Transcript of Tucker’s Brother Buckley Carlson on Dogs, Childhood, Nicotine, Frank Luntz and America’s Future

I hope so. Uncle Buck, I'm glad you're here.

I didn't even know you were on Twitter. Then the goals decided to destroy my son, who's got the same name as you, because in our family, there are only four names, and everyone's required to use one. I think they mistook your Twitter feed for his. I don't even know if he has a Twitter feed. All of a sudden, you became really famous. A couple of your nieces called me, Uncle Bucks on Twitter. I had no idea. I was like, I didn't know that. How long have you been on Twitter?

Not very long. Since 2010, but mostly as a reader. Now that there's nowhere else you can get news except for UnzReview, we are allowed to talk about Un's review on this? Other than Un's review, or Revolver News, the only other place you can get information these days is on X. If you're not on it, you're not getting information. I had never actually It rendered many opinions on X, but I started doing that recently. Oh, did that change? Yeah, it did. It did. It's been so fun. Actually, you meet some interesting people on X. There's a lot of creativity on X. I agree with that. There is a lot. I wouldn't know how to make a meme of my life dependent on it, but I sure appreciate them. Other than that, there are some seriously well-researched, smart people who've got a lot of interesting stuff to say. It's addictive. I try not to spend a huge amount of time on it. I actually have work to do, but it will suck me in. But once you beat alcohol, you beat cigarettes, but Twitter's hard. As much. Thankfully, I've got a lot of nicotine with me. Good.

That's interesting. A lot.

Are you armed? By the way, I always assume you normally have a gun right on the table, but I don't see it.

Sadly, I had to fly through. I had to be groped by TSA this morning. At dawn, it was awesome.

What's your strategy for that?

My strategy used to be, Hey, say please and thank you because you work for us. They love that message.

Yeah, they do. I've seen you try to enforce manors, Anglo manors at the TSA. A station.

It doesn't work. No. Actually, recently, since they've instituted the Real ID and they have you stand and take your picture, I know they have your picture everywhere else and they have your biometrics, I took a principled stand a few times and said, Oh, no, I don't think I want a picture of it. Well, every time that's happened, they managed to discover that I have a duplicate ticket or no TSA badge, and I have to go back to the front of the line. I don't do that. I'm captain compliant. I go through. I'm super courteous when I walk through.

They broke you like Winston Smith at the end of 1984. They just broke in you. You're like, Two plus two, I think that's five. Is it five?

You just have to surrender at some point. Exactly. If you want to to lie anywhere these days. No, I'm not armed, sadly, but I'm in the great state of Florida.

I don't think I've ever seen you unarmed, but this is a safe place. Normally, you have this little thing on the table. Uncle Buck, what's that?

Backup planner.

But so you've actually been broken by TSA?

I don't really think there's any other solution to it. I'm still angry about it. Oh, for sure. Legitimately, I find it to be one of the most humiliating experiences in American life. I totally agree. I do still say to everyone around me after I've gone through the groping, I say, Do you feel safer?

Do you say that? Every day. You offer a drill comment in the line?

It's amazing how few people actually will take the bait.

They can smell the non-compliance on you and they get away quick.

Big time.

They're like, He should be deplatformed.

Boy, there's a lot of that on X. I had heard that you could say whatever you want. It turns out that's not true. Oh, it's not true? No. People have no sense of humor.

They don't like jokes anymore. No. No more. No.

Yeah.

Can I just give you my strategy for TSA when I get groped? Please.

Little the left.

Yeah, no. Totally. I'm going to touch you around the belt area, sir.

I'm like, Ringing hot, baby.

Ringing hot. Then just act like you love it. It's so creepy that it'll abbreviate the experience.

Do you go through the X-ray machine so they can keep the file?

I try not to. I'm so paranoid about all of that stuff. I'm getting crazy and I'm like, Oh, I'm going to get some weird lymphoma from the magnetometer or something. It can't be healthy, right?

No, it can't. Although I figured once you've surrendered and you can't do anything in American life without surrendering, to some extent, even emailing or texting, you know that other people have it. So at some point, you should just adopt an attitude.

No, I think you're absolutely right. I mean, we've both been tamed by the women in our lives and just like, Stop making a fuss. But I always think these are the people who ran the burn pits at Camp Lejeune, where our father was stationed. And the Marine Corps.

Never joined the class action.

He never joined the class action. That's right.

Not a litigious man. Not a litigious man.

I was saying this the other day. I'm 56. I've never sued anybody. Someone said, People are slandering you. You got to sue. I was like, I'm committed to a higher principle that in my culture, we're not into lawsuits at all. I want to make it to death, and I hope it's a while from now without ever suing anybody. That'll be a personal victory for me and my family. Really, only our family will appreciate it because the culture we grew up in is just gone. It never existed.

I have noticed. Yes. Oh, you've noticed? Yeah, I have noticed a little bit.

Has it been a net win or loss for the country, would you say?

After we won World War II and we got to luxuriate in our freedoms and all the economic prosperity that has led us to be freer and able to speak our mind, no. It's actually tragic. If you have young children, as you do, I guess they're no longer young, but you really see it with the way our children have grown up and the restrictions they've had on thought and speech, especially. We grew up at a time, as you know, where I don't think anybody has ever heard this question before in a school setting. One, ask any question you want. In fact, you're encouraged to ask a question. I was always taught, and ask any question, you'll never get in trouble. Then that silly little ditty, the sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me. That was real. None of our children were taught that. No American child goes through life thinking that they can deviate from the script, that they can offer some opinion that's counter to the authorities that are in front of them. That's tragic. It obviously has a huge effect. It stifles imagination and creativity.

Which are why they've died. I think actually that slogan, which if you're under 50, you may not be familiar with, but it was a staple of, well, England, by the way, and then the United States, child. Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. It's actually been inverted where we've endorsed Sticks and Stones. Violence is no big deal. We're totally for violence. Just blow up the drug boats, whatever. Are they drug runners? Who cares? Kill them. By the way, Charlie Kirk got shot. Well, yeah, because he used bad words. He deserved it. People believe that. So Sticks and stones are fine, but words are the threat. What is that?

It's terrifying, actually.

It's not a Western orientation.

No, it's not. But it is prevalent here now in the West. It's everywhere.

It looks like you've decided not to play along.

I am not playing along, and I'm fortunate because I've grown up in an atmosphere where actually I was encouraged to say what I believe. I don't have a lot of governors in my life, especially now that my child is old enough not to be embarrassed by me daily. I don't have to fight with his various academic institutions that charge me a lot of money and tried to wipe the boy and wipe out the creativity from my son. That was a 12, 14-year battle that I had to fight. Also, I don't really care. There are very few people whose opinion matters to me. In the end of the day, I have a constituency basically of one, and that's the woman I love and live with, and my son, and then the flately expanding circle of you and other family members. But beyond that, and every one of those people is perfectly apprised of my deep flaws and my history.

And your amazing virtues. As one of my children said to me, in fact, all of my many children said to me and my nephews, when you made your public immersions on Twitter, the legend of Uncle Buck is now out there for the public to appreciate. And by the way, they I loved it.

That's so nice. I guess the key is just not thinking about it. I don't think about it. Actually, I thought you might ask me about this only because it's a new thing in my life. I likened it to shooting rabbits on a sporting clay course. The most accurate you'll ever be is if you're just instinctive. You just pull your gun up and you shoot. That's totally right. I don't have a lot of time to think about what I write. I manage not to write anything too embarrassing. I don't write things that are intentionally provocative, but I also I have no trouble expressing myself. There's so much absurdity out there that needs to be addressed, I think.

I think the most important act of defiance is not violence. I have come to believe in my age that violence actually doesn't seem to solve. I don't really know when the last time violence solved a problem. It's also prohibited to us as Christians, so there's that. But you can't kill innocent, sorry. But I I do think they're right to worry about words. Yes. Actually, words do change the world. The New Testament changed the world, period. The Old Testament changed the world. I mean, truth changes everything, and you may not live to see it come to fruition, but it still is the most profound thing you can do to fight tyranny is to tell the truth about tyranny. Yes.

Do you feel that? Very much so. There's a huge amount of people in this country and across the world who do. It seems like, aside from podcasts like yours, and there are very few There are a few opportunities for people to express themselves honestly unfiltered.

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I forgive you.

Well, my wife convinced me to send yours to the school that our kids went to. Of course, it turned out to be a sub-awesome school, a very liberal, crazy school. But it was our neighborhood school, whatever We did it. Let's not regret it. But you were the only person in this rich person school that we sent our kids to to confront, with politeness but firmness, the administration of the school about what they were telling your child, was totally bonkers. Men can become women and hate yourself if you're white and all this stuff. Boys are bad. Testosterone is bad. Masculinity is bad. Everyone else was like, Okay, well, it's a prestigious school. We'll just go along with it. You were like, I know. I remember all the moms hated you, but were also attracted to you, just to be honest about it. They were like, Oh, I can't believe you. Your brother's always making a fuss. You were like, Yeah, I don't care. Why did you do that? You were the only person.

My son is the greatest blessing in my life, and it's a sole purpose. It was my sole purpose for a long time. It seemed it's the only thing that could be important. It's the only enduring thing. When people asked me when I was a kid, probably because we had such a happy, thoroughly fucked up childhood, but really happy, thanks to our father who was so extraordinary in every way and made it very clear that we were the number one in his life. I mean, and he was the busiest guy I've ever known, involved in so many things. And yet we were, without a doubt, his only focus or his primary focus. He would do anything. Would do absolutely anything. So there are no boundaries. And so that seems normal to me. That was my reflexive attitude about my son. I think the first thing I encountered when I took him to that school that pretended to be a Episcopalian school with its own chapel, I noticed, they were anything but Christian in their attitudes. It was the middle of the Obama administration when everybody got super empowered about indoctrinating children on a level that I don't think I'd ever seen.

I don't think that America had ever seen it. No. You pay all this money because there's really no chance that you would send your children to a public school in Washington, I thought. I There's actually an argument, probably, for sending your children to something other than what we sent ours to. Anyway, I remember showing up. It was right after the election, and I'm not a big bumper sticker guy, but I had a bumper sticker, probably the only bumper sticker I've ever owned. It was a series of four memes, and it was pro-God, pro-life, pro-gun. Then it had the Obama Horizon with a slash through it. That was in the back of my Chevy Tahoe, and I and dropped my son off at school. The visceral reaction from the entire teacher platoon that was outside was obvious. Actually, I made a commitment right then and there. Again, I was embarrassed to have a bumper sticker on my car. Who does that? But I kept it on there religiously for the next eight years until the car died. Until one of our friends actually took that car that I had tried to flip and destroy many many times and was unsuccessful, and he flipped it and broke his neck.

Yes, he did. He's okay.

He is okay, but he was- Sober, too. Yes, he is.

In his defense, he was dead sober. He was going hunting, and it was in the morning. It was in Maine, and he hit black ice. Yes.

Even having grown up in rural Maine, he somehow was an expert in dealing with black ice.

He took the top of a pine tree off with the vehicle.

I know. I drive by it all the time. I say a quick pair I go buy it. Me, too. He's unbeatable in every way. He's unbelievable. He's going to outlive us both for sure.

He sure is. What a wonderful man.

That set the tone. Then the fact that they have your child captive, you pay all this money, they should have a classical education that in this case was billed as something that was rooted in the Christian church. And yet immediately they adopted and started all these clubs that were race-based. My son went there in fifth grade, so he was 10. They immediately started not only indoctrinating all the kids there, but making them feel horrible about themselves, segregating kids by race. This is a school where all the entire It's in the middle of the swamp. So it's like the richest zip code in all of DC.

More of the richest in the United States.

Yes. The diversity that they had, they talked endlessly about diversity. The diversity they had there was color only. Everybody was in the same industry. Everybody was working. Everybody was driving a fucking Range Rover. I wasn't, but they were. Anyway, so it was stifling and confusing for children. I just wasn't going to sit back and allow them to do that. I tried to be reasonable. I was just persistent. They, boy, they didn't like it. They actually despised me. In fact, I guess I've encountered that a few times in my life. But boy, they heartily dislike me. Yes, they did. Yes. These are the people who probably do have voodoo dolls back home.

