Chris Wallace

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

[1] Happy Thanksgiving, armchair expert, experts, on expert Thursday.

[2] How you doing?

[3] Hi, sorry.

[4] Happy Thanksgiving.

[5] Oh, what were you doing?

[6] Okay, actually, this is relevant.

[7] Responding to Cali?

[8] No, lady, my cleaner, sent me a picture, my CEO, she said, is this trash?

[9] This was in the trash.

[10] And it's this...

[11] Can't see.

[12] It's an ornament.

[13] Oh, my gosh.

[14] And it's actually for you.

[15] And you threw it away.

[16] I didn't.

[17] I don't know why it ended up in the trash.

[18] Wow.

[19] Good eye, lady.

[20] I know.

[21] And that's her name.

[22] I'm not just saying lady.

[23] That's right.

[24] That is her name.

[25] It's from Hallmark.

[26] It's an Indian car.

[27] Oh, wow.

[28] An Indian car.

[29] Yeah.

[30] Oh, my gosh.

[31] This is exciting.

[32] Anyway, Chris Wallace.

[33] Chris Wallace.

[34] Man, did we have a good time talking to Chris Wallace?

[35] He is, of course, a journalist and a television news anchor of Fox News Sunday.

[36] He's written several books, How to Win an Election, Countdown 1945.

[37] He has a new countdown book, Countdown Bin Laden, the untold story of the 247 -day hunt to bring the mastermind of 9 -11 to justice.

[38] This was such a fun interview.

[39] Chris Wallace is, above all things we would say on the count of three, one, two, three.

[40] Playful.

[41] That's our favorite thing someone can be.

[42] Exactly.

[43] Um, please enjoy Chris Wallace.

[44] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair expert early and ad free right now.

[45] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[46] Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.

[47] Mr. Wallace, can you hear me?

[48] I can hear you loud and clear.

[49] Well, I, I got to tell you first and foremost, it's rare that this would even be forwarded to me, but I had the pleasure of reading, I want to believe that you wrote it, the email to Monica, it was beyond flattering that you would have been listening to our show while recovering from, I don't even know specifically what you were recovering from, but could this all possibly be true?

[50] Well, it's all true.

[51] I wrote it with my own little fingers, and Monica, what happened was, I mean, it starts out badly this story.

[52] I had surgery.

[53] I had a skin cancer on my nose and I had Mo's surgery, which we can go into if you want to, and let me tell everybody out there, please lather yourself with SPF with a sunscreen and wear a hat and take it seriously.

[54] I thought I had, but I ended up with one right on the middle of my nose and I had to have surgery.

[55] And I have this thing I call calm down time, which is I like to have about half an hour, 45 minutes.

[56] At the end of the day, my lovely wife, Lorraine goes to sleep, and I sit next door and read a book.

[57] But I wasn't feeling like reading at this time.

[58] So I discovered podcasts, and I discovered armchair expert with you guys, and I loved it.

[59] And, you know, I would listen to you guys with Obama, and I listened to you with Quentin Tarantino.

[60] and I especially enjoyed because it was something I didn't know about the one you guys did with Mila and Ashton.

[61] I'm still not sure I believe in cryptocurrency, but it was interesting.

[62] But it was interesting.

[63] And so when I wrote this book, Countdown bin Laden, and I was going on a virtual book tour, I decided I reached out to you guys.

[64] You didn't reach out to me. It's so flattering.

[65] And I guess the first thing I think of as a fellow interviewers, how do you enjoy being interviewed?

[66] Is switching the hat easy for you?

[67] Has it grown easier?

[68] Would you prefer to be asking us questions?

[69] Like, what are your general thoughts about being the interviewee?

[70] I would prefer to be the interviewer than the interviewee, because you have more control over the situation, and you can prepare for it more.

[71] But as time has gone on, and I've become more of a public figure, I get interviewed more, and particularly with a book tour.

[72] So I'm not as uncomfortable with it as I used to be.

[73] How about when it first happened?

[74] Because, see, now, you and I have opposite trajectories, which is I had been interviewed for a decade or two.

[75] And then I thought, well, I know how interviews go.

[76] I've been in hundreds of them.

[77] And it was a steep learning curve for me because I was like, oh, right, I'm second most important in this conversation.

[78] I got to wrap my head around that.

[79] Actually, that's not true of every interviewer.

[80] There are a lot of interviewers who think they're the most.

[81] important person in a conversation.

[82] But this is different than doing an interview in a Sunday talk show where I've got 10 or 11 minutes and I've got maybe six or seven questions and the key is to just hone in on the most important things.

[83] What are the things that I enjoyed and found so relaxing in calm down time as I was trying to get ready to go to bed all bandaged up with you guys is it, it seems less an interview and more a conversation.

[84] And that's different.

[85] The other thing I would say is you don't have the time pressures.

[86] And there's a famous saying where somebody said, I'm sorry, I wrote you such a long letter.

[87] If I'd had more time, I would have written you a short letter, meaning that it's sort of harder to come up with, to do a 10 -minute interview than an hour interview, which I think is true as a matter of fact.

[88] Oh, yeah.

[89] I was going to say, do you like listen to our show with some deal of envy where you're like, oh, well, shit, if I had 95 minutes with Obama, I probably would have discovered that he thinks he's a great, but, you know, whatever the thing would be.

[90] Do you ever, I guess, pine for it?

[91] Because the reason I, to be honest, wanted to do a podcast was, I'm so used to being on late night talk shows where it's like, I got to deliver in seven minutes.

[92] I got to be funny nine times.

[93] And you're certainly not getting to know me. And then I started being guests on podcasts.

[94] And I thought, this is so lovely to be able to breathe and relax and chat.

[95] And that's why the medium appealed to me. Do you kind of wish you had that format from time to time?

[96] Not from time to time all the time.

[97] I mean, they're not mutually exclusive.

[98] You can do traditional formal interviews, and you can also do podcasts.

[99] But actually, it's one of the things I wanted to talk to you guys about today.

[100] How does a podcast work?

[101] And Monica, you're being unusually silent here from the podcast that I've heard.

[102] I mean, you know, how does it work?

[103] Because I think it's a wonderful format.

[104] And it's not either or, but I think in addition to the kind of hard news interview and trying to get maximum information as I did yesterday from Anthony Fauci about COVID, the idea of having a conversation, which is so much more informal.

[105] And I think in some respects, so much more informative, because as you say, it's not just looking for headlines, you're looking for a real feel and insight into the person.

[106] I also think for us, we're not looking for anything.

[107] I think maybe that's the difference.

[108] Like, we're not hoping we, I mean, we do hope we get some sort of, like, fun nugget or something.

[109] But we want something you've not heard from them anywhere else, but not per se salacious.

[110] Definitely not salacious, actually, because we know most of the time we have to cut anything super salacious.

[111] We tell everyone we'll cut whatever they want.

[112] So, like, it's like kind of riding the line of getting to know them.

[113] Can you send me the outtakes of the salacious parts of the podcast that you?

[114] They're mostly me getting canceled.

[115] So that's where, that's what most of the.

[116] editing is.

[117] But yeah, I think because we're, I guess our aim, like your aim is to get the truth, which is great.

[118] That's the fourth estate.

[119] We need that.

[120] But our aim is to potentially get the true human behind this artist or this professor or this legendary broadcaster.

[121] So we're hoping to get just a much different kind of truth that oddly probably can't come out in 18 minutes.

[122] Yeah.

[123] Well, 18 minutes.

[124] We never do an interview this 18 minutes.

[125] Look, compared to morning television where it may be four or five minutes, we'll go 10 or 12 or maybe 14 minutes.

[126] But even then, I mean, there are a few things also, and this is a big difference.

[127] It's not just the length of time.

[128] It's also the fact that we're doing it live or live on tape.

[129] So you're always making a decision, well, can I ask that follow -up or not?

[130] I really would like to ask it.

[131] But if I ask it, the guy may go on for another three minutes, and now I've given up other things that I wanted to ask.

[132] And also, God forbid, and it does happen, you ask a question.

[133] And then remember also, I'm talking to people, senators and members of cabinets, things like that, and they're scripted, they have their talking points, and you ask them a question, and oftentimes they're going to go off on their script, and you don't get to any approximation of the truth.

[134] Yeah.

[135] That's frustrating.

[136] All right.

[137] So I'm going to admit something embarrassing right out of the gates.

[138] this is so silly of me, and I don't know why this never occurred to me, but I have to say my favorite television show in the history of television is 60 Minutes for many, many reasons.

[139] A, I think it's an incredible show.

[140] B, it was the background of my weekends at my grandparents, right?

[141] It was Sunday we sat down.

[142] My grandma Yolos made spaghetti.

[143] There was a big loaf of white bread.

[144] We put so much butter on it, and it just played.

[145] It's in me. Like, if I don't get that on Sunday, I feel like I'm I'm missing something.

[146] And then, of course, Mike Wallace, I just knew all growing up and was a fan of how hard -nose he was.

[147] And then I've come to really, really love you.

[148] And it never occurred to me that's your father, which is so silly.

[149] Really?

[150] You didn't know?

[151] No. And I watched recently a documentary about him.

[152] I can't remember the name of it, but there was some documentary about your father.

[153] Yeah, Mike Wallace is here.

[154] Yes.

[155] And it was, oh, my God, was it mind -blowing.

[156] I just, I loved it.

[157] Can you enjoy that as the son of somebody?

[158] Yeah, I liked it.

[159] It's a little more fraught because my father's been gone now for nine years.

[160] And so I'm very protective of his image, of his legacy.

[161] And there were two things in it that really ticked me off, if you want to hear, I'll tell you.

[162] But generally speaking, I thought it was pretty good and pretty fair.

[163] I want to know it ticked you off naturally, yeah.

[164] Okay.

[165] Well, okay.

[166] There was one thing was that at one point, in the documentary, he's being asked about his marriages, and he was married four times.

[167] I can't imagine how anybody could do that, but he was married four times.

[168] And he, of course, he did live to be 94, so I suppose that gives you more time to do it.

[169] But in any case, he, so there's an interview with him, and he's being asked about it, and he says, oh, knock it off.

[170] And then the next thing they have is a clip of him asking Larry King about all of his marriages.

[171] And the implication is that my father was a hypocrite.

[172] He'd ask other people, but he wouldn't answer it himself.

[173] The fact was when that particular interview had been done as part of the 20th or the 15th or the 25th, whatever it was, anniversary of 60 Minutes by a 60 Minutes producer, obviously they weren't going to run a clip about his marriages in an anniversary show on 60 Minutes about the history of the show.

[174] So he was saying to his producer knock it off because it was stupid.

[175] And then the only other thing I would say that I objected to was at the end of the documentary, they have him interview Arthur Miller, who wrote Death of a Salesman.

[176] And again, I think the subtext was that my father at the end of his career was like Willie Lohman at the end of death of a salesman.

[177] He wasn't out in the road anymore.

[178] He was defined by his job and he didn't have a life.

[179] And it was a tragedy.

[180] And that isn't true because as my father got older, he actually, It became a much better father and a much better family man. And one of the things he said to me that I loved because he was, work always came first.

[181] I mean, it was a joke, but it was the truth, which was I used to say that if he had two calls and one of them was from me and one of them was from CBS News, he'd pick up the CBS News call because, and it's just true.

[182] That was his.

[183] But in the later years of his life, he'd become, finally, finally, much more interested and devoted to family.

[184] And one of the things he said to me, which really moved me in his 70s, he said, I'm glad I've gotten to live this long because I've had time to make amends.

[185] Yeah, yeah.

[186] Well, so you and I share this in common, which is your parents got divorced when you were one.

[187] I was three.

[188] I had a challenging relationship with him over the years.

[189] He got sober, which was a great gift.

[190] So we were able to do things probably that wouldn't have come otherwise.

[191] And then he died in 2012, and we got to make amends, as you say.

[192] But such a complicated relationship for me, because I think because they got divorced, he was the villain, and my mom was the angel and the hero, and she did raise us.

[193] And so I kind of always thought I was defining myself in opposition to him.

[194] And then it's just kind of undeniable.

[195] You know, like he was a car salesman, and I virtually all a movie script writer is a salesman.

[196] I can pitch things and people buy them, and we look identical, and I'm a fucking addict who had to get sober.

[197] Like, all of it is kind of inescapable.

[198] And I just wonder if you have those same kind of feelings.

[199] Well, I mean, absolutely.

[200] It gets even more complicated because a number of years later, I want to make it clear there was no scandal here.

[201] My mother met and married a man named Bill Leonard, who was an executive at CBS, and eventually Bill Leonard became the president of CBS, and my stepfather was my father's boss.

[202] And so it was very, very complicated.

[203] And to make this sort of Shakespearean story round the corner here, my father and I always had kind of a brittle relationship.

[204] And it got better as time went on, but it was still brittle.

[205] And in 94, I got divorced, and my stepfather died, and the combination of those two things, I think my father felt there was an opening for him that there had never been before, because my stepfather, who I came to identify more as my father than my real father, and in fact, he's the man I called dad.

[206] He was gone, and also, as I say, I got divorced, and my father was good at divorce, and for six months, he was working on 60 minutes.

