Speaker 1: And joining me now is somebody I've known a long time.
Speaker 1: We share a love of the Miami Hurricanes. We both
Speaker 1: grew up in South South Florida. I always forget exactly
Speaker 1: where you grew up, Billy Miami. I grew up in Miami.
Speaker 1: In Miami, which part of Miami.
Speaker 2: On northeast mind, like just east of Joe Robbie Stadium. Right,
Speaker 2: you were sort of an Aventura boy. Well, Aventurer didn't exist,
Speaker 2: but we you were just we're between ninety five and
Speaker 2: Aventur and this sort of No, let's just let's put
Speaker 2: it in good Miami terms. I was a Dadland Mall
Speaker 2: kid and occasionally a cutler Ridge Mall kid. Were you yeah,
Speaker 2: my god, you lived in Guanta. My grandfather lived in
Speaker 2: p ri.
Speaker 3: No, that is you are. Yeah, you're a Southwest kid.
Speaker 1: I was very northeast and there were those were the
Speaker 1: two like get out, those were sort of the two
Speaker 1: suburban pockets.
Speaker 2: Arguably, Yeah, and you would know there would be really
Speaker 2: little to no reason for you to ever venture to
Speaker 2: that end of the.
Speaker 1: I know, going to north North part of the county
Speaker 1: is like going to Sarasota for me, Like it's just
Speaker 1: like could be all the same.
Speaker 2: And now more than ever. In thosees it could take
Speaker 2: about a half hour. Now it takes about the mountains.
Speaker 1: It might be easier to fly to Sarasota. But Billy,
Speaker 1: you are are like I said that, probably the definitive
Speaker 1: documentary slash film, because I think you're you're one of
Speaker 1: these documentarians. It's a filmmaker who does journalism. I would say,
Speaker 1: there's two types. You know, we know there's I just
Speaker 1: interviewed the the gentleman behind the new Orwell doc that's
Speaker 1: out two plus two equals five. And it's very much
Speaker 1: a filmmaker who does journalism, not just a bunch of
Speaker 1: talking heads and cocaine cowboys. To this day does a
Speaker 1: better job of explaining Miami in the eighties than any
Speaker 1: other entity you can watch. And I think I think
Speaker 1: your success since then proves that. And I think you
Speaker 1: did do this and so you found there is so
Speaker 1: many rich stories in Miami to tell and you have
Speaker 1: another one, Men of War. It couldn't be more well timed.
Speaker 1: It actually came out last year. You can see it
Speaker 1: everywhere right Apple, Amazon, Yeah, anywhere you want to get this.
Speaker 1: It is about it's like Bay of Pigs, for Venezuela.
Speaker 1: Is that? How am I doing?
Speaker 2: Like, yes, someone said, like Bay of Pigs. What they
Speaker 2: call it Bay of Piglets? But someone someone described it
Speaker 2: as Rambo meets Firefest.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I remember when it came out, when I
Speaker 1: first read about it, I'm like, wow, what this is
Speaker 1: interesting And I can't wait to talk to Billy about this. Now,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, we we have our interview in
Speaker 1: the United States government. It's taken over. It's amazing.
Speaker 3: Where so kind of like semi relevant on the verge
Speaker 3: of war with Venezuela and with our documentary about a
Speaker 3: failed coup of Venezuela that was what happened like five
Speaker 3: four years ago.
Speaker 1: But so here we are. Tell me the story. And
Speaker 1: you know, in Miami you can always find somebody who
Speaker 1: claims they're going to be starting something somewhere.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, this is a perfect racking tour.
Speaker 2: Our company Racin Tour, which has been in Miami Beach
Speaker 2: for twenty five years.
Speaker 3: And you mentioned Cocaine Cowboys. It turns twenty next year.
Speaker 3: Next year is the twentieth anniversary of the first Cocaine
Speaker 3: Cowboys documentary. I made it when I was ten. It's
Speaker 3: true of course you did, and of course you did this.
Speaker 2: And so this is what I love to tell people,
Speaker 2: by the way, why it's so, you know, because I
Speaker 2: have often that people you grew up in Miami in
Speaker 2: the eighties, you know, it was our cocaine everywhere, And
Speaker 2: I'm like, you know, it's the strangest thing. It was everywhere,
Speaker 2: But if you weren't involved, it was nowhere. And I
Speaker 2: literally lived next door to somebody who worked for one
Speaker 2: of these cartels, who couldn't have been a better neighbor,
Speaker 2: who was just sort of a like, And I didn't
Speaker 2: fully know it until after I left, how connected they were,
Speaker 2: and it was always happening and.
Speaker 1: Right around us. But if you show if you weren't involved,
Speaker 1: you never saw it well in your doc cap sure
Speaker 1: my understanding of it even better.
Speaker 3: The only.
Speaker 2: Real world successful case study of Reagan's trickle down economics
Speaker 2: is Miami in the Cocaine Boom, because it really did
Speaker 2: the rising tide, at the risk of using a climate
Speaker 2: change metaphor, really did raise all the ships. And you
Speaker 2: saw that all over your neighborhood, but you weren't necessarily touched,
Speaker 2: like you didn't have to even be in the drug
Speaker 2: business to be positively or negatively for that matter, impacted
Speaker 2: by it. But it wasn't like this idea that drugs
Speaker 2: were everywhere. Cocaine was everywhere, but the money, I feel
Speaker 2: was everywhere.
Speaker 1: Like you like, no, I've always I've compared it to
Speaker 1: and I think we've had this conversation. What bootlegging meant
Speaker 1: to Chicago is what the cocaine sort of gang's cartels,
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call them, meant for the rise
Speaker 1: of Miami. We don't have what the modern Miami without
Speaker 1: these guys, just like you wouldn't have had the modern
Speaker 1: Chicago without the criminal element.
Speaker 2: It's a gold rush. It was a gold Russian dodge city.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's exactly what it was. So mena war
Speaker 2: this So listen when you know they had me at
Speaker 2: Venezuelan coop hatched in a we work in downtown Miami.
Speaker 3: I mean, you have my attention.
Speaker 2: You know this is our this is our genre, right,
Speaker 2: Florida fuckery, which which I can also sum up as
Speaker 2: like Florida man behaving badly with international implications, And that's
Speaker 2: kind of that's that's really what this is. And and
Speaker 2: what was even more intriguing about it for me is
Speaker 2: that like we always look for that irreverence and that comedy.
Speaker 3: Dare I say in our stories especially.
Speaker 1: There's like like Argo had this, you know, right, and
Speaker 1: you yours is real life the way you capture it.
Speaker 3: It's a great guy.
Speaker 2: I haven't heard that Argo is a great comparison, uh
Speaker 2: for for this and and it does it. It kind
Speaker 2: of starts out as this like irreverent, like geopolitical action thriller,
Speaker 2: but like by the Coen Brothers almost, and then it
Speaker 2: evolves into I think a pretty surprising character study and
Speaker 2: of this like of this damaged war hero and this
Speaker 2: exploration about like what happens to captain America's and g
Speaker 2: I jans when governments are done playing with them and
Speaker 2: in this case, they kind of are never done playing
Speaker 2: with them. And this idea of like a generation of
Speaker 2: perpetual war or I should say, now multiple generations of
Speaker 2: Americans who are who were us trapped in a perpetual war,
Speaker 2: and then this idea that what do you do with
Speaker 2: these guys after we've invested millions of dollars in their
Speaker 2: training and their deployments. In this case, Jordan Gudreau, who
Speaker 2: is a legit war hero and you know, with with
Speaker 2: a dozen deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan starting literally at
Speaker 2: his age of adulthood, all the way.
Speaker 1: And this is one of those does any human Can
Speaker 1: any human do a dozen right like I've done? You know,
Speaker 1: as you know, I love me a good document I
Speaker 1: promote festivals when I can. I've probably I've been, I know,
Speaker 1: I've helped with two or three of them, showcase these
Speaker 1: documentaries about how this stuff just totally damages guys after
Speaker 1: the third or fourth tour, and add doesn't I mean
Speaker 1: it's it's it's I don't know if the human brain
Speaker 1: can handle it, and and his could until it couldn't anymore.
Speaker 1: And it's it's really something to just see how we
Speaker 1: abuse these men and women when they come home, and by.
Speaker 2: Abusing them just by doing nothing for them, like providing
Speaker 2: little to know, so.
Speaker 1: We break them emotionally. We make that where they are
Speaker 1: incapable of just having normal interactions and normal relations. It's
Speaker 1: it's it's a but hey, this is Pete Haikseth's Warrior Ethos, right, Well,
Speaker 1: this is a human tragedy. And if it's if it
Speaker 1: applies to this guy, it applies to you know, mountless
Speaker 1: managed women, you know, coming back from the His grandfather
Speaker 1: was his hero, who fought in World War One, trained
Speaker 1: soldiers for World War Two. But he describes accurately he
Speaker 1: went to war and then he came home from war
Speaker 1: and that was the end of it. This guy lived
Speaker 1: in war and would occasionally get a hiatus, you know,
Speaker 1: to come back home.
Speaker 3: But for him, there was no home for him. It
Speaker 3: was Fort Brad was his home.
Speaker 2: Because he was a Canadian kid who was kind of
Speaker 2: a rough kid in school and decided to go to
Speaker 2: the into the military early in Canada. Needed his mother
Speaker 2: to sign off because he was only straightened himself out.
Speaker 1: That's always one of those, yeah stories.
Speaker 3: One of those exactly.
Speaker 2: And his mom had to sign off on it because
Speaker 2: he was only seventeen. And then he goes into the
Speaker 2: Canadian military and he's bored. He's bored because he knows
Speaker 2: he's never going to see any action and there's not
Speaker 2: a lot going on. So he decides to move to
Speaker 2: the United States and join the army the military here,
Speaker 2: and he does so less than one year before the
Speaker 2: nine to eleven terrorist attacks. And so he describes a
Speaker 2: scene at Fort Brad. He well, as he often does,
Speaker 2: He compares it to pop culture and to movies. He's
Speaker 2: he's kind of a he's kind of a postmodern soldier
Speaker 2: in the way the Sopranos were postmodern gangsters. You know,
Speaker 2: they're constantly referencing the pop culture that they are both
Speaker 2: like making new and emulating at the same time.
Speaker 3: It's like it's life imitating art imitating life.
Speaker 1: See how I described Trump. I say, he's a movie mobster.
Speaker 1: Like he's not a real mobster, but he plays a
Speaker 1: movie mobster in real life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, life imitating art imitating life imitating art. It's like this,
Speaker 2: it's this. We're stuck in that postmodern cycle now. And
Speaker 2: that's what this guy. Jordan's constantly making allusions to James Bond.