Oh, 100%. They're all Wiccans. No, they were...

My back pain were not from being overweight or from not having a tough core. It was someone sitting, some booger-eater sitting at home, stabbing me with a fucking dagger. Excuse my language.

Sorry. No, it's fine. No, you're right. It was so interesting because I saw it. Obviously, I'm your brother. My wife is your biggest fan. It's like, of course, we supported you, but I was not as brave as you, not even close. I felt exposed because I had a public job. I didn't want to get whatever. I felt a little bit constrained. But you were braver than I. That's just a fact. But the reaction from the other parents, all of whom liked you, because everyone likes you, but they didn't want you, even the ones who agreed with you, to keep saying stuff like this because I think they wanted to ignore it. They wanted to fit in more than they cared about their own children's moral and intellectual development. I mean, that's just a fact.

That and also, I think, cowardice breeds self-loathing, which turns into hostility like extreme hostility. I saw this during COVID in the same place. Can you repeat that, cowardice? I think, cowardice breeds self-loathing. I think people who are cowardly hate being cowardly. They know they're being cowardly, and they hate themselves for it, especially men or people who claim to be men. Then that manifestsends itself in extreme hostility. I saw everybody's had their experiences during COVID, but I encountered the most extreme hostility when I never wear a mask. I was compelled to wear a mask on an airplane. Other than that, I never wear a mask. I just wouldn't. I refused. I would travel a lot. I would go through Chicago Airport and be the only person that I ever encountered with no mask. It wasn't the authorities who wanted to tackle me. It was the other people going past me on the people mover on the escalator who looked like they wanted to fucking stab me in the face. Then I write for a living and I need to get out in the world in nature. It's a tough business. It's a solitary business. I take my dogs twice a day and run them in nature.

Oh, you have dogs? Oh, yes. I have a few dogs. Five? I have five dogs, which is, I think, actually about the ideal number. Yeah. Is that right? It is about the ideal number. Yes. Of course, I said that every time. Three, four, five is the ideal number. Yes. It's the best. But I would encounter people outside on a windy day in the sun walking, and I would, of course, didn't have a mask on, and they would all have their dutiful masks on. The fact that I didn't have a mask would inspire them this hostility that I've never encountered anywhere else. Yeah, it was obvious.

I think something like that was going on at the school.

Very much so.

At the Little Episcopal Day School, because the other parents knew that this was bad. When their kids started to become trans or get into drugs or whatever, they know it's not all your fault. You can't blame parents for everything, but it is partly your fault.

You can blame parents. I try not to judge people, but I do definitely judge about their parenthood. That's about the one thing I judge people on.

Trying to be nice.

I know. I mean, you don't actually have total control. There are people who have aberrant children that I believe are not responsible for it. But I think the majority of the weird child behavior stems from shitty parents or parents who were occupied with other people's problems rather than their children's problems.

What you're saying is true.

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I should just say for the record that you were scoffed at for having the pro-life, pro-god, pro-gun, anti-Obama bumper sticker.

At a Christian school.

At a Christian school, right? No pro-god, no pro-life at a Christian school. But then you decided to take your defiance another click up the ladder by driving your son to school on a big twin Harley in carpool line, which I personally saw. He was like a little kid, and there'd be all these Range Rovers involved. You'll be like, There's Uncle Buck with the A-pangers.

I had him strapped to my chest with a bunja cord. It was safe.

No, it was. I mean, safe is a relative term. In our families, we know there's no such thing as safety. There's only destiny. We both believe that. But safe, But it wasn't even a safety violation. It was like a cultural violation. All the moms, you could tell they were a little bit turned on, but also very like, What is this? Why did she... I I saw that with my own eyes many times. What was the thinking there?

Pure celebration of joy and freedom. That's it. That's how I try to live my life. You're called to be joyful. In fact, you're commanded to be I totally agree. You are. What is that?

Susie has that thing all over our house, 1 Thessalonians, Rejoice, always, never, stop praying. Yes. That's my favorite. Right. No, you're absolutely right.

Philippians 4: 4, which is be full of joy in the Lord. I say again, Rejoice. Yeah. That's just such a wonder.

It's funny that that's triggering to people. Whatever it was, you were triggering people. I felt like was such an act of bravery because it's one thing to stand up at the Congress and say something unpopular or even go into battle, but to stand apart from your neighbors at the $50,000-a-year Episcopal School in Northwest Washington, where there's just so much conformity. Yes. That takes balls.

Well, I appreciate it. I don't think I really thought of it that way. I'm so used to. I don't know. I've lived my life. We were, as you said, we grew up that way.

What do you mean? Because I did say... Okay, I haven't looked at a lot of your… I'm not on Twitter that much because it's too upsetting to me. But I did go and check your Twitter feed, which I thought was amazing. But some of the responses are like, Oh, of course you feel this way because you had such a horrible childhood. It's like, Wait a second. People are very personal that way. Attacking your childhood? What did you think of your… Without getting too specific, but you described it as happy.

I actually had the best childhood. I'm really sorry for our children that didn't have the childhood that we had. I agree with that. Had. Because it was just a lesson in adventure all the time. You could define your own boundaries. As long as you went to school, you were respectful to your parents and you showed up for dinner, there were really no other boundaries. No. Nothing. That was it. I loved you and I loved our and I loved our mother. We had a happy home life and it was creative and interesting. It was in a beautiful part of the world that was at that time very well run in California. In fact, I think it was the cleanest, most efficient state in all 50. It was obviously the center of creativity in the country and in the world. It was fantastically beautiful everywhere. I mean, it has every single We lived near the beach and we got to go swimming in the ocean and we had a bunch of dogs and we got to explore. We got to explore with our friends and experiment. We also went, I'm sure you recall, it was a much different time.

We could actually walk across the border into Tijuana, Mexico and engage in all sorts of interesting- It wasn't the most wholesome place.

No, it really wasn't.

I was suddenly thinking, is Revolution Avenue still around? I don't know. Is it still accessible to American kids?

I don't know. I think the whole thing is so different now. I'm not in Tijuana a lot, but I think it's bigger than San Diego. It's controlled by the drug cartels. I don't know. I shouldn't say that. I've never been against Mexico. I've always liked Mexico. Obviously, Mexico has done more harm to the United States than any other country, not even close, but I still like Mexicans, and I still just have happy memories for Mexico. I'm like, We'll never be against it just for, I don't know, reasons of memory. But I wouldn't go there to Tijuana.

No, and I wouldn't send my 12-year-old child there either.

No. But we were... That's right. We were allowed to do basically whatever we wanted as long as we were polite and family loyalty was at the center of everything, of course.

Yes. It was interesting. Our father was involved in so many interesting pursuits. He had interesting friends. Yes. Our friends were interesting. He included us. He treated us like adults where it was I guess all the time. He taught us invaluable things that no one teaches their children anymore. That's for sure. I mean, yeah.

You've used the word creativity a couple of times. It felt to me, looking back, I never have thought about it until recently as I see the decline in creativity and the awards given to people who are totally non-creative, which is almost everyone in our professional class, zero creativity. The creative people are penalized. That's made me think that maybe the saddest change is the disappearance of creativity and the abundance of it in our childhood. Wait, I never heard anybody, certainly not our father, ever talk about how rich someone was. Who gives a shit?

Ever. Plus, no one noticed. Everybody was pretty much in the same boat. We lived in an expensive area. We had a nice house, but it was not absurd. No one had $5 million houses. No one had $50 million houses either.

There wasn't such a thing.

No, there was literally not such a thing.

So the measure was, and there was much less economic anxiety, obviously. It was a different economy, but still the values were different. Creativity, the ability to create something out of nothing, that was really prized.

Yes. Especially if your father gave you what was the James Bond cookbook? What was the other one? Oh, yeah. I'm sorry, I guess they're illegal now. They're illegal now. Sorry.

Well, he had a library. First of all, he had a real library, almost a public library in our house, and he'd read every book in it, and he was very serious about it. It was talk about Catholic tastes. I mean, broad tastes, universal interests. He's just like nothing he wasn't interested in. There was a book about every possible thing. There was a ton of extremist literature on all sides. He didn't buy any. He wasn't like he was an extremist. He was not an extremist at all, but he was really interested in knowing what people thought and why, and this revolution happened. He hated the Soviets, but he had tons of Soviet propaganda literature, which was interesting.

Yes.

He had tons of left wing and right wing, mostly left wing, actually, and he was not left wing, but- That was back when they were creative, when people on the left actually were artists and thinkers, and they were open-minded. He would always defend people whose politics he hated if they were creative. He would say, This guy's an asshole. I think these ideas are horrible, but man, look at the songs he wrote or the novels he produced. Do you remember that?

Yes, very well. Clearly, yes.

That counted in your favor?

Yes.

That's gone.

It seems like it.

I didn't even know this until you… I can't believe we're actually doing this interview. I'm so glad.

I'm so glad, too. Thank you. Could I ask you an ALB question, by the way? Of course. It's the best nicotine product in the universe. Well, thank you, Buck.

I'm glad you noticed.

Yes, I did. I'm generally… This is the problem I have. I'm generally double barreling or sometimes triple barreling.

Those are nines? Yes.

I'm looking forward to the twelves.

On the question of nicotine, would you say, and I know it's hard to assess yourself, but would you say you dick around?

If I like it, I like it. I really like this a lot. Although it's... So this is the question I have, where does one tuck it? I know where people tuck the Zin. I get that. They stuff it. Yes, they stuff it. By the way, they should be more upfront on the labeling on the Zin. I know. They should actually tell you that. That's why it tastes like shit. That's why it's like D They're hydrated. They forgot to tell you it needs mucosa, but a particular type of mucosa to activate. Yeah, they got it wrong.

I think they're expecting the Bangladeshi guy in the convenience store to tell you and to hand you the KY and the surgical glove and just be like, I think you know how this works. It's like when they have those little crackpipes at the counter with the flour in them and like, No, it's not a crack pipe. I think they're… It's not an instance burner. It's a whistle.

I think they're expecting…

If If you're using Zin, you know how this works.

Yes, exactly. You know what I mean? That's a good point. That's why I actually feel like a bit of an amateur asking this. But I talk to people and all of a sudden I feel like my Biden, my upper palate is coming out. Your Biden? Biden. The fake teeth I have up here. Anyway, sorry.

I try to rotate them around because there are parts of my gums that get neglected. Yes. I believe in sharing the wealth.

Yes. Plus there are different taste buds throughout the entire topography of your tongue and cheek.

Well, it wasn't that long ago that many Americans thought they were inherently safe from the kinds of disasters you hear about all the time in third-world countries. A total power loss, for example, or people freezing to death in their own homes. That could never happen here. Obviously, it's America. People are recalculating, unfortunately, because they have no choice. The last few years have taught us that. When the power grid in Texas failed in the dead of winter? Yeah, it happened, and it could happen again. So the government is not actually as reliable as you hoped they would be. And the truth is, the future is unforeseeable, and things do seem to be getting a little squirly. So if the grid does go down, you need power you can trust. Last country supply's newest product is designed for exactly that. The GridDoctor is a 3,300-watt battery backup system that will power full-size appliances, medical devices, and tools with clean, reliable power. It's even EMP-protected. That means it's shielded from lightning, solar flares, or an actual electromagnetic pulse event. There's no gasoline, no noise, no emissions. You just plug it in, charge it from the wall from your vehicle, or from the included 200 watts solar panel, and keep going day after day, taking care of yourself and the people you love is solely up to you.

The amazing thing is with these new batteries, we use one at home, by the way, is they're super easy to use. There's no invertor you need to figure out on the front of it or anything like that. There's three buttons. It's very easy and totally reliable. Highly recommend. We literally use one, as I said. Visit lastcountrysupply. Com to shop The Grid Doctor for power you can trust this winter. Lastcountrysupply. Com. Are you surprised since we're only really a year apart? We grew up and our father always treated us the same. It was never like, listen your brother. It was a fully egalitarian household in a way that also doesn't exist anymore.

