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Speaker 1: What's meet Ball my Ron's This is Behind the Bastards,

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Speaker 1: a podcast about the worst people in all of history.

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Speaker 1: And this week we are talking about Ronnie the Big

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Speaker 1: d DeSantis Meet Ball ron ron desanct Demonious lockdown, Ron,

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Speaker 1: I think is the other thing that Trump.

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Speaker 2: Calls Anyway, we all have horrified faces.

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Speaker 1: I know, I know you all have have beautiful faces.

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Speaker 1: And let me introduce those beautiful faces right now because

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Speaker 1: no one else could be the guests on our Ronathan

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Speaker 1: Sanctimonious d episodes. But Cody Johnston and Katie Stole here

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Speaker 1: for me is that I was amazing.

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Speaker 3: It's he's doing wrong.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like a frozen animatronic if you were to see.

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Speaker 5: Him do it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, like it was unsettling functioning. It was. It was

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Speaker 1: when Cody becomes president and gets his his his animatronic

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Speaker 1: Cody in the Hall of Presidents.

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Speaker 3: When I become president, and that's the big reveal. That's what.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Actually I'm like this.

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Speaker 1: So guys, y'all, yin's what would your nicknames be if

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Speaker 1: Trump gave you a nickname?

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Speaker 3: Uh, probably something like like dirty Cody or something dirty

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Speaker 3: like lose to like the the unkempt nature of my

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Speaker 3: persona disheveled Dusty Cody, Dusty Cody yor something like that.

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Speaker 5: Little beardy Beardo Cody Yeah beard o.

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Speaker 1: Yeah Beard Yeah.

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Speaker 5: I don't know what. Mine would be probably crazy with

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Speaker 5: a k or something.

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Speaker 4: Crazy, Katie, mine would Mine would just be that woman.

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Speaker 1: That woman. See. I think he would just alter his

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Speaker 1: his Ron DeSantis nickname for me and call me meatball

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Speaker 1: Rob because because Ron and I are both very Italian,

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Speaker 1: tragically Italian.

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Speaker 3: That's not wrong.

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Speaker 5: But I have never ever thought of you as a rob.

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Speaker 1: I thought you were going to say you never thought

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Speaker 1: of me as a meatball? Wow, Katie, Wow Wow?

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Speaker 4: Occasionally sure, yeah, honest with each other. No wait, though, seriously,

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Speaker 4: has anybody called you rob before?

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Speaker 1: Not and lived?

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Speaker 3: No? Yeah? So okay, so Ron, get on.

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Speaker 5: Something with machetes.

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Speaker 1: Maybe it is. No, that's too cool sounding, very funny.

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Speaker 1: My favorite thing about Donald Trump because you know he's

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Speaker 1: a bad person. Hated him, done tremendous damage both to

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Speaker 1: my family and to the world. But I have, you know,

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Speaker 1: as a writer, as a longtime comedy writer, game recognized

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Speaker 1: game and he is an incredible nickname giver, just one

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Speaker 1: of like stunningly effective. My favorite example of that is

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Speaker 1: meet ball Ron. Because people may not be aware of this,

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Speaker 1: he hasn't publicly called Ron de Santis meet ball Ron.

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Speaker 1: In fact, it was like back in February, a story

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Speaker 1: broke that in private, Trump was calling him meet ball

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Speaker 1: Ron as an insult. This is back when he was

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Speaker 1: publicly calling him like lockdown Ron and dsanct demonious, which

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Speaker 1: are both much worse nicknames. And as soon as everyone

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Speaker 1: heard he's calling him this in private, it instantly became

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Speaker 1: like nationwide.

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Speaker 3: Trump was like, from the privacy of your own home,

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Speaker 3: you still did it.

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Speaker 1: Trump has even been like, no, I'd never call him that,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's a it's an appropriate I'm not gonna

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Speaker 1: engage the Italian discription.

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Speaker 3: Oh he's a he's an amazing it's so funny. He's

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Speaker 3: so good at the at the this, the marketing, and

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Speaker 3: just like he knows how to do it because all

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Speaker 3: he do is like I would never call him that. Maybe,

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Speaker 3: you know, maybe some people call him meat Ron. I

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Speaker 3: wouldn't call him that. Men off the tongue. I don't know.

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Speaker 1: It's a great nickname made up by a smart man,

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Speaker 1: but no, but I would know something, so are are

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Speaker 1: y'all ready to learn the Ballad of Meatball. Ron will

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Speaker 1: not be titling this episode.

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Speaker 3: I have a I have a question for you before

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Speaker 3: we begin. Do you address his name? His last name? Oh?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, wait, his last fun Yeah, because this is God's

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Speaker 4: fat hobby horse.

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Speaker 3: A little just a little factoid. His name is pronounced

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Speaker 3: de Santis. Yes, but he pronounces it DeSantis. Yeah, because

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Speaker 3: when he was running for governor, he people call him

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Speaker 3: DeSantis and he's like, I guess it's DeSantis. Now he

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Speaker 3: just changed the way he pronounced his name under like

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Speaker 3: vague social pressure. Yeah. I think it's pretty amazing.

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Speaker 1: And that's and very consistent to the to the man

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Speaker 1: we are going to be talking.

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Speaker 3: About, exact color it with uh yeel.

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Speaker 1: Oh yes, yes, uh so. Ronathan J. DeSantis was due

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Speaker 1: to a filing mishap, born under the legal name Ronald

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Speaker 1: Dion DeSantis on September fourteenth, nineteen seventy eight, in Jacksonville, Florida. Now,

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Speaker 1: but you're all wondering about that middle name, right, Dion.

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Speaker 1: That's an odd middle name for a meatball. Uh Well,

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Speaker 1: Ronnie's father, also, Ron DeSantis, was a huge fan of

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Speaker 1: Dion de Mucci, The doo wop singer whose most well

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Speaker 1: known hit was the nineteen sixty one song run Around

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Speaker 1: sou Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's why Governor On DeSantis'

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Speaker 1: middle name is Dion.

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Speaker 5: That's so funny.

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Speaker 3: Oh my god.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, just right out the gate with some with some

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Speaker 1: mind blowing fact on. Yeah, Dion de Santis.

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Speaker 3: It's a good most almost runner out.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, almost the same name as Dion Sanders, who would

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Speaker 1: have been a better governor of Florida. Probably he might

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Speaker 1: have been a terrible person.

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Speaker 3: I oh, we are all in on Sanders.

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Speaker 1: Okay, that's good. That's good. So I should note off

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Speaker 1: the top here that when I say Ron was born

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Speaker 1: in Florida, I am referring to the state in the

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Speaker 1: southeastern portion of the United States, not the seminal genre

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Speaker 1: defining rap artist flow Ryda aka Tremar Dillard, who recently

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Speaker 1: represented San Marino in the twenty twenty one Eurovision Song Contest.

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Speaker 1: Listeners get confused whenever we mentioned the state, and I

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Speaker 1: want to assure you that Meatball Ron was not birthed

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Speaker 1: z A morph like from the belly of one of

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Speaker 1: America's great cultural treasure is just a yeah, yeah, I

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Speaker 1: double checked. I double checked. I even sent in an

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Speaker 1: email request to the sheriff of Jacksonville, who responded, please

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Speaker 1: stop messaging us about flow Rider.

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Speaker 5: Seems like a pretty good conversation and.

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Speaker 3: You trusted them.

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Speaker 1: Well, you know, I just I legally, I can't uh

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Speaker 1: u further by suspicions until we get some sort of

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Speaker 1: like a photo for the police. All right, uh see

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Speaker 1: A I will not be of any use to me

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Speaker 1: until we can generate a perfect, perfect cover of that

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Speaker 1: scene from Alien where it's Ron Desantist bursting out of

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Speaker 1: flow Righter's chest and flow Right is singing whatever song

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Speaker 1: flow Right I got famous for. I know nothing else

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Speaker 1: about flow Rider.

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Speaker 4: Pretty someone has to be able to do something like that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll see.

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Speaker 1: Proved me right or wrong? I forget which. So before

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Speaker 1: we discuss Rod DeSantis's childhood, we should talk briefly about

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Speaker 1: his family background. His mom and dad were the first

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Speaker 1: generation of their family to move to Florida. He is

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Speaker 1: fairly recent about was recent. I think about as recent

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Speaker 1: as my family is. Immigrants too good old fashioned the

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Speaker 1: United States. Most of his relatives remained in western Pennsylvania

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Speaker 1: and northwest Ohio, which is why now Yeah, classic grease

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Speaker 1: ball stuff.

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Speaker 3: But Italians and Western Pa and Ohio.

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Speaker 1: Damn, oh yeah no, it's what we do.

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Speaker 3: Baby, Get up there, get to Akron.

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Speaker 1: Come on, yeah yeah, Akron, the Promised Land. That's what

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Speaker 1: for generations, Italians were like, sitting around in Tuscany looking

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Speaker 1: out at like the unfolding glory of nature and going, fuck,

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Speaker 1: I wish this was Akron.

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Speaker 3: I want, guys.

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Speaker 1: So because of the fact that most of his family

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Speaker 1: has stayed in this chunk of the Midwest, Ron claims

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Speaker 1: in his memoir, which he published immediately prior to launching

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Speaker 1: his presidential campaign, that despite growing up in Florida, he

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Speaker 1: is culturally a Midwesterner Quoa. I was geographically raised in

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Speaker 1: the in Tampa Bay, but culturally my upbringing reflected the

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Speaker 1: working class communities in western Pennsylvania and northeast Ohio, from

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Speaker 1: weekly church attendance to the expectation that one winner in

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Speaker 1: his keep. This made me god fearing, hard working, and

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Speaker 1: America loving. And there's a lot that's funny about that,

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Speaker 1: particularly the fact that it's kind of insinuating that Floridians

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Speaker 1: are like shiftless, godless degenerates, which.

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Speaker 3: Is true, is exactly what he's saying, and there's this

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Speaker 3: element of like I'm I invaded the place and took

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Speaker 3: over with like it's like this weird like reverse like

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Speaker 3: americanized like great replacement thing of like culturally I'm here

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Speaker 3: and I'm bringing those values to Florida. But also he

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Speaker 3: wants to make America Florida, right, yeah, so what like

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Speaker 3: what is it? Do you want to actually make America

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Speaker 3: like Ohio's version of Florida?

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Speaker 1: Like yeah, he's saying, yeah, the Ohio version of Florida,

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Speaker 1: which I don't know. There's a Jimmy Buffett joke there,

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Speaker 1: but it's not coming to me right now. So Ron's

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Speaker 1: decision to do this has been right, James James Buffett, that's.

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Speaker 3: The Midwestern Jimmy Buffett.

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Speaker 1: He's scared of the water. He doesn't get anywhere.

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Speaker 4: I think it's actually pronounced James Buffet James.

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Speaker 1: So this has been made fun of by a lot

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Speaker 1: of people. It's worth noting that he only very recently

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Speaker 1: started claiming to be culturally Midwestern. In his initial congressional

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Speaker 1: campaigns and first governor goombinatorial campaign, he described himself repeatedly

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Speaker 1: as from Florida, from Tampa Bay. So this is something

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Speaker 1: he has picked up as an attempt to get votes

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Speaker 1: in the Midwest himself.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, the common man.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the common the common man, the common idiot. Like

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Speaker 1: that's what that's how he's what he's saying about Midwesterners

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Speaker 1: is like they're so dumb. I can pretend to be

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Speaker 1: from there despite growing up as far away almost as

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Speaker 1: you can.

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Speaker 3: Right. It's funny because like he's like, he's insulting the Midwest,

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Speaker 3: but you're dumb if you'll believe, yes. But also he's

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Speaker 3: insulting Floridians by being like, yeah, they're fucking.

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Speaker 5: I'm not one of them, and I'm not one of them.

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Speaker 3: I'm bringing my good ship over there, like yeah.

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Speaker 1: And it is. It has not seemed to work. A

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Speaker 1: recent article on Florida Politics dot Com notes that he

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Speaker 1: is at least ten points behind Trump in Pennsylvania, and

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Speaker 1: he recently dropped to third place in the Ohio primary

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Speaker 1: polls behind Vivic Ramaswami. Shocking. Hey, come on, he is

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Speaker 1: fifty five points behind Donald Trump there.

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Speaker 3: So that's painful.

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Speaker 1: Hasn't exactly played out. That's Ohio, Okay, the Midwest isn't

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Speaker 1: doing so hard.

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Speaker 3: How's he doing in Florida?

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Speaker 1: He's not beating Donald Trump last I checked, like, I

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Speaker 1: don't think so. How could he be realistic anyway? That's

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Speaker 1: actually what we're talking about. That's the whole point of

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Speaker 1: this week's episodes. So back to his family. Ron gets

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Speaker 1: his interest in politics from his grandfather, who was a

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Speaker 1: major figure in the Republican Party of mid century Ohio.

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Speaker 1: He was on deck in nineteen sixty for a major

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Speaker 1: political scandal where a number of voting machines failed during

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Speaker 1: an election and led to something like fifteen hundred people's

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Speaker 1: votes failing to be accounted, effectively disenfranchising them. Right, this

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Speaker 1: is like a very serious issue. The Secretary of State,

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Speaker 1: who was a fairly rare Republican and state government at

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Speaker 1: that point in time, cleaned house and put Philip Rogers,

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Speaker 1: Ron's grandpa and his director. By all accounts, he was

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Speaker 1: very good at this job, and he became a respected

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Speaker 1: expert on election integrity. The Republican Party in Ohio in

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Speaker 1: those days was not a mighty force, but Philip gained

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Speaker 1: widespread respect and traveled around the state helping to ensure

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Speaker 1: integrity in a number of smaller elections. When the local

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Speaker 1: steel workers union needed to do a vote, they trusted

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Speaker 1: him to manage it and ensure that it was done

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Speaker 1: with integrity. He was even contracted out to other states,

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Speaker 1: including Louisiana, to help them set up modern voting machine systems.

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Speaker 1: Rogers is described by one colleague as quote someone who

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Speaker 1: believed in the way the system worked. He was political,

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Speaker 1: but not a politician, and instead someone who believed enough

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Speaker 1: in the system to work a pretty thankless and intricate job.

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Speaker 1: By all accounts, he was not especially ideological, and I've

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Speaker 1: run into no complaints of him taking advantage of this

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Speaker 1: job to further his own political INDs. Crucially, Roger was

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Speaker 1: on the moderate wing of the Republican Party. One write

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Speaker 1: up from NBC News notes there was a group of

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Speaker 1: Goldwater rights who were a thorn in the side of

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Speaker 1: the party at the time, says Binning, referring to acolytes

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Speaker 1: at Barry Goldwater, the failed utra Conservative presidential candidate in

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty four. Phil wasn't in with them. This was

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Speaker 1: one of his fellow Republicans in Ohio at the time.

