James Comey (Former director of the FBI)

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert.

[1] Experts on expert.

[2] I'm Dan Rather, I'm joined by the Duchess of Duluth.

[3] Hello.

[4] Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding.

[5] She's here.

[6] Dingles.

[7] We have former director of the FBI, James Comey on today.

[8] He's also a best -selling author and a lawyer.

[9] Some people might forget how much he is a part of the famous mafioso story of this country.

[10] Yeah, as the attorney general.

[11] Yes, the South, NYSD, Southern District of New York attorney, who brought down some of the big families.

[12] Yeah, it's pretty cool.

[13] There's so much juicy stuff with Jim Comey, as we found out, he likes to go by Jim.

[14] Well, sure.

[15] And we have a big follow -up in the fact check about that.

[16] So, stay tuned.

[17] Well, his first book, which was his memoir, which was critically acclaimed in a huge bestseller, a higher loyalty was turned into a great show that I watch and I recommend to people called the Comey Rule.

[18] But he is here today to talk to us about Central Park West, a crime novel, which he has written, in collaboration with his wife and his daughters are in the mix and it's a lovely family affair.

[19] Yeah.

[20] I don't want him to mention his height.

[21] Oh, yeah, he's very tall.

[22] Six foot eight.

[23] I know, but then we have to be honest.

[24] He wasn't in the house.

[25] He wasn't in the attic.

[26] Which was so sad.

[27] I know.

[28] I wanted to see if he was as tall as Nicholas Braun.

[29] I know.

[30] We all wanted to know that.

[31] Please enjoy James Comey.

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[35] He's an armchair expert.

[36] Hello, sir.

[37] I'm Dax.

[38] This is Monica.

[39] Hi.

[40] Hey, how are you all doing?

[41] Thanks for having me on.

[42] For sure.

[43] We're excited to have you.

[44] First things first, you have some lavender to your left, and then I need to know what this picture on the right is.

[45] One of my brothers is an architect, and it's a sketch of a Frank Lloyd Wright column that he loved.

[46] And so he gave it to me, and I thought it was kind of cool.

[47] And my wife said it went with the lavender.

[48] It does.

[49] So it's become part of my Zoom life.

[50] Okay, you said one of your brothers.

[51] How many Comey boys are there?

[52] There are two.

[53] The architect, one who's a neurosurgeon, and then my sister, who's the oldest, had to deal with her three little brothers.

[54] Wow.

[55] Your parents should have written a book.

[56] A neurosurgeon, an architect, and that you really kind of defy description at this point, wouldn't you agree?

[57] Yeah, I think I was the black sheep.

[58] My sister was in finance.

[59] So my dad used to say he learned from his Irish immigrant parents to be diversified against disaster, and he thought he was.

[60] Okay.

[61] Well, yes, with his children.

[62] He was in commercial real estate.

[63] Yeah.

[64] And did he do well at that?

[65] and say, that's my gas station, that's my gas station.

[66] Of course, none of them were his.

[67] And then he moved up to commercial real estate, which was managing bigger pieces of property that somebody else owned.

[68] Okay, so you have a grandfather, yeah, that was in law enforcement.

[69] Yeah, my dad's dad was a cop in Yonkers, which is just north of the Bronx and became the head of that department over his career, but spent his career as a cop.

[70] And were you close with grandpa?

[71] Yeah, very close.

[72] Yeah, yeah.

[73] I find this to be pretty commonplace with my friends that the grandpas did the job that they had wished they had done for your dad.

[74] I at least received this version of parenting that I think my grandpa wanted to give to my dad but then figured out it for me. I think that's right.

[75] Although a lot of it passed through my dad.

[76] He wanted to be a prosecutor and he had actually enrolled at Fordham Law School and then got drafted and so never got back to it.

[77] So I think he thought a lot of his dad's profession and law enforcement and I'm sure I didn't notice it as a kid.

[78] I was a knucklehead, but he communicated that to me, I'm sure.

[79] So you have this really traumatic life experience that is the current explanation of why you gravitated towards law enforcement, which we'll get into.

[80] But I am curious, was there also a colonel set by grandpa?

[81] Grandpa had to be a hero, right?

[82] He was a cop.

[83] You were a little boy.

[84] Did you look up to him and fantasize about having that?

[85] I did.

[86] There are two things about my grandfather that I remember very clearly.

[87] The first was he had to drop out of school in the sixth grade when his father was killed in an industrial accident to support his younger five siblings.

[88] And so he worked full time from sixth grade on.

[89] And he used to say all the time, an education is no burden to carry.

[90] Don't ever forget that because it was his great regret.

[91] And second, my grandfather liked beer.

[92] And I remember hearing the story when I was a kid of him ordering his officers to use fire axes to cut the hoses that were transporting bootlegger beer between the Bronx and Yonkers and let the beer run into the sewers.

[93] And it was an action that was so controversially had to have round the clock protection at his house.

[94] And so I thought, that's so cool you know pops a guy a principal so yeah he was a big deal in my life but i still wanted to be a doctor and so it was working on some level and we're all unreliable narrators about ourselves so i can't parse that out but it was in there somewhere okay and then your height when did this hit i know i'm sad you're not in the i know i'm really pissed you're not in person because we need that six eight we keep climbing the ladder we've had ron artez metal world peace this actor nicholas brine we've gotten the six seven here in the attic but I don't think we've had 6 -8.

[95] So we're a little disheartened that this is via Zoom.

[96] But I'm big, not compared to you, but I've always been big.

[97] Were you always big, or did you have a moment where you just shot up out of nowhere?

[98] I came to height late, and it's a weird thing.

[99] In my head, I'm not tall.

[100] That in my mind's eye, I'm probably 5 -11, 6 feet.

[101] I mean, that's what I was when I got my driver's license.

[102] At Christmas time, in my senior year of high school, I was 5 -11.

[103] And then I was 6 -3 at graduation, and I was 6 -7 by October.

[104] of the next year.

[105] So in 10 months, I grew from 5 -11 to 6 -7, then added another inch after that.

[106] I don't think I'm tall, which is weird.

[107] Sure, but we are all trapped in our own self -image in high school and junior high, right?

[108] You just can't escape it.

[109] No matter what accolades you accumulate, you're the dude in 12th grade, yeah.

[110] I'm 5 -11 with big feet, socially awkward.

[111] It stayed with me. That's the recipe for good stuff.

[112] Well, it's good for humility.

[113] Yeah, very good for humility.

[114] I imagine when you gain eight inches in a year or so, are any doctors concerned you have, and I'm being sincere, like acromegaly, like you might have a tumor on your pituitary?

[115] Was there any fear at that point?

[116] Like, what's happening?

[117] Not that I remember.

[118] I think because I came by it naturally, my grandfather was 6 -2.

[119] My dad was close to 6 -5.

[120] Oh.

[121] So they kind of knew it fit with the family line.

[122] But I had a knee explode in a basketball pickup game that September, October.

[123] but the connective tissue couldn't keep up.

[124] Oh, my God.

[125] Okay, eighth grade, I'm 5 -11, 1 -60 on my basketball physical.

[126] Next grade, ninth grade, I'm 6 -3 -149.

[127] So I've lost 11 pounds and gained four inches.

[128] So I'm curious when you shot up eight inches.

[129] Did your weight go nowhere?

[130] Yeah, that was the way it was.

[131] It went nowhere.

[132] I didn't start to fill out, as my mother used to say, until I was a junior in college.

[133] And you met your wife in college, right?

[134] What year at college?

[135] Well, it's controversial.

[136] She says we met when we were freshmen.

[137] It's good that I don't remember.

[138] I wasn't ready for her in lots of ways.

[139] But we met and started dating junior year.

[140] Okay, when you filled in.

[141] Yeah, so I was ready physically emotionally.

[142] I'm not sure I was ever fully ready, but I was much closer to what she needed than I would have been as a freshman.

[143] No, you're emotionally probably right now today where she was at back then.

[144] Yeah, honestly.

[145] That's right.

[146] Okay, now while you were at, well, no, I just blew by it.

[147] and I think a lot of people won't know this, but you had a pretty, not pretty, you had a very traumatic experience at 17, you and your little brother, the architect or the neurosurgeon?

[148] The architect.

[149] So you and the architect are at home as children.

[150] What age is?

[151] Senior high school, so 16, about to turn 17.

[152] And then your brother was how old?

[153] A year and a half younger, so I think he had turned 15 by then.

[154] Okay.

[155] And there was in your neighborhood, I forget his name, the something rapist.

[156] Yeah, the Ramsey rapist.

[157] And so the Ramsey rapist broke into your house.

[158] in the middle of the night?

[159] Yeah, about 8 o 'clock in the evening.

[160] After my parents went out, my folks were taking dancing lessons, and they went down the street to a little community barn to do that.

[161] And we were just outside New York.

[162] That was the summer of Sam for New York.

[163] When the son of Sam was killing people.

[164] In northern New Jersey, it was the summer of the Ramsey Rapist who was praying mostly on babysitters, doing home invasions and then assaulting girls.

[165] And he kicked in the front door of my parents' house, which is a small ranch house, not long after they left.

[166] And the cops thought that he was looking for my sister.

[167] He had seen a figure lying in the dark in the basement watching TV.

[168] And it was my brother, but he mistook, apparently from my sister being alone.

[169] It was a very, very scary evening.

[170] You guys were at gunpoint for a lot of this, yeah.

[171] Yeah, my brother was much cooler under pressure than I lied to the guy and said he was home alone.

[172] And so the guy led him on a search looking for money at that point and put him on my parents' bed.

[173] which connected to my room through a little bathroom.

[174] And I heard the noise, and I assumed it was my two brothers screwing around.

[175] I was actually writing, show you what a socially successful guy was.

[176] It was a Friday night in high school.

[177] I was writing a piece for a literary magazine.

[178] The last fiction I wrote before now.

[179] And I got up and walked through the bathroom and slid the door open and saw my brother lying face down with his eyes closed.

[180] Again, I still don't get it.

[181] I thought that my youngest brother must have hit him or something.

[182] So I stepped through.

[183] And there's a guy with the gun.

[184] and he ordered us to lie on the bed and searched more for money and then came back and just stood and pointed the gun at the two of us.

[185] And I don't think he knew what to do.

[186] He didn't expect us.

[187] And so I started to panic.

[188] Thought is not strong enough.

[189] I knew I was about to die in that moment.

[190] It rocked my world.

[191] So I started talking to the guy to try and find a way to get off the bed.

[192] And it worked.

[193] And we had quite a journey through the house after that.

[194] Wow.

[195] That's insanely traumatic.

[196] I had an insane car crash at that age as a passenger.

[197] And I want to say for about four days, I was moving around thinking, no, no, you're dead.

[198] Like when you've accepted that, when you have that thought, oh, we're rolling at 90 miles an hour in the woods, death is eminent.

[199] That recognition and the acceptance of it is so specific that I think for me, it took a while to unwind that to accept, no, I hadn't died.

[200] Did you have that period of like, huh, maybe I'm not here?

[201] You know, I don't remember something like that, I remember, I mean, it stayed with me and is still with me in ways that are difficult to describe.

[202] And maybe I had even more time than in the rollover you're talking about, but I panicked at first, started to pray, and then this weird wave of calm washed over me. And then I started talking.

[203] And so I felt I was dead.

[204] And then all of a sudden I thought, you know what, there's something I can do.

[205] Let me try and do it.

[206] And so I think it left me with a slightly different feeling.

[207] But it changed me. And I hope in a good way, because I became a let's watch a. Let's watch the sunset guy and let's not sweat the small shit because I could have died lying in my parents.

[208] I mean, there was a second time that evening when I thought he was going to kill us when we escaped again and he caught us again.

[209] But the experience left me with all kinds of impacts.

[210] But one of them was this sense that I'm so fricking lucky to be alive.

[211] It's a perspective that is still useful to me. How did ultimately you guys get out of that?

[212] It's like a movie almost.

[213] I convinced him to lock us in a tiny little bathroom in the basement.

[214] And I lied to him and told him that we couldn't get out of there.

[215] And I knew it would look that way because my folks didn't have a lot of money.

[216] And so they're always trying to save.

[217] And so my dad had put heavy gauge plastic on the window to prepare for the winter to save on the heating bill.

[218] And so he checked it out and said, yeah, you'll be safe in here.

[219] And then he left.

[220] He actually doubled back and looked in the window at us, which scared me almost beyond belief when I saw his face just outside the window.

[221] But he then left.

[222] And again, my brother, Peter, said, you know who that is.

[223] We got to get out of here.

[224] He's going to hurt somebody.

[225] And I said, no, dude, we're going to stay here.

[226] to mom and dad get home.

[227] And he said, no, no, we got to go get help.

[228] And so he ripped the plastic out and opened the window and swung out.

[229] And so I'm barefoot.

[230] I followed my brother, my little brother.

[231] And when my feet landed on the dirt, I heard shouting, the guy had come back.

[232] And he was particularly upset at me, screaming, you lied to me, you little fucker.

[233] I said, we'll go right back in, believe or not.

[234] And I tried to open the back door.

[235] And he said, no, no, too late, against the wall.

[236] And literally at that moment, a gigantic Siberian husky, belonged to one of my neighbors, comes running around into the backyard.

