"President Joe Biden"

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No appointments, no stress This is a very, very special, nerve-wracking, odd, unique, incredible episode. This is amazing.
And why? Let's just say at the top why, and then I want to get into... Well, they know, because by this point, they know that the President of the United States is approaching the room.
Okay, so talk to me about coming here and getting here. Because I got here an hour earlier because I thought it was going to be massive traffic and blah, blah, blah.
And so, the steps you take to get through with your car was mind-blowing. Well, you also had some flares on your record.
You had to get here an hour earlier. Yeah, you had a few outstanding.
They had a bunch of questions for you. Right, right.
You had a few things. Will and I just got to roll up, get the mirrors underneath the car.
And that's it? Yeah. I had the dog sniffing all parts of me.
Oh, no, I know. But wait, so no.
But the first guy. By the way, one of the guys doing the, this is true, doing the security check on the car, says to Jason, like, hey, man, big fan.
And then he sort of leaned in. And then he was just out of earshot Jason looks at me and goes nothing for you nothing for you he actually leaned down and looked who was riding shotgun and then just kept walking no he didn't but he said nothing Jason goes nothing for you and then the guy walked back and I thought oh he's placed the's got an opportunity.
And the guy said, and just keep your windows rolled down going forward.

Yeah.

That was it.

Yep.

Yep.

And it was a great moment.

It was a great moment.

And then the next guy said, he said to me he was a big fan of Murderville.

He didn't say Murderville.

He said of your improv.

And then he said, oh, and then he looked at me and saw Jason go, I love Ozark, to which I said, is that still on the air? Because it's been a minute, right? And then we approached the woman with the bullhorn out there yelling protests, and she gave me an earful. So we're at a hotel in Los Angeles because...
Well, let's definitely be cagey about it because they're going to come after us now. We've already done it.
Two weeks after. No, but I mean, just for the future.
Well, for the future, it might be a hotspot then. Oh, you think that people can't clue into the fact that the president's here? What gave it away? The Beast out parked in the middle of Hillgard? What are you doing? The 75 trucks outside.
Did you guys just come fresh from... Were you just lobized from dumbland you're so nervous yeah rise to the moment i'm up i'm up i'm in i'm in well this is exciting the president of the united states is our guest today which is absolutely let's do a small little humble review on what the hell is going on i mean when you're a kid and you watch tv and you see oh my god God, there's the president.
And then you learn about history and you're like, oh my God. Fast forward to this moment right now.
It's kind of mind-blowing and I'm very nervous. I was feeling really, really good about us.
And then I saw he did an exclusive with Tapper yesterday. And I'm like, well, fucking Tapper got him.
I mean, maybe this isn't that big of a deal. Well, Tapper's a bit of a heat-seeking missile, isn't he? Maybe this isn't as big of a deal.
It's kind of huge. No, old Tap Shoes deserves it.
No, he doesn't. I mean, he's a friend of the show, but Tapper...
But this is undoubtedly... This is ridiculous.
We have the president. Okay, so can I tell you this? I told my dad that we were doing this.
Me too.

And how'd you do that? What'd you do? Put a message in a bottle and throw it in Lake Michigan? Hoping he drives his powerboat by it? Hoping that one of his kids from his new family picks it up.

Yeah,

it's pretty ridiculous.

What was this?

My dad was so impressed and he was so blown away.

There's very few things

and you know,

you get to do a lot of cool things

in what we do.

Yes.

And my dad was like,

when I said, yeah, we're interviewing the president, he said, really? Like in this way of like, you? Yeah. Like I got to start listening to this.
Yeah, and I get it. And it is.
And who is this? First of all, for you guys, all jokes aside, I wasn't born in this country, but I can appreciate it. But as young as Americans who have come,

this has got to be a great moment for you.

Well, this is unbelievable.

Because it is for me, and I'm a new American.

I mean, but just aside from this podcast,

it's like I get to meet the president of the United States.

Like, it's insane.

I mean, it's so crazy.

We started this thing as just a completely, you know,

remote kind of situation where we stayed in contact, and now we are. And try to make Sean feel better because he was so depressed.
Exactly. Still working on it.
But now we are, for the first time, in person and we're not in our pajamas. I know.
We're like in nice clothes. Yeah.
Stuff that needs to be returned by noon tomorrow. Jason asked me if I tucked the tags in.
For good reason. Little babies grew up.
Oh guys, tighten up. I think I see some people coming in.
Listener, next time we talk to you we're going to be in the midst. It's still us, but we are going to be acting a little weird because obviously Weirder thanirder than right now? Yeah.
Can you feel the nervous energy, listener?

I'm so sorry.

I'm actually really, honestly, truly nervous.

Yeah, no, me too.

All right, here we go.

