President Joe Biden

[0] My name is Joe Biden.

[1] I'm lucky to be Conan O 'Brien's friend.

[2] Then again, I guess it's because I'm Irish.

[3] Yes.

[4] You've got the luck of the Irish.

[5] Fall is here.

[6] Hear the yell.

[7] Back to school.

[8] Ring the bell.

[9] Brand new shoes.

[10] Walking loose.

[11] Climb the fence, books and pens.

[12] I can tell that we are going to be friends.

[13] I can tell that we are going to be friends Hey there, Conan O 'Brien here and we have a very special episode today of Conan O 'Brien needs a friend.

[14] I was given the opportunity to fly to Washington, D .C., sit in the White House and have a one -on -one conversation with the 46th President of the United States, President Joe Biden.

[15] When I got the call initially, I thought I was being audited.

[16] Turns out that is not the case.

[17] This is an incredible honor for me. As you know, I'm a history buff, if you've listened to this podcast at all.

[18] This was a huge deal for me. I've never been able to interview a sitting president.

[19] So it was a thrill.

[20] At the same time, I'd like to point out, I am not a journalist.

[21] I am a comedian, former late -night host.

[22] But my mission today was the same mission I've had with everyone I've talked to on this podcast in the last five years, which is to connect on a human level with somebody I admire.

[23] President Biden has a very busy schedule, so I wasn't able to get to everything I wanted to speak to the president about.

[24] But that's what happens when you're sitting with someone who's running the free world while you're wasting his time.

[25] I'm very grateful for this opportunity.

[26] And enough set.

[27] Let's get to it.

[28] Here I am chatting with President Joe Biden.

[29] President Biden, welcome.

[30] When I do this podcast, I'm always looking for points of commonality.

[31] Being Irish is such a part of who I am.

[32] There are phrases that have lived on in my family.

[33] My mother, I always called me a bold stump.

[34] Conan, you're a bold stump.

[35] But I think there's so much of that that's just in who I am.

[36] And it's got to be a huge part of who you are being Irish.

[37] Well, it really is.

[38] But I think it's because, think about it, the Irish, even once they got here and made it, they were still viewed as lesser because they were Catholic.

[39] Yes.

[40] My mother used to say, remember, Joey, the best drop of blood in you is Irish.

[41] Remember, you're a Biden.

[42] I'm thinking, who the hell's a Biden?

[43] You know, like that's not Irish.

[44] Right.

[45] Biden's not Irish.

[46] It's all about principle and pride.

[47] Yes.

[48] It was instilled in us by my mother that we are proper Irish.

[49] We are lace curtain Irish.

[50] Now, my mother's father, been a policeman, Worcester, Massachusetts, directed traffic, made, I think, $55 a week.

[51] But my mother was able to go to Vassar College and then Yale Law School.

[52] So it was all about moving upward in our world.

[53] And it was very important for our mother that we were proper.

[54] Then I get into this business.

[55] I professionally make a fool of myself.

[56] She had to figure that out.

[57] But it's a lot about pride.

[58] It's kind of expected, you think.

[59] I mean, look, for years before our ancestors came, mine came in 1848.

[60] My mom is 100 % Irish.

[61] My dad is a quarter Irish.

[62] Yeah.

[63] But, you know, they got those coffin ships in the 1850s.

[64] And they came leaving a sense of being.

[65] always ridiculed and looked down on.

[66] And there was an enormous pride in our literature.

[67] Yeah.

[68] Whether you were a farmer or a poet, there was always, it's just something about, look, we know who we are.

[69] Yeah.

[70] We know who we are.

[71] My mother said, Joey, never bow, never bend, never yield, never.

[72] She sounds tough.

[73] My mother was five foot one.

[74] Five foot one.

[75] Five foot one, almost five foot two.

[76] And she was everybody's mother confess.

[77] I show a picture of my mom, You've got to come over to the Oval after this is over if you have a minute.

[78] It's funny, you're offering that and your staff is all saying no, absolutely not.

[79] Well.

[80] Because you know what?

[81] They've looked into my record.

[82] Well, they looked into mine, too, so we're okay.

[83] But there's a picture of my mom by my desk, and my mom is holding Barack's hand on the night we get announced out in Chicago, met in people, et cetera.

[84] And my mother was everybody's mother confessor.

[85] Everybody would go to my mom for advice or they had trouble.

[86] And so my mom, she was hearing somebody's confession, figuratively speaking.

[87] She'd sit so you could see her profile when you came in the door and she'd go like this.

[88] Like, keep moving.

[89] Keep moving.

[90] I called her.

[91] And I said, the president asked me to be considered being vice president.

[92] I don't want to do that.

[93] I said, Brock, I don't want to be vice president.

[94] Right.

[95] Finally, because he said, well, damn, it's only you.

[96] There are no other choices.