[237] It turned out my neighbor, who was the football coach at our high school, had come home.

[238] His dog had gotten out of the car with him and taken off on a dead run for this stranger moving in the backyard.

[239] So all of a sudden, there's a dog bounding around, and the guy says to me, get rid of the dog.

[240] And I said, get rid of the dog.

[241] And so I said, I still remember the dog's name.

[242] I said, Sundance, go away.

[243] And the dog doesn't give a crap, what I said.

[244] Yeah, yeah.

[245] It's still bounding around.

[246] And then the football coach came running into the backyard.

[247] And the guy grabbed him, put a flashlight in his face and demanded his wallet, which he didn't have.

[248] And then a chaotic scene happened because the football coach's mother and wife followed him.

[249] Oh, my gosh, it's turning into a party.

[250] And the gunman moved to get the women.

[251] And my brother and I ran into the house through the garage and locked the door and went upstairs and called.

[252] This is before 911.

[253] So we called the operator and got connected to the police department.

[254] I remember the operator's telling me, you know, calm down.

[255] Tell me, I said, lady, I can't calm down.

[256] There's a guy with a gun out there, and I could hear knocking on the door downstairs.

[257] He was making the coach's mother and wife knock on the door.

[258] And so we waited inside with butcher knives, knowing he knew the front door was kicked in.

[259] He would come that way.

[260] And we waited and waited.

[261] And he didn't come.

[262] We looked out the window and saw him pushing the coach's mother and wife into their house.

[263] I should have said the coach was with us.

[264] He ran with us.

[265] And the coach said, we're going after him.

[266] And by this point, my brother's an ally.

[267] He said, no, we're not going there.

[268] Let's wait.

[269] And then the cop showed up, and a chase began that lasted most of the night.

[270] But that's how we got free of it.

[271] Oh, my God.

[272] And was he caught that night?

[273] That's a source of some controversy.

[274] Not that night.

[275] Within a week, they caught a suspect who was ultimately not charged, and no one was ever charged with the crime.

[276] And the rapes and assaults have been happening at least once a month for a year, stop that night.

[277] So whether the real serial rapist stopped or whether the guy, they caught that week, Was the serial rapist?

[278] I guess I'll never know.

[279] I thought they caught the right guy.

[280] But the violence stuff.

[281] You had some residual fear that this person might show up again in your life, knowing that they weren't caught?

[282] Yeah, very much so, especially during the four or five days.

[283] Because we were the only two Pete and I who had ever seen him clearly in the light.

[284] And so, yeah, it worried us.

[285] And then the guy lingered.

[286] I mean, one of the reasons I hope I've been useful to victims of crime is that that guy stayed in my head every night for the next five years.

[287] not most nights.

[288] Every single night I thought about him when I went to bed.

[289] And my parents no longer lived there, but I could drive by the house today and I'd still think about him.

[290] And I wasn't physically harmed.

[291] People would say, thank God you weren't hurt.

[292] And I would feel that way.

[293] There was a girl in my high school who I knew had been sexually assaulted by him because I had seen her at the lineup.

[294] I would pass her in the hallway and make eye contact.

[295] We never spoke.

[296] But what she went through is orders of magnitude more horrific than what I went through.

[297] And I can't imagine the impact on her life.

[298] And so I hope I brought that to my life as a prosecutor.

[299] Yeah.

[300] Oh, man. Wow, wow, wow.

[301] Also the psychology of him feeling betrayed by you, like he lied to me. I trusted you in this weird way.

[302] Yes, that is so.

[303] Yeah, the minute humanness and all the crazy heightened everything else.

[304] Yeah.

[305] Wow, that's such a harrowing story.

[306] What age do you decide you're going to get into law enforcement?

[307] You get your BA in chemistry and religion.

[308] So that's not necessarily the fast pass to law enforcement, those two.

[309] But then, of course, you get a law degree after that, which makes sense.

[310] But in that undergrad period of your life, were you still sussing out what direction you were hoping to go?

[311] I started out certain that I was going to be a doctor.

[312] I became a chem major because all the premed students seemed to be in bio.

[313] And premed, they freaked me out.

[314] And so I wanted to be away from them a little bit.

[315] So I majored in chemistry, which didn't come naturally to me. Even though my family was middle class, my parents were always saying, we're so lucky.

[316] Don't ever forget that.

[317] And so they preach this idea that you have to find a way to give back because so many people aren't as lucky as you are.

[318] And so in high school, I decided I'll be a doctor.

[319] That's how I'll help other people.

[320] And it took me almost to the very end of college to switch.

[321] I started taking religion classes where I studied Hinduism and Islam and lots of ethics classes.

[322] And I thought, oh, I love to write and I love to talk about these issues, is being a doctor really the best way for me to help people.

[323] And so through a lot of conversations with by then I'd convinced her to be my girlfriend, Patrice.

[324] I figured out, you know, I'll be more useful where my strengths lie, so I should go to law school.

[325] But I didn't know what kind of lawyer I wanted to be.

[326] And I worked in the legal aid clinic at law school, and I found that addictive.

[327] It wasn't until I was working for a federal judge in Manhattan after graduation that I figured out that maybe I would be best in law enforcement as an assistant U .S. attorney.

[328] Right.

[329] And then you started out on that path from 1987, I guess, to 1993, maybe.

[330] Yeah.

[331] I promised Patrice, we would stay three years in New York, a place she always hated.

[332] And so we stayed six.

[333] In fact, I wasn't even going to go there.

[334] She was actually reminding me at one of our kids' graduations this weekend, telling the story to them again.

[335] We were going to come live in the D .C. area.

[336] She was going to teach public school.

[337] And that's what we were going to do.

[338] And during my clerkship, watching a mob case in the courtroom, I thought, oh, my God, I know what I want to do.

[339] And so I called her and said, I figured it out.

[340] She said, well, that's great.

[341] What?

[342] I said, I want to be a federal.

[343] prosecutor.

[344] I've always hated bullies.

[345] These are the biggest bullies there are.

[346] If I could be part of that, wow.

[347] And long pause, that sounds right for you.

[348] And I said, I want to do it here in New York, where Rudy Giuliani was then, the U .S. attorney, seemed different to me then.

[349] Well, I think to everybody, yeah.

[350] It's one of the biggest abouts we've seen.

[351] Shocking to me. Then so she agreed to come to New York.

[352] And I started there in 87 and stayed six years.

[353] And she ultimately fell in love in New York, yeah, I assume at some point?

[354] Never.

[355] Never.

[356] Where are you at now?

[357] Northern Virginia, just outside D .C. Oh, okay, okay.

[358] We've had kids live in New York.

[359] We've visited there a lot.

[360] Obviously, it's the area I grew up in.

[361] Well, it's a setting for the book, too, so I think I foolishly imagined that you were writing what you knew.

[362] Well, it is what I know because I've spent so much time there, but I don't live there.

[363] And we moved to Richmond, Virginia, where I really didn't know anyone, because I owed it to her and she wanted to live in Virginia and get away from New York.

[364] Now, then I went back to New York, total surprise after 9 -11 and became the U .S. attorney.

[365] And so she, through tears, said, I'm going back to New York.

[366] New York.

[367] Oh, my God, I'm going back to New York.

[368] So she's been there.

[369] Okay, so while you were working for the Southern District of New York, you presided over a bunch of really high -profile cases.

[370] Probably chief among those is the Gambino Crime Family case.

[371] So I have a lot of curiosities about who's imitating who.

[372] Okay, so I have this theory that we live in this bizarre feedback loop where actors portray people doing jobs.

[373] and then younger generations see that portrayal, and then they end up fulfilling the actual literal jobs, but they're somehow imitating these actors.

[374] Now, a new group of actors come behind them and reinterpret how, so it's this bizarre game of telephone, and I think it's maybe most clear in the mafia world, and I find it a little embarrassing and corny.

[375] It seems like, especially the Gambino crime family, which you would know more about than anybody, that they were actually living out some bizarre godfather fantasy at that point.

[376] How has the crime families evolved and how much were they infiltrated by Hollywood?

[377] You have totally nailed this.

[378] Oh, thank you.

[379] I mean, literally, because the American mafia families in 1957 decided to close the books and not make any new members because they were having all kinds of problems with informants and law enforcement penetration.

[380] So they said, nope, no new members.

[381] The school is closed.

[382] They didn't reopen the books until 1975 when each family was allowed to make 10 members, the so -called superclass of 10 for each of the five.

[383] families.

[384] But the reason that period is important is the Godfather came out in 71, I think, and 72 in Sicily.

[385] I've had mobsters say they remember those dates.

[386] And so what happened was you had a whole group of thugs and would -be gangsters who couldn't get on the inside.

[387] And they go to the movie.

[388] And Sammy Gravano, the underboss of the Gambino family, told me this to my face.

[389] He said, I can remember walking out of the theater on 18th Avenue in Brooklyn and saying, that's the life.

[390] And he said, we started talking like those guys, dressing like those guys.

[391] And I don't think Mario Puzzo's book was completely off axis from the mafia, but it romanticized it in all kinds of ways and gave it this honor that it didn't really have.

[392] But they started talking that way.

[393] And so life imitated art. And when those guys became made in 75 and after, they brought with them these habits of mind and these phrases and this speech that they had seen James Kahn and Al Pacino using, I thought it was just the Americans, but actually had a cooperator from Sicily, one of their most prolific killers.

[394] He said it came to the island in 72, and he could remember seeing it in subtitles for English and not for the other parts and thinking, wow, that's weird the way the Americans are, but he said we started imitating parts of it.

[395] But the influence was most profound on the American mafia.

[396] You nailed that.

[397] Well, even thinking The Godfather, too, when he goes back to Sicily, now we paint a whole world through the eyes of Francis Ford Coppola of what the Sicilian mob scene looks like.

[398] So even maybe they were biting off the style of what was established in that trip.

[399] But if I'm right, pre -godfather, the crime families were pretty damn good at keeping a low profile.

[400] They're not living in mansions.

[401] They're not driving around outrageous cars.

[402] They're not eating at fancy restaurants.

[403] They're not sitting ringside at fights.

[404] Somehow, slowly becomes a little bit a part of their undoing.

[405] Now they become easier targets to follow and identify?

[406] Yeah.

[407] I mean, Carlo Gambino, the namesake of the family.

[408] I used to joke, we know he was the leader of the family because we named it after him.

[409] The Gambino Crime Family's founder died a free man. And he died a free man because he lived a simple life.

[410] And he would only talk about family business, capital F, with two people.

[411] And then only when whispering and outdoors.

[412] And so how do you make that case?

[413] Who do you flip to get him?

[414] And then when he was succeeded by guy named Paul Castellano and then Castellano was murdered by John Gotti, a totally different godfather type style, the big house.

[415] We wear fancy suits.

[416] God, he got his hair cut literally every day, not every other day, every day.

[417] And you all have to come and pay homage to me that makes it so easy for us to do surveillance that it was their downfall, that arrogance that I want to live the big life, killed them.

[418] Cozinostra is still with us.

[419] It's less powerful in America, but they've returned to that model.

[420] Nobody wants to be the boss because once you're named the boss publicly, the FBI is all over you.

[421] Yeah.

[422] Also, do you think that the picture that's been painted in film and television, exaggerates their wealth.

[423] That's the other part that seems to me, whenever I see one of these guys actually get arrested and how they're actually living and what they actually sees, it seems like it doesn't pay the way you would think from the movies.

[424] No, the big money was in unions.

[425] Contracts and stuff.

[426] Well, to control a union to impose a tax on the concrete and steel for every piece of construction in the entire New York City area is a lot of money.

[427] But the money flowed up.

[428] And Castellano had a lot of money.

[429] Godi had a lot of money.

[430] but it all goes up to the boss.

[431] It's a boss -centric organization.

[432] And so, yeah, the rest of them live just the way you describe.

[433] That's a fraud, that part of the portrayal often.

[434] And the other one is that they're people of honor.

[435] I mean, they have rules.

[436] My favorite is that they don't harm law enforcement, and they abide that one.

[437] But the rest of the rules, you know, they have rules against stealing drugs.

[438] They have rules against sleeping with another maid member's spouse.

[439] I mean, those are like the rules against fighting in hockey.

[440] And so they're on the books, but it's going on all the time.

[441] All of us need to have a sense of.

[442] meaning and purpose and they tell themselves this story that we're womo denore we're men of honor and we have these rules that guide us we're not ordinary criminals so given that you were born in 60s so you grew up very much with the godfather it makes a non mafioso want to be in the mob as a kid I'm like yeah sign me up for that I'll be luco brazi or whatever when you got in front of these guys were you kind of disappointed in the main yeah I mean there were exceptions that I remember well but there are knuckleheads.

[443] I had one guy that we put him in the witness protection programs.

[444] His wife had not gone with him into the program because she thought it was a betrayal of Cozenostra.

[445] And so when he got a new name somewhere in Middle America, he married someone else.

[446] And I pointed out to him that it's against the law in all 50 states to be married twice at the same time.

[447] And he said, no, no, that ain't me. That's the old me. I said, no, Vinny, one human being, you're married to the same person.

[448] So not the sharpest knives, but some of them were.

[449] The Sicilian killer that I mentioned, whose name was Manoya, was philosophical, highly intelligent, dead eyes.