Speaker 2: I think he has double O seven in his email address,
Speaker 2: you know, to Jason Bourne, to Rambo, to in this case,
Speaker 2: Starship Trooper. He wants to be a super soldier, is
Speaker 2: what you're sapaying. And he was for a for a time.
Speaker 2: There's no denying it. And but like this is you
Speaker 2: were talking about sort of the mentality and and and
Speaker 2: what the human brain is capable of as a warrior.
Speaker 2: And he described this scene comparing it to Starship Troopers
Speaker 2: where everybody cannot suppress their joy at going to war,
Speaker 2: like the fist pumping and the the high fiving and
Speaker 2: like we're going to war like so where the rest
Speaker 2: of us were watching, we can put ourselves in that moment,
Speaker 2: watching the Twin Towers on television and just the state
Speaker 2: of mind that we were in a shock of fear,
Speaker 2: of uncertainty. These guys on base were like, fuck yeah,
Speaker 2: you know that Team America, you know America.
Speaker 3: Fuck yeah, Like that's going crazy, you know. But but
Speaker 3: again that's a mentality.
Speaker 2: And and there's a moment where I'm like, fuck yeah,
Speaker 2: I want you on that wall.
Speaker 3: I need you on that wall.
Speaker 1: And by the way, there are times you want those
Speaker 1: are the soldiers you want there, you know, right, those
Speaker 1: are the guys you want out there if if shit's
Speaker 1: gonna happen.
Speaker 2: And he is one of those guys. And they and
Speaker 2: he renounced his Canadian citizenship so that he could expedite
Speaker 2: his Green Beret, his Special Forces training, and so he
Speaker 2: could get the you know, the the access to classified
Speaker 2: you know, the clearance that he needed. And he was
Speaker 2: and he became an American hero like kind of overnight.
Speaker 1: So how does he get into the world of trying
Speaker 1: to overthrow Maduroy.
Speaker 2: It's like us, Chuck, when we're done with corporate media,
Speaker 2: we go, Indy, right, we go, we become mercenaries.
Speaker 3: That's that's kind of well, that's what he became.
Speaker 1: He's right, one of those mercenaries, right.
Speaker 2: He wanted to be Eric Prince when he grew up,
Speaker 2: you know, That's that's what he wanted to do. And
Speaker 2: so he starts this company. Here's a deleted scene. You
Speaker 2: didn't get this. It's really interesting. He starts his company,
Speaker 2: Silver Core in like Sarasota, Florida, shortly after the the tragedy, well,
Speaker 2: the mass shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas implantation. He gets
Speaker 2: this one, I think is a very good idea many
Speaker 2: years later, I feel like Lindsay Graham floated it on
Speaker 2: an interview someone. But Jordan's idea was that in order
Speaker 2: to make work and protect schools, he was going to
Speaker 2: start a company that took former soldiers, retired soldiers in
Speaker 2: plane clothes or in suits and ties, and was going
Speaker 2: to get contracts with school boards or public schools and
Speaker 2: systems and put these guys into schools as safety officers.
Speaker 2: Security whatever you want to call them.
Speaker 1: Better trained than than probably regular law enforcement officers at
Speaker 1: least on that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and also again like what do these guys do.
Speaker 2: We've spent, we've invested as taxpayers as a military, so
Speaker 2: much money in training these men and women.
Speaker 3: Why not why not get the roi, you know, so
Speaker 3: to speak.
Speaker 2: And so this was his idea, and he started to
Speaker 2: go to like, you know, PTA conventions and school board
Speaker 2: conventions and started it never quite got off the ground,
Speaker 2: but that's where this started. And it evolved into an
Speaker 2: opportunity to go to Puerto Rico after the hurricane and
Speaker 2: do some hurricane relief and security efforts down there. And
Speaker 2: then kind of one thing led to another and he
Speaker 2: winds up working a Trump rally I think in Tampa,
Speaker 2: Florida as security, playing close security. This is pre twenty
Speaker 2: sixteen so or during the time I should say during
Speaker 2: the twenty sixteen campaign.
Speaker 3: And now he.
Speaker 2: Kind of falls into some kind of upper level people
Speaker 2: in the first Trump administration, including this guy Keith Schiller,
Speaker 2: who was the President's body man from.
Speaker 1: Miss Trump body man for he was the president.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it was, I mean, the kind of
Speaker 2: loyalty that this president demands the kind of guy who
Speaker 2: was not just by his side but in front of him,
Speaker 2: you know, uh, for decades at the truck organization. And
Speaker 2: so this guy is working for a company and they
Speaker 2: start having conversations about what they're calling humanitarian aid in Venezuela.
Speaker 2: I think I should maybe should I do air quotes.
Speaker 1: I'm doing quotes for it. Yeah, video so hard.
Speaker 3: I'm getting crympal tunnel right now from my haircut.
Speaker 2: But like, but so there is some discrepancy about this
Speaker 2: we work meeting Chuck and whether or not it was
Speaker 2: about you know, humanitarian aid, or whether there was an
Speaker 2: overt conversation about regime change, and depending on who you asked.
Speaker 2: I think Keith Schiller said he was present for a
Speaker 2: conversation about humanitarian aid and if there was any talk
Speaker 2: about military or intervention, it happened while he was in
Speaker 2: the bathroom, is what he said.
Speaker 3: So that's a direct quote. I know.
Speaker 1: It's funny about all of Trump world, like that they're
Speaker 1: all well trained. Jason Miller was king of this with me.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I heard this, What can you tell me
Speaker 1: about this? And he says, well, I haven't heard it,
Speaker 1: but it's possible, you did, like would never rule it
Speaker 1: out like you don't because you learn in Trump world somebody.
Speaker 1: You know, every reporter has six people of in Trump
Speaker 1: world on speed dial, not just one or two.
Speaker 3: Everybody's running to the bathroom.
Speaker 1: You know, everybody's figured out. Yeah, you didn't hear everything,
Speaker 1: and you probably don't try to own everything because you won't.
Speaker 1: I mean Trump had literally two different political consulting teams
Speaker 1: looking at twenty twelve, and the two didn't know the
Speaker 1: other was working for him. Roger Stone was doing one
Speaker 1: and he had he had these other aunt Michael Cohen,
Speaker 1: doing another, and they weren't communicating.
Speaker 2: Well that's how that's how you get the best intel
Speaker 2: I guess right, Yes, yes, accurate information. But this guy
Speaker 2: gets dragged into this scheme. The question is what was
Speaker 2: this scheme? Jordan comes along with a lot of receipts,
Speaker 2: a lot of text messages, a lot of video. Again,
Speaker 2: he was postmodern. He was kind of self documenting a
Speaker 2: lot of this adventure on social media, on private.
Speaker 1: Sort of building, you know, just to protect himself or
Speaker 1: just because you just said he's postmodern, meaning this is
Speaker 1: just the way the world works. I'm gonna share it. All.
Speaker 3: I think there was three reasons. One was self promotion.
Speaker 2: I mean, you can see on his Instagram it's you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of you know, bad sort of you know
Speaker 2: rambo stuff, and hire me to help. We're the only
Speaker 2: ones who can help. Second is self preservation. He does
Speaker 2: indicate in the documentary that, as you know, being trained
Speaker 2: in the military, he's like, I should record, I should
Speaker 2: memorialize this to ensure that in the event that they
Speaker 2: deny my.
Speaker 3: You know, the mission impossible style. Yeah, there was in
Speaker 3: his contract, because ultimately he signs a contract with this
Speaker 3: so called interim government of Venezuela, this Jan Guido character,
Speaker 3: who's an interesting Guido.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, right, yeah.
Speaker 2: So he signs this contract and there is this this
Speaker 2: kind of disclaimer clause, this mission impossible clause. In the
Speaker 2: event that you and your men get captured, we will
Speaker 2: disavow your existence, like any knowledge of of you, this
Speaker 2: contract to your existence, et cetera. So he was recording
Speaker 2: for that. And lastly, at some point, well two points,
Speaker 2: the funding fell through. His Parkers fell through at least
Speaker 2: twice that I know of, and he needed he actually
Speaker 2: he made a sizzle reel chuck to go out to investors,
Speaker 2: to private investors to finance his coup. So the video
Speaker 2: that he would you know, he had some videographers embedded
Speaker 2: so that he could put together a trailer basically for
Speaker 2: his for his proposed coup, and go out to financiers.
Speaker 3: And so those were the three.
Speaker 2: The three it's very key Meani and for documentarians now
Speaker 2: that oh, I mean, you know, you went.
Speaker 1: So much at access and footage that it almost felt
Speaker 1: like this was a ruse.
Speaker 3: Yet there were various times when I felt like, is
Speaker 3: this guy.
Speaker 1: Are you being played? Yeah? Were you worried or you
Speaker 1: were being played?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean he is not the world's most reliable narrator,
Speaker 2: which I think is part of what makes this story
Speaker 2: so compelling.
Speaker 3: But then when you're when you're.
Speaker 2: Thinking this this is at its most outlandish, suddenly he
Speaker 2: produces receipts. There's text messages, Instagram, dms, emails, videos, audio recordings,
Speaker 2: and you're like, oh shit, I guess.
Speaker 1: This really did. But think about your own experience in Miami.
Speaker 1: Is it shocking? It's you know, it's never shocking. In Miami.
Speaker 1: There is weird There is a weird amount of those
Speaker 1: type of people always in circulation.
Speaker 3: In Miami, Florida rarely shocks me, but regularly disappoints me.
Speaker 3: So that's a good way of putting that. Yeah, and no,
Speaker 3: but you're right.
Speaker 2: I mean, listen, the assassination of a Haitian president at
Speaker 2: the same time happened out of out of Miami.
Speaker 1: It was basically planned out of Miami.
Speaker 2: Well totally see, I don't think it the we work
Speaker 2: per se. I mean they had an Airbnb. I don't know, Verba,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure. But but no, I mean this is
Speaker 2: this is always right. My Miami is America's Casablanca, and
Speaker 2: like this is where and like I've always my pastime
Speaker 2: here has always been dive bars. I'm not much of
Speaker 2: a club guy because you go to a dive bar
Speaker 2: in Miami and you want to find the crustiest old
Speaker 2: dude you can find. I mean literally a guy who
Speaker 2: just who just looks like, you know, a crustacean, like
Speaker 2: growing out a pile on sure.
Speaker 1: And you know, way too sun dried, you know.
