:59]
B
You might not be able to hear Tommy. Tommy, you might have to drop out and drop back in, and that's okay, but as long as you can. I think I know where Tommy was going with this. Hunter, we'll get Tommy back in here. But, you know, the other thing, though, is the way he has preyed upon his own people. I mean, he put out a tweet, it was back in 2024, I think, when they were launching this thing saying, don't you want to be like Trump? Be like a winner? I mean, they, they specifically targeted his own base. And I, I covered those rallies. I know his supporters very well. They're. A lot of them are very blue collar, probably don't have 401ks. And I assume a lot of them bought this stuff because it had his name on it, had his image on it, and that it's just, it's not like what you're talking about where, you know, crypto or this, this kind of currency might help developing countries, developing communities. This is totally different. This is a grift.
- [09:55]
C
Yeah, it is, exactly. I mean, like $2.3 billion out or in, and $2.3 billion out. I mean, literally, that's what I read in the forum. Reporting on this, is that. And an enormous amount of the money of this came directly from foreign countries in terms of World Liberty Financial. And it is just all a grift. It's like the phone. So they say that they're going to build this phone. It's going to be an all gold phone that they're going to sell it. It's going to, you know, the Patriots phone, it's going to be made in America. And in the fine print, it basically says we don't have to deliver on this. And then everybody that, that put down deposits, you know, I read somewhere that they all got messages saying, hey, by the way, you know, we, we hold your deposits regardless of what we, what we deliver back to you. And I mean it, the, the level of, of to that that they go to, I mean, the selling, you know, selling Bibles and selling sneakers and, and that's just, you know, all this surface stuff. But at the end of the day, I am, I just don't. I, I'm waiting for someone in the Republican Party who, who has control over the investigative investigatory bodies in Congress to do something about it?
- [11:23]
B
Yeah, no, and they're just not doing anything about it right now. And Tommy's popped back in. I mean, the other thing we wanted to discuss with you, Hunter, is what your thoughts were on this whole Graham Platner thing. I mean, we're bracing for whether he just might drop out any minute now. I know you've been giving some, some thoughts on Twitter about, you know, what you think the Democratic Party should be doing in terms of what they're embracing these days. And a lot of progressives really had high hopes for Graham Platner. And I mean, now Bernie Sanders himself is, is telling Platner to get out of this race. Have you been, I don't know, have you thought, have you thought about this
- [12:00]
C
where you're, it's all. And, yeah, and I, I don't know enough about it. I mean, I just heard the news as overnight about the, the most recent accusations. And, and I don't know how he stays in the race. I just don't. And I hope he does what's right for the people of Maine. And, but the thing about what he was saying, however, and this is a very light way of putting it, an imperfect vessel he was, is that I do believe is the, is important in this cycle. I think that I did a thing when I said that in those kind of lessons that can be learned from what happened in New York, fully aware that New York is New York. The congressional races in and around the five boroughs don't equal the rest of the country. But my point was, is that I think that authenticity is something that cannot be, it can't be faked.
- [13:11]
A
Yeah.
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C
Because it is being redundant. But, but I, my point is, is that I think that James Telrico is an authentic leader. I think that he is speaking about the things that matter to the people and constituents in, in Texas. I think that David Jolly, for instance, in Florida, who is former Republican, who, you know what, he tells it like it is. And he, he, and he's incredibly not just authentic, but smart. And he is, he knows Florida politics better than, you know, anybody. And he's speaking to the things that people really care about. They care about the kitchen table stuff that, that they always care about, but they're, they're, they've been told that I did this whole thing that, that I really believe that people have been convinced to confuse authenticity with the, with audacity, the audacity of Trump, the audacity to line your face. The audacity to just say things that are mean and cruel. The audacity to, you know, to say 6 foot 3, you know, £225 when he's 5 foot 11, and, you know, 380. And that's audacity. That's not authentic. And I think that the candidates that can, number one, be authentic and number two, understand where people are coming from. They're angry.
- [14:48]
B
Yeah.
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C
People are really mad. And they're mad for good reason is because of the fact that as their hopes and dreams to be a part of a. Of a. Of a secure middle class in which you are able to afford an education, that you're able to afford healthcare, and that you're able to get through a month without having to figure out whether or not you're going to put gas in the car or food on the table.
- [15:16]
B
Yeah.
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C
And. And that's, you know, I mean, I think that we've been told that we're. That we all are so horribly divided. I. I don't believe that. I think that our. Our algorithms have led us to believe and that we're horribly divided. I think that there are people that are in power that want us to believe that we're horribly divided as a nation. And, And I think that large part, that has to do with the fact that we have the largest wealth gap in the history of the world, that that is occurring. And that has occurred.
- [15:52]
B
Yeah.
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C
And people are angry about it.
- [15:55]
B
Yeah. It's so true. I think we got Tommy back in here now. And Tommy, if you got a question, fire away.
- [16:01]
A
Yeah, I see. Can you guys hear me now?
- [16:03]
B
Okay, Hunter, you got Tommy?
- [16:06]
A
Hello?
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C
I don't. For some reason.
- [16:08]
A
Tommy, I'm going back to the laptop.
- [16:10]
B
All right.
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C
Can you hear him, Jim?
- [16:13]
B
I can hear him. Yeah. I don't know. There's something's.
- [16:18]
C
Let me see if I function here.
- [16:20]
B
I don't know what it is, but occasionally Gremlins.
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A
How about now?
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C
There we go. There we go.
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B
There we go.
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C
All right. Now we're gonna get into it.
- [16:31]
B
There we go.
- [16:32]
A
Stupid.
- [16:33]
B
It's like a messy score.
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A
Yeah.
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C
It's a hardball.
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B
Argentina. Yeah.
- [16:37]
A
All right. Yeah. So listen. Well, first of all, while you guys were talking about platinum, I was thinking to myself, okay, where the. Is George Clooney now? You know,
- [16:49]
B
Anyways, Tommy rolling the grenade in now that we have his audio. Thank you.
- [16:54]
A
Right. But, yeah, so listen, so I. I heard you say that you think there's no way Platner stays in. What do you think? I Remember, you know, what do you think the timetable is? How long do you think before Platter's out?
- [17:11]
C
Oh, I don't know. And I, I don't know. I have no in, insider knowledge of it. It's just it, I, I don't see how he could, can continue on. And I, and I'm not, you know, I'm, I'm, I have no idea. I mean, I, I read the headlines. That's what I read.
- [17:32]
A
Yeah.
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C
And, and that's not fair to him. It's certainly not fair to the woman that, that, and that has accused him. And I am, I, I just seems to me that, that if people that are much closer to it have come to the conclusion like Senator Sanders, that that Mr. Plattner should step aside. I, I, I am, I, I certainly don't, you know, disagree with him.
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A
Yeah, no, I think, I think Bernie's the kiss of death. I think that's going to be the Graham cracker, as it were.
- [18:09]
B
Yeah, no question, no question.
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A
I promised I wasn't going to make that joke again. But, and I wish.
- [18:14]
B
Yes, well, some, yes, that's okay. We will forgive you for that one, dad. Jokes are allowed. But, but Hunter, you know, it does kind of get us to an interesting part of the conversation which is since we've seen in some of these primaries where some, some of the folks on the left, some of the more progressive candidates have been winning their primaries, sometimes bouncing out more establishment candidates or even incumbents. The Republicans have been saying they're communists and Trump has been trying to use this communist line, which I think is a real crock of shit. I mean, you know, you know, for, for folks to adopt a more progressive viewpoint in certain areas does not mean that the whole party is now a Communist party and Democrats take over in the fall. I mean, I just sort of feel like the right wing smear machine and you know this all too well. It's just starting to crank into action and I feel like we're starting to, we're starting to see the early, you know, green shoots of that.
- [19:07]
C
Yeah. And I, look, I, I hold as my example of the, the, the, the power of authenticity and, and confidence as being mayor. Mom. Donnie. Okay. They threw all of these same complaints at him in the primary, then in the general and from all the usual corners of the Democratic Party. And then the President, Trump calling him a communist and so forth and so on. What has he done? He's delivered by every count that I can. At least I have. He made promises or he had goals that he has Delivered on. And New Yorkers are benefiting from it, whether it's free kindergarten or whether it's the opening of the food bank collectives or the food collectives, the grocery collectives in all five boroughs, Whether it is rent or whether it is the cost of the MTA or whether it is. I mean, on a whole host of things. I mean, even these little things that I thought were just genius of him is accessing a plan which allowed for the mayor to employ and pay on spot people to shovel for the city of New York. When everyone said with that giant blizzard that everyone was going to be snowed in, there was no way that the. That they were going to be able to get the plows out to do all that they did. And he put a call out to regular New Yorkers and said, you know what? There's this program. I can pay you an hourly wage if you go out and shovel your street and show me that you did it. And he did. And thousands and thousands of people did it. Yeah, people just want competent government. They're not asking for a handout. Now. I start town town like my dad. I really don't believe that. Nobody's asking for r. They. They want a fair. They want a fair chance. They really do. And, you know, they want the government to be able to actually work on their behalf. And look, Zohar Mandani, as far as I can see, and you guys correct me if I'm wrong, I mean, you're closer to. It is like it's done in a phenomenal job. I mean, at actually getting stuff done.
- [21:29]
B
I. I think that that's the case.
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C
What.
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B
I mean, what do you think, Tommy? You're a little closer in New Jersey. You've got the jets hat on. So I think that makes you the authority here.
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A
Yeah, I know. I shame all credibility with that hat. I'm sorry. It goes with my Purple Rain T shirt when I wear it. But. Yeah, no, yeah, well, mom, Danny's approval rating is through the roof at sky high. And even Trump, you remember when, when he went to. Went to the White House and he just owned Trump. Yeah, you know, I, I think, yeah, he's hit it out of the park. Yeah.
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C
Yeah.
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A
So to that communism, where do I sign? Right.
- [22:08]
C
Yeah, yeah. To that point is, I think it gets tired. I think it's old. You know, I. And I. And I think that it's really hard to, you know, to stick labels on people when you're the person in power. And groceries got the. The cost of groceries is going through the roof that inflation has gone up, not down. Price of gas is up. You, you, you got everybody into a war that nobody wanted and that you said you would never get into, you know, and then you ended it 38 times in, you know, in the last month, and it's still not over. And so it's really, really difficult, I think then to turn and point at somebody like Mamdani and say, oh, but he's a communist when he's lowering the cost of groceries in the city of New York and providing free pre K to. To. To. To the moms and dads who are in desperate need of child care.
- [23:03]
A
Yeah, you know, the thing about this communist thing too, it's like Trump's all about all kinds of dumb boomer shit, but lately with all this communist shit, I really feels like we're stuck in some kind of alternate, like, man in the high castle where boomers just always control everything, you know, and it's like, you know, have you no shame at last? It's like, it's, it's just, it's like a weird. We are, like, in control. We are being controlled by people with like 1952 attitudes. It's crazy.
- [23:31]
C
Yeah.