[450] And I don't know whether this is so, but I attributed to him having killed so many people, mostly by strangulation, but really a thoughtful, articulate person.

[451] Of course, that rattles you when you spend time in a room with mass murderers and the light doesn't change and the music doesn't change.

[452] And you realize that it's just another human being for me is unsettling.

[453] Also, I imagine how charismatic, probably a lot of them were, and fun -loving and gregarious.

[454] And to be a leader of anything, the hockey team, you're probably going to be the most likable, jovial, charismatic member.

[455] I agree.

[456] They would mix this charm with this incredible ability to be slippery, right?

[457] It's a Darwinian thing.

[458] You wouldn't be alive if you weren't able to lie well and perceive lies well.

[459] And so they're really good liars on top of, there's a lot of charm there.

[460] You're right.

[461] Mm, mm. Was there a second wave after Sopranos?

[462] Because that became the next big, successful.

[463] We're all fantasizing about being Tony Soprano.

[464] I think so, but Tony Soprano was a little down market from the Michael Corleone because he's standing in front of the pork place in Jersey.

[465] I don't think it generated as noticeable a wave of imitation.

[466] But, yeah, it influenced them, of course.

[467] Yeah.

[468] There's, I won't bore you with it.

[469] No, I'm going to bore you with it.

[470] There's this great sports documentary on Netflix.

[471] It's a series.

[472] It's called Bad Sport, and it tells the story of who Tony Soprano is modeled after some boss of all the sanitation.

[473] You probably know this person.

[474] Sons of terrific hockey player and then gets a bad spinal injury in his senior year.

[475] And he's so heartbroken, he's not going to be able to go forward that the dad, the Tony Soprano character, buys him a minor league hockey team and lets the 17 -year -old run this hockey team.

[476] and he does an incredible job and they become champions.

[477] I don't know if you know that guy, but he's damn interesting.

[478] I don't, but I'll go dig it out.

[479] Okay, so after your stints as an attorney and a prosecutor, you leave for a while, your public service, and you go into the private sector.

[480] What do you pick up in that eight -year chunk that becomes informative going forward?

[481] I learned a ton about management and leadership, and I think of those things as separate things, but especially the management piece that at a big company there's a tremendous focus on how do you manage schedule, how do you manage people, how do you manage budget, all those things that don't come naturally, maybe to anybody, but especially not to lawyers.

[482] Then I worked at a really cool place, the second private sector job that was trying to build a culture of transparency where people didn't lie to each other and bullshit each other.

[483] This was Bridgewater?

[484] Yeah, Bridgewater.

[485] I never expected to go back to government.

[486] But when they asked me to come back as FBI director, I would say that almost the graduate degree in management and that learning about leadership through the lens of their focus on truth and transparency were really useful to me. I bet because you're not going to be as the FBI director working cases with a pencil and a magnifying.

[487] You're going to have to be getting the best out of everyone underneath of you.

[488] I would imagine it's so much more managerial than your previous duties as a prosecutor.

[489] Yeah, these are all leadership jobs.

[490] It's depressing.

[491] I don't know whether you've ever heard a confirmation hearing in the United States Senate where a single question is asked about leadership when you're going to make someone the attorney general or the secretary of defense or the FBI director.

[492] But yeah, your job is to lead people.

[493] And that's really all you do.

[494] And we end up putting in these jobs often people who are great individual contributors, as they would say, in corporate America and haven't practiced or thought about what leadership is.

[495] Right.

[496] Are lone wolves that are great at managing themselves, but nobody else?

[497] Yeah.

[498] Just because you're technically proficient at the thing does not mean you're good at.

[499] leading anyone.

[500] Yeah, it often means you're the worst.

[501] Yeah.

[502] I don't think Michael Jordan would be a great coach of a basketball team.

[503] Yeah.

[504] He was extraordinary because he focused on himself.

[505] I mean, we used to joke at Lockheed Martin that we were famous for a while for figuring out.

[506] We need a boss of the airplane painting team.

[507] Who's the best airplane painter will make them the boss?

[508] When that's got really very little to do with being effective leader of other people.

[509] I guess I don't know the history of the FBI enough.

[510] to know, but were you a predictable trajectory where, I guess, Mueller was before you?

[511] Yeah, he was the sixth director.

[512] And he, too, had been a prosecutor?

[513] Yep.

[514] Before researching you, I assumed they would promote more investigators to that role, but now I'm seeing that it's more prosecutors.

[515] Is that the history?

[516] Yeah, it's been seven, is now eight directors, but I was the seventh, and they were all white men who had been prosecutors at some point in their career, except for one who was the second director.

[517] He had been an agent.

[518] His name was Clarence Kelly.

[519] Then he became the police chief in Kansas City.

[520] And Hoover had fired him twice.

[521] And so I think they thought he had sufficient separation from the Hoover legacy that they would bring him back.

[522] But after that, it's been former federal prosecutors who maybe were judges.

[523] It would be great for the FBI to break that mold.

[524] But the challenge they have is that the culture of the FBI is so strong that I think there's an aversion to promoting from within.

[525] because the person won't have sufficient separation from the culture to lead.

[526] I mean, the organization is so powerful and its tools are so powerful that the idea, which I support is you need someone with a spirit and an experience of independence.

[527] Almost a civilian eye on it?

[528] Yeah.

[529] Someone who's seen it from different directions and who will not be special agent culture dominates the FBI.

[530] And so it won't be captured by that culture is the idea.

[531] You know, that doesn't mean you wouldn't find the man or hopefully the woman.

[532] with internal experience that would be able to do it in a good way i have three really good friends who are all agents and i also have several friends that are lapd and so of this anecdotal group i know and i've met some of their friends i played maybe a kickball tournament with them in detroit at the field office and they're pretty distinct i think i can kind of summarize an fbi agent in general it seems like you guys really find pretty intelligent people i don't know what the process is but everyone that i've met is clearly very bright and there is a pride that they wear on their sleeve the pride seems to stem from we investigate and we do it right and there's a lot of integrity behind this job and now my criticism of it is I've had some debates with them about you know how many of this or that were avoided through the work of it and I do feel like I'd compare them to an oncologist whereas an oncologist's singular job is to kill cancer cells and quite often the oncology just doesn't really care if your brain gets destroyed in the process of killing those few cancer cells.

[533] I don't know that they're great at seeing big picture sometimes gets a little myopic.

[534] Obviously, too, if you know of every threat, the world is a much more threatening place.

[535] I think you can be a little bit misled by knowing a lot.

[536] And I'm just wondering what your thoughts are on how they're unique as a law enforcement arm and what their shortcomings are.

[537] And if those map to you at all.

[538] Yeah, they does.

[539] I think your sense of your friends gives you an accurate impression of the Bureau.

[540] Smart people, I would add athletic, because you have to be able to run, fight, and shoot who are drawn by the mission.

[541] Obviously, it doesn't pay much money.

[542] They stay and absorb all this stress because they really believe in it.

[543] They're proud of it.

[544] You hinted at this, I think the danger and pride is it bleeds over to arrogance if you're not careful.

[545] So we had a tendency towards that that had to be watched.

[546] And it is very difficult to figure out whether you're being successful.

[547] And you do develop a very dark view of the world.

[548] The chance challenge of being director is I would see it all and see darkness, children murdered.

[549] Everyone wanted to show me pictures of everything and it warps your view of life.

[550] It's like a police officer only works nights.

[551] They don't see families pushing strollers in their neighborhood.

[552] They see people who warp their view.

[553] They think everyone's a criminal in this neighborhood.

[554] And so there's a real danger there to all of us in law enforcement.

[555] An important antidote to that was my great passion as FBI director.

[556] We needed to attract people from a broader slice of life.

[557] When I got there, I was showed a stat that literally scared me. It showed that the percentage of agents who were Caucasian, non -Hispanic Caucasian, had been growing steadily for more than a decade before I got there.

[558] And it was now 83%.

[559] And I was like, holy crap, because that's a recipe for an ineffective organization in a country that's getting different than that.

[560] In my view, great.

[561] It's a wonderful thing, but we are less effective.

[562] And so we've got to find a way to attract people who don't look like me to be in the FBI.

[563] There's a moral imperative.

[564] there obviously, but also make us better and not fall in love with our own view of things, not assuming things about people that we shouldn't be assuming.

[565] And so it's actually was my number one priority.

[566] It's the reason I grieve getting fired.

[567] It's not about any of the cases.

[568] I was in L .A. that day that I got fired to meet with 750 engineers, MBAs, and lawyers of color, men and women.

[569] And I was going to walk out of that ballroom with half of them applying to be special agents of the FBI because I'd done it before because the talent is there.

[570] They just don't know they should absorb tremendous stress and take a cut and pay and risk their lives.

[571] Watch their drinking uptick 45%.

[572] Well, that's a separate challenge.

[573] Yeah, I think there's a probably asymmetrical or out -indexing rate of alcoholism.

[574] Well, and it's that self -medication, I'm sure they mocked me behind my back, but I used to talk constantly about the need to sleep, the need to exercise, and the need to love somebody.

[575] because you're absorbing stress that will eat you like an acid and you can't just shrug it off, but that's part of the FBI culture.

[576] It's a martial culture.

[577] I'm too tough for that and that's going to lead to self -medication and real harm.

[578] I used to tell them, look, love somebody and get some sleep.

[579] And the good news is you can multitask.

[580] You can sleep with people you love.

[581] The Bureau needed to change, needed to get more people from a broader set of backgrounds into leadership as well.

[582] And I think a lot of that's lost momentum in the last five or six years.

[583] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[584] We've all been there.

[585] Turning to the internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers, and strange rashes.

[586] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing, but for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

[587] like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated, or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

[588] Hey listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

[589] It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

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[594] Is there a mechanism there or a lever?

[595] Because the other thing I find kind of impressive is there seems to be a lack of outward bravado, which I find a little problematic in other areas.

[596] Is there like an active policy that tamps down that rah -rah male bravado?

[597] Because it doesn't seem to pervade that agency.

[598] Is that something that's addressed or conscious?

[599] No, I think it's like all the most powerful forces in an organization.

[600] It's cultural.

[601] So it's something that's not trained, but it's inherited.

[602] And that's actually a legacy of the Hoover years, so much of the FBI is a legacy of the Hoover years where you didn't want to stand out, you didn't want to draw attention, especially from the leadership in Washington, and that you were supposed to be dressed in a certain way, and your work and professionalism should speak for you.

[603] Don't brag.

[604] And we need to build relationships with state and local organizations that are so much bigger than we are.

[605] So there's a bit of a, I think the Australians call it the tall poppy syndrome, where if you stand out too much you get cut off.

[606] And so that's a part of the Bureau's culture.

[607] I'm not sure it's bad.

[608] In fact, I might argue it's good, especially dealing with people like NYPD where there's so much friction.

[609] Yeah.

[610] Where the NYPD's saying the Bureau's arrogant that they're saying the thing the other way and a little humility, even if you're not feeling it in your heart of hearts, manifesting a little humility is very important to the mission.

[611] Yeah, fake it so you make it.

[612] Were you surprised when you were asked to be the director?

[613] No, totally surprised.

[614] Somebody had reached out to a friend of mine in 2011, saying the president wants to know, would Jim be interested in this job?

[615] And I said, through my friend, no. And then they extended Bob Mueller.

[616] The term is 10 years.

[617] It's supposed to be they extended him for two years.

[618] I actually went down to Congress and testified in favor of that extension.

[619] And had already started teaching at Columbia.

[620] I left Bridgewater.

[621] And the call came out of the blue.

[622] Eric Holder called me, somebody unknown for a long time.

[623] I said, yeah, dude, I don't think so.

[624] And he said, look, I wouldn't be calling you.

[625] if this wasn't a real thing, I hope you'll give it some more thought.

[626] And so I said, I think the answer is no, but I'll call you back and give you for sure.

[627] And so the next morning I got up, true story, I found Patrice in the kitchen on her laptop looking at houses in the DC area on Zillow.

[628] And I'm not a great investigator.

[629] I said, what are you doing?

[630] And she said, I've known you since you were 19.

[631] You got to call him back and tell him yes.

[632] And so I did.

[633] And then I went down and met with him and met with President Obama.

[634] And they asked me to be the director.

[635] And so I didn't expect it.

[636] And then I thought, you know what?

[637] This is what I'll do for 10 years.

[638] The Bureau needs to change in certain ways.

[639] And the cool thing about a 10 -year term is, you can make a big down payment on changing a culture.

[640] So I was very excited about it and did not expect to get fired.

[641] But I did.

[642] When I was reading today, I was reminded that it was President Obama that did this.

[643] Appointed.

[644] Yes.

[645] Because at the time you were a declared Republican.

[646] And I thought that's not happening anymore.

[647] where people are going, quote, across party lines to appoint people.

[648] And it's such a disservice that we aren't doing that.

[649] Yeah.

[650] I came to be a great admirer of President Obama.

[651] I'd never met him before then.

[652] I wasn't an active Republican, but I had given money because they asked to John McCain and to Mitt Romney.

[653] Now, in part, I did it because I was worried unprincipled people might take over the Republican Party.

[654] I know that was a crazy thing to worry about.

[655] What ended up happening?

[656] How weird.

[657] It worked out fine.