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Speaker 1: So he's not an extremist, not a hard right guy.

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Speaker 1: Ronda Santis, the dad of our Randa Sis Santis, the

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Speaker 1: son of this dude, moved the family away from its

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Speaker 1: Midwest roots after he graduated in nineteen seventy and got

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Speaker 1: a job for Nielsen, the company that used to determine

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Speaker 1: what TV shows got renewed. Most of our gen Z

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Speaker 1: viewers will not know what the fuck we're talking about

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Speaker 1: when we say mentioned Nielsen families. But once upon a

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Speaker 1: time people paid money to subscribe to something called cable

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Speaker 1: because we hadn't yet invented lime wire TV. Shit, they're

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Speaker 1: not going to remember LimeWire either.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, what is that?

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Speaker 1: TV shows lived or died based on how many Nielsen

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Speaker 1: viewers turned tuned into them. The basic idea was like

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Speaker 1: a percentage of families in each state got like sent

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Speaker 1: a box that they would hook up to their TV

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Speaker 1: and it would record what they were watching, And then

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Speaker 1: Nielsen would do some whack ass math to determine how

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Speaker 1: many people are actually watching the show, and advertisers would

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Speaker 1: use this data to decide where to buy ad space

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Speaker 1: and what the value of ad space was. Right, And

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Speaker 1: thus was American popular culture shaped for decades. Old Ron,

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Speaker 1: as he probably is not called, was a low level

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Speaker 1: cog in this system. He's physically putting the boxes into

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Speaker 1: people's houses. Uh, r Ron DeSantis' mom, it was a

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Speaker 1: first generation Polish immigrant and became a critical care nurse.

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Speaker 1: It's interesting to look at what some of the elder

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Speaker 1: adults in Ron's youth did for a living. His parents'

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Speaker 1: siblings became a priest and a nun respectively, which suggests

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Speaker 1: a strong Catholic upbringing. Ar Ron doesn't talk about this

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Speaker 1: as much as he speaks generally about God and going

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Speaker 1: to church, but it's worth noting that from what is

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Speaker 1: publicly available for us to see, his nun aunt does

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Speaker 1: not seem to be the kind of Catholic you might

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Speaker 1: expect given her nephew's path. Here's NBC again. Be open

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Speaker 1: to diversity, Sister Regina said during a twenty twenty commencement

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Speaker 1: address to graduates at Ursuline High School. Do not be

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Speaker 1: afraid of those who are different from you. It's okay

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Speaker 1: to change your thinking. Change is the constant in our lives.

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Speaker 1: Oh that's inesting, Yeah yeah, So that's different from.

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Speaker 3: Artist in one ear in one end of the.

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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. His priest uncle, father Rogers, has been known

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Speaker 1: to recite Teddy Roosevelt's Man in the Arena speech from

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Speaker 1: the pulpit, but doesn't have a reputation for bringing up

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Speaker 1: politics in a more relevant modern sense. He has a

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Speaker 1: sizable fan pace among the Catholic subculture, including many people

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Speaker 1: who have followed him from two different churches. Because of

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Speaker 1: his raw charisma. It said he doesn't need a microphone

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Speaker 1: to reach the back pews. I bring this up because

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Speaker 1: it's a notably distinct difference between r Ron and his kin.

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Speaker 1: DeSantis is known for a lot of things, but in person,

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Speaker 1: charisma is not one of them. People who know the

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Speaker 1: family will say that he takes after his mom, Karen Moore,

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Speaker 1: as she is something of an introvert and uncomfortable with

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Speaker 1: the spotlight. Even as he's become a national figure, she

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Speaker 1: doesn't really show up in public, which you know is

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Speaker 1: her right he should, He should take her take advice, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: approach to avoid being known by people.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, we become a big weakness for Ron

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Speaker 3: seems to be being perceived.

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Speaker 1: Being perceived exactly. If no one could see or be

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Speaker 1: aware of him, he would be a lot more likable.

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Speaker 4: Man.

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Speaker 3: I bet he was.

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Speaker 5: I bet he wanted to be like his uncle so bad.

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Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, No, it's too much of

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Speaker 1: a meatball, not a speech, absolutely the driest meatball. As

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Speaker 1: a kid, young Ron was bright and a good student.

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Speaker 1: Excellent student. Actually, his grades were so good that one

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Speaker 1: the teacher would describe him as having a Stepford report card.

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Speaker 1: He was also a very capable athlete, and in his youth,

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Speaker 1: Ron's first love was baseball. He was known to other

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Speaker 1: kids as D, which he still prefers to be called

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Speaker 1: and claims to like more than his real name. So

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Speaker 1: you know, that's that's the add he should have gone

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Speaker 1: with Florida got that D you know some D. Yeah

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Speaker 1: that D take this D D in you, Ron, If

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Speaker 1: you weren't a coward, we would support you, just just

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Speaker 1: based on that. Don't even care about your politics.

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Speaker 3: It's a good D joke, can't I can't go find that.

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Speaker 3: I feel like if you weren't a coward, he'd be

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Speaker 3: uh uh saying a lot worse stuff than he already.

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Speaker 1: That is almost certainly true, Cody K Money see money anyway.

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Speaker 1: The earliest influential book that Ron read as a kid

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Speaker 1: was the Science of Hitting by baseball legend Ted Williams.

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Speaker 1: One of Ted's pieces of advice in that tone is

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Speaker 1: to be very careful about the swings that you choose

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Speaker 1: to take. Ron's father claims his son took this advice

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Speaker 1: to heart, telling the New Yorker, I must have thrown

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Speaker 1: half a million pitches to Ron. I think he swung

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Speaker 1: at about five hundred of them. What are you laughing

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Speaker 1: at about their Cody he.

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Speaker 3: Would after Disney like seven months.

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Speaker 1: I know, I know he did not learn that fucking lesson.

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Speaker 3: I did not stick with you.

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Speaker 1: Man. Well it's you know, I might argue Cody. And

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Speaker 1: this is one of the things I find interesting about Ron.

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Speaker 1: He did abide by that advice in his life and

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Speaker 1: career up until like a year and a half ago.

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Speaker 1: Like he's even the most of his political career extremely consistent.

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Speaker 1: It's really about littless than two years ago that he

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Speaker 1: decides to take some really wild swings that have just

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Speaker 1: just shattered him, which is interesting to me, Like you

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Speaker 1: almost get the feeling like this guy is like this disciplined,

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Speaker 1: coiled spring and managed to like keep himself in line

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Speaker 1: and then just for whatever reason twenty twenty two, decides, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's time to go off the leash.

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Speaker 3: No it was not, No, it was not. Yeah. I

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Speaker 3: think the topification of his desires, and I think the

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Speaker 3: libs of TikTok talkification. Like he's got some people surrounding

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Speaker 3: him that are very online and radical in the bad

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Speaker 3: sense of the word radical. You could call him, you could.

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Speaker 3: I feel like even that gives him too much Uh yeah,

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Speaker 3: rad but like the yeah, this sort of like he's

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Speaker 3: been sort of injected with a lot of awful shit

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Speaker 3: that he's let sort of steep into him because he's

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Speaker 3: a dry meatball. So they're they're pumping him full of

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Speaker 3: like the poison, yeah, meatballs juice, which he needs. Oh okay, okay, okay,

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Speaker 3: So I'm mixed up. I don't know.

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Speaker 1: His hometown was Dunidin, which is famous both for its

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Speaker 1: long standing lawsuit with a Tolkien estate over its name

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Speaker 1: and for baseball. It was the spring training home of

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Speaker 1: the Toronto Blue Jays, so as a kid, Ron could

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Speaker 1: easily go down the street and watch the pros play.

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Speaker 1: His upbringing was very parochial, and he notes that he

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Speaker 1: graduated that until he graduated high school, he had rarely

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Speaker 1: traveled further than five miles away from his house for

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Speaker 1: anything but baseball. In his memoir, he writes, baseball was

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Speaker 1: the engine that expanded my horizons In those days, little

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Speaker 1: leagues like DUNI in national had a regular season in

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Speaker 1: which the individual teams, each sponsored by a local business,

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Speaker 1: would compete against each other. Now, I also played Little

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Speaker 1: league baseball. Did you play Little league either, y'alls?

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Speaker 3: I did?

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Speaker 5: I sure did.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it should be a federal felony to

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Speaker 1: make children play baseball. But I'm not sure if you

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Speaker 1: guys had a better experience, maybe maybe slightly better.

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Speaker 4: I enjoyed it personally, Okay, okay, wow.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, Well there's diversity on the panel today. It's good.

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Speaker 4: Sure, yeah, criminals a variety of opinions.

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Speaker 1: Well, meatball Ron loved it. Couldn't get enough baseball, and

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Speaker 1: he was very good, and so was his team. He

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Speaker 1: kind of like lands in with this group of boys

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Speaker 1: who were all they make like a pact when they're

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Speaker 1: eleven or twelve together to get to the Nationals effectively,

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Speaker 1: and you know, they do very well. The first big

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Speaker 1: year they get to the district tournament, they're eliminated by

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Speaker 1: game three, but like it's further than they thought they

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Speaker 1: were going to get. Ron and his teammates are super

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Speaker 1: like four of them are going to wind up getting

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Speaker 1: drafted into the into the majors, like they are, like, uh,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of a dream team of little boys ue

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Speaker 1: baseball Ron.

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Speaker 3: Uh.

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Speaker 1: So, after getting eliminated in game three the district tournament,

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Speaker 1: they train even harder to compete the next year with

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Speaker 1: the hope of earning a spot in the prestigious Little

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Speaker 1: League World Series. In williamsport news articles often include a

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Speaker 1: photo of Ron's team from this period. You see him

402
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Speaker 1: holding an aluminum bat on his shoulder. One local Tampa

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Speaker 1: source described him as staring into the camera with a

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Speaker 1: look so assured it's almost unnerving on a twelve year old.

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Speaker 1: You get similar hype and other write ups, most of

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Speaker 1: which describe him as an unusually serious kid. I don't

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Speaker 1: see it. I haven't found that photo, but I found

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Speaker 1: I've got another one here, and like he just looks

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Speaker 1: like a normal preteen boy.

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Speaker 3: Like, yeah, I want to see that the unnerving one,

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Speaker 3: because I feel like unnerving is a very another good

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Speaker 3: word to describe him and his interactions with people.

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Speaker 5: Yes, he's a very serious kid.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean he doesn't. In this photo he looks

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Speaker 1: he's just laughing like the others, Like he just looks

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Speaker 1: like a smiling kid. He does look like it.

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Speaker 3: He's not put on the face right.

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Speaker 1: No. No.

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Speaker 3: Also, we've also all seen him laugh at this point.

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Speaker 1: I guess his his nightmare laugh, like the like the

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Speaker 1: crowing of a fucking funeral bird.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, he's like smiling, looks like yeah, he's yeah,

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Speaker 3: what happened, Ron, what happened?

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Speaker 1: Well, that's what we're talking about today. Whether or not

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Speaker 1: he was an unusually serious kid, he was openly ambitious

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Speaker 1: in a way that is not the norm for preteen boys.

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Speaker 1: From that Tampa Bay ride up quote. I always knew

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Speaker 1: he was going into politics, said Brady Williams, who is

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Speaker 1: now the Raised Triple A manager in Durham and was

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Speaker 1: then one of Dessanta's closest friends. His goal was to

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Speaker 1: be the president of the United States. Was that far fetched?

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Speaker 1: A lot of things we talked about that summer were

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Speaker 1: far fetched, and a lot of them happened. So he

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Speaker 1: is one of these And I do feel like I

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Speaker 1: think we need a government agency specific to go after

436
00:24:01,160 --> 00:24:09,000
Speaker 1: little boys who talk relentlessly about becoming the president or intah. Yeah,

437
00:24:09,119 --> 00:24:11,600
Speaker 1: parents have to like register them, like, yeah, my son's

438
00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:15,120
Speaker 1: been talking about becoming the president or the first trillionaire.

439
00:24:15,280 --> 00:24:19,480
Speaker 1: You know, we gotta gotta tamp down.

440
00:24:19,280 --> 00:24:25,080
Speaker 3: On that deal with those ambitions. Yeah, are kids fucked up?

441
00:24:25,520 --> 00:24:28,200
Speaker 1: Yeah? This is this is a use that we could

442
00:24:28,200 --> 00:24:31,120
Speaker 1: have for like Philly sports fans, right where the government

443
00:24:31,160 --> 00:24:32,760
Speaker 1: sends a bus of them out to each of these

444
00:24:32,840 --> 00:24:43,280
Speaker 1: kids with just like eggs to just like start pelting them. Actually,

445
00:24:43,320 --> 00:24:48,040
Speaker 1: I think we may have solved a major societal problem here.

446
00:24:48,359 --> 00:24:48,760
Speaker 3: Jobs.

447
00:24:49,240 --> 00:24:52,160
Speaker 1: It greats jobs for Philly sports guys, most of whom

448
00:24:52,160 --> 00:24:52,840
Speaker 1: are unemployed.

449
00:24:53,040 --> 00:24:54,479
Speaker 3: Yeah. Jobs.

450
00:24:54,880 --> 00:24:57,119
Speaker 5: There's nothing anybody could possibly find wrong with this.

451
00:24:58,359 --> 00:25:00,280
Speaker 1: I think we've gotta I think we've got a playing

452
00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:03,080
Speaker 1: all the meatball. Yeah, yeah, we've got it.

453
00:25:03,119 --> 00:25:03,359
Speaker 3: Now.

454
00:25:04,560 --> 00:25:07,280
Speaker 1: The next year, his little league team does much better.

455
00:25:07,560 --> 00:25:10,719
Speaker 1: He describes them as storming into the regional tournament and

456
00:25:10,760 --> 00:25:13,879
Speaker 1: making mincemeat of the other's southern teams. One of his

457
00:25:14,280 --> 00:25:16,840
Speaker 1: former teammates has discussed how manically they had to train

458
00:25:16,920 --> 00:25:20,280
Speaker 1: that year, rarely going two days in a week without playing.