I'm sure that was frustrating as the oldest I'm sorry.

I never even questioned it. It was like we had the same bedtime, same rules. There were never any difference at all in the way that he treated us.

Same buddies.

Which is one of the reasons we've always gotten along our whole lives because he treated us fairly. By the way, if you want to make people hate each other, treat them unfairly.

Oh, I've noticed.

Like institute affirmative action or DEI, and you will have serious race problems. But we never had anything like that. It was a pure meritocracy in house with a quality at the center of it.

The most intuitive accidental father there has ever been. I mean, this was a man who did not strive to be a dad. No. He ended up being pretty much the best father ever.

The details of my conception have always been a little bit hazy, but I did get the- I don't think they were legal.

I don't want to know. I'm sure they were creative. Everyone's dead, so it doesn't matter. Everyone's dead, so it doesn't matter. I know. I can't. Sorry.

I can't even think about it. But my strong impression just from comments picked up over the years that was not intentional at all. The whole thing was not intentional.

I got that sense. It was intentional by God. Yeah. It was God's plan.

I totally agree with that. The closest I ever got to asking pop about it was he obviously married a complete lunatic, and he was such a smart person, and he really understood women and loved women and really paid close attention to women.

Boy, did they love him?

They loved him. He loved them, not just in carnal ways, but he thought they were really interesting. I listened to them all the time. He had such deep wisdom about I once said to him- Boy, isn't that true? He was the deepest on women, and it was out of love, like true love. He thought they were amazing. He also loved them in other ways. But whatever. But anyway, I once said to him, Given your deep knowledge of women, how could you have married a really crazy one? How did you do that? He goes, They're upsize. That's all he said.

I was like, I don't want to hear anymore. It was clearly never boring.

Right. No, I guess that was it. I'd go with, yeah. Well, they're never boring once you engage with them. They're amazing.

But she had a lot to say, especially in public settings.

Yeah, I can't imagine. Yeah, I can't even get it. I'm sorry, I don't even know where we were.

No, I'm not.

One thing I wanted to ask you was, is When we were kids and everyone in our family, I know this is so forbidden, this is more forbidden than Israel, but everyone in our family smoked cigarettes, everybody. Everyone, they knew, smoked cigarettes. The question was filter or non-filter. Of course, our was strongly on the non-filter side. Really gay or straight.

Yeah. I mean, come on. They used to call them straights for a reason. Yes, I remember. Camels straights were the best cigarette ever made.

That's literally true. And Papa would always say, It's important not to have a filter in your cigarette because when you're behind enemy lines, do you remember? You can field strip it. You can field strip it. You can field strip it. You break the butt.

Done it many times.

Roll up the paper, flick it away, then the enemy will never know you were smoking American cigarettes.

They'd only know you're American if you died and they saw your dental work. It didn't make a lot of sense.

But anyway, in our family, people were very strongly in favor of cigarettes and tobacco. It sounds so forbidden now. Then we were all convinced this is so bad because America is killing itself. If we can only get people off this, everyone's going to live forever. Is it a little weird? I don't smoke. I'm not endorsing smoking that strongly, but- I'm considering going back.

I know, I am, too, actually. But whatever. For this, I reached yesterday. I literally stepped over a dog. I was talking to my girl, stepped over a dog to join her in a booth in a restaurant, and I reached in my pocket to grab my Zippo. It's been 12 years since I've had a Zippo in my pocket. Seriously, I was about to light a smoke. We'd had a pizza. It was fantastic. I was like, I know what's going to cap this off, a camel straight.

Can you even buy them anymore?

Even in South Carolina- I'm lying. I actually know. I bought it. Even in tobacco states, do you know how much it costs? Oh, my gosh. For a deck of cigarettes?

How much?

It's 12 bucks in South Carolina. It's $21 in the district of Columbia. Yeah, $21 for a deck of smokes. I walked in a circle, the other day. My girl still smokes. God bless her. I walked in and I bought her some cigarettes and the guy said, ID. I laughed. I pulled out my wallet and I said, It's funny. What's funny? And I said, That's what the guy said. I said, Well, I've been buying since I was 11, and they cost a dollar. Do you think it's funny to make fun of people in the retail business? Said, Dude, I'm not making fun of you. I'm making fun of the stupid rules. Yeah. Yeah. He had no sense of humor. I don't know.

But you can buy benzodiazapine. It's cheap.

You can buy weed in any store. You can buy it online. You're encouraged to smut pod. You're encouraged to do mushrooms. You're encouraged to do mezcal or any other stuff. But you're the greatest in America. You're probably encouraged... Well, you are encouraged to have touchy feely love with the people in your gender. But if you're a cigarette smoker, you're literally the dirtiest pariah in America. Actually, that attitude is overwhelming now, but it was still around 12 years ago when I quit smoking. If it hadn't been, I would have quit smoking probably 15 years ago. I would have.

I mean, the obvious- So you smoked in I did.

I smoked aggressively with joy. I did. I loved smoking, and it made me smarter. It made me nicer. It made me a lot happier. Not only your constant companion, but also like a self-defense weapon or an aggressive weapon. If you've got a lit cigarette on you, you're a force to be reckoned with, I would say. Plus, are you ever alone when you have a cigarette? No.

You sound so much like our father because, of course, he did once wield a cigarette in self-defense.

I had to do that, too. You did it, too? I most certainly did. Maybe-not on someone's cheek, but on their wrist, I held their hand because he was holding my hand. I remember. It was like my second job, and he was a guy who had a married guy, Christian, self-avowed, loudly Christian. He had cute kids and a nice wife, and he put his hand on my knee. I said, Can you move your hand, please? And he didn't.

He was hitting on you?

Yeah. At a company picnic. The first week, I was on the job, and I said, Please remove your hand from my knee. And he didn't. So I grabbed his hand, grabbed his wrist, and put my cigarette out on his hand. It was a Saturday afternoon, and I had had some cocktails. But I also felt completely justified in doing that. I did it, and he pulled his hand away. I remember, sorry to go down this rabbit hole, but I thought about it soberly on Sunday and Monday morning as I was going into the office, I thought that there could be real repercussions for doing this. He was like the chief of staff of the organization. It was a political organization, and he wielded a lot of power. I went in, and I remember I was doing some copying some document, and I was standing in the break room next to the Xerox machine, and he came up to me and he said, I can't believe you put a cigarette out of my hand. I said, I can't believe you touched me and you wouldn't let go. That was it. We had a staring contest, and then he was lip-girled and he looked down and walked out.

I never heard anything about it. He never told anyone. I think it is fair. I think that's called gay bashings. No, I think you are recklessly or... Yeah, you're without proper defense when you don't have a cigarette. You should have a cigarette with you at all times, even if you don't smoke. That's my attitude. Seriously, I want to bring back smoking because actually smoking without the filter is probably pretty flippin good for you.

I have a lot of views on this. I don't want to articulate because I don't want to seem crazy, but I tend to... I'm sorry. I mean, we were certainly raised thinking that, and our father considered filter is a really bad thing. Smoking does whatever, a real mother-to-child lung cancer. She smoked unfiltered. Pell-mels.

She engaged in some other activities. That may have been responsible for her cancer. I think when you're in the dark side and you get cancer, it makes sense.

What do you mean?

I think if you lead a life of extreme narcissism, and you are completely self-focused, and one, it's unhealthy, two, it's unhealthy outlook and the people around you suffer. But I can't imagine you as an individual don't suffer. Now that I'm 54, and I'm old enough to actually witness people who've lived their lives this way, and I mean self-focused all the time, not one of them is healthy. Physically, mentally, it's stifled. It kills something in someone. It's like, not to tag people who aren't able to have children, but people who've... Men who've chosen not to have children. They reach a certain age and they are intractable in ways that are damaging to them and those around them. She was not a man, but she had that same problem. I think she like...

Was drowning in like me.

Yeah, drowning in like me. Exactly. Totally asphyxiated on herself.

You made reference to dogs. You've conceded that you have five. You think five is the perfect number. You were describing your childhood and you pointed out the omnipresence of dogs. As a highlight, why are dogs important?

Well, dogs, I I think I've thought a lot about this aspect of raising children with dogs. I think it's important because your children are the center of your universe, as they should be. But the last thing you want to do is convey that to your children.

That's a good way to fuck up your children.

Having dogs around and instills in them. My first loving relationships were with my very small family, of which you're half, and dogs. We had a lot of dogs around all the time. All the time. There are people, I mean, have written endlessly and talked endlessly about how wonderful dogs are, but I don't think they talk enough about how wise dogs are and how dogs are clued into a communications channel that most people are not picking up. My dogs know what I'm going to do long before I do it. They know exactly my intentions. It's weird. If I'm working in my office and I've got four dog beds in my office underneath the desk, and if I got up to go- Where does the fifth dog go? Three of them are shamefully small. So two of them Two of them, anybody else's brute, I'd say those are pseudo dogs, but actually, one of my small dogs is an incredible relentless. Actually, you know her. She was a gift from you. She is- A hunting dog. That's my defense. She's a hunting dog. She's got autism. She is bad. She is the most well-meaning- Yes, she is.

She means well. 100% good-natured and happy.

Pretty good in the quail field, I will say.

She also has unairing aim. She will hit you right in center mass every time she sees you. I have more scars from that dog on my face. In fact, in the morning when I wake up, I now have started putting lightning collars on three of the five before I even let them into the backyard, which is actually It's impressive because it's dark. I've had no coffee. I'm usually naked, and I'm affixing lightning collars to three dogs, one of whom continually bounces up and slams me in the face with her snout. It's amazing. Anyway, dogs are an endless source of joy and affection.

Well, actually, even today, I was telling, because it's Christmas or everyone's at the house, or a lot of people are at the house, your relatives are at the house, and Uncle Bucks could be, Oh, is he bringing? Because I've never seen you travel. I don't think a single time ever in life without at least one dog. You always bring at least one dog.

But you're dogless today. She's vocal, and she's not very respectful to expensive camera equipment or genitals. Yeah, no. If I was a smoker, it'd be great because then I'd keep her at bay. But all she'd need is about 6,000 cigarette burns and then. No, I know. I don't think that would work. No, I don't think it would either.

But you are surrounded by dogs. You work with dogs. As I just said, you travel with dogs. You are inseparable in the minds of everyone who knows you from dogs. They have great insight, you said. That's one of the main reasons they improve our lives.

I think so. I talk to my dogs and they understand me. My dogs have actually a better understanding of the English language than I think most people I deal with outside of this room. They're so much smarter than people give them credit for and wise and kind. Of course, it does remind me of the great little joke, Lock your dog and your wife in the trunk of the car, come back after three days and see who's grateful. The answer to that is always not your wife. So they're forgiving. They are actually the essence of purity, I think. Even though they're not capable of a artifice, a dog will never pretend to be happy when it's not. They have no sense of vanity. They're perfectly willing to display their immediate and current emotion at all times, and their emotions are almost exclusively loving. Now, I have a predator. I have a three-legged predator.

What a wonderful description. Boy, I couldn't have matched that.

Well, it's true, don't you think?

Oh, it's so true. I mean, I have five dogs at my house right now, too. I'll just get that.

You're winning the grand dog competition, I would say. I'm not about to render an opinion about which is best, but my gosh.

Can I just say, not to make this into a cultural thing, and I know that there are other, I'm sure that there are other cultures that feel the same way. I don't know what they might be. But the culture that we grew up in, which was a culture, was... I mean, none of these were even questioned, like dogs and other things, politeness, bravery, loyalty. But dogs in that lit. That was just unquestioned. Dogs were at the center of the culture, not just the family, but the culture we grew up in.