[658] A total waste of your concern.

[659] But he didn't care.

[660] And I remember saying to the White House counsel, as I walked out of the Oval Office, she said, what did you think?

[661] And I said, how did a thoughtful, philosophical person get to be president of the United States?

[662] And the cool thing was, he invited me to come back.

[663] And I didn't know why.

[664] Before he made the announcement, and he said, look, after I make this announcement, you and I can't ever speak like this again.

[665] And so I just thought it'd be fun to have another conversation.

[666] And so we talked about philosophy and faith and politics and just bullshitted for an hour.

[667] And then he said, okay, now we're done.

[668] And that was the last private conversation I ever had with the man. He had to have wanted to know about your basketball playing.

[669] Was that his number one concern?

[670] I don't remember asking about it.

[671] He's like, fuck, this guy's got seven inches on me, but I feel like maybe I got a jump on him.

[672] A little one -on -one game.

[673] I've seen his stroke very smooth.

[674] Oh, it's, yeah, it's like jazz.

[675] man. Okay, now I just want to add my own flavor to this.

[676] So prior to you, I never ever knew who an FBI director was.

[677] Maybe I would just have my head in the sand, but you did a 60 minutes profile early into taking the job.

[678] And I remember watching that.

[679] And I remember being very bold over by who you presented to be.

[680] You seem to have an incredible integrity.

[681] You seem to have a very evolved opinion of how the organization should run given that you were in law enforcement.

[682] And in fact, what Monica, you just said, it's like, who would they pick from?

[683] You guys are all Republicans.

[684] Get real.

[685] Sure, there's some Democrats, but it definitely leans in law enforcement, Republican, as it does in the military.

[686] I remember actually being excited you were in that role and thinking this guy's really pretty emotionally present.

[687] And he's got some, yeah, very progressive and has some kind of social philosophy that I think are really admirable and perhaps even a tough sell in that world.

[688] So I have to imagine I'm not alone in that.

[689] You might have been one of the first where we really knew who you were.

[690] You have a clear effect on people.

[691] The way you talk to people is very sincere and you really connect with people.

[692] Obviously, now that I know this managerial component from the private sector explains a lot, you clearly were running it like a CEO would, and yet you seem to be a CEO that wanted to do no harm and do good.

[693] I could feel your morals.

[694] Your North Star was very clear.

[695] And you're very attractive as a person taking over that job.

[696] And then all hell broke loose.

[697] All hell broke.

[698] Oh, yeah.

[699] I mean, Jim, all hell broke loose.

[700] You must look back a little bit and go, almost impossible the period of time I happen to be there.

[701] I mean, I really think if you were to look at anyone else's tenure, it's like a Vietnam combatant.

[702] You probably saw more action in that four years than a lot of people saw in a decade.

[703] crazy time for you to enter.

[704] Do you marvel at how tumultuous and rocky that period is?

[705] And do you think there's some kind of providence of why you were dropped into that scene?

[706] No, I don't think so.

[707] I think I was just there at a really difficult time.

[708] And maybe some of the way I approached leadership made me more of a focus and the institution more of a focus of some of that.

[709] I think that's fair.

[710] Look, it's very painful to me. I don't miss the political people was never one of my goals.

[711] goals to be famous, but I miss the opportunity to work with people like that and to try and make it better.

[712] But yeah, I look back and look at the craziness that went on and thought, I remember when the Clinton investigation started in the summer of 15, my deputy then, who was a great guy, Mark Giuliano, looked at me and said, you know you're totally screwed, right?

[713] And he was right.

[714] No one was going to get out of that alive.

[715] It's painful.

[716] I love the work.

[717] I really enjoyed it.

[718] had a ton of fun.

[719] But yeah, I wish some of those things hadn't landed on us.

[720] People often ask me if you could go back in time.

[721] I said, well, can I go back with a magic wand and not be involved?

[722] And you can't.

[723] You can't.

[724] You also are kind of first in on a pattern that we now see happen more and more, which is it used to be you could piss off the other side pretty easily.

[725] That was always a given.

[726] But you had your in -group.

[727] You could weather those storms.

[728] But I think increasingly, people are getting blasted by both sides.

[729] I think more and more people that are generally, I would describe like myself, a centrist.

[730] You really have no home in some bizarre way.

[731] And I think the fact that you went from enemy number one from Hillary supporters to within, I don't know what that was, that time frame, eight weeks, 10 weeks.

[732] All of a sudden, now you're enemy number one on the Republican side.

[733] And I have to imagine that's an incredibly isolating experience.

[734] and I think it was less prevalent than it is now.

[735] Now the group of people that are hated by everyone is growing daily.

[736] But you were pretty early in.

[737] How isolating did that feel?

[738] Very.

[739] I think that you're hitting on something that's a really important institutional issue that we have to grapple with.

[740] We've worked really hard since Hoover to have the FBI be independent of politics.

[741] Hoover was having drinks.

[742] His biggest patrons actually were FDR and Johnson.

[743] Johnson famously said, Now, I want to keep them on.

[744] I'd rather have him inside the tent pissing out than out.

[745] outside the tent, pissing in.

[746] And so he's hanging out with presidents.

[747] He's doing their favors.

[748] And what that meant was when the shit hit the fan, he had a backer.

[749] He had a constituency for whom he'd done favors.

[750] In a way, the FBI's independence over the last 50 years has left it without friends.

[751] Because it stays away, and as the leader I had to, it stays away from the transactional and makes it easy in a polarized world for both sides to dump on the FBI.

[752] America's such a wonderful and crazy place.

[753] are still people in their little bubbles at the edge of our bell curve who hate me, not knowing that there's a group at the other end of the bell curve that hates me as well and that you can't square that circle.

[754] And so, yeah, it was disorienting.

[755] It was disheartening.

[756] But here's the weird thing.

[757] It was also freeing in a lot of ways.

[758] I mean, Giuliano's saying, you know, you're totally screwed, made it easy to say, yeah, dude, you're right.

[759] So we'll just do what we can.

[760] We'll try and pick the less shitty option.

[761] And the good news is, I don't want to be anything else.

[762] I'm not trying to go anywhere.

[763] I don't want to go to cocktail parties.

[764] I never go to stuff like that.

[765] And so not having those relationships is freeing in a lot of ways.

[766] I'm hesitating saying that because it's hard for the institution, the agents to operate in an environment where they're constantly being buffeted by attacks from politicians.

[767] Yeah, you would hope that the defense of the country would unify.

[768] You would hope that that would be the thing that would stay apolitical in some way because our safety at the end of the day is the point of the agents.

[769] Yeah.

[770] Now, I watched the Comey rule over the last two days.

[771] I understand you couldn't stand watching it.

[772] It brought you right back and I read this great New York Times, you and Jeff Daniels talking about it.

[773] But what a ride.

[774] Obviously, people should instead read your book that the show was based on.

[775] I wrote my notes not on my computer today and I'm really struggling.

[776] On your iPhone?

[777] Yes, I put no idea on my iPad.

[778] Now I'm fucked because everything I have a weird question real quick.

[779] while you're scrolling.

[780] A higher loyalty was the book.

[781] Yes, a higher loyalty, truth lies in leadership is the book that the Comey rule was based on.

[782] Go ahead.

[783] You don't have to answer this, but I am curious.

[784] Have you had a conversation with Hillary post all of this?

[785] No, I've never met Secretary Clinton.

[786] I saw in her book how she described feeling.

[787] I think she said she felt that I had shived her, which is very painful because I'm sorry she feels that way.

[788] I had no ill will towards Secretary Clinton at all ever.

[789] But I get that that's her reaction.

[790] I get that.

[791] Okay, so in watching the Comey rule, again, based on your book, a higher loyalty, I'm so with you, it's such a sympathetic position, clearly.

[792] I also really like your ethics.

[793] I love your integrity.

[794] I'm also watching you navigate an impossible situation.

[795] And to remind people, you know, first there was all these emails they needed accounting for.

[796] We needed to find out if there was any kind of criminal intent.

[797] In that process, no one ever had access to the BlackBerry emails.

[798] That was never on the table for investigating.

[799] you guys looked at everything you had at that point and concluded and then publicly stated the investigations over now only a week away or whatever it was you find out okay we've got anthony weiner's laptop on it has 140 ,000 emails and all the blackberry ones we couldn't read so clearly the agency has an obligation to read those i think that's pretty obvious and defendable and then you're doing the one thing you obviously are required to do, which is look at these ones that everyone questioned, and now we have them, so we're going to look at them.

[800] And now you've got to announce that you're reopening the case.

[801] I don't know what was, six days before the election.

[802] 11.

[803] Okay.

[804] And then maybe six days before it was you guys announced, okay, no more going, okay.

[805] Now, from your perspective, I mean, how could this be happening?

[806] How could you be in this situation?

[807] What are you to do?

[808] This is the big pivotal moment, I think, at least in that chapter of your time there.

[809] Now, I'm with you.

[810] I will say this is the only moment in watching it, where to me, it lined up perfectly with the philosophy debate you have in college, which is, are you a Kantian or are you utilitarian?

[811] And I think we could say you chose a very Kantian approach, which is, I have to do the right thing per my duties, period, regardless of the ends or the outcome.

[812] Knowing the stake.

[813] Is that a fair assessment?

[814] Yeah, the only thing I'd add is, given the institution I lead, right, because it was really important to me that I can't be making a decision based on my view of what the best outcome is for the country, because I can't pick presidents.

[815] I have to sort of limit my sight to what is most consistent with this institution and my obligations.

[816] Being the FBI, that institution.

[817] Yeah.

[818] When I look at it from that lens, clearly the right thing to do, the Conteum thing to do, would be exactly what you did.

[819] Now, for me, it also suffers a little bit from being very myopic and having an allegiance to one institution within this broader government that perhaps is going to pay the price to salvage the integrity of this one institution.

[820] Maybe not a global enough view of it.

[821] Do you think that's a fair criticism?

[822] Yeah.

[823] It doesn't resonate with me because if you play that out, how do we end up then?

[824] That the leaders of different institutions in the government should consider broader effects and their judgment about really who should be president.

[825] And I just think that's unworkable for a democracy that you can't have the FBI director saying, look, Donald Trump would be a disaster.

[826] I know in a perfect world, I would announce we've reopened this investigation, but he's such a shit show that I'm not going to say anything so that I can accomplish this greater good.

[827] That strikes me as really dangerous and inconsistent with the rule of law.

[828] Now, I told my supervisor, what I thought I needed to do is the Attorney General of the United States and the answer I got back was she doesn't wish to speak to him and so they're not going to step in front of that pitch.

[829] I get, it's what makes it such a hard problem.

[830] Well, I think you're going to get blasted no matter what you did.

[831] Yeah.

[832] Maybe I'm applauding you on this interview and then someone else who disagrees going to have the other argument that would have supported exactly what you did.

[833] But I would only counter to that is, yes, if your motivation was to prevent Trump from being president, that's a non -starter.

[834] If your motivation was to protect Hillary's campaign, that's a non -starter.

[835] Because again, you're right.

[836] That's not your role.

[837] Yet acknowledging what a disruptive force during an election, when we actually don't know yet if it's criminal.

[838] For me, I think I would have taken those six days to read the emails.

[839] Before announcing.

[840] Oh, I would have loved to have.

[841] I pressed them over and over again.

[842] They said, we cannot finish this review in 11 days.

[843] I mean, there's a technical reason.

[844] We don't have deduplication software on a classified network.

[845] And so we have to read them all manually, and there are tens of thousands.

[846] We just can't, and we can't bring in the recruits from Quantico because you need people who know the context.

[847] So it cannot be done, sir, and the result may well change.

[848] So what do I do?

[849] Do I let the American people go and vote based on a lie, right?

[850] That I told them this was done, and the Republicans hammered me, and I fought them.

[851] Do I let them go vote, knowing they're relying upon something that is not true?

[852] or do I speak, either of which may have an impact on the election?

[853] It's just a nightmare.

[854] I mean it when I say both floors led to hell.

[855] Yeah.

[856] I've thought about this a thousand times since then.

[857] If I can go back in time, there's things I'd love to bring from the future back, knowledge that I didn't have at the time, but I don't think I can choose that conceal option.

[858] Okay, great.

[859] And so even me saying what my preference would be, what is very clear to me when watching it unfold is that you have zero nefarious plans.

[860] You are a man of integrity.

[861] And I really know you did something that was very, very hard for you to do and you did it.

[862] And then when I see the fallout, which I would have never even considered when consuming the media around that time, is that you're coming home and you have young daughters.

[863] Oh, boy.

[864] I didn't even think about that.

[865] You have young daughters who were like my daughters were and my wife and Monica.

[866] That scene in your house on election night was in my house.

[867] And there were seven women crying and me going, oh, my God, what do I say to them so they don't give up on?

[868] life.

[869] I'll remember it when I'm dying that night.

[870] And you, holy fuck.

[871] I'm there just representing men, which is not a great.

[872] I don't want to be a man in that room.

[873] And now you're a man that, although I disagree, some people are saying you've helped this outcome.

[874] I can't imagine the hurt that you were feeling.

[875] I know what my daughters would feel like if America was hating me and yelling at me and calling me names and restaurants.

[876] I don't know if anyone knows the personal burden that that took on you and your family.

