Well, I've been doing this a long time, and the technology never really changed. It was always paper panic and a producer who reads fast. Then Claude showed up, and now I have to admit, the machines are pretty useful, which is a terrible thing to have to say out loud.
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His own agent. Just talked to him on Monday. Listen, this is your... I know, but it's his own agent.
There's a way to talk to Donald Trump. You know, I don't like the war. Tell him.
You can tell him and I will.
And uh is the author here?
I signed that book for you.
Boy, do I have a lot to talk.
Oh, boy. No. No. Well, first of all, before I get too stoned and forget why we're here, which is to plug your book because you're an author, you know, we have a lot of riffraff on the show here, Ari. We have like actors and agents, like that. But a real author, that's a special day for me when I...
Thank you very much. But, uh, first of all, the cover, it is the most badass picture. I thought I had a badass picture for when I was a pot dealer in college holding up my pot. This is a...
So, you know what that was? It's 25 years ago. Mark's doing Letterman at Sullivan.
Who is... Wahlberg? Mark Wahlberg. Mark...
We don't know all who I know who your clients are, which you never get on this show, by the way.
Thanks for that. Go ahead.
Okay. Okay. They're laughing outside. Well, we may return to that.
We'll come to that subject better. So, he was doing that movie Rockstar with...
Yeah, I remember. I liked it. It was cute.
It was right around... I think 9/11. It was right at 9/11. It was the like weekend before he did it on Thursday.
A guy takes that photo. Never saw the photo. All of a sudden, it popped up. I love the photo.
My wife sees that photo. The publisher does the whole print of it. My wife doesn't like it. Stodd. Who's my wife? You know, she says...
Well, everybody calls her St.
It's terrible. She's a lady. Call her by... She likes...
I know. Your first wife was also called Sarah. You have a type.
You don't know. You're so cheap. You didn't want to change the towels.
So she then does that with this guy Rodrigo who is like a genius at book covers. He's up in...
That is a genius book cover.
He did a great job with my wife Sarah.
It also reminds me that the people maybe they were misled by the picture on the cover. Uh, they all are missing the point as the media always does. It's... I, yes, you talk about rage. It's not really a book about rage. I mean, you have your anger spilling over. That's just you. It's also really funny. I mean, your ghostwriter did a great job.
I was kidding. It sounds like you. It really does. I don't know how much he contributed, but I mean, it's so you.
Yeah, we spent 10 years doing it.
Okay. Well, it's really funny. And but yeah, it's not about rage. It's about honesty, you know. It's a guy who just does not have two left to give. I mean, you did it all from the mailroom to the boardroom. And now, you know, when you're mad at somebody, it's just honest. You just...
I hope... here's what I... from you, which is actually important. I hope you laughed a little.
I was shaking with laughter sometimes really because just sometimes you're caught in the act of being yourself. Sometimes a brilliant phrase, a line, this is a funny line where your first wife is pregnant with your first kid and but you've, you know, always taken on too much to chew and you're like, but now people are depending on me. People in the office, people in Sarah. Did you write that line or did the...
Well, you were smart to hire him.
He, you know, did you ever read uh Shoe Dog, the Phil Knight book?
He wrote this great book about Phil Knight. Incredible. And then I read the one he did on Andre Agassi.
He did the Andre Agassi book, which is I think it's the greatest book.
And then he wrote um Tender Bar, which is his story about him and his family. And once I read those, I was like, 'This is my guy.' And I met him in 2016, the day Trump gets elected, and he says, 'Yes.'
But I must tell you like the first 300 pages of this book I'm thinking to myself, wow, if I had known all this about a maniac, I would have never signed with him. Are you kidding? And the last 100 pages I'm like, geez, I hope he's still a maniac because he sounds like he's kind of mellow now. And I thought I hired an animal.
Why do you think that I mellowed in the book?
You say it in the book. No, no, here's what it is. As a client, it was a little nerve-wracking hearing like, do I still have it in me? It's in the book and like, I don't know how much longer I want to do this. Why didn't you tell me that before I signed up? But listen, here's what it is. I realized the following...
And Sarah Stodd, however the you want to call her, right? She said to me and another person said to me, he goes, 'When you're on the field working, whether what any of the businesses that I do, you got to be on the field. When you're off the field and we decide to go on vacation, not that you can't work, but you got to give yourself some time.' That's kind of what I was referring to. I never did that before. I was always on the field playing chess about every... It was insane.
The amount of suffering you did was shocking. One of the many things I learned that I didn't know what was going on. When I before I was with you, I knew you and friendly and you know, always trying to get me to sign. But I had no idea you were doing as bad as you were doing sometime. I thought you were always like a mogul and then I read like, oh, we're, you know, I'm a middle seat on the flight to Hawaii and you know, like your office smelled like hamburgers cuz you know...