[207] I was working on a magazine show on ABC called Primetime.

[208] Wherever I was in the world and wherever he was in the world, he called me up literally every night to ask how I was doing.

[209] So I would say for the last 20 years of his life, we became best friends.

[210] Oh, my God, that's great.

[211] And I can't tell you what a huge gift that was to me that this relationship, I think there's nothing worse than having a parent.

[212] or anybody that's really important in your life.

[213] And the relationship ends and it's still unresolved.

[214] And that wasn't true with my dad.

[215] At the end, we had made amends to each other and we had answered each other's questions and I hate to use the word, but there was real closure.

[216] The similarities are eerie.

[217] Okay, so my mom married my dad's buddy at the dealership.

[218] Okay, so similar, my first stepdad worked with my dad.

[219] And then, yes, when I eventually got sober in 2001, now we had a thing, right?

[220] Like, so I was very judgmental of him as a dad.

[221] And then here I was, I had lost the moral high ground.

[222] I, too, was a degenerate addict like he had been.

[223] And he could reach out to me in a time where I knew only he knew.

[224] And it became quite a bonding thing for us.

[225] So that's really interesting.

[226] It's crazy that a parent who, through failures, you can bond.

[227] I think that's really profound.

[228] And that maybe is what's so unique about family.

[229] Is they're there when you lose, not when you win?

[230] That's kind of why they're worth holding on to.

[231] Absolutely.

[232] I mean, it's pretty nice to celebrate victories with family.

[233] But look, there's also a special relationship because when my father and I became closer and people would say, well, you know, he's this giant and I was younger in my career.

[234] And they'd say, well, like, do you critique each other?

[235] And I'd say, yeah.

[236] And they were like, you critique Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes pieces?

[237] And I said, listen, there is only one person in the world who has no agenda when it comes to him.

[238] And I felt the same way.

[239] In other words, if he knew I was saying, gee, I thought you could have done this better, that I wasn't doing it to put him down.

[240] And I wasn't doing it because I wanted something he had.

[241] It was for the purest of reasons and motives.

[242] and that sense of trust that all that you want from the other person is to be there to help them and be there with them through victory and defeat.

[243] When the relationship was more brittle, as you said, like earlier before you guys kind of refound each other, was it really hard to have people being like, oh, yeah, your dad, like praising him when you knew like there's all this stuff underneath?

[244] Well, sure.

[245] And I'll tell you a very interesting specific.

[246] story in that regard.

[247] People always think being the son or the daughter of somebody famous is just a huge boost.

[248] And it certainly has its advantages.

[249] As I was growing up, both my father and my stepfather, I met all kinds of people.

[250] I was exposed to all kinds of things.

[251] I remember one time when I was in high school, my father was doing the CBS morning news.

[252] He said, you got to get up in the morning and come down.

[253] And I was on vacation.

[254] I'm like, what?

[255] And I went down and I met Malcolm X. Oh my God.

[256] Is this in Chicago or?

[257] No, this is in New York.

[258] Okay.

[259] So, I mean, I had all kinds of my stepfather.

[260] I met Eleanor Roosevelt and, you know, I went to conventions and all.

[261] I mean, I had all kinds of things.

[262] But there's a downside to it as well.

[263] And that is that you're sort of in someone's shadow and you know that they're always thinking.

[264] And one of the things I used to hate the most, Monica, is that sometimes I'd be talking to somebody in a very, me, and they'd say, hey, Mike, and boy, it just, it's sort of, every sort of way in which you try to protect from that insecurity that I'm really just somebody famous as son, when somebody suddenly slips and calls you Mike, the odd thing about it is my dad has been gone now for nine years, my father, and people rarely, but occasionally still call me Mike, and when they do now, I'd love it because his, means his memory is still alive.

[265] Yeah.

[266] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[267] That is a big change from what it was for 50 years.

[268] Yeah.

[269] Yeah, what I would argue is that that type of nepotism, we'll call it, could get you a shot, but it cannot get you a career.

[270] Like, it could get you into the party, but then it is unsustainable.

[271] There's no, you know, at some period, hopefully that just kind of dissolved.

[272] because you can't sustain that.

[273] It's all completely true.

[274] I mean, it does get you in the door, but in a business like television where your performance in covering a story or covering a bead or your ratings, it's what have you done for me lately, not who is your dad.

[275] But being called Mike kind of, when you're Chris and you're trying to start out in your career, it kind of gets you in your soft and underbelly.

[276] You know, and stuff like, oh, really, it's still there.

[277] I have to tell you a joke.

[278] I once made.

[279] Tom Hanks's son, Colin Hanks is a fantastic actor.

[280] He and I were both judges on this cooking show, and they put us on this scissor lift, and we were about three stories in the air looking down on the chefs, and it was wobbling quite a bit, and I said to him, you know, when this thing crashes, the headline's going to say, son of Tom Hanks and husband of Kristen Bell Dye and Scissor lap accident.

[281] I had the same joke.

[282] I'd go out on shoe.

[283] sometimes with a crew and a producer.

[284] And I'd say, you realize if this, if anything happens, it'll be Mike Wallace's son and broadcast technicians killed in plane crash.

[285] Literally.

[286] One fun story I would just like to hear, and I think it'll dovetail into ultimately what we think about the arc of news in the U .S. But the fact that you were an assistant at one point, I think for a brief period, but an assistant to Walter Cronkite during the 64 Republican Convention.

[287] I guess for me, and maybe because you're older, there's someone before Cronkite.

[288] But of course, for me, that seems like the George Washington of televised anchors like Walter Cronkite.

[289] What were you able to observe in him?

[290] Were you starstruck or did you learn things?

[291] How was that experience?

[292] Assistant overstates it.

[293] I was at the 1964 Republican Convention, which was held at the Cow Palace just outside, Francisco, and that was the Barry Goldwater Convention, and this was pure nepotism.

[294] I was his gopher, meaning go for coffee, go for pencils, things like that.

[295] And I was in the anchor booth with Walter Cronkite and Eric Severide, and down on the floor, Nelson Rockefeller got booed off the podium because he was too liberal, to establishment.

[296] And, you know, this is when the conservatives took over the Republican Party.

[297] And I remember thinking, I can't believe people are getting paid to do this.

[298] That was really when the journalism bug bit.

[299] I was 16 years old at the time.

[300] No, I mean, I wasn't starstruck.

[301] I mean, I kind of grew up amongst all these people.

[302] I very much admired him.

[303] And one of the things that I certainly learned from him and a lot of people, including my father, is preparation.

[304] I mean, just the extraordinary preparation.

[305] I also, during spring vacation, the next year of 65, went down to Cape Kennedy for a space show.

[306] a Gemini space shot, and I was in the anchor booth down there with him, and he had a timeline.

[307] It was the first Gemini flight, and I don't know, it was three hours or whatever.

[308] They're circling the earth three times.

[309] And he had a timeline in this notebook that he had prepared of what was supposed to happen every minute during these three hours, so that if something happened according to schedule, he'd know it, and if something didn't go according to schedule, he'd know it.

[310] And that's one of the things that you just pick up by us.

[311] is just the value of preparation.

[312] And it's like they talk about athletes.

[313] The great athletes make the hard plays look easy.

[314] The great broadcasters and the great journalists are so prepared that whether it goes according to script or completely off script, they're ready.

[315] They're prepared.

[316] They have the material and the knowledge to ad lib and handle any situation.

[317] Yeah, I mean, surely in a situation like that, yeah, you have to evaluate every permutation of what could happen.

[318] And also, I would imagine, you have to be prepared.

[319] to suss out being lied to.

[320] So, oh, that's weird.

[321] They just said everything's great, but I know it's supposed to be here at this minute, or this is supposed to be happening.

[322] Maybe I'm going too far with that.

[323] You have a look on your...

[324] No, no. No, I'm actually thinking about it in a slightly different way, but one of the things that people ask me, what did you learn from your father like as well?

[325] If you angle your shoulder and right, or you hold your chin or you deepen your voice, that isn't it?

[326] It really was professional standards, seeing how somebody conducts themselves.

[327] And one of the things that he said to me, look, when you're interviewing a secretary of state or the head of the Republican Party in the Senate, they are going to try to spin you.

[328] They're going to try, they're going to try to push things past you.

[329] And if early on in an interview, you can kind of suss them out and make it clear, no, wait a minute, you say that, but not in a gotcha way, but just I'm in command of the facts here.

[330] I know what's real and what's not, that there's a much greater likelihood that they'll come clean with you and be honest with you.

[331] So whether it's a breaking news of that or whether it's a sit -down interview that you prep for, the degree to which you're in command of the facts and you can kind of hold them to account if they try to put one past you, it only works to your benefit and to the benefit of the audience.

[332] And do you think that's gotten worse over time?

[333] Like, do you think people are trying to spin things more and more in your career?

[334] or is it all the same?

[335] Everyone's been doing it forever.

[336] No, I think it's gotten worse.

[337] I mean, I've been in the business for 50 years.

[338] I've been in Washington for 40 years.

[339] And I'm not saying that people didn't have spin or talking points, but it just seems that they're so much more prepared.

[340] And people say to me, well, what's the difference between a good guest and a Sunday talk show and a bad guest?

[341] The answer is, and it's true for any kind of interview you're doing, like including this one, is you want somebody to be honest with you.

[342] you and come clean and not be, well, you know, how am I going to sound if I tell this particular story?

[343] The fact that it bothered me as a kid that people, or as a young professional, people called me Mike, that's just from the heart.

[344] And so with a politician, particularly, to the degree that, to me, it's successful interview is when you can break through the talking points and get people thinking and reacting and revealing in real time something of their selves as opposed to just sticking to a script.

[345] Yeah.

[346] Okay, so the thing that this is where I would say, I would make a genetics or a nature argument is that despite not growing up with your father in the house, what you guys both share, and in fact, in your very first job at the Boston Globe, your boss described you as aggressive and ambitious.

[347] So, I mean, if there was a defining characteristic of your father was just this hard -charging will ask anything.

[348] And obviously, that is very much a part of your style, and it's riveting to watch, because I think we all have mirror neurons, right?

[349] We're all kind of conflict adverse.

[350] So to watch somebody ask this question that must be asked in knowing how they'd feel, I guess I wonder, is that something you developed?

[351] Is that something that's innate for you?

[352] Do you get a buzz prior to?

[353] Like, what is your experience when you know you've got to ask the one that's just like, Well, here we go.

[354] Like, I'm going to drop it now.

[355] What does sexual relations mean to you?

[356] You know, or whatever the question is that's going to cut through this whole circus.

[357] Well, it's an interesting thing because I really didn't grow up with my father.

[358] And we really didn't have much of a relationship at all until I was a teenager.

[359] And yet, there are things that I see.

[360] Sometimes I'll watch myself on TV and I go, oh, my God, that's so much like him.

[361] And so there's certainly a combination of nature and nurture.

[362] but there just seems to be an innate bullshit detector and an aversion to that, just an inability when I hear somebody BSing me not to want to say, hey, wait a minute, and I don't know where that comes from, but it's just there.

[363] The thing about the bomb question, I mean, you know, it's one thing when you're saying to Secretary of State Blinken, when you're calling him to account for the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and that's one thing.

[364] When I was at primetime, the ABC magazine show, sometimes you would have a really damaging question and you were talking to somebody with some big investigation and you were sitting there waiting and getting everything else you needed out of the interview and getting him to or her to drop their defenses, and now it's time.

[365] And it's funny that you ask it the way you did because I sometimes would feel like a mafia hit man. The guy, I've had the dinner with him.

[366] We've been at the Italian restaurant in the Bronx.

[367] Now I'm going into the bathroom.

[368] I hope the gun is behind the toilet, and I'm going to come on out, and I'm going to shoot him right between the eyes.

[369] And there's a sense, there's a sense of adrenaline, there's a sense of anxiety, but there's that sense.

[370] Here it comes.

[371] Here it comes.

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

[373] We've all been there.

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

[375] 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.

[376] 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.

[377] when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

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

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

[380] Each terrifying true story will be sure to keep you up at night.

[381] Follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.

[382] Prime members can listen early and ad -free on Amazon Music.

[383] What's up, guys?

[384] It's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season, and let me tell you, it's too good.

[385] I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay?

[386] Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation.

[387] And I don't mean just friends.

[388] I mean the likes of Amy Poehler, Kell Mitchell, Vivica Fox, the list goes on.

[389] So follow, watch, and listen to Baby.

[390] This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

[391] I wouldn't even really know where to begin with guests.

[392] There's just been so many.

[393] I mean, you virtually talk to everyone that will ever make it into a history book.

[394] and I'm wondering in maybe phases.

[395] So first, I'd like to know a few of your top interviews as you would evaluate it through fun, like who you liked interviewing.

[396] Well, I've interviewed some pretty cool people and on pretty cool adventures.

[397] The interview that sticks out, I wouldn't say it's cool, but it's certainly the most memorable and in a pleasant sense, in a rewarding sense, is I did a profile of Mother Teresa and California.

[398] Calcutta in 1979, just after she had won the Nobel Peace Prize.