- [23:32]
B
Yeah. And I want to talk a little bit more about your thoughts on the current occupant of the Oval Office, Hunter. But I do want to mention that Hunter has a sub stack. It's at Hunter Biden. And I'm hoping we'll get to see some of your artwork there, Hunter. I mean, you've been, you've been lightened up on Twitter. You're gonna have to show some of the love to the sub stack audience. Bring some of those thoughts, bring some of that heat over to Substack. But I wanna, if I can take a quick little sponsorship break, it's literally like 20 seconds or something like that. Give us all a chance to catch our breath and then we'll talk about Trump's vanity insanity down on the National Mall. We'll talk about that in just a sec.
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C
Great.
- [24:09]
B
Thanks, guys. With so much in the news these days, it's hard to figure out where to turn. Take for example. You guys hear me while we're doing it?
- [24:17]
C
I can hear you, Tommy, and so on.
- [24:19]
B
You go to Fox News about it a certain way, obviously. And if you go to a place like the Guardian, they'll report it a certain way. That's why I'm using this new news site called Ground News. More and more every day, not only do they tell you maybe the direction that a particular news outlet is coming from. They will tell you the ownership of that news outlet. They will also offer factuality ratings on some of the stories that you're looking at. So you want to check this out. It's called Ground News. And if you go to groundnews.com acosta right now, you will get 40% off the unlimited access vantage plan and unlock worldwide perspectives on the stories that are shaping our world. It's called Ground News. You want to check it out? It's something I'm using more and more every day. Okay. And we're back with Hunter Biden. And Hunter, I, I've got to get your take on this because Trump ran against your dad as Sleepy Joe and so on, and he falls asleep all the time in the Oval Office. I don't recall Joe Biden falling asleep in the Oval Office or in Cabinet meetings, but Donald Trump does it all the time, even when there are people over his shoulder talking, which I find. I mean, I fall asleep sometimes at movies and things like that, but not with people standing around me talking. And then he's got these crazy, you know, vanity projects where the, they rip up the reflecting pool and they paint it, and then it doesn't work, it turns to algae, and he tries to blame it on vandals. You know, he's got the State fair on the National Mall, you know, with the, with the arch, the fake arch. He wants this imaginary arch, and so they put it at the state fair. It's a lot of, like, you know, catering to somebody who is a wannabe dictator and wants to have, like, a lot of Saddam Hussein type stuff.
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A
Every.
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B
And I'm just curious, Hunter, you got to have some thoughts on this, and I was just wondering what you were thinking.
- [26:07]
C
I have so many thoughts. I'm sure, you know, the, the thing that is the. I, I talked about this, and for real, this isn't like a criticism of, of Joe Rogan, ufc. And, you know, that's, I don't, I don't even need to get in to that part of it because I. What, the part that I do understand. And I'll get to what you're talking about, Jim. The talk that I do understand, for instance, about the UFC fight is that there are a lot of people that are really big fans of the sport, of the, of, of the courage that it takes to be a, A, a professional mixed martial arts, you know, fighter and what it takes to get into that ring. And I have enormous amount of respect for that. I have enormous amount of respect for the business that Dana White built around it. It's pretty amazing. And, you know, and I. So I don't have any problem with that. What I had a problem with was that everything that Donald Trump is doing is him saying, I own this house. I own this country. I own this government. I am. I am the king. I get to make the rules. I get to make the decisions. I get to put my name on all the monuments. I get to drain the reflecting pool and paint it whatever color I want. I get to tear down the East. I get to pave over the Rose Garden. I get to put gold applique all over the Oval Office and remove the names of all of the other people that came before me, because I own it. It is my house. It belongs to me. And I think that Donald Trump is the first person ever in that office to 100% make that claim. In not only his words, but in his actions, in everything that he does, he is saying, I am the king. And by the way, I love people on the other side that kind of come at me and go, oh, you're full of shit, and you're Biden, crime family and pedophile, blah, blah, blah. And they have all the same, believe everything you want about me, but believe this. Believe the President when he posts pictures of himself with a crown, calling himself a king. His words, his images, his symbolism, that's him saying that. Can I watch what he does?
- [28:49]
A
Yeah, I just want to. You're on a roll, and I don't want to stop you, but I want to point out something that I think you sort of hinted at that, and I think, you know, when. When I'm your running mate, we're gonna have to concentrate on is. Is that, you know, the. The point you made about UFC and how, you know, people love UFC and.
- [29:07]
C
And.
- [29:08]
A
And, you know, I. I feel like people on our side sometimes keen on the wrong thing. I remember when they had the UFC fight, which now seems like it was a year ago, and everybody was like, oh, it's like white trash. It's like you're having a fight on the lawn. And I, like. Like, that's not the part that you should be objecting to. You know, I. I think in. In a way that, you know, like you said, people love this sport, and, you know, it could have been a way to bring people together. It didn't end up that way for other reasons. But we shouldn't look down on people for liking ufc. We shouldn't necessarily look down on even, you know, if a Democrat had a UFC fight at the White House, we would probably all think, what a great idea, you know, what a way to reach out to, you know, it's like when Obama had all those, like, like the jazz concerts and stuff at the White House, you know.
- [29:57]
C
Yeah.
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A
I think that that's one of the things that, that, that you bring, that a lot of Democrats don't have is this sensibility of, like, don't look down on people, you know?
- [30:06]
C
Yeah, well, I, I really believe that. I, I think that there's a, that I think, like, for instance, let's see, the, a great example is what happened with FIFA and the, the, the, the issue of the red card.
- [30:20]
B
Yeah, okay.
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C
I, I, I, I'm outraged by it, okay, because of two things. Because Donald Trump's corrupt and FIFA's corrupt.
- [30:33]
B
Yeah, okay.
- [30:34]
C
But they draw us into this trap, right? They draw us into this trap because you know what you say, you complain about it and what, you, what, what ultimately obviously happens is that your words get twisted and you're against the United States men's national team in the middle of a World cup. And how, and it was unfair, and he should never have gotten that red card, and it was bullshit. And they did the same thing for, you know, with Barcelona, I mean, excuse me, with Portugal, they did the same, like, and everybody comes back at you and says, like, how could you be against the United States of America in the middle of a World Cup? I'm not against the United States of America in any World Cup. I'm never against the United States of America in anything in any competition. I'm not still, I still have that in me. And by the way, like, like, everybody that I know and everybody that I, you know, that I grew up with, you know, I mean, like, I never, ever, and I still don't, I'm not rooting against the US in the Olympics because Donald Trump is president, but I'd still be really pissed off that he decided to insert himself into something and make it his. If they had won, the win would have been because of him. He would take the credit for it. That's what he's doing with everything. This World cup is his. He got the awards, he got the accolades. The plane is his. It's not Air Force One that belongs to the people that he gets to fly on temporarily. He owns it now. He literally owns the symbol in the sky of the United States of America. He repainted it and made it his. And he has a memorandum of understanding from the Department of Justice that he gets to keep it when and if he ever leaves oh, it's insane.
- [32:23]
B
Yeah, no, it's insane. I, I'll say a couple of things, and one is he's an attention whore. So that always is flowing through him and the people around him want to cater to that at all times. Oh, here's a chance for you to get attention for yourself. So let's play to that. He also wants to play the divider in. And so if he gets a chance to push people's buttons in way, in ways that you're talking about her, which is to sort of set a trap for people to fall into. If they say, oh, I'm outraged over this, oh, see, now you're against our country. What's wrong with you? They love to play those, those games. There's no question about it. But the thing that I have a problem with, and it's what that subscriber was saying a few moments ago, we put it up on screen. Everything Trump touches dies. He did not need to get involved in this. And that's the thing that pisses me off. You know, perhaps it would have been a better motivator for the US Team had this red card thing been allowed to go through and for Baligan, the player to be kept out of the game because maybe the US team would have taken that as, as a chip on their shoulder and they would have been playing pissed off. You don't know what the outcome of the game might. They played great without him when he got the red card in the match the other day. And so that's the thing that I get pissed off about, is that he sticks his grubby little fingers and things that he shouldn't be sticking them into.
- [33:32]
A
Well, this is the point I, I made on the sub stack earlier today, is that we don't, we'll never know what effect him doing this had on the team too, you know, on their psyche, you know.
- [33:44]
B
Yes.
- [33:44]
A
I mean, they lost 4 to 1. They couldn't have gone. They couldn't have done much worse, you know.
- [33:48]
C
Yeah, yeah. And it's, it's, it's, it's that way with everything, with him and I, you know, the, the whole. So the whole point, Jim, what you were saying is like, him falling asleep, him, you know, I, I am like, look again, you know, you can. All of the, all of my personal detractors, all of the people that are convinced that, you know, Joe Biden was, you know, cloned four years ago and, you know, like, I'm never convincing these people of anything. I'm never going to convince Jake Tapper that My father was perfectly capable of executing the, the, his, his charge as President of the United States the entire time he was President of the United States.
- [34:37]
B
Yeah.
- [34:38]
C
However, I just, what I don't understand is I, I think I do because I think that it, it really does have this, these cult dynamics that are part of it, which is that when people are presented with the evidence, you know, like the, you know, the lunar eclipse didn't occur and the spaceship didn't arrive and we weren't all te Venus. Like, when that doesn't happen with the cult leader, what the, these, these studies show is that they just double down. They double down because they're so invested into the, the, the entirety of the narrative that they bought onto and made and made it part of their identity that they simply double down on everything. And so when Donald Trump is falling asleep literally before their eyes, I mean, did you see him at the 250th? I saw the pictures. He was literally asleep. Did you see him in with his entire cabinet standing behind him for the fourth or fifth or sixth time? He's literally closing his eyes and sleeping. Did you see that?
- [35:46]
B
They'll say he's not sleeping. They'll say he's just blinking. It's just the way, by the way,
- [35:51]
C
there were moments in time where people said, oh, look at Joe Biden when he was, would sit down like that. And I thought that that was unfair. And so that what they do is they play the whole tape though. And he literally is sleeping. He's sleeping. There's no like a way around it. It's not once, it's not twice. It's over and over and over again now. And whatever the, whatever, you know, obviously he has a medical condition. Obviously he has a serious medical condition. And I suspect that it obviously has to do with his heart. And you have the bruises on both hands, you have the bruise on the neck, you have the, the, that period of time where he was literally absent with that, you know, without leave for a five day period of time. You have the drooping of the right side of his face. It's clearly he has a pulmonary issue and, or, or something else. I'm not a doctor, but he's clearly got something. And by the way, that's okay too. But they're never going to tell us the, the reality of what's going on because we don't deserve it. We don't deserve that. Well, I mean, he's the king.
- [37:02]
A
Yeah. I wish there was some kind of a way we could run this experiment, but we can't every little thing that, that your father did, Joe Biden did, or every little thing that Obama did, they would hound mercilessly. I watched an interview with Hillary Clinton once on MSNBC in the tank. MSNBC, where they, for 13 minutes, they hounded her about the emails. What if they hounded Trump and his administration about any one of these things? What would happen?
- [37:35]
C
I don't know.
- [37:36]
A
They don't that what's the opposite of hounding, do they, kitten?