Let's tighten up and we'll talk to you in a second

when we come back on an all new,

very special Smart Life.

Smart Life.

Smart Life.

Smart Life. Smart.
Light us. Smart.
Light us. Smart.
Light us. You're making me famous with my granddaughters, guys.
This is wild. This is unbelievable for all of us.
So thank you for being here. It's such an honor.
Thank you. Oh, no, it's an honor to be on.
I mean, what you guys did to lift people's spirits is important. Well, thanks.
It's been a tough time. And we're surprised that just our silly little chit-chats are making people grin.
But I guess we'll just, we'll keep at it because a smile is always worth it, especially nowadays. And we often have a lot of, you know, we started by getting a lot of our friends on here, and people who are performers, and people who are in, and so Sean won't be able to ask his normal question, do you have any great theater stories? I got a lot of great theater.
Right? Well, I know Trump. That's the best theater ever.
I love theater. Hey, you know, before we start, I don don't have a question i just want to say a thank you for something and i have to read a quote that you you said almost 10 years ago and now that i you're sitting in front of me and it's such an honor and i'm shaking a little bit but you said a lot of that's the sugar that's the sugar i ate earlier i you said i think will and Grace did more to educate the American public more than almost anything anybody has done so far.

By the way, you did.

Thank you.

And I was sitting on the couch.

I nearly fell out of my seat.

And it just meant so much to me and millions of other people

that you recognized us and spoke up for us.

So thank you.

No question. I just wanted to say thank you.
No, no. I didn't think it was a question.
But look, I, but it's the truth. You know, people are afraid what they don't know.
Yeah. And they're frightened of it.
And they had images that every gay person in the world or lesbian was an extremist on everything. Right.
But it's like. We're as everybody else.
That's true, by the way. Look at his zip-up cardigan there.
Often more. Often far more boring.
No, no, but think about it. The first—you made it clear that a gay person's interest and life is not any fundamentally different.
I mean, they have the same fears, concerns, ambitions, likes. I mean, it's normal.
Yeah, and thank you for giving us the same rights as everybody else. Speaking of Sean, you clearly stated your love for Will and Grace.
Now, that makes me think, what other television shows are you able to watch now that you've got a fairly busy job? Is there any TV time for you? Yeah. Well, the honest to God truth is it's a joke among my granddaughters who are very little.
When I have time on television, what I tend to do is I tend to watch sports or watch the news. And by the way, I don't work harder.
And a lot of people work a hell of a lot harder than I do. I don't know about that.
But there's just not that many hours. You know what I mean? Yeah.
But I wanted to, because we're not bright enough to ask you really smart questions. I've really, I'm really, I'm such a big fan of you as just, obviously we've never met before.
Although I did shake your hand on a trip in ninth grade in Delaware, and you were very nice. But I want to know.
Expand on that. I want to know.
Have you been since? You were so sweet for a class. But, like, what time does the day wrap up for you? What, what, what, you go upstairs.
You want to know bedtime. Well, I want to know what goes on.
Well, my staff is laughing. They're behind.
But when you go upstairs, you're not lounging around in that.

Is there a transition into, I'm asking because I'm projecting,

because I get in my PJs as soon as I get home.

You get into the PJs, you let them know what you want for dinner,

and then you start watching TV with Jill?

What happens?

That's one of the things Jill and I are working out,

and I mean this sincerely.

Yeah.