[399] And it was not just the interview, it was the whole experience of spending a week with her, with her nuns, and seeing how they had carved this oasis of health and care and love and out of this really horrible situation in Calcutta.

[400] That was probably the most rewarding interview.

[401] And I remember at the time, I was kind of a nervous flyer.

[402] And just before we had spent the week there with her, and just before we were going to leave, she took us up to her chapel in her mission, and she prayed for us, me and the broadcast technicians, as I would say in the plane crash.

[403] So we then got on the British Airways plane to fly off from Calcutta to Bahrain.

[404] And I never felt more secure and more completely confident because I thought, if Mother Teresa praying for me doesn't do it for me, then nothing will.

[405] I don't know about the flight after that.

[406] the shuttle between New York and Washington, but Calcutta to Bahrain, I'm protected.

[407] She just operated on a different spiritual plane than anybody I'd ever met in my life, and that was a joy.

[408] I mean, I've had a lot of interviews that were just pure joys being around fascinating people.

[409] She's certainly the one that stands out, though.

[410] Right away, I have to say, I'm amazed with your detailed memory.

[411] It's amazing to me that you can hold on to this many really heightened.

[412] experiences.

[413] The fact that you would remember that you had flown to Bahrain afterwards or that you were on British air, like to me, I'm shocked that within the amount of things you've been on the ground for, that you still have all that.

[414] Yeah, ask me what I had for dinner last night.

[415] I might not do so well.

[416] No, I mean, come on.

[417] Mother Teresa, I mean, she's a saint.

[418] I mean, that's a saint.

[419] I mean, it's not often you can say that, but yes, she's literally a saint.

[420] Yeah.

[421] Right.

[422] So that was a pretty special one.

[423] George Clooney, it was, Monica kind of swooned there for a little bit.

[424] We call that a PQ.

[425] Yeah.

[426] She just woke up.

[427] We'd like him in this attic as well.

[428] Yeah.

[429] Have you guys done him for a podcast or now?

[430] No, we haven't, but her number one is Matt Damon from childhood posters, magazine clippings, read every interview, could be an encyclopedia.

[431] She could write his passage in the Britannica.

[432] We did have him on recently.

[433] And it was, what a sight to be able.

[434] That was like my mother, Teresa.

[435] I listened to that one.

[436] He was great.

[437] He was very gracious.

[438] Yeah, he's a lovely.

[439] No, he was great.

[440] Well, the story with Clooney, and this is an interesting thing, too.

[441] As big a movie star as Clooney is, the fact is he grew up the son of a local TV news anchor, Nick Clooney.

[442] And I didn't feel this great sense of a link to him, he's George Clooney, but he felt it to me. And we became quite good friends after I did a couple of interviews.

[443] He went to South Sudan, and he came back, and we'd been trying to get him up for a long time.

[444] And because I'm at Fox, I think, but he wouldn't do it.

[445] And then he came back and he did a few interviews, and I'm very proud to say, he did an interview with Meet the Press, and he did an interview with me. This is like in 2010, 2011, and the Meet the Press interview, I'm not going to call out who the interviewer was, but you can go back and look.

[446] he started asking a movie questions at the end.

[447] And I was very proud in this interview that was about the ravages of genocide in the South Sudan.

[448] I didn't say, hey, tell me about Oceans 12.

[449] Is there going to be an Oceans 14?

[450] Yes, exactly.

[451] I mean, I talked about the human crisis there, which I think he respected.

[452] And we became friends.

[453] And yes, Lorraine and I were invited and spent a week with him in 2012 at his place in Lake Como, and people ask me, so what was it like?

[454] And I say, it's exactly, and Monica, I'm looking at you as I say this, it's exactly what you think, spending a week with George Clooney at his villa on Lake Como would be like, whatever, wherever your mind takes you, that's exactly what it was like.

[455] Wow.

[456] Hers might involve some inappropriate touching for a newlywed, yeah, but that's fine.

[457] So I asked which one you enjoyed, and I guess I want to know, which one are you proudest of, where it was a battle, you got the thing.

[458] It wasn't pleasant per se, but a couple you'd like to hang your hat on.

[459] I don't know that this is true, but these are the two that stick in my mind as you ask the question.

[460] In 2018, I went to Helsinki and interviewed Vladimir Putin the evening of the summit, the one -day summit he held with Donald Trump.

[461] And if you remember, Trump came out after that summit and held this news conference with Putin.

[462] And there was all this question about whether the Russians had interfered in the election.

[463] And the intel community had said it, the U .S. intel community.

[464] And here's the president of the United States basically saying, well, I don't know why he would do that.

[465] He says he didn't.

[466] So why I kind of believe it?

[467] Siding with Vladimir Putin over his own CIA.

[468] Well, he then came and we did an interview in the Russian embassy in Helsinki.

[469] And it's pretty great.

[470] I'm very proud of it.

[471] Can I just say for people haven't watched it, yeah, you have a list of 12.

[472] indicted Russians, and it's on a piece of paper, and you're asking him to look at this, and he fucking won't take it.

[473] Putin won't take it.

[474] That's the moment, because I've got to tell you, if people always ask like, what's your dream guess and weirdly Putin?

[475] I would love, I mean, there's a huge language barrier.

[476] It wouldn't work, but I do, I would kill the sit with.

[477] He'd probably kill you afterwards.

[478] Oh, I want him to try.

[479] I want him to, that's half the reason I want to sit there.

[480] No, no, no, Dax, when Putin wants to kill you, he can kill you.

[481] Actually, a couple of quick stories.

[482] I hope you don't mind.

[483] I tell that.

[484] Oh, please.

[485] Yeah, see, this is the difference between a Sunday talk show and a podcast.

[486] So I did this interview with him, and I'd worked in a magazine show for a while, and sometimes when watching a baseball game and as guys up with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, and the bases are loaded, and they're down by three runs, and you think, how could you handle that pressure?

[487] And the answer is you don't just step into that situation.

[488] You've built up.

[489] You played in Little League, and you played in high school and college and in a bunch of other games.

[490] Well, similarly, before you interview Vladimir Putin, you've interviewed a lot of bad guys over the years.

[491] And working at a magazine show, one of the things I learned was the value of a prop.

[492] And so the interview was on a Monday, I think.

[493] And but on the previous Friday, the special counsel, Robert Mueller had indicted, as you say, a dozen members of the Russian intelligence, the GRU.

[494] And as soon as I heard that he indicted them, I said to my assistant, print out that indictment.

[495] Because I knew what he did, which is that when somebody would say to him, way, what, you know, what have you done to interfere in elections?

[496] He'd say, well, look, I don't know if some citizen did it in St. Petersburg.

[497] What do I know about that?

[498] Like, you know, he's just a bystander.

[499] So I handed the, I know, I had this document and I said, you know, you like to say that.

[500] One of the things I like to do is take the answer that I know he's going to give away from him and say, you like to say that you're just a bystander.

[501] I have an indictment that was handed down on Friday three days ago, and I'm waving this in his face, and I'm saying it's 12 members of GRU.

[502] They're from Unit 149 and Unit 3611.

[503] And here it is.

[504] And they're operating under you.

[505] This is directly under your command.

[506] And then I handed him the document and you're exactly right, Dax.

[507] he looked at it like it was radioactive, and he kind of waved, like put it on the table over there.

[508] Anyway, so we do the interview, and he was very professional.

[509] I also asked him at one point near the end.

[510] I went through a long list of people that he had been killed, critics of Putin.

[511] Can't say he had them killed, but they were killed.

[512] And I said to him, yes, why is it that so many people who oppose you end up dead?

[513] So anyway, the thing ends.

[514] And I actually am sort of stunned that I did this myself.

[515] I had wanted to take Lorraine to Russia.

[516] And so as soon as we finished this interview on Monday, I said to him, by the way, Mr. President, Lorraine and I were going to Russia tomorrow on vacation.

[517] We're going to St. Petersburg and we're going to Moscow.

[518] And the reason I said it is I knew he would know because you have to get a visa.

[519] So they'd know where I was and where I was staying, and I wasn't going to call off the thing.

[520] So at one point, like, at the end of the trip, I'm in a restaurant in Moscow, and I go to the bathroom, and there's this really tough -looking guy hanging out in the bathroom.

[521] And I'm standing at the urinal, and I am thinking to myself, this is it.

[522] This is where it ends.

[523] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[524] And I start having this image in my head of one of the Tom Cruise, Mission Impossible movies where he had an attack in the bathroom and they're slamming each other against the porcelain.

[525] And I literally, as I'm sitting there, I take my other hand, you know what one hand's doing, the other hand, and I clench it into a fist.

[526] And this guy's much bigger than me. He's going to beat the crap out of me. But I'm ready to have this fight in the lavatory of a bathroom in Moscow.

[527] And people, I always pause, and people say, so then what happened?

[528] I said, he washed his hands and he left.

[529] But this was all playing out in my head.

[530] Of course.

[531] And this is the assassination attempt.

[532] That is so scary.

[533] You're an adrenaline junkie.

[534] You're like an X -Games athlete.

[535] The notion that you would have planned a trip to Russia immediately after offending the worst person to offend in Russia.

[536] I have a mechanical question or how the sausage is made question.

[537] I guess you're dealing with interpreters in that situation.

[538] So when you ask the question, are you fearful that either they're going to change it to suit his ego and or are you fearful something's lost in your delivery of the question?

[539] Well, no, that I wasn't concerned about.

[540] I will tell you what I was concerned about.

[541] Usually when I do an interview, but it has to do with the fact I had an IFV, I had an earpiece in my ear because he was going to speak in Russian.

[542] He had an earpiece in his ear so he could hear my English translated, although I fully believe he understood everything I was saying in the English and just took the translation.

[543] But usually they're in different rooms.

[544] So your translator, there's a wire connecting.

[545] them to another room.

[546] So you're not hearing anything when you're talking, and he's not hearing anything when he's talking.

[547] The problem was the way the Russian set this up, they put both of the translators in the same room.

[548] So while I was asking him a question in English, it's being simultaneously translated into Russian.

[549] So you're trying to ask the question and think of what you're saying, and then you're hearing this.

[550] Thasphagi, Kakti -pushibayevish, and that was hard.

[551] That's what I was mostly focused on is fortunately it was a language that was so foreign that it was just sort of sounds but yeah that was distracting do you want on the question i would ask him i would say hypothetically if you were five ten instead of five seven do you think he'd be more benevolent as a leader you know i think i got off better with why isn't so many people end up dead than making fun of this height yeah yeah yeah that probably plays more to hit the image he's trying to craft The Putin brand.

[552] The Putin brand, exactly.

[553] I'm so enamored with that interview.

[554] It's incredible.

[555] You won an Emmy for that, I believe.

[556] So now here's a story.

[557] So Fox News had never even submitted anything for an Emmy.

[558] I've won several Emmys before when I was at ABC.

[559] But we submitted it and it got an Emmy nomination.

[560] Not that I'm bitter about this story, but this is the first Emmy nomination in the history of Fox News.

[561] So there was a fair amount of excitement about it.

[562] And it was a great interview.

[563] and it got a ton of attention all over the world.

[564] And so I'm feeling pretty good as I go to the Emmys.

[565] And we go and it was at a theater in Lincoln Center and we get our tickets and we look and we are in row Z. Oh, boy.

[566] It is like the alphabet and they're 26 rows and we are in the last row in the auditorium.

[567] And you know like from the Oscars or something that all the winners are all going to be pretty much down front.

[568] They're not going to wait for a guy to walk 20 minutes.

[569] Right.

[570] When you're in Rosie, you know you ain't getting an Emmy.

[571] So that's my Putin Emmy story.

[572] Rosie.

[573] Oh, I can top that.

[574] We went to the Golden Globes once, my wife and I, and Jim Carrey started doing a bit.

[575] The whole premise of the bit was all the losers from TV are in the back, and all the movie stars are on the floor of the award show.

[576] And all of a sudden, he's coming up and I'm enjoying this.

[577] That's a pretty good gag.

[578] that's a pretty good gag, and then he lands at our table.

[579] He starts doing the bit to rec.

[580] I was like, well, I like this gag a little less now that we're the punchline of it.

[581] I wondered if you have ever been regretful of an interview.

[582] I'll give an example, and this is not a trap, because I actually don't know if you've interviewed him.

[583] And I'll just tell you, from my own experience, I was kind of hoodwinked, which was MSB, you know, the current king of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, again, as a devotee of 60 Minutes, they did this profile on him.

[584] And I found myself really kind of digging him.

[585] Like we were leaning into the notion he was going to allow women to drive.

[586] And I thought the way he kind of took power was fascinating.

[587] And then this lock -in at the hotel was fascinating.

[588] And I found myself like excited this guy was at the helm.

[589] And he had a very successful kind of press tour of the U .S. where he really kind of painted a pretty good picture of himself.

[590] and then later revealed the guy's not so great.

[591] And I don't even know if you interviewed him, but I wondered if you had ever been ensnared in something like that where someone had come around.

[592] I know Akhtimajad had famously kind of made the rounds with lesser and greater results.

[593] But has that happened to you?

[594] Have you ever been kind of caught in one of those?

[595] I can't immediately think of one where I think I...

