Hunter Biden's Daughter's Mother Lunden Roberts Speaks Out, and Glenn Loury on Overcoming His Demons and Succeeding in Academia | Ep. 813
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 37 minutes
Summary
London Roberts, the mother of President Joe Biden s grandchild, joins Meghan to discuss her experience with the Biden family and more. Meghan and Meghan are joined by journalist Glenn Lowry to discuss his new memoir, Late Admissions, Confessions of a Black Conservative .
Transcript
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Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.
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Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.
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Oh, we have a great program for you lined up today.
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Later, we're going to be joined by London Roberts.
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She is the mother of President Biden's grandchild
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that he only recently acknowledged under pressure from the left to be more humane
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and to actually say publicly he has a seventh grandchild,
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notwithstanding the six grandchildren's stockings posted on the White House mantle at Christmastime
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and Jill Biden posting only about her six grandchildren.
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They knew that Hunter had fathered a child named Navy with a woman from Arkansas named London.
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She's speaking out on her experience with the Biden family and more.
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But we begin with a favorite of The MK Show, Glenn Lowry.
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But it'll be a different conversation than others you have seen and heard with him in the past.
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Glenn has just released a new memoir in which he tells all.
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His book is called Late Admissions, Confessions of a Black Conservative.
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And oh, my God, I'm begging you to go buy this book.
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I think you're going to find it somewhat shocking.
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OK, so this is fascinating because you are one of my heroes.
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I'm going to start with the New York Times, part of the New York Times review of your book,
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This is not the New York Times writer trying to slam you.
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He's actually accurately representing portions of the book.
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Clancy Lowry's new book, Late Admissions, is unlike any economist memoir I have ever read.
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Most don't mention picking up streetwalkers or smoking crack in a faculty office at Harvard's
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Kennedy School or in an airplane at 30,000 feet or stealing a car or having sex on a beach
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in Israel with a mistress and attracting the attention of the Israeli defense forces or
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later being arrested and charged with assaulting her or cuckolding a best friend or abandoning
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children born out of wedlock or becoming estranged from the children that weren't or writing computer
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code to win a blackjack or having a porn addiction or keeping a bachelor pleasure dome decorated
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with a bare skin rug, a brass four poster bed and a fat marijuana plant or sidling around
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in a paisley smoking jacket with a matching ascot because it, quote, radiated suave sophistication
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and Hefner-esque cool or sneaking into dorm rooms as a professor to suck face with much
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younger women or entering detox clinics, finding God when it was convenient, appearing on the
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Did Dwight Garner, who wrote this review, get any of that wrong, Glenn?
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So the biggest question that Doug and I both had after first reading the review and now the book is,
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So what made you, at 75 years old, write a book, you know, with warts and all, it's all out there?
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I mean, one strategy would have been, let me craft my self-presentation to make myself look
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Let me try to win the reader over through artifice.
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The strategy is, let me tell the truth, the whole truth, the bitter, ugly truth, but also
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the beautiful truth, the noble and humane truth about my life.
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Let me lay it bare and rely upon the reader's, I won't call it sympathy, but a perception of
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the humanity of this person who's talking about his life and a recognition that the guy who's
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telling you about the life is not the same as the guy being reported on from 30 years ago or
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whatever it is, who made mistakes, yes, but who also recovered from those mistakes and who is the
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Have any of the women, have anybody, you know, mentioned, because we've got real names in here
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And no, there hasn't been any blowback, at least not yet.
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And not all the names are, I mean, the name that was known to the public because it was
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reported in the press when the mistress with whom I had the bitter breakup, with whom I
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lounged on a beach in the Gulf of A Lot, and so on, she's known to the public because those
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But other names have been changed to protect the innocent.
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I mean, a dear friend of mine, an old friend, someone I've known for 50 years, said to me,
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you know, I'm not sure I much like the guy I met in that book.
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And my answer is, no, I'm not sure I like that guy either.
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But that guy could never have written this book.
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And I think it explains so much about you, one of which is your feelings about Barack Obama,
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And just so our audience knows, I think most of them know you, Glenn, but just in case that
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they don't, Glenn, I believe, was the youngest tenured economics professor at Harvard ever.
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Now is at Brown University as an economics professor and is a more heterodox thinker when
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it comes to race issues and a more conservative guy and has been pushing back against some of
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these mainstream narratives on racial grievance for the better part of his whole life.
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And so isn't exactly beloved by the left, though they keep promoting Glenn and they want to
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He's written some books on prison reform that kind of tempt the left into loving Glenn.
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But then they see he's actually conservative and they abandon you.
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So anyway, I think it really gives us a window into why you think Barack Obama is basically
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a poser, how you got to be a more conservative man despite growing up in academia and being under
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So can you fill some of that out for us, like your background and how that side of you emerged?
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Yeah, well, as far as Obama is concerned, I grew up in Chicago on the south side.
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I know the congregation that worshiped at Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ
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because that church was located less than a mile from where I went to high school.
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Uh, and I thought the artifice that Obama offered to the country, uh, trying to use the
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south side of Chicago as a launching pad and trying to present himself in a certain way
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I thought what we have here is a carpetbagger who is assuming a mantle that he hasn't earned
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Uh, as far as my own, uh, uh, upbringing and so on, working class kid, uh, black, uh, uh,
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neighborhoods, south side of Chicago, uh, striving decency, respectability, but also a little
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bit of crossing to the other side of the line, housing projects, uh, hustling.
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I was a father at 18, uh, college dropout who went to a community college and made my
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way eventually to an elite, uh, campus Northwestern University where I flourished, uh, decided
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to pursue a technical career in economic science, trained at MIT, did very well, uh, came out
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as a conventional theoretical economist and abstract theorist, but eventually grad gravitated
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to more political and policy related work, um, and so on.
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I mean, I could go on in that vein, uh, but those are the basics of my, of my starting point
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But because of your more conservative leanings and positions, and you're not shy about expressing
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your opinions, you're as open with your opinions as you are with your past.
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Um, you've taken a lot of incoming and like, for example, you've been called the pathetic
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And so I wonder how you feel looking around today, as you see, our news is full of more
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right thinking black conservatives or conservative adjacent figures who are taking exactly that
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kind of incoming, whether it's Byron Donald's, who's feeling it almost every day, Congressman
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from Florida or Clarence Thomas, who has probably taken more of that than any other black American
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And yes, I do think there are more voices of that sort now, uh, than there were 10 or
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I think it's because the party line, the liberal party line, black people can't do anything
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in this country until white people get their knee off of our nets.
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Structural racism is the root cause of all of the disadvantage that black Americans are
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I think that view of the world is collapsing before our very eyes.
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Uh, I think it's inadequacy is becoming more and more clear.
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And I think the, uh, calls that you hear, Justice Thomas is a, uh, Uncle Tom, he's a grifter
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Justice Thomas is one of the most significant people to sit on the Supreme Court in the history
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And he, moreover, is an exemplar of what is possible for African Americans to achieve in
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And that is becoming more and more clear with each passing year.
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Uh, likewise for other of these voices, uh, Byron Donalds, again, whom I've got my eye
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Uh, I, I think liberal orthodoxy is collapsing.
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I think the DEI, uh, view of the world is untenable in the long run in this country.
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And, uh, I think the people who adhere to it are desperate, uh, name calling and character
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The, uh, attacks on Justice Thomas are relevant.
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I mean, today and every day, but they've popped up again.
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And one of, I think the most racist Americans we have is Ellie Mistal, who writes for the
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He's on Joy Reid's program almost every night and just says the most racist things about
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The stuff this guy gets away with, but his latest rant was on Joy Reid.
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He's very, very angry because this leftist group did a deep dive into the number of quote
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gifts that Justice Thomas has accepted while he's been on the high court.
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And while they do acknowledge that many other justices, including leftist justices have also
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They said, well, he's received more his, if you count the private jet travel seem to amount
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to, well, once you've accepted that they can take gifts, you're done, right?
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Like it's, if it's 2 million, if it's half a million, it's up to the Supreme court to determine.
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And we've had whole Senate judicial confirmation hearings of these folks to figure out whether
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Anyway, here is Ellie Mistal going off on this report with Joy Reid.
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I think it's important for people to ask, what are these people paying for, right?
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What are they getting for their $4 million they've given to Clarence Thomas over the past
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What they're getting is what Byron Donald's wants.
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What they're getting is a guy like Clarence Thomas, who, like Byron Donald's entire judicial
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philosophy is that, well, some Negroes are magic, right?