[877] It just must have been soul -crushing for you to be there that day with your girls.

[878] Yeah, it was really, really hard.

[879] And one of the reasons I struggle to watch that movie is the writer and director of it, Billy Ray, saw something and captured something that I didn't fully see until I watched it for the first time, believe it or not.

[880] He captured the pain of my girls.

[881] and Jennifer Ely captures my wife in eerie ways.

[882] I mean, you don't have to meet my wife if you've seen that show.

[883] And the pain they were under had those two dimensions that you said.

[884] It's the pain of loss over that we might not have the first woman president, but has three dimensions, that dad was part of this, even though we love him and we know that he's not trying.

[885] And then watching the hate flow to me, I underweighted, especially that last piece of pain.

[886] I didn't appreciate how much they were suffering, watching someone they loved be attacked like that.

[887] And I could shut the window on it, right?

[888] Get in my armored car and go to the FBI headquarters.

[889] I got all kinds of stuff to do.

[890] But they're seeing it everywhere.

[891] And I regret that I didn't fully see that pain.

[892] And I remember seeing the movie.

[893] I started crying, watching because I realized you miss something that hurt the people closest to you because you were too staring at your belly button.

[894] You missed it.

[895] And I regret that.

[896] And I've told them many times, I'm so sorry.

[897] and they still experience it right the hate is still out there it stopped boiling in the same way but as you said we've added the trump maga world hate and so it still causes them pain to watch so yeah you're touching something real jim you know for sure it would hurt you way more to watch one of your daughters go through that than it hurt you personally it's actually probably more painful by proxy yes especially if you're a good compartmentalizer like myself me too yeah yeah just gonna shove that back there and put something louder in front of me let's keep moving forward.

[898] Yeah.

[899] And they love you too much to tell you that because they don't want to add to your burden.

[900] Yes.

[901] So in a way, that makes it more painful for them because they can't talk about it.

[902] Dad's got a lot going on now.

[903] And so it's hard.

[904] And the other thing is I couldn't discuss a lot about what I was doing with my life partner.

[905] You can't defend yourself to your wife and go, no, you don't understand.

[906] I don't have an option.

[907] Right.

[908] When she had visibility, she would say, look, I get it.

[909] But why does it have to be you?

[910] Right.

[911] And I'd say, I don't want to be.

[912] be here.

[913] I got nobody else.

[914] Jim, the scene that broke my heart, I don't know how fictionalize this was, but you look at her in the kitchen, you said, I can deal with America hating me. I can't live with you.

[915] Yeah, that's a true story.

[916] You hating me?

[917] His wife.

[918] Yeah.

[919] I said, I can deal with the whole country being mad at me, but I can't with you being this mad at me. It's just too much.

[920] Oh, God.

[921] So hard.

[922] What are you doing?

[923] This is madness.

[924] I mean, when you really take it in, all these different people went through.

[925] And then, you know, I can't help but think, and by the way, admitted Hillary's supporter, I voted for her, I loved her.

[926] I was heartbroken myself.

[927] But at the end of the day, you have some significant percentage of the country hating your guts because someone else didn't use the fucking server they were supposed to.

[928] You chase it down at the end of the day.

[929] You're not even in this fucking situation if she would have used the right server.

[930] That's pretty maddening.

[931] And then whatever heat you took from the MAGA people, again, you didn't create any of that problem.

[932] guy did.

[933] So to see someone else pay so severely for the crimes of other people is really pretty heartbreaking.

[934] Yeah.

[935] Were you surprised still?

[936] Did you think when all this was happening, this is a closed book?

[937] We just handed him the presidency or were you thinking, no, even with this, there's still a good chance that could be her.

[938] Like, were you surprised on the day?

[939] I tried not to parse any of that because I thought it was important that I push out polling and considerations of the horse race.

[940] And so I remember saying to myself, like, please, God, let us be irrelevant.

[941] Let us have nothing whatsoever to do with this.

[942] And so I'm always looking for things that will show me that.

[943] The 2020 election can sold me a bit because the polls tightened in the same way.

[944] The polls understated Trump support.

[945] And I was home in my pajamas during the 2020 election.

[946] But yeah, I stopped that.

[947] Please let us not have any impact.

[948] Please let us get out of this.

[949] Yeah.

[950] Okay.

[951] Well, I landed us there with your daughters intentionally because what I'm going to connect most with you about is I have these two little girls and they're my whole life and I can feel it when reading your new book Central Park West.

[952] It's very powerful.

[953] I know you are absolutely in love with your daughters.

[954] That's quite clear to me after reading this.

[955] So just really quick, let's talk about how you decide to follow up a higher loyalty, which again, New York Times bestseller.

[956] Critically, everyone loved it.

[957] How do you then go into fiction?

[958] And then once we know that, Then we'll talk about the influence of your daughters on this protagonist, which I think is fascinating.

[959] I was never going to write fiction.

[960] I didn't read crime fiction.

[961] The last crime fiction I remember reading before I got fire was 1987.

[962] I read Scott Turrose presumed innocent.

[963] And then I became a federal prosecutor and I thought the book was so cool.

[964] And that's the life I want to live.

[965] And I kind of got to live that.

[966] But I really struggled to read about crime, terrorism or espionage, especially during my government service.

[967] It was just too close.

[968] And the farther I got from government, I have to getting fired, together with nudging from an editor saying, hey, man, you write narrative and dialogue really well.

[969] You ought to think about writing fiction.

[970] I said, no, no, no, no, no. And then finally was prevailed upon, look, give it a shot, see if you like it.

[971] And for reasons you and I are about to talk about, because I got to imagine the people I love most in the world, I found it addictive writing Central Park West, and I've already finished the second book, which is out of the next year.

[972] and so I figured out that I could, through fiction, take people into places that I've been and experienced in a real way through a fake story in a way I hadn't fully appreciated.

[973] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[974] Okay, so I'm going to read a little description really quick about the book so that we can bring everyone up to speed.

[975] So S -D -N -Y, so South District, New York, federal prosecutor, Nora, Carrollton, whose case against a powerful mobster finally comes together as a critical witness takes the stand.

[976] At last, someone will put the defendant away for good.

[977] The mobster, though, has other plans.

[978] As the witness's testimony concludes, he passes a note to the prosecution offering information on the assassination of a disgraced former New York governor, murdered in his penthouse apartment.

[979] The note changes everything and thrust Nora into a high -stakes investigation of conspiracy, corruption, and danger, all while balancing her obligation as a single mother and discovering the woman she really is.

[980] Okay, so you choose to tell the story with a female protagonist, Nora, which come to find out as kind of a hybrid of your daughters.

[981] Can you tell us what qualities they have?

[982] There's a weird historical crossover that I'll start with.

[983] I prosecuted John and Joe Gambino in 1993 in courtroom 318 of the big old federal courthouse in Lowerman Manhattan.

[984] And my oldest daughter, Maureen, was four then.

[985] When I was riding Central Park West, Maureen was not only the chief of the violent and organized crime unit in the Southern District of New York, but she was on her feet in courtroom 318, prosecuting Glenn Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein's partner in abusing a lot of young women.

[986] Maureen had led that case.

[987] I remember Epstein killed himself on her birthday.

[988] And we were on vacation.

[989] And I think she had a real sense.

[990] She had been such a part of convincing these no longer girls, these women, to be brave and step forward and tell the truth about what happened that she felt like he got away in a sense.

[991] But she had the Maxwell case and she was the lead on it and she was standing in that courtroom while I'm writing and I'm writing because I can't go.

[992] She forbid me to attend.

[993] Oh, that would kill me, Jim.

[994] I'd want nothing more than to watch my daughter do that.

[995] Well, you're probably going to experience this.

[996] She said, Dad, it would be a thing.

[997] And I got it.

[998] That means it.

[999] It would be a bad thing.

[1000] And so Patrice went and I got the report secondhand.

[1001] But I had originally thought I would write Central Park West with a male prosecutor's protagonist.

[1002] And it made perfect sense to switch it to Nora, tall, dark -haired federal prosecutor.

[1003] And so I thought of my little girl who was, when I was writing this, a woman in her 30s prosecuting a really bad person for serious crimes.

[1004] And it made the words just sort of flow out of me because it wasn't about me. I mean, it was the places where I'd been, but I was writing about Maureen and also drawing inspiration of another, my daughters, who's taught me so much about the journey of sexual identity.

[1005] And so I tried to combine those two streams.

[1006] I've learned so much from my girls.

[1007] And then obviously have them redraft after draft to tell me, no, dad, that sucks, fix this, fix that.

[1008] Oh, dad, it's so lame.

[1009] No one says that, dad.

[1010] Nora would never say that.

[1011] It became a labor of love in ways I never expected.

[1012] I based another character on someone that I worked with very closely as an organized crime investigator and loved, a guy who died way too young in 2006.

[1013] And so that explains, I hope, to people, why I found it so addictive to write this.

[1014] I was writing a family, capital F story about the mob and a lowercase F story.

[1015] Yeah, well, when you're in love with the characters in anything you're writing, it just flies out of you.

[1016] Yeah.

[1017] I mean, it's not entirely my daughters.

[1018] I have four.

[1019] They're always joking.

[1020] So, Dad, which of us are you going to humiliate by talking?

[1021] talking about publicly now, but I have four tall, strong, smart women in my life in addition to my wife, who's not all that tall.

[1022] And so I really drew upon all of them and tried to put pieces of them into Nora.

[1023] Yeah.

[1024] Now, here's your wish fulfillment in mind, is that it so happens that Nora very much loved her father.

[1025] Hey, I'm the right of her.

[1026] I was reading a couple lines and I'm like, yeah, that's what I hope's going on in my daughter's mind.

[1027] Some self -fulfilling prophecy.

[1028] Exactly.

[1029] Yeah, like whimsically looking at where the Dodgers played and the history of baseball that he bestowed under her.

[1030] There's like me telling my kids about cars and motorcycles, I'm thinking it's sinking in and they'll reflect on it.

[1031] And then your wife, Patrice also plays kind of a big role in writing the book.

[1032] Yeah, I really couldn't do it without her.

[1033] She is the idea person.

[1034] She has an ability to imagine a story.

[1035] and then we discuss it, and then I'll write up a summary of the plot, we'll agree on it, and then I go off to write.

[1036] And every night while I'm writing, she's reading it on a Google Doc and commenting.

[1037] Oh, my gosh.

[1038] And she sees so many things I can't see, like characters drifting, saying, you know, Nora is starting to sound different than she did early on.

[1039] You've got to get that back on track.

[1040] My wife is trained as a marriage and family therapist, and there's a cool part of Central Park West that won't get much notice, but about a couple that's not married with a baby nesting, where the kid stays with the mother and the parents take turns going and staying there, which is an arrangement a lot of families have around the country.

[1041] But Patrice suggested that I include that as a way of sort of showing that to people, that there are creative ways for a family to be together, even when they can't be together.

[1042] And so her influences throughout the whole thing.

[1043] She's my editor and coach and idea person.

[1044] I have to imagine the first 30 years together.

[1045] your ship's in the night for, I have to imagine a good portion of your career.

[1046] The roles you've taken on aren't ones that give you a full weekend or off by five.

[1047] I can't imagine that either of you would have ever predicted you'd be this immersed together in a shared project.

[1048] It has to be kind of like a second wave of your marriage.

[1049] I'm so glad you picked up on that because we've had to spend more time together or did spend more time together since I got fired than we did when we were dating.

[1050] I know there were things she discovered about me, who I'm otherwise perfect.

[1051] Yeah, yeah.

[1052] They bug the shit out of her.

[1053] And then I don't think she'd noticed because of her.

[1054] I was a good dad.

[1055] And I showed great discipline in being with my family.

[1056] And one of the things she taught me is, when you are here, you must be here.

[1057] When you're reading Good Night Moon, you can't be thinking about a mafia cooperator.

[1058] You need to be thinking about the little old lady whispering hush and the cow jumping over the moon.

[1059] And so that habit of mind has really helped me that I learned from her.

[1060] We're not only empty nesters.

[1061] We're sitting next to each other, debating whether she thinks my writing sucks or not.

[1062] There were challenges there.

[1063] We've come through it, thank goodness.

[1064] But yeah, it was a whole new deal.

[1065] The only comparison I have in my life like that was COVID.

[1066] We were like, boy, were we a well -oiled machine seeing each other three hours a day.

[1067] But when we went to 24 hours a day, seven days a week, I think we were both like, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is a lot more than I signed up for.

[1068] So I'm actually very delighted to hear that you've taken this time and you've made it work.

[1069] And I don't know, some very encouraging and life affirming about the notion that you two, after having dedicated, I'm sure your life's to your careers and your children are now with each other and you have this shared project.

[1070] It's very cool.

[1071] Yeah, it's been wonderful.

[1072] And we'll be, I hope.

[1073] Knock on wood, this is what I'll do until I'm old and foolish.

[1074] Yeah.

[1075] And then, of course, you know, just to add all the trial stuff, the investigative stuff, this is coming from someone who's probably the preeminent expert on this topic.

[1076] It's so cool that you have the authority in the mechanics of the story that make it so authentic.

[1077] And I hope people feel that.

[1078] I wanted it to be the realist fiction people will read, but also exciting because the real work can be very exciting.