[596] My reputation is not that I go unusually soft on people and then later to my regret.

[597] Actually, I would say the...

[598] opposite, that sometimes you can get caught up in a combative interview.

[599] And I very seldom watch myself.

[600] I don't know if you're this way.

[601] I very seldom will watch a tape of myself because particularly if I think it's a good thing, I don't want to watch it because it never, when you watch the tape, lives up to what it was in the moment in your head as you were experiencing it.

[602] It's not as golden as that.

[603] So occasionally I'll watch an interview.

[604] The other times I'll watch interviews as if I think maybe did I do, and occasionally I'll have been overly combative and I'll think, gee, I didn't need to go there with this person.

[605] If they're being combative, I got to stay a little bit cooler.

[606] And you could try to score points who's snapping wet towels at each other or something.

[607] So that I've come to regret.

[608] Yeah, and I have to imagine that over, I mean, what, you were at NBC for 13 years, then you're at ABC for 14 years, you've been at Fox for 18 years.

[609] I imagine in that humongous time period as well, there's been people we kind of thought were villains, and later we realized they weren't as bad, or maybe they themselves were kind of victims of this common consensus that's going around.

[610] Maybe any of that happened?

[611] I guess, yeah, maybe.

[612] I'll tell you another regret.

[613] This was embarrassing.

[614] In 2012, Michelle Bachman, the congresswoman from Minnesota, this is a classic.

[615] case of how, and remember, this is 2012.

[616] I mean, if this happened now, it would be much worse because social media has gotten much more combative and much angry and much more canceled culture.

[617] So I was doing an interview with her, and she, for a minute, this is when Romney won the Republican nomination and ran against Obama.

[618] She was the frontrunner for about 10 minutes in the summer of, I guess it was 2011 before 2012, but it was the 2012 campaign.

[619] And one of the things, that I was surprised to find, because she said some odd things every once in a while, was she actually had a surprisingly strong background.

[620] She'd been a lawyer.

[621] She'd been an IRS tax lawyer at one point, and she had a more serious career.

[622] So one of the last questions I was going to ask in the interview, and this was actually to be kind of a favorable question, is some people say you're a flight.

[623] And expecting her to talk about, yeah, well, no, I've actually done this, and I've done this, and I've done this.

[624] And it was down near the end, and this is one of the differences between having an endless period of time to talk and your stage manager, counting you down, you've got 30 seconds left.

[625] I shorthanded it to, are you a flake?

[626] And let me tell you, boom, it exploded.

[627] And I'll never forget, Britt Hume, one of my colleagues at Fox came in, we were going to do the panel next.

[628] And he said, you're going to have a problem.

[629] And I went, oh, no, I'm not going to have a problem.

[630] and I went back afterwards and looked at the viewer emails.

[631] And one of the crazy things about viewer emails is I can do the same interview.

[632] And liberals will say, you're in the tank to conservatives.

[633] And conservatives will say you're a communist.

[634] But this one, there was no difference of opinion.

[635] Everybody hated me. It's a rare consensus.

[636] There was a rare consensus.

[637] Oh, my God, that's amazing.

[638] That sort of tease up to a question.

[639] I don't know if it's on your list.

[640] I'm sorry if it is.

[641] but how do you feel about the fact?

[642] I mean, I'm a liberal that's very clear.

[643] If you listen to this show for even five minutes, I think anyone knows that.

[644] Like, when your name comes up, liberals are like, yeah, but it's okay.

[645] It's okay.

[646] He's normal.

[647] Like, that's what's said.

[648] And I wonder how you feel about that.

[649] I mean, I'm sure maybe in some ways it's a little flattering, but it's also probably a little offensive that, like, oh, everyone else around you is crazy.

[650] but you're normal and you're okay and we're okay if you're around.

[651] Like, I just wonder how that feels.

[652] Well, let me say, it's not my family that says I'm normal.

[653] They never say that.

[654] I'm going to take it a slightly different way, Monica.

[655] When I'm out in public, actually, to a surprising degree, people will come up to me and they'll say, thank you for being fair or thank you for playing it straight.

[656] And on the one hand, I like being praised as much as the next person.

[657] But in another sense, I find it really sad because when I started out as a reporter, and Dak seems to have my bio there in 1969 as a reporter for the Boston Globe, being fair was like being accurate, like being able to spell.

[658] It was what kept you from getting fired.

[659] And now being fair in the television news business, cable news, and it's not just Fox.

[660] I mean, I think it's also true of CNN and MS.

[661] MSNBC is like a standout.

[662] It's like that's something that you get praised for.

[663] And I find that really a sad commentary, but not an inaccurate commentary on the state of journalism today, which is that people take sides.

[664] And I never take sides.

[665] I have opinions, and I suppose if you watch my show closely enough, you'd be able to see.

[666] But I'm certainly not a Republican or a Democrat or a liberal or conservative on the show.

[667] My view is I'm the cop on the B. I'm swinging the nightstick.

[668] I'm trying to keep everybody honest.

[669] They've got a big PR operations trying to tell their story.

[670] And I'm not going for an argument for the sake of an argument, but I'm trying to get them past the talking points.

[671] But I don't think that's common in the news business anymore.

[672] It's not.

[673] You seem to be a pretty rare bird.

[674] And I just wonder, yeah, is that, it must just be so weird to be of that mentality when no one else, it seems.

[675] And you're right, across a lot of the channels.

[676] No one's doing that anymore.

[677] No, and it bothers me. And I see, look, I don't really even have an opinion.

[678] I have a problem with some of the opinions, but I don't have a problem with opinion people having opinions.

[679] What bothers me is when you see what's supposed to be a straight news show.

[680] Yeah.

[681] And they're still offering opinions.

[682] And it's no question where they come down.

[683] That I don't like.

[684] The low point for me in that experience was recently.

[685] It was the Capitol riots.

[686] And I happen to be in a hotel.

[687] so, and I always do this in hotels, I bounce back and forth between Fox and CNN to see, like, what's happening.

[688] And I don't know that I ever saw one so diametrically opposed.

[689] So I started on CNN, because I'm a big soft liberal.

[690] I'm told on there that every cop there stood aside and invited them in.

[691] And I was like, oh, my God, that's insane.

[692] Then I flip over to Fox, and it's like, this was a peaceful protest.

[693] I was like, holy shit, what is somebody who doesn't even have this?

[694] the nostalgic experience I had of watching the nightly news on one of the three networks where, like, I at least can ground what news should be in some past memory, but now this thing is really, really terrifying, in my opinion.

[695] And I guess, and again, I have no interest in you, like, I don't want you to say that Fox is worse than CNN or vice versa.

[696] What I am curious is, is the explanation, the 24 -hour news cycle?

[697] What is it?

[698] What is it?

[699] is the defining moment that got us into this situation?

[700] Well, I don't know that there is a defining moment.

[701] It's gotten worse and worse and worse.

[702] Here's what I think, though, it's a kind of a vicious cycle of the media and the market and the media and the market.

[703] And remember, it's the news business.

[704] It's not just pure news.

[705] It's a business that's trying to attract ratings so that you can get sponsors to pay more for time on your air.

[706] I think the market has come to reward opinion and taking aside.

[707] And I don't think there's any question that Fox tilts conservative.

[708] And I don't think there's any question that MSNBC and CNN to varying degrees tilt liberal.

[709] And that's because to the degree that you've just played it absolutely straight, I think you'd be punished in the market and that to try to get eyeballs that people, I've decided it makes a lot more sense to take aside.

[710] And it just seems to be the way the marketplace is going, but it really bothers me because I really would like there, and I think in some places there is still a market for straight, unbiased to the best that you can.

[711] Nobody's going to be perfectly objective, but to the best of your ability, straight news.

[712] Well, pet peeve of mine is people not recognizing their own role in all of it.

[713] So you'll have a bunch of people that are furious about BP oil spill, as they should be, and then they hop in their car and they drive to wherever they drive to.

[714] And it's like, well, hold on a second.

[715] If you want this thing, you can only be so critical of it.

[716] So it is important to remember that, as you say, the market is us.

[717] We're the market.

[718] We're the ones voting.

[719] So it's like we're quick to blame all the networks.

[720] We're quick to blame everyone.

[721] But no one's ever really considering, well, I'm the one rewarding the behavior.

[722] So I have to acknowledge that minimally.

[723] Absolutely.

[724] Absolutely.

[725] Okay.

[726] It is time to talk about your book.

[727] Thank you so much for talking so much about your crew.

[728] I actually have one last tiny.

[729] quick question.

[730] Okay.

[731] Is your Super Bowl moderating those presidential debates?

[732] I can only imagine the nerves one would naturally go into a situation like, especially these last, I mean, yeah, and just presidential debates in general, you're not dealing with people that are uncharismatic or unopinioned.

[733] That's why they're sitting on the stage.

[734] These are people who can get their point across.

[735] So to be the referee, I mean, it is title fights.

[736] So I just wondered career -wise, is that the highest -stakes thing you endeavor?

[737] Yes.

[738] I don't know the career -wise.

[739] Well, look, it was a huge honor.

[740] It was a big deal because it was the first time a Fox person had ever.

[741] And we're not talking about the primary debates when it's just the Republicans or just the Democrats.

[742] We're talking about the presidential general election debates when it's played not just on your channel, but every channel in the world.

[743] And 80 million people are watching.

[744] You know, it's a Super Bowl audience.

[745] Yeah.

[746] And so the first time I was asked to do it was in 2016, and I ended up doing the final debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and it was in Las Vegas, of all places.

[747] And this goes back to the thing I was saying before, that you don't get on that stage, you don't get up to bat on the bottom of the ninth, without having had a ton of preparation.

[748] So I had been doing interviews for 30 or 40 years, and I'd done mayoral debates and gubernatorial debates and Senate debates, and Republican primary debates.

[749] But now you're doing a general election debate, and I will say it is a different animal.

[750] Some of the times I felt just fine about it, and there were times when there would be a wave of anxiety that would sweep over me, and I would just think, I don't know if I can handle this.

[751] And I remember the night of that debate, I'm standing in the wings.

[752] The two co -chairmen of the debate commission are talking to the crowd, and they're sort of setting the ground rules, and don't cheer once the debate starts and all of that.

[753] And I'm standing off, just off stage.

[754] And I literally look up at the ceiling and I say, and I mean this, I say, dear Lord, if you just get me through the next 90 minutes, I promise I will never ask you for anything ever again.

[755] So I go out and I do the debate.

[756] And the first few minutes were absolutely terrifying.

[757] I mean, I heard this voice asking questions.

[758] And I'm thinking, who is that?

[759] And it's me. But it was a total out -of -body.

[760] I don't know if you've ever had that on stage where you're just operating on instinct and something inside you is propelling the words out of your mouth, but you don't feel any connection from your brain to this voice you're hearing.

[761] And then I settled down, and then I quite enjoyed it.

[762] I was great.

[763] I thought, my God, I've got these two.

[764] I'm a reporter.

[765] I'm an interviewer.

[766] I'm a political junkie.

[767] And I've got these two people all to myself for 90 minutes.

[768] How great is this?

[769] And it was a really good, successful debate in a campaign when everybody was getting criticized.

[770] Both sides thought it was really good, and I was getting, I'll never forget, on the plane the next day, I don't want to say I'm a tight wad, but when I'm on the plane, even though I could charge it to Fox, I don't usually pay for Wi -Fi.

[771] Same, same, same, same.

[772] And I thought, you know, screw it.

[773] I'm going to, I'm paying for Wi -Fi.

[774] This is it, Diamond Cress.

[775] And so, and I'm looking, and there's like a tweet from Oprah and all these other people, and I turned to my wife, and I say, this really has turned out well.

[776] Anyway, I do have one quick story.

[777] When I finished the debate, I walked back off stage, and I suddenly stopped right in that spot where I had said the prayer 90 minutes before, and I looked up and I said, dear Lord, I know what I said a while ago, but could I have another debate in four years?

[778] So anyway, now it's 2020, and the commission comes to me, and they say, we'd like you to do a debate, and we think this is so fraught politically, that we want you to do the first debate.

[779] And this is now going to be Trump and Biden.

[780] And I told you before that I usually don't watch what I've done, but I thought, and I hadn't because I thought this was a really great debate, and I didn't want to muck it up by watching it.

[781] But I thought I ought to watch it and see what worked and what didn't work.

[782] And one of the things that I realized watching it is that agree to what you really want.

[783] And Jim Lairor, the great PBS, guy who did 12 presidential debates, I had lunch with him before I did the first debate.

[784] And he said, just remember, it's not about you.

[785] You want to be as invisible as possible.

[786] And to use your price fight analogy, when the debate's over, what you would, the ideal reaction would be of people said, that's the best debate I ever saw.

[787] Was there even a moderator there?

[788] Yeah.

[789] That's a hard thing for the ego to know.

[790] Listen, I'm at the debate.

[791] What do I care?

[792] I'm pretty excited.

[793] So in any case, one of the things I noticed watching this debate was, that sometimes it would be like parallel news conferences.

[794] Clinton would answer a question.

[795] Trump would answer a question.

[796] They wouldn't be interacting with each other.