Speaker 2: And he's like he's like attached to the barstool and
Speaker 2: idle up. You strike up a conversation and invariably you're
Speaker 2: talking to a guy that just left federal prison three
Speaker 2: days ago, or a deposed third world dictator or his
Speaker 2: son or what like.
Speaker 1: You go to the publics and you're running to Bolsonnaro,
Speaker 1: right like that has one hundred.
Speaker 3: That is like like just a thing. It's it's just
Speaker 3: a thing that in Miami and still is. And so these.
Speaker 2: Characters are you could argue, are are pretty commonplace down here.
Speaker 2: So it's it's it's easy to doubt it and then
Speaker 2: it's really easy to go but no, but because Miami,
Speaker 2: right like, of.
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Speaker 1: So I'm just curious, what's been your reception in the
Speaker 1: Venezuelan community in Miami to this doc.
Speaker 2: It's a good question. I'm mostly very positive. I think
Speaker 2: there was a lot of people who are skeptical about
Speaker 2: Wanguido and this interim government. By the way, that's why
Speaker 2: I want to be the fake president of a country,
Speaker 2: of an oil rich country when I grow up, because
Speaker 2: that is quite a hustle. I mean, being the so
Speaker 2: called democratically elected president in what are they like in exile?
Speaker 2: But he was living in Caracas, which strikes me that,
Speaker 2: like do you not have to pay a viig to
Speaker 2: the dictator when you're living in like how dangerous?
Speaker 1: Well, this is like Maduro's and before him, Chavez's genius.
Speaker 1: It was this weird way and it, frankly, it's a
Speaker 1: pattern Trump is following. And I'm I always vacillate by
Speaker 1: how far down the road to go and the whole
Speaker 1: what is Trump and authoritarian and all this stuff? And
Speaker 1: and you know, I think he I think he's so lazy.
Speaker 1: He wants to be but he's too lazy to make
Speaker 1: it happen.
Speaker 3: But either way, right, he surrounded himself with the right
Speaker 3: people to help, that's right, and he it is there's
Speaker 3: something about there's something.
Speaker 1: About, you know, being able to I guess it was like,
Speaker 1: this is what the Shah did, right, we have these
Speaker 1: there's a there's a few other like leaders in exile
Speaker 1: from the Middle East or from African country.
Speaker 3: It's it's the w W E.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I mean.
Speaker 3: It's it's the Harlem blow trotters in the Washington generals.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's and what you're doing.
Speaker 1: In some ways. What I loved about this is I
Speaker 1: have a feeling this is what the Cuban community was
Speaker 1: like in the sixties before you and I were born
Speaker 1: in Miami, when they were constantly somebody saying no, no,
Speaker 1: no, no no, I've got I've got all this land, I've
Speaker 1: got all this power, I can do all this. And
Speaker 1: I feel like that's what Guido and others do with Venezuela.
Speaker 1: Every now.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, there's always like a next the next president
Speaker 2: or the president of a free Cuba. Listen, Marca Rubio
Speaker 2: wants to everybody in Miami wants to be the president
Speaker 2: of a free Cuba. You know, it's it's so so
Speaker 2: that's I think that that I don't know that well,
Speaker 2: I mean, I'd love to see that, but just just
Speaker 2: so I could go to Cuba. I've never been to Cuba.
Speaker 2: My grandparents used to talk about going to You never
Speaker 2: you never tried to go.
Speaker 1: I went once.
Speaker 3: You know what I went.
Speaker 1: You know, I went to look in two thousand. I
Speaker 1: happened to be there during the summer of eleion, Oh
Speaker 1: my god. And I went through Mexico City. You know,
Speaker 1: my statute of limitations is up, so I fully will
Speaker 1: are you sure? I don't you know what? You know
Speaker 1: that just because just because the law should apply, it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it will, right, And I'm really glad I did.
Speaker 1: It is the greatest lesson of why communism is a
Speaker 1: failure that I've ever really And here's the here's the
Speaker 1: thing that sticks is stuck with me the most been
Speaker 1: twenty five years. There's a reason why those all those
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties cars are in pristine condition down there. It's
Speaker 1: the only thing you're allowed to own. Yep. You don't
Speaker 1: own your where you live, you don't own any of
Speaker 1: that stuff. So all of that stuff is just a
Speaker 1: pig style nobody. Most people don't keep there because it's
Speaker 1: not theirs. It's just a government hand on all this stuff.
Speaker 1: But what they own, that car, that's theirs, and there
Speaker 1: is a reason why they're in amazing and it's just
Speaker 1: a it's my way of understanding. This is innate, you
Speaker 1: know what, no industrial revolution, it's the last thing probably
Speaker 1: yeah before and people saying having to whisper in order
Speaker 1: to tell you what they really feel. That it was
Speaker 1: an important experience for.
Speaker 3: Me having grown up in Miami.
Speaker 2: I grew up with a certain you know, conservative right
Speaker 2: wing think about.
Speaker 1: And we both probably both did.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I could never understand like for me like I
Speaker 3: was very much Yeah, I'm very much botherda ivida. I'm
Speaker 3: very much like I will go to I will spend
Speaker 3: my money in Cuba when it is free. When I
Speaker 3: am not, when I don't feel like I am supporting
Speaker 3: or buttressing that novel dictator, I will say that all
Speaker 3: the Cubans in Miami send money down there, and going.
Speaker 1: I felt like I don't. I felt like I was
Speaker 1: there to help the people that are stuck. It is
Speaker 1: funny once you get there, you realize that's actually the
Speaker 1: reason to visit is to give them some hope.
Speaker 3: Well, listen, I was always a big bill.
Speaker 2: I've never really understood or not never, but as time
Speaker 2: war on, never failed to understand, came to fail to
Speaker 2: understand the wisdom of the embargo because like I thought
Speaker 2: about it, either like yeah, I thought like, well, free
Speaker 2: trade is probably the best hope we have, both to
Speaker 2: bring hope to the people, obviously to stop the suffering.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's a humanitarian crisis there as we speak,
Speaker 3: and finally to to maybe bring a taste of American
Speaker 3: freedom and capitalism. I never really understood it, but I
Speaker 3: also felt very hardlined about it that I'm like, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm like, you know, Buck Fidell.
Speaker 1: Because we liked we you know, we we liked our
Speaker 1: Cuban friends and neighbors, and it was really important to them.
Speaker 2: But I understood, But I also like, I feel so
Speaker 2: much of it is like not been ingenuous, Chuck, Like,
Speaker 2: I like, I feel so much of it has been
Speaker 2: like if not a lie, then just certainly misinformation or
Speaker 2: probably well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I will tell you. I mean I had firsthand experience.
Speaker 1: My grandfather was an engineer. He moved. The whole reason
Speaker 1: my family ended up down in Miami was my grandfather
Speaker 1: got an engineering contract to build sugarcane plants to help
Speaker 1: with sugarcane plants in Havana in Cuba, not Havana, and
Speaker 1: so he moved his business from Iowa to Miami in
Speaker 1: order to go. And you know, we're one of the
Speaker 1: non Cuban Miami families that says, oh, you have no
Speaker 1: idea how how much wealth we might have had if
Speaker 1: type of thing. But my grandfather used to constantly tell stories.
Speaker 1: He was living in the more rural parts of Cuba
Speaker 1: when he would go down there, and he had to
Speaker 1: keep photographs of Fidel in his trailer in order to
Speaker 1: make sure he didn't get harassed by Fidel's guys. And
Speaker 1: the point he was saying he had cia interviewing him
Speaker 1: and other American businessman saying, hey, what do you think
Speaker 1: of Fidel, and he'd be like, he's no better than Batista.
Speaker 1: And it was like there was a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: American businessinessmen who who were like, don't trust this Fidel guy.
Speaker 1: And even as the CIA was working to overthrow Batista
Speaker 1: and thinking Fidel was going to be their guy. It
Speaker 1: is that is where there's an ingenuineness to this entire
Speaker 1: Cuba story, is the role that America played in getting
Speaker 1: Fidel into power.
Speaker 2: True and the idea that's sort of been a sixty
Speaker 2: year battle of my dictators better than your dictator.
Speaker 1: And basically that's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, my grandfather was in Cuba in nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty before anybody knew.
Speaker 3: Who this cadell was as bad as he was right right,
Speaker 3: who this.
Speaker 2: Guy was going to be and whose allies were He
Speaker 2: was in the lobby of the Hilton along with all
Speaker 2: the other businessmen looking for him.
Speaker 1: He was like he had all sorts of friends and right,
Speaker 1: because it was like a presidential election in Cuba, except
Speaker 1: it was two dictators with their little armies Batista versus Castro,
Speaker 1: but they each had their funders.
Speaker 2: My grand my grandfather was with a buddy or his
Speaker 2: business partner who was friendly with Rita Hayworth, and so
Speaker 2: they were sitting with Rita Hayworth.
Speaker 1: Feeling our grandfathers probably knew each other and didn't realize it.
Speaker 3: But feeling they probably did.
Speaker 2: And so what happened was I said to Grandpa, I'm like,
Speaker 2: did you ever get an audience with Fidel?
Speaker 1: He goes, No, he goes, But Rita.
Speaker 3: Did, and because because somebody came down to the lobby
Speaker 3: there and to go get her, to get her and them,
Speaker 3: but they never came for my grandfather, and it's harder
Speaker 3: to have their meeting.
Speaker 2: And then of course the ship hit the fan, and
Speaker 2: that was the end of doing business with Cuba, you know, Yeah, no,
Speaker 2: And that's why.
Speaker 1: I just sort of is that the vet is is
Speaker 1: there that kind of expat Venezuelan in Miami the way
Speaker 1: there was those expat.
Speaker 3: Cubans Jude Darrowzuela.
Speaker 2: I mean, we have a whole municipality that you know,
Speaker 2: I I I often say that that, and this is
Speaker 2: true of a lot of major America, you know, diverse
Speaker 2: American cities, if I'm allowed to use that word.
Speaker 1: The d word.
Speaker 2: Then you know, there's a misconception that Miami is a
Speaker 2: is a melting pot, and we are not a melting pot.
Speaker 2: We are far more akin to a TV dinner where
Speaker 2: sometimes the peas fall into the mashed potatoes, you know.
Speaker 3: And obviously we'll.
Speaker 1: Share the same county boundary. But my god, there's like
Speaker 1: seven ethnicities and nationalities represented within it.
Speaker 3: And you better not get into a road rage incident
Speaker 3: until you see which flag is hanging from the rear view.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you that right now.
