WEBVTT - Part One: Ron DeSantis: Florida Man 0:00:03.560 --> 0:00:08.640 What's meet Ball my Ron's This is Behind the Bastards, 0:00:08.680 --> 0:00:11.240 a podcast about the worst people in all of history. 0:00:11.520 --> 0:00:15.120 And this week we are talking about Ronnie the Big 0:00:15.400 --> 0:00:25.000 d DeSantis Meet Ball ron ron desanct Demonious lockdown, Ron, 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:27.000 I think is the other thing that Trump. 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:29.560 Calls Anyway, we all have horrified faces. 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:34.400 I know, I know you all have have beautiful faces. 0:00:34.760 --> 0:00:37.680 And let me introduce those beautiful faces right now because 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:42.080 no one else could be the guests on our Ronathan 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:52.720 Sanctimonious d episodes. But Cody Johnston and Katie Stole here 0:00:56.200 --> 0:00:59.200 for me is that I was amazing. 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:00.720 It's he's doing wrong. 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:04.600 Yeah, it's like a frozen animatronic if you were to see. 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:04.960 Him do it. 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:09.040 Yeah, like it was unsettling functioning. It was. It was 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:13.679 when Cody becomes president and gets his his his animatronic 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:16.840 Cody in the Hall of Presidents. 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:18.640 When I become president, and that's the big reveal. That's what. 0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:22.319 Yeah. 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:23.600 Actually I'm like this. 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:31.000 So guys, y'all, yin's what would your nicknames be if 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:33.560 Trump gave you a nickname? 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:43.440 Uh, probably something like like dirty Cody or something dirty 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:47.400 like lose to like the the unkempt nature of my 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:51.400 persona disheveled Dusty Cody, Dusty Cody yor something like that. 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:57.520 Little beardy Beardo Cody Yeah beard o. 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:00.760 Yeah Beard Yeah. 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:03.640 I don't know what. Mine would be probably crazy with 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:05.400 a k or something. 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:10.399 Crazy, Katie, mine would Mine would just be that woman. 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:16.160 That woman. See. I think he would just alter his 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:19.720 his Ron DeSantis nickname for me and call me meatball 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:23.400 Rob because because Ron and I are both very Italian, 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:25.800 tragically Italian. 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:28.080 That's not wrong. 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:31.600 But I have never ever thought of you as a rob. 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:33.880 I thought you were going to say you never thought 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:38.519 of me as a meatball? Wow, Katie, Wow Wow? 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:47.480 Occasionally sure, yeah, honest with each other. No wait, though, seriously, 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:49.040 has anybody called you rob before? 0:02:49.680 --> 0:02:50.480 Not and lived? 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:55.240 No? Yeah? So okay, so Ron, get on. 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:00.800 Something with machetes. 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:04.120 Maybe it is. No, that's too cool sounding, very funny. 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:07.720 My favorite thing about Donald Trump because you know he's 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:11.360 a bad person. Hated him, done tremendous damage both to 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:16.480 my family and to the world. But I have, you know, 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:21.119 as a writer, as a longtime comedy writer, game recognized 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:25.399 game and he is an incredible nickname giver, just one 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:29.600 of like stunningly effective. My favorite example of that is 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:31.960 meet ball Ron. Because people may not be aware of this, 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:35.880 he hasn't publicly called Ron de Santis meet ball Ron. 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:39.720 In fact, it was like back in February, a story 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:42.880 broke that in private, Trump was calling him meet ball 0:03:42.960 --> 0:03:45.200 Ron as an insult. This is back when he was 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:49.040 publicly calling him like lockdown Ron and dsanct demonious, which 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:52.200 are both much worse nicknames. And as soon as everyone 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:55.680 heard he's calling him this in private, it instantly became 0:03:55.880 --> 0:03:59.280 like nationwide. 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:02.400 Trump was like, from the privacy of your own home, 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:03.120 you still did it. 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:05.920 Trump has even been like, no, I'd never call him that, 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:07.920 you know, it's a it's an appropriate I'm not gonna 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:09.640 engage the Italian discription. 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:13.040 Oh he's a he's an amazing it's so funny. He's 0:04:13.040 --> 0:04:15.280 so good at the at the this, the marketing, and 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:17.440 just like he knows how to do it because all 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:20.119 he do is like I would never call him that. Maybe, 0:04:20.160 --> 0:04:22.599 you know, maybe some people call him meat Ron. I 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:28.080 wouldn't call him that. Men off the tongue. I don't know. 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:30.520 It's a great nickname made up by a smart man, 0:04:30.600 --> 0:04:37.240 but no, but I would know something, so are are 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:41.680 y'all ready to learn the Ballad of Meatball. Ron will 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:43.240 not be titling this episode. 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:44.680 I have a I have a question for you before 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:49.000 we begin. Do you address his name? His last name? Oh? 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:53.280 Yeah, wait, his last fun Yeah, because this is God's 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:55.520 fat hobby horse. 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:59.120 A little just a little factoid. His name is pronounced 0:04:59.200 --> 0:05:05.040 de Santis. Yes, but he pronounces it DeSantis. Yeah, because 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:09.200 when he was running for governor, he people call him 0:05:09.240 --> 0:05:11.520 DeSantis and he's like, I guess it's DeSantis. Now he 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:13.839 just changed the way he pronounced his name under like 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:17.640 vague social pressure. Yeah. I think it's pretty amazing. 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:21.040 And that's and very consistent to the to the man 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:22.560 we are going to be talking. 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:25.280 About, exact color it with uh yeel. 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:32.400 Oh yes, yes, uh so. Ronathan J. DeSantis was due 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:35.520 to a filing mishap, born under the legal name Ronald 0:05:35.640 --> 0:05:41.680 Dion DeSantis on September fourteenth, nineteen seventy eight, in Jacksonville, Florida. Now, 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:44.680 but you're all wondering about that middle name, right, Dion. 