Well, you remember we didn't have anything. There was four agencies: CAA, ICM, William Morris, UTA, and then we started at ICM when we left. We were four little guys. They blew it up on the New York Times. All of a sudden we became an agency and we had no money, nothing.
We had to buy the tickets, the Jeffrey Katzenberg story, the $500,000 to buy those basketball tickets were like... they were like the billboard on Sunset Boulevard. The Laker ticket.
See, this is your genius here cuz again, I thought you were this big mogul because you had the Laker seats. It was brilliant because that picture says everything, but really what I find out is behind the scenes you're like, you know, scraping.
And also killing yourself to get it done.
So that guy is... I mean part of what I do love about the book is that it is a love letter to the job of agenting, which of course gets a bad reputation. I mean I could tell you many... I'm sure you know all the agent jokes. You know, the agent, the guy who...
Here's my belief. I was... Rick Rosen was really the guy with Conan O'Brien. This is in my opinion one of the great agent stories. Jeff Zucker makes a mistake. He thinks he makes a mistake with Jay Leno. Jay didn't have an agent. He had a lawyer.
And Rick Rosen and me, we do our job for our client.
I've told this story from my view, which is the same view. And what I've said is...
And that's called being an agent. And Conan's incredibly talented.
When I have counseled people who ask me about the business, young people, you know, they want to be mentored very often.
Yeah. Yeah. And they listen. They listen a lot.
At least until they stop being a stripper. No, I'm kidding. Anyway, so like one of the things I tell them is you absolutely have to have someone talking for you, whoever it is. It can be your aunt Mildred. It just can't be you. So agent, manager, and I said Jay Leno's problem was he didn't have an agent. And though they fired him for the crime of being number one because what NBC had in lieu of Jay's agent talking to them was this snake named Ari Emanuel who was in the ear saying, 'Don't you want to look to the future? Jay's getting old. He's only number one for how much longer? Don't you want to get ahead of it?' And that...
Worked. I mean that was one of your big successes. Although I thought it was really stupid on the part of NBC. I mean, they up the whole thing.
Well, we can go through the history of... Yeah, but that's what our job is to...
Is to package, put things together, make sure people get along and try and navigate that situation.
There is a... No, again, you agent joke sharks. Yes. But there is a type. My manager Marker is this type. I'm pretty sure you're this type. They just really want to be somebody's protector.
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That you know, you're on this publicity tour and I see you out a lot and it's like, you know, I had your brother on the show. I had your other brother. Now I'm plugging your book. Am I your agent or are you mine? I mean really, I appreciate you. Really? You're doing a great job.
You're an unbelievable protector.
But it is, you have this instinct, call it.
I don't think you care about being famous. And you don't want to be the star. You never wanted to be. And I think you talk, it's very charming. Like you say, they're the bumblebees. They spread the... the agents.
You know, you need somebody to put those things together and to spread the whatever. Even with all the I think representing people that are incredible artists, there is a business aspect that is an art form, right? And if you do it well, it is... if you do it well and you have taste, you can be very...
So, are you still... that it's important?
I mean, today was Aaron Sorkin. I mean, his movie that's coming out on Facebook. It's Pete Berg's movie that he's got coming out. Mosquito Bowl.
Any other clients on your list today?
Well, you're asking me, but today was those were two movies coming out that I was working on.
Sean. I mean, I can't bust your balls too much. I have a job. Yeah, I've had it for a long time, you know, and I'm not looking for another one.
Wait, we're looking for one more. We're looking for voiceovers and animation.
Actually, I actually sent Mr. Gervais last week a whole...
Would I not be great as a cartoon villain? I mean, I would be... but they probably won't do it because of politics.
I think you're wrong. I think they're going to do it.
Great. That's what I love about you. Your optimism. I mean, you do have this love affair with the business starting at the... By the way, we have some things in common. Like I also was a delivery boy before GPS with a map.
Did you have the dark? Did you have the town?
Cursing people for not putting a clear number on their house.
How about this? How about there's no street light sometimes?
That's what I'm saying. It was very dark. I was the delivery boy for Westwood Corners liquor and drug.
When you were doing standup?
When I was 16. When I was in high school. Yeah. I don't think you're even supposed to do that. Have a 16-year-old deliver. You're definitely not.
The only job at 16. I'm going to mow the lawn or I'm going to shovel snow.
From 7 to 9 every weeknight, I would go there and I would, you know, make...
Tell me. Please tell me. Please tell me I made more than you.
$2 an hour. So, at the end of the week...
I think I made more than you.
I made a base of 200 in the mailroom plus 15 cents a mile.
Well, I mean, look, we all like money and, you know, you had some line in there about there were times when the only thing in my eyes was Visine and dollar signs.
But I also saw you do things. You have to think about this book. It made me think you're even more of an animal than I thought you were, but also more of a human because there are moments like where you do...
I think it's because we have the same kind of parents, brought up by liberal parents, you know, punching, never punching down.
