Interview Only w/ Leland Vitter - Diagnosis Doesn’t Define You: Growing Up With Autism

Well, joining me now is a familiar face to many of you. It's Leland Vitter. He is a anchor at News Nation, long time before that, longtime correspondent and journalist for Fox News, and he's out with a new personal memoir of sorts. It's called Born Lucky, A dedicated Father, A grateful son, in my Journey with Autism. It's a very moving book. And if you're somebody, if you're a parent, if you have a child struggling with some of these issues, I think you're going to find this story in this

Great to be with you.

I think we would say, is I've watched you for many, many years on radio. They would say, right, you know, longtime listener, first time call. So it's great, great to be with you.

So you know, I had I found your book very compelling and it reminded me of my friend. And I'm sure you know this story because you're probably familiar with them with my friend Ron Fournier, longtime political journalists that the Associated Press, who wrote wrote a book about his journey with his son and the battle that they had and how and just your stories about how Principles were treating you and your parents and there, and it's just it's just such a reminder how little the public does

Yes, yeah, yeah, Look you said it right, and I think you've picked up on it. Chuck when you said, for any parent, grandparent, aunt uncle, who has a kid who is struggling, because it goes way beyond autism to ADHD, anxiety, physical disabilities, just the general bullying that goes on now and is so aggressive and there's so many kids who

They talk to my parents and they look at my parents.

They said, we really can't imagine what's going on inside his head.

And my dad goes, is there anything we can do? Anything?

You know, he's desperate, And she goes, generally, not, what year is this? This is the mid eighties, right, not just it wasn't understood.

What it was. I was just gonna say, like, you know, it's I was my under I felt like this is a classic story of the eighties. I don't think that's the response the school gives you. If this is two thousand and seven or two thousand and eight, what do you.

Think, Yeah, I think that's I think that's fair.

I think those still to this point, there are so many parents who feel helpless because there is this idea, right in my dance, is there anything we can do? And she said generally not, but you know, if the kids smart me wants it, there are a few things, but there is now even more in our society, this

I love you.

I will come to every tennis lesson. I will drive you, I will cheer you on. You will never be able to play tennis.

You just can't do it.

You don't have the coordination, you don't have the hand, eye coordination, you don't have the depth perception, you don't have the motor skills, it's never going to work, which considering I really hope that tennis was my way into asking this girl out. I was heartbroken, but I knew then my dad would always tell me the truth. And

It's interesting what you just said about you felt. You said your dad wanted you to adapt to the world that you live in, not make the world adapt to you. Right, boy, if this is not sort of what I would argue.

Yeah. I think that's a perfect point.

And I think it's one of those things, right, You've got to meet people where they're at, and the world is where it's at. Especially you know, when I was a little kid, and I think about this story for fifth grade about my dad really realizing there's a problem fifth grade going to a small private school. He comes over to check on me. I'm getting bullied every day. I'm coming home crying every day my sister.

And this is that private school. Yeah, your parents are paying yea in theory extra right, well, you know, you know, or at least more personalized more. I mean, why did

To be fair, though, you know, my parents didn't tell anybody.

They didn't tell anybody that I was diagnosed with anything because my dad said, I didn't want you to be defined by it, and I didn't want you to all you have that. And I think people can say, you know, good things are bad things about that, but it certainly was a different way, and it now forced me to know that I could work through anything but fifth grade private school. He comes in to see the pe teacher.

He goes, great, let's go see him in pee.

And the guy goes, I don't think that's a good idea, and they're looking down on all the fields and dad goes wise as well. He says, I've had to put him with the girls because I had to protect him from all the boys. So you think about that from a father's perspective, a fifth grade father hearing that the only way for the pe teacher to protect his kid is to put him with the girls.

My dad said okay, thanks and walked off.

But I think that sort of shows you where I was at in my social ability to interact with Some people are sort of magnetic in their attraction of friends and kids.

I was repellent.

So I remember my friend Ron describing the issue with his son, which was you know that you had to

Very fair?

And I needed both, you know, two halves to an IQ test, twenty points spread between the two halves represents a learning disability.

I was between genius and.