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:48.920 That's an odd middle name for a meatball. Uh Well, 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:54.240 Ronnie's father, also, Ron DeSantis, was a huge fan of 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:57.760 Dion de Mucci, The doo wop singer whose most well 0:05:57.800 --> 0:06:00.679 known hit was the nineteen sixty one song run Around 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:06.680 sou Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's why Governor On DeSantis' 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:07.760 middle name is Dion. 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:09.279 That's so funny. 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:09.960 Oh my god. 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:13.880 Yeah, just right out the gate with some with some 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:18.040 mind blowing fact on. Yeah, Dion de Santis. 0:06:19.400 --> 0:06:22.480 It's a good most almost runner out. 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:26.400 Yeah, almost the same name as Dion Sanders, who would 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:29.040 have been a better governor of Florida. Probably he might 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:30.000 have been a terrible person. 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:32.080 I oh, we are all in on Sanders. 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:37.159 Okay, that's good. That's good. So I should note off 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:39.640 the top here that when I say Ron was born 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:42.080 in Florida, I am referring to the state in the 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:45.839 southeastern portion of the United States, not the seminal genre 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:50.120 defining rap artist flow Ryda aka Tremar Dillard, who recently 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:53.799 represented San Marino in the twenty twenty one Eurovision Song Contest. 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:57.040 Listeners get confused whenever we mentioned the state, and I 0:06:57.120 --> 0:06:59.520 want to assure you that Meatball Ron was not birthed 0:06:59.839 --> 0:07:01.760 z A morph like from the belly of one of 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:05.360 America's great cultural treasure is just a yeah, yeah, I 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:08.880 double checked. I double checked. I even sent in an 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:14.080 email request to the sheriff of Jacksonville, who responded, please 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:16.280 stop messaging us about flow Rider. 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:19.560 Seems like a pretty good conversation and. 0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:20.320 You trusted them. 0:07:20.880 --> 0:07:25.120 Well, you know, I just I legally, I can't uh 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:28.080 u further by suspicions until we get some sort of 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:34.920 like a photo for the police. All right, uh see 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:36.960 A I will not be of any use to me 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:42.160 until we can generate a perfect, perfect cover of that 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:45.280 scene from Alien where it's Ron Desantist bursting out of 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:48.520 flow Righter's chest and flow Right is singing whatever song 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:50.800 flow Right I got famous for. I know nothing else 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:51.679 about flow Rider. 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:58.360 Pretty someone has to be able to do something like that. 0:07:58.800 --> 0:07:59.679 Yeah, we'll see. 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:02.840 Proved me right or wrong? I forget which. So before 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:05.880 we discuss Rod DeSantis's childhood, we should talk briefly about 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:08.760 his family background. His mom and dad were the first 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:11.680 generation of their family to move to Florida. He is 0:08:12.400 --> 0:08:14.760 fairly recent about was recent. I think about as recent 0:08:14.800 --> 0:08:19.200 as my family is. Immigrants too good old fashioned the 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:23.560 United States. Most of his relatives remained in western Pennsylvania 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:29.960 and northwest Ohio, which is why now Yeah, classic grease 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:30.680 ball stuff. 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:34.400 But Italians and Western Pa and Ohio. 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:36.440 Damn, oh yeah no, it's what we do. 0:08:36.520 --> 0:08:38.600 Baby, Get up there, get to Akron. 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:42.400 Come on, yeah yeah, Akron, the Promised Land. That's what 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:46.760 for generations, Italians were like, sitting around in Tuscany looking 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:50.080 out at like the unfolding glory of nature and going, fuck, 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:51.400 I wish this was Akron. 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:53.320 I want, guys. 0:08:55.559 --> 0:08:58.480 So because of the fact that most of his family 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:01.320 has stayed in this chunk of the Midwest, Ron claims 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:04.040 in his memoir, which he published immediately prior to launching 0:09:04.040 --> 0:09:07.600 his presidential campaign, that despite growing up in Florida, he 0:09:07.720 --> 0:09:13.440 is culturally a Midwesterner Quoa. I was geographically raised in 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:16.679 the in Tampa Bay, but culturally my upbringing reflected the 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:20.360 working class communities in western Pennsylvania and northeast Ohio, from 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:23.120 weekly church attendance to the expectation that one winner in 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:26.080 his keep. This made me god fearing, hard working, and 0:09:26.160 --> 0:09:29.400 America loving. And there's a lot that's funny about that, 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:32.880 particularly the fact that it's kind of insinuating that Floridians 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:36.720 are like shiftless, godless degenerates, which. 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:40.880 Is true, is exactly what he's saying, and there's this 0:09:41.080 --> 0:09:45.320 element of like I'm I invaded the place and took 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:49.240 over with like it's like this weird like reverse like 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:53.800 americanized like great replacement thing of like culturally I'm here 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:56.480 and I'm bringing those values to Florida. But also he 0:09:56.520 --> 0:10:00.240 wants to make America Florida, right, yeah, so what like 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:01.920 what is it? Do you want to actually make America 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:04.160 like Ohio's version of Florida? 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:07.240 Like yeah, he's saying, yeah, the Ohio version of Florida, 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:10.000 which I don't know. There's a Jimmy Buffett joke there, 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:12.920 but it's not coming to me right now. So Ron's 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:17.679 decision to do this has been right, James James Buffett, that's. 0:10:17.520 --> 0:10:19.439 The Midwestern Jimmy Buffett. 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:22.400 He's scared of the water. He doesn't get anywhere. 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:26.679 I think it's actually pronounced James Buffet James. 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:31.280 So this has been made fun of by a lot 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:34.880 of people. It's worth noting that he only very recently 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:38.880 started claiming to be culturally Midwestern. In his initial congressional 0:10:38.920 --> 0:10:45.440 campaigns and first governor goombinatorial campaign, he described himself repeatedly 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:48.840 as from Florida, from Tampa Bay. So this is something 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:52.280 he has picked up as an attempt to get votes 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:54.079 in the Midwest himself. 