Speaker 2: I mean, and there's just self segregation. Listen in Miami
Speaker 2: Beach alone, in North what they call North Beach, every block,
Speaker 2: this is the Venezuelan building, This is the Brazilian building,
Speaker 2: this is the Argentinian building. Because one person moves there
Speaker 2: and then friends and the flag literally on the balcony.
Speaker 3: The flags are flying at World Cup time.
Speaker 1: It's very That's when you really see it was always
Speaker 1: World Cup tribu. Where is it? Yes, during the World Cup.
Speaker 1: I remember that feeling in eighty two and in eighty six,
Speaker 1: right when Argentina won, it felt like Miami blew up,
Speaker 1: like it was like the it was like why I
Speaker 1: knew we had some Argentinians here. I didn't realize how many,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: But Durau they call it Duauzuela because of the I
Speaker 2: think it's the largest Venezuelan population in the country outside
Speaker 2: of Yeah so and and I think sixty percent of
Speaker 2: them voted for Trump. Who are who are legal registered
Speaker 2: vote And now we're seeing the Wall Street Journal just
Speaker 2: covered a few weeks ago, there's like this peculiar exodus,
Speaker 2: like literally people leaving their furniture and their clothes and
Speaker 2: their belongings and just disappearing. Some of them going to Spain,
Speaker 2: some of them leaving the state, some of them going
Speaker 2: back to Venezuela for crying out loud. So there's like this,
Speaker 2: there's a disproportionate number of like of vacancies in rental.
Speaker 3: Units in Terurau, which has been growing exponentially.
Speaker 2: There's at the starting price for a for a rental
Speaker 2: unit is much lower than it is in the rest
Speaker 2: of the county.
Speaker 1: Well, they've made you know, they targeted, you know, when
Speaker 1: they when Steven Miller took you know, Steven Miller wanted
Speaker 1: to up the deportation numbers, and there were too many
Speaker 1: groups that had temporary protected status TPS. Status, including Venezuelans
Speaker 1: for like a real reason, right, you know, you have
Speaker 1: a regime that will target these people if they go
Speaker 1: home like this is a real issue and they simply
Speaker 1: wanted to up their numbers, they take it away, and
Speaker 1: I think this is you know, look, I've seen those
Speaker 1: a few of those stories, but I think the Herald
Speaker 1: did one about we voted for Trump. We thought he
Speaker 1: was going to protect our people and he didn't. He
Speaker 1: and he goes.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know that the President signed an
Speaker 2: executive order on March first of this year declaring English
Speaker 2: the official Language of the United States of America. They did,
Speaker 2: we not get the memo down here?
Speaker 1: What happened?
Speaker 3: I mean, are we?
Speaker 1: Are we?
Speaker 2: I mean, if they're going to start hitting Miami and
Speaker 2: profiling and listening forive, I mean there's a lot of
Speaker 2: people or even people, if they are going after quote
Speaker 2: unquote convicted criminals, lot of our friends and neighbors who
Speaker 2: did their time decades ago and who have gotten out
Speaker 2: and have since been relatively productive members of society.
Speaker 3: They do their annual check ins with with ice.
Speaker 2: You know, they pay their taxes, they have jobs, their parents,
Speaker 2: their business owners, their homeowners, and if we're gonna say, oh,
Speaker 2: well you got convicted of something thirty years ago or
Speaker 2: twenty years old, forty years then I'm telling you there's
Speaker 2: gonna be there's gonna be a listen, it's really going
Speaker 2: to stabilize our housing market enough for US locals because
Speaker 2: we can't afford houses here right now. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: it doesn't It doesn't seem entirely productive to vote to
Speaker 2: deport yourself. And it also was surprising to me because
Speaker 2: I thought, what a fabulous moment in history to have
Speaker 2: our first Cuban American secretary of State and then to
Speaker 2: watch his soul leave his body in the Oval Office,
Speaker 2: sitting with you know, sitting with you know, Putin somewhere
Speaker 2: sitting with with with Zelenski, like just it's it was.
Speaker 2: It made me feel like so much of my childhood
Speaker 2: in my Miami education was a wy Like it's really.
Speaker 1: I guess I still think there's a little Anakin skywalker
Speaker 1: in Rubio. And I say this, I'll say it this way.
Speaker 1: He keeps he keeps preventing Trump from going too far
Speaker 1: with Putin. He keeps preventing like it is it is.
Speaker 3: You know what happens to Anakin Skywalker at the end, don't.
Speaker 1: You I'm aware. I'm not saying the Emperor won't eventually
Speaker 1: get his revenge. Oh, is it not obvious that Rubio
Speaker 1: is going to be the Maga Patsy when all is
Speaker 1: said and done that when something goes extraordinarily wrong with
Speaker 1: all these blame the Mexican Yeah, they're gonna blame the
Speaker 1: guy who was not with them.
Speaker 3: This is the beginning.
Speaker 1: He is the guy that will be And whether Marco
Speaker 1: knows this or not, maybe he went in knowing this.
Speaker 1: He is going to be the fall guy for whatever
Speaker 1: foreign policy failure happens on Trump's watch. Be it this
Speaker 1: what's happening in Venezuela right now, what happens to you
Speaker 1: will he will be the fall guy. Look, he's got
Speaker 1: he's both National Security Advisor and Secretary of State and
Speaker 1: the head of the National Archives. I never want to
Speaker 1: leave that job out in Craft Service, right, he's also
Speaker 1: with Craft Service, and he and he maybe the next
Speaker 1: football coach at the University of Florida. Maybe you know so, right,
Speaker 1: this actually might be the time to get out, right,
Speaker 1: But he's going to be the mega fall guy because
Speaker 1: he's never been mega, right, so it's so obvious to
Speaker 1: me he'll be the fall guy win something goes wrong,
Speaker 1: because they're playing with fire with what they're doing in
Speaker 1: Venezuela right now.
Speaker 3: I just this. I thought of him as for all
Speaker 3: the things I might have.
Speaker 2: Liked and not liked about him ideologically and otherwise, I
Speaker 2: still thought of him as a statesman.
Speaker 3: I thought of him as, you know, a responsible isten.
Speaker 2: How many you know how many Democratic senators voted to
Speaker 2: you know, uh to to approve him and I.
Speaker 1: They all bought it too, and I and I I look,
Speaker 1: I will just leave you with the warning I've left
Speaker 1: my wife ten years ago. I'm still with my I
Speaker 1: didn't leave my wife, but I remember saying this to
Speaker 1: her ten years ago. Sorry, I said, be careful. You
Speaker 1: don't know who you don't like today. That might be
Speaker 1: the hero of the story down the road. And then
Speaker 1: within four years she's donating money to Liz Cheney, right
Speaker 1: like you don't know who's going to stand up when
Speaker 1: the chips are down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you can say, you can tell me whatever
Speaker 2: you want about your wife, because you know nothing is
Speaker 2: certain in this life except death taxes. And nobody's wife
Speaker 2: listens to their podcast, So so true.
Speaker 1: She listens to the beginning every day. She tells me,
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 3: Gonna say that you're enough of this us.
Speaker 1: You know exactly do you want to hear more?
Speaker 3: Right, I'm going to opt into this.
Speaker 1: I hear it all all the time. I guess where
Speaker 1: I'm going here is I'm curious looking at your your
Speaker 1: doc now through the lens of what we're on the
Speaker 1: verge of doing. I mean, look, I'm just I cannot believe.
Speaker 1: I'm going to quote James Langford, Republican senator from Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: who is who said this weekend, if Biden were giving
Speaker 1: us the lack of insight into what they're doing in Venezuela,
Speaker 1: I'd be apoplectic. He's sort of admitting, well, because he's
Speaker 1: on our side, I can't be upset about this. But
Speaker 1: Congress has no idea what the administration is up to
Speaker 1: in Venezuela.
Speaker 2: And I mean, and Rand Paul is the voice of reason,
Speaker 2: and Marjorie Kaylor Green is the voice of reason.
Speaker 3: All that.
Speaker 1: By the way, there are real isolationists, and they're like, hey,
Speaker 1: he just.
Speaker 2: Said be careful. You don't know who the good guy
Speaker 2: is going to be. That's right here, and yes, I
Speaker 2: think Rand Paul said it.
Speaker 3: You.
Speaker 2: A terrorist cannot be just whoever the executive branch says
Speaker 2: a terrorist is. And in foreign or international waters, we
Speaker 2: can not just be blowing up boats and fishermen. But
Speaker 2: what's interesting about this to your question is that, you know,
Speaker 2: a month before our world premiere of Men of War
Speaker 2: at last year's Toronto last Summer's Toronto Film Festival, we
Speaker 2: Jordan Gudreau, this.
Speaker 3: Man who we had been embedded with and.
Speaker 2: Spent years kind of documenting this misadventure, gets arrested by
Speaker 2: the United States, by the FEDS for arms trafficking related
Speaker 2: to this operation Gideon. This this this ill fated coup
Speaker 2: that resulted in two of his fellow compatriots from you know,
Speaker 2: the group from Special Forces being arrested sentenced to twenty
Speaker 2: seven years in a tropical gulag in Venezuela for for terrorism.
Speaker 2: Eight of their Venezuelan kind of defector military guys who
Speaker 2: came back and they were killed. This debacle that got
Speaker 2: kind of memory hold in the pandemic because it happened
Speaker 2: right in the spring of twenty twenty. So this would
Speaker 2: have been a huge I mean, it wasn't big international story,
Speaker 2: but then it kind of got suppressed.
Speaker 1: In nothing nothing has legs anymore. Have you noticed that,
Speaker 1: by the way, I mean, no stories have legs. We
Speaker 1: demolished the East Wing, We've already moved on. Now Trump
Speaker 1: has had an MRI that we're not sure about. Like
Speaker 1: it just it's astonishing our short attention span theater.
Speaker 2: But so, Jordan Gudreau is scheduled to go to trial
Speaker 2: shortly after the first of this year on these arms
Speaker 2: trafficking charges related to this coup alleged coup attempted Q.
Speaker 3: I don't know what you call it, but.
Speaker 2: His is effectively a public authority defense. Okay, what might
Speaker 2: otherwise be criminal is legally justified because I was doing
Speaker 2: this at the behest of my commander in chief of
Speaker 2: my government, which was then the first Trump administration.
Speaker 1: I thought that Kevin Pollack character told us in a
Speaker 1: few good men that that didn't work at Nuremberg.
Speaker 3: Yeah, listen.
Speaker 2: Also it seems here he was more reading smoke signals
Speaker 2: and wings and odds and then than he was actually
Speaker 2: getting direct orders. Also, so like there is this issue
Speaker 2: of who exact on whose authority are you claiming?