Mentally retarded, so half the test I was genius, half the test test I was mentally target so seventy plus points spread. So I needed a lot of help learning how to read words and forcing through that. And then also you pointed out social skills. So one of the things my dad did was he would take me to lunch with mister Todd.

Right. And it was easy because I didn't have any friends. I didn't have anything else to do with my life. My dad was my only friend.

And I loved interacting with adults because I could talk to them about things that I talked to my dad about, about politics, about sports, about not so much sports, but politics, business, all that kind of stuff.

And we'd go to much with mister Todd.

And this is a perfect example because I would just be badgering the hell out of you with questions, how do you book your guests, how do you decide what politicians telling the truth?

How do you come up with your questions?

On and on and on, and my dad, rather than sort of saying you know, okay, lucky, stop or enough, he would tap his watch, and that was my moment.

To be that was a social cue. He was teaching you.

That was a social queue.

So to tap his watch, that's my method message to stop talking, but also to bookmarkt right, because then we would go back and he'd say, okay, mister Todd was talking about going on vacation with his kids or taking his wife out to dinner on Saturday night. Why did you think that was the right time to ask him about his show or politics or whatever it was. And it was teaching me how to understand and see the world through as you point out, the natural social skills

And so that was the line he had to toe.

Was there a moment for you where it was like you right, got it? Yeah? Or is this a gradual thing where all of a sudden your dad said, do you realize that you know, you're no different than anybody else out there in the world.

Ook.

He always made it clear to me that I was different, and what he would tell me, you know, through the bullying and isolation of high school.

I have had a teacher in eighth grade.

Who said to me in an art class, you know, tables and art around, you know, in front of the whole class. He said, you know, if my dog was as ugly as you, I'd shave its ass and make it walk backwards. And I came home that night he just, yeah, yeah, try that one on for size.

Gosh, that's something you don't forget.

I guess, no, no, you don't, And I don't forget his name either, But we didn't put it in the book. I walked across the street back home that afternoon. My dad was waiting for me, as he was every every time that I came home from school, every day twenty and I was just crying. I said, I was just humiliated today and told them what had happened. And he talked me through it and worked through it.

And what was interesting at the end.

Of the conversation every night he'd say to me, Look, the qualities that make you unpopular now and that you are picked on now and that make you humiliated now, is what's going to be your strength later on. And it wasn't ever about academics. It wasn't ever about being smart or successful. It was about character and hard work and self esteem was earned, not given right.

You know. I started as a kid doing two hundred push.

Ups a day at six or seven years old, because Dad was like, I can teach you that hard work is rewarded and that goals matter. So that that was where he would He was very clear to me that I was different. I think you'll appreciate this, Chuck. Living where you and I both live now, I used to say I never liked anyone who liked high school, because the values of high school are so screwed up that if you like high school, there's something wrong with you.

One student council. I know, I have a friend of mine who grew up in Arlington, Leland. You'll appreciate this. I don't mean to interrupt your train of thought there, but she loves to remind like she's a native Arlingtonian,

So you have.

The point is it's a town of busybodies, right like it is. It is, it is, it is, It is that part of high school on steroids.

Yeah, look, you know, the best training for a Washington newsroom may have been middle school.

I think some people in Congress would say that as well.

I think Congress is the only one who has a lower approval rating than the media right now.

But it's interesting you say this about high school and

Yeah, no, look, I mean you think about where my dad was.

I think you have to sort of baseline this seventh grade start a new school. My parents are hoping for this change, sitting in they get called in two or three weeks into school, thinking like, hey, this is just a normal check in, right, you have kids, and you know what you know this is like and everybody sat in the principal's office, and the principal looks, starts the meeting off cold of my parents, you know, most.

Of the school here.

In fact, everybody here really thinks Lucky is quite weird. That's a seventh grade principaletize.

You know. I saw that line, you know, and you're just sitting there going, yeah, how do you become a principal writing about a kid that way? Yeah? Like it really well, I'm not trying to like, you know, sound like you fire all these people, but my god, right.

And then right, and then you know, so arrow number one through my parents' heart, and and look they know that in some ways it's true that I was really different and really odd. And then she follows up with and I think he and frankly, I think he's pretty weird too.

So what told you is that people who were supposed.