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:55.920 Yeah, the common man. 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:58.839 Yeah, the common the common man, the common idiot. Like 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:01.680 that's what that's how he's what he's saying about Midwesterners 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:04.040 is like they're so dumb. I can pretend to be 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:06.880 from there despite growing up as far away almost as 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:07.280 you can. 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:10.640 Right. It's funny because like he's like, he's insulting the Midwest, 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:13.480 but you're dumb if you'll believe, yes. But also he's 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:16.400 insulting Floridians by being like, yeah, they're fucking. 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:18.040 I'm not one of them, and I'm not one of them. 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:22.280 I'm bringing my good ship over there, like yeah. 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:23.880 And it is. It has not seemed to work. A 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:27.160 recent article on Florida Politics dot Com notes that he 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:30.720 is at least ten points behind Trump in Pennsylvania, and 0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:33.920 he recently dropped to third place in the Ohio primary 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:38.920 polls behind Vivic Ramaswami. Shocking. Hey, come on, he is 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:41.920 fifty five points behind Donald Trump there. 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:44.199 So that's painful. 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:52.600 Hasn't exactly played out. That's Ohio, Okay, the Midwest isn't 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:53.320 doing so hard. 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:54.360 How's he doing in Florida? 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:58.480 He's not beating Donald Trump last I checked, like, I 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:02.360 don't think so. How could he be realistic anyway? That's 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:04.640 actually what we're talking about. That's the whole point of 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:09.080 this week's episodes. So back to his family. Ron gets 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:11.840 his interest in politics from his grandfather, who was a 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:15.880 major figure in the Republican Party of mid century Ohio. 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:18.839 He was on deck in nineteen sixty for a major 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:22.080 political scandal where a number of voting machines failed during 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:25.120 an election and led to something like fifteen hundred people's 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:28.760 votes failing to be accounted, effectively disenfranchising them. Right, this 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:31.880 is like a very serious issue. The Secretary of State, 0:12:31.920 --> 0:12:34.760 who was a fairly rare Republican and state government at 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:38.120 that point in time, cleaned house and put Philip Rogers, 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:41.720 Ron's grandpa and his director. By all accounts, he was 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:44.240 very good at this job, and he became a respected 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:47.960 expert on election integrity. The Republican Party in Ohio in 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:50.800 those days was not a mighty force, but Philip gained 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:54.120 widespread respect and traveled around the state helping to ensure 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:57.160 integrity in a number of smaller elections. When the local 0:12:57.160 --> 0:12:59.640 steel workers union needed to do a vote, they trusted 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:01.760 him to manage it and ensure that it was done 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:05.439 with integrity. He was even contracted out to other states, 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:09.120 including Louisiana, to help them set up modern voting machine systems. 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:13.199 Rogers is described by one colleague as quote someone who 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:16.400 believed in the way the system worked. He was political, 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:19.600 but not a politician, and instead someone who believed enough 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:22.679 in the system to work a pretty thankless and intricate job. 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:26.440 By all accounts, he was not especially ideological, and I've 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:29.120 run into no complaints of him taking advantage of this 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:33.200 job to further his own political INDs. Crucially, Roger was 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:36.040 on the moderate wing of the Republican Party. One write 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:38.520 up from NBC News notes there was a group of 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:40.440 Goldwater rights who were a thorn in the side of 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:43.320 the party at the time, says Binning, referring to acolytes 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:46.840 at Barry Goldwater, the failed utra Conservative presidential candidate in 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:49.839 nineteen sixty four. Phil wasn't in with them. This was 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:52.480 one of his fellow Republicans in Ohio at the time. 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:55.520 So he's not an extremist, not a hard right guy. 0:13:56.840 --> 0:14:00.640 Ronda Santis, the dad of our Randa Sis Santis, the 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:03.280 son of this dude, moved the family away from its 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:07.040 Midwest roots after he graduated in nineteen seventy and got 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:09.800 a job for Nielsen, the company that used to determine 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:12.880 what TV shows got renewed. Most of our gen Z 0:14:13.040 --> 0:14:15.440 viewers will not know what the fuck we're talking about 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:19.880 when we say mentioned Nielsen families. But once upon a 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:23.520 time people paid money to subscribe to something called cable 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:27.360 because we hadn't yet invented lime wire TV. Shit, they're 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:28.720 not going to remember LimeWire either. 0:14:28.880 --> 0:14:31.640 Yeah, what is that? 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:35.960 TV shows lived or died based on how many Nielsen 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:39.240 viewers turned tuned into them. The basic idea was like 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:42.960 a percentage of families in each state got like sent 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:45.200 a box that they would hook up to their TV 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:47.880 and it would record what they were watching, And then 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:50.920 Nielsen would do some whack ass math to determine how 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:54.720 many people are actually watching the show, and advertisers would 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:57.240 use this data to decide where to buy ad space 0:14:57.280 --> 0:14:59.480 and what the value of ad space was. Right, And 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:03.960 thus was American popular culture shaped for decades. Old Ron, 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:06.400 as he probably is not called, was a low level 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:09.400 cog in this system. He's physically putting the boxes into 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:13.480 people's houses. Uh, r Ron DeSantis' mom, it was a 0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:17.240 first generation Polish immigrant and became a critical care nurse. 