Growing Up with Autism and a Father’s Tough Love — Leland Vittert (NewsNation)

 

Airdate: October 1, 2025

Julie Rose: When is "tough love" better than going easy on a kid who's different?

Leland Vittert: My dad's philosophy on this, was that in the real world, those accommodations aren't gonna be given, so he better start learning now that you've got to be uncomfortable, right? You have to endure the hardships.

Julie Rose: Hey, it's Julie. Welcome to Uncomfy, a show about sticking with moments that challenge us even when they're uncomfortable. And I know you're probably wondering, "Why would anybody choose to be uncomfortable?" But I know from personal experience, and maybe you do too, that sometimes a little discomfort has benefits if we can stay open and curious about it. And that's what we're here to explore, so let's get Uncomfy. Today, I'm joined by Leland Vittert. He is the Chief Washington Anchor at NewsNation and host of On Balance with Leland Vittert. Before joining NewsNation, he spent a decade as a foreign correspondent and anchor at Fox News, and now he has a new memoir. It's called "Born Lucky: A Dedicated Father, A Grateful Son, and My Journey with Autism." Such a pleasure to have Leland Vittert with us today. Welcome.

Leland Vittert: Julie, great to be with you, and, uh, I appreciate the title of the, uh, of the podcast given, given how much, uh, of our lives we spend uncomfortable and how helpful it is.

Julie Rose: Th, thank you, and this book makes it abundantly clear how much discomfort you've experienced and how you've harnessed that with the help of your father. Just kind of starting with the big picture question, though, this is such a personal story, and I know you've mentioned on your show that this isn't a story you've told publicly before, it seems deeply uncomfortable to kind of expose it to the world. Why are you doing this?

Leland Vittert: Look, I think it is really important to let parents know that there's hope. You've got 20 million kids who are diagnosed with some kind of developmental disability, autism, ADHD, anxiety, whatever it is, um, then you've got another huge group that are having problems with bullying and fitting in and finding their way, then you've got kids who have physical disabilities as well, so there's a lot of parents who are out there struggling. I think the, the answer here, to quote George Will, is this is a story about, "the mountain moving power of parental love," and it's proving to parents that whatever struggle your kid is facing, you really can make an enormous difference, and we go through the ways that my father fought for me, not to shape the world for me or to get more accommodations, but to help shape me for the world, and, to your point, a lot of those were really uncomfortable. One of the stories we tell in the book is an art teacher in eighth grade, one of the, you know, the teachers would get in on the bullying, and this art teacher, in front of everyone, said to me, "If my dog was as ugly as you, I would shave its a** and make it walk backwards," so everybody erupts in laughter, on and on and on. I go home, my dad's waiting for me, uh, as he always did at 4:20 when I got out of school, uh, and he said, "How, how was school?" And I said, "Well, I got humiliated today," and obviously there was a lot of tears and upsetness and everything else that went through it, um, and the next day dad made me go back to art class. So, I think that point of forcing a kid to be uncomfortable and to confront those issues head on, um, when I got blackballed or didn't get a bid to any fraternity, um, as a, as a kid in college, my dad's first instinct wasn't to say, "Well, transfer schools," it was to convince me to go find another fraternity that I might be interested in. So, that kind of push to be uncomfortable and to fight through really is at the core of the book.

Julie Rose: When did you start to sense that you were different, that, and did your parents start to sense that maybe, you know, maybe something was up here?

Leland Vittert: It's a great question. Um, I've only known me as me. Uh, I think that there was a realization in high school, and then especially in college, that my mind worked differently. When I was very little, 3, 4, 5, my parents, uh, had been told by teachers to have me evaluated; they eventually did. The initial testing showed that, when it came to IQ, my EQ was near freezing levels, um, but my IQ was somewhere between mentally retarded in some areas and genius in others. So, 20 points represents a learning disability in the IQ score spread, um, between the two halves, mine was 70 points. So, in the words of one of the psychologists, "It's very difficult to know what's going on inside this kid's mind," and they diagnosed me with what they called at the time, uh, I think it was "pervasive developmental delay" and "social blindness." There were all these different terms. Um, autism, at the time, was only diagnosed in kids who would, we would now know as "profound autism," so nonverbal and other kinds of issues. Uh, but my dad said, "You know, what can we do?" And there was all these offers of help and accommodations and special teachers and more time on tests and on and on, and he said, "None of that." Um, he said, "I'm going to teach Lucky how to adapt to the world," both socially and then obviously pushing me in other ways.