To protect me we're gonna weren't going to and thought it was my fault. Again, great training for a news but uh, the reason I went public with it is because I think we are in a reckoning about parenting in America, and I think parents need to know there is real hope. George Will wrote the forward to this and he said, this is the proof of the mountain

And mine did.

And I thought it was a really important story for people to hear.

I well, that is a that is a great way to frame it, because you know, the fact is this is true not just when it comes to parenting, which is the parents need to take more control, right, And there's there is this like perception that somehow you don't have the ability to change things. It's also true with the healthcare system, right if you don't take control of your own medical care. And by the way, remember that the doctors work for you. You don't work for the doctors.

One thousand percent. I mean, there's so many different ways to go with that.

Right when I was diagnosed with autism, I said this, you know, in the book, they didn't really know what it was.

It wasn't a spectrum.

Was either you're profoundly autistic or you're nothing and a pervasive elemental dislay.

Whatever.

Now it's one in thirty one kids boys, one in twelve.

Do you think, by the way.

What is what is your understanding of it? Are we learning to diagnose it better or is it increasing in the society.

I think the answer to that is both. And what I find interesting is is that.

There's lots of theories about what autism, what it's not.

Don't know this.

There's nobody who will tell you definitively this is what it is. This is why we're seeing this. And by the way, you Leland, who clearly was diagnosed with what we now know to be autism, just got married to this wonderful woman who you want to have kids with. Here's we know that it's a higher chance that I will have an autistic child, but we don't know why, and we don't know if there's anything that can be done either during pregnancy or.

That means that implies it's genetic.

There's some genetic component, right, But at.

The same time we are having this debate about is it outside chemicals or something like that.

No, I mean, I think the answer is we don't know, and I think, you know, I think that intel science can tell us the answer to that. We need to keep looking. It should be you know, we've cured a not cured. You can live now with AIDS. Is no longer a dessence, dozens of cancers you can live with over the past forty years. That we're destined is we can replace your joints and have you become a bionic man.

Diabetes, all this stuff and autis and you know it did.

It's not vaccines, but he could, like, come on, guys.

There's a reason results matter more than promises, just like there's a reason. Morgan and Morgan is America's largest injury law firm. For the last thirty five years, they've recovered twenty five billion dollars for more than half a million clients. It includes cases where insurance companies offered next to nothing, just hoping to get away with paying as little as possible.

It's a great point.

What is I think, you know I had I had doctor Jah and not doctor Jay Boticharia.

I have doctor John tonight.

It's amazing how TV works that way. But a Bouticharia

Is not you know.

I'm sure now he would be counseled against that because you're, you know, doing whatever.

And it was a very different way.

And I write in the book, you know and born lucky that how lucky I am also that I had two parents eighty you know, and a family say together, my parents have been married for fifty plus years. Tell the story about how they got engaged in a rip joint after three dates.

But they you know, that's not discussed at all.

Eighty percent of kids who have a disability of some type, right, especially autism, in these other issues, eighty percent of them their parents get divorced.

It's hard.

Look, you see, nobody talks to Nobody talks about how important that is.

And you do a parent some parent, and look, I don't. I'm I'm very hesitant to judge those decisions, right because none of us are in that bedroom. Okay, but you do. We see instances of this where one parent is willing to devote themselves and the other parent maybe isn't right, or the other parent feels overwhelmed or whatever it is, and when they walk away, they think they're helping and they're making it worse. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like

One thousand percent.

And look, you know, it's important to keep in mind this isn't a prescription, it's not a cure, it's not anything else, but it is it is a.

Sure story, my story for you.

It's my story.

It worked for me, it worked for my Dad's a story of hope. And look, you know my dad wrote the afterword, which I think is.

That was right. The first thing I thought of when I started reading, is I wonder how your dad feels about all this being public? And then of course you reward the reader with that.

Yeah, the afterward from my dad and the forward from George will and I had to fill two hundred and forty pages in the middle. But he noted in the afterward that the real hero in this is my mother, right and because she held not only me but him together. And you know, I didn't know this until I wrote the book. Okay, So I decided to write the book and tell this story, and I think, you know, try

At school, and I would take it out on my dad. You know.

We'd go to my bedroom and he'd sit there and listen to me, just hammer away about how angry I was and how upset I was and how hard this was and why am I having to do this and why am I having to go through it?