No, you fight with a lot of people, but it's always punching up. And when Kanye was anti-Semitic, you know, there was money on the table with Bal Gibson, who's a client, and Khashoggi. Yeah. So the journalist in Saudi Arabia with his head cut off. So you stood up for the Jews. You stood up for an Arab. You know, I got to give you props for that. There's a human in there. We're still looking.
We're still trying to find that on occasion.
We're looking. But also a crazy person. Yeah. I mean like wow. I mean some of the tirades and the...
Well, I mean again, nothing everybody doesn't do. You just do it openly.
And when I walk in, you know where I stand.
Yeah. And you're not afraid to tell somebody go yourself. I mean just as a hello like practically. I mean you know you don't like to lose. You know what? You are the perfect example of... I'm sure you've read a million scripts and you had to like... I took a script writing course once and like here's the main thing I took from it. The character needs a desire and a need. They're different.
When they come together at the end, that's like...
If it comes together, it's perfect. Like Rocky, his desire is to win the fight.
His need is to be loved and be a loser.
Even if he doesn't win the fight. So at the end he loses the fight but gets Adrian.
Spoiler alert for those who haven't caught up.
If you haven't seen Rocky, here, 1976 I think.
So I feel like you are the character who is all this desire and the book really is about, but is looking for the need.
The need is... listen, I had incredible parents like you had incredible parents. They taught me so many great things just by their actions. But there was Zeke the smart one, Rahm the artist, and then there was you're the third one. And it was a desire to get an identity. This business that we have entered had all the makings for me to get an identity and I would have, as I said to Pete Berg, I didn't have plan B, I only had plan A. I was going to do anything to make plan A work and I would have gone, as in the book, to sickness to get to plan A.
Yeah. But what makes the book interesting to me besides the stories and stuff, but some of that is cuz I'm in this world, so I know these people. It is, but it would be interesting to anybody.
But the fact that you have this burning desire and yet over and over again there's some line on the order of, you know, but the high never really lasts.
Don't you think our business is always...
Interrupting me when I'm quoting you?
What an... Because it's a great line. It's about like, but this is another some merger you pulled off, but it didn't hit the spot. Wherever the spot is, it remains untouched. I just thought that is a certain type. I'm somewhat that type but you have that to an extraordinary degree. Like why, how come every time I achieve this thing that I so desperately wanted, I find out it didn't make me happy.
That's an interesting character.
And that's desire versus need.
Yeah. And you know something? I'm trying to get better at it. I don't look in the rearview mirror. I don't know if that's my upbringing or this need to constantly prove myself.
You're obsessed with digestion. You eat worms.
Right here for you. I brought them for you.
I did. I brought them for you.
What form do they... You're not talking about just like a bird or a fish.
No, I'm not going to do it now. I'm giving them to you. I've already done mine.
No, it's a liquid form. It's microsopa. You just swallow it.
I see. Okay. That's less gross than I thought.
So anyway, you're obsessed with digestion and your whole life you have made yourself miserable up until recently because you constantly eat something you cannot digest. You couldn't... William Morris, it was you wanted it, you ate it, you swallowed it, but then it made... because you, oh my god, if you don't get bigger we're gonna die and you're going through it. And then it was IMG or AMG, whatever this alphabet soup of thing, and I got to go public, I got to get wrestling, I got to... every time you do, you're driving yourself almost to death like no sleep and flights you don't want to be on, working through pain like you know you're on the phone with Obama and you got a needle in your back. I mean, just like crazy that you because you're not digesting because you ate this thing.
But then you can't... you have to...
But then you eventually did find a way to digest them all, didn't you?
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But along the way, it was a messy soup.
I can't believe you think it was worth it. I mean...
Really? I mean, you describe a lot of misery.
It was a lot of craziness and it came out at the end a beautiful story even though at the time I didn't believe it was going to be cuz it was as you know it's all over the place physically, emotionally, but it turned out okay.
Well, it turned out great. I mean you know obviously. Yeah. I mean...
I mean, well, how about the flight to China? And he didn't book the lunch.
Not really. Of all the things, but you know, like you...
16 hours I get on a flight right back.
No, I get... I know. And you probably did or...
Well, when I landed, he wasn't working.
People don't know that your assistant said you had a lunch in China but didn't confirm it. So you flew all the way to China.
Well, he didn't tell me he didn't confirm it.
I understand. But if that was me, first of all, I would never get on a plane to China for... you would fly.
Yeah, just flying. You're right. Flying is very bad for your health. I'm so glad I stopped cuz that stopped...
Oh, yeah. You can't... I mean it just kills you. It's...
One reason I didn't need CAA anymore.
Yeah. It just you get on, you're done working on Friday and you get on the plane.