459
00:25:20,560 --> 00:25:23,239
Speaker 1: They eventually made it to the regional championships, where they

460
00:25:23,240 --> 00:25:25,720
Speaker 1: won the Southern regional title and earned a spot in

461
00:25:25,760 --> 00:25:30,639
Speaker 1: the national contest or in the World Series. Quote. I

462
00:25:30,680 --> 00:25:32,359
Speaker 1: was surprised at how big of a deal it was

463
00:25:32,400 --> 00:25:34,720
Speaker 1: for our community. We found ourselves on the local news

464
00:25:34,720 --> 00:25:37,000
Speaker 1: and on the front page of the local newspapers. A

465
00:25:37,040 --> 00:25:39,000
Speaker 1: long way from being a bunch of kids putting on

466
00:25:39,040 --> 00:25:41,320
Speaker 1: a far fetched motto beneath the brims of our hats.

467
00:25:41,600 --> 00:25:44,359
Speaker 1: Williamsport is the Shangri Law for Little leaguers. The games

468
00:25:44,400 --> 00:25:46,479
Speaker 1: take place in an actual stadium that can hold more

469
00:25:46,480 --> 00:25:49,600
Speaker 1: than forty thousand spectators. Thanks to the terrace hills beyond

470
00:25:49,600 --> 00:25:52,520
Speaker 1: the outfield fence, the field was perfectly manicured. When we

471
00:25:52,520 --> 00:25:54,119
Speaker 1: first got a peek at the stadium, it was like

472
00:25:54,280 --> 00:25:56,720
Speaker 1: entering Finway Park or Wrigley Field for the first time.

473
00:25:57,000 --> 00:25:59,000
Speaker 1: The teams all stayed in cabins on site, and there

474
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:01,400
Speaker 1: was a dining hall for all all meals. And this

475
00:26:01,480 --> 00:26:04,919
Speaker 1: is this is Meatball Ron's first brush with fame. This

476
00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:07,080
Speaker 1: is the first time he's like on TV. He gets

477
00:26:07,080 --> 00:26:09,360
Speaker 1: like a card made of himself.

478
00:26:09,440 --> 00:26:14,679
Speaker 3: Yeah, sees himself how he can be, how he should be,

479
00:26:15,280 --> 00:26:18,000
Speaker 3: how he has the right to be, how it's his

480
00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:19,720
Speaker 3: destiny to be.

481
00:26:20,400 --> 00:26:24,160
Speaker 1: You do get that feeling again. Bring in Philly sports

482
00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:27,400
Speaker 1: fans for the Little League World Series. You know, give

483
00:26:27,440 --> 00:26:33,639
Speaker 1: him free batteries just to pigs Tampa batteries. Oh yeah, Phillies.

484
00:26:33,680 --> 00:26:39,920
Speaker 1: Guys love their fucking batteries. So uh, every biographical look

485
00:26:39,920 --> 00:26:42,280
Speaker 1: at Ron will discuss his little league team's rise to

486
00:26:42,320 --> 00:26:44,440
Speaker 1: the championships. It does seem to have been a crucial

487
00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:47,560
Speaker 1: moment for his self conception, the time where he realized

488
00:26:47,560 --> 00:26:50,440
Speaker 1: that his humble middle class upbringing wouldn't lock him out

489
00:26:50,480 --> 00:26:54,399
Speaker 1: of national aspirations. In his memoir, he also uses it

490
00:26:54,440 --> 00:26:58,359
Speaker 1: as an excuse to make a baffling political point about China.

491
00:26:58,880 --> 00:27:03,000
Speaker 1: So currently, the big little league competition includes a team

492
00:27:03,040 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 1: from Taiwan. It is the World Series, and like, I

493
00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:10,280
Speaker 1: don't know why they lost their big game at Williamsport,

494
00:27:10,600 --> 00:27:13,119
Speaker 1: and he describes the other team's pitcher as throwing like

495
00:27:13,240 --> 00:27:16,160
Speaker 1: Nolan Ryan, which makes me think of the time Nolan

496
00:27:16,240 --> 00:27:18,160
Speaker 1: Ryan coldcock that dude on the field, and I want

497
00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:20,520
Speaker 1: to see Ronda Santis take a hey Maker from anyway

498
00:27:20,560 --> 00:27:24,679
Speaker 1: whatever after losing to the Taiwanese team, this is the

499
00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:26,760
Speaker 1: thing I don't understand why he brings up. So they

500
00:27:26,840 --> 00:27:30,399
Speaker 1: eventually lose to this Taiwanese team, and then after noting

501
00:27:30,440 --> 00:27:34,359
Speaker 1: this disappointing loss, Ron gives us this gym. I also

502
00:27:34,400 --> 00:27:37,000
Speaker 1: think it may have informed some of my later political judgments.

503
00:27:37,240 --> 00:27:40,320
Speaker 1: For example, while my hostility towards the Chinese Communist Party

504
00:27:40,320 --> 00:27:42,719
Speaker 1: and my support for Taiwan is reflected by my general

505
00:27:42,720 --> 00:27:46,000
Speaker 1: political outlook, the respect I had for Taiwanese baseball no

506
00:27:46,040 --> 00:27:49,359
Speaker 1: doubt made my pro type stance more natural. After all,

507
00:27:49,440 --> 00:27:51,840
Speaker 1: I remember playing ping pong against these guys and they

508
00:27:51,840 --> 00:27:54,960
Speaker 1: were just normal kids having fun, not maoists trying to

509
00:27:55,000 --> 00:28:00,359
Speaker 1: further a cultural revolution. Yeah, I'm sure all pre teen

510
00:28:00,480 --> 00:28:06,440
Speaker 1: shiniest kids are a hardcore maoist political opinions.

511
00:28:06,800 --> 00:28:11,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, like the idea is, so it's just like yourself.

512
00:28:11,320 --> 00:28:13,920
Speaker 1: If they'd been kids, you would have had the same

513
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:17,879
Speaker 1: experience because you're all fucking kids. You're playing sports game like,

514
00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:20,480
Speaker 1: they're not going to be just like reading from the

515
00:28:20,560 --> 00:28:21,960
Speaker 1: fucking Red Book to you.

516
00:28:22,400 --> 00:28:26,600
Speaker 3: So sure it just speaks to like the way like

517
00:28:26,760 --> 00:28:29,520
Speaker 3: his mind, like yeah, this mind works of like yeah,

518
00:28:29,800 --> 00:28:34,240
Speaker 3: an experience, what experience with people who are different from me? Yeah,

519
00:28:34,320 --> 00:28:38,800
Speaker 3: and now that that informs my entire worldview, whether it

520
00:28:38,880 --> 00:28:43,440
Speaker 3: be negative or positive, it's just weird, like well whatever, Yeah,

521
00:28:43,520 --> 00:28:44,960
Speaker 3: I hate meatballs.

522
00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:46,960
Speaker 1: Now I don't like meatballs anymore.

523
00:28:47,200 --> 00:28:47,320
Speaker 4: So.

524
00:28:47,800 --> 00:28:50,840
Speaker 1: After graduating high school, Ron claims to have worked full

525
00:28:50,840 --> 00:28:53,360
Speaker 1: time at an electric company that had sponsored his little

526
00:28:53,440 --> 00:28:55,720
Speaker 1: league team in order to pay for college. So he's

527
00:28:55,840 --> 00:28:58,040
Speaker 1: they sponsor his team, the guy who runs the electric

528
00:28:58,240 --> 00:29:01,960
Speaker 1: business company. Thing is like Meatball Ron, if you ever

529
00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:04,520
Speaker 1: want a gig when you're done with the with the baseballs,

530
00:29:04,600 --> 00:29:07,160
Speaker 1: you gotta gig here. So he he gets this job,

531
00:29:07,240 --> 00:29:10,320
Speaker 1: and he he will not shut up about this job. Right,

532
00:29:10,320 --> 00:29:13,360
Speaker 1: this is like the one blue collar moment of his life.

533
00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:18,160
Speaker 1: And that absolutely as hard as he can and he

534
00:29:18,200 --> 00:29:21,280
Speaker 1: will use this. He's gonna make as much political hay

535
00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:24,000
Speaker 1: out of this motherfucking gig as it's possible to make.

536
00:29:24,440 --> 00:29:27,719
Speaker 1: But you know who else will? Milk and Meatball Cody,

537
00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:30,760
Speaker 1: you know who loves milking meatballs. Can't get enough of

538
00:29:30,800 --> 00:29:32,840
Speaker 1: that of that ball milk as they call.

539
00:29:33,560 --> 00:29:36,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, who's the ball milk milkers?

540
00:29:37,080 --> 00:29:41,680
Speaker 1: Well, if you want wow ok ball milk meat is

541
00:29:42,680 --> 00:29:45,920
Speaker 1: your question? Uh huh yeah, well you can ask Meatball

542
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:50,160
Speaker 1: Ron that her name is Casey. So you know here's

543
00:29:50,200 --> 00:30:01,800
Speaker 1: an ad Oh yeah, oh yeah, I don't know why

544
00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:02,760
Speaker 1: I came back that way.

545
00:30:03,520 --> 00:30:05,040
Speaker 5: It was a fun choice, I think I do.

546
00:30:05,160 --> 00:30:08,600
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you, thank you both. So Meatball Ron

547
00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:12,240
Speaker 1: is very proud of his working class credentials as a

548
00:30:12,320 --> 00:30:16,480
Speaker 1: briefly an electrician. Now he never bothers to interrogate whether

549
00:30:16,520 --> 00:30:18,640
Speaker 1: anything has changed to make it harder for a kid

550
00:30:18,680 --> 00:30:21,800
Speaker 1: today to pay for Yale tuition with an entry level

551
00:30:21,840 --> 00:30:24,760
Speaker 1: gig at a power company. What he does make time

552
00:30:24,800 --> 00:30:27,880
Speaker 1: to do in his memoir is shit on those lazy millennials.

553
00:30:28,320 --> 00:30:30,680
Speaker 3: Quo, thank goodness.

554
00:30:30,280 --> 00:30:33,200
Speaker 1: Will it was come and for rising college freshmen to

555
00:30:33,200 --> 00:30:36,560
Speaker 1: spend their summer enjoying themselves on the beach and sleeping

556
00:30:36,600 --> 00:30:39,160
Speaker 1: in until noon. I was up at the crack of

557
00:30:39,240 --> 00:30:43,000
Speaker 1: dawn to start work just after six am, five days

558
00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:46,040
Speaker 1: per week as an electricians assistant. I made a mere

559
00:30:46,200 --> 00:30:48,760
Speaker 1: six bucks an hour, but it felt great to receive

560
00:30:48,800 --> 00:30:51,400
Speaker 1: a paycheck for a good day's work.

561
00:30:52,160 --> 00:30:55,520
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, she's just rotting a job.

562
00:30:55,680 --> 00:30:55,880
Speaker 2: Yeah.

563
00:30:55,880 --> 00:30:58,120
Speaker 4: Also yeah, because you were a kid that didn't know

564
00:30:58,200 --> 00:30:59,360
Speaker 4: better than you had a job.

565
00:30:59,440 --> 00:31:03,000
Speaker 1: But also, like you, you are going to Yale and

566
00:31:03,120 --> 00:31:05,680
Speaker 1: you are legitimately one of the few working class kids there.

567
00:31:05,720 --> 00:31:08,840
Speaker 1: But like going to guarantee you, most college students in

568
00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:13,120
Speaker 1: most colleges worked because they're not Yale's. They don't have

569
00:31:13,240 --> 00:31:15,840
Speaker 1: like millionaire parents with legacies.

570
00:31:15,440 --> 00:31:17,960
Speaker 3: Right, like go to a different school and you'll experience

571
00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:20,040
Speaker 3: will be like, Oh, everybody's kind of doing this the

572
00:31:20,040 --> 00:31:20,840
Speaker 3: thing that I'm doing.

573
00:31:21,200 --> 00:31:24,920
Speaker 1: You. You chose to go to the school for rich assholes,

574
00:31:24,920 --> 00:31:27,160
Speaker 1: which is what Yale is. Everyone knows it. It's the

575
00:31:27,200 --> 00:31:30,320
Speaker 1: school for rich psychopaths. And like you're being like, Wow,

576
00:31:30,400 --> 00:31:33,400
Speaker 1: nobody else here as a fucking job. Yeah, of course not.

577
00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:35,160
Speaker 3: You expect they're all Yale.

578
00:31:35,600 --> 00:31:39,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a mix of George H. W. Bush's blood

579
00:31:39,360 --> 00:31:43,120
Speaker 1: sons and fucking illegitimate children. That's all of Yale except

580
00:31:43,160 --> 00:31:47,080
Speaker 1: for you in this period. I assume. So assumes yeah,

581
00:31:47,120 --> 00:31:51,600
Speaker 1: one one assumes. Uh so. Ron also uses his early

582
00:31:51,640 --> 00:31:55,200
Speaker 1: work history to make the usual litany of conservative complaints

583
00:31:55,200 --> 00:31:58,480
Speaker 1: against the regulatory state. When I showed up to work

584
00:31:58,520 --> 00:32:00,880
Speaker 1: that first day, I will retire, that was typical of

585
00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:04,680
Speaker 1: what an electrician would wear, jeans, a long sleeved shirt,

586
00:32:04,720 --> 00:32:06,880
Speaker 1: and an old pair of work boots. Then I was

587
00:32:06,920 --> 00:32:09,880
Speaker 1: promptly sent home. Why because it wasn't clear if the old,

588
00:32:09,920 --> 00:32:12,840
Speaker 1: worn out boots were actually OSHA approved. I didn't know

589
00:32:12,920 --> 00:32:15,720
Speaker 1: what OSHA was, but I soon learned that the Occupational

590
00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:19,880
Speaker 1: Safety and Health Administration was a federal agency charged with

591
00:32:19,920 --> 00:32:23,120
Speaker 1: promulgating workplace safety rules. The net result for me was

592
00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:24,800
Speaker 1: that I had to spend the lion's chair of the

593
00:32:25,120 --> 00:32:26,800
Speaker 1: share of what would end up being my first week's

594
00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:29,840
Speaker 1: paycheck buying a pair of boots that were clearly approved

595
00:32:29,840 --> 00:32:32,520
Speaker 1: by OSHA. I doubt this made me any safer, but

596
00:32:32,560 --> 00:32:37,160
Speaker 1: it did make me a tad bit poorer. Now, uh,

597
00:32:37,520 --> 00:32:39,640
Speaker 1: I have my doubts. We'll talk about this, but I

598
00:32:39,640 --> 00:32:41,280
Speaker 1: have my doubts as to whether or not this happened

599
00:32:41,360 --> 00:32:44,000
Speaker 1: more accurately. I doubt if Ron DeSantis at the time

600
00:32:44,120 --> 00:32:46,520
Speaker 1: had a serious issue with being required to wear approved

601
00:32:46,520 --> 00:32:49,440
Speaker 1: safety footwear. It is very silly that he chose to

602
00:32:49,480 --> 00:32:53,960
Speaker 1: complain specifically about footwear to make a point about unreasonable regulations.