[797] So my initial thought was not to get them in a fight, but I want them interacting.

[798] So when the debate starts, and I'm much calmer this time, stupidly, and I'm feeling much more in charge, and the debate starts, and within about a minute or something, Trump starts interrupting.

[799] And my initial thought was, this is great.

[800] These guys are really engaging.

[801] This is terrific.

[802] And then, of course, it went downhill.

[803] Just kept what can I do?

[804] And about 45 minutes in, 40 minutes in, I interrupted them and said, look, this would be much better, much more productive if you would just let each other speak.

[805] And Trump said, why are you directing that at me?

[806] And I said, because you're doing most, he said, well, he's doing more of the interrupting.

[807] I said, no, you are.

[808] But I have to tell you, I was terribly depressed afterwards because I had a bull.

[809] a big, loose leap book, and I had all these questions and all these follow -ups and all these fact checks and it turned into this schoolyard sandlot fight with Trump throwing sand in Biden's eyes.

[810] But at the end, I've come to feel better about it because in the end, what's a debate about it's to help you distinguish between the two candidates?

[811] And boy, that one helped people distinguish between the two candidates.

[812] Well, I don't know what you walked away feeling like your personal liability in it.

[813] Nauseous is how I felt.

[814] Okay, but watching it, I had no point thought, oh, Chris has lost control of this.

[815] I thought, yeah, this human is uncontrollable because Chris can do this perfectly.

[816] So what I know is that this is silverback on wild turkey.

[817] This can't be rained in in any way or corralled.

[818] Like, I guess I'm shocked to hear that you would have thought you bore any responsibility for that.

[819] I don't, I don't, you know.

[820] Well, look, I mean, on the one hand, I completely agree with you.

[821] I think that he was uncontrollable.

[822] I think he came in with this play on Trump to just bully Biden, throw him off, get him blathering, when in fact, it was exactly the wrong strategy.

[823] What he should have done is been much quieter, let Biden talk, get into trouble, and then counterpunch and point out, well, gee, because as we know, sometimes when Biden says things, they don't go well.

[824] But he, in a sense, kind of protected Biden because he wouldn't let Biden get a word in edgewise.

[825] Having said that, you're in that situation.

[826] You're the moderator.

[827] So you can't help but feel responsible whether there was anything you could do or not.

[828] Well, there's an argument to be made that that was the best version of that that there could have been.

[829] I mean, you don't know.

[830] But you're right.

[831] You're right.

[832] Man, I remember watching this is my own two senses just thinking like, why isn't Biden's team telling him stop saying numbers?

[833] That's just, this is not a good road.

[834] time the numbers came up, it just was, and you're right, I think if he would have laid back and let him say more numbers, it would have been a different kind of debate.

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

[836] Okay, countdown to bin Laden, the untold story of the 247 -day hunt to bring the mastermind of 9 -11 to justice.

[837] That is your new book, and it's the second countdown book.

[838] So first and foremost, I'm wondering, what made you latch on to this device?

[839] I like it, which is like the moments.

[840] So the previous one was countdown to 1945.

[841] What got you to that device to tell a book?

[842] Well, there's a specific book that I read by a great historian named Jay Winick, who wrote a book called April 1865.

[843] And he went into tremendous detail about the first two weeks in April of that year, which is in just two weeks, Lee surrenders to Grant at Appomattox.

[844] Lincoln makes a big speech on the south lawn of the White House about the 13th Amendment of the Constitution.

[845] He goes to Ford's Theater and he gets assassinated.

[846] And for lack of a better word, I wanted to write pop history.

[847] I did not want this to be a big, heavy, dusty tome that sits on people's shelves.

[848] I wanted to be a book that people would buy, would read and would enjoy.

[849] I mean, I honestly thought right at the start, I want this to be a book that people see in the airport and they think that'll be interesting where they take on vacation, that it's a good book, solid, serious, well -researched, hopefully some things they didn't know, but it's a good read.

[850] Well, that it has pace, I'd argue.

[851] Like, right when I look at the title, I'm like, okay, I'm not going to have to learn the entire history of the previous Russian involvement in Afghanistan.

[852] You know, like, I'm going to learn about the accelerating pace up until that moment.

[853] Exactly.

[854] And you're going to have to put at various points some background in for people who haven't followed it and need to know how we got there.

[855] But it has a beginning and a middle.

[856] And a lot of this has developed in the course of writing the book and seeing people's reaction to it.

[857] I actually now call it a history thriller because this sounds really presumptuous.

[858] I think we write history the wrong way, which is, oh, we all know what happened, but let's explore why it happened or how it happened.

[859] Well, the real drama is that people, as they were going through these experiences, didn't know what was going to happen.

[860] And so my first book, Countdown in 1945, it begins on April 12th of 45, when Truman, who's the vice president, goes to the White House thinking he's going to meet with Roosevelt.

[861] And in fact, Roosevelt has just died and he's become president.

[862] And he finds out that the Manhattan Project has been going on for three years, that they're developing an atom bomb, and in 116 days, they test the bomb, find out it works, and he approves the mission, but they don't know whether it's going to work, and he's not sure whether it's the right thing to do or not.

[863] And then when the flight crew is flying to Hiroshima, they don't know whether the shockwaves are going to knock them out of the sky.

[864] Well, similarly, this book begins on August 27th of 2010, when some three operatives from the CIA come in to see Leon Panetta, the CIA director, and say, you know how we all think that bin Laden's living in a cave in the tribal area between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

[865] Well, it may just be, we don't know, but it may just be that he's living in this big compound in this upscale community called Abadabad, which is the home of the Pakistani West Point.

[866] And then they're going, trying to build up a case and figure it out, and they tell Obama, and Obama's trying to decide what to do, and a series of meetings, and then they get the seals, the Navy SEALs involved, and the head of special operations, McRaven plans this whole raid, and they build a scale model in North Carolina so they can practice on it.

[867] And, you know, there's a tremendous drama and tremendous uncertainty at every step of the way.

[868] And I just think it's a much more interesting and more realistic way to go through a history.

[869] Yeah.

[870] And also with the weight on their shoulders of, say, Black Hawk down still in recent memory.

[871] Like, I think for Obama for sure, that had to be like such a part of this event.

[872] evaluation at all times.

[873] Well, there's a wonderful moment on April 28th of 2011.

[874] They have the final meeting in the Situation Room.

[875] And I talked to Tom Donnellan, who was the National Security Advisor to Obama, and he had a great line.

[876] He said, history was in that room.

[877] And I said, what do you mean?

[878] And he said, everybody came to that meeting with all of their experiences.

[879] They weren't just viewing this in isolation.

[880] They were viewing it based on their experiences over careers.

[881] So the best example of That was Robert Gates, who was the Secretary of Defense.

[882] This is now 2011.

[883] Back in 1980, he had been the executive assistant to the CIA director under Jimmy Carter.

[884] And Carter ordered the rescue mission to try to save the hostages in Iran.

[885] And that ended up that these transport planes and helicopters were all in a sandstorm in the middle of the Iranian desert.

[886] And the helicopter crashed into C -130 and eight people.

[887] were killed and they didn't ever even get to Tehran and would play the large role in Jimmy Carter not getting reelected in 1980.

[888] And Gates's view going into that meeting was these things always end up as an effing disaster.

[889] They always end up that way.

[890] He was against it.

[891] And everybody came to it with their own life experience and what was foremost in their mind.

[892] And the interesting thing is, again, this is the kind of stuff where when you get in the moment and having interviewing these people 10 years after the fact they told stories and anecdotes that they'd never told before.

[893] At one point, they're going around the room, and everybody has assigned a mathematical certainty to the likelihood that bin Laden is there.

[894] And one guy said, well, I think there's a 47 % chance that bin Laden is in the compound.

[895] Somebody else has 75%.

[896] And at one point, Obama turns to Panetta and says, explain all these different percentages to me. And he defers to his deputy, a guy named Mike Morel, who's been, I don't know, 20, 30 years in the CIA.

[897] And he says, Mr. President, isn't it that the person who says 75 % has any more information than the person that says 40 % is just their assessment of the same information?

[898] And then he says, and this was, I mean, again, one of those things that you couldn't make up.

[899] He says, in fact, the certainty of the idea that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction when we invaded Iraq in 2003, there was a stronger evidential.

[900] case for that, that there is now that bin Laden is in this compound.

[901] And everybody in the room gasped.

[902] And they say, Jesus Christ, you know, you're saying that was the great Intel disaster of the last 20 years.

[903] And you want me now to okay this?

[904] And he says, well, so you wouldn't do it, Mike?

[905] He said, no, I would do it.

[906] But intelligence is never 100%.

[907] He said, if I had somebody who had said, told me now that he had had breakfast this morning in the compound with Osama bin Laden, I would not say there's 100 % certainty because the fact is, informants get things wrong all the time.

[908] So Obama then says, you know what, forget all these percentages.

[909] It's 50 -50.

[910] He's either there or he's not there.

[911] And he decided overnight, he went upstairs to the family quarters and had a Kobe Bryant basketball game on against the Charlotte Hornets in the treaty room.

[912] And he decided to go for it.

[913] Well, yeah, and so I would pose this question.

[914] Do you think this is where Obama benefited from being kind of a green politician.

[915] Like, do you think if he had been in the Senate for 20 years before he became president or in any other branch that perhaps he would have been burned enough to not take this gamble?

[916] Maybe.

[917] I mean, there's no question of it.

[918] But I will say there's just something about Obama's brain.

[919] And it's one of the things we explored in the book, because people had this sense.

[920] I think that Obama was very much a dove and was against the use of force.

[921] That's not true.

[922] When he gave the famous speech in 2002, which largely propelled him first to the Senate and then to the presidency, where he came out against the war in Iraq when an awful lot of other people, including Hillary Clinton, came out, and John Kerry came out for it, he said, and it wasn't reported at the time, he said, look, I'm not against all wars.

[923] I'm just against dumb wars.

[924] And he thought Iraq was a dumb war.

[925] and he made it clear throughout the 2008 presidential campaign that he even said in a debate with John McCain in 2008.

[926] Look, if we get word, and they had no idea where bin Laden was, although they thought he was probably in Pakistan, if we get word that he's in Pakistan, we're going to take our shot whether the Pakistanis allow us or not.

[927] And a lot of people were like, whoa, that's aggressive.

[928] But he was pretty clear about this all along.

[929] And in fact, about two or three months after he became president in May of 2009.

[930] He calls a meeting in the Oval Office, and he felt the trail had gone cold for bin Laden.

[931] And he says to Panetta, Osama bin Laden goes to the front of the line, that he is the top priority getting him.

[932] And as Panetta said to me, when the president says to you, this goes to the front of the line, then you go back to your bureaucracy at the CIA headquarters in Langley, and you tell them the same thing, and that just puts more heat on fine bin Laden.

[933] Yeah, well, I do think, yeah, Obama is probably by all accounts, a centrist.

[934] I think it's funny because on the left, it became kind of common for people to go, like, well, we really miss Romney now.

[935] And I bet on some level of people on the right are like, I kind of miss Obama as we seem to be moving more and more towards the shoulders and the extreme of everything.

[936] Can I ask, this is just a really dumb, broad question, but why even write a book?

[937] Why, with such a wonderful career that's taking you everywhere in the world and come with lots of accolades and a Peabody and all these things, what driving you is like, you know what?

[938] And I need to write a couple books.

[939] I feel like saying, so you're a successful actor, director, producer, you do movies.

[940] you have a TV game show.

[941] Why do a podcast?

[942] I mean, I suppose I could say like Mallory did in the 1920s about climbing Everest because it's there.

[943] I don't know.

[944] Look, I've been doing Fox News Sunday for 18 years, and it certainly animates me. I'm not bored by it, but I suspect I can do it faster than I used to be able to, so it doesn't occupy as much of my time.

[945] And I think also to some degree you look around and you see a lot of other people of your colleagues, are writing books and seem to be having some fun with that.

[946] There's a certain permanence to it.

[947] There's nothing that's more evanescent than when it's Monday afternoon and yesterday's Sunday talk show.

[948] But this book isn't going to go into some time capsule, but I'm proud that I've got a couple of books and they're there and they're lasting and I think they're good and people have seemed to have enjoyed them and they'll be around for a while.

[949] Well, if you were to ask me that, Since I was a kid, I was most aiming to be a writer.

[950] I wanted to write, I wanted to be a published writer.

[951] So if and when I write a book at whatever point, I know for me personally, it's just, it's something that I knew I always wanted to do that I've yet to do.

[952] Like, for whatever reason in my mind, the story I'm writing about me is that I would write a book that you could buy.

[953] It is, for me, part of my, this identity I aspired to have.

[954] Now, let me give you a piece of advice.

[955] I don't know if this is true for somebody in your line of the work, but it certainly is for mine.

[956] The initial instinct is, well, let's write a memoir.

[957] And as we've discussed, I've interviewed all kinds of interesting people.

[958] I've covered Reagan for six years.

[959] I went to all the Reagan Gorbachev summits.

[960] I've been an eyewitness to history.

[961] Yeah.

[962] But first of all, I find those books that my colleagues, even my father did, boring.