Jill, because she teaches full-time, is in bed by 9.30,

and I used to go to bed 9.30, 10 o'clock, and we'd talk,

I'm just used to go to bed 9.30, 10 o'clock, and we'd talk and people would go to sleep. I mean, we'd spend time together.
But now I don't get back to my, even in the White House, I don't get from the Oval Office into my, in the residence until usually around 7 o'clock. Yeah.
We have dinner i have and i'm not not a complaint i give my word but i have a briefing book that is probably 200 pages yeah yeah i mean a big binder like that yeah mine has two pages and uh no but the worst part you guys got to memorize your lines um but all kidding aside uh so I usually get in bed around 11 o'clock. Oh, wow.
Jill gets up at 6.30 and it goes worked out. I get up at 8 o'clock and work out.
But wait, I want to know, is there a time when you're exercising with Jill? Is there a time where you guys can go away and shut it off and just be like, yeah? Well, we just have to do it because she'd worked so long as well. So we just set time and I tell Annie who runs the show for me and my chief of staff, I'm not doing anything.
And so Jill and I, but they're getting further apart. I mean, in a sense, but usually we try to do that.
We go to Camp David or go back to our house in Delaware, which is secluded enough off the road that we just, you know. And can you really not think about work and you really kind of calm down? Or is it always there? Yeah, no, well, there's certain things that, I mean, like with the war in Ukraine, there's a lot of really difficult.
You've got to stay available. Sure.
But no, I'm always available. Do they try to protect you? Obviously, weekends are not off, but you get to go to church on Sundays or you get to a little sports time.
My worst part is they kid me and everybody kids me. I'm one of those practicing Catholics.
My mother come down from heaven if I didn't. But I go to, I don't tell everybody because they'll beat it, but I go to five o'clock mass in my local church.
Yeah. Or I go to, in Washington, I go over to Georgetown, the Jebbies.
Yeah. And I go to, there's a five, well, there's a 4.30 mass.
And I go to mass on Saturday. Yeah.
And then Sunday, we just try to try to do nothing yeah yeah that's great i mean that's pretty good i think you have to you watch a football game or something like that yeah yeah yeah what's your number one sport if you had to rank him that you like to watch my number one sport is football but it's changed so much i i was a relatively good ball player in a what position i was a flanker back a halfback really and uh i like flank state and uh yeah i'm just saying don't pay any attention you're just saying word association yeah it's a sport that i that i watch uh probably more than any other don't you're not a terrible golfer i i looked up your index i used to be pretty good i haven't played golf on three your current index is a six seven i believe which puts you at about a 12 a handicap what is the best part of your golf game off the tee chipping putting off the tee off the tee you hit it far well yeah three years ago i did i haven't played much yeah we added up they figured out that i try to when i when I'm home in Delaware, there's a place I can go where I can play. It's a private club.
It's called Fieldstone. But I play, all of this is golf.
And I get in. I've not played 18 holes lately.
I have nine holes. I'm with you on that.
We play a lot. Jason and I play a lot of golf.
Will's big thing is he thinks golf should be 12 holes long. I think it should be 12 holes.
I think it should be 6 and 6. I think that would be perfect.
By the way, there's a lot of national debate about that. Is there really? Yeah, there is.
Do you want to appoint me the golf star? Just because he falls apart at 12 usually. He falls apart on the 12th hole and he just starts whining.
And I'm tired. And I like to spend time with my kids.
You need to work on your game. By the way, that's my best recreation.
My granddaughters, they're crazy about me. Ah.
I'm crazy about them. No, you think I'm kidding.
I don't blame them. I love that.
Every single day, I contact every one of my grandchildren. That's amazing.
All right, you got to pick one of these three things as the coolest thing about being the man. Is it the White House? Is it Air Force One? Or is it the Beast? Which you can only You don't mean Marshall Lynch.
I do not. I'm talking about the car.
Which is Air Force One. It's gotta be Air Force One.
It's gotta be, right? Well, the good news is the plane never leaves until I get there now. Do you always get the seat you want? Do you always get the seat you want? Or is there sometimes there's someone in it and you got to go to the back? I would love to see the inside of Air Force One.
I'll take you through it. I would go crazy.
God, that was so dripping with begging for an invite. No, I'm serious.
I have no chance. Sean, I thought you were going to say, I'd love to do a Will and Grace reunion on Air Force One.
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Okay, so people in this country, never before has it felt like, and I look back, you know, I spent a little bit of time looking back over the way that people spoke and politicians spoke and et cetera, especially in the 20th century. And a lot of the same verbiage was used to scare people, to put people, to divide people.
And people say, well, no, this is new. Historically, that has been something.
But never before has it seemed like common ground was so far off in the distance. And I'm trying to understand why, because we all share.
I had an experience recently where I spent some time with somebody and I didn't find out till later that their perspective on the world was very different from mine. But when he and I were speaking and hanging out one-on-one, we got along very fine.
And I thought, wow, isn't that funny? If I didn't know anything about his politics, he and I got along great.

What is it we can do to try to get that back? Because I think that that's something you talk about a lot. Well, look, guys, I had no intention of running for president again, for real.
Yeah. Or running for office.
I was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, enjoying it and put together an institute up there. And when those folks came out of the fields, literally carrying torches down in Charlottesville,

and the last guy said they're good people on both sides and that young woman was killed,

I realized that we are at an inflection point in history.

And it occurs every three, five, seven generations that what happens in the near term