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:19.720 It's interesting to look at what some of the elder 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:22.640 adults in Ron's youth did for a living. His parents' 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:26.640 siblings became a priest and a nun respectively, which suggests 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:30.400 a strong Catholic upbringing. Ar Ron doesn't talk about this 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:33.400 as much as he speaks generally about God and going 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:35.920 to church, but it's worth noting that from what is 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:39.520 publicly available for us to see, his nun aunt does 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:41.560 not seem to be the kind of Catholic you might 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:45.680 expect given her nephew's path. Here's NBC again. Be open 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:48.720 to diversity, Sister Regina said during a twenty twenty commencement 0:15:48.760 --> 0:15:51.600 address to graduates at Ursuline High School. Do not be 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:54.000 afraid of those who are different from you. It's okay 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:56.840 to change your thinking. Change is the constant in our lives. 0:15:57.480 --> 0:16:03.000 Oh that's inesting, Yeah yeah, So that's different from. 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:07.120 Artist in one ear in one end of the. 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:12.920 Yeah yeah. His priest uncle, father Rogers, has been known 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:15.880 to recite Teddy Roosevelt's Man in the Arena speech from 0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:18.520 the pulpit, but doesn't have a reputation for bringing up 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:21.600 politics in a more relevant modern sense. He has a 0:16:21.680 --> 0:16:25.560 sizable fan pace among the Catholic subculture, including many people 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:28.240 who have followed him from two different churches. Because of 0:16:28.240 --> 0:16:31.240 his raw charisma. It said he doesn't need a microphone 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:33.680 to reach the back pews. I bring this up because 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:37.640 it's a notably distinct difference between r Ron and his kin. 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:40.320 DeSantis is known for a lot of things, but in person, 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:43.160 charisma is not one of them. People who know the 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:46.160 family will say that he takes after his mom, Karen Moore, 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:48.640 as she is something of an introvert and uncomfortable with 0:16:48.640 --> 0:16:51.400 the spotlight. Even as he's become a national figure, she 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:55.240 doesn't really show up in public, which you know is 0:16:55.240 --> 0:16:58.320 her right he should, He should take her take advice, Yeah, 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:01.120 approach to avoid being known by people. 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:06.960 Yeah, you know, we become a big weakness for Ron 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:09.320 seems to be being perceived. 0:17:09.000 --> 0:17:11.840 Being perceived exactly. If no one could see or be 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:14.040 aware of him, he would be a lot more likable. 0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:14.560 Man. 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:15.320 I bet he was. 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:18.280 I bet he wanted to be like his uncle so bad. 0:17:18.880 --> 0:17:23.960 Right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, No, it's too much of 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:31.520 a meatball, not a speech, absolutely the driest meatball. As 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:34.280 a kid, young Ron was bright and a good student. 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:37.560 Excellent student. Actually, his grades were so good that one 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:40.639 the teacher would describe him as having a Stepford report card. 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:44.280 He was also a very capable athlete, and in his youth, 0:17:44.359 --> 0:17:47.880 Ron's first love was baseball. He was known to other 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:51.000 kids as D, which he still prefers to be called 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:54.399 and claims to like more than his real name. So 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:57.480 you know, that's that's the add he should have gone 0:17:57.520 --> 0:18:01.960 with Florida got that D you know some D. Yeah 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:07.200 that D take this D D in you, Ron, If 0:18:07.200 --> 0:18:10.720 you weren't a coward, we would support you, just just 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:13.240 based on that. Don't even care about your politics. 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:16.200 It's a good D joke, can't I can't go find that. 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:18.919 I feel like if you weren't a coward, he'd be 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:22.480 uh uh saying a lot worse stuff than he already. 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:26.560 That is almost certainly true, Cody K Money see money anyway. 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:29.840 The earliest influential book that Ron read as a kid 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:33.840 was the Science of Hitting by baseball legend Ted Williams. 0:18:34.320 --> 0:18:37.720 One of Ted's pieces of advice in that tone is 0:18:37.760 --> 0:18:40.160 to be very careful about the swings that you choose 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:43.240 to take. Ron's father claims his son took this advice 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:45.879 to heart, telling the New Yorker, I must have thrown 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:48.280 half a million pitches to Ron. I think he swung 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:49.880 at about five hundred of them. What are you laughing 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:51.399 at about their Cody he. 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:54.320 Would after Disney like seven months. 0:18:54.400 --> 0:18:57.199 I know, I know he did not learn that fucking lesson. 0:18:58.119 --> 0:18:59.280 I did not stick with you. 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:04.560 Man. Well it's you know, I might argue Cody. And 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:06.560 this is one of the things I find interesting about Ron. 0:19:07.320 --> 0:19:10.600 He did abide by that advice in his life and 0:19:10.720 --> 0:19:13.320 career up until like a year and a half ago. 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:17.040 Like he's even the most of his political career extremely consistent. 0:19:17.040 --> 0:19:19.760 It's really about littless than two years ago that he 0:19:19.840 --> 0:19:23.480 decides to take some really wild swings that have just 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:27.600 just shattered him, which is interesting to me, Like you 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:30.480 almost get the feeling like this guy is like this disciplined, 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:34.480 coiled spring and managed to like keep himself in line 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:40.120 and then just for whatever reason twenty twenty two, decides, yeah, 0:19:40.160 --> 0:19:41.679 it's time to go off the leash. 0:19:42.000 --> 0:19:45.040 No it was not, No, it was not. Yeah. I 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:48.919 think the topification of his desires, and I think the 0:19:48.960 --> 0:19:52.800 libs of TikTok talkification. Like he's got some people surrounding 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:56.880 him that are very online and radical in the bad 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:00.800 sense of the word radical. You could call him, you could. 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:04.480 I feel like even that gives him too much Uh yeah, 0:20:04.560 --> 0:20:07.640 rad but like the yeah, this sort of like he's 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:13.080 been sort of injected with a lot of awful shit 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:15.359 that he's let sort of steep into him because he's 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:17.159 a dry meatball. So they're they're pumping him full of 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:21.639 like the poison, yeah, meatballs juice, which he needs. Oh okay, okay, okay, 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:23.560 So I'm mixed up. I don't know. 