[97] No, that's what he said to me. And so he said, go home and talk it over with your family.

[98] I was on the train.

[99] It was when he became a de facto nom.

[100] in August.

[101] So I go home, set everybody down.

[102] Everybody wants me to do it.

[103] I didn't want to do it.

[104] I looked at my mom who was living with him because my dad had passed.

[105] And she said, Joey, remember I called you?

[106] And I asked you about what kind of guy he was.

[107] And you said he was honest and smart.

[108] He said, yeah, let me get to straight, honey.

[109] The first black man has a chance to be president and says he needs you.

[110] You told him no. Wow.

[111] I said, whoa.

[112] Anyway, there's a picture of my mom when she wasn't even supposed to be out with a million people out in Chicago when we got announced.

[113] And we walk down she walks off the stage and there's a picture of her grabbing rocks and she's just come on honey it's going to be okay she walks that's fantastic oh that was my mom but i mean that's the you know it doesn't matter what you achieve in this life i mean this is a big moment for me i have i'm a huge history buff i am a amateur presidential historian and i've interviewed presidents in my day but never a sitting u .s president so i want to get it on the record that this is a huge honor for me it's a big deal but i love that whoever you're talking to And one of the reasons that I love this, doing this podcast so much, so much of us are the same.

[114] 92 years old.

[115] My mother tells me to do something, I'll do it to this day.

[116] She may not like the way I do it.

[117] But no matter what I've achieved in this life, it's fascinating to me that you were waffling on the vice presidency.

[118] And your mother said, you're doing it.

[119] Yeah, well, she said, this guy says he wants your help.

[120] And you told him no?

[121] Yeah.

[122] But my mother and my father, my father was a really honorable guy.

[123] His phrase was, you're a man of your word without your word.

[124] do not a man. Remember that.

[125] Remember that.

[126] That was my dad.

[127] Everything with him was about the notion of just being honorable and straight.

[128] Never lectured it.

[129] Just did it.

[130] It's funny how we keep these people with us.

[131] I have on my desk.

[132] I did a performance at the Kennedy Museum, Kennedy Library, I'm sorry, in Massachusetts.

[133] And my parents from the audience, and someone snapped a picture of the both of them laughing.

[134] They sent it to me, and I have that on my desk.

[135] Because I think that's the only reason I do what I do.

[136] It really did start when I was a kid in the 60s in a high chair, making them laugh.

[137] That was my first audience, and those are the people I'm trying to impress, and I'm still trying to impress them, you know?

[138] Well, you know, it's interesting.

[139] How many kids in the family?

[140] There's six of us.

[141] When my dad died, everybody thought that I should be the one to do the ology.

[142] We all sat and wrote it to four kids.

[143] What stunned me was, my dad was a man who came up in the 30s in high school and was, you know, you didn't tell your daughter how much you loved her and always hugging her.

[144] You're just, yeah, it's generational.

[145] It didn't happen.

[146] So what amazed me is a different relationship we had with each one of us.

[147] My sister Valerie was he loved her and adored her thought she was beautiful and she is, but he never said it.

[148] He didn't say it out loud.

[149] So when I'm, we're writing the eulogy together, all of us, my brother Jimmy, who was more like my dad than any of us, he said, well, talk about the time dad, dad, took me flying as a pilot.

[150] It took you flying.

[151] But he said, now, don't tell anybody.

[152] He went down to Newcastle County Airport, ran in an airplane.

[153] None of us ever knew it.

[154] Right.

[155] You all saw different versions of it.

[156] Yeah.

[157] I mean, it really wasn't my dad.

[158] He didn't preach it.

[159] He just did it.

[160] It was about integrity.

[161] You had to be honest.

[162] I have a topic I wanted to bring up with you, which is near and dear to my heart because it's been the root of this podcast I've been doing for about five years.

[163] I get to talk to a lot of, quote, important people.

[164] people, people that have achieved amazing things.

[165] And what I try to get them to talk about, which is the things that they thought of as maybe a disability or a problem when they were younger that helped fuel them, that when they were younger, they desperately wished it would go away.

[166] They thought of it as a weakness.

[167] But when they look at the spend of their life now, they see that that actually helped forge them.

[168] And I know you've talked about this, but when you were growing up, stuttered, and it must have been the fuel in some ways to have pushed you forward.

[169] Well, when I was a kid, kid, you've got this problem licked, by the way.

[170] For me, I was really lucky.

[171] I had a mother and a father that my mother'd say, don't let this define you.

[172] Look at me, Joey.

[173] You're handsome, you're smart.

[174] You're a decent young man. Don't let this define you.

[175] taught me how to fight.

[176] There used to be a joker when I was growing up in grade school and high school that, you know, you could beat up Biden, but he'd hurt you're going down.

[177] Right.

