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entrepreneurs like you. Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash setup. Welcome back to the Don Lemon Show, everyone.

This episode is going to be a little different.

It's going to be, I think, more serious than things that we usually talk about, but it's definitely worth your while to pay close attention. It may even be a little bit somber, but I'm hoping maybe, hopefully that's not so, okay? I'm hoping you're going to learn something about my next guest. And that is Sophia Nelson. Sophia is a Detroit-based public defender who used to be close friends and is a law school classmate of J.D. Vance.

Now, last month, Sophia made public scores of emails that she, and text messages, as a matter of fact,

that she shared with Vance or Bance shared with her,

illustrating just how much the man has changed over the last few years.

Sophia, thank you for joining me. How you doing?

Good afternoon, Don. Thank you for having me. I'm doing well.

Yeah, I can't imagine for you that the last few weeks have been easy.

It's been a surreal, a strange experience for sure.

I'm a relatively private person living my normal life here in Detroit, but I think truth is

important, so I'm happy to tell the truth.

Yeah.

Well, again, thank you for joining us. So let's go back and then we'll get into what's happening now.

How did you first get to know J.D. Vance? Do you remember the first time that you two ever met?

Yeah, we would have met during our first year orientation at Yale Law School. We were assigned to the same small group,

which means we took all of our first

year courses together. So I would have met him in the fall of 2010. I didn't have, like, I don't

have a distinct memory of our first encounter or anything. I know that's disappointing for the media.

But I remember, you know, genuinely really being drawn to him, liking him.

We both come from the industrial Midwest.

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