603
00:32:54,160 --> 00:32:57,480
Speaker 1: Because electricians die all the fucking time if they don't

604
00:32:57,480 --> 00:33:02,520
Speaker 1: wear proper footwear. It's an extremely reasonable regulation written in blood.

605
00:33:02,960 --> 00:33:05,880
Speaker 1: Here's one quote from a twenty fifteen article in Electrical

606
00:33:05,920 --> 00:33:09,840
Speaker 1: Contractor magazine titled feet on the Ground. Bad things can

607
00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:12,920
Speaker 1: happen with the wrong footwear. These are two real life examples.

608
00:33:13,080 --> 00:33:16,000
Speaker 1: An electrician wearing cowboy boots loses his footing and slips,

609
00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:18,720
Speaker 1: and he comes into contact with a life conductor, resulting

610
00:33:18,720 --> 00:33:22,120
Speaker 1: in his electrocution. In another example, alignment wearing tennis shoes

611
00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:24,400
Speaker 1: is electrocuted when his foot comes into contact with a

612
00:33:24,440 --> 00:33:27,560
Speaker 1: fallen energized wire. The incident occurred when the victim was

613
00:33:27,560 --> 00:33:30,800
Speaker 1: attempting to restore power disrupted by a severe storm. Both

614
00:33:30,800 --> 00:33:33,080
Speaker 1: incidents could have been prevented had the victims been wearing

615
00:33:33,080 --> 00:33:36,000
Speaker 1: proper protective footwear. And he does describe his boots as

616
00:33:36,080 --> 00:33:36,640
Speaker 1: worn out.

617
00:33:36,760 --> 00:33:38,320
Speaker 3: Now worn out. I was gonna say, yea thank you.

618
00:33:38,720 --> 00:33:41,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, you say your boots sucked, Like this is

619
00:33:41,360 --> 00:33:44,360
Speaker 1: a job that can't boots and more.

620
00:33:44,480 --> 00:33:50,160
Speaker 3: The point it's it's this element about regular regulations general.

621
00:33:50,200 --> 00:33:52,680
Speaker 3: It's that Dave Ruben thing on Rogan I you've seen

622
00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:55,240
Speaker 3: where he's like, yeah, all these regulations for building stuff

623
00:33:55,640 --> 00:33:58,920
Speaker 3: this Yeah, it's so you don't cut corners and like

624
00:33:59,360 --> 00:34:02,680
Speaker 3: houses collapse or like the wires, Like there are reasons

625
00:34:02,680 --> 00:34:05,560
Speaker 3: that these exist on not every single regulation in the world.

626
00:34:06,040 --> 00:34:09,200
Speaker 3: But it's such a weird complaint. Also, shouldn't your boss

627
00:34:09,520 --> 00:34:11,440
Speaker 3: buy those? Maybe that's your that is.

628
00:34:13,239 --> 00:34:15,680
Speaker 1: Like, this is not an issue with This is not

629
00:34:15,760 --> 00:34:17,880
Speaker 1: an issue with regulations. This is an issue with the

630
00:34:17,920 --> 00:34:23,200
Speaker 1: fact that independent contractors are Like the legal classification is

631
00:34:23,239 --> 00:34:25,160
Speaker 1: so fucked that your boss doesn't have to equip you

632
00:34:25,200 --> 00:34:28,799
Speaker 1: with proper safety gear, like it be required.

633
00:34:28,360 --> 00:34:31,680
Speaker 3: That the bosses provide these that you should Yes, you

634
00:34:31,719 --> 00:34:34,680
Speaker 3: need them, they're making you get them. You shouldn't have

635
00:34:34,680 --> 00:34:38,520
Speaker 3: to pay for them necessarily. There's there's your little complaints, Ron.

636
00:34:38,920 --> 00:34:41,240
Speaker 1: Now, but you can't that can't be the complaint because

637
00:34:41,239 --> 00:34:43,440
Speaker 1: that doesn't go along with conservative dogma.

638
00:34:43,520 --> 00:34:47,040
Speaker 4: And and it probably that probably was the complaint at

639
00:34:47,040 --> 00:34:49,600
Speaker 4: the time, Like that's probably what bothered him at the time.

640
00:34:49,680 --> 00:34:50,920
Speaker 3: I can't believe I have to buy these?

641
00:34:51,200 --> 00:34:53,160
Speaker 5: Why do I have to buy this for myself?

642
00:34:53,280 --> 00:34:56,520
Speaker 1: But I mean, I will say I wish he'd been

643
00:34:56,560 --> 00:34:59,160
Speaker 1: allowed to work as an electrician wearing let's just put

644
00:34:59,160 --> 00:35:04,040
Speaker 1: those worn out now, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now. Because he

645
00:35:04,160 --> 00:35:07,880
Speaker 1: was such a good student with excellent grades and extracurricular performance,

646
00:35:08,200 --> 00:35:11,920
Speaker 1: Ron earned admittance to Yale. He was not a legacy admission.

647
00:35:11,960 --> 00:35:14,040
Speaker 1: His parents certainly did not have the money to bribe

648
00:35:14,080 --> 00:35:16,560
Speaker 1: a spot for their son in the prestigious school. It

649
00:35:16,560 --> 00:35:18,520
Speaker 1: seems clear to me that Ron say Yale is an

650
00:35:18,560 --> 00:35:21,560
Speaker 1: opportunity for him to increase his social class and network

651
00:35:21,600 --> 00:35:24,400
Speaker 1: with powerful, rich people in the hopes of becoming one himself.

652
00:35:24,920 --> 00:35:28,040
Speaker 1: He was successful there, becoming captain of the baseball team

653
00:35:28,160 --> 00:35:32,120
Speaker 1: and rushing for the famous Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. Now

654
00:35:32,400 --> 00:35:35,040
Speaker 1: he is going to as we'll say, really try to

655
00:35:35,120 --> 00:35:38,160
Speaker 1: downplay the degree to which he fit in at Yale,

656
00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:41,839
Speaker 1: but going to this fraternity puts him in rarefied air

657
00:35:41,880 --> 00:35:44,960
Speaker 1: because DKE is one of the oldest frats in the country.

658
00:35:45,320 --> 00:35:49,360
Speaker 1: Its alumni include George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush,

659
00:35:49,440 --> 00:35:52,400
Speaker 1: Teddy Roosevelt, and Rutherford B. Hayes, who I know is

660
00:35:52,440 --> 00:35:56,040
Speaker 1: your favorite president, Cody, You're a big hate so Rutherford

661
00:35:56,080 --> 00:35:59,279
Speaker 1: to stay on as we call them mmmmm heads yeah,

662
00:35:59,280 --> 00:36:04,799
Speaker 1: Hayes heads, sure, Jesus yeah, you got hay fever. That's

663
00:36:05,760 --> 00:36:10,280
Speaker 1: another good term for Rutherford B. Hayes fans uh. Yeah.

664
00:36:10,320 --> 00:36:12,480
Speaker 1: Although I will say dan Quail was also a member

665
00:36:12,520 --> 00:36:14,920
Speaker 1: of dk So it's not that rarefied, right the.

666
00:36:15,600 --> 00:36:18,239
Speaker 5: Let Quail sure, sure, sure.

667
00:36:18,680 --> 00:36:22,120
Speaker 4: So it's the club that little boys growing up who

668
00:36:22,200 --> 00:36:23,600
Speaker 4: wanted to be president.

669
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:24,200
Speaker 3: Yeah go to.

670
00:36:24,560 --> 00:36:27,560
Speaker 1: It is exactly that club, and like it is the

671
00:36:27,640 --> 00:36:29,960
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Clearly, this was the thing he did

672
00:36:30,000 --> 00:36:32,080
Speaker 1: because he thought at the time, this is the way

673
00:36:32,440 --> 00:36:35,640
Speaker 1: to become president. Right, you go to Yale, which is

674
00:36:35,760 --> 00:36:39,560
Speaker 1: a very fancy school for presidents, and you go to

675
00:36:39,640 --> 00:36:44,880
Speaker 1: fucking you get into DKE right now. Because Republican politics

676
00:36:44,880 --> 00:36:48,040
Speaker 1: have since taken a major populous plunge, particularly in the

677
00:36:48,120 --> 00:36:50,920
Speaker 1: last six seven years, Ron has now been forced to

678
00:36:51,040 --> 00:36:55,120
Speaker 1: disavow his alma matter. Roughly half of the first twenty

679
00:36:55,120 --> 00:36:58,160
Speaker 1: percent of his MEMOIRIR is just him shitting on everyone

680
00:36:58,200 --> 00:37:00,280
Speaker 1: but him at Yale to try to salvage his blue

681
00:37:00,280 --> 00:37:05,279
Speaker 1: collar credentials. He does this by trying to paint the

682
00:37:05,320 --> 00:37:08,760
Speaker 1: school that both Georges Bush went to as a breeding

683
00:37:08,800 --> 00:37:13,440
Speaker 1: ground for communists. What he's really.

684
00:37:13,400 --> 00:37:15,480
Speaker 5: Trying to dance a tight rope right now?

685
00:37:15,840 --> 00:37:22,120
Speaker 1: All this different, Yeah, this part's fun. While Yale's popular

686
00:37:22,200 --> 00:37:25,360
Speaker 1: motto made homage to God and country, the ethos of

687
00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:29,320
Speaker 1: the university's academics was hostility to the Almighty and disparagement

688
00:37:29,400 --> 00:37:32,160
Speaker 1: of America. Before I got to Yale, I believe that

689
00:37:32,200 --> 00:37:35,359
Speaker 1: almost all Americans were proud that our nation defeated the

690
00:37:35,400 --> 00:37:38,480
Speaker 1: Soviet Union to win the Cold War. But at Yale

691
00:37:38,520 --> 00:37:40,680
Speaker 1: I was told that the United States was to blame

692
00:37:40,719 --> 00:37:43,400
Speaker 1: for the conflict in the first place, not the Stalin

693
00:37:43,440 --> 00:37:46,120
Speaker 1: era Soviets. Well the late nineteen nineties was one of

694
00:37:46,160 --> 00:37:48,920
Speaker 1: the most prosperous times in human history. At Yale, we

695
00:37:48,920 --> 00:37:51,799
Speaker 1: were led to believe that communism was superior, even though

696
00:37:51,800 --> 00:37:55,320
Speaker 1: it was impossible point even one example of the superiority

697
00:37:55,520 --> 00:37:58,600
Speaker 1: since real communism had never been tried. I wondered if

698
00:37:58,600 --> 00:38:00,960
Speaker 1: some of my professors in class it's rooted for Ivan

699
00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:06,040
Speaker 1: Drago to defeat Rocky Balboa in Rocky four. Just what

700
00:38:06,120 --> 00:38:08,000
Speaker 1: an amazing paragraph, What.

701
00:38:07,960 --> 00:38:11,480
Speaker 3: A rich, rich, rich passage.

702
00:38:12,480 --> 00:38:13,399
Speaker 5: He didn't get his book.

703
00:38:15,560 --> 00:38:20,400
Speaker 3: Wow, I don't believe saying that what I'm saying.

704
00:38:20,520 --> 00:38:23,359
Speaker 5: I don't believe anybody could push back on this. They've

705
00:38:24,080 --> 00:38:26,080
Speaker 5: never taught that, not now, not then.

706
00:38:26,440 --> 00:38:29,880
Speaker 3: It's so funny, how like I simply don't believe it.

707
00:38:29,880 --> 00:38:33,160
Speaker 3: This like red scary stuff is so funny and like,

708
00:38:33,200 --> 00:38:36,040
Speaker 3: I mean, it's alarming for sure, but like just like

709
00:38:36,239 --> 00:38:38,440
Speaker 3: how hard he's going in on this, Like, oh, I

710
00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:41,319
Speaker 3: just need to like say that communism is bad and

711
00:38:41,440 --> 00:38:45,040
Speaker 3: also like distance myself from the clear path that I

712
00:38:45,160 --> 00:38:49,200
Speaker 3: chose for myself. I don't believe you, Ron, is my point.

713
00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:53,640
Speaker 1: I think, Yeah, I don't believe he's definitely a liar.

714
00:38:54,600 --> 00:38:56,799
Speaker 3: The commis at Yale, What the.

715
00:38:56,760 --> 00:39:02,960
Speaker 1: Fucking commis at Yale. Don't even like Rocky Yes, don't

716
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:08,040
Speaker 1: even like seminal film Rocky fo Yeah, not even one

717
00:39:08,080 --> 00:39:09,280
Speaker 1: of the good Rockies.

718
00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:11,640
Speaker 3: And he's such a like a it's such a funny

719
00:39:11,719 --> 00:39:13,799
Speaker 3: like he's such a ted cruise in so many ways too,

720
00:39:13,880 --> 00:39:19,440
Speaker 3: of just like the touch that cultural touchstone too. You're

721
00:39:19,719 --> 00:39:21,919
Speaker 3: you are culture pop culture.

722
00:39:21,680 --> 00:39:28,680
Speaker 1: Ha yeah, yes, fucking fucking meatball. Anyway, DeSantis goes on

723
00:39:28,719 --> 00:39:33,719
Speaker 1: to note that experiencing unbridled leftism on the fucking Yale campus, yeah,

724
00:39:34,400 --> 00:39:37,879
Speaker 1: pushed him right. Uh that so he does say that

725
00:39:37,920 --> 00:39:40,760
Speaker 1: he he includes that line, I was I was forced

726
00:39:40,760 --> 00:39:48,280
Speaker 1: into conservatism by those Yale communists. My god, the gender

727
00:39:48,400 --> 00:39:53,320
Speaker 1: studies at Yale, Like, give me a fucking wild god. Now,

728
00:39:53,560 --> 00:39:54,200
Speaker 1: as you're.

729
00:39:54,040 --> 00:39:56,200
Speaker 3: Probably not gonna Saarl Lawrence or something.