[178] The point was that it made me realize, in our family, this is God's Truth Conan, four of us, they're never allowed to make fun of anyone, no matter how mean they were to us, if they had something they couldn't overcome.

[179] Right.

[180] Swear to God.

[181] If you did, you get your rear end kick when you went home.

[182] Not a joke.

[183] And so it taught me that there's a lot of people dealing with dilemmas that take away their pride, their dignity.

[184] I don't know whether it's the thing that pushed me about.

[185] Like, for example, even though I was a stutter, I ended up being elected the class president kind of thing.

[186] But it wasn't, I didn't run for that reason.

[187] But there's something about your dignity and your pride.

[188] It doesn't just manifest itself in terms of an impediment.

[189] For example, when we were kids, there were a couple hard times financially for my dad.

[190] I remember being invited to us talking this about my sister last night, my best friend.

[191] And we were going to a cotillion at Mount Pleasant High School, which was rated at the best high school in Delaware.

[192] in an area that was an affluent area.

[193] And we lived in not bad area, but a less affluent area.

[194] And I was invited to the Catillion.

[195] I went to the Catholic school, St. Lina's in that district.

[196] And it was, you know, it's a little different.

[197] I remember being invited, and I was anxious to go.

[198] And my mom, I had an uncle who lived with us at the time.

[199] He was 5, 7, and my mom couldn't find a white shirt for me. And so we got one of his shirts and was French cuffs on.

[200] on it and my mother, and it fit loosely, but it fit.

[201] My dad had always wore cufflinks to work, and my dad had the cufflinks.

[202] We couldn't find me. I didn't know what to do.

[203] So my mom goes downstairs over the washing machine in the basement and the garage level and gets two nuts and bolts and brings them up and puts them on me. And I said, no, swear to God, my wife.

[204] Today that's a fashion statement.

[205] And I said, Mom, I can't go.

[206] If they're going to make fun of me. If anyone makes fun of you, you turn around and say, you don't have a pair?

[207] I swear to God, true, on the health of my children.

[208] So I go to the punch bowl, and this guy, Frank, grabs me, says, Hey, look at Biden, nuts and bolts.

[209] Everybody started to laugh.

[210] And I said, Frank, you don't have a pair of these?

[211] I swear to God.

[212] I swear to God.

[213] He turned and said, yeah, I have them.

[214] I have them.

[215] Not a joke.

[216] My theory is that if you stay connected to these things that embarrassed you when you were a kid, whatever it was, speech impediment or anxiety or feeling awkward or not being a good athlete.

[217] My list goes on and on and on, having weird hair, having a weird name.

[218] I wish you had your hair.

[219] I trade right now if you were.

[220] You want this hair?

[221] It comes off.

[222] It's a, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, if I could do it, I would do it.

[223] I will, I will, I will, I will, I will mail you this wig tomorrow.

[224] Do some polling first on how people are going to think about that.

[225] Um, but I think what it does is that it gives you empathy.

[226] I think empathy comes from a sense.

[227] If you've felt that pain, if you see someone else and you sense that maybe they're feeling that pain, you're awakened to it.

[228] That's, I think, the superpower that comes from it is you have...

[229] I'm certain you're right.

[230] When I got elected, I was using Senator Kennedy's office over in the Capitol to interview staff.

[231] And I got a phone call from my fire department.

[232] They put a young woman on the phone and she said there's been an action you got to come home december 18th i wasn't sworn in yet and uh he said there's been your wife is christmas shop with your kids my kids were then 13 months old almost three and almost four and uh she was so nervous she said they're dead and i was enraged by it i remember going out of the cap and looking up in the dome i swear to god i'm embarrassed about about the And then I had cut.

[233] I just screamed and didn't know when my boys were alive.

[234] They were badly injured, skull fracture, and bow at every bone of his body broken.

[235] Firstly, he was in a body cast, arms, legs, or anyway.

[236] What I learned, though, is that after that, when I'd show up with a friend's viewing, a family viewing, and they'd stop everything.

[237] The family would stop.

[238] You know, they'd come to me. Just come to me. And I realized what they're really saying is he lost what we lost, and he made it.

[239] He's still walking.

[240] People have to know.

[241] That you can persevere, you know.

[242] Yeah.

[243] And if you made it through, they think, well, maybe I can't.

[244] Maybe I will.

[245] I've spent a lot of time with families that are going through tough times.

[246] Yeah.

[247] Because you know it gives them some solace.

[248] And look, I want to make clear, I was really loved.

[249] I had enormous help.

[250] By the time I came home, my sister and her husband had given up their apartment and already moved in to help me raise the kids.

[251] My brother did.

[252] We have an expression in our family for real.

[253] If you have to ask, it's too late.

[254] If you have to ask, it's too late.

[255] Never had to ask.

[256] And think of the people gone through the stuff that we're talking about.

[257] They're heroes.