- [37:39]
C
I don't know. That's a. Yeah, that's a question for, for the both of you. Is that what I, I don't, I don't get it is how does he get away with it? I like, you know, like, if, if this isn't a criticism of Kristen Welker, but that interview with an MSNBC where he got got up and left and you know, well, like, that's considered a tough interview because she asked him one question. She literally just like, it wasn't as if she was hounding him over the period of an hour. It was literally one question. He got up and walked out. He turned to a reporter with your former colleagues, Jim, on the plane and said, quiet, Piggy.
- [38:21]
B
Yeah.
- [38:22]
C
Why is it that none of your former colleagues turned to him and said, go fuck yourself, Mr. President. Sorry, I'm not my dad. Literally, he said, stop cussing, Hunter.
- [38:34]
B
I've come close.
- [38:36]
C
Stop.
- [38:39]
B
Yeah, no, but I've come close to saying that. Hunter, I will tell you that I think it's one of the most depressing things that I've seen in my entire career. The way that some in the press have just rolled, rolled over for him and they won't stand up to him. And, you know, I did it maybe too much. I don't know, maybe people think it was the right amount, but I did it so much that now I'm here. Now I'm no longer at my old place, as I like to call it, but I like being here because now I can do what I want to do. But if somebody, if I were on Air Force One and Donald Trump had called one of my colleagues piggy, I don't know if I would have been able to contain myself. I probably would have said, go yourself. I certainly would have said, that's not appropriate. Please take that back. This person is a good reporter and also a good person, and you're not. I mean, that's what somebody needs to say to him. But he does it over and over and over again. And I don't know why Joe Biden would never do that. I remember going to the, the, the Biden boardwalk. What do they call the Biden boardwalk? Beach bashes at the vice presidential mansion with my son and my kids and everything. And, and you know, the way the vice president and president would treat the press was just light years better than what anything that we see now. And it's absolutely unacceptable. But I don't. I. The real question is, is, I think is exactly what you just said, which is, why don't they say something and do something? I think part of it is their, they're used to having these cushy gigs, but they also have bosses who are chicken and won't do anything about it and, and are afraid of this administration.
- [40:09]
A
Yeah. I mean, you, you also. Yeah. Like, you will get punished if you step to. I mean, you know, I've worked in a lot of different places and I've had like that happen to me. And, you know, here's the other thing, you know, you have to worry about. Are you going to get. If they won't ever call on you, that's a lot of your job that you can't then do. And so that, that's part of it. The people, this is the thing we rely. I was, I was an inky dinky White House reporter with a small outlet, and, you know, I, I would get questions a lot, but, you know, I had to sort of. When you, when you don't have the juice of, say, a Jim Acosta or, you know, at o', Keefe, then you have to sort of be a little bit careful or you might not get called on again. Man, what we need is for the, the people with the juice to say, like you said, go yourself, don't talk to her that way. But also, where is the people when he starts bragging about his cognitive test? Not one White House reporter. And there are good ones who I admire who are still there. Not one of them has said, excuse me, sir, but that's not an intelligence test. That's not an IQ test. That's literally to find out if you have an injury. You know, nobody is. Nobody stopped him and pointed that out.
- [41:29]
B
Yeah, I know, I know.
- [41:31]
C
It's just so depressing. And you understand the incentives that are created and all of that. And I don't have any problem with anybody having a caustic relationship with the press. There's a difference between that and dehumanizing people. There's a difference between that and calling a woman in front of her colleagues with no power to respond to you piggy. That, I mean, like if, if that isn't an example of just like, I mean, like, well, low class piece of. Who does that? Who speaks to anybody that way publicly, particularly without provocation, other than being asked a hard question, doing their job.
- [42:12]
B
Yeah.
- [42:12]
C
It just is. So like, and this is the thing, is that everybody knows that nobody could have ever watched that. I don't believe that there's any American that could have watched that and said anything other than, oh, I wish he hadn't done that. It's like what he did when Rob Runner died. Like, wow, I can't believe that he couldn't have had the grace to at least shut up rather than say what he said about Rob Reiner in his death after his murder by his own son. Like, just the grace. I can't believe that the, that even the majority of his supporters didn't think, like, oh, my God,
- [42:54]
A
it's like the expression goes shutting the up is free. It would have cost him nothing to just shut the up and not say anything. It's not even grace. It's not even an effort. You know what I mean? It's like the opposite of that.
- [43:06]
C
See, now, now I got, now I got, now I got Tommy saying the F word. I got everybody, you're next. You're gonna rip away all your training. My dad gets so mad at me. He's like, hunter, you gotta stop saying the F word.
- [43:19]
B
I get this too.
- [43:21]
C
I've been alone too much.
- [43:22]
B
Yeah, but we're, I think we're all Gen Xers. And, and we were like, you know, what, whatnot. And we were blamed for everything in society. And now, you know, we're having to have all this piled on top of us. But my audience says the same thing, Hunter, which is, you know, some of them love when I say, I used to do a thing called it Friday. We would do like just a show where we just say the F word as many times as possible. So, and I hope that my mother and her friends don't see this stuff, but, you know, I don't know. If you're not gonna say now, when are you gonna say it?
- [43:54]
C
And by the way, that's what I said. I said almost every, every time I use the F word. Dad, it's earned. It's well earned. Yeah.
- [44:01]
B
And I'm sure when Jake Tapper shows up on tv, you want to say to, to, to that too, you know.
- [44:06]
C
Oh, don't worry.
- [44:09]
A
Wait, what?
- [44:12]
B
Yeah, I mean, you know, I, you mentioned it earlier. I, I, I, I, I, my thinking is that, you know, somebody, maybe we Tommy and I should write a book on all the times that, that Donald Trump is falling asleep these days because, you know, it, it's, it's kind of unreal. The fact that he, he's graded on a different scale. Joe Biden, I mean, he obviously was, it seems to be just treated just differently than the way Donald Trump is treated now by the press. And I think it goes back to what you're saying earlier about the whole quiet piggy thing. I mean, first of all, Joe Biden would never say something like that. But second of all, I think the press would not have tolerated, it would have been a much larger scandal. I think you would have had reporters walk out. And I think Trump has just instilled fear in the press corps in such a way that they don't know what to do with themselves. And you have these mergers taking place where they're, they're making it possible for these Trump friendly companies to just take over networks. It's, it's, it's crazy.
- [45:14]
C
Well, to, to your point, Jim, is that, is that I, I agree with you is that part of it has to do is that he has been incredibly effective and completely undermining not just the institutions of government in terms of the Department of Justice and the Department of Treasury and the irs. He's undermined the Fourth Estate, he's undermined the media in a incredibly effective way. And you look at what happened at cbs, you look at what's happening now at cnn, you look at what has happened. And I mean, when he came in, how many millions and millions of dollars in settlements did he get from organizations like all across the board, abc, everybody. And yeah, so they immediately capitulated to him. It's like, it reminds me of like what's happening right now in NATO. You watch Mark Ruda, the Secretary General of NATO, okay, and he's a groveling sycophant and he has made the conclusion that the only way that he's going to save NATO is by literally attaching his lips to Trump's ass. And he, and he praises him and he tells him what an incredible leader and oh no, Mr. President, if you hadn't pushed us here, we probably wouldn't have done X, Y or Z. Because the argument is, is that he has to somehow keep NATO together through this unprecedented onslaught by its most significant contributor and partner, the United States. But I just totally, fundamentally disagree. We have a media ecosphere in which now it is controlled by a very small handful of oligarchs that do not have the American people's interest in mind whatsoever that are feeding us algorithms to make us believe that we all hate each other so that we stay divided. So someone like Donald Trump could come to power and take all the regulatory guardrails off and let the corporations, like run amok. I mean, I just saw a thing where the FDA and the Department of Health is, or maybe it was the ag department is allowing for these six different cancer causing pesticides and things to be reintroduced into our crops. And they're known to produce cancer. But obviously if you have money now, which these corporations have billions of it, as their profits soar and prices go up, they're literally just paying off people in the, in the Department of Agriculture, in the Department of Health and Human Services. I mean, what an embarrassment RFK is. What an absolute embarrassment. What has he done? What has he done? But let's make, I mean, like he comes in and talks about like lifting the ban or, you know, like putting a ban on rail die, but while at the same time he turns around and he takes off all of the safeguards from, you know, the cancer causing, you know, pesticides and drugs that are killing millions of people, you know, over decades. I just don't get it. I mean, I do get it. I get it. It is all about money. But when it comes to Trump is that it is all about one thing. It's all about him. Is all about him making money. And I don't even understand that part of it. How does he not understand that he's not going to have a legacy? His only legacy will be remembered as the most corrupt person in the history of the United States of America, by far.
- [48:55]
B
Yeah.
- [48:55]
C
With the most corrupt family.
- [48:57]
B
Yeah. Well, you, you got his number the other day. I think we have the tweet. We could put it up on screen talking about how you think Trump should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. I think that's. I'm officially nominating Donald J. Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. I love this tweet, by the way. No president, history has ended the same wor many times. Our deal leader has ended the war with Iran at least 38 times by CNN's count. No president has ever done this before and he is nowhere near finished ending it. It's a record worthy of the Nobel Committee's recognition. Thank you for your attention to this
- [49:25]
A
matter, by the way.
- [49:28]
C
I think, I think it's up to 41 since I tweeted that 41 times.
- [49:33]
B
Why'd you decide to start unloading on on x? First of all, I like the, the Fact that you've chosen X. Because this has been my attitude lately, which is sort of like when Pete Buttigieg goes on Fox. It's like, you might as well go to these places and start arguing with
- [49:47]
A
these people, by the way.
- [49:49]
C
That's. That. That's my thing. I. I keep saying that the politics is bait for the things that I think that I am qualified to talk about, and that's recovery and redemption, resilience, the idea that if you get the shit beat out of you, that you still can get up and, you know, if I represent anything, hopefully it's that I don't want. Everybody doesn't have to like me. They certainly don't all like me on that, I can tell you that. But at the same time is I decided that they had. You know, I've said this in other places, is that, you know, this is not a plea for sympathy. This is just the truth. For seven years, they have. They build a platform, and they put me up on the platform. They tied to me to a post, and they've been throwing tomatoes, and they've lit me on fire, and they have whipped me, and they have done everything that you possibly do. The total, complete annihilation of a. Of a. Of a person in public. That happened to me. And I mean complete public. Total public humiliation on a scale that I've never witnessed before in anybody else. And at the end of it, okay, at the end of it, I was still standing. You didn't have to like me. But you know what? I was still standing. They hadn't killed me, you know, and all of a sudden, you know, the. That my hands were free and I was standing up on the platform, and I could either crawl down and slink away, or I can use the platform and start, you know, saying some shit that I really think needs to be said. And so that is the entirety of the reason of it. I'm going on sub sack because somebody said to me, it's like onlyfans for intellectuals. You know what I mean?
- [51:40]
B
But anyway, you know, are we gonna get Exactly.
- [51:42]
A
Are we gonna get foot picks?
- [51:45]
C
Exactly.
- [51:47]
B
We're too old for that, Tommy.