Speaker 3: Whose public authority your claim? But that being said, what
Speaker 3: he is the argument he's making is that there was
Speaker 3: every indication that Trump one point zero was looking at
Speaker 3: regime change.
Speaker 2: You know, there was the beginning of the of the
Speaker 2: there was the indictment against Maduro and some of his
Speaker 2: generals for drug trafficking.
Speaker 3: There was the uh, the the bounty put on.
Speaker 1: His look it looked like we were redoing Noriega and Panama. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean it looks like what we're doing now. I
Speaker 1: mean this feels like, you know, Trump is obsessed with
Speaker 1: the eighties, and it's like, how do I take Granada
Speaker 1: and Panama and do it all in one felt swoop?
Speaker 2: Here we are, and I think that's going to be
Speaker 2: I think the current policy might wind up being I
Speaker 2: have no insight to this, but it might wind up
Speaker 2: my just the theory based on your you know, thinking
Speaker 2: about it on your question, might very well.
Speaker 3: That might very well be.
Speaker 2: Jordan Gudau's defense is, look at the policy of this administration.
Speaker 2: It was always this, It was always regime change. It
Speaker 2: was always take Maduro out, and that was exactly what
Speaker 2: I was trying to do.
Speaker 1: How has he not gotten a part?
Speaker 3: I think it's a really good grades.
Speaker 2: I guess he didn't have the cash or he hasn't
Speaker 2: hired the right lobbyist, I mean lawyer yet No, listen,
Speaker 2: I think that he is certainly attempted to get the
Speaker 2: administration's attention as far as I know, on social media
Speaker 2: through other other podcasts.
Speaker 3: I also don't know that. I mean, I don't know
Speaker 3: that what.
Speaker 2: He's saying, though, is entirely accurate. So the idea that
Speaker 2: he's you know, because I mean think it was it.
Speaker 2: The Secretary of State at the time said, what was
Speaker 2: the line? The line is we had nothing to do
Speaker 2: with this. If we had, if we did have something
Speaker 2: to do with it, it would have gone much.
Speaker 3: Better or you know, it would have been much more interesting.
Speaker 3: Uh uh successful, So I feel like it was. So
Speaker 3: I feel like Jordan is maybe not playing his cards
Speaker 3: just right because because he has it it was Pompeo,
Speaker 3: was Mike Pompeo.
Speaker 1: Sorry, when.
Speaker 2: What I call I call it COVID brain, So like
Speaker 2: it's for fore like I feel like there are words
Speaker 2: that are or names that are on a top shelf
Speaker 2: that I can see but can't reach, you know, like
Speaker 2: and then and then.
Speaker 1: They come to this all the time, I have this
Speaker 1: all the time.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's just my late forties. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I kept messing up. I keep wanting to
Speaker 1: call the guy who did this, or well it's Raoul Peck.
Speaker 1: But it's like I can see the name and I
Speaker 1: want to say something else and it's terrible.
Speaker 3: And I was like, I'm talking, I know the word,
Speaker 3: I know the name, and then all of a sudden
Speaker 3: it stops. You know.
Speaker 1: So the great question that all of us have had
Speaker 1: be in Miamians and I'm curious is which is, if
Speaker 1: Cuba was free, would have the population leave Miami and
Speaker 1: go back to Cuba? If Venezuela is free, would draw
Speaker 1: empty out?
Speaker 3: What say you define free? So if we replace.
Speaker 2: Maduro with a Malay kind of character, like is that
Speaker 2: for like like when you say he wants to do
Speaker 2: like like it's the eighties all over again. The theme
Speaker 2: of our I think the running theme of our intervention
Speaker 2: in Latin America is puppet dictators.
Speaker 1: Right is which is like the fifties and eighties all
Speaker 1: over again. And this, I mean, this doesn't end well
Speaker 1: for us. The last time I checked, everybody's number one
Speaker 1: ally in Latin America is China, not the United States.
Speaker 1: I find it to be the biggest, like you know,
Speaker 1: there's and this has been multiple presidents have just botched
Speaker 1: the western hemisphere.
Speaker 2: Well look at look at Argentina soybean sales for crying
Speaker 2: out loud, I mean, and look at America first, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and look at what I The guy cuts my hair
Speaker 2: as a South African white gun and he's talking to me.
Speaker 2: One of his clients is very conservative Cuban lady several
Speaker 2: months ago whispers to him, says, come here, come here,
Speaker 2: you know, ear to ear, like a lot of conversations
Speaker 2: that Ventana's in Miami. You know you're ear to ear.
Speaker 2: He is your family, okay, and my family in South
Speaker 2: Africa are because she watched a lot of fun And
Speaker 2: she says, well, of course they're they're fine. Why do
Speaker 2: well because there's the the massacre of the white the
Speaker 2: white genocide, you know, the white people in.
Speaker 3: South and she and he goes, no, she goes, sweetie,
Speaker 3: that's a that's a lot.
Speaker 2: But I heard Elon Musk and I heard the But
Speaker 2: he goes, no, no, that's a that's totally made up.
Speaker 3: That's a total lie. And and he tells his to me.
Speaker 2: He says, you know in the poor, you know, Black
Speaker 2: nations of Africa. He said, What of course is happening
Speaker 2: with the the end of US aid, he said, is
Speaker 2: that it's not just simply people dying and suffering. There
Speaker 2: is a vacuum that is being filled and gangs and
Speaker 2: men and things like that by care packages that say
Speaker 2: from your friends in China. So when you when you
Speaker 2: when you have a lack of sophistication on geopolitics and
Speaker 2: diplomacy and you don't understand that that you know, what,
Speaker 2: what what good we do in the world, not just
Speaker 2: for the purpose of saving lives and protecting children and
Speaker 2: and uh offering vaccines and AIDS prevention and cancer treatment
Speaker 2: is not just because that's what Jesus would do. It's
Speaker 2: because we also do earn goodwill and allies in the world.
Speaker 1: You're describing soft power, Billy, and we just and this
Speaker 1: guy has gotten you.
Speaker 3: Know, we've abdicated, we've advocated.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I mean it's ironic to call it
Speaker 1: soft power, and it's be you know, this guy because
Speaker 1: he's soft it doesn't want to use soft power and
Speaker 1: it's like dude, But anyway, sorry, I was going down
Speaker 1: a weird rule decide where I was.
Speaker 2: This is the question, like, what what does a free
Speaker 2: what does a free Venezuela look like in this era
Speaker 2: of the United States of America when you don't necessarily.
Speaker 1: Peace Prize winner as president, Maybe that's a real free Venezuela.
Speaker 1: She sees, sweet shit.
Speaker 3: You mean if Obama runs in twenty eight, is that
Speaker 3: what you mean for a third term? Is that what
Speaker 3: you mean?
Speaker 1: I was talking about the new woman who won. But
Speaker 1: I take your point. I take it. Well, that's always
Speaker 1: the reminder I have of like, if you think Trump
Speaker 1: can run again, soa can Obama? You sure you want
Speaker 1: to go down that road? Maybe it's the ultimate showdown
Speaker 1: American needs.
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, listen, in a democracy, we get
Speaker 2: the government we deserve, and that is the election we deserve.
Speaker 1: Chump. I think, yeah, probably it probably is. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Every time, every time I think you can't top what
Speaker 1: you do, this one is one of those that you're
Speaker 1: just like and it's sort of like life imitating arn't
Speaker 1: back to imitating life. Have you talked to him since
Speaker 1: the military campaign against Venezuela.
Speaker 2: No, I mean he's in quite a bit of legal
Speaker 2: jeopardy obviously, I mean he is.
Speaker 1: He nervous about talking to you now because.
Speaker 3: His liberty is on the line.
Speaker 2: You know, his freedom is on the line, and obviously
Speaker 2: he feels a sense of betrayal.
Speaker 1: By everybody I imagine, right, yeah, and this is the.
Speaker 2: Country that he's fought for and now and to do
Speaker 2: what this guy did in the name of freedom and
Speaker 2: democracy in the United States, to change the flag on
Speaker 2: his arm, you know, from being a native Canadian to
Speaker 2: an American war hero, and then to see the words
Speaker 2: United States of America versus Jordan Goudreau.
Speaker 1: I mean he's having a hard time with it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: It damages an already damaged psyche, you know, it does.
Speaker 1: No, it's another way we're letting we abuse these soldiers.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not sure, you know, I go. I've
Speaker 1: said this about social media in general, right, I think
Speaker 1: social media is a human experiment that has failed, and
Speaker 1: here we are, we're living with the consequences of It's
Speaker 1: a total I mean, what good has social media brought
Speaker 1: to the world. Well, we're friends, So I do miss
Speaker 1: those first couple of years when we we were like, Wow,
Speaker 1: this is great. I get to interact with people that
Speaker 1: I've been meaning to interact with. But never had a
Speaker 1: chance to it was. It was.
Speaker 3: It was a real community.
Speaker 1: It was novel. Look, it was the first couple of years.
Speaker 3: It was the it was town Square. It was what
Speaker 3: it was, as Adams.
Speaker 1: It's the algorithm. What really destroyed it is the algorithms. Right,
Speaker 1: Like when we were organically building it, it was great
Speaker 1: when they decided, hey, this is so much fun, let's
Speaker 1: keep people on it, let's pee, let's actively get them
Speaker 1: addicted to it. It's like, you know, it an occasional
Speaker 1: cigarette might have been okay, it was smoking twenty a day.
Speaker 1: That was terrible.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: It was the nicotine that right, it was the ninety
Speaker 2: nine percent pure coke was good. The second they started
Speaker 2: cutting it with fent and all that other shit, it
Speaker 2: started to get sort of but it was it was
Speaker 2: as advertised. Early on, it felt like that town Square.
Speaker 2: It felt like well, you know, like it went from
Speaker 2: Arabs Spring to like storm storm front.
Speaker 1: You know, like very you know, and you know, in
Speaker 1: some ways, this this guy, it is sort of the
Speaker 1: transition right during you know, in Arab Spring, we were
Speaker 1: celebrating stuff like this.
Speaker 2: You know, eventually it turns into this, you know, right,
Speaker 2: and it's it's not entirely pleasant. But listen to paraphrase
Speaker 2: one of my favorite Miami artists, the algorithm is going
Speaker 2: to get you.
Speaker 1: Miami politics really quickly. What is Miami Dade County right now? Red?
Speaker 3: Blue?
Speaker 1: Somewhere in between? In transition it's I find Miami Dade's
Speaker 1: the most fascinating I think political community in the country,
Speaker 1: and in some ways it is it is served to
Speaker 1: sort of be both a precursor and a and a
Speaker 1: PostScript to what's going what's happening in the Trump era.