[1079] Someone said a lot of crime fiction involves prosecutors or law enforcement going rogue to generate excitement.

[1080] But I don't, at least given the experiences I've had, I don't need to.

[1081] do that, I don't think, to generate excitement, because the work is pretty cool.

[1082] And so I hope people see that and feel that.

[1083] Yeah.

[1084] So cool.

[1085] I mean, if someone just tells the story of your four years at the FBI, one wouldn't need to take any kind of artistic liberties to make that quite dramatic.

[1086] Patrice has already imagined those stories in a future trilogy.

[1087] Okay, wonderful.

[1088] Well, listen, I'm delighted to see you in your new incarnation as a novelist.

[1089] You are an incredible right here.

[1090] It's kind of maddening that you didn't do that for 30 years.

[1091] And then all of a and do it at the level you do.

[1092] So I'll fuck you, Anna, congratulations to you.

[1093] Just a thank you, back.

[1094] Okay, well, if you ever see me in real life, feel free to extend to fuck you.

[1095] Thanks for your candor.

[1096] Yeah, thanks for your candor.

[1097] Thanks for walking through all that with us.

[1098] You've written an incredible book, Central Park West, a crime novel.

[1099] I hope people check it out.

[1100] It's authentic and compelling, and there's a female protagonist.

[1101] We love all of it.

[1102] I wish you a ton of luck on the book, and I hope we get to talk to you again on your next one.

[1103] Same.

[1104] Thanks for what you do.

[1105] Appreciate both of you.

[1106] All right.

[1107] Be well.

[1108] Next off is the fact.

[1109] I don't even care about facts.

[1110] I just want to get into your pants.

[1111] Oh, I can't really hear myself.

[1112] You can't?

[1113] No. I can hear you well.

[1114] Is it just your headphone volume maybe?

[1115] It's not like you sound quieter than I do, do you?

[1116] Huh?

[1117] Do you sound quieter than I do in your own headphones?

[1118] That sounds, you know, I don't know what's happening.

[1119] Okay.

[1120] But it's probably me. Oh, that's probably better.

[1121] I think it's good.

[1122] All fixed.

[1123] Okay, just go.

[1124] Yeah, I'm all better.

[1125] Well, listen.

[1126] What?

[1127] I'm out of sorts.

[1128] You're out of sorts.

[1129] You're topsy -turvy?

[1130] What happened?

[1131] Because I was up till two.

[1132] Doing what?

[1133] So, you know, I haven't told people this because it is like when you tell people you don't like dogs, like they don't like you anymore.

[1134] Yes.

[1135] But I've been a whole season behind on Succession.

[1136] Oh, right, right, right.

[1137] I was on, I stopped watching after episode two, season three, because I felt like it was getting repetitive.

[1138] Okay, where are we at?

[1139] I have season five?

[1140] Season four.

[1141] All right, which is the last?

[1142] And the finale was last night, so no spoilers.

[1143] I didn't see it, so I can't spoil it for you.

[1144] Now, Rob is sitting on a big old arsenal.

[1145] I'm not even going to look at his face because I'm afraid.

[1146] I decided over this weekend that I was going to catch up.

[1147] Oh, that was your goal for the weekend.

[1148] Yeah, because it's a holiday weekend.

[1149] Yes, ding, ding, ding, holiday weekend.

[1150] Because I've watched 10 episodes in, I started Saturday night.

[1151] Oh, wow.

[1152] Yeah.

[1153] Good job.

[1154] I know.

[1155] And so anyway, I was up until two, and I wanted to keep going, but I stopped myself.

[1156] It was hard, though.

[1157] Really hard.

[1158] Sure.

[1159] And you knew you were going to get less than eight hours of sleep.

[1160] Yeah.

[1161] And I already knew I was, since I already was going to get eight, I might as well only get two hours.

[1162] That's right.

[1163] Once you're not going to get eight, you might as well.

[1164] Yeah.

[1165] I can relate.

[1166] I got a little less than eight last night as well.

[1167] You did?

[1168] Unconventional, yeah.

[1169] Because you'd wake up early.

[1170] Well, that.

[1171] Your teeth, okay?

[1172] Kink.

[1173] A lot's going to happen today because I'm out of sorts.

[1174] You're like the person in a V8 commercial that's not drank your V8 yet.

[1175] Oh, wow.

[1176] Remember that?

[1177] Or there's like a little bit sideways, a little bit tilted.

[1178] Is it a box of pizza?

[1179] Oh, yeah.

[1180] This was the caricature we got at our pizza party.

[1181] Oh, hold it up.

[1182] I didn't even realize that, oh, oh my God.

[1183] Do you have a beard in that character?

[1184] Me?

[1185] Yeah.

[1186] It looks like you have one of those Amish beards that, like, it's not on your cheeks, but it's below your jaw line.

[1187] That's a shadow.

[1188] From here, it looks like you have a...

[1189] everyone has a little beard he does yeah but they're boys who had beards for the for the sitting well okay so i guess you're just trying to take me down a peg when i haven't had my v8 i would i would argue i'm doing the opposite which is you don't have a beard why do you have one in this photo this character it's because i have a bad chin no and i have shadows and wrinkles no and doubles well you have a beard but you don't have one which is the good news that's because of the shadows and wrinkles Hold it up one more time.

[1190] It might be my distance from my, yeah, it looks from here like you have a fucking long chin hairs on your chinny chin chin chin.

[1191] Okay, I know you're sad you aren't in that picture.

[1192] But I think you need to, we were invited and we wanted you to come real bad if you didn't.

[1193] I can't remember what I was that prior engagement.

[1194] I can't say I've ever loved a character that's been drawn of me, you know?

[1195] I mean, I guess the premise of a character You're like, hey, make my face look exaggerated and cartooning.

[1196] I like it.

[1197] That makes me have a big jaw.

[1198] I want bigger jaws.

[1199] The cartoon is always do give everyone a big, big jaw.

[1200] Yeah.

[1201] We had one done for parenthood for the New Yorker.

[1202] Oh, I remember that.

[1203] Yeah, I have it framed.

[1204] Yeah, it's really cool.

[1205] I have it framed and I have it so that I can look at everyone else because I like looking at theirs.

[1206] But then when I look at mine, they made me like a triangle.

[1207] It's just like a nose.

[1208] It's just this huge nose and no chin.

[1209] Right.

[1210] But that one wasn't, that was a very specific type of drawing.

[1211] I wouldn't call it a caricature necessarily because it was all like little shapes and stuff.

[1212] Yeah, it didn't have big eyes.

[1213] Cubism meets caricature.

[1214] Yeah, caricature.

[1215] Okay, I want to talk about something important.

[1216] Okay, great.

[1217] We started to talk about it, but then we said we were going to save it.

[1218] Oh, okay.

[1219] Something amazing and equally horrible happened on Friday night.

[1220] Oh, my God.

[1221] I went to a restaurant with Anna.

[1222] Marrata, shout out.

[1223] Oh, my God.

[1224] Now I'm remembering.

[1225] Now I know what you're talking about.

[1226] Because even though this is my orange wine era.

[1227] Yeah.

[1228] It's also my sipping tequila era.

[1229] You have a lot of personal goals in the alcohol space.

[1230] I do.

[1231] A lot of PR's, personal records.

[1232] So I want to get, you know, I've been wanting to get it.

[1233] I haven't.

[1234] No, no. Tequila.

[1235] No, this is honest.

[1236] This is what happened.

[1237] The first time I went there, I didn't want a big drink.

[1238] Meaning like a margarita or...

[1239] Exactly.

[1240] But I wanted to drink.

[1241] You wanted to be buzzed.

[1242] It wanted to have a small buzz, but I didn't want all the extra stuff.

[1243] And this place has a huge list of tequilas and mezcals.

[1244] It's very cool.

[1245] And I thought, well, I mean, maybe I'll just try one of these.

[1246] Yeah.

[1247] And I ended up loving it.

[1248] Right.

[1249] And you got the most expensive one basically.

[1250] I got a very expensive one and they sell it by the ounce.

[1251] Wow.

[1252] And I mean, I thought this was maybe going to be a one time thing.

[1253] So I'll all splurge.

[1254] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1255] Turns out I really liked it.

[1256] So now we go sometimes.

[1257] Not as much as like the wine bar.

[1258] Right.

[1259] But we go sometimes and that's where I get sipping tequila.

[1260] Yeah.

[1261] And how many ounces of tequila do you drink?

[1262] It depends.

[1263] Normally.

[1264] 8, 9 ounces?

[1265] No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Normally not more than three.

[1266] Okay, nice.

[1267] Yeah.

[1268] Three ounces.

[1269] Which is a shot and a half.

[1270] Oh, it's not three shot?

[1271] How much is a shot?

[1272] Two ounces.

[1273] It's two ounces.

[1274] Okay, well, that's nothing.

[1275] I know.

[1276] Yeah, okay.

[1277] It's like martinis where you have to drink it really slower.

[1278] I do.

[1279] Yeah.

[1280] Which is nice, because then you're drinking it over a long period of time, but you're not drinking that much.

[1281] That's why these never worked for me. Right.

[1282] I can't take a sip of something.

[1283] I need a gulp of everything.

[1284] Yeah, that's, Anna doesn't like the sipping tequila because she's like, I just want to drink it.

[1285] It's a tease.

[1286] Yeah.

[1287] But not for me. That's my, that's my sweet spot.

[1288] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1289] Yeah, I love a tease.

[1290] So, so we were there.

[1291] It was Friday holiday weekend, kicking it off.

[1292] Oh, my God.

[1293] We were coming off of a great interview.

[1294] So spirits were high.

[1295] Oh, yes.

[1296] Spirits were high.

[1297] I ordered.

[1298] I ordered two ounces, and then I ordered more.

[1299] It got confusing because I think the second one I ordered was actually one ounce.

[1300] Okay.

[1301] But you can't really, it's hard to tell, but I could kind of tell.

[1302] So half a shot?

[1303] Yeah.

[1304] How can they be giving you half a shot?

[1305] Well, it's...

[1306] That's crazy.

[1307] Well, because it's not...

[1308] It's not to shoot.

[1309] Right.

[1310] It's specific.

[1311] Tip of your tongue in, your bottom lip and your tip of your tip of your.

[1312] normally I do one ounce at a time when I'm doing the three right but this time I started out with two because holiday weekend of course and that's a shot right but I was sipping it anyway so I got two then another two which I think was one okay and then because it was one and it was holiday weekend I thought I need another yeah so I ordered another two ounce right sure and I know meanwhile on is getting stuff we're having a great time yeah and then something bad happened something great and something bad well two things the nice owner slash manager came up and he started talking to us about stuff and he was telling us about mescal and because I'm not really into mescal yet that's a different era and but then he brought us mescal some crazy Mezcal.

[1313] Yes, but in the exact same format, two ounces.

[1314] Okay.

[1315] And I had already just got two out.

[1316] I hadn't drank it yet, but I just received two ounces.

[1317] Yeah, now things are starting to pile up.

[1318] Honestly.

[1319] Yeah.

[1320] So I have my two ounces that I had just ordered.

[1321] Then he brought us each two ounces of mescal.

[1322] Then this is the part.

[1323] This incredible arm cherry came up.

[1324] Her name was Carolyn.

[1325] And she walked up holding a tray.

[1326] of two ounce tequila 10 ounces at this point Yeah Because you had six on your own Maybe seven Well but two are sitting on the table still Yeah yeah I haven't drank any I didn't drink the two that came From the owner slash manager No no I did end up drinking that But I didn't drink the one I ordered Okay Okay Because instead I was like Oh instead of this I'll drink the mask about what do I do about this It's expensive Yeah, very.

[1327] So then this arm cherry comes up and she's so sweet.

[1328] And she said she bought a cameo from Aaron.

[1329] Oh, we love Carolyn.

[1330] We really do.

[1331] And she froze her eggs after listening to Race to 35.

[1332] And she was just a really beautiful person.

[1333] And she said, I asked what you guys were having.

[1334] And so she bought us.

[1335] This very expensive.

[1336] This insanely expensive to you.

[1337] I felt so embarrassed.

[1338] Yeah.

[1339] And bad.

[1340] Yeah, sure.

[1341] Yeah, this is a nightmare.

[1342] I mean, truly.

[1343] Yes.

[1344] There's nothing worse than someone's...

[1345] Should I say how much a cost?

[1346] Well, we can cut...

[1347] What's the cost of that?

[1348] I think we need to say it so we know how...

[1349] $25 an ounce.

[1350] An ounce.

[1351] And I think because she just said...

[1352] Four ounces?

[1353] I think she said, what are they having?

[1354] They're having like 10, 15 ounces of this stuff.

[1355] You know, what do you want to get them?

[1356] So, yeah, because she got one for each of us, which was so nice.

[1357] So kind.

[1358] And so I think she spent $100.

[1359] Oh, I hate it.

[1360] You little shot.

[1361] I hate it, too.

[1362] We got to find her.

[1363] I didn't know what am I supposed to do in this situation?

[1364] You got to donate $100 to a dog shelter.

[1365] She hates dogs.

[1366] No, you do.

[1367] That's not why.

[1368] But she likes me and so she probably hates dogs.

[1369] But that's how you would show like that it was really selfless.