- [51:49]
C
Yeah, so I'm going substack. I've done a lot of writing, and some of the stuff that I've written is I want to tell this story. I want to. I want to tell the story from my perspective, the truth that I know about it and. And let it land. And so I'm. I'm writing the story of the last seven years, and it's coming up on substance. And tomorrow I'm gonna, I'm gonna launch the first thing. I'm new to it, so we'll see how it happens. But in terms of X, I think it's just a real opportunity. You know, the crazy part is, you guys, is it, I promise you, thousands of people on X have replied to me saying, I'm a three time Trump voter and I just want to let you know, keep on keeping on, man. Thanks for what you're saying, man. And just like thousands of people that have, have said, you know that to the point where they said, one point, he said, you know, the MAGA whisperer. And I'll, and I'll gladly accept that. You know, I said to people, when I went on Candace Owens, they were like, oh, why would you go on that? But you know, she's this, that. The other thing I, I, and I say to them is, this is you're offended. Think how I feel. Go back and listen to this thing she said about me. But you know what? I'm willing to meet anybody where they are right now. And so many of them doesn't mean they're sane. It doesn't mean that I don't still think that they're crazy. But so many of them have had their eyes open to the fact that Donald Trump singularly is a complete and utter corruption individual that is literally raping this country and plundering this country. And so they see that. Now, I don't, I don't forgive them some of the crazy stuff that they said, particularly stuff that I think is anti semitic or that I think is racist or whatever. But you know what? I'm willing to meet anybody where they are if we can all agree on one thing, that this leadership is going to be the death of this country if we continue to allow it to fester and, and take root the way that they wanted to.
- [54:02]
A
Yeah. You know, on the subject of your Twitter feed, I have seen all of these exchanges where somebody from MAGA will attack you, oh, you crack addict, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then in, in like one reply, you turn them completely around and they're like, yeah, brother, you know?
- [54:21]
C
Yeah, well, by the way, it's like, what are you gonna say about me? Yeah, you're gonna say I smoke crack? Well, there's about 642 pictures of me smoking crack. What am I gonna do, deny it? Like, yeah, I mean, if you want to watch the seven minute video version or do you want to watch the, you know, the, you know, I mean, like what it's There, like, there's. It's all there. I mean, in all of you there, by the way. All of me and Living Color naked it. And, you know, so what. What can you do with that? What you can do with that one? Well, here's one of the cool parts about it is not to this extreme. And I'm not saying everybody's an addict or knows an addict to the degree that I was addicted to what I would, you know, my addictions and things like that. But I don't know anybody that doesn't know anybody, that doesn't know someone that they love, if not themselves, that has struggled with addiction. I don't know anybody. I literally. And now, as I'm reaching out, I want to create this thing where I reach a million people in recovery. That's my new goal. My new goal is to reach a million people in recovery. So I'm going to start this thing where people can text recovery and it will come to a site where they can share their story, their experience, strength and hope, which is basically just what we do in the program. It's not a place for people to comment. It's not a place is for you to tell your story, your story of your struggle, how you got over it or how you got into it, and to be able to just share it in a space, a safe space, anonymously. I want to create a community of a million people to be able to share those stories with each other. Because I think in telling the story what I found, it's total freedom. What are you going to say about me that I haven't already said about myself? Now they say it all. And some of them are very creative, and I hear a lot of new stuff. But my point is, is that I know who I am more than I've ever known who I am in my life. I am more confident in the person that I am and what I know matters to me and what I know, what I need to do in order to be the person I want to be than I've ever been in my life. And there's an incredible freedom in that when I don't have anything to hide because just. It's all out. It's all there.
- [56:35]
A
I love that one. That was one tweet where somebody was getting on your case about the cocaine they found in the White House, and you were like, well, that couldn't have been me. I wouldn't have left my cocaine lying around.
- [56:44]
C
It's the damn truth. And not only that, is that it's like, guys, you know, okay, So I have to explain this to everybody because somebody said to me, well, Hunter, I still don't understand, like, why is it. I'm like, okay, you gotta understand where that cocaine was found. Number one, I wasn't even there. Okay, Forget about that. That's like people. People gloss. Oh, yeah. I don't know. You could have a. Whatever. Okay. It is the cubby holes in front of the situation Room of what you need a top security clearance in order to be able to enter at the end of the hall, past the Old Executive Office Building entrance of the White House, of which I, as a member of the family, would never enter for any reason. And so I would have had to walk down a hall past three guards with my security clearance with me, and decide proactively that I was going to take whatever cocaine and put it in a. Into a cubby and leave it there and stand outside the situation anyway. It's. It's craziness. But the point being is that, like, who cares? They believe it. There's a section. There's a. There is a majority. There is a percentage of people out there, there that are absolutely convinced, no matter what I say, that I am not sober, that I haven't been sober for seven years, that the cocaine in the White House was mine, that I was using, and, you know, blah, blah, blah, or that, you know, that I sold our secrets to China or. I mean, it's just like, you know, they were very, very, very effective. And they were effective with the. With the. With the help of Fox News in the Murdoch empire, in the New York Post, an entire ecosystem of people that included Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon and Miles Gao and a whole. An entire disparate groups that were out. All working towards the same thing is to tarnish Joe Biden's reputation and to. And to try to in some way deflect from the fact that everything with them is either projection or a confession of projection.
- [58:56]
B
Yeah.
- [58:57]
A
And.
- [58:57]
B
And you have a tweet where you talked about substance use issues that people have and how 8 in 10 people don't get treatment. Let's. Should we show that tweet? I'd love to show that. Let me see if I can put it up there. The crisis isn't addiction. It's access. What did you mean by that?
- [59:19]
C
What I mean is, is that I was incredibly privileged over the course of my. The time in which I was an addict. And I don't. I don't consider there to be a difference between addiction and alcoholism. It's all the Same thing. And alcohol is the most, in my opinion, the most destructive drug of all, both societally and personally, however, is that I had, I, because of the, you know, because I did well, because I, my family was, had the capacity to do it because I had health care, because I had insurance, was able to go to treatment facility and a number of times. And 80% of people never get that opportunity. They want to get clean, they want to get help, they want to be able to figure out a way out of the hell that they found themselves in, but they don't have access to it. They don't have access to it because they don't have insurance. They don't have access to it because they can't afford it. They don't have access to it because it's not being offered and it's, and they're not being made aware of it. I want to change that. I think that number one is that as it relates to this, I think that everyone should have access to treatment. I think that most of the, I think that we could, could change our drug laws in a very significant way and, and do what we had started to do back in the, the mid 2000s and, and earlier than that, even way back into the, the 90s when we started drug courts and we diverted people to drug courts for non violent offenses as it relates to drug possession, not distribution. And instead of sending them to prison and putting them in this cycle where they were either imprisoned or fined and they were, you know, they miss a, you know, they miss a court date because of, for whatever reason and so they end up with two strikes and you know, they end up with a felony worn out and then they run from the felony warrant and all of a sudden just because you got picked up with a dime bag of whatever your, you know, your drug of choice was is that you are now, you know, stuck in this perpetual cycle of, you know, felony conviction and your whole life is gone on. And so I think that there, that we really, really have to rethink the way and where I think it all starts and why I want to start this thing. You know, reaching a million people in recovery is, isn't it incredible that, you know, there's 50 million people in the United States of America today that are either that the vast majority of them in active addiction or recovery fighting that battle. 50 million. Now, varying degrees, but 50 million. There's not a single person out there that's listening to these words right now that does not know someone if it's not themselves, that hasn't Struggled with addiction. And you know what? We never talk about it. We don't even talk about it as a, As a health crisis. We talk about overdose and fentanyl as being a crisis, a pandemic, but, my God, it is like we don't want to address it. And there's a whole bunch of reasons, but I think part of it is shame. People don't want to talk about their failings. And addiction feels like a failing. It feels like a personal failure. It feels like an ethical and moral failure. And it's treated that way often. I think that if we just start talking about it more, sharing with each other, it could really, really change the dynamic in which, the way we treat it.
- [62:55]
A
Yeah, well, you know, I, I think we've certainly come a long way in that, you know, there's not, there's less stigmatizing, and then, I mean, there is still stigma. But then when you call it out, you know, it's, you know, it's not accepted anymore for somebody to look down on somebody who's struggling like this. And that's, that's. But we still have a long way to go.
- [63:17]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's true. But, you know, when people hear you talking about the stuff, Hunter, and it goes back to what Tommy was saying earlier, it really resonates. And, you know, you were saying earlier, you know, there's nothing that people don't know about you now, which is absolutely true. But I saw you also, also posted recently, you're not interested in really going into politics. Is there, Is there any chance that you might change your mind on that? I mean, because I, I said, I, I sit back and I listen to you, and I know there was a lot of talk over the years that your brother Bo would be the heir apparent, you know, the guy who would really go into politics and everything. I was, you know, I was in the Rose Garden the day that your dad decided not to run for president in 2016, and, you know, after your brother passed away. But when I listen to you, Hunter, I just, you know, I do think maybe you should leave that open as a possibility. But I, you know, that's me thousands of miles away, you know, not ever speaking with you before, suggesting this.
- [64:15]
C
So I, I, I, I'm, I'm, I truly appreciate that. And I'm. And I really mean it. I'm honored that you would say that because I have such great admiration for, for, for both of you, and I really mean that. And I, and I really am. And the reason that I say that, that that I'm not is not. Because I don't think that politics can be an honorable thing. And a very, very, I think that it is the way in which my dad practiced politics. His career filled with purpose is one of the most honorable things that anyone can do, is giving themselves to the country the way that he did. And I really, really do. What I know right now is that I want to be in support of the people that really have an opportunity to, to break whatever the hold this current administration has on all of us. I want to be helpful in that. But what I know that I can be the most helpful in right now is staying the course of speaking to the people that I know that I have experience with, and that's people in recovery. And I really, and I always kind of consider, because I enjoy it. I enjoy the back and forth. I think I know, just by virtue of osmosis, of being around it my whole life a lot about politics doesn't mean I'm right, doesn't mean you have to agree with me. But I know a lot about people. I know a lot about how politics works. And I want to be in support of the people that I believe, believe. And I don't care if you're Republican or a Democrat. I truly don't. Give me back Mitt Romney. God Almighty guy for Mitt Romney right now. Give me John McCain. Give me Jesus. Give me George Bush. I mean, I, I am, I, I, I mean it. It's like I am so in. I, I, I want, I, like, I look at somebody like James Talarico and I think now there's the future of the Democratic Party. And I look at somebody like Gavin Newsom and I think there's an incredible, incredible communicator like he is. Such an ability to actually express what I believe that it means to be a Democrat. And I mean, the list goes on and on. And I really do. I think that there's enormously effective people out there, and I want to be in support of them in whatever way I can plan. And as I said, the Governor Newsom, I'll either come campaign for you or against you, whatever helps the most.
- [67:05]
B
So, yeah, and Tommy, you and I know that the, the, one of the things that we get asked all the time, I'm sure Hunter gets asked it, too, is who will be that person in 2028? Have you thought about this at all? Hunter, who you think it will be or who? I mean, you mentioned a couple of names.