Speaker 1: You live it and breathe it, and you're very active
Speaker 1: in local politics. What would you describe the state of
Speaker 1: the political world in Miami Dade County as far as
Speaker 1: you're concerned these days?
Speaker 3: Oh, it's redder than red, I mean. And is it
Speaker 3: an ideological red or a cult red?
Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean by that?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: Yeah, the answer to either or question is affirmative.
Speaker 2: I think because I well, obviously now there's a lot
Speaker 2: of people, or quite a few people who are having
Speaker 2: other ideas or adding second thoughts about some of this.
Speaker 2: Even though I think the Trump this second Trump administration
Speaker 2: has been as advertised, I don't know, you know, none of.
Speaker 1: This is anything we didn't see coming. It was like,
Speaker 1: you know, you're just like, you know, we knew he
Speaker 1: would do stuff like this, but the details have been fascinating,
Speaker 1: but the general pattern was very pret Trump is a
Speaker 1: terrible poker player. I've always said I'd love to play
Speaker 1: poker with him because he literally holds his cards this way.
Speaker 1: I mean, he just flips them around so you can
Speaker 1: see him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then and then lies to you about what
Speaker 2: he has. Yeah, and a third of the country believes it.
Speaker 2: On question, I mean, Billy I only knew he was
Speaker 2: going to knock down the entirety of the east wing.
Speaker 2: When he said he wasn't going to touch the east
Speaker 2: wing to build this ball, I'm like, oh, that's probably
Speaker 2: the end of the entire wing.
Speaker 3: Just I mean sure, yeah. And that's the thing too,
Speaker 3: is that, like, there's this really interesting moment where you know,
Speaker 3: we're getting away this three hundred and sixty million dollar
Speaker 3: piece of property for the Trump Hotel and casino and
Speaker 3: also Presidential Library in downtown.
Speaker 1: Just I can't believe this. By the way, this is
Speaker 1: where the Marlin Stadium should have been. But that's a
Speaker 1: whole other story.
Speaker 2: Well, when they talk about waste fraud and abuse. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: I just I found some I mean you just you
Speaker 2: just violated sunshine laws in the state of Florida to
Speaker 2: secretly give away like this last piece of property that
Speaker 2: is owned by what was our community college. It's now
Speaker 2: a college. But like this is I think by student
Speaker 2: body size, is the largest college in the country.
Speaker 1: It is. Yeah, college is for four year college.
Speaker 2: Consequential to Miami both economically and educationally. Eduardo Padron, the
Speaker 2: president many years ago, what he had to go through
Speaker 2: to generate to raise twenty four million dollars to buy
Speaker 2: this piece of property because when you're in a landlocked
Speaker 2: downtown area, there's not a lot of room for growth,
Speaker 2: and so he wanted to preserve the future of this institution.
Speaker 3: So they buy this property.
Speaker 2: It's now appraised, not even a praise, but the property
Speaker 2: appraiser of the county says it's worth estimates it's worth
Speaker 2: sixty five people have said easily on the open market
Speaker 2: three hundred and fifty million dollars, and.
Speaker 3: They they want to give it away like for free.
Speaker 3: It's it is the biggest land.
Speaker 2: I mean, it makes the Melury Soccer Stadium hustle and
Speaker 2: the Marlins Park scam look like good deals in comparison.
Speaker 2: By the way, I have no problem with there being
Speaker 2: a Trump Library or whatever. It's going to be just
Speaker 2: you know, in downtown Miami, but you got to pay
Speaker 2: some market value for you. I mean, especially if you're
Speaker 2: going to deprive Mini Dade College of its future effectively
Speaker 2: like and I also have no problem with the fact
Speaker 2: that it shares a lot with the Freedom Tower, which
Speaker 2: of course is the elis Island of the South where
Speaker 2: refew the earliest some of our earliest Cuban refugees fleeing
Speaker 2: the tyranny of If.
Speaker 1: I were Trump, it's where I would want my library.
Speaker 1: It would be a symbolic place to go row.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 2: That the Deporter in Chief, the proud Deporter in Chief,
Speaker 2: is going to be I think it's like listen, I've
Speaker 2: been I've been sitting Shiva for irony for years now,
Speaker 2: so I think it's I have no problem with that.
Speaker 3: It's just the For me, it's always the real It's Florida.
Speaker 3: It's always a real estate hustle. And by the way,
Speaker 3: a majority of Miami Dade County residents certainly more NPAs
Speaker 3: and Democrats than Republicans, but a vast which you're talking
Speaker 3: almost sixty percent are against this land giveaway. So there
Speaker 3: is a tied a sentiment on certain things that that
Speaker 3: is turning. But we are I mean, this is a
Speaker 3: firm red county.
Speaker 1: What will be your canary in the coal mine to
Speaker 1: see if there's movement in there? Is that the one
Speaker 1: congressional race, I'm Jorona blank in her name real here
Speaker 1: is Salazar? Y Salazar, Yeah, who replaced Ileana.
Speaker 3: No, I don't think.
Speaker 2: I mean, listen, speaking of the Washington generals, the Florida
Speaker 2: Democrats are the Washington generals of politics. I mean they
Speaker 2: are unbelievable control that position at this point. I mean,
Speaker 2: they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity, so
Speaker 2: I wouldn't so, I mean, I think we've seen the
Speaker 2: canary in the coal mine. I think I think the
Speaker 2: Democrats are not a broken brand or a damage brand.
Speaker 2: I think they're just a dead brand in the state
Speaker 2: of Florida and certainly in Miami Dade.
Speaker 1: I would love to see a John Morgan that was
Speaker 1: fifteen years younger running right like you know you could see.
Speaker 1: I just don't know if he's got the energy or
Speaker 1: the or the ambition to do it. He talks about it,
Speaker 1: but I just think, you know, there's you could just
Speaker 1: sort of tell it's like I'll do it if somebody
Speaker 1: else will do the work.
Speaker 3: No, No, he doesn't want to listen. He loves the
Speaker 3: real liar won't die as Trump did for a while.
Speaker 1: You know, well, that's why you're like, none of us
Speaker 1: are fully dismissing it. You're like, well, the dude can
Speaker 1: write a check, and my god, those ads are he
Speaker 1: is in. He figured out how to create a fifty
Speaker 1: state law firm. Right.
Speaker 2: I mean, his job sucks, the job of being Florida
Speaker 2: governor actually sucks. He's got a great life. This guy's
Speaker 2: got life perfected. John Morgan, what.
Speaker 3: The hell would you want?
Speaker 1: That's right, the.
Speaker 3: Hell would you want with that job? I mean, but
Speaker 3: you're right, I mean, is it gonna be?
Speaker 2: I mean, listen, he strikes me a little bit more
Speaker 2: as like kind of a blue dog Democrat, that style
Speaker 2: of like miamas Mia.
Speaker 1: When I've interviewed him, you can't once you spring up
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton. I mean, it's just like I'm brought up
Speaker 1: his first wife, the one he fell in love with,
Speaker 1: Like he just loves you know, that's what he wants
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party to be. Was what Bill Clinton was
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't think that's the future of the
Speaker 3: party either.
Speaker 2: So I don't think that that's going to be what
Speaker 2: is going to win the day here for Democrats in
Speaker 2: the state of Florida.
Speaker 3: I mean, listen, it's a red state. I mean that's
Speaker 3: the bottom line.
Speaker 2: Certainly Jerry manderdt into being that. So I don't really see.
Speaker 2: And again, there's no leadership here, there's no vision, there's
Speaker 2: just like just bad ideas. I left the party.
Speaker 3: Listen. Donald Trump was a Democrat longer than I was.
Speaker 3: But I left the party last year with an open
Speaker 3: letter that was I said, this is not exhaustive, but
Speaker 3: it is thorough and.
Speaker 2: Or not comprehensive, but exhausted perhaps and all hyperlinked. I
Speaker 2: brought the receipts, and I wish that was just over
Speaker 2: a year ago. And I wish I could say, I
Speaker 2: wish I could say that it's it's just as bad,
Speaker 2: but it's not.
Speaker 3: It's it's worse. And how the Democrats could be worse
Speaker 3: off now than they were a year ago? When when
Speaker 3: when I think Trump is arguably less popular now.
Speaker 1: Right now he is, and especially in communities like you know,
Speaker 1: if a functional Democratic party is all over Durra.
Speaker 3: Well, absolutely functional being the key, No.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just your you should be there, you know.
Speaker 1: That's what the Republicans did really well when Democrats weren't
Speaker 1: in some of these communities. They showed up.
Speaker 3: And and and stayed and and and yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, believe me, people in this community always say,
Speaker 2: you know, why aren't you here at church when you're
Speaker 2: not running for office? Why do we only see you
Speaker 2: once every two years or four years or what?
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: It's it's it's hard not to be cynical. Uh when
Speaker 3: when when? That's how the party operates.
Speaker 2: But to be fair, they have no money, they have
Speaker 2: no leadership, they have no vision, so it's really hard
Speaker 2: to have any kind of consistency or any kind of
Speaker 2: I mean, look at the voter registrations.
Speaker 1: It's it's unbelievable.
Speaker 3: It's insane.
Speaker 2: I mean, part of it certainly is transplants and and
Speaker 2: you know, people moving here, but but the rest is
Speaker 2: just bad.
Speaker 1: This is this is going to air before election day
Speaker 1: next week. Who's going to be mayor of Miami City
Speaker 1: of Miami, do we care. I mean, it's a weak mayor,
Speaker 1: So it's you know, it's really more of a market
Speaker 1: It's like you're the it's like you're a marketing executive
Speaker 1: when you're the mayor of the City of Miami versus
Speaker 1: the actual work. But still it is it is. Uh,
Speaker 1: Francis Suarez showed you could make a ton of money
Speaker 1: being mayor of Miami, So it's good. It's good.
Speaker 3: Uh, it's good business. Who's the mayor with socialism to hustle? No?
Speaker 2: Yeah, like you said, the mayor of Miami is like
Speaker 2: a mascot who thinks he's the head coach.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: That's that's kind of what that position is.
Speaker 2: Uh, they're really they're really a glorified hood ornament is
Speaker 2: kind of of of what know.
Speaker 1: I mean, because the county does all it has all
Speaker 1: the power, all the money, all the every the city
Speaker 1: is is you know has.