I'm going to go ahead and looks like for the next several generations and um uh and and the context was my my son had just died and uh and so we have a tradition in our family. Anyone in the family, any kid can ask for a family meeting.
This is dead serious. I'm not joking about this, as well as my dad's family when I was growing up.
And so I got a call from my oldest granddaughter saying, Pop, we want to have a family meeting. She was a freshman, either a senior at Penn or a freshman at Columbia Law.
And then my other granddaughter, Finnegan Biden, she's a brilliant kid. She's my secret weapon.
She was, I think, a sophomore at Penn. Anyway.
A couple of dummies, huh? Yeah, well, no, I don't mean that. I meant they were close to me, right from my house.
Oh, gotcha. And then I had another granddaughter who was a senior in high school and then a granddaughter who was a sophomore in high school and a grandson who was, I was thinking seventh or eighth grade.
And they came in and they sat down and they said, Pop, you really should run. And I didn't want to run because I knew it was going to be ugly.
And keep in mind, just like if your children are in show business, what with your show business, they get used to the barbs, they get used to the accolades. And so they've been their whole life.
I've either been a vice president or a senator, and their dad or uncle had been attorney general and so on. so they said you got to run pop pop they call me pop they said pop uncle bone wants you to run daddy wants you to run etc and i said what's going to be not it's not going to be very nice honey yeah and uh my little guy a little hunter he's now 16 years old wonderful a wonderful kid.
He took out his cell phone.

He said, here's a picture, Pop.

We know.

And he showed me a picture.

My wife hates me telling this story, but it's true.

And the picture was me walking out of the cathedral with my hand on my son's flag-draped coffin,

the military escort, and my arm around him

like I used to hold his dad to just reassure him

we're walking out. And the caption at bottom said that biden molests another child and they said we know it's going to be tough but here's the point about your question i think the biggest thing that's changed is technology there are no editors anymore right and so you know i you know there's a lot been written and i started to write a book about it i don't obviously have time to do it now that if you go all the way back to gutenberg and the printing press it changed the nature of the world and how nations got along these guys have never read a book so just keep going well i know but look look i'm i'm i'm getting a television but think about how things have changed.
And every new technological change, it changed the way we interface with one another. Whether it was a telegraph or the radio or then television.
But now the internet for the first time, there's no editors. There's no editors at all.
And so how does somebody know what is true? Yeah, and the difference between, you know, I think that you should do an executive order where you could do, you can post on the internet, on social media, but you have to have your name, your address, and your phone number. And then we'll see if people change their tone a little bit.
Isn't there any way for the FCC or someone to put a rating system or the equivalent of saying, this is just opinion, this is actually facts. Oh, you've wanted this for a long time.
Like you should be able to have to hit a certain threshold. You can't just, everything can't look the same.
It should have a little qualified, Twitter does it or did it with the last guy's tweets. I mean, we live in an age where people decided to start politicizing science and medicine and that is that it's so absurd and you go you know i'm originally canadian and i go back to canada i mean i am american now sir but uh if i defect i'm going to can't yeah well listen and you can stay with my phone i'll drive jim and alex will take you any day but but that idea that like how it's absurd how are we politicizing this stuff that we used to take as fact? Well, look, that's true.
And if you notice, the generic polling about the American public, there are 40, 50, 60 people who are worried about the survival of democracy. Yeah.
But it's not just here. It's all around the world, this notion of, you know, democracy.
Can it but i'm optimistic and i really am i love that no but i i genuinely am because this younger generation the ones you speak to up to i said to 30 when i talked about the younger generation yeah no i'm not being facetious i'm being deadly earnest is the best educated the most open least prejudiced, the most giving generation in American history. And we're going to break through this.
We really, truly are. And you think about the things that how ugly things have gotten.
But think about how much we've gotten done. I mean, when I ran, I said I was running for three reasons.
To restore the soul of America america to rebuild the middle class and because when the economy is built from the middle out the poor do

have a road up and the wealthy still do very well and to and to unite the country the third part's

being the hardest because i went through my career as being the guy who got a lot done with democrats

and republicans for all those years i was in the senate hell i was there for 36 you started when you were 29 when you became a senator yeah and and i and what got me involved was the uh i came from a state to its great shame was segregated by law and uh and we have the eighth largest black population in america and uh i was really moved by the civil rights movement as a kid um and i remember i we moved down from scranton pennsylvania when coal died my dad was not a coal miner but he was a salesperson and we moved back to this little town called claymont delaware and used to be a big steel town. And we lived in what became projects, but at the time they were apartment complexes that were modest compared to where we had lived.
And I went to a little Catholic school called Holy Rosary, and it was across the street from the fire station there. And I remember my mom used to drive us up to school.
I was in third grade and drop us in the parking lot to go into school. And I see this bus go by all the time with only, then we refer to it as colored, but black children in it.
I didn't understand it. Because they didn't know it.
There are hardly any black people in Scranton. And what was that all about? I said, well, they're not allowed to go to school, honey.
They're not allowed to go to the public schools here. Then I ended up being the only white employee in the east side of Wilmington, which is 98% African American.
I was a lifeguard there. Then I got involved.
That's what got me engaged. That was very inspiring for you.
Well, it was. It also was very angry.
It made me, and like a lot of folks my generation. And I never, I love reading how I knew I was going to run for president.
I wasn't even old enough. I mean, I'll never forget, I got really involved trying to bring the Democratic Party in Delaware into the mainstream of Northeastern Democrats.
It was more a Southern Democratic Party. The Southern part of my state, the Delmarva Peninsula, talk cats like this.
It's just very Southern, for real. It's right at the Mason-Dixon line, right? Yeah.
It actually goes North-South. Most people don't realize that, but yes, it is.
And the end result of all that was that I got involved. I was a young lawyer.
I went to law school. And I went to work for a guy who was a local.
He was a state rep. He was a great trial lawyer.
And one thing led to another. And they tried to reform the Democratic Party to make it more.
I mean, the Republican Party was more liberal than the Democratic Party at the time. a rockefeller republicans anyway to make a long story not quite so long and boring i was asked to help put together a group of young people to get someone to run for the united states senate and i kept working on it and i went to an off-year convention in dover you know the democratic convention and i was it was between the evening