730
00:39:58,040 --> 00:40:00,719
Speaker 1: As you're probably not going to be surprised here. Not

731
00:40:00,840 --> 00:40:03,839
Speaker 1: everyone who went to college with old Ronnie d had

732
00:40:03,880 --> 00:40:06,040
Speaker 1: a positive opinion of him. And I'm going to quote

733
00:40:06,080 --> 00:40:09,200
Speaker 1: from an art Yeah, yeah, yeah, here's a fun quote

734
00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:12,000
Speaker 1: from an article in The New Yorker. Some recall that

735
00:40:12,040 --> 00:40:14,880
Speaker 1: DeSantis was so intensely focused that he wasn't much of

736
00:40:14,920 --> 00:40:17,640
Speaker 1: a teammate. Ron is the most selfish person I have

737
00:40:17,680 --> 00:40:20,600
Speaker 1: ever interacted with. Another teammate told me he has always

738
00:40:20,600 --> 00:40:23,960
Speaker 1: loved embarrassing and humiliating people. I'm speaking for others. He

739
00:40:24,080 --> 00:40:26,960
Speaker 1: was the biggest dick we knew. But the same teammate

740
00:40:27,080 --> 00:40:30,279
Speaker 1: praise DeSantis's intellect. This is the frustrating part. He's so

741
00:40:30,360 --> 00:40:33,520
Speaker 1: fucking smart and so creative. You couldn't even plagiarize off

742
00:40:33,520 --> 00:40:35,640
Speaker 1: his work. He takes some angle and everyone knew there

743
00:40:35,680 --> 00:40:38,799
Speaker 1: was only one person who could have done that. So yeah,

744
00:40:38,840 --> 00:40:41,920
Speaker 1: he's a smart asshole who likes to bully people. That's

745
00:40:41,960 --> 00:40:43,280
Speaker 1: that's that's that's.

746
00:40:43,239 --> 00:40:44,680
Speaker 5: Making president, I tell you.

747
00:40:46,320 --> 00:40:51,040
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean like not that smart though,

748
00:40:51,080 --> 00:40:53,120
Speaker 4: because sometimes.

749
00:40:52,480 --> 00:40:55,000
Speaker 1: Well this guy may not be very smart. Right, he's

750
00:40:55,040 --> 00:40:57,680
Speaker 1: another gay, old dude, and yeah, it's given us a

751
00:40:57,719 --> 00:40:58,759
Speaker 1: lot of dipshits.

752
00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:01,319
Speaker 3: So well, there was an element too of just like yeah,

753
00:41:01,360 --> 00:41:04,040
Speaker 3: you got good crazy like worked hard, but like there's like.

754
00:41:04,120 --> 00:41:07,240
Speaker 5: It's different than it's just related.

755
00:41:07,280 --> 00:41:07,640
Speaker 3: I don't know.

756
00:41:07,760 --> 00:41:10,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah him, what is intelligence?

757
00:41:10,800 --> 00:41:10,960
Speaker 3: Right?

758
00:41:11,040 --> 00:41:13,920
Speaker 1: That gets us into anyway, whatever, Let's let's move on.

759
00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:17,720
Speaker 1: He's a dick and selfish. After he graduated with honors,

760
00:41:17,800 --> 00:41:20,640
Speaker 1: Ron became a history teacher and taught for a year

761
00:41:20,680 --> 00:41:23,960
Speaker 1: at the prestigious Darlington School in Rome, Georgia.

762
00:41:23,960 --> 00:41:24,160
Speaker 3: I A.

763
00:41:24,880 --> 00:41:27,960
Speaker 1: It is here that he first runs into his initial

764
00:41:28,080 --> 00:41:32,240
Speaker 1: his first serious controversy. Last year, a source with quote

765
00:41:32,239 --> 00:41:35,520
Speaker 1: close knowledge of the matter provided information to The Hill

766
00:41:35,640 --> 00:41:38,840
Speaker 1: about a photo that had started going viral. This photo

767
00:41:38,880 --> 00:41:42,400
Speaker 1: showed a young adult Ronnie d posing with teenage girls,

768
00:41:42,640 --> 00:41:45,480
Speaker 1: some of whom were students of his, while holding a beer.

769
00:41:45,920 --> 00:41:49,520
Speaker 1: Now this picture that first came to prominence when Trump

770
00:41:49,560 --> 00:41:53,440
Speaker 1: started his campaign against meatball Ron. The former president shared

771
00:41:53,480 --> 00:41:56,319
Speaker 1: this picture from another user's post with a text that's

772
00:41:56,320 --> 00:41:58,759
Speaker 1: not Ron, is it? He would never do such a thing?

773
00:41:58,920 --> 00:42:03,759
Speaker 1: Question mark now the origin? Indeed he did, indeed, And

774
00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:07,240
Speaker 1: this original post, like Trump was, the post he was sharing,

775
00:42:07,320 --> 00:42:10,839
Speaker 1: included a caption by another user that read Ron DeSantis

776
00:42:10,920 --> 00:42:13,239
Speaker 1: was having a drink party with his students when he

777
00:42:13,320 --> 00:42:16,120
Speaker 1: was a high school teacher. Yeah, such a weird way

778
00:42:16,160 --> 00:42:16,799
Speaker 1: to frame it.

779
00:42:17,360 --> 00:42:25,000
Speaker 2: Having party also, but also trum Trump competing on it.

780
00:42:25,320 --> 00:42:29,320
Speaker 1: There's a lot of photo woman silly.

781
00:42:29,440 --> 00:42:31,719
Speaker 3: Wait, So who used the phrase drink party?

782
00:42:31,960 --> 00:42:34,880
Speaker 1: The person who originally posted, because that is a Twitter

783
00:42:34,920 --> 00:42:38,120
Speaker 1: blue ass phrase. That is a is a very Twitter

784
00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:38,840
Speaker 1: blue phrase.

785
00:42:39,239 --> 00:42:42,680
Speaker 3: A drink party. Yeah, having your drink parties with your leftists.

786
00:42:42,920 --> 00:42:45,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, I get that is that is Yeah, that is

787
00:42:45,520 --> 00:42:48,080
Speaker 1: a phrase written by someone who has forgotten the face

788
00:42:48,120 --> 00:42:51,719
Speaker 1: of his mother in favor of an Elon Musk Snapple fact.

789
00:42:52,160 --> 00:42:54,320
Speaker 5: And has never been invited to a drink.

790
00:42:54,080 --> 00:42:57,520
Speaker 1: Party and never would be invited a drink party.

791
00:42:57,520 --> 00:43:00,160
Speaker 3: I also love just like, obviously we don't need to

792
00:43:00,160 --> 00:43:01,759
Speaker 3: too much into the Trump of it all, but the

793
00:43:01,800 --> 00:43:04,960
Speaker 3: idea of Trump sharing this photo, bro, there are stories

794
00:43:04,960 --> 00:43:12,880
Speaker 3: of you walking in at miss plain dog, what are

795
00:43:12,920 --> 00:43:15,600
Speaker 3: you doing? But also like he's teflon. It doesn't matter,

796
00:43:15,880 --> 00:43:18,399
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter, god man, guy.

797
00:43:19,560 --> 00:43:22,200
Speaker 1: The the post that Trump was quoting went on to

798
00:43:22,400 --> 00:43:25,200
Speaker 1: say having drinks with underage girls and cuddling of them

799
00:43:25,239 --> 00:43:27,719
Speaker 1: look pretty gross and a foebopheliesque.

800
00:43:27,920 --> 00:43:29,719
Speaker 3: Oh it's also.

801
00:43:29,600 --> 00:43:34,480
Speaker 1: You get a lot from the post because it's like, yeah,

802
00:43:34,480 --> 00:43:37,279
Speaker 1: you gotta make a you gotta like it's the very

803
00:43:37,320 --> 00:43:43,200
Speaker 1: libertarian thing to like really emphasize the difference between pedophilia and.

804
00:43:42,800 --> 00:43:43,440
Speaker 3: Gotta make.

805
00:43:45,320 --> 00:43:48,360
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Yeah, this guy owns a bored ape.

806
00:43:48,440 --> 00:43:53,080
Speaker 3: Absolutely absolutely all his apes are gone, though all his

807
00:43:53,160 --> 00:43:56,200
Speaker 3: ages slurp juice. You know, he doesn't have slurp juice

808
00:43:57,160 --> 00:43:57,640
Speaker 3: that's right.

809
00:43:57,880 --> 00:44:02,400
Speaker 1: Can't even slurp now. This created an uproar on conservative

810
00:44:02,440 --> 00:44:05,880
Speaker 1: social media and The Hill, which is a liberal leaning publication.

811
00:44:06,360 --> 00:44:08,960
Speaker 1: Talk to someone who had apparently Yeah, yeah, it's kind

812
00:44:09,000 --> 00:44:11,800
Speaker 1: of kind of libby. Yeah, more on the lib side.

813
00:44:15,480 --> 00:44:17,439
Speaker 1: It's not it's certainly not like a left wing rag

814
00:44:17,560 --> 00:44:20,480
Speaker 1: or whatever. But it's like, it's not a not conservative media.

815
00:44:20,920 --> 00:44:23,960
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, talk to someone who had apparently been at

816
00:44:24,000 --> 00:44:26,520
Speaker 1: the party where Ron has his arms around these girls

817
00:44:26,600 --> 00:44:30,440
Speaker 1: drinking a beer. According to our whistleblower, very silly thing

818
00:44:30,440 --> 00:44:33,920
Speaker 1: to call a whistleblowering, fucking ridiculous.

819
00:44:34,080 --> 00:44:38,000
Speaker 3: According to the micro yeah, like.

820
00:44:40,239 --> 00:44:43,600
Speaker 1: Uh. DeSantis had a reputation among students for being a young,

821
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:46,319
Speaker 1: hot teacher who girls loved, and the girls in the

822
00:44:46,320 --> 00:44:48,799
Speaker 1: photo are believed to have graduated in two thousand and two,

823
00:44:49,160 --> 00:44:52,360
Speaker 1: making them seniors at the time. Hill reporter also added

824
00:44:52,560 --> 00:44:54,480
Speaker 1: the source who provided the photo says that it was

825
00:44:54,520 --> 00:44:57,239
Speaker 1: taken prior to graduation, meaning the young girls would have

826
00:44:57,239 --> 00:44:59,839
Speaker 1: still been with the Santas responsibility at the time.

827
00:45:00,880 --> 00:45:05,960
Speaker 3: That is gross. Even if they weren't his responsibility, he

828
00:45:06,160 --> 00:45:11,560
Speaker 3: is grabbing drinks with By the time.

829
00:45:10,440 --> 00:45:13,440
Speaker 1: You have graduated college and are working as a teacher

830
00:45:13,840 --> 00:45:15,640
Speaker 1: shouldn't be drinking with high school.

831
00:45:15,400 --> 00:45:17,680
Speaker 3: Girls, especially not a drink party.

832
00:45:17,840 --> 00:45:20,000
Speaker 5: It's not a drink party, not a drink party.

833
00:45:20,360 --> 00:45:22,440
Speaker 1: It is also sad. It's like we all we all

834
00:45:22,520 --> 00:45:23,160
Speaker 1: knew guys.

835
00:45:23,320 --> 00:45:26,239
Speaker 4: It's very say you could drink some water with some

836
00:45:26,320 --> 00:45:29,520
Speaker 4: teenage girls in class, I suppose, but that's sure the

837
00:45:29,520 --> 00:45:30,600
Speaker 4: same thing at all.

838
00:45:31,000 --> 00:45:33,440
Speaker 1: Although I would say if anyone ever described to me

839
00:45:33,480 --> 00:45:36,360
Speaker 1: that they were drinking water with teenage girls at their

840
00:45:36,520 --> 00:45:38,080
Speaker 1: I'd be like, well, why are you? Why are we

841
00:45:38,120 --> 00:45:39,120
Speaker 1: talking about this this way?

842
00:45:39,160 --> 00:45:39,520
Speaker 3: That's all.

843
00:45:41,280 --> 00:45:47,200
Speaker 1: That's that's peculiar. Most people don't describe it that way. Yeah.

844
00:45:47,239 --> 00:45:50,080
Speaker 1: So The New York Times followed up the Hills reporting here,

845
00:45:50,160 --> 00:45:53,680
Speaker 1: positively iding DeSantis as the man in the photo and

846
00:45:53,800 --> 00:45:57,040
Speaker 1: finding further sources that would back up in several interviews

847
00:45:57,040 --> 00:46:00,560
Speaker 1: that quote. Several students recalled mister DeSantis has a frequent

848
00:46:00,600 --> 00:46:03,120
Speaker 1: presence at parties with the seniors who lived in doubt.

849
00:46:03,560 --> 00:46:04,839
Speaker 1: So that is deeply off.

850
00:46:04,960 --> 00:46:05,560
Speaker 3: Frequent.

851
00:46:06,160 --> 00:46:06,640
Speaker 1: Frequent.

852
00:46:07,080 --> 00:46:14,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, he is crashing a regular face at the drink parties, yes, which.

853
00:46:14,680 --> 00:46:17,640
Speaker 5: I don't think their parents would like that.

854
00:46:18,400 --> 00:46:22,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's the Times is what feels nothing damning

855
00:46:22,760 --> 00:46:25,480
Speaker 1: in a legal matter, right, there's no no one is

856
00:46:25,520 --> 00:46:28,759
Speaker 1: accusing him of like sexual harassment or assault or of

857
00:46:28,800 --> 00:46:33,200
Speaker 1: like anything like that. Those allegations just aren't present. But

858
00:46:33,920 --> 00:46:37,239
Speaker 1: there's not a good reason why, as a teacher and

859
00:46:37,320 --> 00:46:41,120
Speaker 1: an adult you become a frequent presence at high school parties. Like,

860
00:46:41,160 --> 00:46:44,720
Speaker 1: there's not a non creepy way for that to happen.

861
00:46:45,280 --> 00:46:48,920
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're not there because you're just you

862
00:46:49,000 --> 00:46:52,439
Speaker 4: really get on with these No, you're in part like there,

863
00:46:52,440 --> 00:46:55,719
Speaker 4: You're you're really lit up intellectually from the conversation at

864
00:46:55,760 --> 00:46:56,520
Speaker 4: the drink party.

865
00:46:56,760 --> 00:46:59,560
Speaker 1: I don't think so the best case scenario is like

866
00:46:59,760 --> 00:47:03,240
Speaker 1: you have no friends and no sense of judgment. Uh,

867
00:47:03,280 --> 00:47:06,160
Speaker 1: and yeah, yeah, feel like you get her along better

868
00:47:06,200 --> 00:47:08,120
Speaker 1: with people who have less life experience.

869
00:47:07,880 --> 00:47:09,960
Speaker 3: Because it's not even like this is like his hometown

870
00:47:10,160 --> 00:47:13,680
Speaker 3: or something. No, like oh I knew like, oh I

871
00:47:13,840 --> 00:47:15,560
Speaker 3: was a senior and this was a sophoire.