[258] They get up every day, put one foot in front of the other and do it by themselves.

[259] So I had an enormous advantage dealing with my things I went through.

[260] I try to impart that to my kids.

[261] that whatever you're going through, even if you're miserable right now, it's going to yield something later on.

[262] Of course, what you're describing is the worst thing anybody can describe, and what they're going through usually is something extremely minor.

[263] The scale of it, it's the same principle, which is...

[264] Absolutely.

[265] The scale varies, but the help need it.

[266] You clearly have a strong moral compass.

[267] You do things that you think are right.

[268] You take positions sometimes that you think are right that maybe aren't always immediately popular.

[269] are popular with everyone, but that's part of the job.

[270] Well, it is part of the job, I think, but it's also part of, you know, how we were raised.

[271] I was the kid Barack.

[272] We sit down every morning at 9 o 'clock together for the first 10 minutes to half hour.

[273] I used to say to them, all politics is personal.

[274] Yeah.

[275] That's what I say to them all the time.

[276] We used to know one another better.

[277] Things have changed so much in public life that it was like an old bad joke.

[278] Some of my best friends are Republicans.

[279] But there were senators or my friends, I mean, close friends.

[280] When I ran the first time, I'm 29 years old, I'm running against a man who fought in World War II, who was a judge who became a lieutenant governor, then senator for three terms.

[281] A really fine man named Caleb Box, he helped write the Clean Water Act.

[282] And the last debate we're having, he stood up and he was asked a question, and he didn't know the answer.

[283] And he said, well, I'd have to get back to you.

[284] I knew the answer, but my dad would have been angry with me if I gave the answer because it would have embarrassed him.

[285] You would have shamed him.

[286] Yes, and you can't do that.

[287] No. This might be an Irish trait, or it just might be a trait that we both share, but it is hanging on to old cars.

[288] My father would drive a car until it had 300 ,000 miles on it, and the paint would fall off.

[289] And then he once hired a house painter to repaint the car because it was cheaper.

[290] And this car looked like it had cystic acne.

[291] It was a bad, you know, terrible, and he just kept it going, but it was a point of pride.

[292] You keep a car going.

[293] My first car was a 1992 Ford Taurus.

[294] I still have it.

[295] It's not worth anything, but I still hang on to it because in my lineage, you hang onto a car forever.

[296] You have a 67 Corvette.

[297] Goodwood Green, 327, 350, can flat shift, it can move.

[298] Now, do they let you drive it?

[299] Not anymore.

[300] But no, seriously.

[301] I think I saw a tear in your eye right here.

[302] By the way, they take me out to the Secret Service test track, which is an old runway.

[303] Yeah.

[304] I've got my Corvette up to 132 miles an hour.

[305] It's only 327.

[306] The reason I had the Corvette, in 1967, when I was marrying my deceased wife, who came from, her dad was a Navy guy, owned some restaurant, wonderful, wonderful man. But they're of greater means than we were.

[307] And my dad, he wanted to give us a wedding gift, and he couldn't afford anything of consequence.

[308] He said, Joey, give me your...

[309] car.

[310] Then I had a 62 Chevy Belair and she had a Pontiac Tempest, a 64, I guess it was.

[311] I'm not sure that you here.

[312] And he said, I'll fix them all up and that'll be my gift to you guys.

[313] You can come pick them up.

[314] She was down in Delaware 10 days before the wedding before she went home.

[315] So we went to pick up the car at the dealership.

[316] He was a manager of the dealership.

[317] Anyway, we pull up and all everybody, from the mechanics to the salesperson, everybody's outside and and wait for us.

[318] And so we get out of the car, walk up, and dad said, I'm going to give you your wedding gift early guys.

[319] And everybody separates a brand new 67, Goodwood Green, Chevy Corvette, hardtop.

[320] And he was so proud because he could afford the payments.

[321] Right.

[322] And so I'm talking with Jay Leno going out the second time to race these cars.

[323] And he said, you want to sell your car?

[324] And I said, he's probably listening.

[325] So I hope I get it right, Jay.

[326] He's not listening to this.

[327] Don't worry about it.

[328] Well, he may learn something.

[329] He should.

[330] He should learn.

[331] But anyway, I said, you know, I noticed you have in a glove box, you have the original sticker.

[332] I said, yeah, I didn't realize.

[333] I had all that.

[334] And he said, he wanted to sell it.

[335] And I said, I don't think so.

[336] My son had come down from heaven because they rebuilt the engine, all original parts.

[337] And he said, you've got $144 ,000 for it.

[338] And I said, no, can't do it.

[339] For 36 years, I was the poorest guy in Congress, but I couldn't separate for that car.

[340] By the way, the new Corvette coming out, this one, electric, zero to 602 .9 seconds.

[341] Are you going to drive that one?

[342] I'm going to give it a shot.

