Journalist and author Anderson Cooper revealed fascinating insights on the "puzzle" of his life and family heritage during a 20-minute interview with Glenn on radio Friday morning.
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As the primary anchor of the CNN news show Anderson Cooper 360°, Cooper has made a great impact on Glenn by asking tough, honest questions to those he interviews --- on both sides of the aisle.
"He takes off the gloves and asks the questions. Both sides. I think he's the most fair journalist in America today," Glenn said. "I don't agree with him on a lot of stuff, but I think he honestly tries to understand."
Cooper recently released a new book, The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love, and Loss, which is also a documentary on HBO.
In addition to discussing some of his adventures, such as diving with sharks and visiting war-zones, Cooper opened up to Glenn about some of the more personal struggles he faced with his family and during his childhood. He explained how some of these experiences led to his near-obsession with survival.
"My dad died when I was ten. And from age 11, I knew --- I felt like, this ship is sinking and I need to prepare. And I need to --- you know, I need to work. I need to get a job. I need to start earning money. I need to prepare myself for whatever is going to come down," Cooper said.
After getting a job as a child model when he was 11 years old, Cooper started taking survival courses in the wilderness, "Because I literally wanted to learn how to survive," he explained.
"Out of college, I started going to wars," he continued. "I made a fake press pass. I borrowed a camera, and I just started going to wars by myself. One, because I was interested in shooting stories. But also, I was interested in survival, on why two people growing up in a family, why one person survives and the other doesn't. Why my brother died and I didn't. And I wanted to make sure that I could survive no matter what happened, if war came to the United States or whatever it was."
Many more of these details can be found in Cooper's book, which Glenn described as one of the best books he's read in a long time.
"It is --- on so many levels --- about history. It is about America's royal family. It's about your family. It's about a mother and a son who really never talked. It is amazing," Glenn said.
At one point during the interview, Glenn stopped and just gave Cooper a look of amazement.
"You are a puzzle because you are --- I think, and I don't mean this with any of the bad stuff that may go along with it --- but you are a man who is probably a lot like Commodore Vanderbilt, that just doesn't say no."
A down-to-earth Cooper admitted he hadn't studied up on Commodore Vanderbilt --- the original patriarch of the Vanderbilt family.
"I'm a big believer in sort of plunging head-first into the things that scare you most. And I don't know much about Commodore Vanderbilt. I actually just started reading history of him for the first time," Cooper said.
He continued.
"I just didn't think any good could come of that," he explained. "My dad grew up poor on a farm in Mississippi. To me, that was --- I was like, okay, there's a benefit for paying attention to that background. But the Vanderbilt thing, it just seems fancy, and it's not real."
Cooper said he'd never visited the famed Biltmore, George Vanderbilt's 8,000-acre estate in North Carolina --- a destination point for many Americans and tourists around the world.
The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love, and Loss, which Cooper wrote to encourage people to talk with their aging parents, is available in bookstores now.
Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:
Featured Image: Anderson Cooper on The Glenn Beck Program, May 13, 2016.