No. I miss... If they could just beam me there, it would be the perfect world. But they can't do that. Maybe they'll have a hologram of me. But I feel like there's, you know, you both collect people in the book and also like, you know, cut off a lot of heads, you know, like when you're done with somebody, you know, but there's also this theme of like you keep meeting these people who sometimes just cuz you read about them or something and you wanted to meet them, you know, you think you say it's... and I get it's a great perk of the business that you can, you know...
Well, it was a perk of being Ari Gold. My brother in the White House, kind of the company's starting to get hot and if I read an article about Marc Andreessen, I could call him up when he was nobody.
And I met him and that led to Egon Durban who became my partner in all my...
Yeah. And some other guy. You said he's the brother you never had, but you met him late in life.
Okay. I don't know who these people are, but I mean, you know, but then like you also boy, if you're... you're dead to me. I mean, well, when I didn't know you that well, it was always you and Patrick White. So that was like Batman and Robin. And I'm like, you couldn't say one name without the other. And I remember this is like back in like when I was out on the clubs and that like the '90s and like girls were very into Patrick Whitesell. I mean...
Yeah. I mean I remember this girl saying, 'Oh yeah, he's finer than his clients.'
Yeah. He was one of the most incredible agents of all time. Of all time. I mean he might be on like Mount Rushmore. But then it sounds like he represented a lot of erections also. But then you know we became a company that owned businesses. We owned UFC, we owned wrestling, and it wasn't just an agency.
The things you were eating that you could not get down.
I got them down but they took a lot out of me.
You were like the snake who eats... again, you're a snake. Not that I'm saying agents are snakes just cuz that came up twice, but like that eats the giant thing and you see it. But they know how to do it. You've been doing it for so many years. You're a human. You don't know how to do it. But you did it. I mean...
But I certainly hope you're still at it because I definitely... I'm not done.
Yeah. And I do... at the end of the day I tell myself I know this guy pretty well and what I said before I think is the truth. You have this very deep thing in you that good agents and managers do. They do want to protect, they do want to be that person out front and they want to protect the client, you know, and like you said, agenting, that is a talent.
I think it's an art form like you do in your standup and the conversations that you're having.
Well, my standup is better than agenting. But okay.
But getting you to where you get to do your thing and at one, financially, and two, kind of...
That is a... and it's a I think a redeeming job.
So after the book is out, you'll go back to thinking about me and not you.
But you know you're happy. I'm very glad to see you're happy because like boy... You know what I learned from this book? Not that I didn't know what dyslexia was or that people suffered from it. I didn't realize that it was like this very large colony within the country. You know, it's almost like an identity group.
Who really understand each other in a way everybody else kind of can't. But...
But if you look at that...
There they're either people because you have great parents that you become a Rhodes Scholar, you become really successful, or like I don't know what the percentage is, a big percentage are in jail because you just can't make it if you don't have family members that can really get you through it.
Right. You certainly had characteristics that would put me in jail.
You just fly. You make enemies. You're constantly... You're going to make me... You're constantly in feuds that sometimes they're, you know, it's like that Wayne's brothers book, The 150 Ways to Know Your Ghetto. And one of them is you jump into fights that don't involve you.
I only jump into fights that involve me. I protect people. I'm a ride-or-die guy. Clients, friends, myself.
Well, unless it's time for them to die.
No. No. If they do something that's bad or you think that they've double-crossed you.
Yeah.
Well, Patrick didn't exactly double-cross you. He seemed to lose interest in the business.
Then at the end, he went behind my back as he had made a lot of money to my financial partner and my partner and he said, you know, I'm gonna... after we made a deal, everybody was going to... here was the deal. I'm doing this and I'm doing that. You're going to do this. And then he said after we announced we're going private with Endeavor, he then said, 'Nope. I don't...' even though we then announced it, we all agreed to it.
I'm not even arguing with what you do. I'm on the same page. People kind of have to earn their wings. Not every day. If someone has been your friend for a long time, you give them a lot more rope than someone who you know... if someone's late the first time you're supposed to meet them...
You're dead, right? You're gone. Like the first time this is...
Somebody you've met. Yeah.
But if it's somebody you've known for 10 years, you'll give them a pass. Even though we both hate waiting. We also both don't like... You don't say goodbye.
Yeah. Like when I was like, unless I haven't seen someone in a long time, but like at the office like I saw you yesterday. Why am I saying hello again? Like what happened in the last 14 hours of your life and mine?
Yeah, I know. But no, I think the idea and you talk about it eloquently. I thought this thing about happiness is not breakups, break-offs. As you know, not everybody stays the same and you don't have to feel bad about refreshing the friendship.
All these things, whether it be a marriage, whether it be a friendship, you have to be a participant. You can't be an absentee person in any of them. You have to... and if you don't want to be, okay, I'm good. I'm comfortable that way.