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:27.000 His hometown was Dunidin, which is famous both for its 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:29.920 long standing lawsuit with a Tolkien estate over its name 0:20:30.200 --> 0:20:33.199 and for baseball. It was the spring training home of 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:35.920 the Toronto Blue Jays, so as a kid, Ron could 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:38.359 easily go down the street and watch the pros play. 0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:41.159 His upbringing was very parochial, and he notes that he 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:44.359 graduated that until he graduated high school, he had rarely 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:46.840 traveled further than five miles away from his house for 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:51.040 anything but baseball. In his memoir, he writes, baseball was 0:20:51.080 --> 0:20:53.920 the engine that expanded my horizons In those days, little 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:56.720 leagues like DUNI in national had a regular season in 0:20:56.760 --> 0:20:59.679 which the individual teams, each sponsored by a local business, 0:20:59.720 --> 0:21:03.680 would compete against each other. Now, I also played Little 0:21:03.720 --> 0:21:05.920 league baseball. Did you play Little league either, y'alls? 0:21:06.160 --> 0:21:06.359 I did? 0:21:06.520 --> 0:21:07.120 I sure did. 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:09.800 Yeah. I think it should be a federal felony to 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:12.840 make children play baseball. But I'm not sure if you 0:21:12.840 --> 0:21:16.200 guys had a better experience, maybe maybe slightly better. 0:21:16.960 --> 0:21:22.360 I enjoyed it personally, Okay, okay, wow. 0:21:23.119 --> 0:21:25.600 Yeah, Well there's diversity on the panel today. It's good. 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:29.320 Sure, yeah, criminals a variety of opinions. 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:34.879 Well, meatball Ron loved it. Couldn't get enough baseball, and 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:37.240 he was very good, and so was his team. He 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:39.520 kind of like lands in with this group of boys 0:21:39.560 --> 0:21:41.760 who were all they make like a pact when they're 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:45.040 eleven or twelve together to get to the Nationals effectively, 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:49.760 and you know, they do very well. The first big 0:21:49.840 --> 0:21:52.800 year they get to the district tournament, they're eliminated by 0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:54.760 game three, but like it's further than they thought they 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:58.200 were going to get. Ron and his teammates are super 0:21:58.560 --> 0:22:00.000 like four of them are going to wind up getting 0:22:00.119 --> 0:22:03.880 drafted into the into the majors, like they are, like, uh, 0:22:04.240 --> 0:22:07.240 it's kind of a dream team of little boys ue 0:22:08.359 --> 0:22:09.320 baseball Ron. 0:22:09.960 --> 0:22:10.200 Uh. 0:22:10.240 --> 0:22:13.640 So, after getting eliminated in game three the district tournament, 0:22:13.680 --> 0:22:15.919 they train even harder to compete the next year with 0:22:16.000 --> 0:22:18.440 the hope of earning a spot in the prestigious Little 0:22:18.480 --> 0:22:23.199 League World Series. In williamsport news articles often include a 0:22:23.240 --> 0:22:25.919 photo of Ron's team from this period. You see him 0:22:25.960 --> 0:22:28.720 holding an aluminum bat on his shoulder. One local Tampa 0:22:28.760 --> 0:22:31.080 source described him as staring into the camera with a 0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:34.680 look so assured it's almost unnerving on a twelve year old. 0:22:35.359 --> 0:22:38.080 You get similar hype and other write ups, most of 0:22:38.080 --> 0:22:41.280 which describe him as an unusually serious kid. I don't 0:22:41.320 --> 0:22:43.480 see it. I haven't found that photo, but I found 0:22:43.560 --> 0:22:45.520 I've got another one here, and like he just looks 0:22:45.560 --> 0:22:47.800 like a normal preteen boy. 0:22:48.320 --> 0:22:50.679 Like, yeah, I want to see that the unnerving one, 0:22:50.720 --> 0:22:53.840 because I feel like unnerving is a very another good 0:22:53.880 --> 0:22:56.439 word to describe him and his interactions with people. 0:22:56.840 --> 0:22:59.760 Yes, he's a very serious kid. 0:23:00.280 --> 0:23:02.160 Yeah, I mean he doesn't. In this photo he looks 0:23:02.280 --> 0:23:04.760 he's just laughing like the others, Like he just looks 0:23:04.840 --> 0:23:07.840 like a smiling kid. He does look like it. 0:23:07.920 --> 0:23:09.160 He's not put on the face right. 0:23:09.560 --> 0:23:09.960 No. No. 0:23:10.160 --> 0:23:12.639 Also, we've also all seen him laugh at this point. 0:23:12.760 --> 0:23:16.919 I guess his his nightmare laugh, like the like the 0:23:17.040 --> 0:23:19.960 crowing of a fucking funeral bird. 0:23:20.040 --> 0:23:25.280 Oh yeah, he's like smiling, looks like yeah, he's yeah, 0:23:25.440 --> 0:23:27.560 what happened, Ron, what happened? 0:23:27.800 --> 0:23:30.320 Well, that's what we're talking about today. Whether or not 0:23:30.440 --> 0:23:34.119 he was an unusually serious kid, he was openly ambitious 0:23:34.119 --> 0:23:36.439 in a way that is not the norm for preteen boys. 0:23:36.800 --> 0:23:39.480 From that Tampa Bay ride up quote. I always knew 0:23:39.520 --> 0:23:42.040 he was going into politics, said Brady Williams, who is 0:23:42.040 --> 0:23:44.199 now the Raised Triple A manager in Durham and was 0:23:44.240 --> 0:23:47.119 then one of Dessanta's closest friends. His goal was to 0:23:47.119 --> 0:23:49.800 be the president of the United States. Was that far fetched? 0:23:49.960 --> 0:23:51.720 A lot of things we talked about that summer were 0:23:51.760 --> 0:23:55.040 far fetched, and a lot of them happened. So he 0:23:55.200 --> 0:23:57.480 is one of these And I do feel like I 0:23:57.480 --> 0:24:00.880 think we need a government agency specific to go after 0:24:01.160 --> 0:24:09.000 little boys who talk relentlessly about becoming the president or intah. Yeah, 0:24:09.119 --> 0:24:11.600 parents have to like register them, like, yeah, my son's 0:24:11.640 --> 0:24:15.120 been talking about becoming the president or the first trillionaire. 0:24:15.280 --> 0:24:19.480 You know, we gotta gotta tamp down. 0:24:19.280 --> 0:24:25.080 On that deal with those ambitions. Yeah, are kids fucked up? 0:24:25.520 --> 0:24:28.200 Yeah? This is this is a use that we could 0:24:28.200 --> 0:24:31.120 have for like Philly sports fans, right where the government 0:24:31.160 --> 0:24:32.760 sends a bus of them out to each of these 0:24:32.840 --> 0:24:43.280 kids with just like eggs to just like start pelting them. Actually, 0:24:43.320 --> 0:24:48.040 I think we may have solved a major societal problem here. 0:24:48.359 --> 0:24:48.760 Jobs. 0:24:49.240 --> 0:24:52.160 It greats jobs for Philly sports guys, most of whom 0:24:52.160 --> 0:24:52.840 are unemployed. 0:24:53.040 --> 0:24:54.479 Yeah. Jobs. 0:24:54.880 --> 0:24:57.119 There's nothing anybody could possibly find wrong with this. 0:24:58.359 --> 0:25:00.280 I think we've gotta I think we've got a playing 0:25:00.400 --> 0:25:03.080 all the meatball. Yeah, yeah, we've got it. 0:25:03.119 --> 0:25:03.359 Now. 0:25:04.560 --> 0:25:07.280 The next year, his little league team does much better. 0:25:07.560 --> 0:25:10.719 He describes them as storming into the regional tournament and 0:25:10.760 --> 0:25:13.879 making mincemeat of the other's southern teams. One of his 0:25:14.280 --> 0:25:16.840 former teammates has discussed how manically they had to train 0:25:16.920 --> 0:25:20.280 that year, rarely going two days in a week without playing. 0:25:20.560 --> 0:25:23.239 They eventually made it to the regional championships, where they 0:25:23.240 --> 0:25:25.720 won the Southern regional title and earned a spot in 0:25:25.760 --> 0:25:30.639 the national contest or in the World Series. Quote. I 0:25:30.680 --> 0:25:32.359 was surprised at how big of a deal it was 0:25:32.400 --> 0:25:34.720 for our community. We found ourselves on the local news 0:25:34.720 --> 0:25:37.000 and on the front page of the local newspapers. A 0:25:37.040 --> 0:25:39.000 long way from being a bunch of kids putting on 0:25:39.040 --> 0:25:41.320 a far fetched motto beneath the brims of our hats. 0:25:41.600 --> 0:25:44.359 Williamsport is the Shangri Law for Little leaguers. The games 0:25:44.400 --> 0:25:46.479 take place in an actual stadium that can hold more 0:25:46.480 --> 0:25:49.600 than forty thousand spectators. Thanks to the terrace hills beyond 0:25:49.600 --> 0:25:52.520 the outfield fence, the field was perfectly manicured. When we 0:25:52.520 --> 0:25:54.119 first got a peek at the stadium, it was like 0:25:54.280 --> 0:25:56.720 entering Finway Park or Wrigley Field for the first time. 0:25:57.000 --> 0:25:59.000 The teams all stayed in cabins on site, and there 0:25:59.000 --> 0:26:01.400 was a dining hall for all all meals. And this 0:26:01.480 --> 0:26:04.919 is this is Meatball Ron's first brush with fame. This 0:26:04.960 --> 0:26:07.080 is the first time he's like on TV. He gets 0:26:07.080 --> 0:26:09.360 like a card made of himself. 