Speaker 2: You know, there's this city's opery budget is now over
Speaker 2: a billion dollars for as while city like four hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty thousand people. They were just absolutely stealing from us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and well, the fact that Joe I always look
Speaker 1: at it this way, The fact that Joe Corroyo never
Speaker 1: tried to go anywhere else, tells you it was just
Speaker 1: too much. Why would I leave a good thing? Sorry
Speaker 1: that dude, you know you're like, You're like Joe Croyle's
Speaker 1: been ripping people off since I was a kid, and
Speaker 1: he's just never left.
Speaker 3: Joe Kroyo was the youngest to this day, I believe,
Speaker 3: the youngest city commissioner ever elected in Miami in nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy nine.
Speaker 1: Think about the fact that they's never progressed because you
Speaker 1: know what, it must have been too good.
Speaker 3: It reminds me it's like when when Trump said, like, like,
Speaker 3: if I ever run, I have to run as a
Speaker 3: Republican because they'll vote for anybody, and I love them.
Speaker 3: I mean, like he carved his niche. That's what Joe did.
Speaker 3: Joe Carl is unbelievable. Now I don't think he wins
Speaker 3: this marriage rate. What I love is the drama between
Speaker 3: Francis and Javier. So nobody, nobody's gonna win this mayor's race.
Speaker 3: By the way, here's a runoff, right, it'll be top
Speaker 3: two fast baby.
Speaker 1: Right, there will be.
Speaker 2: I think there's no question this goes to a December runoff.
Speaker 2: So now I'm just choosing the top two. And you
Speaker 2: are right.
Speaker 3: Francis Suarez is not supporting his father in this well,
Speaker 3: his father is.
Speaker 1: Literally when people talk about voter fraud, I always say,
Speaker 1: we actually had one. We had the most outrageous voter
Speaker 1: fraud scam ever, and it was for Javier Schwirez to.
Speaker 3: By the way, I keep I've been, I will I
Speaker 3: will pick up when when when Xavier or Javier Suarez
Speaker 3: announced he was running, Yeah, which is it?
Speaker 1: It's Javier now used to be Xavier.
Speaker 2: It's I think it's I think it's either it's like
Speaker 2: it's a it's a it's sort of the English version
Speaker 2: or the Spanish.
Speaker 1: I've always assumed Xavier because you and I grew up
Speaker 1: down there, and that's what. And yet he will use
Speaker 1: Xavier everyone and he.
Speaker 2: Well he likes x because like it also because he's
Speaker 2: like you know, and then Francis is Francis x Francis
Speaker 2: Xavier Suarez or Francis on Also. I think with the
Speaker 2: popularity of x men, uh, it was it was a
Speaker 2: good adaptation.
Speaker 3: But he so I start reading about his run, you know,
Speaker 3: a couple months ago, and all the headlines and all
Speaker 3: the leads are Miami's first Juban born mayor in nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty five, And I said.
Speaker 1: Big deal. I remember when it happened.
Speaker 3: It was it was, It was the guy. It's nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty five, the guy showing up to debates today in
Speaker 3: a DeLorean with a flux capacitor, Chuck in nineteen the
Speaker 3: guy talks about every year except twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: It's unbelievable, So bless his heart. It's like, what did
Speaker 2: Jim Norton say? It that watching them, watching at one
Speaker 2: of the roasts, watching Norm McDonald do his set was
Speaker 2: like watching Henry fond of pick blueberries. That's what it's
Speaker 2: like watching Xavier Suarez and these It's like watching Henry
Speaker 2: Fonda pick blueberries and so so this. But I called
Speaker 2: all my friends.
Speaker 3: In the media really pissed, because you know, this is
Speaker 3: a town Chuck with a transient population and a lack
Speaker 3: of institutional memory.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: What we need the local media to do is to
Speaker 3: when the city transforms as often as it does, to
Speaker 3: remind us who these dynastic political crime families are, what
Speaker 3: they've done, and what they're capable of. And I called
Speaker 3: them all. Nobody mentioned Chuck yes, they mentioned in nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty five. The first thing he did.
Speaker 1: Was they didn't mention the absentee ballot. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: the greatest chilote fraud we've ever said.
Speaker 3: They didn't mention your last thing he did is mayor
Speaker 3: in nineteen ninety eight is get removed from office by
Speaker 3: a judge for absentee ballot fraud so bad in fact,
Speaker 3: that they didn't even order a new election.
Speaker 1: They just gave it to the other guy. They gave
Speaker 1: it to Joe Corolla of all people. Well that was
Speaker 1: the reason. You're like, who could out corrupt who? It
Speaker 1: was just like, you know, that's why at first you're like,
Speaker 1: I don't know. They both probably tried to cheat. One
Speaker 1: guy just was more brazen about it.
Speaker 3: Extremely relevant that you bring this up because all of
Speaker 3: Trump's a kind of like what sounds like this sort
Speaker 3: of apocryphal demagoguery about not only election fraud but immigration
Speaker 3: emptying out the asylums. Dude, that's the Mariel vote lift.
Speaker 3: And when he talks about dead people voting, that is
Speaker 3: the nineteen ninety seven Miami mayoral election. Where As Carl
Speaker 3: Hyasin called a manny yip and his buddies down at
Speaker 3: the cemetery who were super voters.
Speaker 2: They voted in every election since they died seven years ago,
Speaker 2: and that's how they got caught.
Speaker 1: Because you're like, wow, all, First of all, if I
Speaker 1: remember correctly, Suarez got more absentee votes than real votes
Speaker 1: back in a time when we weren't doing a lot
Speaker 1: of early voting in the late nineties.
Speaker 3: But listen, that's like, but so the kernel of truthiness
Speaker 3: in Trump's in Trump's election fraud that election, yes, but
Speaker 3: a lot of it comes from Miami. The kernel of
Speaker 3: his emptying out the like I said, the emptying out
Speaker 3: the asylums, dead people voting, Well, you know what happened
Speaker 3: in Miami.
Speaker 1: WHOA be careful falling for his asylum line. You know,
Speaker 1: this is one of those where I'm pretty sure he
Speaker 1: used about what asylum is. Yes, every time he hears
Speaker 1: the word asylum, he doesn't understand what it means. He
Speaker 1: thinks it's the insane asylum. But it's a what you
Speaker 1: know that you seek it.
Speaker 3: I think he's conflating it though, because he knows he's
Speaker 3: seen Starface, he knows.
Speaker 1: Did that, and you know it's Miami politics. He's seems scarface.
Speaker 3: That's what I'm what I'm saying is that it's a
Speaker 3: movie mobster. I know it's the kernel of truthiness there.
Speaker 3: You know that that begs.
Speaker 2: But I think on I you cannot and you know this,
Speaker 2: you cannot count.
Speaker 3: Joe Carollo out.
Speaker 1: No, somehow he could end up being mayor.
Speaker 3: He knows how to drink this better than anybody else,
Speaker 3: does Dude like, because this isn't a citywide election.
Speaker 2: This is a bulletarra election. Because we're going to have
Speaker 2: such low voter turnout that it's gonna come. It's going
Speaker 2: to be about it. There's nothing else on the ballot, right,
Speaker 2: I think there's a there's a couple of referendums in
Speaker 2: the city, but no no statewide, no county wide, no,
Speaker 2: you know, obviously no nation.
Speaker 1: This is one of those where and I know it
Speaker 1: got turned into Francis Soarez was trying to go another year.
Speaker 3: This was not He's not wrong.
Speaker 1: We actually, if you want more voters participating in this
Speaker 1: election should be in the even numbered year. La Mayor
Speaker 1: did this and they extended they had one five year
Speaker 1: term in order to do the same thing. It is.
Speaker 1: The problem is in Miami, the assumption is. You know,
Speaker 1: this must be a corrupt angle here.
Speaker 2: No, no, but but it was because I mean if
Speaker 2: you saw it, like all he cares about is next
Speaker 2: year is World Cup in g twenty.
Speaker 1: No, he wanted the tickets.
Speaker 2: He's not the mayor, then he's a relevant and this
Speaker 2: guy has zero path forward politically or diplomatically for the
Speaker 2: man he really wanted to be. He worked basically as
Speaker 2: a unregistered lobbyist for Saudi, the Saudis, and then wanted
Speaker 2: to be the the ambassaard you know.
Speaker 1: You know, he was a never trumper and he's like
Speaker 1: hates DeSantis for some in that, you know. And there
Speaker 1: was a minute that he flirted with running for governor
Speaker 1: as an independent for like two seconds. And then now
Speaker 1: he's trying to get into Trump world, you know. And
Speaker 1: he hired Kelly Ann I think as a consultant for
Speaker 1: a while there, which got him. That's when the VP
Speaker 1: running mate stuff got got created. Right, it was because
Speaker 1: he basically tried to get back into Trump world.
Speaker 3: That was a m that was a rumor that he started.
Speaker 3: It is correct, correct quite successfully.
Speaker 1: Mind you. All right, how are you feeling about Mario
Speaker 1: Cristabal these days?
Speaker 2: Listen if Mario can't do it. Nobody can. It's over
Speaker 2: like that's interesting. I sort of agree.
Speaker 1: I hate admitting that, but Mario is what got all
Speaker 1: the investment, and you can't. And right now, that's the
Speaker 1: way college football works. There are forty programs that can
Speaker 1: play at the top level, and somehow Miami decided to
Speaker 1: become one of those financially and that's because of Mario
Speaker 1: and his friends.
Speaker 2: NCAA fucked up their own their own game, and now
Speaker 2: we're all living with the consequences of.
Speaker 1: It now, for better or for worse. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: it's funny. I admitted this to a friend of mine
Speaker 1: the other day, which is, if if Miami weren't weren't
Speaker 1: able to show that it could play in this new world,
Speaker 1: I'd hate this and I'd be criticizing it. Right I'm
Speaker 1: less critical because at least we're the have because it's
Speaker 1: a we're going to the premier league. There are going
Speaker 1: to be forty programs that can play at this level,
Speaker 1: will consistently have the resources to do it, and they'll
Speaker 1: have another twenty programs that every once in a while
Speaker 1: we'll get lucky and it'll be a fun little thing
Speaker 1: like Wichita State in the basketball world, right every once
Speaker 1: in a while, or a Gonzaga and and you know,
Speaker 1: unless they less the Feds truly get involved, and and
Speaker 1: you know, Miami is going to be a market that
Speaker 1: survives and a school that's a that's on the alet
Speaker 1: on the A team, and you have all the what's
Speaker 1: interesting is watching whether a Florida can do it, right,
Speaker 1: whether Florida State can do it, whether a Clemson can
Speaker 1: do it. And some of them aren't going to be
Speaker 1: able to do it.
Speaker 2: I will say that I thought that we grew out
Speaker 2: of being the team that has that senseless mid season
Speaker 2: loss that we had.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, by the way, though, I sort of ask
Speaker 1: me again next week because I'm going to that game.