- [67:20]
C
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I, I really do mean It, I, I, I've been watching a lot of John Ossoff's speeches lately, and he's on fire. And I just, I love his message. I think that there's a, there's a case to be made that someone like Governor Bashir, you know, would, would, would be great. I love Governor Shapiro, what he's done. I think that he's been an incredibly impactful and effective leader in the state of Pennsylvania, and he's shown in a purple state that you can do. You can, you can bring a lot of people together. I mean, I love Governor Pritzker. I like, you know, I think that I love the, the way in which he, you know, leads with his heart and, and is, and also really, really, really smart. I truly am. Like, I think Governor Newsom is incredible. And so I'm, I'm not ducking the question, but all I know is this, it doesn't matter to me. And I don't think that. I think that all of this kind of hand wringing, like, oh, we don't have any leadership in the Democratic Party. You know, it's the, I say this over and over, and I guess it gets old, but it's, you know, what, what's the old Will Rogers quote? You know, I'm not a part of any organized party. I'm a, I'm a Democrat. And, and that's always been the case with the Democratic Parties. You don't have any leadership until you have a nominee. And once you have a nominee, then everybody falls in line behind the nominee, unless you're Joe Biden in 2024. And then you wait until. No, I'm joking anyway. But you, you have a nominee, and, and, and I think that that's when we all kind of coalesce and, and, and hopefully have someone to lead us, you know, over what we're experiencing right now.
- [69:17]
A
Yeah.
- [69:18]
B
Yeah.
- [69:18]
A
And, you know, it's.
- [69:19]
C
If we have elections.
- [69:20]
A
If we have elections. If it's. It's funny, you brought up that. That was one of your dad's favorite jokes, too. I'll campaign for you or against you, whichever. Exactly. Yeah. But I, I think, you know, that, that what you just said about Gavin Newsom, I think that's your gift also. You. What I said it earlier. You're really great at articulating what makes me want to be a Democrat, what makes me want to vote for Democrats, and what a lot of Democrats, they have a hard time putting it into plain language. You have a real gift at that. And if anybody's listening, if Gap, like you said, Gavin or anybody else is listening. This is a guy who, who you should have campaigning for you. I hope that that happens. I mean, you're obviously open to it, right?
- [70:07]
C
Well, I've campaigned for any Democrat that is, you know, kind of speaking truth to power. That's being authentic about it, and that is, you know, I really mean it. I, One of the things that I don't want to do is I don't, I don't want to get so mired into the kind of, the partisanship. I am an anti Trump human. That's what, that's my politics today. I am an anti Trump administration human. And that is, I am a, I'm an American. I want, I believe in the Constitution. I believe in, you know, the, the idea that there are checks and balances. I believe in the independence of the judiciary. Like, I think that if I could find someone that not only in words but in deeds professes that, then I'm all for him. I'll give you one example. Thomas Massie. I don't think that I agree with Thomas Massie on 90% of his politics. I mean, policy politics. Okay? I do. I would vote for Thomas Massie if I had the opportunity to vote for Thomas Massie. And the reason I would is because I truly believe that he believes in a constitutional republic. I truly believe that he believes in the separation of powers. I truly believe that he believes that he does not believe in the unitary executive. I truly believe that he believes in the limited power of the Supreme Court to enforce their will on the American people without a, without a vote. I, I believe in people like that, even though I disagree with them on reproductive rights and I disagree with them. I mean, like, you go down the list. I want to go back to that. And anyone who stands up for that, that to me is an American right now. That's it. Because you, look, man, you go to South Carolina, you know, you go outside of Columbia, right? Friends. And, and you know, they're the people there, you know, from whatever community you're going in is they, they don't like all the little nitpicking things that, that, the, that the, the people at, in Georgetown have with Donald Trump. They don't, that's not their problem. Their problem is figuring out what the hell they're paying $4.36 at the gas pump now when they told that it was going to go down, that they keep being told that it was the lowest it's ever been. Their problem is figuring out the price of beef, ground beef, at the grocery store. I mean, I don't think that people realize this statistic. Do you know what qualifies you to be in the top 1% of income earners in the United States of America?
- [73:04]
A
No.
- [73:05]
C
$750,000. Okay. You would think that it would be a lot more, right? You think to be in the top 1%, you'd be that. So top 1% of income earners, not net worth income earners make over $750,000. I know places in the United States of America in, in, in a metropolitan areas, whether you're in Dallas, New York, if, if you make less than $350,000. Like how you, you're, you're spending your paycheck. Right. And that is literally only 2% of the, of the country make that much money.
- [73:45]
B
Yeah.
- [73:46]
C
I don't think people understand, but the difference between a billion dollars and the bottom 80% of income earners in the United States of America? 9,000 people earn more. 9,000 families earn more than the entire. I think it's bottom like 60%.
- [74:08]
B
It's totally crazy. I mean there's another metric that I saw recently that the average first time home buyer, the average age is 40 now because you know, people in their 20s and 30s can't afford to buy a house right now because it's totally insane to buy a house in America right now. And some of it's private equity people gobbling up real estate, you know, just to sit on the, on the real estate and so on. And you know, that has got to be sorted out. I mean, the high cost of health care, retirement, having loved ones who are elderly and senior citizens, you know, you know, I'm in the position right now where I'm putting kids through college and I've got dad in assisted living. I mean, who, who, how do we tailor economic policies? And I. One of the more depressing demographics that I see is that Gen Xers are, are very much in line with Donald Trump, that they're one of his best demographics. And yet our generation is getting squeezed big time on both ends. High cost of higher education and high cost of assisted living and dealing with senior citizen parents. And I, it would be great to see a candidate come along and address some of those needs. And maybe that's how you chip into this. I think you're right, Hunter. It is about, about economics. It is about affordability, what Trump scoffs at.
- [75:23]
C
Yeah, and it scoffs at it. And he says it doesn't exist when it's, you know, when he's president and that it was, you know, and that if he's ever called out on it, it was all Joe Biden's fault. I mean, it just gets so old. But, you know, the single thing that I would fix is rent. You know, the vast majority of people pay rent, and literally it's the single thing that they have to make a decision on every month of whether or not what they're going to go without to be able to pay rent to stay in a house that they're in every single time. And you know what's happening is rents are increasing exponentially as compared to the market because the housing supply is being bought up by literally four gigantic private equity firms, Blackstone, BlackRock. And all of these guys, they go in and they buy it and they monopolize it and they artificially raise the rent. Rent. And the rent increases. And, you know, when somebody comes along my Rondani and says that you have to put a cap on rent and you have to, you know, go back to the days in which you'll be able to. They say, communism. Right, Communism. Who do you think that's. That's serving. Who do you think it's serving by saying that you want a rent reduction on behalf of people that can't. That. That are trying to figure out how to put food on the table for their kids? Either that or pay the rent. That's communism. You know what, that's what made the middle class. The GI Bill after World War II. The New Deal. We need a new New Deal. Yes, that's what we need. We truly need a new New Deal.
- [76:58]
B
I, I'm with you 100 and I, I really think people, and Democrats in particular, should not shy away from the conversation about national health care in this country. The private insurance industry has figured out how to. To, you know, get. Do an end run around Obamacare and they still stick us with ridiculous health insurance bills and ridiculous. I don't. You know, you get your bill from your doctor's office. It says, your health insurance paid for this or Medicare paid for this. Here's your final bill. Who the knows how that gets figured out is beyond me. It's just the most cockamamie crazy system. And then you talk to people who are like, oh, I broke a leg in Spain, I went to the doctor, or, you know, we accidentally had our baby in England and we went to the end and we got no bill. And I just don't understand why Americans don't want to pay for that and why it hasn't been explained to Americans in a way that they can understand it and say, it's not communism to have national health care in this country and take care of your fellow human being. I just. To me, that's the one that really. I know Democrats try it every generation or so, but it's another stab at it.
- [78:02]
C
Take care of yourself.
- [78:04]
B
Yeah.
- [78:04]
C
You're only a fellow human being. Take care of yourself. I don't know. I have a Blue Cross Blue Shield in California. I had to give up my insurance for a period of time there with my wife because it was $2,600 a month. I couldn't afford it. And then I figured it out, and then I couldn't afford it, and then I couldn't figure it out. But who can afford that? Who can afford that? I have no idea. Okay, so then you go on Obamacare and then they rip that away. And, I mean, I don't pretend to know, but like, what in the world. Is there anyone out there that is. That is satisfied with their health care, the way in which it's offered to them? Anybody that, you know, that thinks that the private system as it's working in the United States of America is working for them? Anyone?
- [78:55]
A
Yeah.
- [78:56]
C
Well, I don't know anyone. But meanwhile, when it comes time to dismantling it, it and whether you had, you know, single payer or Medicare for all, whatever that case may be, somehow they convince people with these old tropes like communism, socialism, I won't be able to choose my doctor. What? Let me tell you something, Jack. When was the last time you got to choose your goddamn doctor under your private health insurance player? I mean, what are you talking about? Like, I, you know, know we're not living in, you know, Mayberry anymore.
- [79:30]
B
It's like that old.
- [79:32]
C
Away from us.
- [79:33]
B
No, it's like that line you would hear at Trump rallies and a Tea Party rallies, get your government hands off my Medicare, you know, and that kind of thing. And it's like, you know, when my dad qualified for Medicare, it was like one of the greatest things in the world, you know what I mean? Because at least 80% was covered, you know, and it's. I just don't know why we think it's okay to just throw people away because they can't afford health insurance. Anyway, that's my soapbox thing. Sorry to take us down that.
- [80:00]
C
No, by the way, it's not a soapbox. It's like what I'm saying, and that's what I was saying as it relates to. I don't know anybody that's in Democratic Party. I, I, I, that is not if, if you can't say that you're for a single payer health care system and that you are for Medicare, for healthcare, for everyone, whatever way you get there. And I'm not good. I, I know that it's complicated and I know that they make it probably more complicated than it is, but if you can't say that, then you know what? I don't know how you're going to win in the Democratic Party. Yeah, I just don't. Because I don't want you to win in the Democratic Party because incremental steps anymore, by the way, inert to the benefit of the opposition. Because we come in and we don't change anything. We don't change it. We don't break the system structurally enough for people to feel that they're getting better.
- [80:53]
A
Yeah.