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It was quite eye-opening, Ari, I must say, to find out from your book that like for years, like I knew you for years, you would call me quite often. 'When are you going to leave that dumbass at CAA?' You were like Trump. You unnecessarily insulted him. He's a great guy. But just you know, trying to get me to sign and then I have to find out you do that with everybody. That's how you did it with both your wives. You just don't stop.
Yeah. I did this Yoko.
Well, listen. A few years ago the New York Times asked me to do a book review for this book about the Beatles. I guess it's known. I'm a Beatles nut. So like, it was good. It was called 150 Glimpses of the Beatles. I could have lived with 100, but okay. So, it put some light on details or instances I thought I knew about with new details. That was a good part of it. And one of them was that I didn't realize that Yoko, you know, it wasn't like a chance meeting with John Lennon.
According to this book, she used to jump into the car like he would follow and play. She wrote him a letter every day.
And got it to India. When they were in India, you know, she lovebombed him her way. She wanted to get her a Beatle first. She wanted Paul. Oh. And first Linda wanted John. You know, when you want a Beatle, you don't care which one. We can't always afford everyone's first choice. Just eat the chicken.
So the fact that she was just so — he's very funny to him how persistent she was, you know. And I don't think — oh, Yoko's a dragon lady. I like Yoko, but you know, I think she wanted a Beatle. She wanted that guy. And she was just what he needed at that time. She kind of knew how — she was older than him by a lot. She wasn't a kid. She knew how to, you know, inscrutable Asian ways of getting something. No, but she wrote them a letter every day. Every day when they were in India, like kind of — I'm not sure how she made sure it was delivered. I don't know. Maybe some connection in the East.
I know. But that's you. You're just like you like — and I was laughing out loud when you were talking about how St. — no, I'm sorry. She's too much of a lady. Sarah, Sarah, Sarah — when you were trying to get with her and you're very desperate. It's very funny. Either you or the guy wrote a funny line about a guy called you up and says, 'I want you to meet someone.' 'Who?' 'A woman.' 'I like her already.'
You said that. See, there you got one for yourself. Okay. Well, it's funny. So, and of course, she Googles you. Sees that you're 55 or something. She's 28 and she's, you know, I know Sarah quite well now. She's awesome. But yeah, she's like — she thought William Morris was a cigarette company. No. Swear to you, swear to you that she thought it was a cigarette company. Well, to be fair, at the time it was — and a Halloween store. Yeah. But I never — I didn't stop. No, I mean she's — and she was a girl who knew what she wanted. I mean, it would make actually a good movie because, you know, movies, romcoms have to depend on — I mean, you got 90 minutes to fill going from one place to another. You can't like each other at first. You have to hate each other at first. She didn't exactly hate you.
No, she was indifferent. She didn't — yeah. You're too old. Like, you were not in the pool of men who are able to court me. Yeah. And this was just not going to fly. Well, I don't think she knew what she was up against.
I know. But when you wrote — so it made me go into signing mode. I was like, 'Wait a second.' I see what happened to me. I see what happened to me now. Yeah. All those years I said, 'No, no, no, no, no, no, no.' And next thing you know, we're being married by Larry David. And where were you married? Somewhere in Central Peak. Central Pack. That's where — excuse me. So we had the second date. She says she's going there for the summer because her father has a place there. I said, 'I'm going to be in Europe. I'm going to come take you to dinner.' And cut to — she goes, 'No.' I said, 'I'm going to show up. You'll either — and I'm going to text you that.' And then she shows up and — and this is after she said no to you a million times. And so I had to fly to Saint-Tropez. Yeah. I mean, why were you so sprung on this chick without knowing her that well?
Well, the minute you see her you realize how beautiful she is. She's a physically beautiful woman and emotionally she is well put together.
You're right for each other. She wouldn't be right for me. But is there a woman right for you?
Oh yeah. You know, I love her.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, nuptials. And what those two have in common is they are the two most self-assured. So self-assured and not afraid or not — yeah. So that's — they got their [__] together. Confidence and so there's no — and you can't rattle them. And you don't want to. No. No, you cannot rattle them. And exactly — scared to rattle them or try to. I am not scared. She is — and I've seen it in her business. She is as tough as it comes. Yeah. That's not my type. Yeah. I'm saying that's for you because you want a challenge all the time and you're going to take over this and you're going to take over that. And what three letters are left that I haven't taken over? BLT. I want ALL THE ALPHABET. I WANT BLT. I'm taking — yeah, that's it. Ari takes over bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches. Are they buyable? Oh god. Yeah. So, are you done buying things? Why don't you just — No, probably not. What is this latest one you got?
So, there's the Nederlander. The Nederlander, the theater people. Yeah. And then there's the Shuberts, of course. Oh, we're talking about Broadway now. And then there's this company called ATG. ATG. Yeah. Sounds like a government agency. They have — they're the largest footprint in the theater space in New York, London, and all over the world. Oh, they're bigger than the Nederlander. And yeah, what a shame. Yeah, the Shuberts. I got to be able to — I got to open the mouth, but I got to swallow them.