Very much so. Oh, very much so. I never saw our father cry except when our dogs died. Yes, that's correct. And I got a little more emotional as I've gotten older. So I've occasionally shed a tear about something other than a dog dying. But I've never been as affected by death as my various dogs death. And I'm also convinced I'm convinced, 100%, that my capacity for joy is less than it was before my last dog died. But I'm also convinced, 100%, that we will see them all again. I am convinced of that, too. We will be reunited. I have a particular dog that you know who was, what's the phrase you use, a lifetime dog or the special dog?

Now, you agree that everyone has one of those. If you You have enough dogs. There's always a dog where you're like, Oh, I'm never going to have a dog like this again.

Yes. And boy, do I love my dogs? And unlike raising children where you could never indicate which one of your children is your favorite, not that that ever exists. No. With dogs, I think it's completely the opposite. My strategy is to convey to each and every one of my dogs privately that they are my favorite. So every one of my dogs is going around me like, I'm dad's favorite. I know you engage in a little bit of that. You've got to. Anyway. I do the one with my children, by the way.

I think they all have that impression. I hope so.

They are. Gosh, they are.

But yeah, you had a dog. You had that lifetime dog. I have many pictures of that dog on my phone, not my dog, but I felt real love for that dog. My favorite picture of that dog was called Bella, was in the dog park in the Rich lady dog park, directly across the street from our house in Washington, that we both used every day. They're always a million ladies in the park. They're all nice. I don't mean to attack anybody, but they're all a little bit up tight. Went to HBS, but now they're staying home to raise their kids. Very methodically.

That thing. Let me look it up. Let me look it up.

And your dogs have never been with that program at all. They're off-leash dogs. They are off-leash dogs. And that one dog was an amazing hunter, Finish Spitz. And this dog had killed a squirrel and has in her mouth this squirrel is like...

This was a black squirrel. A black squirrel. And she was this deep, beautiful red. And just the contrast from a photographic perspective was powerful. I had that on my screen saver for years until my son got old enough to notice that his picture wasn't on there.

Can I tell my one dog park story, which is family lore, which is my favorite story, which I've told at many dinner parties about you?

Which one? It's not a bad one.

No. In DC, of course, our parks, it's a federal zone, so our parks are policed by park police, actual park police.

Oh, yes, they are.

Yes. Sometimes they're horseback.

Yes.

This specific dog park was, I mean, when I say it was across the street from my house, I could see it from my bet, it was right there. It was no where to have it.

But it was extensive. It went miles, actually.

We have an amazing park system in Washington, and this was called battery Kimball. Yes. It was a Civil War battery. Beautiful park, beautiful part of the city. You would walk your dogs there every day, and you had a million dogs as always, and you never leashed them because you're a free man, and this is America.

They're well-behaved. They don't bother other people. Well, I don't know. Generally. Pretty responsive dogs they are.

Yeah, they call the wildlife a little bit.

Oh, that's for sure. Well, I don't know. That's your responsibility when you're walking. It is the food chain, isn't it? I'm sorry. If you can't handle it, get of the park.

Dude, I'm with you. I remember when this happened, but every woman in the neighborhood is probably still talking about it.

Oh, this isn't a city rife with all sorts of other crime. Every time, I know it's not this story, but every time I was accosted by someone and the next door, that silly next door online thing. Pre-covid in a city that has overwhelming physical and property crimes, the most prevalent complaint on that listserv I saw someone walking without a leash, and this is a terrible thing. And literally, that would garner the most commentary from any next door post.

We need better rich people in this country. Yes. That's the number one thing we need. Yes.

Well, they need some hardship because complaining about shit like that. I agree. It's not only picayune, but repulsive.

It is repulsive. I totally agree. They have no self-awareness at all. They're all like that.

But anyway. My universal response, I'm sorry to interrupt you. My universal response to them and to authorities who would occasionally incostume me would be. I'm so relieved. You've solved all the other problems in DC, all the other crimes. There are no rapes, there are no armed robberies. Cvs isn't being ransacked on a daily basis. Thank you. I really appreciate. I'm so glad you solved that problem. Now we can deal with lesser crimes like leashes. My gosh.

They did not appreciate the lecture. No, they didn't. After many such lectures from you, they decided to arrest you, and they told you that if we catch you again without a leash, you're going to jail. Sir. Sir. Then you get approached by a couple of these officers, I think on horseback.

I was walking through a beautiful meadow at about 10: 30 in the morning, absolutely déserted, and I had four dogs with me. We got all the way to the end of the Meadow, and I heard someone say, Hey, hey. Someone clearly yelling, not like they needed help, but like they were trying to get my attention. I'm sorry, I don't respond to that. I turned and I saw it was on a slope, this Meadow, and I could see these blue helmets coming up the Meadow. The horses weren't even visible. Helmet. Helmet. I kept walking and then I was- You went peacekeepers.

Exactly.

I kept walking, and then I was in the middle of the forest on a small, beautiful path. I kept hearing this female, male voice, hard to determine, was rather masculine.

But also feminine.

Flipping been hysterical, so it could only have been a soy boy with a gun or a very masculine check. It was. It turned out to be three cops, three park policemen on beautiful, very expensive horses with tidy helmets on. They yelled at me for a good half mile. They finally caught up to me. When they were about, when this trio was about- You made them just yell at you and chase you? She completely ignored them. I'm sorry, it's my park. I'm a federal taxpayer. I also live in DC. This is right. Don't we fund that park? We fund their salaries. I'm sorry, I have a bit of a sense of entitlement about two things, nicotine and dogs. That's it. I was minding my own business in our park. They were persistent and yelling. When they got to be about 75 yards away, she lost her cool completely. She yelled and said, Stop or I'll tease your dog. I'll taze your dog. I'm sorry, that's just too much for me. I said, yelled because they were still far away. I said, You're not going to fucking taze my dog. You do that, and the real problem.

They were taken aback by it a little bit. They finally came- They hadn't met a man in a while in DC, is that- I guess not. I mean, too busy solving all the other crimes. They finally got up to me, and it was a very authoritative, squat, muscular woman who was the authority figure, and then two men, men who were embarrassed. I made them further embarrassed because I said, first of all, don't speak to me like that. Don't ever speak to me like that. Don't threaten my child. She didn't like that, but she backed down a little bit. I actually had the moral authority. I was in the right and they were absolutely in the wrong. I did what you're supposed to do in a situation like that is I met and exceeded their aggression significantly. To the point where I asked their badge numbers, asked their full names, give it to me now, pulled out my phone. I was totally obnoxious, but also in the right. I said to those men, How can you tolerate this? She's your boss. She's telling you. Oh, and these guys, literally at the end of it, this is probably a three or four minute exchange.

They ended They gave up, and they walked away. I was on this beautiful ledge that had railroad ties every three or four feet going down into this stream, into this valley. You'd have no idea you're in the middle of DC.

It was such a- It's an incredible It's an incredible park.

I agree with that. It's incredible. They went ahead of me. She in the front, steamed, literally coming off her. Then these two extremely embarrassed men, and they started going down. Well, Their horses decided this would be a great opportunity to leave some indelible artwork on the path. When a horse goes to the bathroom, it's not a subtle thing, especially when they're walking down a hill. They deposited, I don't know, 26, 27 pounds of artwork right there on the path. They had to go slow because it was one of these winding paths with railroad ties, and they were stuck. They were slowly trying to go down. The horse is shitting on the way there. I was yelling them the whole time. Hey, pick that up. What's wrong with you? I can't believe you're leaving that behind. Who's going to clean up after you? I am so surprised. Actually, they did not shoot me. I was expecting it. Actually, I really was. It was worth it. It was so worth it. Actually, I was enraged. I was still enraged to the point where... Excuse me. Biden is coming out again. By the time I got back to my car, and that was probably 15 minutes later, I I remember this clearly, I had gone to one of the best sandwich stops.

I had a meeting downtown, and I was running my dogs first. I had stopped and I'd gotten some clam chowder from Beauvau's Place. I can't think of- Jetty's. From Jetties. I had a container of clam chowder. Yeah, they had good chowder. I was so agitated. Even by the time I got back to my car, which is 15 or 20 minutes later, I opened up the top of the clam chowder and promptly launched it into the air where it came and landed on my dashboard directly in the air conditioning unit. In fact, that Chevy Tahoe has smelled like clam chowder for literally the next three years. It was disgusting.

Until Patrick flipped it on an IC.

Until Patrick flipped it and broke his neck. But I don't normally hold on to anger for very long. I've got a reasonably quick wick and I can get pretty hot, but it dissipates fast. This didn't. I was still mad 25 minutes later, and I drove. I think I pushed my meeting back. I had to drive downtown. I think I texted them. I was like, I had a bit of an emergency. I'm going to be a half an hour late. I drove around the entire perimeter, at least that western perimeter of that park, looking for the telltale sign of the horse carriage, because I actually really did want to record their names and make a formal complaint. Not that it would have gone anywhere, but or write a piece about it. I don't know. But it would have made me happier. I didn't find them.

I looked for them. So everyone, I should say for the fifth time in our tiny little, very cohesive neighborhood where we spent most of our lives and know every single person, almost everybody disapproved of this behavior from you because it was disruptive and you weren't getting in line with everybody. I never, of course, felt that way because we grew up together with the same attitudes. But now I think that if eight more people in our neighborhood and 800,000 more people in our country had taken that attitude, we'd be in much better shape than we are now.

Amen. Amen. At three, more people would have been able to dominate that town, dominate that neighborhood with that attitude. You're totally right. Because people are... I'm not some great student of human behavior, but I do observe it. I think that people, again, As we talked about earlier, I think people who are cowardly hate themselves for it and are hostile towards those who express themselves or embrace their freedom. In America, land of the free home of the brave. I mean, not anymore. More, clearly. But I think people are waiting to be galvanized by someone who's willing to say, not saying I'm that person, but they need someone to rally around. Trump was obviously that guy. That's obviously part of Trump's appeal that he was that, Hey, fuck you. This is what I believe, and I'm not going to back down guy. I think our country used to be full of people like that.

Yes, it did.

They were real heroes in this country. This country didn't have an easy time of it for the first couple of hundred years. The only people who exercised real power and authority were men who were courageous and willing to speak their mind and willing to follow through also and other people, but whatever. Leadership quality is that you just don't see in America that often.

I couldn't agree more. One of the hallmarks of that society is in decency. One of the things you notice about brave men, our father being the bravest person I think either of us ever met.

He was totally- Eighty-four years old, never saw him one time express fear in any situation.

In any situation.

Physically, intellectually, nothing.

I saw a few where He could have, and he did, including when he died totally unafraid, totally uncomplaining, totally unmedicated.

Totally undiminished.

Totally undiminished. Both of us were there. Yes, no, I agree with that. But that was the twin to, that was the flip side of his decency and kindness. He didn't hate himself. He had no reason to. If he made a mistake or did something wrong, which he did, he'd be like, Wow, I did something wrong. I'm really sorry.

He was genuinely inquisitive with other people and kind.

And interested always.

And thoughtful and interested. And interested. Oh, his favorite thing was talking to... I mean, he loved to talk and he told the best stories around, but he loved people.

Oh, he'd get back from dinner parties when we were kids. I'll never It was always a woman, of course, because as a man, you sit next to a woman at a dinner party.

Thank God.

I met the most amazing woman. She grew up in some weird country and did this, and her dad was in the OSS. That was a theme. It was always some intrig, always. But he was so interested in other people and so passionate about it. Their stories were as exciting to him as his story.

Yes. He paid attention to the details.

Very close attention. He was an amazing listener because he was really interested. Anyway, I I think his decency, his love of children, animals, his family, his wife, people he sat next to dinner parties, that was all related to his total fearlessness in a way. Yes. Do you know what? I can't quite articulate it, but I know- I think you did.

But you know, no, but he was so self-confident because he used all the talents that God gave him to the extent that he was able. I mean, he never passed up an opportunity ever, to do anything interesting or adventurous. That is literally true. That was his law, and it's so attractive.

That was his law. That was his law. Have an interesting life. That's the only instruction I got. Me too. Yeah. He constantly... I remember when you got thrown out of boarding school, and the only family drama I ever remember was, would pop be able to force you to join the French Foreign Legion? He was dead set on forcing you to do that in case you don't remember.