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And no matter what the white man does to us, we can just rise above as long as they don't
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shoot us or kill us or rape us or drown us, right?
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And if you tell people that, if you're Black, if you're Donald, if you're Thomas, and you
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tell white people that, they will give you money.
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And that is what's happened to Clarence Thomas for 20 years.
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That turns my stomach, but, you know, it's par for the course.
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Clarence Thomas, I mean, I don't even know where to begin.
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Clarence Thomas's judicial philosophy has been many decades in the development.
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He has a long track record of intellectual contributions to the evolution of American
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Now, you can disagree with Clarence Thomas's jurisprudence, but calling him a name, calling
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him, in effect, an Uncle Tom, a grifter and a sellout, that's, as I say, desperation.
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Uh, I think this, uh, lapsing into, uh, the, a sample talk, uh, in, in reference to, uh, one
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And as I say, an African American whose accomplishments in his life illustrate the triumph of Black people
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So, you know, I, I mean, I'm not surprised and that does resonate in, uh, Joy Reid's audience.
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She's getting paid a million and a half dollars a year to spew her bile at MSNBC.
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And she's got the nerve to call somebody a grifter.
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She, and by the way, to your point about Thomas, if Thomas was actually, if he were interested
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money, he'd be making nine, $10 million a year at any white shoe law firm in America.
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I will, before I, I want to get back to the book, but quick comment on Byron Donald's and
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the reason they were saying Thomas is just like Byron Donald's is that Byron Donald's was
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in the news this week, making a comment about life for black Americans pre, you know, during
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But he was talking about pre great society America and what life was like.
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Here's what he, I'm going to play the longer clip of what he said and we'll talk about how
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Growing up, the one thing I knew I wanted to do, and this is not about my father, this
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is about what I wanted to do, is I wanted to be a father to my son.
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And so one of the things that's actually happening in our culture, which you're now starting to
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see in our politics, is the reinvigoration of black families with younger black men and
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black women, and that is also helping to breathe the revival of a black middle class in America.
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You see, during Jim Crow, during Jim Crow, the black family was together.
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During Jim Crow, more black people were not just conservative, because black people always
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have been conservative minded, but more black people voted conservatively.
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And then H.E.W., Lyndon Johnson, and then you go down that road, and now we are where
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What's happened in America the last 10 years, and I'll say it because it's my contemporaries,
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You're starting to see more black people be married in homes, raising kids.
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Because to me, I hear that, and I'm like, yeah, that's, I mean, read some Shelby Steele.
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Like, yes, this has been, this is not a new thought or observation.
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And the attack on him is that he said, during Jim Crow, the black family was healthier, as
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He was pointing out the collapse of the African American family, which has occurred in the
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And I mean, he was just making a statement of fact.
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I mean, when Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the late senator from New York, who, working for the
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Lyndon Johnson administration in 1965, issued a report on the black family, he was alarmed
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And he was pointing at 25% of the babies born to a black woman being born to a woman without
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Moynihan was writing in 1965, at the end of Jim Crow, things have gotten worse.
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People are putting their head in the sand to the extent that they ignore what is sociologically
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obvious, which is that it's a devastating indictment of a community and inhibition of that community's
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ability to reproduce productively itself from generation to generation for the family to
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have collapsed, the nuclear family, husband, wife, mother, father, raising children.
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And what has happened to the African-American society in that respect is unhealthy and is
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And I think, again, that that's a demonstrable statement about how societies reproduce themselves.
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And he was just pointing out that the collapse of the family is a post-Jim Crow phenomenon
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This is another reason why I love the admissions and late admissions, your book, because you're
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Like, I've made better choices than all of you, and now I will lecture to you about how
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You're actually laying it bare on how you did not always make the best choices, and things
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didn't work out that great in the personal lane for you at every chapter.
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Um, I mean, you've been incredibly academically successful and professionally successful,
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but you, you're open about the pain that you've caused in making other decisions.
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So let's, let me take you back, or let me take you back to the outside of Chicago and
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a young Glenn, uh, who were, you were arrested after you stole a 61 Chevy that had South Carolina
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And, um, then, uh, let's see, when you were 17, you impregnated a 15-year-old girl, Charlene,
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who would ultimately become your wife and you'd have a second child together.
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But that's, like, automatically we're against the rules of, like, don't, don't have a child
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Um, we've talked about this before, we're talking about it with McWhorter and others.
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See, McWhorter does a show with Glenn that's well worth your time, too.
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Well, it was a long time ago, but yes, yes, it's true.
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Uh, I was a young five, but on the car theft thing, I'll say this in my defense.
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Uh, you could start it without a key just by turning the little lever at the ignition.
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Fooling around, I experimented with it and I got the harebrained idea that I just take this
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car, hide it somewhere and I'd go around and pick up this girl and I'd impress her and
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we'd drive off to a quiet place and climb into the back seat and neck and, you know, have
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Uh, and when the cops pulled me over and asked me, you know, for my driver's license, I didn't
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I was 17 years old without a driver's license, uh, and, uh, whatever.
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I, and I got taken to jail, uh, and my father came and bailed me out.
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And my uncle, uh, who was a distinguished lawyer at the height of his career in Chicago, was
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able to persuade the court to give me a pass, a slap on the wrist.
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Uh, but, uh, that was, it wasn't as if I was embedded in a car theft ring or whatever,
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But imagine, imagine if they hadn't given you, you know, like a, if they, if they had
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thrown the book at you, thank God that didn't happen because your, your life was about to
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It is extraordinary to see a kid who grew up there wind up, as I said, the youngest economics
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Let me, let me correct that, uh, not the youngest.
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I was the first African-American tenured in the economics department at Harvard.
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So that's, that is not, uh, a resume you see every day with, with your kind of background.
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And so each of these steps along the way was a, was a learning opportunity for you, but
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So let's talk about the ladies, because this is something I did not know about you, professor.
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And I wondered, as I read in particular, because you're, um, after your marriage to Charlene
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did not work out, but you wound up marrying Linda.
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But while you were married to Linda, you write about the beginnings of your affair with Pamela,
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Pamela Foster, uh, who you corresponded with when she was a student at Smith.
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And you were spending two semesters on leave from Harvard as a visiting faculty member.
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You guys got together after she graduated and then you write as follows.
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So he writes, so I suggest we continue the conversation up in my room.
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When we enter the room, she excuses herself to the bathroom.
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Finally, she emerges wearing nothing but a bra and a slip with no panties.
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I thought this conquest and consummation would be my crowning achievement.
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You say in the book, you write, I barely tried to keep it quiet.
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I wanted what I wanted, even showing up to professional events with Pamela where colleagues
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But really what you're saying here is you were kind of hoping for your marriage to end
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and were, I guess, reckless about the way you were trying to bring it about.
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So can you talk about that, about your marriage and then this thing with Pamela?
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My second wife, Charlene, and I divorced shortly after we separated in graduate school and we
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divorced shortly after and Linda Datcher Lowry, an economist whom I met in graduate school
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at MIT and who is the mother of our two sons, Glenn II and Nehemiah, became my second wife.
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And I betrayed her and serially betrayed her, not only with Pamela Foster.
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Pamela was one, the most significant because of the events that followed, which we haven't
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Pamela, I was keeping in an apartment in the south end of Boston.
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My quote unquote mistress and we had a fight and a falling out and I ejected her from the
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apartment and she accused me of assault and I was brought into court and it became a big
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I denied that I did assault her, but in fact it became news and Linda was humiliated.
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And that was the culmination of a series of humiliations and betrayals.
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And those are among the most significant of the confessions that I own up to.
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I had this idea about my entitlement as a player, as I characterize myself in the book.
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And these are things that I eventually outgrew.
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Linda stuck with me through thick and thin, through cocaine addiction, through marital infidelity.
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Linda herself passed away from breast cancer in 2011.
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That's part of what I'm owning up to, part of what I'm trying to come to terms with.
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But I don't, I mean, everyone's got things in their past that they would love a do-over on
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or that they see as, I may, potentially shameful.
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But it's so interesting when someone chooses to expose it all because it helps everyone else
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feel maybe somewhat better about their own life choices.
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And to see how much you've accomplished is what makes this so incredibly brave, right?
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Because they could all have the perfect shiny image of you, or they can understand you're
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a complex human being, a complex man with a complex past.
00:26:52.300
She, she alleged that you abused her and you denied it and she wound up dropping the charges.