0:26:09.440 --> 0:26:14.679 Yeah, sees himself how he can be, how he should be, 0:26:15.280 --> 0:26:18.000 how he has the right to be, how it's his 0:26:18.560 --> 0:26:19.720 destiny to be. 0:26:20.400 --> 0:26:24.160 You do get that feeling again. Bring in Philly sports 0:26:24.160 --> 0:26:27.400 fans for the Little League World Series. You know, give 0:26:27.440 --> 0:26:33.639 him free batteries just to pigs Tampa batteries. Oh yeah, Phillies. 0:26:33.680 --> 0:26:39.920 Guys love their fucking batteries. So uh, every biographical look 0:26:39.920 --> 0:26:42.280 at Ron will discuss his little league team's rise to 0:26:42.320 --> 0:26:44.440 the championships. It does seem to have been a crucial 0:26:44.440 --> 0:26:47.560 moment for his self conception, the time where he realized 0:26:47.560 --> 0:26:50.440 that his humble middle class upbringing wouldn't lock him out 0:26:50.480 --> 0:26:54.399 of national aspirations. In his memoir, he also uses it 0:26:54.440 --> 0:26:58.359 as an excuse to make a baffling political point about China. 0:26:58.880 --> 0:27:03.000 So currently, the big little league competition includes a team 0:27:03.040 --> 0:27:06.560 from Taiwan. It is the World Series, and like, I 0:27:06.600 --> 0:27:10.280 don't know why they lost their big game at Williamsport, 0:27:10.600 --> 0:27:13.119 and he describes the other team's pitcher as throwing like 0:27:13.240 --> 0:27:16.160 Nolan Ryan, which makes me think of the time Nolan 0:27:16.240 --> 0:27:18.160 Ryan coldcock that dude on the field, and I want 0:27:18.160 --> 0:27:20.520 to see Ronda Santis take a hey Maker from anyway 0:27:20.560 --> 0:27:24.679 whatever after losing to the Taiwanese team, this is the 0:27:24.720 --> 0:27:26.760 thing I don't understand why he brings up. So they 0:27:26.840 --> 0:27:30.399 eventually lose to this Taiwanese team, and then after noting 0:27:30.440 --> 0:27:34.359 this disappointing loss, Ron gives us this gym. I also 0:27:34.400 --> 0:27:37.000 think it may have informed some of my later political judgments. 0:27:37.240 --> 0:27:40.320 For example, while my hostility towards the Chinese Communist Party 0:27:40.320 --> 0:27:42.719 and my support for Taiwan is reflected by my general 0:27:42.720 --> 0:27:46.000 political outlook, the respect I had for Taiwanese baseball no 0:27:46.040 --> 0:27:49.359 doubt made my pro type stance more natural. After all, 0:27:49.440 --> 0:27:51.840 I remember playing ping pong against these guys and they 0:27:51.840 --> 0:27:54.960 were just normal kids having fun, not maoists trying to 0:27:55.000 --> 0:28:00.359 further a cultural revolution. Yeah, I'm sure all pre teen 0:28:00.480 --> 0:28:06.440 shiniest kids are a hardcore maoist political opinions. 0:28:06.800 --> 0:28:11.240 Yeah, like the idea is, so it's just like yourself. 0:28:11.320 --> 0:28:13.920 If they'd been kids, you would have had the same 0:28:14.000 --> 0:28:17.879 experience because you're all fucking kids. You're playing sports game like, 0:28:18.440 --> 0:28:20.480 they're not going to be just like reading from the 0:28:20.560 --> 0:28:21.960 fucking Red Book to you. 0:28:22.400 --> 0:28:26.600 So sure it just speaks to like the way like 0:28:26.760 --> 0:28:29.520 his mind, like yeah, this mind works of like yeah, 0:28:29.800 --> 0:28:34.240 an experience, what experience with people who are different from me? Yeah, 0:28:34.320 --> 0:28:38.800 and now that that informs my entire worldview, whether it 0:28:38.880 --> 0:28:43.440 be negative or positive, it's just weird, like well whatever, Yeah, 0:28:43.520 --> 0:28:44.960 I hate meatballs. 0:28:45.000 --> 0:28:46.960 Now I don't like meatballs anymore. 0:28:47.200 --> 0:28:47.320 So. 0:28:47.800 --> 0:28:50.840 After graduating high school, Ron claims to have worked full 0:28:50.840 --> 0:28:53.360 time at an electric company that had sponsored his little 0:28:53.440 --> 0:28:55.720 league team in order to pay for college. So he's 0:28:55.840 --> 0:28:58.040 they sponsor his team, the guy who runs the electric 0:28:58.240 --> 0:29:01.960 business company. Thing is like Meatball Ron, if you ever 0:29:02.000 --> 0:29:04.520 want a gig when you're done with the with the baseballs, 0:29:04.600 --> 0:29:07.160 you gotta gig here. So he he gets this job, 0:29:07.240 --> 0:29:10.320 and he he will not shut up about this job. Right, 0:29:10.320 --> 0:29:13.360 this is like the one blue collar moment of his life. 0:29:13.440 --> 0:29:18.160 And that absolutely as hard as he can and he 0:29:18.200 --> 0:29:21.280 will use this. He's gonna make as much political hay 0:29:21.280 --> 0:29:24.000 out of this motherfucking gig as it's possible to make. 0:29:24.440 --> 0:29:27.719 But you know who else will? Milk and Meatball Cody, 0:29:27.840 --> 0:29:30.760 you know who loves milking meatballs. Can't get enough of 0:29:30.800 --> 0:29:32.840 that of that ball milk as they call. 0:29:33.560 --> 0:29:36.520 Yeah, who's the ball milk milkers? 0:29:37.080 --> 0:29:41.680 Well, if you want wow ok ball milk meat is 0:29:42.680 --> 0:29:45.920 your question? Uh huh yeah, well you can ask Meatball 0:29:46.000 --> 0:29:50.160 Ron that her name is Casey. So you know here's 0:29:50.200 --> 0:30:01.800 an ad Oh yeah, oh yeah, I don't know why 0:30:01.840 --> 0:30:02.760 I came back that way. 0:30:03.520 --> 0:30:05.040 It was a fun choice, I think I do. 0:30:05.160 --> 0:30:08.600 Thank you, thank you, thank you both. So Meatball Ron 0:30:09.320 --> 0:30:12.240 is very proud of his working class credentials as a 0:30:12.320 --> 0:30:16.480 briefly an electrician. Now he never bothers to interrogate whether 0:30:16.520 --> 0:30:18.640 anything has changed to make it harder for a kid 0:30:18.680 --> 0:30:21.800 today to pay for Yale tuition with an entry level 0:30:21.840 --> 0:30:24.760 gig at a power company. What he does make time 0:30:24.800 --> 0:30:27.880 to do in his memoir is shit on those lazy millennials. 0:30:28.320 --> 0:30:30.680 Quo, thank goodness. 0:30:30.280 --> 0:30:33.200 Will it was come and for rising college freshmen to 0:30:33.200 --> 0:30:36.560 spend their summer enjoying themselves on the beach and sleeping 0:30:36.600 --> 0:30:39.160 in until noon. I was up at the crack of 0:30:39.240 --> 0:30:43.000 dawn to start work just after six am, five days 0:30:43.000 --> 0:30:46.040 per week as an electricians assistant. I made a mere 0:30:46.200 --> 0:30:48.760 six bucks an hour, but it felt great to receive 0:30:48.800 --> 0:30:51.400 a paycheck for a good day's work. 0:30:52.160 --> 0:30:55.520 Okay, yeah, she's just rotting a job. 0:30:55.680 --> 0:30:55.880 Yeah. 0:30:55.880 --> 0:30:58.120 Also yeah, because you were a kid that didn't know 0:30:58.200 --> 0:30:59.360 better than you had a job. 0:30:59.440 --> 0:31:03.000 But also, like you, you are going to Yale and 0:31:03.120 --> 0:31:05.680 you are legitimately one of the few working class kids there. 0:31:05.720 --> 0:31:08.840 But like going to guarantee you, most college students in 0:31:09.000 --> 0:31:13.120 most colleges worked because they're not Yale's. They don't have 0:31:13.240 --> 0:31:15.840 like millionaire parents with legacies. 0:31:15.440 --> 0:31:17.960 Right, like go to a different school and you'll experience 0:31:18.000 --> 0:31:20.040 will be like, Oh, everybody's kind of doing this the 0:31:20.040 --> 0:31:20.840 thing that I'm doing. 0:31:21.200 --> 0:31:24.920 You. You chose to go to the school for rich assholes, 0:31:24.920 --> 0:31:27.160 which is what Yale is. Everyone knows it. It's the 0:31:27.200 --> 0:31:30.320 school for rich psychopaths. And like you're being like, Wow, 0:31:30.400 --> 0:31:33.400 nobody else here as a fucking job. Yeah, of course not. 0:31:33.640 --> 0:31:35.160 You expect they're all Yale. 0:31:35.600 --> 0:31:39.280 Yeah, it's a mix of George H. W. Bush's blood 0:31:39.360 --> 0:31:43.120 sons and fucking illegitimate children. That's all of Yale except 0:31:43.160 --> 0:31:47.080 for you in this period. I assume. So assumes yeah, 0:31:47.120 --> 0:31:51.600 one one assumes. Uh so. Ron also uses his early 0:31:51.640 --> 0:31:55.200 work history to make the usual litany of conservative complaints 0:31:55.200 --> 0:31:58.480 against the regulatory state. When I showed up to work 0:31:58.520 --> 0:32:00.880 that first day, I will retire, that was typical of 0:32:00.920 --> 0:32:04.680 what an electrician would wear, jeans, a long sleeved shirt, 0:32:04.720 --> 0:32:06.880 and an old pair of work boots. Then I was 0:32:06.920 --> 0:32:09.880 promptly sent home. Why because it wasn't clear if the old, 0:32:09.920 --> 0:32:12.840 worn out boots were actually OSHA approved. I didn't know 0:32:12.920 --> 0:32:15.720 what OSHA was, but I soon learned that the Occupational 0:32:16.640 --> 0:32:19.880 Safety and Health Administration was a federal agency charged with 0:32:19.920 --> 0:32:23.120 promulgating workplace safety rules. The net result for me was 0:32:23.160 --> 0:32:24.800 that I had to spend the lion's chair of the 0:32:25.120 --> 0:32:26.800 share of what would end up being my first week's 0:32:26.840 --> 0:32:29.840 paycheck buying a pair of boots that were clearly approved 0:32:29.840 --> 0:32:32.520 by OSHA. I doubt this made me any safer, but 0:32:32.560 --> 0:32:37.160 it did make me a tad bit poorer. Now, uh, 0:32:37.520 --> 0:32:39.640 I have my doubts. We'll talk about this, but I 0:32:39.640 --> 0:32:41.280 have my doubts as to whether or not this happened 0:32:41.360 --> 0:32:44.000 more accurately. I doubt if Ron DeSantis at the time 0:32:44.120 --> 0:32:46.520 had a serious issue with being required to wear approved 0:32:46.520 --> 0:32:49.440 safety footwear. It is very silly that he chose to 0:32:49.480 --> 0:32:53.960 complain specifically about footwear to make a point about unreasonable regulations. 