Speaker 1: My son's at SMU, so, got my daughter at Miami,
Speaker 1: my son at SMU, so we don't have a family
Speaker 1: outing to the Miami SMU game. I'll learn a lot
Speaker 1: about We'll learn a lot about this team to me
Speaker 1: in that game, because that's the game they lose the
Speaker 1: last five years. Right.
Speaker 2: But I think we did it to Louisville already. I think, well,
Speaker 2: that's my point. You're okay to do one that happens
Speaker 2: every season. We had this even during the heyday. I
Speaker 2: remember a game against Boston College in two thousand and
Speaker 2: one where Ed Reid saved the game, right, you know,
Speaker 2: we almost blew that game. There's always a game LI
Speaker 2: that where you either do lose or you almost lose it.
Speaker 2: We lost a stupid game at BYU one year that
Speaker 2: cost us a title, you know, So I'm not I'm okay.
Speaker 1: With one and this new system. At least for the
Speaker 1: ACC schools, you can survive one. You can't survive two.
Speaker 1: Only SEC schools get to survive too.
Speaker 3: I think I don't think there's going to be another
Speaker 3: loss this sub.
Speaker 1: I worry about the PIT game, and I worry about
Speaker 1: this the two road games SMU and PITT.
Speaker 2: I just think I hope, I hope they've learned some lessons.
Speaker 2: I hope they've made some adjustments. I hope they're going
Speaker 2: to it certainly seems from this, you know from this
Speaker 2: week's game that they are last week's game, that they're
Speaker 2: going to be coaching a bit more aggressively.
Speaker 3: They're not.
Speaker 1: I appreciated that they ran up Mario Christabald never cares
Speaker 1: about covering spreads, and they they they went to score
Speaker 1: that touchdown. They knew that. Look, the difference between Miami
Speaker 1: getting a buye or not getting a buye, or getting
Speaker 1: into the tournament or not getting into the tournament might be.
Speaker 1: How big victory is. I mean, look what Florida State
Speaker 1: got left out after being undefeated, right, we know that
Speaker 1: the ESPN Invitational will leave teams out. Is if Alabama's
Speaker 1: a Notre name are available.
Speaker 2: It should have been forty to seven at the half
Speaker 2: of the Notre Dame game, like it just like like
Speaker 2: the conservative I'm hoping that.
Speaker 3: You know, we're this conservative coaching.
Speaker 1: It's the first half stubbornness. They stick to the game plan,
Speaker 1: and then God bless them now that they have all
Speaker 1: these advisors who basically come up with the game plan
Speaker 1: at halftime while the coaches are on the field. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is what these big time programs can afford to
Speaker 1: do now, and Miami's now doing that. We have an
Speaker 1: entire coaching staff that does nothing but scout the next
Speaker 1: opponent and then here's your game plan.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I listen, I saw that.
Speaker 2: And it was three of our signature wins this year
Speaker 2: were as close to meltdowns and major meltdowns as they
Speaker 2: were like Major wins.
Speaker 1: You ten years ago, we lose those games. Two years ago.
Speaker 1: We lose to Florida State. Two years ago. We might
Speaker 1: have blown that Florida game. At Florida Game. It was
Speaker 1: there Dame game, right, and and we didn't. I didn't
Speaker 1: Mario the Louisville game. Can't do it. In the Louisville game.
Speaker 1: Louisville threw everything at us in that first drive, got
Speaker 1: their touchdown, and basically they hung on for dear life.
Speaker 1: Carson Beck just tried to be a hero. If he
Speaker 1: doesn't try to be a hero, we win that game
Speaker 1: about probably with the last minute field goal.
Speaker 2: I again, if Mario can't do it. No, I think
Speaker 2: this this investment by this this school, which you and
Speaker 2: I are both extremely impressed, and.
Speaker 1: Because they've never done it in the past. Despite all
Speaker 1: the rumors about Miami and money, it was never anything
Speaker 1: like Alabama and A and M and l s U.
Speaker 1: Nobody Miami never spent like those three programs. And this
Speaker 1: year they are.
Speaker 2: And I think that this is this is like, this
Speaker 2: feels like the last coach of the Canes in meaning
Speaker 2: like it.
Speaker 1: Right, It's it's either he's our Saban and the next
Speaker 1: Jimmy Johnson or or Miami is you know, Georgia Tech
Speaker 1: football at best an occasional an occasional lightning strike once
Speaker 1: a decade, but that's probably it.
Speaker 2: And all of our games are on the History Channel
Speaker 2: kind of vibe and like that. And they and they, well,
Speaker 2: they do what they did during the Shalila era, which
Speaker 2: is to kind of trade on their reputation and rest
Speaker 2: on their laurels, which they're not doing right now.
Speaker 3: They're trying to build their own reputation in a new dynasty.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean, I mean, I'm sure you feel this,
Speaker 1: and we're going on too long here, and I apologize,
Speaker 1: but Rubin Bain is the first guy that's reminded me
Speaker 1: of old Miami. I'm like that. That's what I'm telling
Speaker 1: my son, I Mike, that we always had a guy
Speaker 1: like Ruben Bain always, whether it was Daniel Stubbs, Kevin Fagan,
Speaker 1: you know, a Cortes, Kennedy, Wolf Fork sap right, we
Speaker 1: always had a Ruben Bain and we haven't had one
Speaker 1: in a while. It's nice to have one.
Speaker 2: I'd like to see that the players, you know, get
Speaker 2: coached up, play more aggressive, maybe even you know what
Speaker 2: you also had in that era, was you had players
Speaker 2: who were calling audibles, who were changing the play on
Speaker 2: the field. It didn't matter what they said on the sideline,
Speaker 2: if they were reading E fense differently, if they were
Speaker 2: you know, if they had something else, some other scheme
Speaker 2: in mind, like and I know that gets you benched
Speaker 2: these days in this big time college football game. But
Speaker 2: that that was the It was the what was that
Speaker 2: great line from one of the U documentaries. It was
Speaker 2: the first the U documentary when Dennis Erickson came in,
Speaker 2: I think Jerome Brown or somebody went to him and said,
Speaker 2: you've just been handed the keys to a Ferrari, like
Speaker 2: just you know, just you know, like this is not
Speaker 2: something you have to worry about, like.
Speaker 3: Just if a perfectly oiled machine. Just don't fuck it up, dude.
Speaker 1: And by the way, he kind of he won two titles.
Speaker 1: Can't say he messed it up. He didn't leave us
Speaker 1: in the best of shape.
Speaker 2: No, listen, I mean that's sort of that's the sort
Speaker 2: of semi absentee coaching style, letting the assistance and the
Speaker 2: and the lunatics run the asylum got them and some jewelry, man,
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 1: Yes, it did and it got them in a couple
Speaker 1: of NFL coaching gigs to boot. I like the siren,
Speaker 1: by the way, I like that. We I rarely like
Speaker 1: trying to start a tradition that never existed. Don't hate it.
Speaker 1: I think the Sirens are pretty good new tradition.
Speaker 3: I also love that, like Michael Irvin is it every
Speaker 3: game is hit every game.
Speaker 1: So my daughter's a little She's like, what does he
Speaker 1: do for the university? And I'm like, she goes because
Speaker 1: he's every He's at every game and you know, she's
Speaker 1: part of homecoming. And she's like, and then, so have
Speaker 1: you ever been to a Cowboys game?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: This is a little disturbing. So I went to a
Speaker 1: Packers Cowboys game a couple of weeks ago and Michael
Speaker 1: Irvin the you know that, you go to a Miami
Speaker 1: game and before the fourth quarter, right, they blair the
Speaker 1: Michael Irvin.
Speaker 4: Raw Ross speech to get you fired up. It's a
Speaker 4: fourth quarter, it's green tree, right, all this stuff. He
Speaker 4: does the same thing for the Cowboys for their fourth quarter.
Speaker 4: And I'm like, and I tape it and I send it.
Speaker 4: You know, I record it. Listen to me.
Speaker 1: I'm an old guy, right, I tape it, I record
Speaker 1: it and send it to my daughter and she went,
Speaker 1: so he does he just do this for every team,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, well, every team he played for. But
Speaker 1: it's literally the same stick that he does for Miami,
Speaker 1: that he that he does for Jerry and the Cowboys.
Speaker 2: I love it. I love it, and I love that.
Speaker 2: I mean he's like Sebastian and Michael Irvin. I mean
Speaker 2: like they are are, like he is our mascot.
Speaker 1: I love it. I think some of I think Malachai
Speaker 1: Tony's probably had to google Who's Michael Irvin? I mean, like,
Speaker 1: I you know, it's been that long.
Speaker 3: These kid Yeah, these kids were eighteen nineteen years old.
Speaker 1: Right he was, he had already he literally he was
Speaker 1: in the Hall of Fame when they were born.
Speaker 2: Dude, two thousand and two was the last time this
Speaker 2: team won a national championship. I mean there are people
Speaker 2: on this team who were not born yet. I mean
Speaker 2: not born, not alive.
Speaker 1: We may live in the past, but they weren't even
Speaker 1: there for the past anyway.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: The doc if you want to see the preview to
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's New War with Venezuela, Billy Corbyn already did it.
Speaker 3: Cocaines.
Speaker 1: All right, my man, good to talk with you. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Sorry I stepped on your plug at the end.
Speaker 1: There, No, it's your plug. Men of war. I know
Speaker 1: everywhere everywhere you want to get you know, do you
Speaker 1: have a it's you can stream it everywhere? What Amazon? Apple?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, everywhere, I mean direct TV, anywhere you rent
Speaker 3: or buy or stream movies.
Speaker 1: Very nice, very nice. Well go say it. It's it's
Speaker 1: worth it's worth the money, it's worth your time, worth
Speaker 1: the rental ownership I assume you do. What what is
Speaker 1: the difference in your finances between rental and owning?
Speaker 3: Nothing?
Speaker 1: Zero?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, the the Yeah, it's because Neon is distributing so
Speaker 2: what No, I don't know if there's any trick down.
Speaker 1: It doesn't help you either way.
Speaker 2: Renting it just seeing is what I would I would
Speaker 2: love for people to see it. I think it's I
Speaker 2: think it's some I think we did. I think I
Speaker 2: think it turned out very well. You know some of
Speaker 2: these things to do with.
Speaker 1: Some of them, and as anything, would you do it?
Speaker 1: You're like, oh my god, it's even more relevant now
Speaker 1: that's my point. It's even more relevant now. All right,
Speaker 1: my friend, thank you, Thanks so much,