I do remember, and I don't remember being resistant to it.

It wasn't you.

No, I'm aware.

No. No. No. No. Man. You weren't against it, but you were when you got tossed, how old were you? 17, maybe? I was 17. Yeah. He checked at the head office in Marseille. I'll never forget this. 17 was old enough to join the French Foreign Legion. I'll never forget coming home for Christmas or Easter or some vacation where we were all home in Georgetown. He was like, Well, your brother is going to join the French Foreign Legion. I was like, Is this real? You were like, Yeah. He fucked up at school. He got thrown on a boarding school. He's going to the French Foreign Legion. It's a six-year commitment, but by the time he gets out, he'll only be 23. Imagine, you'll be able to see all of his friends, I spent six years in the French Foreign Legion. I've got a fake name and a new passport, and I served in Djibuti. I wasn't these wars? Isn't that great? I was like, Yeah, that sounds great. You're like, Yeah, I'm totally fine.

Thank God for female wisdom and strength, actually. I think it would have been great. I probably wouldn't have survived it, but no, thank God for mom. He was so all in.

I'll never forget that.

So all in.

He knew people who had done it.

Oh, yes.

Speaking of, without even getting into it, but I think both of us have taken an awful lot of shit about whatever he did for a living, and it's not even totally clear. But let me just ask a general question, not about him, but about the world that you grew up in. You were what, 14 when we moved to Georgetown, Maybe-ish.

Thirteen?

Thirteen. Thirteen? So you spent your entire life in Northwest DC. You never left, except to go to Maine, obviously, but full-time. You're living there. In a world that... I mean, you literally lived in a house that our father purchased from a CIA officer in cash. Yes. Right. Everybody in our world was involved in that stuff. Then you have had jobs where you rubbed up against people in the intel world.

Yes. A lot of jobs, though. Common, probably in DC. But yeah.

That's the point, actually, that I'm making.

Yeah. Everybody- I wouldn't be bringing this up if I thought you were...

Well, by this point in the conversation, I think everyone knows you're not working for the CIA. You're not compliant enough.

Have you seen my tax returns? Yeah. No, but- Who has. Who has, right, exactly.

But I guess my question is, did you know until relatively recently what a huge role intel agencies, foreign and domestic, played in the life of our country, not just the political life, but the civic life, the cultural life. Did you know that?

No. It reminds me what you said a little earlier in this conversation about not being aware of what's going on around you because you're steeped in it, of course. I worked for I worked for a corporate intelligence firm that was founded by all former spooks.

Who I knew, personally. Yes.

Good guys. Great guys.

Excellent shots, too.

We hunted with them. Holy smokes, were they? Yeah. Also, one of them died in the best death ever. Had grandchildren. His children were married, walked out of his... On K Street, walked out of his accountant's office, having received good news and had a massive life-ending heart attack right there on K Street. Crossed in the prime rib. Yeah, '76. Yeah.

I mean- He was a great man.

He was a great man. But Intel guy. Intel guy. Sorry, I think it's also important to mention. My attitude has changed like so many because of COVID, but even a little bit before that, I just had taken it on faith that we had a good government that was well meaning, that makes mistakes, but that was answerable to the people. I actually always thought that growing up. I generally didn't think what I heard from the government was a lie. I didn't think it was a manipulative let it fly. I remember, the most important thing that went on in our lives as we were growing up, the most important enduring conflict was the Iron Curdon and communism. I remember talking with you and others all the time about those poor people who live in the Soviet Union who have no access to real news. They have tasks and they have Zvestia, what was it? Zvestia Pravda. Zvestia Pravda. They don't have the freedom to go to church. Obviously, their economy sucks because it's managed by a government and that never works. But really, they didn't have access to accurate information. They had no access to any real news.

And further, they had been taught as a society terrible things about America and Americans. And specifically, we used to also talk after the Iron curtain came down, had the same attitude about North Korea. Here are these poor emaciated captives who can't leave their own country, who think these terrible and untrue things about Americans. And it was only a couple of years ago that I suddenly realized I had this epiphany. We're fucking North Korea. We are North Koreans. So much of what the government has told us throughout our lives about big events and small events are simply not true. Not just massaged, but like 180 degrees from truth and reality. Once you have that realization, it's very unsettling and dispirating, I think, and scary. Obviously, the election of 2020 brought it into focus. All of the suppression of Twitter and the New York Post piece from Miranda Devine on Hunter Biden, and all the false news about masks and the vax and everything else. I mean, the is endless and could go on and on. But no, to answer your question, I was not aware of it. I didn't pay attention to it. I didn't suspect it, and I really had no reason to suspect it, actually, because life was different even a decade ago in America and certainly in Washington.

Now, it seems a certain air of desperation or something that they're clamping down to such an aggressive degree, even with Trump in the White House, which I wish someone would explain to me. I have theories. But anyway, and the fact that they used to be good liars, this is the thing I find the scariest, is they used to tell compelling, thought-out, well-fashioned, plausible lies, and they no longer do that. Now it's just, Hey, this is it, and you either accept it or shut the fuck up and we'll put you in prison or we'll take all your liberties away. I do think it's akin to finding the great debate, are you going to look under the bed or are you going to jump across the room and leave the door? It's like, once you look under the bed, you might actually find the monster. Now it's clear that our government is the monster in the end of the the intelligence agencies are the monster. Once you've seen it, you can't really not unsee it. That's really unsettling.

So nicely put. That's so nicely put. I'm trying to talk about it much because it's obviously way too personal. But the realization about the intel agencies has been one of the really big things for me. I can hardly even believe it. I can hardly believe it. I know that sounds stupid, but it grows out of a totally different understanding of the US government. I always thought it was inefficient. The problem with the US government was there were a lot of lazy people with guaranteed jobs and big bureaucracies don't function very well. They just don't work. But the spirit that animates them, which is a spirit to protect and improve the country, is unquestioned. They're not trying to subvert the country.

That's what I would think.

Maybe at worst, they don't care. Occasionally, you have a Soviet or Cuban spy, but that's really far out. You know what I mean? Or some drunk FBI agent with having an affair who sells secrets because he needs the money. But like- Human flaws. Human… Thank you. Human flaws. But never that there be huge parts of this whole enterprise that are working to destroy the society. It never even occurred to me.

No, me either. But it's clear that that's what's going on. It's clear.

It couldn't be clearer. It's accelerating. It's not decelerating.

No. No. It's demonic. It is. I actually don't even understand why that obvious observation, that obvious conclusion makes people, I guess it's a religious question. I don't know why it makes people not just uncomfortable It makes people super hostile. If you mention that certain motivations are demonic and that there are demons among us, I think I've always known that. I've just known that. It's just obvious. I've known it my whole life. It is obvious. You don't have to be around. It's like being always, as our father always said, trust your dog since. When you talk about it, everybody has it. All you have to do is pay attention to it. It doesn't even need to be that finely calibrated. I mean, if you have a weird feeling about a situation or about a person, you're probably right.

Yes. Trust it.

Yeah, trust it.

It's not random.

No, not at all. Every human has also had weird, out of the blue impulses to do things that go against their nature. All the time, this happens to me, thank God, it happens to me a lot, especially when I'm out in nature with my dogs. It's where I can clear my head. It's where I can relax and think away from my phone. I get all sorts of unbidden, unsolicited thoughts, impulses that I follow. Good things. Call this person, write this, do this.

We agree.

If I didn't have that in my life, I would be a mess. I would be more of a mess, whatever.

It's not just It's not just demonic.

It's not just dark stuff.

That acts on us.

It's God acts on us. Yes, very much so.

Boy, if I had the same experience, I guess my whole life, but I didn't recognize it for what it was until pretty recently. I certainly would never, as a wasp, I would never mention it because you're not... That's one thing you're not supposed to talk about your spiritual views, period.

In fact, it's such a rarity. I remember exactly where I was when I first had this conversation, and it was with you, and it was in the state of Maine, which is obviously wonderful, but also something about the state of Maine is very close to whatever's going on around us that we can't see. It's happening in Maine a lot more than anywhere else.

The membrane is thinner in Maine between this world and the next. There's no question about that. It's not a light state.

No.

It's a heavy state. You know what I mean?

There's a reason Stephen King, when he at one point had talent and one point had a God-given talent, because you can't read his early stuff. You can't read the stand without saying, this guy is using God-given talent. There's a reason That's the reason why all those books actually take place in Maine. It's not just because he's from Maine, it's because something going on in Maine.

That's been, I think, recognized for a long time. It exceeds my understanding. I can't even guess. I do know that the first trans-Atlantic television signal was broadcast from Maine in a town very close to us. Dish is still there. Dish is still there. I hunted next to it last month. I flew over it. Yeah, Patrick. But the point is, it's like there's something about its geographic location, its geography as well. I don't know, there's something about it. Yes. But we grew up in a world and in a culture that did not welcome conversations about spiritual matters, the transcendent.

No.

Yeah.

No.

That was It was a huge weakness.

We didn't talk about death.

No.

It didn't talk about illness. There were no support groups for illness.

I remember in the '80s, there was this black... Because Georgetown had been black or partly black, like 100 years ago or something. There was a black church on our street. Do you remember that?

Well, yes.

Like four blocks down on N Street in Georgetown. Of course, I didn't even know it was there, but our father knew it was there.

It's actually the end of Dumbarton.

It was the end of Dumbarton. Sorry, one block up. He was like, he just loved Black Church. Do you remember getting dragged to Black church with him?

I loved it, actually. I was never resistant to it. You'll never find nicer people with better music, great food, and a super welcoming attitude. No, I couldn't agree more. As I think church is supposed to be. It's such a departure from the... I won't mention the name of the church because I know family members of ours still go there, but I was baptized there and it was just too... It was beautiful architecturally, and that's about what it had to recommend it. Yeah, The pews had a nice patina from hundreds of years.

For the frozen chosen. Yeah, no, there's no question. But he would drag us to the black church at least once or twice a year. Let's go to Easter at the black church. They were always a little confused by what we were doing there, but he was so into it.

They were on board, though.

No, they were totally on board. No, to give them credit, they couldn't have been nice. They were like old fashioned Washington black people, the definition of like, respectful middle class people. But he liked it because they were just all in. They weren't beating around the Bush. They're for Jesus. Yes.

I think that's the only- Just unabashed. Yeah.

I think that was the only contact I ever had in my young life with Jesus at all. Were people talking about Jesus. Yes. Do you feel that?

100%. No, I mean, I've had a lot of reasons to have an awakening in my life. It was forced upon me in so many ways. God has come into my life and changed things that needed to be changed, excised certain patterns and behaviors that needed to be that I never could have done on my own, ever. I know, we both. I didn't think about it enough. I always had a reflexive faith. I always knew God existed I never question, but I didn't know a lot about... I still don't necessarily know a lot about the history of religion or the intricacies of certain scripture. But I read the Bible, I commune with other people, I celebrate God, I celebrate I celebrate fellowship, and I celebrate Jesus unabashedly.

I would say the other thing, the feature of the world that we grew up in was alcohol as part of it. Yes. It's cocktail culture. Absolutely. My favorite food growing up was tonic water and camembert.

We had so many cocktail parties in our house.

We have tonic water and camembert. That's true.

That's where that came from. Do you remember that?

Remember well. Tonic water. That's when you know your parents were going to have a huge too many cocktail parties.

Not many six-year-olds drink tonic water. I wonder if any six-year-old drink tonic water.

I don't think people even drink gin and tonics anymore, but they did in our house growing up.

Anyway. Boy, we come from a long line of ginahologs.

Of gin and tonic drinkers. We both got caught up in it, and I would see you a little more enthusiastically than me. You were epic, I think is the term people use now. Then as anyone who drinks overly enthusiastically, the people who love them start to worry. Then you just quit, didn't go to rehab.

No. I admire people who do. I think it's helpful.

I'm not criticizing it.