Julie Rose: "Lucky" was your nickname from birth. I guess there was a pretty traumatic birth, and you were lucky to get out of it. Um, so, and so you say EQ was, like, non-existent, emotional intelligence, effectively? So, what were some of the things that were particularly challenging for you that, that your, and, and in this case it was really your father who kind of just leaned in and said, "Well, I'm gonna help him figure this out." What were some of those things?

Leland Vittert: There's this moment in the book where my father, uh, I think I was in fifth grade, fourth grade, maybe, and it was clear I was different. You know, if kids would push me in line or bump into me in line, I would turn around and hit them. I had no friends, I never got invited to a birthday party or a play date or any kind of get together ever. You know, some people sort of attract friends like a magnet? I kind of repelled kids my own age. But when I was in fourth or fifth grade, my dad showed up at the little school I was going to, uh, during PE time, and he said, "Oh, you know, his class is in PE," and he walked up and asked the gym teacher, you know, how I was doing, and the gym teacher said, "Well, um, you know, he's okay. He's out, he's out playing right now, uh, soccer," and my dad said, "Oh, great, let me go see him," and the guy said, "Well, I don't think we should do that. He's, he's with the girls. I have him with the girls." So, um, I was bullied so bad and such an outcast that they would have me go play with the girls while the guys played soccer so that I wouldn't get bullied. But, um, it was very clear to me that I, you know, and my parents I had issues, the difference was they never allowed me to be labeled or diagnosed. My dad said, "I'm gonna just work on fixing Lucky." So, you had to go back to school, you had to get bullied, you had to endure that; he supported me through that. And then the flip side, for example, was when we'd have social interactions, if I was with my parents when they had friends over there was, you know, parties or anything else, my dad would put me in these social situations, which were way beyond my years, but when I would talk too much, he would start tapping his watch for me to stop talking. So, I'd, you know, be interrupting or I'd be telling a story or anything else. Maybe talking too much like I am now; you wanna tap your watch. And my dad would tap my watch, tap his watch, and that was my signal to stop talking, and then after that we would sort of post-game, almost like watching game film, the conversations and social interactions to try to teach me that EQ that a lot of people have natively.

Julie Rose: And then, like, I mean, would you get it? I mean, how, how were you feeling about all of this, right?

Leland Vittert: It's a, it's a great question. Um, I was much better around adults. There's sort of some funny moments in the book where you see me as this six, seven, eight-year-old talking about the Cold War and talking about the either '88 or '92 election and being able to sort of converse with adults on adult subjects so long as they didn't mind how much I talked. But, yeah, I, I, I was started, it, it, it took a while, really, it took until I was certainly out of college to really learn social rhythm, and I, I would tell anyone that, you know, I still have those tendencies. I'm always still me, but I've learned to sort of discipline them, harness them, focus them with my dad's help, and I think that's why this book applies not just to autism, right, but to all these other issues, and, and problems growing up that kids have because it, it shows how my dad helped me deal with them rather than be limited by them, right, rather than being defined by the diagnosis, taught me that the, the label really doesn't matter and shouldn't allow you, shouldn't force you to be put in a box.

Julie Rose: Uh, but you also, your parents, your father in particular, also really rejected any kind of accommodation, right, any sort of acknowledgement of, "Look, this is hard for Leland, and so he needs a little more time to do X, Y, and Z," or, "We're not gonna put him in this because that's just outside of his capabilities," right?

Leland Vittert: Yeah, no, there, there, there was none of that, um, and by, by, really by design, right? My dad's philosophy on this, and I think it makes a real point, was that in the real world, those accommodations aren't gonna be given, so he better start learning now that you've got to be uncomfortable, right? You have to endure the hardships for a couple reasons. One, it shapes you. It, it helps you learn how the world works and how to get along with people, but I think also the second part of it is you know you can get through it, right, um, and a big part of being uncomfortable is proving to yourself the next time you're uncomfortable, maybe even a little more uncomfortable, that you can get through it.

Julie Rose: Was there a risk, though, do you think, in hindsight, that it, it could have, it could have not worked for you? Like, maybe it could, it could have actually only broken you?

Leland Vittert: Yeah, I think there were times, certainly, I felt broken. Um, my dad, and I didn't know this until we wrote the book, that, you know, I would come home and, in the words of my mother, we, they would have to sort of "put me back together" every day, and I would oftentimes be really angry and I would yell at my dad or I would cry, or I would have all these emotions, and it was sort of the only person that I could take it out on because at school it was sort of a battle every day, and he, uh, would then leave my room after I went to bed, and I would go to sleep, and he would go into the living room and start crying himself, so I think, yeah, I think there was a lot of times that everyone sort of wanted to give up. I think the acknowledgement was the hardship, the difficulty, what you're going through now, and this was his message to me over and over again, was, "What you're going through now is gonna make you stronger, better, uh, a better friend, a better husband, uh, a better businessman, worker, whatever you wanna call it, um, in life, and it's sort of the, these hardships are really worth it." And I, it's an important point to bring up, right, that the book isn't, like, a prescription, it's not a cure; this is my story, and I think people will take a lot of different things from it, I hope they do, but it's not meant to be a, a How-to manual for kids, and I think, but I think it should inspire parents that at a time when the experts tell every parent, you know, "Look, this is your kid. This is who they are. You have to just let them be them," that there is another way, and that challenging them and supporting them in the ways that my parents did, which was incredible, um, can really make a huge difference.