[1370] It is for her.

[1371] Oh, my God.

[1372] Okay, listen.

[1373] Okay.

[1374] I freaked out, but I also didn't want to see.

[1375] say like you should oh my god well because then you're like you're placating or offending her that she she's not flush enough to buy you those it's not about that it's about this is such a fucking ridiculous indulgent thing i'm choosing to do and um and of course i'm never dragging anyone else into that indulgence yeah but i accidentally did to a sweet arm cherry and anna doesn't even I'm trying to vinegar.

[1376] This is, this is not the same, but it's kind of the same if I can.

[1377] So last, I forget what day it was last week, but Lincoln had our end of the Girl Scouts season.

[1378] I don't know how it works.

[1379] Yeah, banquet.

[1380] Where they had sold all these cookies, they get all this money, and then they get to pick a fun restaurant to go do that they're going to pay for with all their winnings.

[1381] It's adorable.

[1382] It's really cute.

[1383] But I was found myself in this very tricky sit, which is like, I sat.

[1384] down and I would normally or because you know that's where I'm super indulgent is at restaurants I get whatever I want like if I want an appetizer and a salad and I want the steak but I wanted to try the rib like I'm yeah you go all in that's where you'll see me at my most gluttoness is a restaurant yeah and I was like well I can't order the way I would because the scouts are pain right so like my first it's on the scouts die I was wanted to like go have another table next to it that I was also ordering at.

[1385] I couldn't figure out how to get what I wanted and not take the scouts to the cleaners.

[1386] So I ended up just doing a side salad and a burger.

[1387] Yeah.

[1388] Which is totally fine.

[1389] But then the next thing that happened is so I'm a gross pig in my gluttony with ordering but I'm also a very generous.

[1390] Tipper.

[1391] Yeah.

[1392] Yeah.

[1393] So next wave was like, well these fucking scouts there's no way they're going to tip the way I want.

[1394] This person tipped in a very awkward situation where it's like you want a side tip.

[1395] Uh -huh.

[1396] But you can't.

[1397] That's so rude.

[1398] Nope.

[1399] And I wasn't ultimately going to settle up with the bill.

[1400] That was going to be one of the other moms.

[1401] Anyways, yeah, I didn't like really order what I wanted.

[1402] And then I was panicked that we were not tipping enough.

[1403] Yeah.

[1404] It was stressful.

[1405] I know.

[1406] But anyway, I just, I really want to shout out Carolyn and really thank her.

[1407] And I will say that little tequila, it represented so much.

[1408] And I thought we have to drink it.

[1409] Absolutely not.

[1410] Yeah.

[1411] Are we wasting her money?

[1412] That's right.

[1413] You must drink this.

[1414] But also...

[1415] So were you pretty shit -faced when you...

[1416] I am also a reasonable person and I knew I actually can't drink this.

[1417] Right.

[1418] So I have to and I can't.

[1419] What if can you get it?

[1420] You can't get it to go.

[1421] I did.

[1422] You got it to go?

[1423] Yeah.

[1424] He said it was part of their like...

[1425] Celebrity package?

[1426] No. He said maybe they do to go orders and like they have some maybe.

[1427] Well, now look.

[1428] Look, you can order booze now.

[1429] You got to show your life.

[1430] Oh, yeah, maybe it's groovy.

[1431] Yeah.

[1432] You just can't drink it on the sidewalk, I guess.

[1433] So you got it to go, though.

[1434] That's good.

[1435] I did.

[1436] So now you have six ounces of, if you kept the cup straight, like, which one's the moscow and which one's the?

[1437] We drank the mescal.

[1438] Okay.

[1439] So then there were three, there were six ounces of tequila.

[1440] Oh, my gosh.

[1441] That we took home.

[1442] Wonderful.

[1443] Well, I'm really glad you didn't have to waste it, nor did you have to drive home in a black cup.

[1444] I can't.

[1445] Yeah, you're too.

[1446] Yeah, that's responsible.

[1447] Yes, it's a non -starter.

[1448] Because also if I killed a kid, then that would be on Carolyn.

[1449] Oh, my God.

[1450] And then I don't want to put that on Carolyn.

[1451] And she might go to jail.

[1452] Yes, over -serving you.

[1453] Yep.

[1454] Because they, the bar would be like, not our fault.

[1455] We already cut her off.

[1456] We didn't know.

[1457] We thought we were selling Carolyn this next four ounces of.

[1458] It's so weird to hear it be treated with that level of value that you're talking.

[1459] talking about ounces of it.

[1460] It sounds very druggy, just so you know.

[1461] I know, I'm sure.

[1462] And then we got an ounce of this.

[1463] Then we got a quarter ounce of this.

[1464] 3 .5 grams of that.

[1465] Yeah.

[1466] To be measuring it like that.

[1467] I know.

[1468] Yeah.

[1469] So, and well, I will say I did try to reverse.

[1470] And our waiter was foreign.

[1471] Okay.

[1472] And I don't think he could really fully understand some of the stuff I was saying because he came back and I said, I need to do a reverse payback, and he didn't know what that meant.

[1473] Me neither, yeah.

[1474] Yeah.

[1475] I don't know if this is foreignness as much as the novelty of that expression that you say as if it's reverse payback, which by the way, reverse back.

[1476] We still don't even know what a reverse back is, much less a reverse payback.

[1477] I know a reverse back is not this, though.

[1478] Oh, reverse back.

[1479] And he said what?

[1480] But, you know, and I said, I need to pay for her meal.

[1481] Right.

[1482] Because I absolutely cannot have her pay for this.

[1483] And then he said, okay, okay, all fine.

[1484] The way these waiters get put, anytime there's like three generations of males going to eat, like the waiter has to deal with all three males, fighting them in the corner to take their credit card.

[1485] Like the shit they put up with.

[1486] I know.

[1487] And now this weird thing.

[1488] It's like, I'm like, oh, my God, what do you want now?

[1489] it was hard enough for us to put those drinks on her bill and now you want her whole bill on your bill I know I know I don't know what to do it's like everyone's an episode of curbing your enthusiasm you know I know and then much later he came like he said I can't find her oh and then Anna said all the look she probably had to go straight to work to make some of our money stop stop so then on it also went to look Oh, my God.

[1490] And she didn't find her either.

[1491] Sure.

[1492] So we figured she escaped.

[1493] Really quick.

[1494] What was, what country was the foreigner from?

[1495] Anna said she thought from Argentina.

[1496] Right.

[1497] So Anna was able to speak to her, no?

[1498] It was a man. Him didn't mean to be sexist.

[1499] Well, yeah.

[1500] That's a good thing to catch.

[1501] I don't know which way that went, but.

[1502] And then she changed her mind and said not from Argentina.

[1503] Okay.

[1504] Hard pass in Argentina.

[1505] If we need to remind people, on us from Venezuela.

[1506] Venezuela Venezuela And so You have Cerveezas No Yes you have Cervazas You know I want to say that Monica That is how you pronounce it I know But not you Oh You have to pronounce it the bad way Like an American Yeah Cinco to Mayo Party Yeah Yeah Cerveza It's all complicated I get a Cerveza Well and I say The name of the The way I say The name of the restaurant It's not with a Spanish accent And so when Ana says it.

[1507] It sounds much better and she gets very mad at me when I say it.

[1508] In her language.

[1509] No. When I say it American.

[1510] Oh, right.

[1511] So then I'm doing it right.

[1512] I know, but it's different.

[1513] It's nuanced.

[1514] I quit drinking sarbasis.

[1515] You haven't.

[1516] That's true.

[1517] I own a seresa company.

[1518] Exactly.

[1519] Not alcoholic sarbeza.

[1520] Be careful because now you're in this world.

[1521] I'm going to ask Anna how she would pronounce Ted Seekers if there's anything going on there.

[1522] Oh, and so you're going to try to.

[1523] Oh, God.

[1524] Or when I'm in the Latin market.

[1525] Okay.

[1526] When I bring the bigger global.

[1527] Why don't you just hire Anna to help you for that?

[1528] I would love to, but I can't steal yet another person from Kristen.

[1529] She's, we're still healing from me, taking you away from her.

[1530] I don't know if I'm ready to.

[1531] I made choices.

[1532] No one was stolen.

[1533] Okay.

[1534] And I'm my own person, you know?

[1535] Yes, you are.

[1536] You are.

[1537] But I did swoop in and off for a slightly better package, you know.

[1538] That's in the max.

[1539] We started something that was a little bit better.

[1540] Yes.

[1541] than what I was doing before.

[1542] Yes.

[1543] She wants that for me. Yes, she did.

[1544] And I can't possibly now steal on it.

[1545] She's bored a lot.

[1546] You think she can juggle at all?

[1547] Anyway, so I just feel bad and I do want to say thank you so much.

[1548] To Carolyn.

[1549] To Carolyn.

[1550] And I did try to reverse payback.

[1551] But it didn't work out.

[1552] Really wreaked havoc on the place.

[1553] What a mix up.

[1554] It really was.

[1555] It was a. I have a story It's super name droppery Might be my most Name droppery story I like that you say name droppery Yeah Like drapery Yeah So it's very name droppery Okay Okay so as people remember We interviewed Shania Twain Yeah And loved her Yeah Right So she invited me to her concert Which was at the bowl last night How fun Incredibly fun Let's go girls All day Let's go girls Couldn't wait Oh Kelly and I we're supposed to go to a concert right well so we go and we're guests of hers at the hollywood bowl in the hollywood bowl people often actually in comments will be like visiting LA where should visiting LA which here's what I say you should do in LA Hollywood Bowl that's maybe our greatest offering it's so cool you're in the dead middle of the city yeah you feel like you're in Tennessee in the hills yes it's fantastic the vibe is so magical there yeah So we go and they have these little boxes.

[1556] Here's what makes the bowl so incredible is there's boxes and you can bring your own picnic.

[1557] You're allowed to bring in food.

[1558] Great.

[1559] We didn't do that, but that is the cool part of it.

[1560] We get in our little box and it's a four -banger.

[1561] And I don't know, who knows who else is in this box.

[1562] Oh, the kids didn't go.

[1563] No, no, just Chris and I. Oh, fun.

[1564] Okay.

[1565] Here's some commotion behind us.

[1566] People are entering the box.

[1567] Rita Wilson.

[1568] Oh, wow.

[1569] Wow, fun.

[1570] They're in our box, which is great.

[1571] We've interviewed Tom.

[1572] That's right.

[1573] I did a movie with Rita.

[1574] This is fun.

[1575] Directly next to us in the box next to us, which I'm even closer to these people than I am to Tom and Rita.

[1576] Okay.

[1577] Is Miley Cyrus and her mom.

[1578] No way.

[1579] And I have been hearing from Penae for a decade that he's really good friends with Miley's mom.

[1580] It turns out they both worked at Disney years ago.

[1581] Weird.

[1582] So, of course, Anytime I bump into someone who knows Penae.

[1583] Not to be confused with Penae Pasta.

[1584] No, because that's a pass.

[1585] It's a pass on Penae pasta and a big, big accept on Penae.

[1586] It's a pass on Penae pasta.

[1587] Yes.

[1588] And a big yes to Penae.

[1589] To Jorgo, Andrew Penae.

[1590] Right.

[1591] Yorgo.

[1592] I'm mistaken with his cousin that runs that Pano's Penae, who's running Microsoft.

[1593] Oh my God.

[1594] So she and I. get to chatting about Panay.

[1595] We're having so much fun about the evolution of his style over the last 10 years.

[1596] Like, if you've been along for the ride, it started with true religion genes that were a little, you know, they were pushing the envelope of it.

[1597] Yeah, in 2006 or 5.

[1598] And now, as I think I probably talked about it, like when I saw him in Miami, he looks exactly like Lenny Kravitz at peak Lenny Kravitz.

[1599] Scarf?

[1600] Probably, I'm sure he has one.

[1601] Wow.

[1602] He's the most incredible clothing.

[1603] He is fucking tight pants with bell bottoms that are 10 feet wide.

[1604] I mean, he is, and by the way, he pulls it all off.

[1605] Yeah, yeah.

[1606] It's incredible.

[1607] Yeah.

[1608] I could not.

[1609] I couldn't even go to right eight.

[1610] It's not your look.

[1611] It's not my look.

[1612] I would, I just don't have the confidence to pull off the whole thing.

[1613] And he does.

[1614] So anyways, I've never met Miley.

[1615] Yeah.

[1616] Here's my diagnosis of her.

[1617] What a kick -ass gal.

[1618] Oh, I want her to come on so bad.

[1619] Did you ask her?

[1620] Of course not.

[1621] You know me. But I talked with her.

[1622] ton and we had a great time.

[1623] So I definitely think the door would be way more open than it had been before.

[1624] But she's so kick -ass.

[1625] Great.

[1626] Yeah, we're having so much fun trying to break down what the show was.

[1627] It was such a unique show.

[1628] There was like Stevie Nick's vibes going on hardcore.

[1629] There's also some grand old opera vibes.

[1630] There was like a kind of a theatrical presentation to everything that was really interesting.

[1631] I've never been to a concert like it.

[1632] And of course, first song, you know, I'm crying.

[1633] Anytime a woman.

[1634] A woman.

[1635] with a hard childhood, in spite of all that, stands on a stage and lets it rip.