- [80:53]
C
They don't feel that they're having an opportunity. Like I take the successes that my dad had, for instance, as it relates to infrastructure, people don't realize that $1.7 trillion in infrastructure was doing everything that they couldn't get done through by other means. Like, for instance, as it relates to health, as it relates to taking all the lead pipes out of places like Flint, Michigan, as it relates to actually connecting people for digital health in rural hospitals and all of those things that Trump has completely ripped away and the ability for you to be able to, you know, get from point A to point B safely in a, in an age in which your job depends on it. And so anyway, I just think that, you know, I don't think it's radical to believe that everybody, I don't think anyone thinks that it's radical anymore to believe that everybody should have access to health care. I don't know if you've ever watched that. There's, there's a great, it's like a podcast or YouTube channel and it's called the Necessary Conversation. And it's between a brother and a sister and a mom and a dad, and the mom and the dad are dyed in the wool Trumpers and, and like died in the wool and like, and, and the dad, dad could be really mean about it. Like he is like out of a, you know, out of a cartoon, you know, he's so like crazy about it. And the brother and sister are liberals and they have these arguments with their parents and you know, like on this, on this YouTube channel. And it's so instructive and it's constructive because these are the kind of arguments that we used to be able to have about politics around the kitchen table. And they would kind of end with like, you know, you know, can I get you a beer? You know what I mean? That. And these end with like, you're out of your mind. Like, it's just like. It's, it's. It is a. There's no more civility in the way that we talk to each other. And they very much try to remain civil with each other, but it's. It is. It's really instructive, I think, to the. How the entire national discourse has devolved into this. This, you know, food fight. And by the way, when I say that, I don't mean it. It's 101 sided. One of these things. Like, I wish that we could all speak to each other better. Fuck that. These people are. The way in which they engage in politics. It's just. It is. It is. It's evil. I mean, it is evil. The things that they do and way that which they lie to people. The way in which they misinform people. It really, truly is just destroying the country.
- [83:49]
A
Speaking of destroying the country. That was a good segue.
- [83:52]
C
Hunter, I lost you again, buddy. Sorry.
- [83:56]
A
Can you. Can you guys hear me now? Hello?
- [83:59]
B
You got Hunter. You got me.
- [84:01]
C
I got you, Jim. Sorry, Tommy.
- [84:03]
B
All right, we'll bring Tommy back in. He got up to go.
- [84:06]
C
Okay, pee.
- [84:07]
B
And we took him out of the thing. That might have been it. Well, we'll get him back. But I was going to say to, to your point, I. I'm very curious what you thought of what was going on in Minneapolis. To me, when you say the word evil. The killings of Renee Good and Alex Preddy as part of that, you know, just basically war on an American city conducted by ice, Department of Homeland Security. When people talk about, you know, oh, you know, gosh, well, we could have ended up with Kamala Harris or Joe Biden. Again, if Joe Biden or Kamala Harris had been president, there would have been no Minneapolis. Renee Good and Alex Preddy would be alive today. And I just wonder what you think about some of that stuff because the. To me, the ICE thing, you know, locking kids up in the Dilly Detention center center. There are things that, that we are doing right now that can be described as evil and it has to be called out as such.
- [85:01]
C
Well, you know, I think you can. There's certain people within the administration that you can point to and say their fingerprints are all over it and Stephen Miller's fingerprints are all over all of the policy as it relates to enforcement that we have seen and the cruelty of it is the point point. And, and, and, and very, very, very direct in making it the point. They had. I, I, I believe they had basically a, you know, a license to kill. And I don't think that anyone says you have a license to kill, but you have a license to beat the, out of people. You have the license to intimidate. You have the license to stop, you know, a single mother, a married woman with their child in the car and, and draw your gun. I mean, none of those confrontations were even remotely necessary. Did you see the statistics? I think what is something like only like 13% of the people that were arrested by ICE had any, had any criminal. Right, 13%. And by the way, what happened, what happened to all those people that we went to sent to basically, not basically a absolute literal prison camp in El Salvador. Yeah, what happened to those people? You know, some of them came back, some of them didn't. Some of them got out in Venezuela, you know where the other ones are. They're dead, they're dead without due process. And all I read in X all the time is like, well, at least Donald Trump isn't, you know, didn't have an open border policy. Like, would you shut up? What are you talking about? What are you talking about? I totally agree. I don't think that there's anyone that I know that doesn't think that we should have a secure border. But you know what I also think? I think we're the United States of America and I think that we have a, have a reasonable, rational immigration policy because it is the entire lifeblood of our country. I think that you're absolutely a hypocrite and you're out of your mind is if you think that every illegal is a criminal in and of itself because you have been the beneficiary of that migration since 1942 with the Braceros coming from Mexico. Generation after generation have come into Southern California and Arizona and literally harvested 70% of our Western crops. The same families over and over again. And we've allowed this to happen. Not only we allowed it to happen, we encouraged it to happen happen and the entire ag businesses. Remember when he started to go after the ag businesses in California and all of a sudden you had the, the big ag businesses pick up the phone and say, what the hell are you doing? Remember when he started to go after hotels and all of the big hoteliers and all of the people in the, in that industry picked up the phone and said, you keep doing this and you're going to Shut down every single hotel in every metropolitan city in this country. And now is that me saying that you just, you know, provide amnesty to 11 million people or whatever the case may be? No, what I'm saying is you need a comprehensive bill to change that. So therefore, the Biden administration set out with Mitch McConnell and the. And Hakeem Jeffries and Nancy Pelosi and the. Yeah. And they came up with a bill.
- [88:30]
B
Oklahoma, where he was involved, James Langford
- [88:32]
C
negotiated from Oklahoma that had that, that had all of these fixes in it. And he had the requisite number of Republicans signed on.
- [88:41]
A
Yeah.
- [88:42]
C
Ruby, you know what happened? He killed the bill. Donald Trump picked up the phone and he said he was going to primary anybody that voted for a bill that would fix the exact same thing that he was saying that he should be elected president because it wasn't fixed.
- [88:57]
B
Yeah.
- [88:58]
C
And here we are. And here we are. Did you see what happened to that poor guy that literally he wrote a message to Bonvino?
- [89:09]
B
Yes.
- [89:09]
C
Remember the guy that was the, you know, literally the guy that like modeled his, his top coat off of like a Nazi general? That guy, that guy. I mean, literally. I mean he did. And that was the whole purpose of it. It. And he, there's this guy that I think is from Minnesota. Anyway, he, he, he wrote an open letter on Facebook or something to Von Vino, one of the top people at ice, and said that basically compared them to a Nazi and say that you will be judged for this in, you know, in, in, in, you know, when it time come time for you to, you know, to be judged. He is traveling with his seven year old daughter on a trip back to Europe and he's stopped in New York and they're in a hotel and he gets literally a knock on the door at like midnight and anonymous calls from federal agents saying, you know, you may have violated federal law and now they are literally harassing him. And so they are going to the level of that. Is that what you voted for, maga? All of this talk about free speech and the ability to be able to stand up to your government and the ability to call people out and the right to be able to, you know, protest so much so that you can protest and break into the Capitol because you think that that's okay. But some guy criticizes the head of, you know, the former head of enforcement for ICE online. Did you see, remember the guy that was put in prison in that town in Tennessee or Tennessee, yeah, for like, like 68 days or I forget how long because he criticized ICE because he criticized the people that were locking people in cages. I mean, whatever happened to Alligator Alcatraz? You know how many people have died in ICE custody? It's like 10 times the rate under any other administration. But none of their names. We know none of them.
- [91:11]
B
Yeah, yeah, we were down in San Antonio earlier this year and, and, you know, went to Dilley, and as soon as we showed up on the property, the, the local rent. A cop showed up to, to kick us off the property. And then the sheriff was there within like 10 seconds. And they don't want people looking in there. And we also looked at these, these giant detention facilities that they want to build. They're building. They're buying up all these industrial parks where they, they buy the giant warehouse that looks like an empty Walmart and they say, oh, we want to turn this into an ICE detention facility. It just seems like we've lost our goddamn minds in this country. Are we actually thinking about putting tens of thousands of people in these, you know, warehouses in these communities all around the country? It's nuts. And now it looks like DHS is backing off a lot of this, at least temporarily. But I wonder what happens after the midterms. Hunter, if they, if the Republicans somehow figure out a way to retain one or both houses of Congress, they're going to go right back to this. Stephen Miller is going to go right back to cranking all of this back up again, seems to me.
- [92:12]
C
Yeah, no, I totally agree with you. I don't think that there's any.
- [92:16]
A
Yeah, I feel like the media sort of moved on from this. You know, once they stopped shooting people in the face, they moved on to other things.
- [92:24]
C
Yeah, I don't know what. And I agree with you. You know, here's what I keep saying to people. I think even we definitely have to. To win. I hope we win both the Senate and the House. And, and I think it's a real uphill battle in the Senate and may have gotten. Just gotten a little bit rougher, but I, I think we can. But even if we do what I say to people, what is your expectations? Is your expectation that they're going to comply with subpoenas? Is your expectation that they're going to come and testify? Because the only way that Congress can enforce that is to appeal to the Department of Justice and to hold them in contempt and then to enforce that and indict someone. Do you think Jeanine Pirro, as the U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia is going to indict anyone from the Trump administration? The Trump family For, for contempt of Congress.
- [93:23]
A
Right.
- [93:23]
C
Anybody. Anybody think that's going to happen? So if they don't comply with the subpoenas, if they don't comply with the discovery request from these committees, if they turn into Democrats, then what do we do? Yeah, then proceed.
- [93:39]
A
Yeah. And, you know, I'm glad you brought up in a way, I've been dying to get to this subject because, because this is something that you and I talked about whenever that was, that we was like over a year ago, and something I talked to Jim about a lot. And that is, you know, this sense of, I'm not like you guys, I'm, I have this sort of sense of hopelessness because, you know, because they couldn't vote for Hillary Trump. And these people have the Supreme Court for generations, and it has just recently shown itself. What that's like, you know, with the, with the, the Slaughter decision and, and the recent decisions that were handed down. And I hear, like, everybody applauding the fact that they upheld birthright citizenship, like, that's some kind of a big deal. And I'm like, that's, of course, like, that's, that's nothing. You know, I mean, so that's the bare minimum. Right. So, look, my question is, why shouldn't I be utterly hopeful, hopeless. And also, what do you think about the media doing this whole. Well, the upheld, you know, they sort of look congratulating the court for upholding birthright citizenship and the whole, the whole thing. What do we do about it?
- [94:54]
C
Well, I, I really believe that it, it requires like, a level of activism. I, I don't know. I, I think that, that it's going to require people to get in the streets, and I don't mean in violence, but I really do mean to get out there. Because, Tommy, I say to people, like, this idea that we are sliding into autocracy and, you know, like, we're there. Everybody, we are there there. It's not all of this like, oh, my gosh, we're going to lose our democracy. We've lost it. For now, the question is, can we get it back? Because right now there is zero accountability for Donald Trump, who's breaking the law on an hourly basis over and over and over again since the day he raised his hand and took his oath. And I know for a, a fact that they are literally selling, not just the White House, but Congress, everybody. I mean, they, people. I, I have heard of people literally buying legislation, buying executive orders, buying pardons, buying access, not just access, like influence, like, oh, you know, that, like, but literally Millions of dollars. And both of you have, too. I know that you have. And it's like you can't name the name and you can't say this, that, or the other thing, but I 100% know that they're literally people putting pocket. Putting money into the pockets of people that make decisions that are not in the interest of the American people for money. And. Okay, separate conversation. Let's talk about Howard Ludnick now.
- [96:54]
A
Now,
- [96:56]
C
you know, I'm not making any accusation, but let's talk about Steve Witkoff. Let's talk about Jared Kushner. Let's talk about Ivanka Trump. Let's talk about them, you know, like, Ivanka Trump, you know, she was on a, she was on a yacht and they discovered an island, you know, that just happened to belong to Albania, and that had been there for the past 4 million years, but she discovered it. It. And now they own it.