[963] Because the fact is, we didn't do anything.

[964] We just covered stuff.

[965] So it's all reflected glory.

[966] I didn't make the Missal Arms Treaty with Gorbett.

[967] Chopp, Reagan did, and all I can do is describe what he did.

[968] And frankly, they don't sell very well either.

[969] So I decided, if I did a book, and when I was saying to a few people, I was going to do a book, some of them said a memoir, and some of them said, you're not going to do a memoir, are you?

[970] And I'm really glad I didn't.

[971] I don't know.

[972] You have a pretty interesting story to tell, but I would be more interested in reading a Dachshepard book about something and not about Doc Shepherd.

[973] Can I ask you, can I do a little Chris Wallace and ask you a question?

[974] Yes, I would be so honored.

[975] Well, I discovered you when you were unpunked.

[976] And I used to watch it in the early 2000s.

[977] And I suspect a lot of people discovered you when you were on punked.

[978] And you were funny and you were clever.

[979] I'll never forget the punk.

[980] I think you were in it when you guys went into Justin Timberlake's house and you repossessed all of his furniture and he's sitting on the back stoop in tears because he thinks his business manager is screwed up.

[981] I mean, that was pretty funny.

[982] But in any case, so I'm watching, all of that, and I get this impression of you as funny, as smart, but as goofy.

[983] And I'm sure that's what a lot of people think.

[984] And you play that card.

[985] I mean, I see you on the game show now.

[986] You play that card.

[987] You're smart as the Dickens and thoughtful.

[988] And I don't mean this in any way to be patronizing or anything.

[989] So, I mean, how do you balance on the one hand?

[990] You obviously are good at playing goofy, but that isn't really who you are.

[991] You know, we've talked about this weirdly recently quite a bit, which is, yeah, the first decade of my working life was I was playing, for lack of a better term, white trash, dumb.

[992] I was in this movie, Idiocracy.

[993] I'm one of the dumbest people in the world.

[994] and I can do it, and I wanted to be employed.

[995] From the outside, I think people have a notion that you are somehow steering the ship in a direction, but for me it was much more hand to mouth than that.

[996] So if I can do something, believably, that other people struggle with, I'm certainly going to do that.

[997] But the question's really for my mom, because my mother was always like, are you ever going to play anyone smart or that has a perspective someone might want to ingest?

[998] I'll add something that I think most people don't know if you've never taken an acting class or an improv class for certain.

[999] You have to be very smart to play dumb well.

[1000] A dumb person can't play dumb in a funny way.

[1001] They're dumb in a sad way.

[1002] So, you know, it's just, it's very specific.

[1003] And so that's part of it.

[1004] And let me add one other thing is, in general, for that decade, when I met people, the reaction was, oh my gosh, you're so much smarter than I thought you were, which is, is so preferred to, wow, you're not nearly as bright as I thought you were.

[1005] So when you set the bar that low in idiocracy and then you meet someone and they're just blown away that you can read, you know, it's not a bad way to go.

[1006] So, all right, but now you've been through that.

[1007] I mean, the fact is you're obviously a serious guy.

[1008] I don't mean without a sense of humor, but you're a serious, thoughtful human being.

[1009] So would you be much happier for the next 10 years to be in that vein and not the other vein?

[1010] Yeah, I mean, look, I've had enough twists and turns and periods of stagnation that I know not to guess what I'm going to do, because I'm here on this podcast, which is definitely the most successful thing I've ever been a part of, because I failed at a movie.

[1011] You know, like a movie I directed, Tanked, and I was kind of back to the drawing board.

[1012] Like, what do I want to do?

[1013] Because I'm not going to do the thing I just thought I was going to be doing.

[1014] And so knowing that that's my history, I would say, yes, I fucking love this.

[1015] I'd love to do this for as long as I can do it and people want to listen.

[1016] I find so much joy that this is now happening after I've done all this other stuff where it's like I'm at a point where, yeah, I feel like I scratched all those itches and I do love this and I love actually just being me now.

[1017] I've been other people for a long time.

[1018] I like being me now.

[1019] Yeah, so I love it and I love this lane, and it has opened up the door to talking to you.

[1020] I mean, I've watched you on TV forever.

[1021] I really admire you.

[1022] I got to talk to Obama, and that's insane.

[1023] Why would Bill Gates talk to this kid from Michigan?

[1024] It doesn't make any sense.

[1025] I'm sure you've had those moments where you're just like, you know, this is fucking, this is about as cool.

[1026] Like, people play the game of who would you want at your dinner party, but that's our job is to sit at the dinner table with these people, and that's not lost on me, so I love this.

[1027] Let me ask you one other question, because I'm toying with, the idea of doing this.

[1028] But there are a few podcasts that really, you, Joe Rogan, a few people, but, you know, that are big and obviously have an audience.

[1029] But as I've sort of explored it, there are a million podcasts.

[1030] You find out that the trash collector has his own podcast.

[1031] And I don't mean to put down, but I mean, everybody.

[1032] So how do you get purchased so that in this huge field of podcast that you're one of the five or ten or hundred, that stand out?

[1033] That's a great question.

[1034] I mean, in some ways, there's something wonderful about it.

[1035] Like, it's the most democratizing media event that's ever happened.

[1036] Everyone has their own radio station.

[1037] Everyone can have their own TV network on their Instagram or whatever it is.

[1038] Like, that part of it is really, really cool.

[1039] But to your point, for 13 of your years, you were competing with two other networks.

[1040] And there's 2 .2 million podcasts the last time I looked, and it's only growing.

[1041] So the competition is obviously incredible, and you're right.

[1042] I don't know that we launched today instead of three years ago that we can break through.

[1043] I don't know.

[1044] It's a really wild moment in media.

[1045] And do you have any sense, any theory as to why you guys broke through?

[1046] I do, but Monica maybe would be better at answering that.

[1047] No, I think it was a perfect storm of things.

[1048] It was the timing of entrance.

[1049] It's the vulnerability.

[1050] I do think we get to talk to a lot of people.

[1051] I mean, Dax meets everyone with the most amount of honesty any human ever has.

[1052] So they feel obligated to meet him there.

[1053] And then we get these moments.

[1054] Like, I don't know.

[1055] A lot of people do ask this.

[1056] And I sometimes try to come up with an answer.

[1057] And then ultimately, I'm like, I think we just got really lucky.

[1058] I don't know.

[1059] Well, also, you kind of get a little superstitious.

[1060] Like, if I start knowing why, then I'll start trying to lean into that.

[1061] and then I'll fuck the whole thing up.

[1062] So that's certainly in the mix.

[1063] But the really simple question is there is a great interest in my wife and I's combined persona.

[1064] So our first episode, I knew a good amount of people would check it out.

[1065] And it did really well.

[1066] The very first one, we came out really, really strong.

[1067] And then I thought, you know, likely we're going to watch it now just Peter out after that.

[1068] And that didn't happen.

[1069] And that's when you have to start wondering, well, why did people stick around?

[1070] And then I think it's for all the reasons that Monica said.

[1071] Really connect.

[1072] I will say, like they think, not they think, they know us.

[1073] We talk about everything.

[1074] They know us.

[1075] They believe they know us.

[1076] When they stop us on the street, they're connected in a way that is very unique.

[1077] Yeah, I've never gotten it from a TV show or a movie or anything else like that.

[1078] I don't think you're asking for my advice.

[1079] So don't make that mistake.

[1080] But what I've told other people who are getting into it is something I stole from Howard Stern, which is just, if you think you can do this medium, that you can be providing hours of content per week and not tell the truth about yourself, you're crazy, it can't work.

[1081] You can't have a wall in this.

[1082] You can in many other mediums, but you can't, in this medium, I think, have a wall between who you are and who your persona on the show is.

[1083] So it's interesting you say that, because I've been talking about this with my son, who said, if you do something like this, you'll be apologizing because I'm not politically correct.

[1084] And in this world, I'm sure I'm going to say, he said, you'll be apologizing.

[1085] And because I, as I think you could tell from our conversation, I'm really.

[1086] You're quite honest.

[1087] Yeah.

[1088] I'm very honest.

[1089] There's no artifice to me. Yeah.

[1090] That could be good or bad.

[1091] Do you think some of that is having had the benefit of watching how other people have dealt with their issues and the ones that have come in there and they've owned their stuff and they've been vulnerable, don't you think that we always extend those people, kindness and forgiveness?

[1092] But the people that come in there and prove that they were right, we are happy to get rid of.

[1093] Like, you've seen it firsthand a quadrillion times.

[1094] Yes, but I also just think there's some people that are that way.

[1095] Their default position is, how do I protect myself and other people?

[1096] Their default position is, you ask me a question?

[1097] I'm going to answer it.

[1098] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1099] Well, you need a Monica.

[1100] I'll tell you that.

[1101] You need a Monica, because she has definitely saved me a, you know, so much time.

[1102] I would say find an editor, maybe your wife could edit the show.

[1103] Like, I say find an editor who loves you so much that they want to protect you, but also isn't infatuated with you and can see the problem areas and cut those out.

[1104] Monica's like a big sister in a bizarre way, because I'm so much older.

[1105] But yeah, she loves me and she thinks I'm an idiot.

[1106] It's like this perfect combination.

[1107] I love your, what I call host chat at the beginning of your show because you guys talk, and there is that thing.

[1108] It's like a, I don't know, she's big sister or a little sister, but it's obvious that you guys have real affection and real trust for each other.

[1109] Yeah.

[1110] Yeah.

[1111] No, that's true.

[1112] I mean, and again, you ask why it works.

[1113] There's something here that works between Monica and I. It worked in my kitchen when we would fight for three hours over stuff.

[1114] So, yeah, I don't know how you quantify that.

[1115] But Chris, we've taken up so much your time.

[1116] I've enjoyed this so, so much.

[1117] I really, really have.

[1118] It's so wonderful to have you on, and we're just so flattered that you listen to the show and that you would have reached out to Monica.

[1119] And so I just, I wish you a ton of luck with the book.

[1120] And again, it's called Countdown Bin Laden, the untold story of the 247 -day hunt to bring the mastermind of 9 -11 to justice.

[1121] It is out now, so I encourage everyone to check that out.

[1122] Chris, thank you so much.

[1123] Well, as I say, I heard you guys first in bed recuperating.

[1124] And there's something very soothing and very open and very honest and relaxing about listening to you and talking to you as well.

[1125] Oh, wonderful.

[1126] I'm so glad it was the experience that hopefully you wanted.

[1127] Was for us.

[1128] Yeah, big time.

[1129] More.

[1130] Good for you.

[1131] It was good for me too.

[1132] Yeah, good, good, good, good.

[1133] All right.

[1134] Thank you.

[1135] Take care, Chris.

[1136] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Badman.

[1137] Fact check.

[1138] Popping bubbly, rubbing your chakras, got you scream and punish me. Happy Thanksgiving.

[1139] Oh, my.

[1140] Sometimes these toothpicks of ours.

[1141] They get in there.

[1142] They bite me. What was Aaron saying to me in the motorhome?

[1143] You know, Aaron keeps me honest.

[1144] We have the rapport where he can, and he was, oh, he was telling me that Ruthie said to him, I've never been around two men that makes so many noises.

[1145] I was like, there's no denying that.

[1146] It's so embarrassing.

[1147] I have so many ticks and throat clears and coughs.

[1148] That's who you are.

[1149] It must be rough to be rough.

[1150] I really try to imagine, because I don't hear any of it.

[1151] Of course, yeah.

[1152] It's just all.

[1153] White noise.

[1154] Yeah, I mean, I've been doing it since I was six or whatever, eight.

[1155] And so sometimes I really think about if I had a friend that was constantly like, ha, God bless you guys.

[1156] Thank you for staying in my life.

[1157] You're welcome.

[1158] You stop hearing it.

[1159] You do, right?

[1160] Just like the tattoos.

[1161] Like, you stop seeing them.

[1162] You stop hearing.

[1163] Okay.

[1164] The sounds.

[1165] Yeah.

[1166] The two of us in a motorhome together, I can only imagine if you ran audio.

[1167] How was his snoring this time?

[1168] Didn't hear it once.

[1169] You know, he did the sleep study.

[1170] Yeah.

[1171] And he has that sleep apnea machine that's actually dialed in for him.

[1172] And he's getting like eight hours of sleep sometimes, just straight through.

[1173] Wow.

[1174] I didn't hear any fucking snoring.

[1175] Great.

[1176] But you don't hear.

[1177] hear it anyway.

[1178] I'm not super trustworthy.

[1179] But I think Ruthie said, too, it's gone away.

[1180] Oh, good.

[1181] Yeah, yeah.

[1182] Completely.

[1183] Well, I don't want to get crazy.

[1184] He does take the mask off sometimes because it irritates him.

[1185] He doesn't know what's going on.

[1186] So sometimes he wakes up and it's been off for a while.

[1187] And I think he, at that point, he is snoring.

[1188] Okay, okay, okay.

[1189] Yeah.

[1190] I think he unravels quickly when that mask comes off.

[1191] Oh, yeah.

[1192] Yeah, he needs it.

[1193] He's got to have it.