No, I didn't think you were. Actually, I had heard some fascinating stories at those AA meetings. It's been years since I've been to one. But I did have some concerned friends who'd gone through this journey themselves and who pulled me in, and I was receptive to listening. Not necessarily receptive to stopping, but receptive to learning more. I was flirting with it, flirting with stopping because you take those tests that they have and answer 10 of these questions. If you answer even three of them, then you've got a drinking problem. It was always like, I've answered yes on all 10. I could probably give you six more questions to ask. I'd had a few run-ins with the authorities, quite a few, actually. It had affected my life. Anybody ask you, Oh, do you think alcohol is affecting your life? Oh, gosh. I don't know. Let me contemplate that. I'd also reach... But principally, what happened was my son was born, and that was a tough pregnancy, an early birth. The moment I saw that child be born, I'd had a lot of preparation from you because you'd already had a couple of children and from others.

It was an aspiration for me for the entirety of my life to be a father. But the moment I saw that child be born and their purple and unattractive, my son urinated all over the doctors. It was great. I'm still very proud of him. But I remember unbidden, speaking of unbidden thoughts and emotions, the first thing that I thought when that child was born was, I'd fucking kill for this child. I would do it with relish. If someone ever threatened this child, there's nothing I wouldn't do. Anyway, he was born and he was young as a baby. My son has never seen me intoxicated, I'm happy to say. He's 24. I had my last cocktail 23 years ago in March coming up. Incredible. And talked about it and thought about it and had concerned people discuss it with me and had dialed back. But then had really an amazing, an epic weekend with my son's godfather, a great friend of both of ours, who came in from New Orleans and had three-day in Georgetown and got physically ill, and so did my wife. She had a full-on divine intervention where God spoke to her out loud and said, enough.

That was it, removed it from her completely. That's incredible. Completely. Then I was sympathetic on board with it because not only was I trying to convince myself that I should lay off it for a while, I was trying to get it to her. Like most, she was resistant. That day, I made the commitment, I'm going to join her. But then one of my great friends was having a bachelor party in two days. So I said, Okay, well, let's just get through this weekend. And then I'm committed. Oh, been there. And I did. I had my last cocktail. Actually? I had an engagement party of... God, a great guy. I'm spacing his name. I'll think of a second. You know him. He's a wonderful guy. His marriage didn't last, but he's around. He had a great party, and I had a couple cocktails, didn't get hammered. Then I said, That's it. Not doing it again. But it was divine It was an intervention for me, too, because he removed not only the desire to drink, but he implanted a revulsion for alcohol.

Yes, I feel that.

A physical revulsion where I could, to this day, 22 and a half years later, summon the taste of a great Goose Martini or someone the taste of a three-inch glass of Maker's Mark, and I could make myself vomit in 15 seconds. Also for that first year, no one ever talks about this, at least I've never heard anybody talk about this. For that first year, I couldn't sleep, sweating constantly, had horrible nightmares every night. The enduring nightmare that I still have, occasionally, I would say once a month, I'll be somewhere socially in my dream and I'll be talking to someone and I'll just reach and have a cocktail. As soon as it hits my mouth, I start sobbing in my dream and wake up really agitated and really upset with myself. But anyway, God removed the desire completely for me, and I've had a much better life since. Interestingly, I've never run. I could give you hours of stories about stupid and dangerous and destructive things I did as a drunk person. But I never have hooked up with an old friend that I haven't seen in two decades, have a meal, and they order a drink and, Oh, do you want to drink?

I'll say, No, actually, I quit drinking. I've never had someone say, What the fuck did you do that for? Really? You quit drinking? You loser, you quitter. No, no one's ever had that emotion.

You're the only person I know who's crashed an airplane, a speed boat, a motor cycle and multiple cars. That's literally true. That's just a fact. You're here.

I think we differ on the definition of crashing. I did not crash the plane. It was a forced landing, they call it.

Okay. Okay.

Well, force landing- No, I bear some responsibility for sure. But the plane survived. Completely unscathed.

Well, okay. In a clearing in a national forest. I'm just saying, and by the way, I'm not blaming you for whatever mechanical error forced your plane. But again, we could just take the plane out of it and we'd still have the motorcycle, the boat, and the cars.

Yes. I also once fell asleep while flying an airplane.

From drinking? Yeah.

Passed out in a really trafficked area, and I was aware that I was... When you're really, really, really tired, you can't hide it from yourself. You can slap yourself in the face. You can pinch yourself. I was a smoker at the time, and I was chain smoking while flying. I was in a traffic pattern, and I just couldn't keep my eyes open. Could not in an international airport in someone else's airplane. I kept nodding off.

Was anyone else in the plane? No.

I was by myself. It was really terrifying. I wrote a piece about it, actually, for a friend of mine who also subsequently quit drinking and started a webzine when those things were around. Yeah, it was pretty hilarious.

You fell asleep while flying an airplane.

What-multiple times. I was going on a local trip and I took off. I was tired. I was sleep-deprived. I had a friend, you know those friends who come and visit you? Oh, yes. And they never leave. And great company.

Amazing, especially after 5 PM. Yeah.

Well, he stayed for two weeks. And so we developed this great strategy where we'd drink all day on the beach and then go out to a wildly hedonistic meal. Then we'd get back to my apartment at 2: 00 in the morning. Then he would stay up smoking and reading so he could make sure that I got up at 4: 30 to go make it to the flight line. I was in flight school at the time. I did that for two weeks. He subsequently got alcohol poisoning. I think I did, too. But I was just exhausted. But I love flying. It was actually the only academic experience I've ever had that I was really passionate about. I love flying, and I was in a great flight school. I took it seriously. Not too seriously. Not seriously enough to quit drinking. Or to sleep. Or to sleep. But yeah, I showed up at dawn, flew places prone to massive fogmanks everywhere. It's flat. It's actually in the state on the Atlantic Ocean. The flight school itself shares an international airport with six carriers, big carriers. It's got a 10,500-foot runway. It's got north and south and east and west.

It's got a lot of traffic. I was wary. I'm feeling tired or exhausted. But it wasn't until I took off that I thought, This is bad. This is dangerous. I really can't focus and I'm falling asleep. I went about 10 miles north and came back because I didn't want it to be super suspicious, just take off. You have to basically declare an emergency to get back in the pattern in an international airport like that. I went north for 10, 12 miles and then called approach and said I was coming back and have to identify why. It was in the approach with 737s flying around and It was a very high trafficked airport. I was on a five-mile downwind or crosswind, trying to think, whatever. I was on a long approach to this airport and communicating with the tower on the radio. I would fall asleep in between communication. Cessna, November 6, 7, 8, Echo, are you there? Cessna, November 6, 7, 8. Echo, here. Oh, yeah. I said a lot of prayers. As I said, I smoked some cigarettes in that plane, and I pinched myself. I landed safely. Excellent landing, and got to the flight line and turned the engine off and promptly took a nap in the plane for like an hour.

It was bad. Then I I had a motorcycle at that time, too, and I hopped on my motorcycle and I went home and I was like, You got to go back to your real life, man. It's like one of my oldest friends. You got to leave. I can't sustain this.

So Then you wind up, you're a blackjack dealer on a riverboat in Mississippi. You work for a couple of different political candidates, a presidential campaign, and all nice guys. Can I say one thing? I'm not going to name them. You can if you want, but people you thought were impressive 30 years ago in politics, they're also discredited now. I know it's sad.

It is sad.

I don't want to be mean.

Not only discredited, but actually there was a much better stable of real candidates, real people. For one example, I briefly was a communications director at the Maryland Republican Party for six months.

You were communications director for the Maryland Republican Party? Yes. Imagine a Maryland Republican Party. It's like a different country.

There were 16 Republicans, even then, but they could still raise some money and they could make some noise because there were no other Republicans. Actually, it was great for me because I was the communications director, which really means I was writing nasty press releases and trying to generate lots of news. It's a fully corrupt state. There's a lot to talk about. No one's looking over your shoulder because it's Maryland. Really? I'd write the most incendiary stuff and occasionally generate some news on it. But I had license to do that. It was actually a really good launch pad. It was a nice brief experience I had with some really good people. They didn't have big aspirations, I don't think. I don't think you could stay at the Maryland Maryland Replicant Party. It's interesting. Quickly, I started then and I've written for now, for 25 years, I love writing speeches, and I write speeches for... I've written speeches of political candidates and aspiring political candidates and corporate heads. I love it. I think it's so fun and interesting, and I'm sure no one will do it anymore with the AI, but I hope that's not true. But anyway, whatever.

I could write good speeches. And one of the guys who actually was impressive in Maryland in the mid '90s was Michael Steele. Do you remember Michael Steele?

I knew Mike Steele, yeah. His sister married Mike Tyson.

I did know that. I totally forgotten. He's such a chameleon. He's such an unimpressive person. Now, it's hard to believe that I once thought he was impressive. He was articulate. I wasn't going to use Biden's- Was he clean, too? Yeah, he was clean, didn't smell bad, and he was articulate. I think that was Biden's quote. To quote Joe Biden, yes. He He's impressive. He's a tall man, and he's got a lot of energy, and your face looks you in the eye. No, that's totally right. He's a good handshaker. And he was going to be the face of Republican success, and he had a failed Senate campaign, whatever, 10, 12 years go by. And in a much different iteration in my life, I was writing still, but doing more interesting and more lucrative things than the Maryland Republican Party. And an old friend of mine named Lance Copsie, who's no longer around. I don't know if you remember him. He's a very well-rate guy. He's been gone like 15 years. He called me and said, Hey, I'm running Michael Steele's campaign for the RNC. Will you write some speeches for him? I was like, Hell, yeah.

Love to do that. I got paid to do it. I also believed in Michael Steele. I wrote Michael Steele's acceptance speech when he became the RNC chair. Not a huge deal, but fun. It was bigger then. It was bigger then. Then he immediately reverted to type, by which I mean, corrupt politician, and immediately blew $800,000 on redecorating his personal office.

He demanded a private jet because he claimed that Obama was President. He claimed that he was Obama's counterpart on the Republican side, and Obama had Air Force One, and he needed to fly private.

The incredible Well, nuts on that guy. He had balls. Yeah. But no interesting opinions and no principles. Zero. No foundation.

Then he figured out the white guilt lever. Yeah. He's like, I don't get a plane. Is that because I'm black? Are you saying that I'm lesser?

In his defense, wasn't Terry McAuliffe the D&C guy at the time? Probably. So he was probably looking at Terry McAuliffe's. Pretty good deal. Terry McAuliffe hadn't yet imported Chinese cars for visas yet, but he was living large.

Man, I didn't even understand how corrupt that world was when we lived in it. Then speaking of, you wind up working at basically the number two for a guy called Frank Luntz. Frank Luntz, for those who haven't heard of Frank Luntz, he's still around.

Oh, very much. Yeah.

It was the biggest polster in the Republican Party. More than just a polster, he was the message guy. How do we communicate that cutting capital gains taxes for donors is part of the American dream? Exactly. Or whatever. It's in the Constitution.

How do we soften all the environmental lunacy and make it palatable? Oh, let's call it climate change. You mean the fucking weather? No, climate change. Did he come up with that? Came up with climate change. What? Came up with death tax.

He came up with climate change?

Well, I say he, his team. I was part of for six years. Yes, I helped run that show with a couple of other very competent people. As you know, he's very complicated. He's like a walking dichotomy. He is occasionally brilliant. He's very smart, naturally. He's lazy, he's dirty, he's dishonest. Dirty?

What do you mean dirty?

His favorite food group is Thousand Island Dressing. Oh, come on. You just can't eat Thousand Island Dressing without getting it all over yourself. And the biologicals, which are supposed to be unmentionable, but with Frank or ever evident everywhere. It was disgusting. No, no, no. No, no. The personal hygiene is nonexistent. Are you serious? I could get much more graphic. Are you serious? I can't even tell you what his nickname around the office was. This is a guy who's walking around with literally a dead racoon in his head. Yeah. I know. I'm sorry. So many people said it.