00:26:56.640
But it, that wound up, um, coming back to haunt you, right?
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Because I actually never knew that you were tapped for and almost did go to work for, um,
00:27:11.620
a job in the Reagan administration under my old pal, Bill Bennett, who I used to have on
00:27:18.240
So they were kind of, they had recognized you as this young rising talent, MIT and a young
00:27:23.080
professor, but it being the 1980s, you can't have the, a fair partner in an apartment.
00:27:34.520
Uh, I became friendly with William Crystal, who was an assistant professor at Harvard in
00:27:39.660
the Kennedy school of government when I first got there and who left after Ronald Reagan
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was reelected in November of 1984 to join the second Reagan administration and became
00:27:49.540
chief of staff to William Bennett, Bill Bennett, author of the book of virtues.
00:27:56.900
And when Gary Bauer, uh, stepped down as a deputy, uh, secretary, under secretary of education,
00:28:05.060
uh, Bill Crystal had the idea that I might be a good, uh, person to replace Gary Bauer as
00:28:14.400
He brought me to the attention of Bill Bennett and Bill Bennett concurred.
00:28:18.260
And they were, uh, prepared to formally nominate me, uh, as, uh, the person to be approved by
00:28:25.300
the Senate, uh, for that, uh, number two position in the department of education.
00:28:30.120
When I was, uh, in the midst of this affair with the secret apartment, uh, where the mistress
00:28:38.180
Uh, and I withdrew from the appointment process after the FBI, uh, discovered this apartment
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apartment and went and interviewed, uh, Pamela Foster, who was living there and interviewed
00:28:53.180
Um, I didn't want to find out what happens when you don't tell the truth to the FBI during
00:28:57.140
So I, I owned up to the fact that, uh, my name was on the lease of that apartment, but
00:29:01.580
the fact that what was going on was going on was very evident to everybody, even though
00:29:05.980
nothing was said about it, uh, during the FBI interview.
00:29:08.880
And I decided to withdraw and I called up, uh, Bill Crystal and, uh, told him that I was
00:29:15.700
Um, the day after I called Bill, I had this fight with Pamela at the apartment that ended
00:29:21.820
up with me, uh, ejecting her from the apartment with her, uh, filing charges for assault.
00:29:29.840
Uh, the, the timing was I withdrew from the apartment because of the embarrassment of my
00:29:34.480
affair being discovered, uh, not because of the, uh, uh, assault charge, but it hardly
00:29:39.560
matters because, uh, once, uh, the assault charge became public, um, my reputation was
00:29:48.460
That must've been such a low having that publicly exposed and losing this amazing opportunity.
00:29:54.440
And were you, cause you got called by Harvard and you were told, Hey, we're getting a call
00:30:00.800
So was your job also in jeopardy that, that job?
00:30:04.200
Because now, you know, you were, you were thinking you would leave that job and go to
00:30:08.620
I was going to leave for a year or two, not, not forever.
00:30:12.020
And come back to Harvard as you do when you go into the government and art stood by me,
00:30:16.900
the Kennedy school people after the dust settled, uh, on the scandal.
00:30:24.440
Uh, and it became clear that I was not going to be a convicted felon of a felony assault
00:30:36.720
Uh, but, uh, uh, yeah, I got the call from the general counsel's office at Harvard because
00:30:44.020
the Boston police had called them, the general counsel office and said, one of your faculty
00:30:48.440
members has been charged and needs to surrender himself voluntarily, or will be forced to come
00:30:55.140
and, uh, arrest him, uh, you know, perhaps at his workplace.
00:31:00.080
Uh, so it was a courtesy from the Boston police to allow this, uh, member of Harvard's faculty
00:31:11.480
Uh, and I did do, uh, charges were dropped subsequently.
00:31:16.680
But, um, I did have to go through that and it was a terrible humiliation for myself and for
00:31:25.880
Amazingly, amazingly, she, I mean, she must've been a very special person and that's, I want
00:31:31.820
to get to, you know, what we discover later about Linda, but there's something you said
00:31:37.380
in the book reminding me of something that Charlemagne, the God just told me when he came
00:31:42.260
on recently that he actually had a, he too was unfaithful to his wife and they married
00:31:49.040
And he told me that he'd been told specifically in his case, it was by his dad that like only
00:31:56.540
a sucker would be monogamous, would be faithful.
00:32:00.400
And so it was imprinted in his mind from a very young age.
00:32:04.680
You know, if I'm, if I'm going to be as you use the term in the book, a player, um, I can't
00:32:12.320
So do you, is this more common than I realized?
00:32:17.060
I'm sorry to have to report, um, as I tell the story in my own book, my uncle Adler,
00:32:22.860
uh, my mother's brother, who was a notorious womanizer.
00:32:26.080
Uh, he's a graduate of Morehouse college in the 1940s and, uh, got a degree in law from
00:32:33.120
Northwestern university and, and had a brilliant career, uh, as a lawyer in Chicago until he got
00:32:40.260
But in any case, my uncle Adler told me early on, I must've been about 15 years old, that,
00:32:45.780
uh, the most important thing in life was to, if you'll allow me to say this, make him get
00:32:55.560
I don't know if you ever saw the movie, little miss sunshine.
00:32:59.080
Uh, there's a character, Alan Arkin, the grandfather in that movie who has similar advice for his
00:33:06.080
Uh, and you know, that was the ethos, uh, of that part of the African-American community
00:33:18.840
I, I, I'm not going to paint with too broad a brush.
00:33:21.020
And I know that there are many, many, many upstanding and good people and righteous people,
00:33:25.140
uh, coming from the neighborhood that raised me.
00:33:27.600
But this sentiment, uh, that only a fool, uh, allows to pass without exploitation opportunities
00:33:39.940
In fact, nobody who's really smart plays by the rules.
00:33:45.320
I have this metaphor in the book about the line, about crossing the line, about living
00:33:50.740
Well, there was another side of the line and a lot of people straight.
00:34:00.160
We, you mentioned the black community, but who's most infamous for this?
00:34:06.060
And it's well known that his father said to the boys, like, yeah, you know, you get married,
00:34:10.800
married to a nice girl, and then you can have other women on the side.
00:34:16.580
So you're in some good company, I guess, on this, but unlike many men, you actually wound
00:34:21.720
up doing some soul searching on it and the way you did it is actually kind of heartbreaking
00:34:30.140
I'm going to do a quick break and then we'll come back and we'll talk about that piece of
00:34:33.100
the amazing Glenn Lowry's personal story by this book, Late Admissions.
00:34:39.220
So Glenn, Linda died, as you point out, of cancer and the book goes through the fact that after
00:34:52.080
her death, you cleaned out her office and found two things, a letter that you wrote for your
00:34:59.700
10th anniversary with her and a self-help book, which was really telling.
00:35:05.460
Can you explain what happened when you saw that self-help book and what, what was in
00:35:12.220
The self-help book, I don't remember the author or the title, was about forgiveness, how to
00:35:20.280
Uh, it was on her bookshelf in her office at Tufts University, where she was for many years
00:35:26.620
And, uh, my son, Glenn, and I had gone to retrieve her things from the office.
00:35:35.900
Uh, we took our time packing up that office and going through her memorabilia.
00:35:41.480
And yes, I did find a framed, uh, copy of the letter, not a copy, the letter that I had
00:35:46.840
written by hand to her, um, on the occasion of our 10th wedding anniversary in 1993.
00:35:54.480
That was sitting on her shelf and not far from it was the self-help book about forgiveness.
00:35:59.940
And so I opened it and I began to leaf through it.
00:36:02.640
And I noticed that it was heavily annotated where she had spent hours and hours with this
00:36:11.000
And I, as I perused it, discovered that the comments were about me often about things that
00:36:18.240
had happened in our lives between us, injuries that I had done her, humiliations that she
00:36:24.240
had endured and she had made a study, had made a project, uh, out of the, uh, what she felt
00:36:33.540
to be the necessity to forgive her weyward husband.
00:36:37.600
And I sat there full of shame, tears in my eyes, leafing through this book and realizing
00:36:45.040
what a woman it was that I had had the good fortune of meeting, marrying, and who was the
00:36:59.140
Uh, what a callow, superficial, selfish, narcissistic idiot I had been to put this woman through what
00:37:10.420
Uh, those things became clear to me, as I said, with that little book in my hand.