the afternoon and evening session and i was in a motel small motel down there shaven and i was in the bathroom and i had a towel on and shaving cream and i was banging the door and i opened the door and there's four leading democrats two of which i never met before two former governors and a state chairman and a head of the Supreme Court

who had retired, family, more senators than any family in American history, the tunnels. And I was stumped.
I thought it was the guys I drove down with. I was 27, 28 years old.
And they said, we got to talk to you, Joe. We just had a dinner together.
And I said, okay, gentlemen. I walked in and quickly got in the bathroom thinking there was a towel.
I had a towel. Wiped the shaving cream on my face, came out.
You know, those desks that are nailed to the wall, headboards nailed. And I'm leaning against the desk.
And they said, Joe, we were thinking you should run for the Senate. I said, holy.
I said, no. You said, can I get dressed? No, no.
No, I'm serious. It's a true story.
And the chief justice, the former justice, said, I said, I'm not old enough, sir. He said, you obviously didn't do well in constitutional law, Joe.
He said, you don't have to be 30 to get elected. You have to be 30 to be sworn in.
And I remember going home, and I don't know if you guys ever did but i had a great professor in high school in college no they never did no no but i mean there was a guy that i wasn't a good student either if you're implying they weren't no they weren't students at all but but here's the point i i got riding home and i stopped at the university of delaware the next day i had a professor named dav Ingersoll. He was my political philosophy professor.
And I said, they just asked me, this is crazy. And he looked at me, he said, Joe, remember what Plato said? And I'm thinking, what the hell did Plato say? And he said, the penalty good people pay for not being involved in politics is being governed by people worse than themselves.
Yeah. And it was the middle of Vietnam War and a lot of other things going on.
One thing led to another. Also the penalty for not voting.
Yeah. I used to play with Plato as a kid.
Yeah. See, I told you.
By the way, I wasn't a good student either. This is just an inside joke to torture them.
Mr. President, so your ability to, as you always have, cross the aisle and broker these great agreements.
If somebody who was, what would you say, you were 29 at the time, 29 now coming into politics with how dynamic this political culture is and the necessity, the vital that we come across the aisle to one another, what would you suggest to them? What's the secret sauce to be able to do that? How do you identify things that both sides could get excited about? You know, because I got elected so young, everybody thought there had to be some secret sauce I had. You know, there must have been something.
And so I've had, that's about everybody's ever sought the office of the senator, governor, a young person in the last 40 years of the economy. They say, you know, what is it? And I say the same thing immediately from the bottom of my heart.
I said, figure out what are you willing to lose over or don't get involved. Because if you don't know what you're willing to lose over and have something that important to you, don't get engaged.
Don't get involved running because it can make a lot of money and do a lot better doing other things than being in politics. And so one of the things that does is that, you know, there's a joke among my colleagues when I said it, no one ever doubts I mean what I say.
The problem is I sometimes say all that I mean. We'll be right back.

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And now back to the show. Mr.
President, we, this is, you know, we're not qualified or smart enough to ask you great questions. So what we would like to do, I would love to know just some of the, just the simple sort of human stuff.
I want to know, to the extent you're comfortable telling us, just like the dumb stuff in your life. You want to know his personal stuff? His personal stuff, yeah.
Yeah, he's a person. What time do you get up most mornings? And do you use an alarm clock? I get a staff call.
I have an alarm, but they don't trust that. So my routine is there's a great guy who used to be a physical therapist at the White House.

Now he comes in.

What do you mean he comes in?

He comes in and he gently rocks you?

He doesn't rock me.

I tell you what, he works me when I go up.

There's a gym upstairs.

He gently rocks you.

What is he, sir?

So 8 o'clock.

I'm up at 7, 7.15.

I go up and work out from 8 until quarter of 9.

And what are we doing up there?