Don't skimp on the hairpiece. That's like rule one. I know.

But he was brilliant in his business because, or at least the business proposition that he had, which was he understood. I'm not sure if you remember, there was a time... You really have to actually think back. There was a time in America where there was something called cable news. Yeah, I'd heard that. People took it seriously, and no one took it more seriously than Frank Luntz. Frank Luntz aspired not only to hang out with famous people, in really close proximity, but to be on TV. He He's very articulate and he's very aggressive. People occasionally say, Oh, that guy's Shameless. No, no, no. You've never seen Shameless until you've met Frank Luntz because he literally has no shame gene. There's nothing you could do to Frank Luntz in public to shame him. He's unshamable. But then again, part of the dichotomy is also super socially awkward and socially aspirant. He wants to hang around people, but he's autistic his eruptions, which are usually pretty funny. So he's very verbal, he's energetic, he's got limitless aspiration to make dough and be on TV, and he recognizes Actually, that's a pretty common thing in corporate America and on the Hill.

So he's very close with Newt Gimerich in '94, and he got a lot of credit for coming up with the contract with America. I think he was maybe a little bit... He was definitely very much involved. I don't think it was his entire baby. I think it was more Newt and the people around newt. But whatever, Frank weaseled in there, got a lot of credit for being part of the contract with America. Then, of course, the Republicans come in and they're in power for the first time in my lifetime. First time in, I don't know, 32 years or something, maybe 36 years. I can't remember the 94 election when Republicans got back into the House. It was the first time in three decades at least. Frank was there and his business model was, I will come up with language and words and speeches for members on the Republican caucus. I'll do it for free. Then I'll promote those messages in corporate world and make a ton of money with people who also want to be on television, corporate heads, excuse me, Fortune 500, Fortune 100, Fortune 50 companies. I'll go pitch them on some research project that will allow them to understand their customers better.

I'll incorporate the language that I'm devising and using for the benefit of Republicans He ingratiated himself with the Republicans at the same time he's ingratiating himself with corporate America all around this old, antiquated, now defunct medium cable news. It was brilliant. He He had no overhead because his entire business model relied upon getting people, even though he was incredibly label-conscious, he went to UPenn, he went to Oxford, he had an honorific doctorate that he insisted people call him doctor.

People call him doctor?

Oh, Dr. Frank Luntz. Yes, Dr. Luntz. I didn't call him Dr. Luntz. I won't tell you what I called him. I called him Frank, mostly. But this is so... Frank was rolling in the dough and didn't know what to do with it, and he's indefatigable in his entire life. There are things about him that I hugely admire, for sure. His relentless nature, his homelessness. You've never seen a pitch, ever seen a pitch. People talk about, Oh, he's such a great pitch man, and he knows how to go and speak to these prospective clients. No one does it like Frank Luntz, and with literally no preparation because his entire His entire strategy, I would call humiliate the executive. What? Yeah, humiliate the executive, generally in front of his underlings or a sub, not a CEO, but the guys who are angling for the CEO spot, the various vice presidents and stuff who are sycophantic towards the CEO. He would gather all the executives in one room, either a conference room or sometimes bigger, like a an auditorium inside a Coca-Cola's headquarters or DAO's headquarters. He would go and he would give a presentation. Five minutes into the presentation, he would identify one of the sub executives by name, and he would do everything he could to humiliate that person in front of all of his peers and his boss.

Come on. Yeah. This is a guy who actually understands the worst part of human nature because that does actually excite the sadist in certain people. Who gravitates to those jobs except people who, a lot of them, not all of them, but some of them have that gene. Like, oh, public humiliation? I love to publicly humiliate you. Every single person, if you could see the thought bubble above everybody's head, they're all saying, holy fuck, I'm so glad that's not me. At the end of his- How would he humiliate them? When he Oh, the most personal stuff. Their clothing, the asymmetry of their face, big earlubs. No, no. I mean, like... Come on. No, he was predatory, relentless, ruthless, and entertaining as hell. He's really facile with the English language. He's fast. He's super fast. I'll give him that. And very articulate. And man, he would go after them. And so at the end, he softened the entire. He would humiliate this. Actually? Actually.

At Coke headquarters in Atlanta?

Yes. I saw him do it at Pfizer. I saw him do it at Coke. I saw him do it. I mean, he did work for some impressive people, some huge companies.

You work for the Sacklers at Purdue Pharma.

I'm ashamed to say that I was involved in that. That's actually something I think about often, actually. I bought into the whole line. It's like, you're telling me before, did you know that the intelligence agencies played such an aggressive role in American life and elections? No, I didn't. I also really didn't know. It turns out I should have listened to a lot of the blue hair, vagina hat wearing- I know. Crazy women because a lot of the shit they said about the Iraq war, obviously true, about Bush administration, obviously true, only in hindsight, for me, at least. I dismissed them. I dismissed in a lot of the jobs I had because I did end up in a position defending some of the worst corporate interests in America. I believe that when people attack Big Pharma, for instance, or the Sacklers, they're really just against corporate world. They're really against capitalism. They're really... They're just communists. They're against America. Right. They're against America. I grew up thinking that, and it dovetailed well with my job because I ended I mean, they're not all evil, of course, and a lot of them employ tons of people and do good things, and we couldn't survive without them.

So I'm not attacking all of them. Gladly attacked the Sacklers and Purdue Farmer, though, because that not only, you know more about this topic than most. But you know it also dovetailed with an entire societal effort that they had, which I was very much a part of, to convince Americans that there is no such thing as acceptable pain. You cannot be in pain. You shouldn't be in pain. Someone needs to be responsible for your pain, and you need to eradicate your pain. That was what they were talking about in 1999, 2001, 2002, and 2003. They engaged in a society-wide campaign to convince Americans that pain was unacceptable, not just for chronic cancer sufferers or people who'd been injured in war or people who'd had back injury 20 years ago. You should not be feeling in pain ever at all. And there's a solution for that. And they obviously had this solution. Further, they're the ones, as you know, who maybe didn't pioneer it, but they took it to the next level, attacking the people that they'd hooked on OxyContin when they said, and I said, engage in a ton of research projects and jury messaging with that company where we'd go in and test messages and arguments, but really like a push-pull designed to not just gage public opinion, but to very much influence public opinion.

To implant messages.

Yes, very much so. Then, of course, because of his business model, he would use those messages, and it would be incorporated in thought leaders and elected officials around the country. They would use that same language. That was in its essence, you're not responsible for your pain. You shouldn't have pain. But further, this is not an addictive product. If you are addicted to it, it's because you've been abusing it. It's because you have some long dormant addictive thing within you that's now been released. You also probably have been abusing the product. Have you been hitting it with a hammer and smashing it into dust and snorting it? Well, that's on you. That shit's evil.

It is evil. You're thinking about it much more broadly than I ever have. I've always been focused on the addictive The physical addiction, the societal destruction. You and I both spend a lot of the year in a place that's been really, really...

Hallowed out.

Hallowed out by it. We know people, a very good friend of ours is now in prison because of drug addiction. Anyway, Whatever. We have seen it, both of us, but I have never really thought about what you just said, which is they were making a broader pitch about pain and how pain is always bad. I think if you any man, especially in middle age, looking back, has recognize that the painful moments are some of the best moments, the most important moments.

Absolutely necessary.

Absolutely necessary.

Failures necessary, pain is necessary. Including physical pain sometimes. Yeah, very much.

To say that our goal is to eliminate all pain That's evil.

Yes, I agree. I wish I had recognized it as such. I totally, I don't think I was... I think I was probably smarter back then because I was still smoking cigarettes. I I was younger. But anyway, I still didn't recognize it.

Lacking wisdom at that age, right?

Lacking wisdom.

Men in their 30s don't have the perspective that a man in his 50s has.

Yes, very much so.

Assuming he makes it.

Could I say one more thing about the Luntz thing? It was actually... Well, the business model was amazing in terms of it was very profitable, it was effective. He came up with some effective language. It's a quasi, it's a dual track research thing where you do quantitative research, actual polling, calling, polling was long before online polling, and then qualitative research with people in a group, a focus group. But he expanded it to six times the normal size. So your normal focus group has 8 to 10 or 12 people in it. Obviously, it depends who you recruit to be in that focus group. But then he expanded that to 60 people, and then he had an electronic dial, which was actually a dial, but he called it dial testing, where you could gage individual words and sentences in real time. Every single person in the audience is reacting to a speech, a speech which is littered with messages that you're testing, and they could react in real time to each word and phrase. It's a visceral reaction. Do you like it or are you repelled by it? It's pretty effective, actually. I think a lot of the language that he came up with was great But because of his total inability, because of his manic behavior and his dishonesty and his pension for yelling and screaming and treating people horribly, he didn't actually treat me horribly.

He lied to me a number of times, and I got into some big arguments with him. I was too young and unwise to understand you're not supposed to confront your boss and the way you would confront anybody else.

He's not a park ranger.

He's not a park ranger. I was more respectful of the park rangers, probably. The two men I felt bad for. But anyway, no. Sorry, I was trying to compliment him, which is all he cared about was the product, which was the written word. He never gave you enough time. There was no schedule. He was delused with clients, with high paying clients, and he was disorganized. He would rely upon... There was a period where we were handling 12 huge clients, and it was three writers or two writers and client handholders interfacing with the client because Frank wasn't good at that. He was very good at humiliating them and coming to the crux, understanding human nature to the extent that he could get someone to say, yes, I'm going to pay you a ridiculous amount of money for a research project that will take six weeks, and then allow me to understand my customer better. That he was great at. He was not great at allocating. He was not great at planning. And so the end result was a total beautiful meritocracy. You could only survive in that situation unless you produced. It was like, campaigns are like that, too.

I'm sure you know. Yeah, of course. It's like, doesn't matter where you came from, doesn't matter what you did yesterday or tomorrow. It matters that you fucking produce now on time. You can't... It's like in that old medium cable news. So you didn't have an opportunity to be like, I'm not done with my script. It's seven o'clock and you're going on the air regardless. It was the greatest part about it. It was the greatest part. That's what I'm saying. It was the greatest part about it because of that job, because you just had no room for failure. Every day was an opportunity to prove that you were up to the challenge. Then further, silly cliché but true, that, he's got an inch wide, mile long knowledge. I feel like that a little bit because I was compelled, as were the other guys I worked with, to absorb the details of something that's very complex, a particular business that I had never been involved in, or a policy, or some capability of a future product or something, initiative. You had to be able to speak about it, write about it articulately and compellingly on no notice at all.

I think that sounds like the best training.

That's exactly how I think about it. Despite the weird, and I wasn't trying to gratuitously attack. No. I wrote him a letter, actually, six years ago, and just contemplative letter saying, despite all of our differences, despite the various tensions we've had, despite the fact you fired me three times and then hired me back the next day and paid me more money, still not fairly. But despite all of those things, I thank because it was the best, most satisfying job I've ever had. Did he respond? No. No, of course not. No. Well, he- He had a stroke and it changed him, actually. Oh, that's- No, no. It actually, at his own admission, he had a stroke that he survived. Like all of us at a certain age, he has a terrible diet and leads an unhealthy life and had a stroke and it changed him. It actually made him more compassionate from- Good. Yes. No, he had that attitude.

So, Franklin, I remember, and I don't want to be... I feel sorry for Frank, and I love the fact that he's improved after his stroke, both that he's okay and that it's made him a better person. I do think that's common. I mean, as we were saying about pain, it actually can certainly improve me.

And he was aware of it, by the way. Can I tell you how I knew? No. I called him five or six years ago about some common interest that we had, and I shot him a text and said, Do you have two minutes? I just want to tell you something interesting. Let me tell you something interesting. So he texted me back, said, Yeah, call me. So I called him. First words, Hey, how are you? I was like, I'm doing great, man. Let me take... And he goes, No. How are you? I was like, I beg you. Is he hitting on you? No, I said, I beg you.

I have to put a cigarette out on his No, I said, I beg your pardon, Frank?