00:37:18.960
I mean, it's, there's something really so lovely about this woman knowing that she was suffering
00:37:28.480
Reading a book on how to manage it for herself, how to change herself so that she could deal
00:37:35.820
Like there's some, it's sad and it's sweet and it's actually ultimately extremely loving.
00:37:40.280
And I bet she'd be, I bet she'd be really proud of you that you actually wound up really
00:37:46.620
reflecting on all of this and on yourself and thinking about what is it, what does it
00:37:51.400
And what does it say about the measure of a man?
00:37:53.240
You write, you write about some of it in the conclusion you write.
00:37:58.460
You write, I fought the enemy within, but in truth, he was no intruder, no stranger.
00:38:04.080
I cannot disavow his actions any more than I would deny my own because his actions are
00:38:10.960
I am that enemy within the game goes on though.
00:38:16.440
I've never shaken the feeling that I am a fallen man.
00:38:20.180
I retain a sense of awe when reflecting on the meaning of this life.
00:38:26.760
What do you think about Glenn when you, with all that you've been through and all that you
00:38:30.680
confess to, what do you think about on the meaning of life?
00:38:34.080
I think that one of the greatest challenges that we face as conscious, reflective, spiritual
00:38:45.220
beings is to somehow get our minds around where we fit within this vast creation, this vast
00:38:59.600
And I was a born again Christian and I fell away from it.
00:39:09.280
And there are superficial reasons, I think, that I fell away.
00:39:14.680
And I don't want to spoil my potential reader's joy at discovering the story that I'm telling
00:39:22.680
But I got to a certain point, the intellectual, the MIT PhD, the rationalist, the modern man,
00:39:30.960
where I found it hard to continue to credit the incredible claims that we as Christians
00:39:37.040
make about the divinity of Jesus Christ, about a man born of a woman who nevertheless is the
00:39:42.520
son of God, crucified dead and buried, raised from the dead and living on to this day.
00:39:47.880
Very powerful claims that I found difficult in my rationality and in my modernism and in
00:39:57.700
my, perhaps in my arrogance and conceit, I found difficult to credit.
00:40:05.860
Out of that crisis, I have yet fully to emerge, and I continue to struggle with these great
00:40:13.800
But I am quite sure that the quest for an answer to those questions is a noble human quest.
00:40:21.240
I don't take at all lightly the importance that people give to questions of belief.
00:40:33.540
I have my doubts, but I am absolutely certain that this is a noble quest, a quest to try
00:40:42.160
to establish a relationship with the creator of the universe.
00:40:46.780
And that's kind of what I'm gesturing at in those concluding remarks.
00:40:51.940
It's when you say you're questioning, which makes me think many people say that the Q in
00:40:59.300
So you are kind of LGBTQ now, Glenn, you're questioning, and that's totally fair.
00:41:06.520
I mean, I think most of us who have faith are also questioning.
00:41:10.540
We might also fall under the Q questioning, not the Q queer.
00:41:17.020
Well, Megan, if I can, I just want to tell this story very briefly.
00:41:19.980
One of my friends, the late great theologian, Richard John Newhouse, took me aside.
00:41:28.600
I said, you know, it's like when you're on the beach in the summer, you look up at the
00:41:32.140
clouds and you're sure you see the profile of Abraham Lincoln reflected in the clouds.
00:41:38.720
And when you look back again, you can't find it.
00:41:44.760
And Richard, a Catholic theologian, Father Richard John Newhouse, got close with many
00:41:52.040
powerful people, including Cardinal Ratzinger, who became Pope in the Vatican.
00:42:05.200
He says, there is faith inside that doubt of yours, inside the faith that's inside that
00:42:10.120
And it's a never ending struggle that we Christians are engaged in.
00:42:25.940
I've got to ask you about Ibram Kendi, because when you came on in 2020, we hadn't even,
00:42:36.820
We talked about the rise of Kendi and D'Angelo and all these, you know, race baiters on the
00:42:46.700
I mean, his how to be an anti-racist was flying off the shelves and he's been celebrated
00:42:51.860
And extraordinarily, the New York Times just did a deep dive piece on him.
00:43:00.960
Didn't reflect particularly well on him and really talked about how people working under
00:43:05.020
him, don't respect him, don't believe in the mission, think he's full of hubris and
00:43:11.000
He's had ongoing problems and questions about the funding for his projects.
00:43:14.900
So where are we now as we talk in, you know, the beginnings of summer 2024 on Kendi versus
00:43:22.940
Well, I think it's poetic justice that he has experienced a breathtaking fall from grace.
00:43:36.260
It's true that his ideas had their season, but they weren't especially compelling ideas.
00:43:46.320
They were superficial and silly ideas and they were trendy and they caught the imagination
00:43:54.540
of a certain segment of the American elite for a season.
00:44:01.600
But there was not and there is not any real there there.
00:44:06.320
And that became clear soon enough, the interminable piece in the New York Times magazine.
00:44:21.160
I think it's an effort not just to rehabilitate Kendi.
00:44:26.520
I mean, he doesn't come off looking all that good, notwithstanding the best efforts of the
00:44:30.740
author to present him in his most sympathetic light possible, I think.
00:44:34.820
But also is a kind of effort to salvage these ideas, the DEI mania, which in not only Kendi's
00:44:45.300
case has been shown to rest on a shaky foundation.
00:44:52.140
And I don't think it's going to work because I don't, you know, I mean, Kendi, frankly, was
00:45:07.300
I'll stop because I don't want to seem to just be picking on somebody.
00:45:19.480
Fifty five million fell on him in a very short period of time.
00:45:23.500
And he didn't have the chops, either intellectual or managerial, to make the best use of it.
00:45:32.920
He did become a target of a lot of criticisms, including from people like me.
00:45:37.100
But I stand by the claim that there's no there there.
00:45:43.440
There was never any depth, any resonance, anything that was profound, that was lasting.
00:45:57.140
Lastly, you write about how you admired Donald Trump.
00:46:04.500
You enjoyed watching his run for president, but that you were not happy with J6.
00:46:12.940
I mean, I guess you could go for RFK or Jill Stein.
00:46:16.280
Something tells me our economics friend is not going to go for Jill Stein or Cornel West.
00:46:20.760
But how are you thinking about presidential politics right now?
00:46:29.740
I can't bring myself to do that for a lot of reasons.
00:46:34.380
And the most recent of which is that speech you gave at Morehouse College, which I found
00:46:42.440
But in any case, I'm going to find somebody to vote for, and it's not going to be Joseph
00:46:49.060
Well, you know, if I announce that, that would be making news on your show, Megan.
00:46:55.540
My stock answer is if I were going to vote for Trump, I wouldn't tell anybody that I
00:47:00.900
was going to do it because it's such an outrageous thing for an Ivy League professor to admit to
00:47:07.520
But I understand why Trump is ahead in the polls.
00:47:12.880
And, you know, I'm keeping my powder dry for the time being.
00:47:16.980
I'll let you know when I'm prepared to come out of the closet.
00:47:19.760
You are welcome back any time for that, for that late admission or any other.
00:47:31.220
It's called Late Admissions, Confessions of a Black Conservative.
00:47:35.400
And when we come back, London Roberts, the mother of Hunter Biden's child that the White
00:47:48.480
We've been following the trial of Hunter Biden on charges.
00:47:51.700
He illegally purchased and possessed a gun while he was abusing drugs back in 2018.
00:47:55.980
Well, that same year, just weeks before he bought that gun, a young woman from Arkansas gave birth
00:48:06.060
For years, Hunter Biden denied that he was the father of Navy Joan Roberts until a DNA test proved
00:48:14.340
After that, Hunter Biden finally started to support the child financially, only to come back and ask
00:48:19.780
to pay much less than he had originally promised.
00:48:23.380
Through it all, President Joe Biden, who prides himself on telling us about what a close-knit
00:48:27.920
family he has, refused to acknowledge this little girl at all.
00:48:33.080
After Joe Biden was elected president at Christmastime in 2021 and 2022, the Bidens decorated a White
00:48:38.640
House fireplace with stockings stitched with the names of six grandchildren, no stocking for
00:48:47.040
In fact, as recently as April 2023, President Biden suggested on camera that he only had
00:48:57.240
But last year, little Navy's mother, London Roberts, and Hunter reached a new agreement.
00:49:04.040
And President Biden finally acknowledged Navy in a statement put out late on a Friday on a
00:49:12.300
London Roberts is out later this summer with a tell-all book.