You're doing it again. You know how many [__] worms you're going to have to eat? Well, I guess now it's easier because you got all this money behind you. Like before it was like, you know, you were just on a limb. But geez, the Nederlander, you know, I did a — I got a Tony nomination. Part of my anti- — I've lost all the awards. I mean, I was nominated for a Grammy, spoken word. Yeah. All of them. But Broadway when I was there in 2003, Nederlander, Shubert, those were the names and they had been for a hundred years. Right. Right. And now you come in with your — yeah. Oh Jesus. Why do you say it in that way? No, you're right. I mean, change happens. Yeah. You know, this is again — you either are a new friend or a dead friend. That's not true. No, no, no. With most of the people something transpired. No. And I take a lot of responsibility for some of them. You know what? As I said before, when I flip a coin on you, it does always come down on the side of your parents. You had the same kind of parents. Punching up, not down, that kind of thing.
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So I do basically trust that when you make these changes, you know, it's like it's inevitable. The change is inevitable and you know hopefully it's not just for revenge although you do have a thirst for revenge often. I mean this — I'm seeing — remember something you were buying where it was hundreds of jobs and maybe thousands and billions of dollars on the line but you said the most important thing was wiping that [__] smile off some guy's face and another guy who laughed at you. No, you really don't like it when people laugh at you. That was William Morris. William Morris. It was like — it was very funny. You're like Jim Wyatt. This guy was laughing that big important him was going to buy little old me and then you bought them. Yeah. See, that's the thing. The people you hate — I don't — I mean I don't know Jeff Katzenberg well. You seem to hate him more than anybody. And many people do, but I don't know. Twice he's called me to have first lunch and dinner I think first and then we had lunch. This is like 15 years apart, maybe 20 years apart, but out of the blue and seemingly with no agenda which is you know a little — hello, but you know — I should get you coffee instead of tequila. But they tell me that like he has like three breakfasts every day. He just talks to a lot of people. So I was like sure, I mean Jeff Katzenberg, he's a legendary guy and you know, and but you [__] hate him. I mean that.
Well, here's what happened. It's pretty simple. You know those basketball tickets that we couldn't afford and they were like the billboard on Sunset Boulevard when we were starting made us look big. He went behind my back. We had a contract and he tried to take the tickets and I wasn't going to permit that. And you would never do that to somebody? No, definitely not. Because you do say at one point — I definitely would not. Something about like you — I think maybe you were leaving one agency, your plot — you know, the plot — this is the endeavor. Yeah. Well, but this is like a plot, no pun intended, that plays out constantly with agencies. A bunch of agents within the agency become a plotting nest to start their own agency. And you say like it gets to a point where you're thinking, are they going to, you know, abandon and stab me in the back or am I going to do it to them? So, it's not — you admit that it's in your mind. That's different. That was like where we're starting a business. We had these tickets. They became the hot tickets. We own the tickets. He goes behind back, tries to ups the price. We could barely afford them as they were. Fine. I got them back. He calls me. Then there was another incident with him. Fine. He did something that was bad. Then the last piece — as much as we can say about — No, no, no. I'm going to say the last piece that put me over the top. My brother works for the Obamas. He's a chief of staff. Chief of staff, right? Yeah. I know Joe Biden through my brother. He says, 'I can get you a meeting with Joe Biden for a million dollars.' I said, 'Do you think I need to give you a million dollars so you can tell Joe Biden that I gave you a million dollars to meet with Joe Biden?' Okay. He goes, 'I have all the relationships with Joe Biden.' Wait, then as you've said and I said a year before Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, you know, we're all saying, 'Okay.' Yeah. And I'm calling him like, 'Hey, dude. You say you got his ear, right? You're the man. You're talking to him all the time.' After that last one I said, 'You got to get him out.' Silence. Then the election's over. He loses. I wash my hands of politics. I'm not in it anymore. I'm moving on. He gave us Karen Bass. He gave us this. And now he's just moved on. When you sit there and you say — and most of the things he does is not about the situation. It's about Jeffrey and the situation. He's first and foremost. That [__] I don't like. I do not like it. And he did try to [__] us over twice. [__] you. I mean, I could give a [__] about all of this, but you asked me.