And he'd put me.

To bed or leave and I'd read or whatever. And I found this out now twenty five thirty years later. He'd go downstairs, be ten eleven at night. My mom would have been asleep or watching TV whatever goes to sleep, and she'd come out and find him in the living room all dark, just sitting on the couch crying himself, having internalized everything that I had been through.

She was his counselor yeah, and then you know.

He would then talk to her. I mean, it really is.

I think, you know, the the amount of the role that my mother played in what we talked about, that I had two parents and that they.

Changed your Has this changed your relationship with your mom today?

The more you learn, you know, it's a great question.

I never went to therapy right now, now every kid has a therapist, and on.

The look, I that's you know, and to me, if you have somebody to talk to, you have a therapist. Yep. Well, and that's what therapy need is for us. For those that don't have somebody to talk.

No, I don't either, But it was just it was just funny, you know, the typically in these situations, and even I think kids who have great parents they have a therapist. And but anyway, I never ad anything. So this has been like going to therapy on national television.

Right But my.

Dad and I still talk three or four times a day. I still call him every night to say good night. He is still my best friend, and that's.

Just him and I.

I don't know how else to say it is our relationship changed because of it. No, I think certainly in the course of writing this book and I talk about and tell the story of Rachel and I meeting and her sort of realizing.

That as we got to know each other better that there were clearly.

Moments that I would revert back and there still are, right to sort of my old tendencies when I'm less disciplined than I should be, and her learning to accept that. So, yeah, I mean, I think I've gained through hearing the stories and experiencing the emotion, not as a kid living in it, but reliving it as an adult.

I've gained an.

Enormous more amount of respect and gratitude for my parents than I already had, which was significant.

So you offer it up, So I would love for you to share. How did, yeah, how did you decide how to share your your autism with your now wife?

I think it just sort of came up, right.

My parents didn't tell me until I was like twenty four, twenty five that I had been diagnosed with what we now know to be autism. Right, and Rachel and I met and got set up on a blind date. Somebody said I'm going to find you your wife. The next day that person sent me a picture of Rachel and said, I found your wife.

And there you go. I don't remember, like a Okay, we need to talk, you know.

Turns out that I have whatever it was, I think probably just came up in conversation. But she has an e Q that's off the charts. Mine was near freezing.

Probably did she pick up on it.

I mean, I think she picked up on that. There was you know, sort of a peculiar you know. So there were.

Different can and sees, and I've gotten pretty good at hiding them. It still comes out sometimes, and there's times that she'll say, Okay, like you know, you're not seeing this right, or hey, you need to be more thoughtful about whatever, that kind of stuff. And you know, I

You know, I'd always been taught to do the right thing.

My dad always said, do the right thing, no matter the consequences, and I, you know, it's sort of all

Can I blame that on autism?

I don't know, but it certainly goes to there's times that sort of there there are miss social cues.

So you thought you missed a social cue in that moment.

I think if you go back and watch the tape, it's pretty clear that all of a sudden the guardrails came off.

And so you do you attribute it to your autism? Do you attribute it to here's a piece of information you know to be true and you can't believe someone is denying it.

Yeah, I think that.

I think that there's a there's an indignity to that that comes over me and sort of and I find it. And maybe it was because my dad taught me for so long how important telling the truth was and standing.

Up aunt truth that you got from your father, right, And so in some ways that's going to get passed on.

Yeah, And I found it sort offensive that she kept saying something that was just objectively untrue.

And there you go.

I don't ever like to blame you know, I blame my autism. But I mean, I'll give you another example that you know, people say, you know, well are you you know, how did you get over autism?

Well?

You never over it, you know.

Two or three weeks ago, I was with my father in law at his golf club and I was putting my golf clubs in my travel bag, and I was late, and I was focused on something else, and this older gentleman come over and wanted to talk.

And one of the sort of very.

You know, classic tendencies of autism is that you just sort of focus on a task and you just everything else gets blocked out and you kind of become obsessive.

To the point that even he disrupted your routine and that moment, you were like, I can't be disrupted, and I just was.

Focused on I have to get the backpacked.