We blast him back and by on Tuesdays and Thursdays? Yes, as a matter of fact. Really? Wow.
I love it. You look like you're in great shape.
Yeah. I feel good.
I feel good. The thing I learned, the difference in age, if I let it go for a week, I feel it.
I know. Again, he's looking at you, Sean.
Go ahead. Wait.
No, no. I used to be able to go for a week and nothing would change.
You know, it's like. No, it's true, though.
It's true. I'm serious.
Believe me, we're all over 50 and we talk about it all the time, how much harder it is getting on top of it now. What's your kryptonite? If something's in front of you, it's going to get eaten.
I know what it is. Is it sugar? Is it French fries? Oh, I know.
Hang on, hang on. I know what it is.
It's the same thing I like. It's ice cream.
And Sean and I are both... Chocolate chip.
Oh boy. That's what I want to ask.
Chocolate chip. I like chocolate chip.
I'm dull as hell. I'm known for my Ray-Ban sunglasses and chocolate chip ice cream.
I wanted to also say that. The Ray-Bans, I mean, this is the greatest look of a president.
All presidents. You're the coolest guy in the world.
Yeah, of course. Wear Ray-Bans.
Yes, you are. By the way, all those years, when I ran for the first time for the Senate, I had been up to that point, even though I was a practicing lawyer, in order to get free rent, there was a country swimming club that had 17 acres, a little tiny house on it.
And they let us live in the house as long as I would hire all the pool people. But from the time I was 16 years old, it was a lifeguard.
All I ever did. So the headline was you don't want this guy.
The only job he's ever had is a lifeguard. By the way, I'm like, yeah, he's like ripped in a pant and wearing sunglasses.
By the way, the guy before you, he didn't even need sunglasses. He would just look at an eclipse.
I want to know. I want to, first of all, I want, first of all, there's no reason coconut should ever be an ice cream.
I just wanted to say that. I like coconut.
Yeah, I like coconut ice cream. I dare you.
Coconut custard pie. Well, coconut pie is fine, but not an ice cream.
I can't do the ice cream. I'm a simple plain.
More for us. Anyway, here's the thing.
I want to know about suits. How many suits? Yeah, I had the same question.
Right? You only need like two or three. Who's picking the suit in the morning? Yeah, and like me.
Really? So you've got a big closet. Yeah, no, I have, I guess I have a, I have.
Less than 100 or more than 100? I have probably less than 15. Less than 15.
More than 14. But a lot of ties.
A lot of ties. A lot of ties.
You can get sassy with the ties. Do you choose tie, too? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
No, Jill doesn't... Does Jill ever give you the hairy eyeball? Like, no, please, what are you doing with that? Well, she is if I'm not...
I'm sure... You must mean Mrs.
Biden no Jill's fine first lady

first lady

Jill's fine

Joe's fine

all kidding aside

no no

but it's

she is

gets very upset

if I have not

fully shaven

or

all this

excessive amount

of hair I have

you know what I mean

what do you do with it

I know how you feel

we suffer from the same problem

now wait

just

you know

I want to get back to

Thank you. this excessive amount of hair I have.
You know what I mean? What do you do with it? I know how you feel. We suffer from the same problem.

Now, wait, just to, you know,

I want to get back to just one second.

Back to ice cream, Dylan.