[343] I drove the other.

[344] I can distract the Secret Service.

[345] You can make a run for the car.

[346] By the way, I drove one of those big Ford Broncos.

[347] Yeah.

[348] Electric?

[349] Yeah.

[350] 4 .9 seconds.

[351] Oh, it's unbelievable.

[352] Mine is 5 .2.

[353] Right.

[354] And that's flat shifting.

[355] But all kidding aside, I mean, I just love, love car.

[356] don't know a damn thing about the engines.

[357] I don't know anything about it.

[358] I just know how to drive them and I love it.

[359] I just know there's a big wheel in the front and I put on the gas and I move forward.

[360] That's all I know.

[361] Well, by the way, you know the new ones?

[362] I have a launch switch.

[363] Like I got the, a portion up to 171 miles an hour.

[364] And what you do is, you put your foot on the gas and the brake.

[365] And on the button on the, on where the gear shift is, you hit launch.

[366] And you watch the launch symbol inside the speedometer and it counts down and when it gets down to zero you just take your foot off the brake and you move it is like boom it is incredible hearing you talk about cars it's the most excited you brought up something that I've been thinking about you have more experience than most people in public life you came to Washington 1973 and You've worked pretty much, or you've known every president since Richard Nixon, and you've known every world leader since Golda Mier.

[367] If you've met so many of these different people, who pops for you after all this time, are there people that come to mind where you think, now, that person really stands out as an incredible leader?

[368] Well, there are a number of people who fit that role.

[369] I remember spent a lot of time in her first time with Golda Mareer and Israel.

[370] I had great working relationships with, I didn't agree, but with the Bush family.

[371] They were both decent, honorable men.

[372] I think one of the smartest guys ever worked with and knowledgeable, but also facile, was Bill Clinton.

[373] Yeah.

[374] Look at Barack Obama.

[375] He has a backbone like a ramrod.

[376] Yeah.

[377] And the guy that I recently saw was a guy who was just really totally decent, and it was as good a former president as a president.

[378] And that was Jimmy Carter.

[379] Unbelievable.

[380] Yeah.

[381] Yeah.

[382] I went down to his wife's funeral and saw him that he was in tough shape and as I went over to give him a kiss and all he said was I love you yeah and you know Republicans I became close friends was like Chuck Hagel man I mean there's a guy talk about courage decent honorable guy you were good friends with John McCain real close I never voted for John McCain but I respected him and I admired him and I didn't vote for Mitt Romney.

[383] I admire him to say he's an honorable man. I respect him and I think he's an honorable man and I think those are both men that have a strong moral compass.

[384] And so it begs the question, we're living in this time now where having those kind of relationships.

[385] You think about Ronald Reagan working with Tip O 'Neill.

[386] You were there for that.

[387] You saw that.

[388] That used to be how it worked.

[389] And I don't know how.

[390] Do you think we can get back to that?

[391] Well, you know, it's interesting.

[392] And I guess it was my sixth year as vice president, toward the end of the vice presidency.

[393] And to recall, my responsibility is to deal with the House and Senate Congress.

[394] And I realized there were new senators that I didn't know that well, like I knew most of them.

[395] So I went over to the private Senate dining room to meet the new ones.

[396] It's gone.

[397] And right after I got elected, I didn't want to be here because my wife and daughter were killed.

[398] And anyway, but a group of five senators came to me and save my sanity, starting with Mike Mansfield, Teddy Kennedy, a guy from South Carolina, Fritz Hollings, anyway, Eagleton, others.

[399] Right.

[400] To convince me, just stay six months so we can help us organize.

[401] Well, they already had 58 Democratic senators.

[402] They didn't need, and I elected Democratic governors, so we'd have been a Democrat.

[403] But I stayed, and I used to spend a lot of time trying to avoid being with people.

[404] And finally, one day, Teddy came in and said, you're going to lunch with me, and just come and sit.

[405] and listen.

[406] And I'd go over and sit down and you get to know people.

[407] And then you travel when we travel together.

[408] And it's kind of hard to really feel the vitriol for a man if you learn his wife has breast cancer or if he has a child with an alcohol problem or if he has, I mean, it humanized people.

[409] And you get to know people.

[410] It's what Michelle Obama, I think, says you can't, it's hard to hate up close.

[411] Well, that's a great line.

[412] And I think I can tell.

[413] And this relates a little bit to earlier when we were talking about this Irish quality, but I know that I like to be in a room with people.

[414] When COVID was happening and I was talking to people on Zoom, I felt like I wasn't quite coming across the way that I wanted to.

[415] I like to be in a room with people and let them take the measure of me and I take the measure of them.

[416] And I get the feeling that what really helped us in a bipartisan era, the Washington you came to, was that people were in physical proximity.

[417] They were.

[418] The dining room that you were in.