00:49:17.420
It is called Out of the Shadows, My Life Inside the Wild World of Hunter Biden, and it's available
00:49:37.000
The first meeting you had with Hunter Biden is so telling and so interesting.
00:49:42.640
You were at, I mean, explain it to me, because I read, like, you're talking about the Swedish
00:49:48.160
embassy, but he had offices in there, and you were there for a party.
00:49:54.280
And talk about how the first word you heard out of his mouth and how you crossed the door
00:49:59.100
You know, a lot was happening at the Swedish embassy, but meeting him, like, coming across
00:50:08.480
the door and meeting him, and he was in a dark place, and he was in a dark room at that
00:50:13.680
time, you know, doing things that he's been very candid about doing back in those days.
00:50:19.480
And you wouldn't think that somebody who was doing those things would act the way that
00:50:27.500
He was very genuine, very charming, very intelligent.
00:50:31.640
You know, he was able to have a conversation and make you laugh and real easy to get along
00:50:43.900
And you write in the book, it's pretty extraordinary that you hear on the other side of the doorway
00:50:51.500
So you go in, you push the door open, wondering what's happening there, and you see a man sitting
00:50:55.280
in an office chair, leaning over a small desk, meticulously organizing a series of small
00:51:02.480
He isn't wearing after-party clothes like everyone else.
00:51:06.060
Instead, he's sitting there in brightly colored boxer briefs with parrots all over them.
00:51:12.400
He turns in his chair and catches me in his stare, his gaze intense with furrowed brows
00:51:17.360
and the most beautiful blue-gray eyes I've ever seen.
00:51:20.100
And what an amazing thing, London, to think that man who you met in that moment would become
00:51:26.580
the father of Little Navy, your only child, I mean, your only child, at least soon at that
00:51:33.500
So when you look back at that moment, what made you stay and continue talking to this man
00:51:39.880
when you met him in his boxers with drug paraphernalia everywhere?
00:51:43.940
Well, I mean, it's like I said, I was intrigued.
00:51:48.320
This guy, he, you could tell, like, and I speak throughout the book about this empathy that
00:51:55.040
I have, you know, for people and people who are suffering.
00:51:58.100
And Hunter was battling a demon at that time with addiction.
00:52:03.000
And, but he wasn't just, you know, your average Joe.
00:52:06.840
Like he was, he was so smart and, and so intelligent and easy to talk to.
00:52:11.840
And he, he has a way of making you feel like you matter and, you know, and he cares.
00:52:18.040
And it could be just in a few minutes, you know, it could be, you just met this person
00:52:22.480
and he comes across as so genuine and so sincere.
00:52:26.400
And you wouldn't believe that, you know, he was doing the things that he was doing and
00:52:30.900
he was battling that addiction because he, he was, there was so much good and so much
00:52:42.640
I think he has a daughter from when he was younger, who's only a couple of years younger
00:52:49.180
Or is she, is she younger than you or older than you?
00:53:08.520
Anyway, my team is trying to give me the information.
00:53:14.080
I think it could be fair to say, and you wound up, it was not a one night stand.
00:53:19.020
Is that, I think that's one of the misconceptions about this relationship that he has helped
00:53:24.780
Um, and, and you'll learn in the book, like, you know, it was an on and off again thing
00:53:31.300
And so when you were with him, cause it's actually kind of interesting.
00:53:33.900
You were with him at the same period of time that he's now being cross examined, uh, over
00:53:39.300
not he personally, cause he hasn't taken the stand, but that is, is at issue in his criminal
00:53:44.260
And you're very open to the book about how you did observe, I think it's fair to say
00:53:49.980
rampant drug use by him and talk openly about just how bad it got.
00:53:59.140
Um, there's actually, there's actually a chapter, um, in the book that I reflected on a night that
00:54:06.600
it got, it got pretty dark and, um, it got pretty bad.
00:54:10.680
And I, I worried for, for Hunter's life and, um, I, I speak, I speak about that.
00:54:17.500
I'm very candid about it, um, in the book and, you know, even, you know, his addiction
00:54:23.400
I think I even say in the book that, you know, I wonder if Hunter remembers that night.
00:54:27.980
I wonder if he even knows, you know, what, what exactly he went through.
00:54:34.580
I mean, I know that there's been a couple of different ones with him.
00:54:38.580
Uh, the, the drug that he was using was a crack cocaine.
00:54:44.540
Uh, you write in the book, first of all, you talk about how, you know, you saw him even
00:54:49.740
on the Amtrak going to the urinal every 15 minutes, which is a sign.
00:54:53.760
I mean, I, I know that just from my time living in New York that especially guys, but it could
00:54:58.000
be girls too, who are going to the bathroom every 15 minutes.
00:55:00.300
They're not going there to use the facilities in the way the rest of us do.
00:55:04.580
But you write about watching him suffering after, you know, taking a lot of drugs and
00:55:10.380
saying, it's bitterly painful knowing that someone I care so much about, someone with
00:55:13.960
so much potential and generosity and brilliance is struggling with this demon of addiction.
00:55:18.220
I cry, wondering if he's even struggling at all anymore, or if he's just given up and
00:55:27.700
Hunter stirs and it looks like the demon has lost this round.
00:55:38.360
The first words from his mouth show the demon didn't lose.
00:55:44.540
He took Hunter to the brink of death and then let him return to us just to torture him all
00:55:51.800
I mean, this sounds like it was just about as bad as it could get.
00:55:55.520
And you had to be thinking at the time, like, what do I do?
00:55:59.720
Like, you don't, what were you thinking about how you fit into this picture?
00:56:05.280
And, and I think that so many people, um, it's, I believe Hunter or someone has said
00:56:11.380
before that, you know, everyone knows somebody that has suffered from addiction.
00:56:16.000
And I believe that everybody in some way has been affected by it.
00:56:18.980
And, um, this is kind of one of those moments where you can resonate with people who, who have
00:56:25.380
cared about someone who was battling an addiction.
00:56:28.480
And, you know, there's, there's people out there today that battle with people who are
00:56:33.800
battling with addiction and, and they suffered that silent cry so much because it's, it's,
00:56:41.080
There's, there's nothing, you know, that, um, that you can do in that moment.
00:56:45.740
And it's like, you know, Hunter was very, has been very candid about his addiction.
00:56:50.140
And, you know, during the time of it, he was, he was very candid and would own it.
00:56:56.580
And it was, it was no one else's and, you know, no one was to blame for it.
00:57:00.520
And, um, that was something that he took full responsibility for.
00:57:05.700
And so there was, there was nothing you can do.
00:57:15.820
Um, and I, there's an extraordinary passage in the book where you talk about how he warned
00:57:22.160
you what was coming your way, you know, he warned you.
00:57:28.000
You, you write about how, uh, you're in the shower and you write, I'm trying to keep shampoo
00:57:35.640
And I hear him say, you know, honey, you've got a real problem.
00:57:43.100
He's about to say something he'd rather not, but he knows he has to anyway.
00:57:50.420
You think to yourself, but now here in the shower, he's claiming I'm in love with him.
00:58:03.000
Now many women would have run out the door at this point, London.
00:58:16.240
And I had, you know, I talk about throughout the book, this, this, this, I wasn't, I wasn't
00:58:26.120
really resonating with my feelings and my emotions.
00:58:35.060
And, and so it's like, I would, I would just, you know, go with the flow with things.
00:58:42.780
And then, you know, you're hit with, you know, you're in love with me.
00:58:45.540
And it's like, you know, um, I'm watching you battle addiction and I'm, I'm watching,
00:58:51.680
you know, I'm caring about you and, and things like that.
00:58:54.720
And, um, I stuck around for that because, uh, I think he was right when, when you do love
00:59:03.460
somebody and you care about somebody, no matter what they go through, you know, you,
00:59:13.180
You met, uh, we talked about how you met, but then you wound up working as a, as an assistant
00:59:23.260
I was just spending a minute on your background, but you knew him.
00:59:26.780
Again, it wasn't a one night stand and even the relationship prior to all this, it wasn't,
00:59:36.000
Um, so you grew up in Arkansas, you have a good mom and dad, but help us understand how
00:59:42.220
you got to the point of accepting this kind of a relationship, right?
00:59:47.340
We had, you had negative experiences with men prior to this?