And I was really rude, and I afterwards thought, you almost in the moment, I knew I should have just stopped what I was doing, and if I was five minutes late, fine, and I just didn't And it was just and I thought to me, you know, boy, you're better than this. You know your dad really taught and so it's still there very.

Much so, but you knew.

Yeah, in the moment, I almost couldn't help myself.

But not not, but not. All folks that have autism know that this is happening to them in a way.

Yeah, I think I think it's very true. And again, born unlucky, not a cure, not a prescription. My story I can't remember.

I it's autism society autism speaks, but says, you know, if you've met a kid with autism, you've met one kid with autism.

Yeah, so that you have to meet. You have to understand where people are.

So when you are, where is it? What do you feel like you? Where has it showcased itself as this superpower for you?

I don't know, because I don't know what it's like to live without it. I'm always me. I give that.

I give that same answer when somebody says, when I tell people that my dad died when I was sixteen? Oh what was that like? I'm like, I don't know, because I don't know any other way.

Well, you right, you just.

Don't know, right, you don't know it the other way. You just go right, And that's what you're saying is yeah. And in fact, the second I answered the question, you answered that way, I almost That's why I just knocked myself for it, because I know exactly you don't know any different because you're living your life.

Yeah, and look, you know you you right. You just talked about your dad dying when sixteen. That was really the defining moment in my dad's life.

It's the fork in the road for me. Everything goes

I hear you, I'm not a father.

I think this is the first parenting book ever written not by a father but by the kid, and.

Which I think makes it more compelling because we do a lot of these parenting books are written from the parent's perspective, and you don't know whether it really worked or not for the child, And I think this book is in some ways more powerful because it's written from your perspective rather than and you know, it's one of those things I'd love to someday ask your father how he would have you know, now that he saw your version of this, does it change how he may describe

Yeah, I think it does. Good luck getting to talk about it.

I imagine if you were willing to talk, the two of you would be to hear together. But he's this is your story to tell that.

That's what he said, And he really objects to me calling him a hero, which I think is interesting. You know, he lost his dad at sixteen. Yeah, so I think it speaks exactly what you're saying.

We got about five or so minutes here. Let's talk about our industry, the media industry. I'm really rooting hard for News Nation, thank you. And it's because what made you know there is no one answer to our media problem. Right, we need more voice and right it's a yes and situation.

Right now, I think it's an excellent analysis.

What's what do you think works and what do you think has been a struggle in this idea of trying to create something that's a bit more I don't know if you want to call it centrist, moderate, everybody's got their own description of it, but sort of somewhere broader than what we've seen on traditional cable.

Well, I would say a few things.

Number one, I think your analysis is right, yes, And I will.

Add to it that.

The economic incentives have changed in media, right, because when there were three television networks, broadcasters and broadsheet newspapers one per town.

In order to make money, they had to appeal to everybody.

You wanted to big up audience as possible.

Then as technology has changed, we've gone from broadcasting to cable, to narrow casting to YouTube everything else. So now nobody has to watch anything that questions their worldview or makes them uncomfortable or whatever it is, because of social media algorithms, is actually sort of tailored to you personally. So what has been under served is the center because people mistook

That's where most people live.

They've been awoken, and they don't they do care about sports, but now they're scared. They're scared of the extreme left and they're scared of the extreme right. So where at NewsNation we try to be is in the middle, calling out both sides. Both sides get a hard get a hard time, And I think, what's different about my show?

And two, I think when.

I meet people and see them, it used to be when I left Fox, like what happened to you?

Oh, I went to News Nation, News whatever.

And now I have people coming up to me saying, I see you on NewsNation, and I love that you give both sides a hard time, and I love that I don't agree with you all the time. And it's like, oh, okay, so it must be working.

That's a that's that second part. I mean, you're right, it's sort of like frankly, I experienced a brief period of that, like you know, for a while too, where have you gone? And then now just recently, people are saying, boy, you're in my feeds all the time. I now see it, I'm like, Okay, I'm this this thing is is working. It is, but it is a it does feel like one of my favorite expressions is peeing and a hurricane. Right, Sometimes it feels I'm a look, I grew up so

Look, I totally hear you. And that's the challenge in the newsroom every day.

And I and I think, to a certain extent, you know, it's the challenge for all of us of what is important, right because there is a curators.