- [97:22]
B
Yeah.
- [97:23]
C
Do you know what I mean? It's like the, the.
- [97:25]
B
Or Jared Kushner getting this investment from the Saudis, and now he's negotiating so called peace deals where he gets to meet with all of these individual stakeholders at the table, and then who's stopping them from going back? Hey, let's go to the back room here and cut some other deals, by the way.
- [97:43]
C
Yeah, Jim, you know, you know, literally the people that know this, that's exactly what he's doing. That he and Steve Witkoff are literally doing exactly that.
- [97:53]
B
Yeah. All around the world.
- [97:56]
C
All around the world.
- [97:58]
A
Sounds like what you're saying is I should be hopeless.
- [98:02]
C
No, because you know what? At the same time, I really don't. Okay, I'm giving you your two minute warning, Tommy, because for me, this is the two minute warning before I have to go.
- [98:13]
A
You've been very generous, but.
- [98:15]
C
No, I appreciate it. I love talking to you guys.
- [98:17]
B
And we want to ask about how your dad is doing.
- [98:19]
C
Okay.
- [98:20]
B
Yeah, that was the thing I wanted to. Yeah, yeah.
- [98:24]
C
My dad is. This is. He's the toughest mother. Like, I mean, I, I am in awe of him because he has stage four cancer. He has stage four metastatic bone cancer, and he's had it for a long time now, and we didn't know he had it as long as he did, but he had stage four prostate cancer that then spread. And you know what? For every reason they didn't give him the test, you know, people like, say, like, oh, he lost his step. And, you know, like, oh, God, that was a horrible debate performance. Well, I say, well, my God, he, he, he had cancer we didn't know he had cancer. And it wasn't like some kind of hidden thing, is it, according to the, you know, the ama, the standard of care, which is the, which is what they follow at Walter Reed with the army medical doctors that treat the President, is that you don't test for a elevated PSA over the age of 75, which is a standard that's written into the, which is written into the AMA recommendations by insurance companies. Because the reality is that if you get cancer, if you get prostate cancer at the age of 75, that you're more likely to die from about a dozen other things than that prostate cancer just by the actuarial table. So they don't test for it. And so he had prostate cancer. He had prostate cancer then, and then it spread and it's now metastatic bone cancer. And the only reason I'm talking about this is openly as I am, is because he, he does and my, my mom does. And so it's tough. And it is the, the, the, the treatment has been successful as it relates to the prostate. It has stopped the growth in the metastatic bone cancer. But it is a really, really tough therapy where they basically, you know, reduce your testosterone to zero up, which causes you to be tired and, and, you know, I mean, all of the things that, you know, any guy knows that, you know, over the age of 50s, you know, they're, you know, everybody's talking about their testosterone levels in terms of their energy and things like that. But he's still out there, man. He's like, you know, I mean, riding the train, speeches and. Yeah, riding the train, riding, you know, you know, American Airlines and, and, and going to places that he's asked to show up and he, yeah, actually I
- [100:58]
A
gave a speech about a week and a half ago. I can't swing him.
- [101:01]
C
Yeah, at Maryland. Yeah, he gave a speech. But I tell you, it's, it's, it's, I, I, I just wish he would complain more, you know, that's why I worry about him. I, I don't know. You know what I mean by that? I wish that he would express like
- [101:18]
B
he's got stuff to get off his
- [101:19]
C
chest best there's discomfort. You know what I mean? I mean, it's just like, I wish you not, not about, no, don't worry. He complains about that stuff all the time. I mean about his physical well being. I wish he would, I wish he would, you know, I wish I could be.
- [101:35]
B
Oh, you know, that's dads, right? That's what they do.
- [101:39]
A
I feel like Colombo over here because there is just one more thing I wanted to ask you about that I forgot to ask you about it. But if you have to go, then just me to off.
- [101:46]
C
No, no, go ahead, go ahead.
- [101:48]
A
I've been dying and I know this is a little dated now, but there was a big splash a few weeks ago, it seems like a year ago when Dr. Jill put out her book. And I want to hear whatever you have to say about it, whatever you want to say about it. I thought there was one thing where CBS put out this clip of her saying, oh, I thought he was having a stroke. And then that it was a preview clip before the whole interview came out. And I just knew that they were not playing the whole clip. And they were all like, oh, you know, look, Joe Biden says this, but then after the, after the debate, she was like, oh, he did great. And I was like, you're not playing the whole clip and what, you're not catching her in something here. But tell me what you thought about the book, the, the book tour and that episode or whatever you want to say.
- [102:36]
C
Sure. I will say this is that I, I'm a little shocked by all of the, the, not all of the people, a lot of people in the, in the, in the Democratic Party that have been our most, you know, significant detractors over the past, like, year is that they can't believe the first lady is releasing a book like, well, that would be in line with every single first lady in modern history releasing a book within the first two years after they leave the Oval Office. So she's certainly not an outlier. And I think that she is exactly in line. And now they both are going to release a book in just the same way that Barack and Michelle Obama and before that, Laura and George Bush. Bush and before that, villain Hillary. And before you go down the line is that they have to stagger it because the books can't compete with each other. So my mother's book would come out in, you know, well, in advance of the midterms and my father's book will come out after the midterms. And that's the, you know, so in terms of, like, the timing of it, I just don't understand what they would say. And here's the other thing. That's my mom's. My mom's telling her story from her perspective. And from her perspective, when she sat there, she was being absolutely 100. I don't know if she wrote it this way in the book, but she said it out Loud. It's like, what do you think was happening? I don't know. What do you think? I looked at my dad, who I know to be one of the greatest debaters, you know. Well, you could say whatever you want. He always had the best one liners and quips and energy on a debate stage. He did. He was great. It was one of the reasons that Barack Obama picked him to become vice president is because of his performance in the 2008 debates with all 12 people standing on the stage. Everybody still remembers the, you know, the Rudy Giuliani line as well as a whole bunch of others. They're against Ryan or against anybody. When he came out, yeah, when he came out on that stage, I knew immediately something was wrong. I looked and I, I was watching on TV like everybody else. And for the first time in my entire life, my dad looked as if he was a deer in the headlights. And that's what I guarantee you. My mom did the same thing go through like, what's wrong? Something was wrong. And that's why I say to people is that no one ever did. No one ever saw him like that before or after. No one. There's no one in the press. Jim, you correct me if I'm wrong and I really, really mean this. Okay. That said, I know people say Joe Biden lost a step. I know they say that he spoke in a lower tone than he did before. That's becoming 83 years old, 82 years old. He literally did lose a step. He did get slower. He got up and down the stairs more difficultly. That's getting old. Like, that is getting old. Having a cognitive impairment is a very, very different thing. And I think that in a world in which much we are aging and everyone is going to have to get more comfortable with old people getting old, but still participating in whatever way they have been asked to participate. But regardless of any of that, to your point, Tommy, is that. Yeah, I don't know. I still don't have an answer to that moment, which is a glitch, which, by the way, it was no more than a glitch of Donald Trump falling asleep in the middle of a. One of his own press conferences.
- [106:15]
B
Yeah.
- [106:16]
C
But it was on a stage in which everything built up to that. The New York Times had, had literally spent, I don't know how many barrels full of ink talking about how old Joe Biden was. And they talked about it endlessly. And the guys in, you know, and James Carville, and you know, I love James Carville. I'm not gonna, I Don't want to get in another fight with James Carville. But all of these guys, is it, you know, like, why wasn't there a, you know, like that. Why there was a primary. Everybody forget rfk. Everybody forget. What's his name, Dean Phillips. It was a primary. Joe Biden locked up the primary faster than anybody in the history of the Democratic Party. And, you know, one of the reasons why he did is because three years before, he got 81 million votes more than any person that's ever run for president in the history of the United States, States of America. Not because the people, you know, were coming out just to vote against Donald Trump. They were coming out because they wanted to vote for Joe Biden. And you know why they wanted to vote for Joe Biden? Because when they look at him, they saw themselves whether you were a waitress in St. Paul, Minnesota, that is working two jobs, that is a practicing Catholic, that is not a Bible thumper, but. But is generally pro choice. When it became an option between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, you know what I. That woman, that woman, that waitress went out and voted for Joe Biden because he was. He. He was from her neighborhood, so to speak. They didn't think that Joe. They think Joe Biden was just as confused about the issue of transgenderism as they were. Yeah, they weren't hateful. They didn't believe. They didn't believe it was going to be shoved down their throat by them. But they also believed that Joe Biden was going to give people a fair shake. And they also believed that he was going to live up to the commitments that he made to the community that brought him to the dance, African American women. And they knew that when Joe Biden had picked a woman to be the first black member, a female of the justice of the Supreme Court, that it was because she was absolutely 100% qualified. And also it was the right thing to do without shoving it down their throat. That's what they knew about Joe Biden. And I think that we lost that. And in large part because whatever happened that night in that first 15 minutes of that debate metastasized faster than any cancer ever could have. And when, when people smelled blood in the water, it became almost impossible for him to ultimately stay in the race when the, the power, the, the, the, the inside elite and all the people that we, all the three of us know intimately decided that it was time and they were going to. They were going to get their way and they weren't going to give up and they were going to go nuclear. And they were going to challenge them all the way to the convention. That was the message that was being given. And I think that my dad did one of the most courageous things in the history of politics. The first president, the first person I can think of at that level ever to step aside in deference to the party and to the country and to subvert his own legacy.
- [109:41]
A
He.
- [109:43]
C
In order for us to have a chance to be able to win.
- [109:47]
B
Yeah.
- [109:47]
A
Here's something else that you never hear anybody because they bring up that debate all the time and nobody ever says, oh, but by the way, they gave him Ambien. You know, like, yeah. Whose idea was it to, to, to give him Ambien before that debate?
- [110:03]
C
Oh, I don't know. But by, by the way, see, here's another thing that in fairness to everyone, everybody. Okay, is that ambient? It, it is. It. Look, I, when I worked for Bill Daly in way back in 1999 when he was Secretary of Commerce and I used to fly with him a lot and you know, they literally would hand out ambient because you'd be on these like 17 hour flights and you, you'd hit the ground and you'd be going and you'd go like that. You know them. And I don't know of anybody that's been on Air Force One or on Air Force Two that doesn't know that like you are on this schedule in which you are getting like what maybe a gym, like, you know, a chance.
- [110:46]
B
When I went to Nelson Mandela's memorial service, the, the White House doctor said hey, if you would like, we have Ambien so you could sleep on the plane. On our way to South Africa for this memorial service. I mean that, that's exactly standard operating procedure in the executive.
- [111:02]
C
Exactly.
- [111:02]
B
On these trips.