[1194] But we had so much fun in Big Brown because he was in the living room on a bed.

[1195] Let me tell you a great update about Big Brown.

[1196] So I always knew there was a pullout bed in the couch.

[1197] Did not know.

[1198] It has an air mattress in it.

[1199] So you can inflate.

[1200] It's a very nice bed.

[1201] That's lovely.

[1202] So Aaron and I were kind of spoiled.

[1203] And so towards the end of each night, Aaron and I were sort of like, oh, I want to get in my bed.

[1204] And we, you know, we both get so excited about drinking coffee the next morning that we want to go to bed early too for that.

[1205] We just wanted to be in our beds, like chatting and laying in our soft beds.

[1206] Being little boys.

[1207] Yeah, yeah.

[1208] That's nice.

[1209] Yeah.

[1210] It's Thanksgiving today.

[1211] Happy Thanksgiving.

[1212] Happy Thanksgiving.

[1213] We are together today.

[1214] We are.

[1215] Celebrating the holiday.

[1216] Two stuffings.

[1217] No one knows how we feel about this holiday, but here we are.

[1218] Right.

[1219] I guess Columbus Day is the one that really went.

[1220] People are like, fuck that day.

[1221] Yeah, this one has some, you know, it has some stuff for sure.

[1222] Well, when I was a kid, how did they take?

[1223] teach it to you in school.

[1224] They taught it to me that these nice pilgrims met these nice Native Americans and the Native Americans showed them the cornucopia, the Horn of Plenty, and they gathered and they had this great harvest feast.

[1225] Yeah, and it was very peaceful.

[1226] That's what I learned.

[1227] Yeah, I think I learned that too.

[1228] That's probably not.

[1229] That's not true.

[1230] Do you think any meal was ever had together?

[1231] I doubt it.

[1232] I really doubt it.

[1233] But I like to think of it as now as a meal of gratitude.

[1234] Yes.

[1235] Me too.

[1236] Good opportunity to reflect on things you're thankful for.

[1237] Yeah.

[1238] And last year we had a little gratitude circle.

[1239] We did.

[1240] After the meal, which was really fun.

[1241] Yeah.

[1242] Yeah.

[1243] And we're doing that again right now.

[1244] Here we go.

[1245] And we're eating right now, we're eating your two different stuffing offerings.

[1246] They're so good right now.

[1247] Oh, they're so good.

[1248] Yeah.

[1249] Oh, my God.

[1250] I can't wait.

[1251] I'm so full.

[1252] I'm going to have to take a poop before I can eat more.

[1253] But I'll do it.

[1254] Okay.

[1255] Cute boy today.

[1256] We don't want to, without giving away any of the guests we just had, two back -to -back, cute boy day.

[1257] It's cute boy day.

[1258] It's fucking cute boy day.

[1259] I'm thankful for cute boy day.

[1260] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1261] This is Chris Wallace.

[1262] Oh, I loved Chris Wallace.

[1263] I loved Chris Wallace.

[1264] He was so sweet.

[1265] Yeah, and fun.

[1266] Playful.

[1267] Yeah, playful, exactly.

[1268] And he is, you know, we've had some email correspondence.

[1269] And he was asking me some questions, and, you know, I was slow on my email.

[1270] Oh, oh.

[1271] And then I did respond, and I apologize for my tardiness.

[1272] Uh -huh.

[1273] And he was like, yeah, I thought you ghosted me. That's what he said, ghosted.

[1274] Yeah.

[1275] And I was laughing at that.

[1276] But he is, he was fun.

[1277] I really liked him.

[1278] Me too.

[1279] Me too.

[1280] And it's just insane.

[1281] I didn't know his father was Mike Wallace.

[1282] I know.

[1283] That's crazy.

[1284] But you learned it.

[1285] You learned so much on this show.

[1286] This is an educational program.

[1287] No one else says.

[1288] I learned so much on the show.

[1289] I'm sure everyone else knew that was his dad.

[1290] That was some stuff I was going to say.

[1291] Oh, tell me. You were home.

[1292] You went home to Georgia.

[1293] I did.

[1294] The downtown Duluth area is booming.

[1295] It is booming.

[1296] It's lovely.

[1297] I went on a walk with my brother.

[1298] Neil, Padman.

[1299] And that was really a highlight.

[1300] Good.

[1301] Yeah.

[1302] It was really, really nice.

[1303] I don't think we've ever done that.

[1304] Yeah.

[1305] I mean, I was trying to think, like, when is the last time I spent just, like, solo time with Neil?

[1306] When we would, like, go to Disney World maybe, like, so long ago.

[1307] Yeah.

[1308] And it was kind of the first time that I was like, oh, we're there.

[1309] We're both adults.

[1310] Right.

[1311] The age gap isn't really as hard to overcome as it once was.

[1312] Yeah.

[1313] But it was the first time I felt that.

[1314] I really like that for you.

[1315] I like to fantasize about you and Neil.

[1316] you don't spending more and more time together as you get older.

[1317] I hope so.

[1318] Yeah.

[1319] We've got to get them out here to California, though.

[1320] Yeah.

[1321] Okay.

[1322] Too early?

[1323] That's a little quick.

[1324] I'm trying to get them to move into your new house.

[1325] It's too much.

[1326] I'm too ambitious when it comes to this relationship.

[1327] Okay.

[1328] Now, is there any point when you're in Duluth that you desire to live there again?

[1329] No. Even with downtown booming and taking shape?

[1330] No. It's lovely to visit.

[1331] I'm excited to have a place to visit that has a boomer.

[1332] town.

[1333] Sure.

[1334] Do you think it's booming because of your fame?

[1335] No. Okay.

[1336] You're definitely the most famous person from Duluth.

[1337] Can you name another famous person from Duluth?

[1338] Well, I'm not, I don't know, no. Okay.

[1339] You would know, like when you're like, I knew she wasn't even from my town, but I knew Elizabeth Berkeley was from Farmington Hills.

[1340] Yeah.

[1341] Well, Julia Roberts is from, um, I know, she's from Smyrna, Georgia.

[1342] Where's Smyrna?

[1343] It's in Georgia.

[1344] It's not in Duluth, but it's, It's in Georgia.

[1345] Okay.

[1346] So she's probably the most famous person to come out of Georgia.

[1347] But we're not counting Georgia.

[1348] We're looking specifically at Duluth.

[1349] All right.

[1350] Then I'm probably top three or top five.

[1351] Or top one.

[1352] Well, I don't know.

[1353] Okay.

[1354] There's not a lot.

[1355] Okay.

[1356] You found some people?

[1357] Brian McCann.

[1358] Oh, yeah, Brian McCann.

[1359] He went to my high school.

[1360] Baseball player?

[1361] Uh -huh.

[1362] Razor Ramon, the wrestler.

[1363] Oh, Razor Ramon.

[1364] Do you ever meet him?

[1365] No, I don't know who that is.

[1366] It's mostly athletes.

[1367] You got a golfer and a footballer.

[1368] football player and a wrestler.

[1369] That's a feather in y 'all's cap.

[1370] A couple professional athletes.

[1371] That's nice.

[1372] Duluth is a spot.

[1373] If you want to raise a future leader of America, go to Duluth.

[1374] The prices of the homes are rising, so move now.

[1375] Oh, wow.

[1376] So your parents might really do well.

[1377] But then if they buy another house, that's also going to be expensive.

[1378] But they're like talent scouts.

[1379] They'll find the next Duluth.

[1380] Oh, wow.

[1381] Yeah.

[1382] You have a lot of faith in them.

[1383] I do, the most.

[1384] Okay, I do have something I want to put out to the world.

[1385] Okay.

[1386] A grievance?

[1387] No. Oh.

[1388] A mystery.

[1389] Oh.

[1390] So I, on the way home, there was a man next to me. Oh.

[1391] He had white hair.

[1392] Okay.

[1393] Grayish.

[1394] Grayish hair.

[1395] But he wasn't old.

[1396] He had a mask.

[1397] So it was tricky.

[1398] Oh.

[1399] He didn't seem too old, old enough, but very young hands.

[1400] Right.

[1401] White man. Uh -huh.

[1402] White.

[1403] hands.

[1404] White hair.

[1405] And he was on a flight from Atlanta, Georgia.

[1406] On what day?

[1407] On Sunday, whatever this past Sunday was, which would have been the 21st.

[1408] Sunday the 21st.

[1409] Okay.

[1410] What time was the flight?

[1411] It was, no, it was at 10 a .m. Eastern time.

[1412] 10 a .m. And were you in first class?

[1413] Yes.

[1414] Okay.

[1415] So if you know someone that had prematurely gray hair, very strong, hands and was on the flight on the 21st at 10 a .m. from Atlanta to L .A., reach out to us.

[1416] Yeah, because I'm pretty sure he's a famous musician because he had a guitar or something that he had to stow away.

[1417] Oh, he had an instrument.

[1418] And he was with some other people, so it seemed like band.

[1419] Maybe a country musician?

[1420] Did he have a country flare or did he have an indie rock flare?

[1421] He didn't have a country flair.

[1422] Indy rock?

[1423] Yeah.

[1424] Do you want to like connect with this person?

[1425] I just want to find out who the famous musician was who was sitting next to me. Oh, I thought this was more of a dating opportunity.

[1426] Oh, no, no. He had a wedding ring.

[1427] Oh, because you've talked about his hands to me 11 times in the last two days.

[1428] That's not true.

[1429] Twice or six times.

[1430] Yeah, yeah, I think like six times.

[1431] And so I thought for sure that you were sending out a signal like you would like to have coffee with him.

[1432] No. Oh.

[1433] No, no, no. He had a wedding ring on, but I was still admiring his hands.

[1434] You love hands.

[1435] Would it be okay if people sent you pictures of their hands?

[1436] Oh, I think that might start getting weird.

[1437] Well, just don't have your penis in your hands, guys.

[1438] No one wants to see your fucking penis, except for me. I think I'd rather see, you know, I like seeing them, catching them in real time, in real life.

[1439] I don't know about pictures.

[1440] Well, can I, did this all start with Portugal demand?

[1441] Or did it predate that?

[1442] No, it predated.

[1443] But John Gurley's hands stood out to me in a major.

[1444] way.

[1445] Like, gave you a boner.

[1446] PQ's.

[1447] Yeah.

[1448] That's when we talked about it on here, but that is not new.

[1449] Oh, that's, you've long coveted hands.

[1450] Yeah, it's not, it's not going to start.

[1451] Can you think of the first set of hands you were attracted to?

[1452] That little black boy's father when he visited the classroom, the glass room, the glass room?

[1453] No, I can't think of the origin story of the hands.

[1454] The genesis.

[1455] I think I just like.

[1456] Strong hands.

[1457] Yeah, you know, people like body parts.

[1458] Isn't there a song strong, strong hands, but oh, no. That's slow hands?

[1459] Slow hands.

[1460] Yeah.

[1461] I think that's like one direction or something.

[1462] No, I think it's a woman singing.

[1463] No, it's not.

[1464] It's not.

[1465] Slow hands.

[1466] I think it's called, yeah, let me see.

[1467] Let's find out.

[1468] Okay, Nile Horan, who I think is maybe from One Directions.

[1469] Do you the guy from the airplane?

[1470] No. Wouldn't that be something?

[1471] That would be really something.

[1472] One direction.

[1473] Oh.

[1474] Really?

[1475] Uh -huh.

[1476] God, you knew that inside and out.

[1477] I can't believe I did.

[1478] I don't know stuff like that.

[1479] This is it.

[1480] It's a nice slow groove.

[1481] It is.

[1482] But it's steady.

[1483] And it's powerful.

[1484] Like hands.

[1485] We should take this back to our place.

[1486] Wow.

[1487] I want to get to the chorus because we can't play too much of it.

[1488] I think.

[1489] We probably already played.

[1490] Like sweat and I'm not dead And drink on This nice That's a good groove Yeah Well done, Nile It could easily be swapped out For strong Yeah, when you re -recorded It'll be strong hands Strong hands are stroking my kneecaps Strong hands Make their way north to my PQ's Oh wow, wow You don't think you'll get that literal With it But I'll let you write it.

[1491] Steady hands on my quivering.

[1492] Oh, boy.

[1493] I'm reminding people what Q stands for.

[1494] Quiver.

[1495] Yeah.

[1496] Steady hands in a quivering environment.

[1497] P. Yep.

[1498] Anywho.

[1499] So all to say that I sat next to a nice, famous musician.

[1500] He was sleepy.

[1501] Uh -huh.

[1502] He told me. Oh, what kind of chit -chat did you guys?

[1503] I feel like there's a love connection.

[1504] No, it's not.

[1505] When he sat down.

[1506] And they came on, like, at the very end, I thought I was going to have a seat next to myself.

[1507] Oh, okay.

[1508] An empty seat.

[1509] And I was excited.

[1510] So I was a little bummed when he first arrived.

[1511] But then I was like, okay, he has nice hands.

[1512] That's fine.

[1513] And then he just said, if you need to get out, just poke me, even if I'm sleeping like, it's totally fine.

[1514] Oh, poke me. That's what they say on these dating apps.

[1515] Like, you poke somebody to get their attention.