I look at it this way, in some ways we're all the same, and that we're all trying to curate what we think people should be focusing on Yeah, and you know, and and now there's a lot of curators out there. We used to have three. As you point out, it was Walter, it was mister Brinkley, right, and it was whatever combination of unknown people. ABC would come up with, well said right, well, yeah till Jennings really right. NBC and ABC had had some NBC and CBS had real stability,

Look, I think it goes back to all news is biased, right, because it's done by humans, and it's also.

You know what I like to do. I checked my pulse and people ask me about bias, and I'm like, you know, we're all born with original bias.

Right.

You just talked about you had two parents. Not everybody's born to two parents. Not everybody's born right, like you know, not everybody's born in a situation that can survive, a challenge that's in health or whatever, and it shapes you.

Look, I was always told bias isn't having an opinion, it's excluding opinions. That's how That's how I was taught, and I keep that in mind actually sort of as a north star. And look, bias isn't so much how you cover the news, it's what you cover. Is you just pointed out because of all your cover is Epstein, There's a lot of other stories out there that have.

Different you've made a decision not to cover, right.

So.

Yeah, I mean I think it is. It's huge in terms of what is decided to be covered. What I think I try to think about, and you know, I grew up in Missouri. I come from you know, middle class, upper middle class family in the city or Saint Louis. Saint Louis, but I spent a lot of time outside of Saint Louis and I and I kind of try to go back, and I spent a lot of time in local news and small markets, and I spend a lot of time you know, in Colorado in small markets.

What are people talking about? How is it?

How are their lives being changed and affected? And in trying to cover it through that prism, you know why this matters.

You came up through the business, through local markets.

I did.

Most people younger than you have not. I know, it's terrible, I and I didn't. I came in a different way.

Well I'm going to give you one quick thing, But you were out in the field. Sure know what it's like to hustle the stories, not in Washington, not you know what it's like to be on the trail.

But the reason I bring up local is that I really believe the loss of local is why they don't trust us as much as they usual. Because local was our character reference for the national right. People knew who

Look, I got taught in one of the best parts of writing Born Lucky is having been able to say really nice things about people who helped me, who understood that I was a weird kid and socially awkward and therefore was a target and protected me or took a chance on me in one way or another. So we use the names of all the really nice people, And I didn't use the names of anybody who was mean to me because it wasn't about settling scores, and I thought that was important.

Some people would have done it the exact opposite way.

Well, I am my father's son, but a guy named Brad Remington, who is my first news director in Saint Louis, Missouri, when I was an intern at KTBI and then hired me as an anchor at KTVR and Denver.

Content drives viewership.

If you put out good content, they will come because people are the viewer, and people are smart. They are extraordinarily interested in their own city, town, state, country, and that if you fill that void with good, meaningful news and information, people will respond to it. And I think that that is the lesson that good journalism is rewarded because it's something that people crave and always have.

People always want to.

Know what the news is, and I so, yes, it's become commoditized. The flip side of that is, I think that if you if you offer something special, if you if you really offer people compelling, must read, must know information. I remember there was research done in the nineteen nineties about why people watch local news.

The number one reason was the weather.

The number two reason was so they didn't sound stupid at the water cooler. So if you can provide them that information and that context, well.

That's a thing that's always a reminder that what we really are as educators, we just never call ourselves that. I like that because ultimately we're helping. We're giving people information they didn't know. Hopefully, if we're a good teacher, we're putting it in context. If we're a great teacher, we're explaining you know, the origin of it and all those things. But ultimately we're educators and are you are

Well, if it helps people, and if it helps parents and family members of kids who are struggling, whatever it was, to be more supportive, to show up more for those kids, to know that they're really making a difference, it's worth it.

Look the number, you know. The simplest way I've described it is that this is a reminder that parenting is.

Everything well, and I hope that there's enough parents who gained something from it that it makes it so that there's some lives that have been changed, and then it'll be worth it. So, I mean, you know, Born Lucky is my story. I always say, you know, it is my book. It's about me, but it's not for me. It's for parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles who who have a kid, and what parent doesn't want to help.

Their kid one that's a reminder what we all have in common. Hey, Leland, congratulations, Thanks Chuck,