[419] That doesn't happen.

[420] anymore.

[421] Yeah.

[422] And so it's a lot easier to hate when you don't know.

[423] And so as I said, I went over and found out there was nothing there.

[424] Nobody to talk to.

[425] Right.

[426] By the way, John McCain became one of them.

[427] We were like brothers.

[428] Yeah.

[429] He asked me to do his eulogy.

[430] He asked you.

[431] Yeah, to speak at his, to do the eulogy as a general.

[432] But interesting thing, he had been released as a prisoner war, came back to the Senate and to be part of the military cadre that sits down in the Senate to travels with senators when they go abroad.

[433] And John ended up.

[434] traveling with me well over 300 ,000 miles.

[435] And we became friends.

[436] As a matter of fact, I introduced him to his wife.

[437] We were going to Japan, and we stopped in Hawaii, and the admiral daughter was this beautiful woman who now works with me. And he talked about it.

[438] I said, go up and meet her.

[439] And he wouldn't do it.

[440] So I went up and I introduced them.

[441] They ended up getting married.

[442] We were friends.

[443] Have you done a lot of matchmaking in your life?

[444] No, no, but John would have done it for me. Yeah.

[445] In other words, he wanted to, but he didn't want to be.

[446] He was still in the military.

[447] We were in a military base.

[448] Sure.

[449] And I'm the one of the ones that talked to me in and running for office.

[450] I knew he wasn't going to run as a Democrat.

[451] And he ended up running.

[452] And we would argue like, I mean, hammer and tong like two brothers.

[453] But then that was it.

[454] That's a good way to put it because I have that relationship with one of my brothers in particular.

[455] I'm a brother Neil.

[456] We're very close.

[457] We love each other.

[458] We argue.

[459] We just, really go at it.

[460] And then we put that aside and we have these great conversations and laugh.

[461] And I say, okay, I'll talk to you tomorrow.

[462] And he says, all right, we'll see you tomorrow.

[463] Love you.

[464] You know, that's the conversation.

[465] But there's a safety.

[466] There feels like there's a safety in these relationships.

[467] Maybe that's what we're getting away from a little bit is, I don't know if it's social media.

[468] I don't know if it's the politics has changed.

[469] So I think it's I think it's beyond social media.

[470] I think it's the media generally.

[471] Yeah.

[472] And I'm not blaming the media, but things have changed.

[473] I mean, who are the editors anymore?

[474] You don't know if somebody's saying, no, you can't print that in this paper because that's not accurate.

[475] There's no editors anymore.

[476] Right.

[477] But we have to get back to knowing one another, just knowing each other.

[478] When you know someone and you know their personal problems, not that they have to open up to you and everything, but you just become acquainted with them.

[479] Yes.

[480] A lot of it has to do with a sense of decency.

[481] Mm -hmm.

[482] You have to get to know the other person.

[483] Is it frustrating for you because I do see the way you, and again, I think this is something I like to do too.

[484] I like to shake a person's hand.

[485] I like to be in the space with them.

[486] Now you're the most powerful person in the world.

[487] You're in the White House.

[488] And it's harder to just get your hands, shake hands with someone, look them in the eye.

[489] The secret services here.

[490] Yeah.

[491] I drive them crazy because I want to have tactile contact.

[492] I want to look somebody.

[493] You can tell in their eyes what they're thinking about you, what you're thinking about them.

[494] Right.

[495] For example, I met yesterday with the families all have hostages still held by Hamas.

[496] Yeah.

[497] You know, it's personal.

[498] It's, I don't know.

[499] And by the way, the Secret Service, God love them, they put up with me in terms of I make their job harder.

[500] I know.

[501] I try not to.

[502] But my instinct is I see a crowd in the side road to get out and say hi, talk to them.

[503] I understand that.

[504] I have the same issue.

[505] and I have no secret service.

[506] I want secret service.

[507] I probably need it.

[508] A lot of people have different opinions about me, but I desperately love to dive into a crowd and start talking to them.

[509] And often I've had the experience where someone will stop me on the street and ask for a selfie and I'll be chatting with them.

[510] And then 15 minutes later, they say, Conan, I have to go.

[511] I need to go now.

[512] Okay.

[513] And I say, sure, because I'll do another 10 minutes.

[514] I've had that experience.

[515] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[516] They say, Mr. President.

[517] We just wanted a selfie, but we really don't want to hear that story.

[518] I've become an expert of taking it.

[519] It's easier for me to take the selfies.

[520] Yes.

[521] But look, I think it's important people know and able to get a sense of who their leaders are.

[522] Yeah.

[523] Not just what they say, but I mean, who they are.

[524] It's one of the things about the presidency that's, I mean, it's amazing to me, understandably, how people, if they know, you're back.

[525] ground and know you what you've done, there's more of a connection.