0:32:54.160 --> 0:32:57.480 Because electricians die all the fucking time if they don't 0:32:57.480 --> 0:33:02.520 wear proper footwear. It's an extremely reasonable regulation written in blood. 0:33:02.960 --> 0:33:05.880 Here's one quote from a twenty fifteen article in Electrical 0:33:05.920 --> 0:33:09.840 Contractor magazine titled feet on the Ground. Bad things can 0:33:09.880 --> 0:33:12.920 happen with the wrong footwear. These are two real life examples. 0:33:13.080 --> 0:33:16.000 An electrician wearing cowboy boots loses his footing and slips, 0:33:16.000 --> 0:33:18.720 and he comes into contact with a life conductor, resulting 0:33:18.720 --> 0:33:22.120 in his electrocution. In another example, alignment wearing tennis shoes 0:33:22.160 --> 0:33:24.400 is electrocuted when his foot comes into contact with a 0:33:24.440 --> 0:33:27.560 fallen energized wire. The incident occurred when the victim was 0:33:27.560 --> 0:33:30.800 attempting to restore power disrupted by a severe storm. Both 0:33:30.800 --> 0:33:33.080 incidents could have been prevented had the victims been wearing 0:33:33.080 --> 0:33:36.000 proper protective footwear. And he does describe his boots as 0:33:36.080 --> 0:33:36.640 worn out. 0:33:36.760 --> 0:33:38.320 Now worn out. I was gonna say, yea thank you. 0:33:38.720 --> 0:33:41.320 Yeah, yes, you say your boots sucked, Like this is 0:33:41.360 --> 0:33:44.360 a job that can't boots and more. 0:33:44.480 --> 0:33:50.160 The point it's it's this element about regular regulations general. 0:33:50.200 --> 0:33:52.680 It's that Dave Ruben thing on Rogan I you've seen 0:33:52.680 --> 0:33:55.240 where he's like, yeah, all these regulations for building stuff 0:33:55.640 --> 0:33:58.920 this Yeah, it's so you don't cut corners and like 0:33:59.360 --> 0:34:02.680 houses collapse or like the wires, Like there are reasons 0:34:02.680 --> 0:34:05.560 that these exist on not every single regulation in the world. 0:34:06.040 --> 0:34:09.200 But it's such a weird complaint. Also, shouldn't your boss 0:34:09.520 --> 0:34:11.440 buy those? Maybe that's your that is. 0:34:13.239 --> 0:34:15.680 Like, this is not an issue with This is not 0:34:15.760 --> 0:34:17.880 an issue with regulations. This is an issue with the 0:34:17.920 --> 0:34:23.200 fact that independent contractors are Like the legal classification is 0:34:23.239 --> 0:34:25.160 so fucked that your boss doesn't have to equip you 0:34:25.200 --> 0:34:28.799 with proper safety gear, like it be required. 0:34:28.360 --> 0:34:31.680 That the bosses provide these that you should Yes, you 0:34:31.719 --> 0:34:34.680 need them, they're making you get them. You shouldn't have 0:34:34.680 --> 0:34:38.520 to pay for them necessarily. There's there's your little complaints, Ron. 0:34:38.920 --> 0:34:41.240 Now, but you can't that can't be the complaint because 0:34:41.239 --> 0:34:43.440 that doesn't go along with conservative dogma. 0:34:43.520 --> 0:34:47.040 And and it probably that probably was the complaint at 0:34:47.040 --> 0:34:49.600 the time, Like that's probably what bothered him at the time. 0:34:49.680 --> 0:34:50.920 I can't believe I have to buy these? 0:34:51.200 --> 0:34:53.160 Why do I have to buy this for myself? 0:34:53.280 --> 0:34:56.520 But I mean, I will say I wish he'd been 0:34:56.560 --> 0:34:59.160 allowed to work as an electrician wearing let's just put 0:34:59.160 --> 0:35:04.040 those worn out now, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now. Because he 0:35:04.160 --> 0:35:07.880 was such a good student with excellent grades and extracurricular performance, 0:35:08.200 --> 0:35:11.920 Ron earned admittance to Yale. He was not a legacy admission. 0:35:11.960 --> 0:35:14.040 His parents certainly did not have the money to bribe 0:35:14.080 --> 0:35:16.560 a spot for their son in the prestigious school. It 0:35:16.560 --> 0:35:18.520 seems clear to me that Ron say Yale is an 0:35:18.560 --> 0:35:21.560 opportunity for him to increase his social class and network 0:35:21.600 --> 0:35:24.400 with powerful, rich people in the hopes of becoming one himself. 0:35:24.920 --> 0:35:28.040 He was successful there, becoming captain of the baseball team 0:35:28.160 --> 0:35:32.120 and rushing for the famous Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. Now 0:35:32.400 --> 0:35:35.040 he is going to as we'll say, really try to 0:35:35.120 --> 0:35:38.160 downplay the degree to which he fit in at Yale, 0:35:38.520 --> 0:35:41.839 but going to this fraternity puts him in rarefied air 0:35:41.880 --> 0:35:44.960 because DKE is one of the oldest frats in the country. 0:35:45.320 --> 0:35:49.360 Its alumni include George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush, 0:35:49.440 --> 0:35:52.400 Teddy Roosevelt, and Rutherford B. Hayes, who I know is 0:35:52.440 --> 0:35:56.040 your favorite president, Cody, You're a big hate so Rutherford 0:35:56.080 --> 0:35:59.279 to stay on as we call them mmmmm heads yeah, 0:35:59.280 --> 0:36:04.799 Hayes heads, sure, Jesus yeah, you got hay fever. That's 0:36:05.760 --> 0:36:10.280 another good term for Rutherford B. Hayes fans uh. Yeah. 0:36:10.320 --> 0:36:12.480 Although I will say dan Quail was also a member 0:36:12.520 --> 0:36:14.920 of dk So it's not that rarefied, right the. 0:36:15.600 --> 0:36:18.239 Let Quail sure, sure, sure. 0:36:18.680 --> 0:36:22.120 So it's the club that little boys growing up who 0:36:22.200 --> 0:36:23.600 wanted to be president. 0:36:23.600 --> 0:36:24.200 Yeah go to. 0:36:24.560 --> 0:36:27.560 It is exactly that club, and like it is the 0:36:27.640 --> 0:36:29.960 kind of thing. Clearly, this was the thing he did 0:36:30.000 --> 0:36:32.080 because he thought at the time, this is the way 0:36:32.440 --> 0:36:35.640 to become president. Right, you go to Yale, which is 0:36:35.760 --> 0:36:39.560 a very fancy school for presidents, and you go to 0:36:39.640 --> 0:36:44.880 fucking you get into DKE right now. Because Republican politics 0:36:44.880 --> 0:36:48.040 have since taken a major populous plunge, particularly in the 0:36:48.120 --> 0:36:50.920 last six seven years, Ron has now been forced to 0:36:51.040 --> 0:36:55.120 disavow his alma matter. Roughly half of the first twenty 0:36:55.120 --> 0:36:58.160 percent of his MEMOIRIR is just him shitting on everyone 0:36:58.200 --> 0:37:00.280 but him at Yale to try to salvage his blue 0:37:00.280 --> 0:37:05.279 collar credentials. He does this by trying to paint the 0:37:05.320 --> 0:37:08.760 school that both Georges Bush went to as a breeding 0:37:08.800 --> 0:37:13.440 ground for communists. What he's really. 0:37:13.400 --> 0:37:15.480 Trying to dance a tight rope right now? 0:37:15.840 --> 0:37:22.120 All this different, Yeah, this part's fun. While Yale's popular 0:37:22.200 --> 0:37:25.360 motto made homage to God and country, the ethos of 0:37:25.360 --> 0:37:29.320 the university's academics was hostility to the Almighty and disparagement 0:37:29.400 --> 0:37:32.160 of America. Before I got to Yale, I believe that 0:37:32.200 --> 0:37:35.359 almost all Americans were proud that our nation defeated the 0:37:35.400 --> 0:37:38.480 Soviet Union to win the Cold War. But at Yale 0:37:38.520 --> 0:37:40.680 I was told that the United States was to blame 0:37:40.719 --> 0:37:43.400 for the conflict in the first place, not the Stalin 0:37:43.440 --> 0:37:46.120 era Soviets. Well the late nineteen nineties was one of 0:37:46.160 --> 0:37:48.920 the most prosperous times in human history. At Yale, we 0:37:48.920 --> 0:37:51.799 were led to believe that communism was superior, even though 0:37:51.800 --> 0:37:55.320 it was impossible point even one example of the superiority 0:37:55.520 --> 0:37:58.600 since real communism had never been tried. I wondered if 0:37:58.600 --> 0:38:00.960 some of my professors in class it's rooted for Ivan 0:38:01.000 --> 0:38:06.040 Drago to defeat Rocky Balboa in Rocky four. Just what 0:38:06.120 --> 0:38:08.000 an amazing paragraph, What. 0:38:07.960 --> 0:38:11.480 A rich, rich, rich passage. 0:38:12.480 --> 0:38:13.399 He didn't get his book. 0:38:15.560 --> 0:38:20.400 Wow, I don't believe saying that what I'm saying. 0:38:20.520 --> 0:38:23.359 I don't believe anybody could push back on this. They've 0:38:24.080 --> 0:38:26.080 never taught that, not now, not then. 0:38:26.440 --> 0:38:29.880 It's so funny, how like I simply don't believe it. 0:38:29.880 --> 0:38:33.160 This like red scary stuff is so funny and like, 0:38:33.200 --> 0:38:36.040 I mean, it's alarming for sure, but like just like 0:38:36.239 --> 0:38:38.440 how hard he's going in on this, Like, oh, I 0:38:38.480 --> 0:38:41.319 just need to like say that communism is bad and 0:38:41.440 --> 0:38:45.040 also like distance myself from the clear path that I 0:38:45.160 --> 0:38:49.200 chose for myself. I don't believe you, Ron, is my point. 