00:59:51.720
No, it's, um, honestly, I didn't, I've, I've tried to explain it so many ways and I don't
01:00:00.480
think there is any explanation because the things like now, um, I talk about, you know,
01:00:05.640
relationships after and prior to, like, there are things in those relationships that I would
01:00:10.540
have not tolerated, but like with Hunter, um, I, I went with the flow.
01:00:16.460
I, I accepted him for who he was and what came with him.
01:00:20.700
And then something massive happened, which was you, you became pregnant and this, one of
01:00:29.740
the wacky stories in the book, there's a fair amount in there that's like, Whoa, wait, what?
01:00:39.720
Um, I had two cell phones, which is also, um, I still do to this day, but I had two cell phones
01:00:46.440
at the time, um, because my Arkansas phone had a cellular data that didn't pick up at the place
01:00:53.640
So, um, I got a different, um, I got sprint and AT&T to even out the data and everyone
01:01:00.840
But, um, that night they both at the same time crashed and in front of me and my friends.
01:01:10.960
Um, and what did the screens look like when they were crashing?
01:01:16.140
Um, you know how they'll go like black with those like lines or, and stuff across them,
01:01:28.240
So in you, the next day you go and get a new phone, right.
01:01:31.980
And you are able to like link it up with your cloud.
01:01:35.720
Um, a lot of stuff is, is gone from, um, my iCloud had it not been backed up or, or whatever,
01:01:44.060
but just about everything with Hunter was gone.
01:01:54.800
That's something that, um, I can't, I can't explain.
01:02:01.200
Do you think given that, you know, he was at that point, the son of the former
01:02:05.640
vice president, there were government forces trying to protect him potentially here.
01:02:11.680
You know, you always wonder that because, um, especially like hearing all these conspiracies
01:02:16.940
about, about things and how they happen and especially with politics.
01:02:23.320
And that's always been in the back of my mind was, you know, somebody trying to protect
01:02:36.520
And you find out you're pregnant with the former vice president's grandchild.
01:02:44.120
That's a realization that's got to hit you at some point.
01:02:49.660
So my understanding from the book is when you told him initially, he was stunned, but
01:02:55.360
he said the right things like, okay, it's up to you what to do.
01:03:04.600
He changed his tune and pretty much did a 180 on you pretty soon thereafter.
01:03:12.640
And I think that's how did you figure out he was not going to be standing by you?
01:03:18.080
Um, well, you know, he was at one point, you know, supposed to go, I talk about in the
01:03:23.560
book, he was supposed to go to like an ultrasound with me and didn't show up.
01:03:26.800
But, you know, it's still at the same time, we still met up, um, after, you know, he knew
01:03:31.400
that I was pregnant and we had had that discussion and, and we talked about things.
01:03:35.600
And I knew like he, there were ways that he would deflect it as, as he did his addiction
01:03:42.220
And, um, then he started to just ghost it and avoid it.
01:03:49.560
And so I knew the right thing to do was to come home and be surrounded by my family and
01:03:56.800
He started, according to the book, making not so subtle hints about how tough things
01:04:09.220
Um, I was hurt at that time because I felt like he thought that I was after his money
01:04:16.260
or after him, like I did this on purpose or, or something like that.
01:04:26.260
And, um, I think was the first time I kind of got angry with him.
01:04:34.060
And he, I mean, at that point, were you thinking, oh boy, you know, he's not gonna, not gonna support
01:04:44.160
I was thinking he was looking for, um, you know, a way out of it.
01:04:46.820
Did you ever have to ask, consider not, not having Navy, like not going through with the
01:05:00.600
That was something that, um, I just, I couldn't do.
01:05:04.480
I, uh, you know, I, I think what, whatever woman wants to do with, with her body and things
01:05:11.480
that I stay out of it, that's their business, but I couldn't do it.
01:05:16.600
And, um, that was, that was really hard for me, really hard because I felt like the, is
01:05:26.580
You know, is that, is that, will that make all the problems go away?
01:05:30.220
But I can't imagine a world without my daughter in it.
01:05:33.540
And, and even the mere thought of her not being here, just like it, it's devastating.
01:05:45.340
It is amazing when you see women who could have made the opposite choice.
01:05:48.220
I mean, technically most people, women can make the opposite choice and, but didn't, but
01:05:53.620
And then you see these amazingly beautiful, sweet little beings running around and in Navy's
01:06:00.320
case with the beautiful blonde hair and the lovely little wave.
01:06:07.320
Like, my God, how is it a choice to end this child's life just as it was beginning and good
01:06:15.220
And I hope that, you know, with, with telling my story that, um, women who find themselves
01:06:20.400
in that predicament can, can use this story to, you know, do, do this, do exactly what I've
01:06:27.180
done and, and it, it changed their life just like it has mine.
01:06:32.080
So you go through with the pregnancy and then the next thing we know, Hunter is publicly denying
01:06:40.280
that she's his child after she's born and he is dismissing you as he's not even sure if
01:06:50.400
He never actually, he says to a representative that that never happened.
01:06:56.300
I remember this as some nutcase, you know, some, some girl from Arkansas, who the hell
01:07:01.520
knows who she is, who is just making up this pregnancy and his father, his fatherhood of
01:07:11.180
Um, it was, it was a pretty dark time because, um, I can't, I can't speak for, you know, him
01:07:19.420
and, and his decisions and why he's done things that he's done.
01:07:24.280
You know, that's, that's his story and, and his decisions are for him to tell.
01:07:28.960
I can't, I can't speak on that, but I can say that, um, I wasn't expecting it.
01:07:35.140
I guess I always thought that he would step up and do the right thing because I, I thought
01:07:41.380
of him as that type of person that would, I always saw the good in Hunter and, um, I
01:07:45.860
always thought that he would step up and do the right thing.
01:07:49.080
I felt like when, um, when it was dismissed and, you know, um, he claimed that he didn't
01:08:01.580
Did that, did he, did he really not remember me?
01:08:07.240
Well, I don't, I would say worse than I thought, but I mean, was that a symptom of his addiction
01:08:12.960
But at the same time, like, I know my story and I know, I know my truth.
01:08:16.760
I know what I went through and, and that is something that I can, I can speak on and I
01:08:21.720
can say, you know, how, how it made me feel to hear those things.
01:08:27.260
Here's an excerpt from his book, speaking about you and potentially others in soundbite 20.
01:08:34.300
And the other woman I'd been with during rampages, since my divorce were hardly the dating type.
01:08:39.360
We would satisfy our immediate needs and little else.
01:08:43.420
It's why I would later challenge in court, the woman from Arkansas who had a baby in
01:08:53.520
That's how little connection I had with anyone.
01:08:55.980
I was a mess, but a mess I've taken responsibility for.
01:09:03.100
That some woman in Arkansas and claimed the child was mine, hardly the dating type.
01:09:08.440
Um, I mean, how would that make any woman feel, especially, um, you know, when that, that's
01:09:18.160
the father of their child saying that it's, it's, it's hurtful.
01:09:23.420
And, you know, in the book, I describe how I feel when, when all of this stuff, you know,
01:09:29.440
comes to life from the New Yorker to, uh, his memoir and, and things like that, it, there
01:09:35.440
are some, there are some chapters where I think you feel my rage.
01:09:39.600
And I think there are some chapters where you feel my hurt and it, it, you go through
01:09:46.200
I'm sure again, for the listening audience speaking today with London Roberts, who's
01:09:52.000
the author of out of the shadows, my life inside the wild world of Hunter Biden.
01:10:01.840
The callousness with which you, and honestly, your daughter were treated for the first four
01:10:09.660
Um, the, the chapter of, you know, what in particular, I have to say, Jill Biden did to
01:10:22.060
It's, it paints the first lady in a whole new light.
01:10:32.800
Um, yes, that, that actually is something when I was able to, to talk to Hunter for the first
01:10:39.400
time since I'd been pregnant, that was, that was something that I brought to him like that.
01:10:44.720
That's hurtful to see, um, you know, a matriarch of a family who, who is supposed to bring a
01:10:51.320
family together, um, purposely exclude someone, uh, part of that family, part of that, part
01:11:00.240
And that's something that someday my daughter will read and my daughter will see.
01:11:05.600
And it, it breaks my heart to know that it will break hers to read and see the things
01:11:13.880
that she's going to see about, um, being excluded.
01:11:20.600
And, and I, all I can do is, uh, you know, be there for her when, when she does, when she
01:11:33.160
That's tough because, um, it's one of those where I have to tell her, you know, I can't
01:11:38.340
explain, I can't tell you why I can't, I can't explain other people's behavior for you.