But I know. But it's funny in the book. I mean, it's funny when you're — there's that moment where you get back together with Sarah after — Oh, by the way, here's a little something that caught my eye. You're very — You mean the breakup with — Yes. Breakup? Okay. So, you're very mad at a certain point. Wait, no, no, no. Let me finish my sentence. You didn't hear my sentence. You were very mad that I guess it was William Morris sent Harvey Weinstein of all people as their errand boy to tell you that they were going to buy you, right? Well, it was — wasn't he the messenger? We were like a month old, I think it was, right? He calls up the Peninsula, shirt, food, everything upside down. And he goes, 'I'm — you're making $10 million. You're going — I've sold the company. You're going over. We've just started the company. You're going over to William Morris. Each one of you is going to make $2.5 million.' Why him? I don't know. Exactly. He's not part of William Morris. He was at Miramax. So why him? I don't know. Okay. So you're mad that he is this errand boy out of left field. But then when you break up with her, you have your own therapist do it. I was a [__] — That was the one time. That's like worse than the Harvey Weinstein. Oh, horrible. That she got back together with me. She's insane. I was so depressed. Not that this — Why did you do it to begin with? Because we didn't go public. I turned 60. COVID was going on. Everything just seemed like the whole world, my whole everything — So, wouldn't you want to cling to the one good thing? I just — I didn't know where I was. I really kind of was lost that period in COVID. I was lost. And then six months later, I realized, [__] this girl, I miss her. The liberals overdid COVID. They really did. And that's a good example of it. Look how much it — it was not necessary to be this [__] up about — there's a lot of things. It was a dangerous thing that could be — it wouldn't have been for you with your earthworms. It sure wouldn't have been for you. So you should have had — I never got — you should have had — of course not because you [__] do cold plungers and earthworms and what else do you do? Crazy [__] that you do, right? You're up at 3:00 a.m. like doing crazy — crazy [__] — Yeah. I mean, I'm like barely turning the light off at 3:00 a.m., right? Okay. So, you're going to — listen, there were things that they did wrong. It had never — it was a novel. It was a first-time virus. They didn't know what they were doing, and there was a lot of mistakes made. However, did they need to close the beaches? No. Okay. Did I think that Massachusetts at the time, what they knew, they were doing the best that they could? Okay. Was there a lot of screw-ups? But on the other side, they did get to a vaccine that I shouldn't say — a shot that you had to take on a quarterly or yearly basis. You know, Jonathan Swan was on Real Time the week before and he was saying like Trump who always is the luckiest [__] — the one thing that is so consistent about his life — he's good, he's lucky — is great luck. Just the inside straight he pulled to win in 2016, everything. And Jonathan Swan, and I think he's totally right, says how lucky to have lost the 2020 election, you know, because all this [__] hit the fan and he could blame it on Biden and say, 'Oh, look, things are really that —' because most of his term wasn't with COVID. Yeah. You know, so — but I mean — by the way, speaking of the president — who you talk to a lot. I talked to him on Monday. Okay. And you say some things in the book that are almost word for word things I've said. I'm not saying you're stealing from me, although you'd be wise to, but just words like, I can't beef with half my friends and I don't want to hate half the country. That's almost exactly what I said in my last special. And you know, talking is my religion. Keep talking. That's what my mom thought of me. It's so interesting to me that Larry David — like I'm the devil because I talked to him but his own agent just talked to him on Monday. Listen, this is your stick with him. I know. But you must recognize the hypocrisy there. Somehow when it's his own agent doing the exact same thing — this is — then we don't play the Hitler card. We don't play the Hitler card. Just admit that it's true.
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You should have this conversation with Larry. I would actually because you guys are so similar on so many things. And that's what I hate about the purist left. Purity. It's the easiest thing to be. And by the way, you know you're not a political sophisticate when you immediately go to the Hitler card. That's just one way. There's a few others, but yes, purity. I just can't take it. I can't. More than anything, I can't take it. And you and I are on the same page. I'm having the conversation with him and I'm having dinner with him again next week. By the way, I'm having a conversation with him about this rebate that I think needs to happen for California and for the country and I think it's going to be a good thing and he's on board with it. He called me about it first and I said to somebody, and it's true. He's 80 years old. This guy, and I don't know if you felt it. He's a workaholic.
He's... he, the guy works like...
Yeah. And a lot of that work is toward things we don't approve of. Let's...
and we'll tell him, right? And we'll tell them. You see, I'm... when he... I told him. It's so weird. You know, after the first dinner, I went back to doing what I do. And you know, for people who don't like... he probably screamed. He said, 'You're low. It never stops.' He tried to stop me from getting the Mark Twain. He said, 'Ar, you only call me because you're the president.' I said, 'Yes, that's true. You're the president. I got to get things done.' But then like he just out of the blue, 'Let's have dinner again.' I was like, 'Great.' And he was like, uh, really nice. Like, 'I promise I won't say bad things about you like I did the last time.' And I texted back and I said, 'You know what? You're the president of the United States. Say whatever the fuck you want. I'm just glad we're talking.' It's just like being called a hockey puck by Don Rickles. It's just what he does. It's how he talks. Hopefully you can have this much of a conversation before the decision.
Correct. I agree. This I guarantee you get nothing from not talking. If the odds are low from talking, they're still in the realm of possible.
But there are some people you won't talk to.
Yes. There are some people I won't talk to.
But they're not the president of the United States.