- [111:03]
C
I'm just telling you it is 100 and I don't. And by the way, it's, it's in it. It. And I, and I, and I don't know this to be the case and I don't know. But I also know at that period of time, if you remember go back and look at the schedule he had made like, I don't know, like three separate international trips during, in the lead up like the three weeks before. So he was literally of the 21 days that he was before he was on the road road, an international like hopping from place to place, like I forget what exactly Indonesia to Jakarta to the ASEAN conference, back to NATO then too. And, and I, that that could be, you know, one of the one, one of the things. And then he gets to Camp David, he can't sleep. And I bet you I, I think, you know, whether someone gave it to him or he went into his doc kit and he took an ambient to sleep, whatever it was, he. It's things that you, that you don't have to take in consideration. Yeah, usually that when you're 81 years old, you should take into consideration. Now, put on top of that, what we didn't know at the time, that we do know now, he had cancer. There's no way the, the prostate cancer had clearly already started then, because within nine months after that, he has not only stage four prostate cancer, but he has metastatic bone cancer. So it had been there for a while. So whatever he's feeling during that period of time literally was, you know, an anomaly. So when my mom is asked about it, like, what did you think? Like, she just honestly said, oh, my God. Like, is he having a stroke?
- [112:42]
A
Right?
- [112:42]
C
Yeah, because he having a stroke. Because, like, have you guys ever seen you follow Joe Biden for 35 years? You ever see him walk on a stage or in a room before or after that? And once he looked, he looked like that. And that's the thing that scared everybody.
- [112:57]
B
I had not seen him do that. Yeah. And I mean, I will say, I mean, you know, versus the days when he was vice president versus the, you know, last days of his time in office as president. Sure, it looked like he had slowed down and gotten older. There's no question about it. The thing that I get frustrated with, Hunter, is because Donald Trump on almost a daily basis says batshit banana things that, you know, if it were any other president, it would be a scandal night and day. It would be a 24 hour. I mean, Trump, you know, tweeting out images of the Obamas looking like apes and just saying things that don't make any sense. You know, whether it's out of the speeches or in the, you know, in the Oval Office or in cabinet meetings, he just will say, ramble and say things that don't make any sense. Sense. And I don't understand why it's not on the nightly news, as Tommy was saying earlier when he keeps bragging about these cognitive tests. I did the cognitive test with a doctor to prove how cockamamie this thing is that Trump's talking about, and it doesn't make any sense. And so how is it that there are two different standards? If Joe Biden says, we killed Medicare and that was a giant scandal and resulted in the end of his presidential run, that's a That's a major scandal. But Donald Trump says does similar things, even worse things on a regular basis and does worse things on a regular basis. Gets zero coverage, very little coverage. I know and I don't know. And it's just an epidemic of cowardice in the press right now. And this is, I bet this has been, I've been on this soapbox about, you know, how our media is. You know, you talk about a slide into autocracy. You know, one of the first signs of a slide into autocracy is the media is gobbled up by the government. It's under the thumb of the government. And I, I'm greatly afraid that that's what we're in the middle of right now. But, you know, and you've been very generous with your time, Hunter, so if we put a pin in that conversation, maybe we can do this next time. But any final thoughts?
- [114:48]
C
No, I would, I would, I would love. You know, one of the things that I just was, Can I say this though, before I leave? Now I'm keeping you guys.
- [114:55]
B
Yeah.
- [114:57]
C
Is that what you're doing, I think is really, really important, is staying in the game, Jim and Tommy, and staying in the game on a, on a independent platform like this and reaching millions of people on, on a, on a, on a weekly, daily or, you know, monthly basis, whatever the numbers may be. It's really important because what I realize is this. In, in going on X, somebody sent me a thing is that. And so I went on X. May 19. Okay. I have reached 3, 397. I have 397 million impressions with a 2.9 engagement rate, which means that I have on a, on a daily basis, nine point, I think 6 million people reading, which is the larger than the reach of the, of the New York Times.
- [115:52]
B
Yeah.
- [115:53]
A
Wow.
- [115:53]
C
On a daily basis, digital. Okay. And, and, and what I believe is that the reason is, is that people don't trust CNN anymore. They don't trust the, the legacy media. They don't, they, they, they aren't getting any. And, and I don't know what to do about that because I think that that is an enormous loss. I think that it is a really, really, really difficult thing to sift through in this world. Who, that you can trust and, and, and, and, and instead of who you just are hearing echoed back at you, the things that you think that you want to hear. And I, and I don't know what to do about that.
- [116:37]
A
I know.
- [116:37]
B
And that. Well, that's why we're going to continue to do this and promote your substack, Hunter. I know you're out there doing this, lighting it up, and you can catch center on his substack at Hunter Biden. Very simple. Easy to do. Any final thought from you before I do my announcer thing and wrap it up.
- [116:53]
A
Yeah, I wanted to give Hunter a chance because I. I did visit your substack for a second, Hunter, and I. I was very entertained by the title of it. Would you like to tell us what the name of your substack is?
- [117:03]
C
Oh, that's right. It's called Where's Hunter? Where's Hunter? Here's Hunter.
- [117:06]
A
Mother.
- [117:07]
C
I was gonna put Where's Hunter? Here's Hunter Mfers, but I. To maybe take out that part. So it's just. Where's Hunter?
- [117:14]
A
Hunter. Yeah.
- [117:16]
B
Your father in your head telling you Hunter to stop saying the F word.
- [117:21]
A
Just explain everybody. Explain that reference to everybody. The Where's Hunter reference.
- [117:25]
B
Yeah.
- [117:25]
C
So, you know, I mean that. I mean, God almighty, He. He even said it from the Oval Office the other day. He said, we made so much money on the Where's Hunter? Merchandise. So he used to stand up on stage and everybody that is. That remembers any of his. His rallies back in 2019 all the way through at this time time is that his. One of his greatest refrains was always, where's Hunter? And they sold caps and they sold hats and they sold T shirts. I'm still waiting for my, you know, my royalty check on that. But Where's Hunter? Well, I'm, I'm, I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm gonna do a deal. I'm gonna do like a weekly thing of exactly where Hunter is, and I'm going to ask people's questions live about where I am, not only, you know, literally, but also metaphysically. Luckily, I'm gonna get my metaphysical location.
- [118:13]
A
I would buy. I would buy a Where's Hunter Here T shirt.
- [118:17]
C
Yeah, here I am.
- [118:20]
B
You gotta put the in there if you're gonna sell the merch, though. Hunter. Exactly.
- [118:25]
C
Exactly. I have to do some. I have to do a PG version, guys.
- [118:29]
A
Yeah, but.
- [118:30]
C
But, yeah, but then also on my sub stack, what I'm gonna do is, is I. I want to tell the story from. From my perspective from the.
- [118:39]
A
The.
- [118:39]
C
From the beginning. So I'm doing basically the first draft of. Of me telling my story, and I've. And I've worked hard on a bunch of it. And. And the idea is, is that it's going to be an actual first draft. That, that then people can participate and have Conversation with me after what they've read and, you know, help me, you know, help me hone it into something that, that I'm proud of. And so. And maybe some art on there, too.
- [119:06]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
- [119:08]
A
You should put some of those paintings on T shirts too. Those are really nice.
- [119:12]
B
The paintings are very nice. And that's just your website, hunterbiden.com if people want to buy the paintings. Great stuff there.
- [119:19]
C
Yeah, man.
- [119:20]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [119:22]
C
And. And I'm painting every day, so I appreciate it, guys. Thanks for all the. Thanks for all the plugs in the end. I gotta get better at this.
- [119:30]
A
And.
- [119:31]
C
And I'm. And I'm. I'm glad you and Tommy have partnering up here. It's awesome.
- [119:37]
B
Yeah.
- [119:37]
A
Yeah. Well, thanks for. Ricky. Thanks for making me look good on my first day.
- [119:41]
B
Yeah, that's true. If you hadn't come through, Hunter, it would have been. It not. Would have not have been the best first day for Tommy, but it all worked out.
- [119:47]
C
Yeah. Good. Oh, don't worry that Tommy doesn't mean it doesn't need me to impress anybody, that's for sure. Okay, I'll see you guys.
- [119:54]
B
Thanks. Good to see you. Hunter by ride. Tommy, what do you. Tommy's. Tommy dropped out to. Tommy, stay with us for just a second here.
- [120:01]
A
We gotta.
- [120:01]
B
We have to banter a little bit here. Yeah, I guess. Graham Platner did not drop out of the Senate race while we were doing this or else somebody would have told us.
- [120:08]
A
Yeah, no, I brought CNN on. It says Platner campaign teeters on collapse. So.
- [120:14]
B
Yeah, no, no, no, your. Your impressions before we sign off. And also, great first day with or without him runner, by the way, but I.
- [120:24]
A
What a dynamite interview that guy is. I just, I. I can't. I can't say enough, and I can't be grateful enough to him for his time. That's two hours that he spent with us, and we were only expecting it. We were only expecting an hour.
- [120:38]
B
Yeah, no, I know. And. And it just kept going and going and, you know, I think he has a lot on his mind, and I totally get it. I mean, he was under siege for several years there. And I'm sure being the son of a. A president, you can't fight back, you can't fire back. You want to fire back, but you can't because you're in these. And so I, I guess I, I get the sense he's saving. He's been saving this up and now he's unloading.
- [121:03]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I mean, look, he's always got, you know, he's, he's always got a lot to say and, you know, I can't, I, I can't speak enough, highly enough about his, the, the gift that he has for articulating and his natural, he's very natural, you know. Yeah, that's, that's what a lot of Democrats miss. You know, they, I, I, I talked to Joe Walsh about this. Me and him are always browsing about how, you know, the Democrats, you know, they, they don't, they don't know how to speak like normal people. But, but Hunter Biden, who has not led a normal life and, you know, but he just has, you know, like his dad, that ability, common touch.
- [121:42]
C
Touch.
- [121:43]
B
Yeah, I'm in touch. Well, Tommy, all right, we'll be talking. We, we've gone two hours here. I won't do a take here at the end of the show because we ought to wrap this up pretty quickly because it's going to be a hell of a burden to get this like on other platforms with this large file that we have here. But thanks, Tommy. Good, good to see you. Great stuff. And thanks to everybody for watching. This has been a special edition of the Jim Acosta show, and we'll try to play this later. So folks who missed it this afternoon, they were like, I thought you were on at 4 o'. Clock. What's the deal? We put out a lot of messages, try to tease it as much as possible that we had Hunter Biden on today, went two hours. Unbelievable to have Hunter Biden on with us, but he's got a lot to say and there was never a dull moment, not by any stretch. So in the meantime, still reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. I'll see you next time, guys. With so much in the news these days, it's hard to figure out where to turn, turn. Take for example, all of Trump's vanity projects, the reflecting pool and so on. You go to Fox News, you're going to hear about it a certain way, obviously. And if you go to a place like the Guardian, they'll report it a certain way. That's why I'm using this new news site called Ground News more and more every day. Not only do they tell you maybe the direction that a particular news outlet is coming from, they will tell you the ownership of that news outlet. They will also offer factuality records, ratings on some of the stories that you're looking at. So you want to check this out. It's called Ground News. And if you go to groundnews.com acosta right now, you will get 40% off the unlimited access vantage plan and unlock worldwide perspectives on the stories that are shaping our world. It's called ground news. You want to check it out? It's something I'm using more and more every day.