No, you've obviously accomplished so many,

so many amazing things in your presidency so far,

one of which is the Inflation Reduction Act,

which I was excited about because of global warming,

because I hate the heat. I want the temperatures to go down.
When it's hot, I get irritable. What's that got to do with inflation? No, it's inside the Inflation Reduction Act.
It's the global warming thing. But is the ship sailed on fixing this climate thing? Is there anything we can you mean should we just give up? No.
You asking the president? No, I meant like, is there any hope? Is there any hope? There's a lot of hope. Okay, good.
There's a lot of hope because two things. For example, I'm out here.
With you at the wheel, there's hope. Well, I'm out here today with Congresswoman Bass, Karen Bass, and I go over.
They have a rapid transition here that needs a lot of work. Well, we're going to spend $9 billion making a change.
But here's the deal. It's estimated to take 124,000 tons out of the air.
Let me back up. If people have a chance to get on a track train and can make it quicker than they can driving the car, they take the train.
Never any traffic. And I'm a big train guy.
And we've gotten billions of dollars more from them. We're spending more on Amtrak than Amtrak initially was spent.
And it's all just getting underway. But it's fundamental changes that are going to be taking place.
And it really does work, too. I noticed during COVID, when everyone was having to stay inside here in LA, the skies were, in a week, they were crystal clear.
It really does work. I thought you were going to say, I noticed, too, that the roads were really empty and I could just bomb around.
No. But they were.
The air out here, as you know, historically. I know.
This is going to be a game changer. Yeah, I'm so excited about it.
And by the way, in addition to the $368 billion for climate in that bill, we also have over $1,200,000,000 that we got passed in the act having to do with dealing with the infrastructure. Right.
We used to rank number one in the world in infrastructure. We're number 13 for God's sake.
Yeah, of course. We used to, I mean.
And this is a lot of jobs. A lot of jobs.
Literally, we've created more jobs in the first 18 months than any president in history. 700,000 manufacturing jobs.
Where the hell's it say America can't be the manufacturing capital of the world? Yeah, everyone's saying, oh, manufacturing's gone now and all that. No, no, no.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Yeah, and it is a little shocking that how much of that has been lost, and it does fill me with hope with the idea that we can get manufacturing back.
Well, you know why it got lost? We used to spend 2% of our GDP on research and development as a nation. Yeah yeah we're down to 0.7 percent china's pat other countries are passing us by but now we're going back to look my major goal in terms of the economy was to change the dynamic of trickle-down economy to building from the middle out bottom up and do it that way right yeah and i know i get criticized and understandable for being quote the most pro-union president in history well the reason for that is these union folks everybody thinks you show up and on a job and you can be a technician guess what you take four or five years it's like going back to college it's like going to school they're the best in the world they're the best in the world.
They're the best in the world. And they're only as cheaper for it.
So there's a lot we're doing. And for example, we're going to invest literally several hundred billion dollars in building chips or computers.
We invented them. We invented them.
It's so important. Trick down economics.
I want to go find a billionaire and give him 10 grand because I know it'll get to the little guy. With the, I've got a fairly adult question here.
So I've written it out. I apologize for reading.
Well, we'll judge if it's adult. With the midterms on our doorstep.
Two thirds of the seats that are up for grabs in the midterms are trending to be won by admitted election deniers. And then that means that elections and consequently democracy as a form of government will most likely be done away with or could be seriously threatened.
This is what they're saying that their plan is once elected. So doesn't that current real forecast, even declaration, justify some kind of emergency alert that asks for maximum attention and participation from every single voter in America.
No advocation for a Republican or Democrat, just a request to vote in this midterm election. Could I ask you to commit to consider over the next few days using your unique powers, president, to utilize the emergency alert system? For the listener, this is the system that's in place to alert citizens of impending danger.
Yes, it's usually for the weather or killers or kidnapping, whatever. But I don't think it's an exaggeration to categorize this as a light crisis, an existential threat.
Just ask the families of the COVID victims what danger is with poor leadership or the citizens of Russia or Ukraine, what happens when the electoral process is merely a facade. So our TV and radio outlets are required to deliver presidential alerts.
And all this would be to simply to air once a night leading up to election day on every TV, satellite and cable channel, a quick 10 second card that just simply says, please vote on November 8th. That's all.
That is a great idea. Is there any way you consider? First of all, great idea, and also officially with the president,

the longest Bateman question ever, simultaneously, and it's a great idea.

By the way, the point you're making is the point.

People have to vote.

Look, you saw, I mean, the best example is the Supreme Court in the Dobbs decision said there's a line from one of the justices saying,

women have a right to vote, but basically we'll see if they do yeah you saw what happened in tennessee women showed up and vote women are out registering men for the first time significantly for this new election and that was immediate wasn't it i mean oh that was immediate and so my generic point is i think people particularly younger people that's what I'm spending most of my time trying to focus on, people under 30. They, in fact, understand the vote matters.
What I worry about, I worry about the states that have the election deniers in them making it harder practically for them to vote. That's what I worry about the Supreme Court decisions on voting that are coming down, that are going to be coming down.
And so, but vote, vote, vote. That's been my, I end all my speeches, everything I talk about.
For me to do what you're suggesting, my imagining would end up being a gigantic fight whether I was using an emergency system designed to save, quote, lives for political purposes. That's not.
No, it's not. That's not because you are saving lives.
It's not for Republican or Democrat. No, no.
It's just participate in the American process of voting. Right.
Just a quick 10-second boop. Well, guess what? Well, it's great, but guess what? The whole idea is the other team doesn't want people to vote.
They don't want open voting. They don't want to be able to mail in ballots.
But they got to do what the president says, at least while you're still president. You can put that little card up there, get everybody voting, and save our elections.
Well, we're paying to try to put that card up. It'd make a great movie, wouldn't it? Thank you, actor Jason Bateman.
Hey, can I just say... I'm serious, Jess, you're right.
By the way, it's a great idea, and I really like that. I think that that's pretty awesome.
And it would be a good use of it. But I think you're right.
It would be hijacked, if you will, by people who would think that you were. They should do it when, you know, they're in charge too.
I mean, it's just voting. I just want to say, Mr.
President, what's crazy for us is we started this podcast in the middle of COVID when everybody else was locked down and we were too.