872
00:47:15,640 --> 00:47:18,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they were like they were yeah freshmen or whatever.

873
00:47:18,200 --> 00:47:20,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like a new town and you're like hanging out.

874
00:47:21,000 --> 00:47:22,560
Speaker 3: Yeah god no.

875
00:47:23,520 --> 00:47:23,640
Speaker 4: Uh.

876
00:47:24,360 --> 00:47:27,080
Speaker 1: One of the sources that I'm going to continue to

877
00:47:27,160 --> 00:47:29,960
Speaker 1: quote from that Times article, two former students, both women,

878
00:47:30,600 --> 00:47:33,680
Speaker 1: remembered him attending at least two parties where alcohol was served,

879
00:47:33,840 --> 00:47:36,160
Speaker 1: but they said that the parties took place after graduation

880
00:47:36,320 --> 00:47:38,200
Speaker 1: and that they were not bothered by his presence at

881
00:47:38,200 --> 00:47:40,719
Speaker 1: the time, although they question it now. It was his

882
00:47:40,719 --> 00:47:42,960
Speaker 1: first job out of yet he was cute. We didn't

883
00:47:42,960 --> 00:47:48,000
Speaker 1: really think too much about it. Yeah, you kid, Yeah,

884
00:47:48,040 --> 00:47:52,480
Speaker 1: that's why it's the adult's responsibility to wed. Yeah. Well,

885
00:47:52,600 --> 00:47:54,680
Speaker 1: mister D shows up at a lot of parties.

886
00:47:55,800 --> 00:47:58,360
Speaker 3: He's always taken a pictures.

887
00:47:58,680 --> 00:48:01,080
Speaker 4: They're like, mister D's not a normal teacher, he's a

888
00:48:01,160 --> 00:48:02,000
Speaker 4: cool tool.

889
00:48:02,080 --> 00:48:02,239
Speaker 3: Yeah.

890
00:48:02,280 --> 00:48:05,320
Speaker 5: But then like five years later they're like, oh no.

891
00:48:04,920 --> 00:48:07,399
Speaker 3: Wait yeah right, because it's also not even like high

892
00:48:07,440 --> 00:48:10,680
Speaker 3: school like in twenty twenty, where like that is kind

893
00:48:10,719 --> 00:48:13,120
Speaker 3: of like understood. It's like, no, this now that's weird.

894
00:48:13,200 --> 00:48:13,760
Speaker 3: It's weird.

895
00:48:14,160 --> 00:48:16,800
Speaker 5: Yeah, lots changed in the last twenty years.

896
00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:21,319
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, good for that changing at least, yes, and

897
00:48:21,719 --> 00:48:22,600
Speaker 3: hasn't changed any.

898
00:48:22,800 --> 00:48:26,560
Speaker 1: It also hasn't changed it. So after this really creepy

899
00:48:26,640 --> 00:48:30,200
Speaker 1: gap year, he enrolls in Harvard Law School. Again. He's

900
00:48:30,239 --> 00:48:33,080
Speaker 1: doing this because he is trying to maximize his chance

901
00:48:33,200 --> 00:48:36,560
Speaker 1: of like being accepted as a member of like the

902
00:48:36,640 --> 00:48:40,200
Speaker 1: upper crust concert to get intelligence, rule the club.

903
00:48:40,480 --> 00:48:42,080
Speaker 5: You want to be a part of the illuminati, you

904
00:48:42,080 --> 00:48:43,399
Speaker 5: gotta do the game.

905
00:48:43,520 --> 00:48:46,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you got to do the gig. He claims

906
00:48:46,160 --> 00:48:48,960
Speaker 1: now that he decided to go to Harvard because he

907
00:48:49,040 --> 00:48:52,200
Speaker 1: was motivated by Tom Cruise's performance and a few good men,

908
00:48:53,600 --> 00:48:57,600
Speaker 1: and yeah, like Tom's character. He became a judge advocate general,

909
00:48:58,080 --> 00:49:00,920
Speaker 1: joins the Navy, and gets deployed to Iraq as a

910
00:49:01,000 --> 00:49:06,240
Speaker 1: lawyer with a seal team. Now, because the Navy Seals

911
00:49:06,280 --> 00:49:09,440
Speaker 1: have the reputation that they have among conservatives, Ron has

912
00:49:09,480 --> 00:49:12,520
Speaker 1: attempted to beate. He's basically like claim like he will

913
00:49:12,520 --> 00:49:15,960
Speaker 1: always say I deployed with the Seals, which is technically accurate,

914
00:49:16,360 --> 00:49:20,200
Speaker 1: but he's clearly trying to like, like he's a lawyer,

915
00:49:20,239 --> 00:49:22,960
Speaker 1: his job is when they go shoot people, to be like, yep,

916
00:49:23,000 --> 00:49:25,839
Speaker 1: you're allowed to shoot these people like that. That's why

917
00:49:25,920 --> 00:49:29,120
Speaker 1: what he was doing. He makes a big point about

918
00:49:29,120 --> 00:49:31,919
Speaker 1: this now in all of his campaign events. He told

919
00:49:31,960 --> 00:49:34,399
Speaker 1: a voter in New Hampshire this July, I'm the only

920
00:49:34,480 --> 00:49:38,840
Speaker 1: veteran running out of all these candidates. Yeah, I'll be

921
00:49:38,880 --> 00:49:41,720
Speaker 1: the first president elected since nineteen eighty eight who's actually

922
00:49:41,760 --> 00:49:45,759
Speaker 1: served in a war. Now, that is true. Although he

923
00:49:45,880 --> 00:49:49,000
Speaker 1: was not out, you know, getting shot at or doing anything.

924
00:49:49,120 --> 00:49:52,280
Speaker 1: He was looking at paperwork. He was being a lawyer.

925
00:49:52,880 --> 00:49:55,960
Speaker 1: He was also not universally popular among his comrades at

926
00:49:56,000 --> 00:49:58,920
Speaker 1: the time. From the New Yorker quote, a colleague who

927
00:49:58,920 --> 00:50:01,800
Speaker 1: served with DeSantis remembered Ron was a voracious worker, and

928
00:50:01,840 --> 00:50:04,439
Speaker 1: he worked at phenomenal speed. He was a superb writer,

929
00:50:04,640 --> 00:50:08,160
Speaker 1: especially for his age. But even then his ambitions seemed consuming.

930
00:50:08,520 --> 00:50:11,000
Speaker 1: Ron's a user. The former colleague told me, you had

931
00:50:11,080 --> 00:50:12,920
Speaker 1: utility to him. He would be nice to you. If

932
00:50:12,920 --> 00:50:14,759
Speaker 1: you didn't, he wouldn't give you the time of day.

933
00:50:15,600 --> 00:50:19,440
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I gotta say this is a little controversial,

934
00:50:19,480 --> 00:50:22,000
Speaker 4: but I hate people like that, I really do.

935
00:50:22,239 --> 00:50:25,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, bold, bold plenty, of.

936
00:50:26,680 --> 00:50:30,440
Speaker 5: Course he is. And it's like, yeah.

937
00:50:30,800 --> 00:50:33,640
Speaker 3: This is also it's interesting because I mean, sure, we'll

938
00:50:33,719 --> 00:50:36,360
Speaker 3: get into this, but it's that a lot of these

939
00:50:36,560 --> 00:50:41,719
Speaker 3: elements are very heavily reflected in his governance. Yes, absolutely

940
00:50:42,000 --> 00:50:48,080
Speaker 3: everything about how he approaches politics. And yeah, it's not

941
00:50:48,120 --> 00:50:49,880
Speaker 3: a good guy. No bad bad meatball.

942
00:50:50,600 --> 00:51:02,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, bad meatball. Now you know what is a good meatball? Like, Yeah, oh, man, bison,

943
00:51:02,600 --> 00:51:05,400
Speaker 1: you can make a fine bison meatball. You guys, what

944
00:51:05,640 --> 00:51:09,000
Speaker 1: my uh my, my wild game meat recipe that I

945
00:51:09,080 --> 00:51:10,840
Speaker 1: that I that I It's great if you've got like

946
00:51:10,880 --> 00:51:14,279
Speaker 1: wild boar uh, you know, anything that's like kind of

947
00:51:14,280 --> 00:51:16,239
Speaker 1: get get you know, if you've got like a bunch

948
00:51:16,239 --> 00:51:17,799
Speaker 1: of ground up boar meat or whatever.

949
00:51:17,520 --> 00:51:21,120
Speaker 3: Anything anything for like uh, impossible beef.

950
00:51:21,840 --> 00:51:24,680
Speaker 1: You could you could do this with impossible beef. You

951
00:51:24,680 --> 00:51:27,200
Speaker 1: could do this with like ground venison. I would get

952
00:51:27,239 --> 00:51:31,120
Speaker 1: I would take a pound of ground venison, a pound

953
00:51:31,200 --> 00:51:35,600
Speaker 1: of ground boar meat and mix them together with a

954
00:51:35,640 --> 00:51:39,160
Speaker 1: whole sleeve of saltine crackers. Just crumble up in there.

955
00:51:39,440 --> 00:51:42,160
Speaker 1: You crack one maybe two eggs in, stir it all together.

956
00:51:42,560 --> 00:51:45,600
Speaker 1: Then you baste it with either barbecue sauce or ketchup,

957
00:51:45,640 --> 00:51:47,960
Speaker 1: and you bake that ship in the oven. Uh, and

958
00:51:48,000 --> 00:51:51,959
Speaker 1: you cook yourself a delicious meat loaf. It's perfect like food.

959
00:51:52,440 --> 00:51:55,960
Speaker 5: Yeah, Like when do we roll the meat loaf into balls?

960
00:51:56,040 --> 00:51:56,239
Speaker 2: Oh?

961
00:51:56,280 --> 00:51:57,960
Speaker 1: I see no, no, no meat loaf.

962
00:51:58,200 --> 00:51:58,399
Speaker 3: No.

963
00:51:58,520 --> 00:52:01,080
Speaker 1: But because the loaf is the loaf is the strongest

964
00:52:01,120 --> 00:52:04,640
Speaker 1: shape in nature, you could do a meat loaf ball, Katie.

965
00:52:04,680 --> 00:52:05,920
Speaker 1: You could chop up meat loaf.

966
00:52:06,600 --> 00:52:09,480
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, that just sounds like a nice thing for.

967
00:52:10,760 --> 00:52:13,960
Speaker 3: You know, It's like it's like the crab shape, how

968
00:52:14,000 --> 00:52:18,320
Speaker 3: like it sort of independently appears in all all across nature.

969
00:52:18,400 --> 00:52:20,400
Speaker 3: The loaf appears all across.

970
00:52:20,280 --> 00:52:22,920
Speaker 5: So question, were we about to throw to ads?

971
00:52:23,440 --> 00:52:25,640
Speaker 3: Yes, okay, yeah, that's what this whole thing is about.

972
00:52:25,760 --> 00:52:36,400
Speaker 1: Okay, yes, yes, here's an ad Ah. We're back. And

973
00:52:36,480 --> 00:52:39,120
Speaker 1: I wanted to delay this next part because it's horrible

974
00:52:39,520 --> 00:52:45,440
Speaker 1: because after being in Iraq, Ron gets stationed in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Now,

975
00:52:46,280 --> 00:52:49,200
Speaker 1: this is by far the most contentious part of his backstory,

976
00:52:49,239 --> 00:52:51,719
Speaker 1: and so I will be very careful in my phrasing here.

977
00:52:52,239 --> 00:52:55,120
Speaker 1: In a two thousand and six interview with CBS, Decantists

978
00:52:55,200 --> 00:52:58,200
Speaker 1: told his interviewer that at one point, several prisoners launched

979
00:52:58,200 --> 00:53:01,080
Speaker 1: a hunger strike while he was at Guantana. He says

980
00:53:01,120 --> 00:53:04,200
Speaker 1: that his commanding officer asked him, how do I combat this?

981
00:53:04,600 --> 00:53:07,959
Speaker 1: And Ron answered, Hey, you can actually force feed. Here's

982
00:53:08,000 --> 00:53:11,120
Speaker 1: what you can do. Here's kind of the rules for that. Now,

983
00:53:11,400 --> 00:53:14,400
Speaker 1: there's some questionable elements of this recollection because force feeding

984
00:53:14,520 --> 00:53:19,239
Speaker 1: started at Guantanamo somewhat slightly before Desanta's actually got sent there,

985
00:53:19,320 --> 00:53:24,200
Speaker 1: So he's probably exaggerating in order to take credit for

986
00:53:24,280 --> 00:53:26,000
Speaker 1: this what is torture?

987
00:53:26,160 --> 00:53:26,279
Speaker 3: Right?

988
00:53:26,360 --> 00:53:28,280
Speaker 1: This is torture we're talking about.

989
00:53:28,360 --> 00:53:31,480
Speaker 3: I actually invented a fun new way to torture people.

990
00:53:31,640 --> 00:53:37,879
Speaker 1: Yes, hurting them was my idea. Ultimately, the Pentagon authorized

991
00:53:37,920 --> 00:53:41,440
Speaker 1: force feeding. Detainees would be strapped to a chair, a

992
00:53:41,520 --> 00:53:44,319
Speaker 1: nurse would force a lubricated tube down their nose and

993
00:53:44,360 --> 00:53:48,080
Speaker 1: then would pump in nutritional supplements. Lawyers for detainees have

994
00:53:48,239 --> 00:53:51,200
Speaker 1: argued that this was torture because force feeding is banned

995
00:53:51,200 --> 00:53:55,360
Speaker 1: by a UN Convention against torture. Former inmates now released

996
00:53:55,440 --> 00:53:58,720
Speaker 1: have accused DeSantis of having played a role in their torture.

997
00:53:59,160 --> 00:54:02,120
Speaker 1: Mansour a Day wrote an article for Al Jazeera and

998
00:54:02,160 --> 00:54:05,440
Speaker 1: described meeting DeSantis, who initially told him that he was

999
00:54:05,480 --> 00:54:09,960
Speaker 1: at Guantanamo to ensure that prisoner's rights were respected. Quote.

1000
00:54:10,080 --> 00:54:12,120
Speaker 1: I remember him asking why we were all still on

1001
00:54:12,320 --> 00:54:15,120
Speaker 1: hunger strike. We told him to look around. Camp Delta

1002
00:54:15,200 --> 00:54:18,080
Speaker 1: was constructed from metal shipping containers, divided into cages with

1003
00:54:18,120 --> 00:54:20,840
Speaker 1: wire mesh. In the summer, the cages were like ovens.