[526] Like, for example, people were surprised I wanted to go into Kiev in the middle when the attack was taking place.

[527] I was going to ask you about that because I believe I was trying to find a precedent, but you've gone to two active war zones.

[528] And that is highly unusual.

[529] And I don't know how, first of all, was the first lady okay with that?

[530] When you said I'm going to go into.

[531] Yes, she was.

[532] She is a tough lady, and she knew, I wanted to demonstrate that, first of all, I wanted to see for myself what was happening.

[533] And the Secret Service, God loved them.

[534] The last thing they want to do is put a present on a train, 10 -hour train ride.

[535] Yeah.

[536] And when we got off the train and I met with Zelensky, we really do have a moral obligation to help these people.

[537] And then the ride back was similar.

[538] But I didn't view it.

[539] I got coverage of this.

[540] The only thing it did was say, well, he was not 300 years old.

[541] How could he do 20 hours back and forth?

[542] But for me to see, I was showing the staff today.

[543] We're talking, getting ready to come over here.

[544] I have a photograph of when Chuck Hagel and John Kerry were with me, and it was in the first month after became president.

[545] The president of Obama said, Joe, I want you to go and make your own assessment of what's going on in Afghanistan.

[546] stand, so we traveled the entire country in a helicopter, and we're going back, and John Kerry wanted to see where Osama bin Laden had escaped through the Kona Valley of the mountains.

[547] And a helicopter was forced down in a snowstorm, and barely they found this place to land, which was incredible.

[548] And there's a picture of us all standing behind the helicopter to stay warm.

[549] I think it was something like 18 below zero.

[550] It was only 17 clicks from Boggham Air Force Base.

[551] And I'm looking at that, and thinking of my the guys I was with, the CENTCOM commander, the pilots, John Kerry, Chuck Hagel, because, well, we wanted to see for ourselves what was real.

[552] If you're in a briefing room and someone's giving you papers or they're showing you photographs, it's really not the same.

[553] You've got to go there.

[554] No, it's not the same.

[555] And it depends on who's talking to you.

[556] And by the way, it's really tough, I think, for a briefer to come in and sit down the President of the United States and tell them this, that, the other thing.

[557] And the people, that I've, a matter of fact, I'm going to be seeing Chuck Hagel after this program.

[558] He's going to come over the office.

[559] We're still friends.

[560] He's a Republican.

[561] I wanted to read you a quote.

[562] It's a quote that I love.

[563] It's by Vladimir Lenin.

[564] I don't think he gets quoted a lot here at the White House, but I'm going to go for it.

[565] There are decades where nothing happens and weeks where everything happens.

[566] You are living through an extraordinary time as president.

[567] It feels like the world is turning on its axis every 36 hours.

[568] Are there times when you wake up in the morning and think, I wish it was a little bit duller right now?

[569] I wish things would just settle down.

[570] Well, yes and no. Look, yes, when I had that cranial aneurysm, the doc was trying to explain to me, whether it was congenital or environmental.

[571] And I said, Doc, I don't care, just fix it.

[572] Yeah.

[573] This is back in, is this 88?

[574] This is 88.

[575] And he looked at me, said, you know what your problem is?

[576] Senator?

[577] And I said, no, Doc.

[578] He said, you're a congenital optimist.

[579] Well, I seriously, I was a quote.

[580] Here's the deal, though.

[581] One of the things that I've never been more optimistic about America's chances in my whole life, I wasn't going to run again because I just lost my son.

[582] He should be sitting being interviewed, not me. He was the Attorney General, Bronze Star winner, major in the USR.

[583] Anyway, one of the things that comes through to me is that for all the difficulty, When I wasn't going to run because I was going to write a book on an inflection point in American history, I think we're at one of those points that every seven or eight generations occurs.

[584] Not because of any one leader, but the world is changing.

[585] Everything's in motion.

[586] And what we do in the last couple of years, the next three or four years, going to determine the course of the country and the world for the next five or six decades.

[587] I believe that with every fiber of my being.

[588] If we prevent Ukraine from collapsing, I've worked like hell, not just me, to hold NATO together tightly.

[589] It's never been as tight.

[590] Expanded it.

[591] We have an opportunity to change the dynamic in Europe for generations.

[592] My mother, God, lover, I remember going to identify my family.

[593] He actually said, Joey, out of everything terrible, something good will happen if you look hard enough for it.

[594] I thought it was the cruelest thing she ever said to me. But look what's going on in the Middle East now.

[595] Yeah.

[596] You know, I was able to get a resolution pass through the G20 leaders of the 20 largest nations to build a railroad from Riyadh all the way through into Saudi Arabia, Jordan, up through Israel.

[597] all the way into Europe, because there's much more reason for them to be together than to be a part.

[598] I'm not a journalist, so I'm allowed to give my opinion.