[1516] That was subtext.

[1517] Oh, my God.

[1518] Well, I didn't because I never need to pee.

[1519] What if right now, let me just pose a scenario.

[1520] Hypothetical.

[1521] He's on stage right now somewhere.

[1522] Okay.

[1523] And there's 200 ,000 people in the audience.

[1524] He's like, before I play this next song, Steady Hands, I just want to say, I met a woman on a flight from Atlanta to Los Angeles, California.

[1525] I was up against the clock.

[1526] I was a little late getting out.

[1527] I felt bad.

[1528] But I connected with her.

[1529] If anyone knows who she is, she's one inch tall.

[1530] has the power of a nuclear reactor and I don't want to be crude but she was stacked if anyone knows who this person was come up after the show and then all these people are going to claim to know you to kind of get backstage to talk to him oh wow okay like he hadn't thought this part out when he did it but maybe that's happening simultaneously I would love that yeah even if you guys are just pals I guess yeah anyway just get back to us so he put that guitar in an overhead no he had to put it in the like closet thing.

[1531] I wonder if they had to put it in the cockpit.

[1532] And those guys were having a hard time flying the plane because this big piece of instrumentation.

[1533] No, it was in the little closet area because he on our way out, he had to get it.

[1534] And he had some sort of like suit or something.

[1535] Like he had something hanging too.

[1536] Oh my God.

[1537] You're so interested in this person.

[1538] What if he's in the same band as the guy in London?

[1539] That would be a freak out.

[1540] Yeah.

[1541] But he would have probably said, you met my guitarist.

[1542] Because that guy would have came and brag the next day at band rehearsal.

[1543] I met Monica Padman last night because he came up to you.

[1544] He was a fan.

[1545] In London.

[1546] Yeah.

[1547] So he would have told his bandmates like, oh, I fucking met that one inch tall nuclear reactor.

[1548] Oh, and then they made the song.

[1549] That's how it all, oh, wow.

[1550] Yeah.

[1551] That'll make sense.

[1552] It all adds up.

[1553] Okay, just a couple facts.

[1554] Chris Wallace, Christopher Wallace.

[1555] Chris Wallace, couple facts.

[1556] How long was the Gemini flight that Walter Cronkite was covering?

[1557] 10 hours, 41 minutes, 26 seconds.

[1558] Oh, my gosh.

[1559] Yeah.

[1560] Who was the Meet the Press interviewer, Chuck Todd.

[1561] He interviewed George Clooney, Meet the Press.

[1562] Oh, Chuck Todd.

[1563] And they're friends.

[1564] He and Clune Doctor.

[1565] Yeah.

[1566] Well, he was at his wedding.

[1567] Right?

[1568] Did he say that?

[1569] He said he was just invited to Como.

[1570] Oh, to Lake Cuomo.

[1571] Yeah.

[1572] But he sold that place, didn't he?

[1573] I don't know.

[1574] I feel like I read that, that he sold that.

[1575] place.

[1576] Oh, okay.

[1577] Yeah, maybe times are tight.

[1578] I doubt it.

[1579] Didn't he had a liquor label that...

[1580] It's, it's so good.

[1581] He has a tequila.

[1582] Oh, it's good.

[1583] It's so good.

[1584] What's it called?

[1585] Casamigas or something.

[1586] Oh, yeah, Casamigas.

[1587] Very, very aesthetically appealing label.

[1588] Mm -hmm.

[1589] Great packaging.

[1590] Trusted brand.

[1591] Yeah.

[1592] Very trust.

[1593] Cosamigos.

[1594] Casamigos.

[1595] Okay.

[1596] He's doing fine, probably.

[1597] Okay.

[1598] I have to address the huge elephant in the room, which is the gift guide.

[1599] Uh -oh.

[1600] Okay.

[1601] Uh -oh.

[1602] Uh -oh is right.

[1603] I'm delinquent on the gift guide.

[1604] Okay.

[1605] Okay.

[1606] I've done a bad job, so I think this is what I'm going to do, starting tomorrow.

[1607] Uh -huh.

[1608] Friday after Thanksgiving.

[1609] Okay.

[1610] I'm going to, just on Instagram, just do a post every day for like a week.

[1611] Okay.

[1612] That has four items.

[1613] Okay.

[1614] Four items that I think are great gifts.

[1615] Okay, great.

[1616] Okay, so the gift guide is not as formal as I'd like.

[1617] Okay.

[1618] This year.

[1619] Yeah.

[1620] I'm going to work my way up.

[1621] Great.

[1622] So follow me on Instagram if you want to get some gift ideas.

[1623] MLP admin.

[1624] Or I guess I could post them on armchair.

[1625] Yeah.

[1626] Yeah.

[1627] Maybe I'll do that.

[1628] Do that.

[1629] You don't want to do a podcast about it anymore About my gift guide Yeah wasn't that what the original idea was No Oh I thought you were doing a podcast No Oh do you think some people thought that I thought that what did you think Rob?

[1630] I thought this was just a website Oh okay great So probably everyone's like Rob and Yeah I thought you were doing like a I don't know three part podcast Oh Yeah No. That was never the plan.

[1631] You have to see the stuff.

[1632] That makes sense, but you could drop the episode with the Instagram accompaniment to see the things.

[1633] So are you going to be talking in each one of these videos?

[1634] So there'll be videos now on Instagram.

[1635] No, no, no. I've simplified this a lot.

[1636] Okay.

[1637] So there's just going to be like four pictures, Carousel.

[1638] Okay.

[1639] Of the items.

[1640] And then in the text, I'll say what they are.

[1641] Oh.

[1642] Okay.

[1643] Okay.

[1644] And who it's best for.

[1645] Like, for your best friend, for your boyfriend, for your girlfriend, for your child.

[1646] Got it.

[1647] Got it.

[1648] And I'm saying this, and I can't promise you tomorrow it'll happen, but I want it to.

[1649] Sure, sure.

[1650] Well laid, what best laid intentions?

[1651] What's the same?

[1652] Best laid plans of mice and men.

[1653] Yeah, that's it.

[1654] But one thing you asked me to stop doing, which I haven't done since, and I plan not to do, is giving females a number.

[1655] But both boys we had him were tens.

[1656] They were.

[1657] Yeah.

[1658] They were tens.

[1659] One of them was on Zoom, and that was unfortunate.

[1660] Yeah, but the second one for me, too, I mean, just physically.

[1661] I liked him a lot.

[1662] Yeah.

[1663] He was super confident, but not braggy.

[1664] Exactly.

[1665] Yeah, I could do better on the not being braggy part.

[1666] I'm working on it.

[1667] Well, I think you're braggy when you're not confident.

[1668] I don't think it's, I think when you are confident, you are not braggy.

[1669] Yeah.

[1670] But you come in and out of confidence, even though you appear to always be very confident.

[1671] I mean it in a nice, I mean this in a nice way.

[1672] Like, you come off very confident.

[1673] I think I have this same thing.

[1674] Yes, yeah.

[1675] You have an aura of confidence.

[1676] But it's flea.

[1677] bleeding.

[1678] It's in and out.

[1679] Uh -huh.

[1680] It's fickle.

[1681] Confidence is a fickle business.

[1682] Yeah.

[1683] It is.

[1684] It can be taken from you so quickly.

[1685] I would also argue that it might be healthy.

[1686] Like, I think putting yourself in many situations where you start questioning your confidence is probably good.

[1687] Yeah.

[1688] I think so too.

[1689] Yeah.

[1690] You know, like if you just always feel like the cock of the walk, you're probably not challenging yourself much.

[1691] I agree.

[1692] But then you have to feel what's happening and then not compensate in whatever ways.

[1693] Right.

[1694] Like if you're like a 300 a game bowler, go play baseball every now and then and suck at it.

[1695] And then the trick is to not while playing baseball, tell them you're a 300 bowler.

[1696] Now that's what I would do.

[1697] I'd be playing baseball poorly and I would just like let it slide that, you know, bowling's more in my sport.

[1698] I'm a 300 bowler.

[1699] I'm going to be like, who gives a fuck?

[1700] We like basketball.

[1701] What game am I playing hypothetically?

[1702] We like baseball.

[1703] No one gives a shit about, Bowling.

[1704] Yeah.

[1705] We're all so fallible.

[1706] We're doing what we can.

[1707] I'm thankful for...

[1708] What are you thankful for?

[1709] I'm thankful for not having any confidence.

[1710] I want to do a round of thankful.

[1711] Okay.

[1712] Let's do it.

[1713] Okay.

[1714] This is embarrassing, but as I get older, health.

[1715] Yeah.

[1716] You know, like I'm out in the dunes and I'm working on shit and jumping stuff and I feel great.

[1717] Yeah.

[1718] Fuck.

[1719] That's so lucky.

[1720] Yeah.

[1721] Obviously, the health of my family.

[1722] incredible.

[1723] So many people aren't in that position.

[1724] Yes.

[1725] Currently I'm, knock on wood.

[1726] And my friendship circle is off the charts.

[1727] To be fair, we did do this.

[1728] But I love doing it.

[1729] We want to do it again.

[1730] I want to do it again.

[1731] When did we do it?

[1732] Yesterday's episode.

[1733] Yeah.

[1734] Oh, then let's not do it.

[1735] Well.

[1736] I think you said the same thing.

[1737] Oh, geez.

[1738] No, I said friendship.

[1739] Oh, fuck.

[1740] I stole yours.

[1741] Okay, so let's not do it.

[1742] We're doing it.

[1743] I guess all I want to say is, this job has given me a peace of mind that I didn't think I could ever have.

[1744] I mean, a total peace of mind in certain factors of my life that is like, oh, so liberating and wonderful.

[1745] And I'm enjoying it so much.

[1746] And it's really because people are listening to this right now.

[1747] And I'm not ever forgetting it.

[1748] So I'm just, as saccharine as it is, I'm fucking so grateful to armcherrys.

[1749] Me too.

[1750] Like crazy.

[1751] Yeah.

[1752] And I want to add one thing I am thankful for, because it was coming up a lot when I was home.

[1753] I'm so thankful that no one in my life is currently, like, really struggling with addiction.

[1754] I mean, I know it's always a struggle for the people in my life who are addicts, but you guys are all in a good place.

[1755] Why did it come up so much?

[1756] Um, my parents watched Beautiful Boy.

[1757] Oh, right, right, right.

[1758] And then they told me then I watched it.

[1759] And I was like, oh, boy, it was just so heartbreaking.

[1760] And then I, and there was a, a story I heard of a friend of a friend involving fentanyl.

[1761] Mm -hmm.

[1762] And, you know, it's just very heavy.

[1763] Yeah.

[1764] Very scary.

[1765] Yeah.

[1766] And I'm really grateful that you guys are doing good.

[1767] Mm -hmm.

[1768] Thank you.

[1769] You're welcome.

[1770] There was a New York Times article about fentanyl, and 100 ,000 people have died in the calendar year from ODs on fentanyl.

[1771] I think fentanyl almost, I think that number was just fentanyl.

[1772] But they did not get to the question I have, which is this who is incentivized, who is profiting, who is benefiting from this?

[1773] It's still the huge mystery I need answered.

[1774] Who is benefiting from this?

[1775] From the lacing.

[1776] It doesn't been, I mean, again, it does in heroin.

[1777] That makes total sense.

[1778] You've got a shitty product that's not going to get anyone high.

[1779] You've got to put something in there that's going to get you high and it's cheap.

[1780] Got it.

[1781] Very clear motivation.

[1782] Putting in in cocaine doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

[1783] But do you think it is to make it more addictive?

[1784] No. Really?

[1785] Coke does that just fine on its own.

[1786] Do you see they're finding it in weed?

[1787] Well, in that article, they said that they're spraying.

[1788] weed like we now that mildly makes sense because it's adding a euphoric aspect to a high that's already that kind of high but but the cocaine that ones where it they went too far they showed their hand a little bit it's in weed that's scary well illegal weed everywhere everywhere it's legal this is another reason why there should be legalized weed because it's not happening in California.

[1789] Yeah.

[1790] It's happening from street dealers who want their weed to be better.

[1791] That's with all these drugs.

[1792] Like, I mean...

[1793] By the way, that's what are the movie we saw yesterday.

[1794] Yeah.

[1795] Which we can say, Nightmare Alley, the New Guillermo de Toro movie.

[1796] Yeah.

[1797] And it's incredible.

[1798] So thought revoking.

[1799] But yeah, getting people hooked on opiates without them knowing they're getting hooked on opioids.

[1800] That's kind of what these weed dealers are doing.

[1801] And they're spraying it on the bud, I guess.

[1802] Oh, God.

[1803] It's a scary world out there.

[1804] I'm grateful that we're all safe.

[1805] Me too.

[1806] All right.

[1807] Cute boy took the starch out of me. Cute boys will do that.

[1808] All right.

[1809] I love you.

[1810] Love you.

[1811] Happy Thanksgiving.

[1812] Happy Thanksgiving.

[1813] Happy Thanksgiving.

[1814] Happy Thanksgiving.

[1815] Happy Thanksgiving.

[1816] Follow armchair expert on the Wondry app, Amazon music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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