Yeah. But there are people that you say to yourself, that bridge is too far. It blows my mind that there are people in this world, and lots of them on the far left, who just would turn this opportunity down. A private dinner in the White House with the president, just a few people. Say whatever you want. You know, I've heard people say, 'Well, you know, I don't like the war.' Tell them. You can tell them. And I will. I keep telling people he needs more people like us, not less. I agree with you, not less.
I will. Yeah. And you do too.
And I'm sure you do. And I'm sure he listens to you. And you know, not if you like call up the phone like you're talking like a Karen on the complaint department hotline. Not like, 'Hey, the thing you did.' No, but like there's a way to talk to Donald Trump. There just is.
And he's... and it's okay. The way you have to talk. Well, I heard people when I did the first one, I heard people say, 'Well, you're humanizing him.' Okay, he's a human. I get it. He's a very flawed one. As we all are, Jesus.
Can I switch? When you say, I'm just thinking about this, when you say the far left, who are you referring to? Woke, like what I mean, what do you... are you saying? Is it, for you, is DSA far left?
Of course. Doesn't get any further left than that, right? People who... people who... I don't think they're Democrats.
No, they're not. And Rahm makes the same point.
Yeah. I don't think they're Democrats. I think they want to be the one that beats Democrats, and Democrats want to beat Republicans. Gaza is a genocide is a lie that they are making everybody say. If you say that that's far left, you don't know history. You don't know facts. I proved it on my show.
Do they... do you think they know who came up with the word genocide?
Whoever came up with it, any side.
So genocide was created in 1944 by a Jew that went through the Holocaust and he came up with the word because there was no word for what it was and then it was approved by the, I think it was the UN in '48 and it was a word for what happened to the Jews. There was, I think, 4 million Jews in Poland. Ended up 44,000.
That is it. That's exactly.
And I think they want the word genocide because it's such an evil word. They're trying to take a word that was for what happened to Jews and they wanted to put it on Israel so that they're a bad country and people... so that it becomes a non-existent thing.
It gives... if you believe someone is guilty of genocide, it gives you permission to hate them. Who wouldn't hate a genocidist? But... and I think you've done an amazing job laying out the facts.
The facts. Yeah. I mean, 3% of the population, it's terrible. It's not a genocide.
We can have the conversation about you can hate Israel. You can hate not Jews. You can hate and just don't change the meaning of the word because the word was created by a Jew.
I mean, just go through what 'cide' always means. Fratricide, kill your brother. Homicide, kill yourself. Matricide, kill your mother. Patricide, your father. Genocide, a whole people.
Right. And if they wanted to kill a whole people, they certainly have the means to do it. And most of the people who died were because they are an enemy, not like many other enemies where they use their own people as shields. Well, I would say the following. You know, I think you think this like...
I've said this. I gave a speech about Netanyahu. So my brother gave a speech and...
Oh, I saw that in the book.
And my point of view is, guess what? I think we should free, you know, Gaza. It should be free of Hamas.
From Hamas. Yes. When they say free Palestine, like who do you think is oppressing it? You...
My father was born in Palestine before.
So all of it was Palestine. And the UN made Palestine. When you said Palestine in that era, people thought you were talking about a Jew.
And it was through Jordan. And when the UN decided to give this strip of land, they said, 'Don't fight.' Then they captured land. Who gives back land? If in Ukraine they get a plot of land, wherever you want the Ukrainians to win a plot of land, you think they're going to give it back in a war? No. But the Israelis have given it back. They are consistently asked to do things nobody else is ever asked even to do. Like when you're in the middle of a war, feed the enemy, give them polio shots...
I don't remember any other enemy doing this. You know, you're in a war.
And I think what they're doing in the West Bank, Netanyahu, is disgusting. It's disgusting what they're doing.
Yeah, the West Bank is terrible. It's terrible, and I said that it's bullying. It's more than bullying.
It's what happened to Jews in Poland, and we're doing it there. And it's disgusting. I agree. And so let's all get off this word, because that was a word that Jews created. Stop trying to label...
And let's have the real conversation, as you said. Let's have conversations that are from a place of... and I'll have it with anybody.
Yeah. But the problem is, how did Ilhan come to your show? Is he...
You know, he said he was going to, but we have not been able to as yet get a yes, like an actual...
I think that would be a great conversation.
Oh, I do too. Oh, I can't wait to have that conversation, because the truth is that when we talk about these issues, it gets very nitty-gritty in the details, and we kind of miss, I'm sorry, but the big picture, which is forgetting the Islam of it all. I don't know if you're going to convince people who have a religious fervor behind their beliefs of ever really wanting to come to the table. It is a doctrine in Islam. I mean, many believe the whole world needs to become Muslim, but certainly any land that used to be Muslim has to be reconquered. Spain, many still refer to it as Andalusia, because that's...
Yes. I'm talking about Islamists.
Because that's what it was when it was Muslim for 700 years before it was...