Julie Rose: Yeah, and thinking about your, um, your autism, then, is, do you think that it, in what ways do you think it has shaped the kind of, the kind of journalist that you are, the kind of host that you are?

Leland Vittert: Look, I don't know any other way, right? I'm me, and I never had therapy. Uh, this book, um, writing this book is like doing therapy on, on national television and every podcast, and, um, there were a lot of memories that, you know, I think probably as a kid, there were a lot of times that I don't know whether I would've benefited or not, but I never had any, so I, I guess I don't know any other way but me being me. I think I probably take things pretty literally. Um, I have a real soft spot for people who are being hurt, um, and for injustice, and I think that is something that's really defined my reporting, um, as really feeling for people who are being hurt and being marginalized and being unfairly persecuted, um, in a way that probably a lot of journalists, I think, may feel, but I think I, since I know what it's like, it's a different reaction.

Julie Rose: Are you hearing from people, as the book is starting to get some publicity, and obviously as you're in such a high profile position, and have been for the last 15 years on television, do you hear from people who knew you back then,

Leland Vittert: yeah,

Julie Rose: who, treated you, mistreated you, maybe?

Leland Vittert: It's, it's a, so there's, there's this really funny moment in the book where this parent of a child who had been horrible to me, um, in high school, really just awful in so many ways, that I'm in Libya and was running with the rebels. It was sort of my first big moment as a foreign correspondent or second, but it was, I was sort of the guy, uh, in Libya during the Arab Spring, and I got an email from one of the parents of the kid who had been just so awful to me, telling me how proud he was of me. That has meant, that sort of has stuck with me as a moment of, of surprise, and yeah, I think there's a lot of people who have come and said, "You know, I had no idea. I had no idea," um, and then I've had other people who go, "You know, this explains an awful lot about you. Now I get it." Um, so I think there's, there's been both of those reactions probably depending on how well people know me and how honest people are gonna be, uh, but yeah, it's been, it's been nice to hear. I think the most, the most important thing I've heard from is from parents who say, "My kid is either on the spectrum," or, "My kid struggles with this," or, "My kid struggles with that, and this gives me so much hope," and that's really what the whole goal is.

Julie Rose: And how's your dad feel about this? mean, that's one of the things that comes through so clearly in the book, that this is really a love letter to him, and you, I mean, you say, quite frankly at times, he, he was your only friend, your very best friend, your only friend.

Leland Vittert: Well, he's still my best friend. I mean, we still talk, you know, half a dozen times a day. I still call him every night to say goodnight, so he still is my best friend. Um,you know, one of the things he taught me, and we talk about this a lot in the book, is that, "You achieve things for achievement's sake, not for the accolades," and that was something that was impressed upon him by his father, so I think he's probably really happy we're trying to help people, and we are able to help people, and I think as he's always taught me to be very uncomfortable with anything that's about you, uh, because that's not, you know, anything that focuses a light on you is not where you should be. You should be about achievement, not about the accolades that come with it.

Julie Rose: The book is called "Born Lucky: A Dedicated Father, A Grateful Son, and My Journey with Autism." It's by Leland Vittert, who's a journalist, a former foreign correspondent and anchor at Fox News, now host of his own show On Balance with Leland Vittert on NewsNation, and you can check out more about the book at bornluckybook.com. Leland, thank you so much for sharing your story. I really have enjoyed chatting with you today.

Leland Vittert: Fantastic, Julie. Keep up the great work.

Julie Rose: And thank you for getting Uncomfy with us today. I'd love to hear what you think about Leland Vittert's story. What are your own experiences with autism, neurodiversity, bullying, just being different, helping kids who are different? Email uncomfy@byu.edu or connect with us on social media; we are @uncomfy.podcast on Instagram. Let's keep this conversation going. Uncomfy is a BYUradio podcast. Samuel Benson produces it, and the team includes Hyobin Kim and Sam Payne. Our theme music was composed by Kelsey Nay. I'm Julie Rose. Can't wait to get Uncomfy with you again next week.