And for us, it was a way to connect. We've been friends for 20 years.
I get to do it with these

two guys that I love a lot and who are my best friends. And we just started, we didn't know

where we were going. It gives us a lot of joy to know that it gave people, that it uplifted people

and made people feel more confident or made people feel more positive in a in a tough time you gave them hope look guys two things are going to go down in history number one more than a million people died a million people died and the estimates are those million people had nine close related people whether they're family or otherwise the psychological impact on the nation has been profound absolutely profound and the other thing is the whole idea that we're moving think about this graduating from when you graduated from high school you had to you had your prom you had a you know the the graduation ceremonies ceremonies yeah what do these kids have kids are graduating what are the things that they in fact missed that are consequential that junior prom that senior prom that graduation ceremony the all those parties all the i mean it's like and it's like the difference everybody asked me what was the most exciting thing when you got elected and so on? You know, I was really honored to be, I mean, the greatest honor in the world, okay? But there was no celebration about it. You were having to do rallies with cars honking.
No, but I mean it. And that's not who we are.
And the other thing people have to remember, our strength lies in our incredible diversity. Yeah.
It's incredible. Absolutely.
We are. Incredible.
Absolutely. And other nations are realizing that that's why they want to invest here.
That's why they want to get engaged here. Or come here for education.
Exactly right. Yeah.
And so there's so much. And by the way, I'm convinced we're going to be able to do a hell of a lot.
I love that. Me too.
And I got to tell you, during a time, I can speak for me, during a time that felt really hopeless and dark, and it felt like a number of years where the sort of the sentiment of the nation was quite dark. Mr.
President, you brought a lot of light. So much.
You did bring a lot of hope to a lot of people. Absolutely.
We fed on that. Common sense.
And common sense. And I thank you so much for that.
I think that you were able to light a torch for all of us. Well, the biggest thing, I'll say one more thing.
One of the things is that people understand that I understand loss. Yes.
And I think it's so important that people understand that from that loss, the pain never goes away, but you can do incredible things. The person you lost never leaves your heart.
I don't know how many times I asked myself, what would Bo do? I'm not joking. And so you just, there's so, people are genuinely empathetic if you give them a shot.
And I think just reaching out to people, not me president, but just reaching out to people matters. Think of the number of people who are down and out and wonder, where in the hell am I going to go? What happens? Your empathy is genuine.
It's sincere. It's infectious.
And it's a pleasure to be led by you. Well, you guys are giving me more credit.
And thank you for the hope that you give to everybody. I really do.
I am optimistic. I'm with you.
I'm with you. You know, I will leave you.
And we take, you know, we say this to everybody. We have taken up too much of your time.
I have a friend of mine who always says, if you're feeling down, call five people and tell them how much you love them. Yeah.
And you know what? It works. It does work.
Yeah. It does work.
does work so give me your number yeah it'll just be a text i promise it it won't be uh mr president thank you so much thank you thank you guys no i really enjoyed it thank you invite me back thank you you got it oh boy yeah uh who was that again tom i i turned to jay or you we both turned to each other i almost started crying at the end yeah i almost started crying i swear to god when he was just in the middle loss yeah and but even before that because i had an out of body experience about was like how did my little dumb ass from chicago get to this point at the same moment sitting there. He was telling a story, and I'm just staring at him going, I'm sitting here watching, giving my full attention to the President of the United States.
And he looks you right in the eye. I mean, not a lot of people get to meet him, let alone ask him questions.
Because you know, when he's in crowds, people try to grab him and ask him something really, really fast.'s on the move so he can't do it so to get him and like have him there his you know you can tell a lot when you're you can tell a lot when you're watching somebody on television you're watching him on a you know talk show you read an interview with him or something like that you can feel like you can kind of but being across from somebody you could nothing you can tell everything. He really did seem like the most genuinely empathetic kind.
And he truly cares. And it's such a great vibe.
And here's the other thing. We talk a little bit about what side you fall on politically, etc., etc.
You can't blame a guy who has such a great vibe

and a passion for the country.

And you can hear all the mudslinging you want,

but when you see someone who's dedicated their life,

hasn't made a ton of dough,

went into public service at age 29,

and has dedicated his whole life to that through thick and thin. How could you say that what he's doing is anything but absolutely in the service of this country? Yeah, but even just on people skills and vibe alone, wouldn't you, no matter what party you associate yourself with, wouldn't you want someone like that to represent you? Like he just seems like the greatest guy.
That's a great point. He's just human.
That's a great point. Even if you don't agree, wouldn't you want somebody who has no ulterior motive? The figurehead of the country.
It's like, I'm proud of that. He just seems like a decent dude.

You know, just thank you.

I know.

And of course, in this great person that we're talking about.

Not you.

Is the president.

Yeah, not you.

Mr. Joe...
Bye!

Bye!

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