He said, No, I'm genuinely interested. How are you? How is your wife? How is your son? Do you still have dogs? I was like, Someone take over your body? Are you fucking serious? I've known you for maybe 28 years at that point. You've never once asked me a personal question, and that's just fine. But you're asking me how I'm doing? Are you okay? And that's when he told me, he said, actually, I had a stroke. And I said, oh, I'm so sorry. I was genuinely sorry to hear that. But yes, it had a good effect on him. And as I said, I am eternally grateful as I have expressed to him. Oh, of course.

No, of course. I feel that way about all my bosses, some of whom regularly denounced me. But I'm always grateful for every experience, and especially when you're young and you're learning a lot. I mean, it's amazing. I know, of course, I know Frank also. He was a fixture in a Republican world in DC. He was at the center of a Republican world in DC. I always feel like he had weird... He hated the wasps. Did you get that from him ever?

I did. I've encountered it before, but with him, it was very pronounced. I've encountered it a lot. Yeah, me too. Not just a hate, but an attraction also. Yeah, it was like, Let me sidle up next to you, and then let me stick a fucking dagger in your kidney. That was the attitude.

But there was something about that, the fact that you were a wasp triggered him, right?

He would talk about it.

Oh, actually?

Are you joking? Oh, he would talk about it all the time. Well, he'd make derogatory comments or derogatory complementary comments. It's a thing. It was an attraction and a revulsion or something. It was bizarre. What did he say? Well, he would just say nothing hugely creative, but he would say, Oh, that's what the wasps. Oh, you do that, or you've got to attack my name occasionally, or my dress. Yeah, that's a big one. I didn't wear a dress in the office very often, but only on- Only when you were going out with Frank. Yeah, exactly.

But he was fixated on that.

No, evidently, yes. Unquestionably.

Yeah, Bill was the same way with me.

I remember when Bill Crystal, if we may take a moment. Bill Crystal was a smart guy. Oh, yeah.

Not that smart, but clever.

Not that smart. He came across as a smart guy, a thoughtful guy, a compelling guy. It was weird. I used to respect him. Yeah. He's like a puddle.

Yeah, but I've learned so much. Yes, he's clever. He did a fair amount of reading back in the '70s in school. He went to Collegiate in New York, which was a really good school, a rigorous school. They went to Harvard, got his PhD, forced to do a ton of reading. So he had read Escalus. He had read Escalus, and he had read a lot, and Rousseau, and he could remember parts of it and half quote it. But what you realized, which was impressive, and I'm not against that. He had three lines of poetry he could probably do. But you realized over time that that was more a party trick than a reflection of his actual area addition, and that on the wisdom scale, there was none. He was really mission driven Yes.

Apparent now.

Apparent now. But it was not obvious to me because I was an idiot. He was smart, for sure, but he was not that smart at all. The mission was he hated Christianity.

Yes.

And he really, really hated it.

The mask is off now.

The mask is off now. But if I look back on this, he was opposed to American sovereignty. He was opposed basically to the population of America. He just really was hostile, a lot, very hostile. There were glimpses of it, but I just wasn't wise enough to understand what was going on. Plus, I was young and he was employing me, and so there were lots of incentives not to notice, but he was He was very fixated on the WASP thing with me. It would bubble up sometimes. I'm like, What the hell was that? It wouldn't occur to me to be like, I never really thought about him being Jewish, to be honest. I really didn't. He is Jewish, but I didn't think about it that much. He thought a lot about me being a WASP, though. There's no question. It would come out. Anyway, it's just interesting. I never have heard anybody mention that dynamic before, but I noticed that in once, too, because he would say stuff to me, too.

Yes, very much.

Wasps. I was like, Well, there's no meeting. Probably should be. Probably wouldn't have disappeared if there was, but- Things would have turned out a little differently.

Right. Get off the golf course. Yeah, get off the golf course.

Get some self-awareness, get a defense mechanism, but none of those are visible.

Respect yourself. Exactly.

Don't hate yourself.

Preserve what your ancestors built.

A hundred %. I do think that one... I don't deal with many wasps anymore because they really, really hate me. I'm sure you probably have the same experience.

Don't you think it's the The same dynamics? Yes. The self-loathing from cowardice.

Courdice leads to self loathing, which leads to hatred of others. I totally agree. If someone will hate himself, he's probably not going to treat me well. Yeah, exactly. That's what I think. They have a lot to be ashamed of in the cowardice department. I mean, these are the bravest people in the world who went over the top of the trenches, the wasps.

Yes.

There's a lot of lying about that, but their numbers are there in the first World War. Wasps, including our ancestors. A lot a lot of them. So, yeah, they had a lot of bravery. They seem to have lost that probably through comfort.

And booze.

And booze. Booze.

Sorry. And booze, sorry.

And booze. They know that, and they're shrinking little islands. Well, now they've almost shrunk to nothing, and they're mad. Do you take any shit from them when you run into them?

It's funny. I took some shit, actually, from Neil Bush, who was in an unimpressive family, probably the least impressive of family. Because the rest of them are charming, mostly.

There are a couple of them I like a lot. Me, too. I'm not going to shame them by naming them, but I know them.

Me, too. Well, I don't mind shaming Neil Bush because Neil Bush- This is George W.

's brother.

Yes, attacked me in the most passive-aggressive way. At dinner or something? At a fraternity party that my son's fraternity put on, which was a formal cocktail. I accidentally bumped into him backwards. I turned around and said, Oh, my gosh, forgive me. I'm so sorry. Then I said, Oh, Neil Bush. Hi, Buckley Carlson. Nice to see you. Met you in Washington years ago. Then he did something. He has this affectation about... He's not very smart, first of all. No, he's not. He has this affectation about him that you encounter occasionally. He said something really nasty about you and the content of your show. You were on that. I forgot what it's called. One of those channels. One of those channels. It was named after an animal that I really admire, but back when that medium actually mattered. He made some offhand comment, and I said, I beg your pardon. This went back and forth a couple of times. I was trying to be a gentleman. I had my son next to me and Neil Bush's son, who was a fraternity brother of my son. For the cocktail party, I'm not going to get in some argument with this guy, but I wasn't going to back down either.

I said, he was something about the content your show and what you'd said, but he wouldn't be specific about it. He said, Oh, no, I'm not judging. I just call it like it is. He must have said that six times. I'm not judging. I just call it like it is. I said, Well, Neil Bush. Really? He called it like it That's how it's done. What exactly, specifically, did my brother say that you don't agree with? Well, I haven't actually seen his show. I read about it in the New York Times.

He said that?

This, who's part of a family that... I actually, exactly, specific people in the family are quality and nice and deserve kindness. But the policies and the administration of George Bush was disastrous, and we're still feeling the effects of it today. I think about it often. I lived in Texas for a while, and I can tell you the people in Texas think about it all the time. They feel completely betrayed by that family and George Bush, specifically.

They have every reason to feel that way.

Yes, they do. I share that revulsion. But anyway, I'm sympathetic to the fact that he is a sibling, a non-public person, and a sibling of people and the son of a man who was attacked relentlessly by people who didn't have specificity in their attacks, didn't even know what they were talking about, and had no trouble attacking family members to him personally. And yet he's going to engage in the same thing with me. Exactly. Exactly. I thought this is... That's actually when it really came home to me that the wasps have not just lost, but that they've lost will and they've surrendered. Totally. They're unwilling to make a stand. The fact that he had adopted that leftist attitude without being smart.

Well, it's one of the things that there are a lot of good things about the wasps. Obviously, there are some bad things about the WASPs. But one of the good things was they were totally committed to fair fairness. At the heart of fairness is the understanding that we're born and will die and will be judged as individuals, not as groups. Therefore, we do not believe in collective punishment. The country was founded on that premise by WASPs. To abandon that is to abandon everything.

Especially when it's the last country on Earth that still believes that. Yeah, that's exactly right. It's important to defend.

To attack a man for one of his relatives. I mean, everyone in our family has been attacked for some other member of the family. We're I'm not very familiar with that. But I'm proud to say one thing I'm proud about our family is that no one would ever do that.

No, not a chance. No.

I'd be happy to have dinner with Yilamine's brother and never attack him for cannibalism because he's not the one who committed it that I know of. Well, Uncle Buck, I just got to ask you one final question. You've spent your life, I'm not going to violate your privacy by explaining some things you've done or places you've been or people you've worked with or whatever, because it's nobody's business and you'll divulge it if you want to. But you've had a really interesting life, but it's been a very interesting life. But it's been like our father, but it's all been very private. Haven't been in public at all.

No. Right. By design. I know. Oh, I'm aware. So, yes.

I'm aware. But now all of a sudden, you've just entered full-blown into the public debate online after 54 years of avoiding it. You certainly have I've seen stuff you could have added to the public conversation, but you didn't, and you've reserved it for a Christmas dinner at our house. So thank you for that. But now that you're in public, what's that like?

I hadn't anticipated it. Shox I'm shockingly calling Neil Bush dumb, I feel pretty dumb that I didn't anticipate that. But it's because I haven't had a governor, I've had the freedom to say what I want to say in the venues that I operate. I must say I've had a lot of fortune in my life, a lot of blessings, but principally in the business world, I've been able to work with some people. I have some long-time clients who are aligned, who are Christian, who are very smart and very loyal. They've allowed me to operate. My job doesn't demand. I write primarily. I come up with strategic stuff, but... Strategory. But I've been allowed to lead an independent and private life, and I've enjoyed it. I don't have any young children who I can embarrass or under my wing at the moment, so that's great. But again, I didn't anticipate it. But the other thing I would say is I'm not a coward. I love this country, and I really don't appreciate what's happening to it, what's been happening to it. It feels like there's a lot afoot. There's a lot going on that I don't necessarily understand.

But I feel like there- I'm with you. Yeah, there's a battle. There's a massive battle. It does remind me a simple thing ever. Someone said the other day, I don't mind saying who it was, he was great, Rick Warren, who wrote Purpose Driven Life, started listening to his podcasts. And boy, is he wise? And boy, is he using the tools that God gave him to communicate sometimes complicated things in a very simple way? And he said, At the end, we're going to have a final exam. And there are exactly two questions on that exam, and you can't avoid it. And it's, What did you do with my son Jesus? And what did you do with the purpose God gave you. Wow. That's a pretty sobering thought. Yes, it is. And once you have- It's true. I guess I'm middle-year-old, middle-aged, something like that. A little weathered.

Our father was more weathered than both of us put together. He made it a long time.

Yes, he did. But I don't know. Every man has an obligation to defend what he loves and to Practice that. I love this country, and there's something going on, and I want to play a role. I want to do battle. I want to do battle. That's that clear. Seriously. Seriously.

There's no one better. If I could just end with one vignette that's been in our family all this time, but I don't know, almost 10 years ago, I was at work because the time I was at work was public. When I was at work, Antifa came to our house, and of course, as I've said, we've always lived next to each other our whole lives. My wife was home alone, and all these people came and tried to bang through the front door and spray-painted her house. And you know, Tifa Mob came to our house, whatever. I was not even aware this was happening. My is in the pantry of the house. People are trying to break down the door. Dogs are barking. She does not call the police. She calls you first because everyone in our family would always call you first if there's a problem. And then she calls the cops. Well, the cops, for some reason, got there before you. Then you showed up as the cops were just pulling up, which meant that you couldn't shoot anybody and that you were mad for weeks after. I'll never forget the next day when I saw you for lunch.

You're like, I just feel bad. I couldn't shoot anybody. They were terrifying Susie, but the police were right there, so I couldn't shoot them. I just feel bad about it.

I was like, It's okay. It was a justifiable sanction calling. It would have been. Society would have been much improved. I would have declared a tax credit that year, don't you think? I can't talk about this. That was so good.

It was so good. Everyone in our family was like, Yeah, Uncle Buck got there after the police.

You don't get to it.

So the Antifa was lucky.

It was hilarious. I don't think I've ever experienced such frustration. Actually. Oh, I know. Mandated restraint. Uncle Buck, thank you. Thank you so much. That was awesome. I appreciate it.