[1636] Yeah, you like that.

[1637] I cry.

[1638] She was letting it rip.

[1639] And I was like...

[1640] She lets it rip.

[1641] She's incredible.

[1642] It was really a fun night.

[1643] Speaking of, well, Tina Turner has passed since we've done a fact check.

[1644] She was in Switzerland.

[1645] Where...

[1646] With Shania?

[1647] Ding, ding.

[1648] Ding.

[1649] Shania Twain lives.

[1650] Oh, my God.

[1651] They were hanging.

[1652] I thought, what's happening with these?

[1653] legendary icon singers being in Switzerland.

[1654] It's inordinate them out.

[1655] I think there's a third one that's there too that I'm now tickling my brain a little bit.

[1656] I feel like I've noticed some other legend lives there.

[1657] Well.

[1658] Very welcoming place if you're a female icon.

[1659] Sure.

[1660] Did you want me to sing any of Tina's songs as Tina Turner?

[1661] So you know I love to do that.

[1662] Maybe one.

[1663] All right.

[1664] Now, you're too young to have seen these movies.

[1665] Well, even if you've seen him, certainly not in the theater.

[1666] But, you know, Road Warrior was an enormous movie.

[1667] Then they do a sequel Beyond the Thunder Dome, and Tina Turner is one of the stars of it.

[1668] Oh, okay.

[1669] Which is this basically UFC dome.

[1670] And the big, unbeatable person was Master Blaster, which was this enormous, like, imagine the mountain from Game of Thrones.

[1671] But on top of him, he was being driven by this little guy in a thing, very post -apocalyptic, very cool.

[1672] So then she wrote the title song for the film.

[1673] and I'm now going to cover my face entirely.

[1674] Okay.

[1675] I can so...

[1676] We don't need another here.

[1677] The Thunder Dome.

[1678] Rob's face.

[1679] I wish I could have seen it, but I was covering mine too tightly with my...

[1680] What was Rob's face?

[1681] Like, verge of throwing up?

[1682] It was like this.

[1683] Like, there's a fart in the room.

[1684] One last one.

[1685] This is a bonus.

[1686] What's love got to?

[1687] Got to.

[1688] it who needs a heart when a heart can be wrong what did rob's face to you in that i didn't look because now now you were well now because you dropped your shield i did yeah because you got so into it yeah oh my god i lost you lost sight of the goal um all right well good job that was an honor yeah in memoriam in memorial memorial day please i think we've I don't need to do it again.

[1689] Come back.

[1690] Someone sent us.

[1691] Oh, look at your phone.

[1692] What, what, what, what, what.

[1693] Oh, wow.

[1694] Oh, wow.

[1695] No, I had not seen that.

[1696] Why were you on your phone just now?

[1697] I just saw that there was a text to me and you, I mean, yeah.

[1698] I don't know, but what if we were in the middle of a fact check and I was just like looking at my text?

[1699] You do that sometimes.

[1700] And you check your watch and I catch it.

[1701] I check my watch for the time.

[1702] Mm -hmm.

[1703] Mm -hmm.

[1704] It was just popped up Yeah, sure I hear you The fact check's loose You're in it You're having a season right now You're in a season Orange wine Sipping tequila You're in a season There's a lot of interest right now There's a lot of folks That are interested right now It's true Don't deny it You're having a season Don't deny it Then I don't know how to behave It's your summer Hot Girl Summer Hot Girl Summer Yeah I mean it's coming left and right not really yeah no just yesterday was left today was right I had to fill you in yesterday on someone who told me they confided in me yeah that they were hot for you which is which was very flattering but that person yeah is an unavailable person still flattering if yes that's exactly right it's flattering yeah and then that's where that ends right so you know but still a lot of action coming your way now this text okay listen When you're hot, you're hot.

[1705] It's okay to admit it.

[1706] Anyway, okay, so moving on.

[1707] Okay, yeah.

[1708] I presume you opened your phone not to check your text.

[1709] Right.

[1710] Actually, that is why, now that you're saying that, thank you for reminding me. And I just had the pleasure of accusing you of something and then recusing you of it.

[1711] That's right.

[1712] Yeah, so I got to play both sides on that one.

[1713] Thank you, because I did forget.

[1714] That is exactly why.

[1715] I have my fax on my phone.

[1716] Give me your facts.

[1717] And this is for James Comey.

[1718] Jim Comey.

[1719] And a few intros ago, like four, I left an Easter egg.

[1720] Mm -hmm.

[1721] And I don't remember what it was.

[1722] Yeah, me neither.

[1723] But it was James Comey was the Easter Egg.

[1724] Jim Comey.

[1725] James Comey, Easter Egg Reveal.

[1726] But you know he goes by Jim, right?

[1727] Do you know that?

[1728] Yeah, but I...

[1729] He's one, I want to bring this up.

[1730] There's a handful of people.

[1731] that their official name that you know them by sounds very elevated and then when you find out they go by Bob like Bob Downey or Jim Comey or Rick I don't know fill in the blank yeah it's always a little discombobulating well no yeah William Prince Bill no one called yes if you're friends with Prince William you call him Prince Bill now that's very confusing no one does any of that Prince Bill okay okay yeah but what if you found out Prince William goes by Bill?

[1732] Bill.

[1733] You'd be like, what?

[1734] I would hate that, actually.

[1735] No disrespect to the many great bills.

[1736] No, I thought this because I thought about Bill Clinton, but he never went by William.

[1737] William Jefferson Clinton or the Buffalo Williams, Buffalo Bills.

[1738] Or Bill's Racing team?

[1739] What's that?

[1740] Williams Racing.

[1741] Oh.

[1742] What if it was Bill's, what's your favorite F -1 team?

[1743] Oh, Bill's racing for sure.

[1744] Yeah.

[1745] So anyways, Jim.

[1746] It changes everything up.

[1747] It does.

[1748] And for me, finding out he goes by Jim was just a little bit discombobbley.

[1749] Oh, I have one.

[1750] What?

[1751] Max, Callie's Max.

[1752] Yeah.

[1753] His name is Maxwell.

[1754] And he's a lawyer.

[1755] Oh, right.

[1756] And so on his sign -off, it says Maxwell.

[1757] That's smart.

[1758] That sounds very, like, established prestige.

[1759] So that's kind of similar.

[1760] Also, it's a, it always.

[1761] trips me up with the Roberts that go by Bob.

[1762] I guess I like whatever I knew first.

[1763] Exactly.

[1764] That's what we like.

[1765] We don't like change.

[1766] No, we don't.

[1767] We don't like change, but I actually was thinking about this the other day.

[1768] We should like change more than we do because evolutionarily, we had to be very adept at change, changing environments, people dying.

[1769] I mean, all kinds of stuff.

[1770] we had to adapt to in order to survive.

[1771] So I'm surprised we don't like it more.

[1772] Well, I think what's interesting is within any given population, there's a huge variety.

[1773] And this is why people got to not hate that we're a country of conservatives and liberals.

[1774] It's like essential.

[1775] James Comey.

[1776] No kidding.

[1777] Jimbo.

[1778] Jimmy Jammer.

[1779] But in a population, you need some that have too much dopamine that want change in progress.

[1780] So they're going and exploring the fringes of your territory and they're discovering a new fruit tree.

[1781] And then you need the traditionalists, the conservatives that want to stay put, bolster what they have that works, protect it, protect what works.

[1782] That's why we have this variation within all populations.

[1783] It's because we need all the different perspectives to survive.

[1784] Yeah, I think you're right.

[1785] But also I guess what I'm saying, I guess I'm just confused as to why we're not more embracing of change as a human.

[1786] Because I think in general, he were not.

[1787] Even the ones that are better than others, it's hard.

[1788] Change is hard.

[1789] Yeah, I think when change is unknown is when it's, I think the unknown is hard for people.

[1790] Yeah.

[1791] I think if you go, okay, and we're going to make a change, you're going from this thousand square foot house to the three thousand square foot house.

[1792] They're like, yeah, I love change.

[1793] Well, actually.

[1794] But we're going for this chavette to this Cadillac.

[1795] They love change.

[1796] Is.

[1797] Because if they, if the outcome's known, it's fine.

[1798] It's the, I think.

[1799] anxiety of the unknown.

[1800] I think that's a huge part of it.

[1801] But I think also even in those weird cases where you're something's like objectively better that is the change, it still comes with sadness.

[1802] In my experience, I feel a loss.

[1803] For me, COVID is the high watermark of that.

[1804] No one wanted to leave their known life to go indoors for a year.

[1805] But we did.

[1806] Yeah.

[1807] And then once that happened for some section of this country, they didn't want to come out.

[1808] Yeah.

[1809] That was the weirdest one to me is like, God, I think people are happy to just stay in this because they don't want to change back.

[1810] Right.

[1811] I mean, maybe it's just not instant, but I guess we are resilient to change.

[1812] Yeah.

[1813] That is good proof of it.

[1814] I just couldn't believe everyone wasn't like when the vaccine came.

[1815] Everyone wasn't sprinting out of their house in L .A. And that just wasn't the case.

[1816] It took like another year before people started feeling like they were, that was curious to me. Yeah.

[1817] Um, okay.

[1818] So the bad sport doc that I love.

[1819] Guy who Tony Soprano was modeled after.

[1820] Oh, thank you.

[1821] His name is Jimmy Galante.

[1822] Great name.

[1823] Or Galante?

[1824] Yeah, Jimmy Galante.

[1825] And he was the head of a waste disposal business in Connecticut and a convicted mobster who once bought a minor league hockey team that Dan buried trashes for his son.

[1826] Yeah.

[1827] And he's alleged to be one of the first.

[1828] the inspirations behind Tony Soprano.

[1829] I looked up if there was a over -indexing or a symmetrical alcoholism rate in government agencies slash FBI.

[1830] Oh, okay.

[1831] I can't find that because no one's reporting that.

[1832] You know you could find it if you had done police.

[1833] I know.

[1834] Police is here.

[1835] Law enforcement is here, but that's not what I was looking at.

[1836] You want it specifically FBI.

[1837] Yeah.

[1838] According to research published in the American Journal on Addiction, data collected from a survey of approximately 700 police officers, about nearly 8 % had misused or become dependent on alcohol at some time in life.

[1839] And that was October 22.

[1840] Only 8 %?

[1841] I think that's low.

[1842] But they're self -reporting.

[1843] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1844] So how to...

[1845] Because I think 8 % of the population in general is alcoholic.

[1846] Again, not known or you mean declared?

[1847] No, not declared.

[1848] I'm just saying I think at least 10 % of the populations...

[1849] I guess I was a ding, ding, ding to the tequila.

[1850] Oh, yeah, kind of a more of a callback, callback.

[1851] No, we don't say that.

[1852] Okay.

[1853] I say ding, ding, ding's and duck, duckooses.

[1854] Okay.

[1855] I remember?

[1856] Oh, my God.

[1857] Oh, I wanted to play a funny clip.

[1858] Oh, wonderful.

[1859] I love funny clips.

[1860] This is actually, this is the second Biden clip I've played recently.

[1861] You're such a boner for Biden.

[1862] Well, I do like Biden.

[1863] Mr. Vice President is that folks are going to go to the polls or have already gone to the polls and they don't know what to make of this.

[1864] They're in the dark.

[1865] What should happen now?

[1866] I think it's unfortunate.

[1867] I think Hillary, if she said what I'm told she said, is correct.

[1868] They should release the emails for the whole world to see.

[1869] The whole world to see.

[1870] They can continue their investigation.

[1871] It won't, the best of my knowledge, it won't prejudice the investigations.

[1872] But that's sort of the stilded language the agency always uses.

[1873] And it doesn't mean anything and so it's unfortunate i'd be remiss if i didn't note that if she had released all the emails from the get -go we wouldn't be having this conversation well that's true um but i don't know where this email with his emails came from what apparently anthony weiner well oh god anthony weiner um i should not come in an anti -winner i'm not a big fan and i wasn't before he got in trouble so i shouldn't come in it He's not commenting, but he's very much commenting.

[1874] I love that.

[1875] Like, he can't help but just say, I'm not a big fan.

[1876] I'm not even going to get into him right now.

[1877] I can't even, honestly, I can't even because I don't want anyone to know how I do feel about him, which is being consistent.

[1878] Oh, God.

[1879] I remember when I first saw, I laughed so hard at him having the realization that it was him.

[1880] That's funny because, yeah, it seems he's learning.

[1881] learning that in that moment.

[1882] He is.

[1883] Yeah, yeah.

[1884] It's so funny.

[1885] Um, anyhow, that is all.

[1886] That was everything?

[1887] Yeah, I'm excited to continue watching Succession.

[1888] I hope I don't have to stay up until two again.

[1889] And I'm going shopping today.

[1890] Where are you going?

[1891] I'm going to the platform in Culver City.

[1892] Never been.

[1893] I've never been.

[1894] It's a new place called a platform.

[1895] Yeah, it's like a mall.

[1896] Oh, fun.

[1897] And I love malls.

[1898] Wonderful.

[1899] Who are you going with?

[1900] Callie.

[1901] Oh, fun.

[1902] Yeah.

[1903] All right.

[1904] All right.

[1905] Love you.

[1906] Have fun shopping.

[1907] Thank you.

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