[599] And I, as a, again, amateur historian, I think it's absolutely crucial that Ukraine prevail.

[600] And it's something that I'm very passionate about.

[601] I get confused, you know, as you know, the Washington you came to in the 1973, Republicans were always tough on foreign policy, tough on Russia.

[602] And now MAG Republicans, they've kind of flipped the script.

[603] And they're saying, well, we can let Ukraine go.

[604] It's not really in our interest.

[605] And I don't understand it.

[606] It's confusing to me. The other guy says, we can work with Putin.

[607] He's smart.

[608] Yeah.

[609] The other guy.

[610] I like that he's the other guy.

[611] He's like Voldemort now.

[612] His name shall not be mentioned.

[613] Well, good point.

[614] I plead guilty.

[615] Yeah.

[616] But look, I mean, just if not.

[617] Nothing but global warming.

[618] It's changing the world.

[619] Yeah.

[620] Ice caps are melting, that's true, but guess what brings that along with?

[621] Now you've got China and Russia and the North Pole trying to circumvent the globe, change the dynamic in the region.

[622] I mean, the things that are happening, for example, the idea that we're having to rebuild infrastructure, but some countries don't have the capacity to do it.

[623] I've been met now twice.

[624] I've had the leaders of the Pacific nations come and be with me here because they're worried about going underwater and not making it.

[625] Just go down the list.

[626] But I think maybe because I'm that congenital optimist, when I told my staff a couple years ago, I was going to bring South Korea and Japan together and look to me like, now, look, I know a fair amount about foreign policy.

[627] I have more experience than any president's ever had.

[628] Doesn't mean I'm good or bad.

[629] Just I know these heads of state.

[630] It's a small world.

[631] It's getting smaller and smaller.

[632] Yeah.

[633] And for example, China.

[634] China's a competitor, but I have a relationship with Xi Jinping.

[635] I've spent more time with them than any world leader ever has.

[636] Just because when I was vice president, Barack wanted me to get to know him because it wasn't appropriate for a president to spend time with him because we knew he was going to be the president.

[637] He's a very tough, smart guy, but he's got enormous problems.

[638] And so, for example, when I put together the quad, India, Japan, Australia, the United States, he said, you're trying to surround me. I'm not trying to surround you.

[639] I said, we're just not going to let you change the dynamic of world rules.

[640] So whether it's international airspace or whether it's sea space.

[641] I said, well, I didn't write them.

[642] I said, well, that's what they are.

[643] We're not going to change them.

[644] So many parts are moving that there's an opportunity to realign the world in a way that is less likely to result in war, less likely to result in human suffering.

[645] Now, I know people look at me and say, well, you're just too optimistic.

[646] There's ways to step up and lead.

[647] And look, one of the things is, again, I'll make it clear, it's not because Joe Biden's president.

[648] It's the moment.

[649] Madeline Albright said, America is the essential nation.

[650] Conan, that's not a joke.

[651] Who leads the world of the United United States doesn't.

[652] Who?

[653] Who?

[654] No one else can.

[655] And we have an obligation and an enormous opportunity to leave our kids and our grandkids a better world.

[656] Well, I like that you describe yourself as an optimist, congenital optimist.

[657] I always tell people I'm a 52 % optimist.

[658] There's a good, healthy dose of me that is very worried and very concerned, but I always lean towards optimism.

[659] It's the more challenging standpoint to take.

[660] Well, don't get me wrong.

[661] I have written about and I think I know pretty intimately downside.

[662] Yeah.

[663] But look, we've got to remember we're the United States of America, for God's sake.

[664] Nothing, nothing, nothing is beyond our capacity when we work together.

[665] I mean, it really isn't.

[666] Think if we're the only nation that has come out of every crisis stronger than we went in.

[667] I did want to end on, I've been doing this for a long time.

[668] And so it was a big honor when I got the call that the president of the United States was going to speak to me in the White House.

[669] And it's, you know, it's an honor.

[670] And I'm rooting for you.

[671] And as the Irish say, God bless you.

[672] You know, thank you.

[673] Thank you for taking the time to do this.

[674] Oh, come on.

[675] Do you guys have a chance to come over and see the Oval?

[676] I'd love to see the Oval.

[677] Come on, let's go do it.

[678] All right.

[679] Let's do it.

[680] Thank you.

[681] Thank you.

[682] Conan O 'Brien needs a friend with Conan O 'Brien, Sonam of Sessian, and Matt Gawley.

[683] Produced by me, Matt Gawley.

[684] Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Nick Leow, and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Earwolf.

[685] Theme song by The White Stripes.

[686] Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino.

[687] Take it away, Jimmy.

[688] Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair, and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples.

[689] Engineering and mixing by Eduardo Perez and Brendan Burns.

[690] Additional production support by Mars Melnik.

[691] Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, and Brick Con. You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts, and you might be able to.

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