1004
00:54:20,880 --> 00:54:23,280
Speaker 1: In the winter, they were cold and wet. They were loud,

1005
00:54:23,320 --> 00:54:25,720
Speaker 1: with huge fans and the echoes of all the men's voices.

1006
00:54:25,880 --> 00:54:29,279
Speaker 1: There was the persistent harassment by guards, desecration of Koran's

1007
00:54:29,320 --> 00:54:32,879
Speaker 1: non existent medical care systematic torture, and being cut off

1008
00:54:32,960 --> 00:54:36,319
Speaker 1: completely from the outside world. We told Dasantis we were

1009
00:54:36,320 --> 00:54:38,560
Speaker 1: on hunger strike because we wanted to know why we

1010
00:54:38,560 --> 00:54:41,560
Speaker 1: were being imprisoned, because we wanted a fair judicial process

1011
00:54:41,600 --> 00:54:44,880
Speaker 1: to prove our innocence. He took notes. He promised to

1012
00:54:44,920 --> 00:54:48,960
Speaker 1: register our complaints. Now Ron may or may not have

1013
00:54:49,000 --> 00:54:51,560
Speaker 1: registered their complaints, we don't know, but it had no

1014
00:54:51,640 --> 00:54:54,839
Speaker 1: impact on what happened next. Days later, a day fee

1015
00:54:54,960 --> 00:54:57,279
Speaker 1: was brought back to the wreck yard where nurses and

1016
00:54:57,400 --> 00:55:01,319
Speaker 1: Navy corman which is Navy medicisent were waiting with a

1017
00:55:01,360 --> 00:55:05,160
Speaker 1: restraint chair in several cases of insure. Ron de Santis

1018
00:55:05,200 --> 00:55:09,640
Speaker 1: and other JAG officers stood nearby observing quote. I was

1019
00:55:09,680 --> 00:55:12,160
Speaker 1: informed that the US government was determined to break the

1020
00:55:12,200 --> 00:55:14,759
Speaker 1: hunger strike. The doctor in charge, a colonel, told me

1021
00:55:14,800 --> 00:55:16,680
Speaker 1: that he did not care if I was innocent or

1022
00:55:16,719 --> 00:55:19,759
Speaker 1: protesting mistreatment. He was there for one thing to make

1023
00:55:19,800 --> 00:55:23,240
Speaker 1: me eat. I refused and was immediately and violently strapped

1024
00:55:23,239 --> 00:55:25,439
Speaker 1: into the chair so tightly that I could not move.

1025
00:55:25,800 --> 00:55:28,279
Speaker 1: A nurse forced a thick tube into my nose and

1026
00:55:28,320 --> 00:55:30,799
Speaker 1: down my throat, My nose bled, and the pain was

1027
00:55:30,840 --> 00:55:33,040
Speaker 1: so great that I thought my head would explode. The

1028
00:55:33,120 --> 00:55:36,200
Speaker 1: nurse would not stop. Instead, he began pouring insure into

1029
00:55:36,200 --> 00:55:39,080
Speaker 1: a feeder bag attached to the tube. They poured can

1030
00:55:39,120 --> 00:55:41,480
Speaker 1: after can into the feeder bag until my stomach and

1031
00:55:41,520 --> 00:55:43,680
Speaker 1: throat were so full that in sure poured back out

1032
00:55:43,680 --> 00:55:45,919
Speaker 1: of my mouth and nose. I thought I was going

1033
00:55:45,920 --> 00:55:48,600
Speaker 1: to drown if you throw up. A corman said, we'll

1034
00:55:48,600 --> 00:55:50,759
Speaker 1: start from the beginning with a new case and fill

1035
00:55:50,800 --> 00:55:53,799
Speaker 1: you up again. As I tried to break free, I

1036
00:55:53,920 --> 00:55:56,919
Speaker 1: noticed Dessantus's handsome face among the crowd at the other

1037
00:55:56,960 --> 00:55:59,440
Speaker 1: side of the chain link. He was watching me struggle.

1038
00:55:59,640 --> 00:56:02,040
Speaker 1: He was smiling and laughing with the other officers as

1039
00:56:02,080 --> 00:56:12,920
Speaker 1: I screamed in pain. Mm hmm, it is very upsetting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Cody,

1040
00:56:12,920 --> 00:56:14,080
Speaker 1: you got a good meatball.

1041
00:56:13,800 --> 00:56:19,120
Speaker 3: Joke, uh something about Oh no. But I did think

1042
00:56:19,480 --> 00:56:21,840
Speaker 3: when you were describing this it sounded like you said,

1043
00:56:21,960 --> 00:56:22,760
Speaker 3: jack Off.

1044
00:56:23,160 --> 00:56:24,239
Speaker 5: I get you. I did you.

1045
00:56:24,680 --> 00:56:31,520
Speaker 1: That's good. I'm glad we pulled out of this tale.

1046
00:56:33,719 --> 00:56:38,440
Speaker 4: Also, I mean, there's been some references to him being handsome,

1047
00:56:38,440 --> 00:56:39,600
Speaker 4: and I don't agree with them.

1048
00:56:39,600 --> 00:56:40,760
Speaker 3: They keep saying he's handsome.

1049
00:56:40,840 --> 00:56:44,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, subjective, but I know.

1050
00:56:44,920 --> 00:56:49,440
Speaker 4: But multiple people, there's been multiple suggestions in today and I've.

1051
00:56:50,719 --> 00:56:51,400
Speaker 5: I take issues.

1052
00:56:51,880 --> 00:56:56,200
Speaker 1: It is really interesting that a specializes, like specifies that

1053
00:56:56,200 --> 00:56:59,560
Speaker 1: that he's like getting torture is like, damn it. Guy's

1054
00:56:59,600 --> 00:57:04,560
Speaker 1: kind of good though anyway, peculiar the things that occur

1055
00:57:04,640 --> 00:57:07,000
Speaker 1: to you when you're in an intense situation.

1056
00:57:07,800 --> 00:57:08,840
Speaker 3: So A.

1057
00:57:08,920 --> 00:57:11,600
Speaker 1: Dafy was one of several former inmates who claimed to

1058
00:57:11,640 --> 00:57:15,560
Speaker 1: have recognized DeSantis. He was featured along with several whistleblowers

1059
00:57:15,760 --> 00:57:19,840
Speaker 1: in an unreleased Vice documentary. The whistleblowers include a former

1060
00:57:19,960 --> 00:57:23,360
Speaker 1: US Naval sergeant, Joe Hickman. So, Joe was on guard

1061
00:57:23,440 --> 00:57:26,360
Speaker 1: duty during a night when three prisoners, the ring leaders

1062
00:57:26,360 --> 00:57:31,040
Speaker 1: of the hunger strike, died somewhat mysteriously. Our government claims

1063
00:57:31,040 --> 00:57:33,960
Speaker 1: that these guys all, we had a suicide pack together, right,

1064
00:57:34,000 --> 00:57:38,240
Speaker 1: that they committed suicide. Hickman does not agree with this. Again,

1065
00:57:38,280 --> 00:57:40,360
Speaker 1: he was on guard duty that night, and he believes

1066
00:57:40,400 --> 00:57:42,960
Speaker 1: the men were assassinated to restore order and put an

1067
00:57:43,080 --> 00:57:45,800
Speaker 1: end to the strike, which was very bad pr for

1068
00:57:45,840 --> 00:57:48,680
Speaker 1: the US government. From a write up by The Daily

1069
00:57:48,720 --> 00:57:52,400
Speaker 1: Beast quote Hickman, who later contributed as a whistleblower for

1070
00:57:52,480 --> 00:57:56,160
Speaker 1: the Justice Department's investigation into the deaths, recalled to Santis

1071
00:57:56,160 --> 00:57:59,280
Speaker 1: as popular and extremely handsome. So here we go again.

1072
00:58:00,080 --> 00:58:05,240
Speaker 1: Balls would go crazy. No, I'm not, I swear to God,

1073
00:58:05,280 --> 00:58:07,160
Speaker 1: I'm not. I'm not adding a like, it's just a

1074
00:58:07,200 --> 00:58:10,080
Speaker 1: thing that comes up with like all everyone from these

1075
00:58:10,360 --> 00:58:13,440
Speaker 1: girls at this, at the school he taught at to

1076
00:58:13,520 --> 00:58:16,280
Speaker 1: this sergeant to the duty was tort helping to torture

1077
00:58:16,680 --> 00:58:19,360
Speaker 1: all mention this. I don't I don't get it, but

1078
00:58:19,480 --> 00:58:22,880
Speaker 1: it's it's like an undeniable thing you have to you

1079
00:58:22,920 --> 00:58:30,400
Speaker 1: have to acknowledge it, Like yeah, yeah, I agree, I

1080
00:58:30,400 --> 00:58:33,080
Speaker 1: I do agree. For the record, I I don't understand this,

1081
00:58:33,240 --> 00:58:36,160
Speaker 1: and it makes me question my own sanity. It's like,

1082
00:58:36,480 --> 00:58:40,000
Speaker 1: it's like fucking being best friends with Jimmy Stewart in

1083
00:58:40,040 --> 00:58:42,400
Speaker 1: that movie where he sees the giant rabbit and you're

1084
00:58:42,400 --> 00:58:44,960
Speaker 1: just like, they're really a rabbit. Like he's so consistent

1085
00:58:45,000 --> 00:58:45,400
Speaker 1: about this.

1086
00:58:45,480 --> 00:58:46,280
Speaker 3: What am I missing?

1087
00:58:46,880 --> 00:58:52,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, fucking Harvey somewhere around here. Yeah, great movie, by

1088
00:58:52,960 --> 00:58:59,840
Speaker 1: the way, Harvey, fucking absolute classic. Yeah classic. So yeah,

1089
00:59:00,160 --> 00:59:03,440
Speaker 1: I'm going to continue that quote. Navy girls would go

1090
00:59:03,520 --> 00:59:05,960
Speaker 1: crazy over him, Hickman said, although he added that he

1091
00:59:05,960 --> 00:59:09,000
Speaker 1: doesn't believe DeSantis, who became a jag straight out of

1092
00:59:09,040 --> 00:59:11,600
Speaker 1: Harvard law. I'd argue he's been a jag forever, would

1093
00:59:11,600 --> 00:59:13,640
Speaker 1: have been in the room that night. They weren't going

1094
00:59:13,680 --> 00:59:16,560
Speaker 1: to give somebody like that that kind of responsibility, Hickman

1095
00:59:16,600 --> 00:59:21,040
Speaker 1: said in the transcript. So that Vice documentary was canceled

1096
00:59:21,080 --> 00:59:24,520
Speaker 1: at the last minute for very shady but unclear reasons.

1097
00:59:25,120 --> 00:59:28,520
Speaker 1: It seems likely that it was killed to avoid angering

1098
00:59:28,520 --> 00:59:31,760
Speaker 1: a potential future president out of cowardice at the highest

1099
00:59:31,800 --> 00:59:34,760
Speaker 1: levels of a failing media company. But I just really

1100
00:59:34,760 --> 00:59:38,360
Speaker 1: have nothing more to say because it's unclear still at

1101
00:59:38,360 --> 00:59:41,000
Speaker 1: this point. In the spring of two thousand and six,

1102
00:59:41,240 --> 00:59:44,280
Speaker 1: Ron met his future wife, Casey, at a driving range

1103
00:59:44,320 --> 00:59:48,320
Speaker 1: at the University of North Florida, again not flow Rida.

1104
00:59:48,440 --> 00:59:51,920
Speaker 1: He and his wife did not meet on flow Rida. Again.

1105
00:59:52,160 --> 00:59:53,080
Speaker 3: Get we got that.

1106
00:59:53,360 --> 00:59:56,640
Speaker 1: The subreddit fills with confusion every time we mentioned this,

1107
00:59:56,720 --> 00:59:58,560
Speaker 1: so I just want to make sure we're really keeping

1108
00:59:58,600 --> 01:00:01,840
Speaker 1: it straight. It is from this period that we get

1109
01:00:01,840 --> 01:00:05,320
Speaker 1: our only context on Ron's flirtation techniques, which I know

1110
01:00:05,800 --> 01:00:07,880
Speaker 1: everyone's very excited to learn about.

1111
01:00:07,960 --> 01:00:09,600
Speaker 3: How does the handsome man flirt?

1112
01:00:10,960 --> 01:00:11,840
Speaker 1: I'm gonna read you.

1113
01:00:12,000 --> 01:00:14,120
Speaker 2: How are you gonna regret asking that?

1114
01:00:14,360 --> 01:00:18,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is how he opens with his future wife. Hello,

1115
01:00:18,960 --> 01:00:25,040
Speaker 1: somebody left these balls behind? Would you like to have them? Y? No, golf,

1116
01:00:26,160 --> 01:00:31,240
Speaker 1: it's a driving rage. Yeah, balls, Yeah, very very funny.

1117
01:00:32,200 --> 01:00:34,960
Speaker 1: This works on Casey and their first date is that

1118
01:00:35,120 --> 01:00:39,600
Speaker 1: evening at Beef o Brady's, which is apparently a restaurants.

1119
01:00:44,080 --> 01:00:51,240
Speaker 3: I'd like balls. Some people say I'm very handsome.

1120
01:00:52,480 --> 01:00:56,400
Speaker 1: Some people this guy I tortured. I'm very handsome.

1121
01:00:57,600 --> 01:01:02,920
Speaker 3: This guy tortured and teenage girls. He's got a.

1122
01:01:02,920 --> 01:01:06,240
Speaker 1: Poster in his like like, I imagine his apartment is

1123
01:01:06,320 --> 01:01:09,800
Speaker 1: completely empty aside from a pillow and a blanket on

1124
01:01:09,960 --> 01:01:13,320
Speaker 1: the floor and a poster he made that says like

1125
01:01:13,640 --> 01:01:17,360
Speaker 1: people who think I am attractive guys I tortured at

1126
01:01:17,360 --> 01:01:21,440
Speaker 1: Guantadamo teenagers.

1127
01:01:21,480 --> 01:01:26,480
Speaker 3: Sergeant you question? Mark? Uh?

1128
01:01:26,920 --> 01:01:27,240
Speaker 1: Great?

1129
01:01:28,000 --> 01:01:28,120
Speaker 3: So.

1130
01:01:28,600 --> 01:01:33,040
Speaker 1: Jill Casey Black, usually called Casey, had grown up in Troy, Ohio,

1131
01:01:33,400 --> 01:01:37,320
Speaker 1: one of two daughters of an optometrist and a speech pathologist.