01:11:47.540
And I feel to blame because I'm, I'm the reason she's in this predicament.
01:11:52.800
You know, this, this is my child that I had, I had with him.
01:11:56.080
I got myself into that situation and I feel like I'm to blame for it.
01:12:00.320
And, um, I have a lot of mom guilt when it comes to that as well.
01:12:04.000
So that's something that I hope that with, uh, Hunter and Navy's relationship growing,
01:12:09.820
that maybe he can, um, he can turn things around and try to explain to her those behaviors
01:12:17.820
Is it true that when Jill Biden hung the white house stockings for the six grandchildren,
01:12:22.980
not the seven, excluding Navy, that she also had stockings up there for the family pets
01:12:39.140
So at the, at the same time at around the same time.
01:12:45.940
He, he, when Navy is born, he does not step up and support you spiritually and financially
01:12:51.680
and as a man and as a father, as he had promised when you first told him, he denies being the
01:12:58.960
And you actually had to file a lawsuit to make him own up to the fact that he had fathered
01:13:06.480
And he did not make it easy on you to even serve him with the papers or get the necessary
01:13:14.400
Like you really, and you don't, you're not a rich woman.
01:13:16.760
So this, can you talk a little bit about what that process was like for you?
01:13:21.540
Um, it was, it was tough because you, you know that this is all fixing to be made public
01:13:29.960
And so, you know, that one thing is tough, but also going after somebody to take accountability
01:13:36.260
for a child, uh, it's hard because you always wonder if you're doing the right thing or you're
01:13:44.880
You want to do what's best in that predicament and you always question yourself.
01:13:51.000
And, and I was, I felt like there were times, um, I think I speak on in the book where I was
01:13:55.300
even calling a couple of mine and Hunter's mutual friends.
01:14:01.680
And they're like, yes, but it, it, I was avoided so much that I thought, am, am I crazy?
01:14:10.100
And I had those friends there with me, you know, who witnessed everything.
01:14:13.180
They're like, no, like get it, get it together.
01:14:18.020
How long did it take in Navy's life for you to finally prove paternity and come to an agreement
01:14:28.240
Um, I believe she was, was she, she was going on two years old, maybe.
01:14:39.000
I can't remember if she had her first birthday or second birthday, but it was, um, it was
01:14:48.880
So that would have been, um, she was 10 months old.
01:15:00.140
So you finally proved paternity and did he apologize?
01:15:05.320
No, I, um, at that point in time, I, I had not, you know, we weren't, we weren't talking.
01:15:14.600
That was, um, just our attorneys talking back and forth.
01:15:18.100
So that's the only thing that I would hear, um, was from my attorney of what, you know,
01:15:34.980
It wasn't until, um, years later and, uh, uh, child support dispute.
01:15:48.280
So he, he was ordered by the court to pay, um, I think it was $20,000 a month, right?
01:15:58.520
We know this from, you know, all the public records around Burisma and all the rest of
01:16:02.100
He was making millions and he has, uh, forgive me, three other children.
01:16:08.160
He has two older daughters and a son before Navy.
01:16:14.540
Is it, walk me through the number of children Hunter has.
01:16:17.320
He has, he has three daughters, um, before Navy.
01:16:24.520
So his younger son, who he named Bo after his brother was born as you were going through
01:16:31.060
the paternity suit, as you were trying to get him to acknowledge your child, you're seeing
01:16:37.100
him and his new wife who he's still with in the papers and their, their child who gets
01:16:47.340
And you can't get him to acknowledge your Biden.
01:16:52.600
I mean, that must've been particularly galling.
01:16:57.080
Um, I think it came out towards the end of the paternity suit that she was, she was pregnant.
01:17:01.760
And, um, I think he was born shortly after, but, but yes, during that time, all of it was,
01:17:10.880
um, um, difficult, um, and eventually the media finds out about the story and your phone blew
01:17:23.460
This is in connection with filing the paternity lawsuit.
01:17:31.480
So everybody wants to talk to you and you decided not to do that really in the beginning.
01:17:42.680
And, um, of course, you know, dealing with all these different emotions and, and it seemed
01:17:50.140
like after one thing happened, something else would pop up and happen.
01:17:52.920
And now I'm having to process this and process that.
01:17:55.780
So I knew that with time I would, um, I would be able to tell my story and I would, at that
01:18:08.560
So Hunter was paying the child support for a while and then you referenced it.
01:18:14.540
He wanted to get back together and he wanted to lower the child support from $20,000 a month
01:18:21.880
And as I understand it, correct me if I'm wrong, London, this is the meeting where you
01:18:27.200
showed up with a box of items that Navy had made for him and pictures of her and really
01:18:41.580
Can you describe the box and what that meeting was like?
01:18:45.300
I feel like the, the box was some form of, um, a peace offering and it was for
01:18:51.840
his, his, his deposition that he was going to go in, you know, and answer questions that
01:18:56.860
And I don't, I wasn't expected to be there, but it was, um, also right before Father's
01:19:03.660
And my child, as you'll, as you'll read throughout the book, you know, she, she questioned, you
01:19:12.520
And so, you know, I, I tell her, I've, I open, I'm open with her about who her father
01:19:17.340
is and, and, and that's something that will never change.
01:19:23.180
So instead of, um, you know, not having anything to celebrate for a Father's Day or not having
01:19:30.620
anything to do, I, I offer her the chance to make her father something, um, that she can
01:19:37.820
And then I'll, I'll make sure that he gets, and I felt like that was a peace offering to
01:19:42.260
show, you know, like this little, this little girl is your daughter and, and she loves you.
01:19:47.280
And, you know, you don't, you don't know that she loves you because you don't have that
01:19:51.100
relationship with her, but she loves you from afar.
01:19:54.200
And I instill all the good things about you into her to let her know that, um, she's loved.
01:20:00.880
And so I took this box with, uh, pictures of her and a couple of things that she had
01:20:06.460
made, one being, um, a bracelet and she made like, uh, blue beads and a purple bead because
01:20:13.760
she said purple was purple's her favorite color.
01:20:16.060
And she said, I'm going to assume his favorite color is blue because he's a boy.
01:20:21.360
But, and she also like, you know, drew him a picture and, and things like that.
01:20:25.400
I took, and I took that to him and that was when my attorney said off the record, you know,
01:20:31.040
my client has something that she would like to give you.
01:20:33.140
I can, I can remember the shakes, the shaking in my voice because Hunter and I hadn't talked
01:20:38.380
in years and I wasn't there to talk to him for me or for anyone else.
01:20:46.140
And that day I feel like my daughter won because she got her father and, and no, that's worth
01:20:55.160
any amount of money and any amount of child support.
01:20:58.200
Um, my daughter building a relationship with her father.
01:21:02.760
So he lowered, you guys agreed to lower the child support from 20 a month to five a month.
01:21:08.460
And at the same time, he, he got a $15,000 a month house in Malibu for himself.
01:21:18.400
Like, I think I'm less forgiving than you are London, but that's bullshit.
01:21:22.440
That's, he took that money from your child who already doesn't have a dad here and he's
01:21:30.980
using it on himself, taking in the Malibu sea scenes.
01:21:36.980
I'm, am I the only one between the two of us who's angry about this?
01:21:45.080
I've, um, I've spent a lot of time being angry at him, but my love for my daughter outweighs
01:21:49.920
that and, um, seeing her like the first zoom call and sitting down and seeing her face
01:21:56.340
like finally getting that you, you agreed that you're going to lower the child support.
01:22:00.300
She was also going to get certain art of his to sell and that he would agree to doing zoom
01:22:06.600
calls with his child who he had never met before.
01:22:13.100
And so, you know, seeing her face light up and seeing, you know, finally getting this,
01:22:18.920
this relationship that she's yearned for for so long.
01:22:22.480
I, um, I don't care what he does with his money.
01:22:31.220
I want him to, if he can make her face look like that, then, um, continue being a father
01:22:37.700
to her, be a good, be a good role model, love her, show her love, do, you know, do fatherly
01:22:54.680
Um, you know, Hunter has a lot on his plate right now.
01:22:57.260
And I know that's also me giving him grace and, um, I'll continue to do so until the
01:23:06.800
Has the president ever met his grandchild Navy?
01:23:12.840
Have you had any communications whatsoever from Navy's grandma, Jill Biden, or grandpa,
01:23:27.580
I'd been advised by my attorneys that, you know, grandparents normally don't step into
01:23:34.000
And then they feel, you know, comfortable enough to do so.
01:23:36.280
So, I mean, it's all new and we'll see what the future holds.
01:23:44.160
I mean, it's been a year since he's been doing the zoom calls.
01:23:49.000
I mean, Joe Biden tells us every day about how family's the only, only thing.
01:24:02.760
And I question that as well, but I can't speak for him.
01:24:08.980
There's an amazing chapter in this book where you write about taking Navy, by this point,
01:24:14.860
Joe Biden's become president, to Washington, D.C.
01:24:24.480
I'm going to squeeze in a break and that's what we'll pick it up on the backside of this
01:24:28.320
So happy to have you with us today, London Roberts, um, telling your story.
01:24:32.080
Remember, the book is called Out of the Shadows by London Roberts.
01:24:36.180
It's out in August, but available for presale right now.
01:24:40.380
I'm Megan Kelly, host of the Megan Kelly Show on Sirius XM.
01:24:44.600
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01:24:49.640
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01:25:43.020
You write that Hunter's initial reaction after the DNA test proved he was the father,
01:25:50.600
that it was, quote, just proven he's the father.
01:25:53.400
And the first thing he comes back with is, I'm broke.
01:25:58.460
How about taking accountability for your child?
01:26:05.640
And then you reveal that he proposed initially that you single-parent adopt Navy.
01:26:19.920
So then he has no obligations and avoids responsibility?
01:26:23.840
They even asked if you would sign an NDA to not discuss the results.
01:26:29.800
They can shove that NDA up their ass and their fucking offer.
01:26:43.660
They said he would be willing to offer $250,000 to the deal.
01:26:48.500
I mean, this, he pulled your health insurance on you at one point.
01:26:58.720
He did not acknowledge his parental responsibilities.
01:27:01.040
He wanted you to be a single parent, to put it in writing.
01:27:05.660
And ultimately, he found out he was concerned that you might start using the Biden name for Navy,
01:27:12.700
which is standard in America, that a child takes her father's name.
01:27:18.560
And is it true that you had to agree to not use Biden as Navy's last name?
01:27:24.560
Um, yes, him and I discussed that over the child support dispute when we finally met face to face and sit down and talk.
01:27:32.900
And, um, you know, we both came to an agreeance that that that was probably the best thing for now.
01:27:38.420
And when Navy's old enough, she can she gets to choose what she wants.
01:27:42.200
So you take her at some point to Washington and to see the White House, where her grandfather is the sitting president of the United States.
01:28:01.560
By holding my breath, I approach the gates, fearing Navy, will ask what purpose this building serves,
01:28:07.360
or worse, that she would realize who might be inside and ask if she could visit her grandpa.
01:28:11.720
She's only three, but even the small chance of that happening leaves a pit in my stomach.
01:28:15.740
Like every other American, I grab my phone to capture a picture of my child in front of our nation's historic home.
01:28:20.920
The emerald green grass and bright blue sky frame the big white building as Navy presses her face close to peer through the bars.
01:28:29.300
This would have to be the first time in U.S. history a granddaughter of the first family is not allowed inside those gates.
01:28:40.240
And that goes on to this day, because not only is Navy not welcome at the White House, London, but she actually has to watch as the Bidens continue celebrating their other grandchildren,
01:28:53.980
have events on TV showing the other grandchildren, and knowing that these are her half-siblings in some of the cases,
01:29:03.080
and her cousins, whom so far she has never met and who have never acknowledged her.
01:29:14.280
I mean, I've said that, you know, there's a lot of hurt in this book, and there's a lot of anger and rage, but, you know, there's redemption in the end.
01:29:25.620
Right now, I hope, but that, like you were stating, the D.C. chapter, taking her to D.C., you know, wasn't—the National Mall is my favorite area in D.C.
01:29:36.640
I love that walk and stuff, and that's why I took her to the White House first, was to get that one over with and out of the way.
01:29:45.880
It's hard to—it's hard to talk about, you know, you sitting there, you know, reading that part about Navy Outside the Gates,
01:29:53.240
and I feel my lip quivering because there's so much emotion that comes with it.
01:29:59.280
And as a mother, you know, and my love for my child, you know, it's—she might not fully understand yet, but someday she will, and it breaks my heart.
01:30:09.840
What do you say to people who say, you shouldn't have brought her there, don't take her there?
01:30:16.860
Um, I try to be as open with my daughter as possible, and the National Mall, like I said, is my favorite part of D.C., and she loves D.C., you know.
01:30:28.680
D.C. holds a big part of my heart, and I have a bunch of friends there who have become family.
01:30:34.220
And, you know, taking her there was something that I was so happy to do and so excited to do because I love that place, and I would love for her to share that love.
01:30:49.020
And I can get why people don't understand, and it's kind of like that saying, you know, you'll never understand a person's journey unless you've walked a mile in their shoes.
01:31:02.280
And it's just the predicament I'm in and the way that, you know, I've tried to handle things.
01:31:09.460
I can't say that I've handled everything the right way, but I've done the best that I can.
01:31:13.320
It's so tricky because I can totally understand why you want your child to know that her grandfather is the president.
01:31:21.960
You know, of course you want her to know that and to kind of appreciate it, and it's kind of a cool thing.
01:31:27.700
I mean, that is her lineage, but yet there's so much downside with having to explain.
01:31:38.640
One other thing on the First Lady, because I did think this was one of the cruelest cuts of all.
01:31:45.920
You write in the book, Chapter 15, in June 2020, Jill Biden published Joey, a children's book about the life of Joe Biden.
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Hanging on to a copy for Navy, I pull it out one night after bath time, and she loves it when I read to her, and this is a book about her grandfather.
01:32:01.900
And what did you see when you opened up Joey, the book with Navy?
01:32:05.500
Um, the dedication page where, um, you know, Jill wrote this book about, uh, Joe, and she dedicated it so, you know, her grandchildren, as she should.
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And then she, she listed them by name, excluding one.
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You ask in the book, someday my, my daughter will be able to read this book.
01:32:30.880
How will she feel knowing all the president's grandchildren were intentionally listed, but Jill left her out purposefully?
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I always thought that a quality of a First Lady is to handle herself with class, but this is distasteful and borderline cruel.
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She snubbed a small, innocent child and a family member.
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I can't conceive the number of prayers I will need to ever forgive this woman for publicly snubbing a child she should be embracing.
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I have to, I have to, I have to forgive for myself.
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I can't let, you know, anger and, and rage just overcome me.
01:33:23.340
Have you signed a non-disparagement with Hunter?
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So you're allowed to say what you want about him?
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Because I would imagine, I don't know, has he objected to the book?
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We have a presidential election in about five months.
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I know you, you're writing the book about how you, you did vote for Joe Biden.
01:33:57.920
Um, well, it's, it's kind of like, uh, Mr. Pierce Morgan told me the other day, how, how
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can I vote for Trump and look my child's father in the face ever again?
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That, uh, there's a certain kind of hate, I think, between them that, um, I don't think
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So you couldn't pull the lever for Trump, you're saying?
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But like you said, it's a tricky position you're, I'm put in.
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He hasn't, he hasn't been good to Navy and you're her protector.
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So it's like, but on the other hand, it's kind of cool to have her, her grandfather be
01:34:51.860
And you always hope that things will turn around.
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What if, what if they did hang a seventh stocking?
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That would be a, that would be a small way to mend the fence.
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But what they did instead, once Hunter was proven the father was they did no stockings
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They'd rather not acknowledge the, the six that they acknowledge than add Navy to the
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It, uh, I want to think that wasn't their intentions and, and maybe that's like a PR thing and, and
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they have to, you know, that's something that they have to do at that time.
01:35:53.860
From what I read in this book, she's got some great grandparents on your side.
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I love your dad's messaging about this whole thing.
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I'm going to help support this little girl and do what I need to do.
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But what's the most important is have her father's love in her life.
01:36:10.540
So it sounds like you come from good stock and those are her primary influences and not
01:36:15.140
for nothing, London, but those Biden children have not turned out so well.
01:36:18.880
So maybe it's a blessing that the primary influences in her life are on your side.
01:36:24.880
Thanks for writing the book and thanks for coming on.
01:36:31.020
Again, the book is called Out of the Shadows and it's available for pre-order right now.
01:36:37.640
Next week, we have a whole week of true crime shows for you.
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It's called Fraud Week and I think you're really going to love it.