1132
01:01:37,720 --> 01:01:40,360
Speaker 1: She had also been an active student athlete and had

1133
01:01:40,440 --> 01:01:42,840
Speaker 1: done very well in school. She went to the University

1134
01:01:42,840 --> 01:01:46,240
Speaker 1: of Charleston and graduated with a degree in economics and

1135
01:01:46,360 --> 01:01:49,480
Speaker 1: French She competed as an equestrian and had started a

1136
01:01:49,520 --> 01:01:52,640
Speaker 1: promising career as a reporter and on screen talent for

1137
01:01:52,720 --> 01:01:56,760
Speaker 1: the local Jacksonville station wj t x U. The one

1138
01:01:56,840 --> 01:01:59,000
Speaker 1: story I found of her as a as a TV

1139
01:01:59,120 --> 01:02:02,120
Speaker 1: reporter is that there was a story about an alligator

1140
01:02:02,160 --> 01:02:05,480
Speaker 1: that had gotten into a suburban neighborhood, which she described

1141
01:02:05,520 --> 01:02:08,480
Speaker 1: as a story with real teeth if you're if you're

1142
01:02:08,520 --> 01:02:10,560
Speaker 1: curious as to the level of rigor she brought to

1143
01:02:10,680 --> 01:02:12,040
Speaker 1: journalism as a profession.

1144
01:02:13,720 --> 01:02:17,720
Speaker 3: You know what they call getting a degree in economics

1145
01:02:17,720 --> 01:02:18,160
Speaker 3: and French?

1146
01:02:18,520 --> 01:02:18,920
Speaker 1: What's that?

1147
01:02:19,560 --> 01:02:23,960
Speaker 3: Monet? Okay, studying monette. No, studying monette.

1148
01:02:24,800 --> 01:02:28,360
Speaker 1: You're proud of yourself, aren't you. Yeah, studying money. Yeah,

1149
01:02:28,800 --> 01:02:30,800
Speaker 1: we get it.

1150
01:02:30,760 --> 01:02:32,840
Speaker 3: It's like wait, wait, wait, we get it.

1151
01:02:32,920 --> 01:02:36,680
Speaker 1: No yeah, good, good one, Thank you, good one, buddy.

1152
01:02:36,760 --> 01:02:38,760
Speaker 5: Yeah.

1153
01:02:38,800 --> 01:02:41,880
Speaker 1: So they get hitched in two thousand and nine at

1154
01:02:41,880 --> 01:02:42,600
Speaker 1: Disney World.

1155
01:02:43,440 --> 01:02:46,720
Speaker 4: Oh now, how about that?

1156
01:02:46,720 --> 01:02:49,360
Speaker 1: That is funny because of the war he's going to

1157
01:02:49,440 --> 01:02:50,360
Speaker 1: have with Disney later.

1158
01:02:52,840 --> 01:02:53,040
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1159
01:02:54,600 --> 01:02:57,600
Speaker 1: By all accounts, it's not a very Disney Disney wedding.

1160
01:02:57,600 --> 01:03:00,920
Speaker 1: There's not like Mickey or any characters hanging around. They

1161
01:03:00,920 --> 01:03:03,640
Speaker 1: go to Epcot after, which is like the least Disney

1162
01:03:03,640 --> 01:03:06,919
Speaker 1: thing to do at Disney World. I think it's more

1163
01:03:06,920 --> 01:03:11,480
Speaker 1: of a rich Florida people thing than a Disney super

1164
01:03:11,520 --> 01:03:13,560
Speaker 1: fan thing, right, like Disney World's just.

1165
01:03:13,680 --> 01:03:17,280
Speaker 3: Yay, Yeah you got to get you get the photos. Yeah, yeah,

1166
01:03:17,400 --> 01:03:19,840
Speaker 3: oh I got the prince is here and the other prince.

1167
01:03:19,960 --> 01:03:21,360
Speaker 3: Oh the Prince is over there.

1168
01:03:21,480 --> 01:03:23,480
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. Uh so.

1169
01:03:23,640 --> 01:03:23,880
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1170
01:03:23,920 --> 01:03:28,400
Speaker 1: The two are a famously power couple in Florida politics,

1171
01:03:28,680 --> 01:03:31,760
Speaker 1: where Ron is tight lipped and reserved and introverted. Casey

1172
01:03:31,880 --> 01:03:34,120
Speaker 1: is an extrovert. She's going to do when he runs

1173
01:03:34,120 --> 01:03:37,280
Speaker 1: for office. She does a lot of on the ground campaigning,

1174
01:03:37,320 --> 01:03:39,640
Speaker 1: even like knocking on doors for him. She does a

1175
01:03:39,640 --> 01:03:42,360
Speaker 1: lot of introducing him at evinsign stuff like. She is

1176
01:03:42,440 --> 01:03:44,439
Speaker 1: the talker of the two of them.

1177
01:03:44,760 --> 01:03:45,600
Speaker 5: She's more likable.

1178
01:03:45,680 --> 01:03:49,400
Speaker 3: Here's my weird husband by far. Yeah, here's handsome. Look

1179
01:03:49,440 --> 01:03:49,680
Speaker 3: at me.

1180
01:03:50,440 --> 01:03:52,200
Speaker 5: Just look at him. Don't listen to his word.

1181
01:03:52,320 --> 01:03:55,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll talk. I'm attractive and charismatic. Please ignore my

1182
01:03:56,040 --> 01:03:56,840
Speaker 1: husband's words.

1183
01:03:57,080 --> 01:03:58,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, I studied money in college.

1184
01:03:59,040 --> 01:04:04,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, way to go, Cody. So these ambitions and she is,

1185
01:04:04,840 --> 01:04:07,160
Speaker 1: you know, the two are, by all accounts, deeply in

1186
01:04:07,240 --> 01:04:11,080
Speaker 1: love and partners in Ron's political ambitions, and those ambitions

1187
01:04:11,160 --> 01:04:13,720
Speaker 1: would become evident for the first time in twenty twelve

1188
01:04:13,960 --> 01:04:17,520
Speaker 1: when Ron noticed that the newly drawn sixth district in

1189
01:04:17,560 --> 01:04:21,600
Speaker 1: Florida had again not flow Rida, Florida had an open

1190
01:04:21,720 --> 01:04:25,440
Speaker 1: campaign for Congress. It was a tweener district in between

1191
01:04:25,600 --> 01:04:30,080
Speaker 1: Jacksonville and Orlando and had no incumbent. Because of the

1192
01:04:30,120 --> 01:04:32,919
Speaker 1: demographics of the district, it would be a guaranteed win

1193
01:04:33,080 --> 01:04:36,480
Speaker 1: for any Republican who could win the nomination. With Casey

1194
01:04:36,520 --> 01:04:40,160
Speaker 1: at his side, meetball Ron decided he was going to

1195
01:04:40,200 --> 01:04:43,760
Speaker 1: be that Republican and we will talk about that and

1196
01:04:43,880 --> 01:04:45,919
Speaker 1: his rise to power in part two.

1197
01:04:47,840 --> 01:04:51,760
Speaker 3: God, here's also something to say about the phrase tweener district.

1198
01:04:52,000 --> 01:04:54,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, Ron's yeah, it's uncomfortable to me.

1199
01:04:54,640 --> 01:05:00,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, tweens. Yeah yeah. His wife is age appropriate though,

1200
01:05:00,520 --> 01:05:03,000
Speaker 3: so good for that.

1201
01:05:03,000 --> 01:05:06,640
Speaker 1: That is good. Yeah, yeah, yeah he is. He is

1202
01:05:06,760 --> 01:05:10,520
Speaker 1: married to an adult. That's positive shows growth.

1203
01:05:11,080 --> 01:05:11,240
Speaker 4: Mm.

1204
01:05:12,080 --> 01:05:13,800
Speaker 5: I'd like to end things on a positive note.

1205
01:05:14,080 --> 01:05:16,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, modern politics.

1206
01:05:16,560 --> 01:05:19,760
Speaker 5: Yeah great, Well, thanks for having us here for this.

1207
01:05:20,000 --> 01:05:21,640
Speaker 1: Yeah. How you feeling, guys?

1208
01:05:22,880 --> 01:05:26,280
Speaker 3: I feel excited to see Meet ball Ron up on stage.

1209
01:05:26,440 --> 01:05:32,880
Speaker 3: Just yeah, you know, just being around, just just being himself.

1210
01:05:33,640 --> 01:05:37,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, just be and just you, just be yourselves. You know,

1211
01:05:37,840 --> 01:05:41,680
Speaker 1: if you are a relentlessly dedicated psychopath who wants to

1212
01:05:41,720 --> 01:05:45,240
Speaker 1: become the president purely for reasons of self gratification, don't

1213
01:05:45,280 --> 01:05:49,160
Speaker 1: let anything stop you, you know, relentlessly craft a life

1214
01:05:49,360 --> 01:05:53,640
Speaker 1: towards that goal. Uh and and proceed on a rocket

1215
01:05:53,640 --> 01:05:57,960
Speaker 1: ship like course towards it until fucking Biff Tannon calls

1216
01:05:58,000 --> 01:06:01,160
Speaker 1: you meetball Ron and utterly and iholates all of your

1217
01:06:01,240 --> 01:06:06,880
Speaker 1: dreams in a single shot back to the Earth. Yeah,

1218
01:06:06,920 --> 01:06:10,200
Speaker 1: it's like the Death Star shooting a taxi cab.

1219
01:06:10,200 --> 01:06:14,800
Speaker 3: Just absolutely wiped out some taxi.

1220
01:06:14,840 --> 01:06:18,120
Speaker 1: Hands, some taxi cab. Anyway, you guys got some plugs.

1221
01:06:18,600 --> 01:06:20,080
Speaker 5: Sure you got shows?

1222
01:06:20,360 --> 01:06:22,400
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, we got shows. Yeah, check us out. We

1223
01:06:22,480 --> 01:06:24,439
Speaker 3: got a YouTube show called some more News. It's also

1224
01:06:24,480 --> 01:06:27,400
Speaker 3: a podcast, and we have a companion podcast called even

1225
01:06:27,400 --> 01:06:27,920
Speaker 3: more News.

1226
01:06:28,040 --> 01:06:28,760
Speaker 1: Hell yeah you do.

1227
01:06:29,240 --> 01:06:32,320
Speaker 3: Hell yeah, we do gues. I've got oh we've got

1228
01:06:32,320 --> 01:06:34,120
Speaker 3: a Patreon for that as well, Patreon dot com. S

1229
01:06:34,120 --> 01:06:35,960
Speaker 3: hast some more News. I've got a band called the

1230
01:06:35,960 --> 01:06:37,920
Speaker 3: Hot Shapes. It has an album out now. Check it

1231
01:06:37,960 --> 01:06:40,600
Speaker 3: out on band camp and SoundCloud. The Hot Shapes dot

1232
01:06:40,600 --> 01:06:41,760
Speaker 3: band camp dot com.

1233
01:06:41,960 --> 01:06:42,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, we do.

1234
01:06:42,760 --> 01:06:45,520
Speaker 4: Work with this out where we split up the plugs

1235
01:06:45,560 --> 01:06:46,960
Speaker 4: because yeah, I.

1236
01:06:46,880 --> 01:06:48,800
Speaker 3: Got it all well, you said, you said, Cody go,

1237
01:06:48,960 --> 01:06:50,240
Speaker 3: so I did. But then I was like, well, O,

1238
01:06:50,280 --> 01:06:51,880
Speaker 3: Katie's not going to want to plug my band.

1239
01:06:52,680 --> 01:06:56,640
Speaker 4: Oh you're right, Yeah, I agree with what he said,

1240
01:06:56,640 --> 01:06:58,320
Speaker 4: but also I do want to plug his band.

1241
01:06:58,480 --> 01:07:01,200
Speaker 5: Go ahead, listen to.

1242
01:06:59,400 --> 01:07:03,840
Speaker 4: His yeah stuff. Check it out, all right, the next

1243
01:07:03,880 --> 01:07:05,240
Speaker 4: episode probably.

1244
01:07:05,000 --> 01:07:07,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, see you next episode. You can find us at

1245
01:07:07,840 --> 01:07:10,520
Speaker 1: Cooler Zone Media. If you want to get this without ads,

1246
01:07:10,560 --> 01:07:14,000
Speaker 1: you can subscribe, and uh, I'm gonna I'm gonna also

1247
01:07:14,040 --> 01:07:16,560
Speaker 1: put in a free plug for a YouTube channel that

1248
01:07:16,640 --> 01:07:20,160
Speaker 1: I like. Just just google Bobby Fingers YouTube. Watch the

1249
01:07:20,520 --> 01:07:23,800
Speaker 1: watch the Steven Sagall video first. You'll be pleasantly surprised.

1250
01:07:24,120 --> 01:07:28,360
Speaker 1: All right, no, no, no, this is just like my

1251
01:07:28,440 --> 01:07:31,360
Speaker 1: favorite thing that exists. This this artist. I don't know

1252
01:07:31,440 --> 01:07:33,680
Speaker 1: why he doesn't have tody. You need to you need

1253
01:07:33,680 --> 01:07:35,520
Speaker 1: to watch these videos. Bobby Fingers.

1254
01:07:36,840 --> 01:07:40,320
Speaker 3: Okay, I don't know, I don't know. I'm not familiar

1255
01:07:40,360 --> 01:07:43,000
Speaker 3: with this, but the thumbnails.

1256
01:07:42,400 --> 01:07:44,920
Speaker 1: Are Yes, I have no way to describe this to you.

1257
01:07:45,000 --> 01:07:48,200
Speaker 1: There's three videos so far. Watch the one about Steven Seagal.

1258
01:07:48,280 --> 01:07:50,640
Speaker 1: That's all I'll tell you listeners. I have no affiliation

1259
01:07:50,800 --> 01:07:51,400
Speaker 1: with this guy.

1260
01:07:52,360 --> 01:07:55,080
Speaker 4: I just love him, all right, all right, looking forward

1261
01:07:55,120 --> 01:07:56,080
Speaker 4: to that support.

1262
01:07:56,160 --> 01:07:59,120
Speaker 3: Supporting Bye Bye.

1263
01:07:59,000 --> 01:08:05,280
Speaker 2: Bye Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.

1264
01:08:05,640 --> 01:08:08,920
Speaker 2: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website coolzonemedia

1265
01:08:09,080 --> 01:08:12,320
Speaker 2: dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

1266
01:08:12,400 --> 01:08:14,960
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.