0:38:49.280 --> 0:38:53.640 I think, Yeah, I don't believe he's definitely a liar. 0:38:54.600 --> 0:38:56.799 The commis at Yale, What the. 0:38:56.760 --> 0:39:02.960 Fucking commis at Yale. Don't even like Rocky Yes, don't 0:39:03.000 --> 0:39:08.040 even like seminal film Rocky fo Yeah, not even one 0:39:08.080 --> 0:39:09.280 of the good Rockies. 0:39:09.840 --> 0:39:11.640 And he's such a like a it's such a funny 0:39:11.719 --> 0:39:13.799 like he's such a ted cruise in so many ways too, 0:39:13.880 --> 0:39:19.440 of just like the touch that cultural touchstone too. You're 0:39:19.719 --> 0:39:21.919 you are culture pop culture. 0:39:21.680 --> 0:39:28.680 Ha yeah, yes, fucking fucking meatball. Anyway, DeSantis goes on 0:39:28.719 --> 0:39:33.719 to note that experiencing unbridled leftism on the fucking Yale campus, yeah, 0:39:34.400 --> 0:39:37.879 pushed him right. Uh that so he does say that 0:39:37.920 --> 0:39:40.760 he he includes that line, I was I was forced 0:39:40.760 --> 0:39:48.280 into conservatism by those Yale communists. My god, the gender 0:39:48.400 --> 0:39:53.320 studies at Yale, Like, give me a fucking wild god. Now, 0:39:53.560 --> 0:39:54.200 as you're. 0:39:54.040 --> 0:39:56.200 Probably not gonna Saarl Lawrence or something. 0:39:58.040 --> 0:40:00.719 As you're probably not going to be surprised here. Not 0:40:00.840 --> 0:40:03.839 everyone who went to college with old Ronnie d had 0:40:03.880 --> 0:40:06.040 a positive opinion of him. And I'm going to quote 0:40:06.080 --> 0:40:09.200 from an art Yeah, yeah, yeah, here's a fun quote 0:40:09.200 --> 0:40:12.000 from an article in The New Yorker. Some recall that 0:40:12.040 --> 0:40:14.880 DeSantis was so intensely focused that he wasn't much of 0:40:14.920 --> 0:40:17.640 a teammate. Ron is the most selfish person I have 0:40:17.680 --> 0:40:20.600 ever interacted with. Another teammate told me he has always 0:40:20.600 --> 0:40:23.960 loved embarrassing and humiliating people. I'm speaking for others. He 0:40:24.080 --> 0:40:26.960 was the biggest dick we knew. But the same teammate 0:40:27.080 --> 0:40:30.279 praise DeSantis's intellect. This is the frustrating part. He's so 0:40:30.360 --> 0:40:33.520 fucking smart and so creative. You couldn't even plagiarize off 0:40:33.520 --> 0:40:35.640 his work. He takes some angle and everyone knew there 0:40:35.680 --> 0:40:38.799 was only one person who could have done that. So yeah, 0:40:38.840 --> 0:40:41.920 he's a smart asshole who likes to bully people. That's 0:40:41.960 --> 0:40:43.280 that's that's that's. 0:40:43.239 --> 0:40:44.680 Making president, I tell you. 0:40:46.320 --> 0:40:51.040 Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean like not that smart though, 0:40:51.080 --> 0:40:53.120 because sometimes. 0:40:52.480 --> 0:40:55.000 Well this guy may not be very smart. Right, he's 0:40:55.040 --> 0:40:57.680 another gay, old dude, and yeah, it's given us a 0:40:57.719 --> 0:40:58.759 lot of dipshits. 0:40:59.000 --> 0:41:01.319 So well, there was an element too of just like yeah, 0:41:01.360 --> 0:41:04.040 you got good crazy like worked hard, but like there's like. 0:41:04.120 --> 0:41:07.240 It's different than it's just related. 0:41:07.280 --> 0:41:07.640 I don't know. 0:41:07.760 --> 0:41:10.719 Yeah, yeah him, what is intelligence? 0:41:10.800 --> 0:41:10.960 Right? 0:41:11.040 --> 0:41:13.920 That gets us into anyway, whatever, Let's let's move on. 0:41:14.040 --> 0:41:17.720 He's a dick and selfish. After he graduated with honors, 0:41:17.800 --> 0:41:20.640 Ron became a history teacher and taught for a year 0:41:20.680 --> 0:41:23.960 at the prestigious Darlington School in Rome, Georgia. 0:41:23.960 --> 0:41:24.160 I A. 0:41:24.880 --> 0:41:27.960 It is here that he first runs into his initial 0:41:28.080 --> 0:41:32.240 his first serious controversy. Last year, a source with quote 0:41:32.239 --> 0:41:35.520 close knowledge of the matter provided information to The Hill 0:41:35.640 --> 0:41:38.840 about a photo that had started going viral. This photo 0:41:38.880 --> 0:41:42.400 showed a young adult Ronnie d posing with teenage girls, 0:41:42.640 --> 0:41:45.480 some of whom were students of his, while holding a beer. 0:41:45.920 --> 0:41:49.520 Now this picture that first came to prominence when Trump 0:41:49.560 --> 0:41:53.440 started his campaign against meatball Ron. The former president shared 0:41:53.480 --> 0:41:56.319 this picture from another user's post with a text that's 0:41:56.320 --> 0:41:58.759 not Ron, is it? He would never do such a thing? 0:41:58.920 --> 0:42:03.759 Question mark now the origin? Indeed he did, indeed, And 0:42:03.880 --> 0:42:07.240 this original post, like Trump was, the post he was sharing, 0:42:07.320 --> 0:42:10.839 included a caption by another user that read Ron DeSantis 0:42:10.920 --> 0:42:13.239 was having a drink party with his students when he 0:42:13.320 --> 0:42:16.120 was a high school teacher. Yeah, such a weird way 0:42:16.160 --> 0:42:16.799 to frame it. 0:42:17.360 --> 0:42:25.000 Having party also, but also trum Trump competing on it. 0:42:25.320 --> 0:42:29.320 There's a lot of photo woman silly. 0:42:29.440 --> 0:42:31.719 Wait, So who used the phrase drink party? 0:42:31.960 --> 0:42:34.880 The person who originally posted, because that is a Twitter 0:42:34.920 --> 0:42:38.120 blue ass phrase. That is a is a very Twitter 0:42:38.200 --> 0:42:38.840 blue phrase. 0:42:39.239 --> 0:42:42.680 A drink party. Yeah, having your drink parties with your leftists. 0:42:42.920 --> 0:42:45.480 Yeah, I get that is that is Yeah, that is 0:42:45.520 --> 0:42:48.080 a phrase written by someone who has forgotten the face 0:42:48.120 --> 0:42:51.719 of his mother in favor of an Elon Musk Snapple fact. 0:42:52.160 --> 0:42:54.320 And has never been invited to a drink. 0:42:54.080 --> 0:42:57.520 Party and never would be invited a drink party. 0:42:57.520 --> 0:43:00.160 I also love just like, obviously we don't need to 0:43:00.160 --> 0:43:01.759 too much into the Trump of it all, but the 0:43:01.800 --> 0:43:04.960 idea of Trump sharing this photo, bro, there are stories 0:43:04.960 --> 0:43:12.880 of you walking in at miss plain dog, what are 0:43:12.920 --> 0:43:15.600 you doing? But also like he's teflon. It doesn't matter, 0:43:15.880 --> 0:43:18.399 It doesn't matter, god man, guy. 0:43:19.560 --> 0:43:22.200 The the post that Trump was quoting went on to 0:43:22.400 --> 0:43:25.200 say having drinks with underage girls and cuddling of them 0:43:25.239 --> 0:43:27.719 look pretty gross and a foebopheliesque. 0:43:27.920 --> 0:43:29.719 Oh it's also. 0:43:29.600 --> 0:43:34.480 You get a lot from the post because it's like, yeah, 0:43:34.480 --> 0:43:37.279 you gotta make a you gotta like it's the very 0:43:37.320 --> 0:43:43.200 libertarian thing to like really emphasize the difference between pedophilia and. 0:43:42.800 --> 0:43:43.440 Gotta make. 0:43:45.320 --> 0:43:48.360 Oh my god, Yeah, this guy owns a bored ape. 0:43:48.440 --> 0:43:53.080 Absolutely absolutely all his apes are gone, though all his 0:43:53.160 --> 0:43:56.200 ages slurp juice. You know, he doesn't have slurp juice 0:43:57.160 --> 0:43:57.640 that's right. 0:43:57.880 --> 0:44:02.400 Can't even slurp now. This created an uproar on conservative 0:44:02.440 --> 0:44:05.880 social media and The Hill, which is a liberal leaning publication. 0:44:06.360 --> 0:44:08.960 Talk to someone who had apparently Yeah, yeah, it's kind 0:44:09.000 --> 0:44:11.800 of kind of libby. Yeah, more on the lib side. 0:44:15.480 --> 0:44:17.439 It's not it's certainly not like a left wing rag 0:44:17.560 --> 0:44:20.480 or whatever. But it's like, it's not a not conservative media. 0:44:20.920 --> 0:44:23.960 Uh yeah, talk to someone who had apparently been at 0:44:24.000 --> 0:44:26.520 the party where Ron has his arms around these girls 0:44:26.600 --> 0:44:30.440 drinking a beer. According to our whistleblower, very silly thing 0:44:30.440 --> 0:44:33.920 to call a whistleblowering, fucking ridiculous. 0:44:34.080 --> 0:44:38.000 According to the micro yeah, like. 0:44:40.239 --> 0:44:43.600 Uh. DeSantis had a reputation among students for being a young, 0:44:43.760 --> 0:44:46.319 hot teacher who girls loved, and the girls in the 0:44:46.320 --> 0:44:48.799 photo are believed to have graduated in two thousand and two, 0:44:49.160 --> 0:44:52.360 making them seniors at the time. Hill reporter also added 0:44:52.560 --> 0:44:54.480 the source who provided the photo says that it was 0:44:54.520 --> 0:44:57.239 taken prior to graduation, meaning the young girls would have 0:44:57.239 --> 0:44:59.839 still been with the Santas responsibility at the time. 0:45:00.880 --> 0:45:05.960 That is gross. Even if they weren't his responsibility, he 0:45:06.160 --> 0:45:11.560 is grabbing drinks with By the time. 0:45:10.440 --> 0:45:13.440 You have graduated college and are working as a teacher 0:45:13.840 --> 0:45:15.640 shouldn't be drinking with high school. 0:45:15.400 --> 0:45:17.680 Girls, especially not a drink party. 0:45:17.840 --> 0:45:20.000 It's not a drink party, not a drink party. 0:45:20.360 --> 0:45:22.440 It is also sad. It's like we all we all 0:45:22.520 --> 0:45:23.160 knew guys. 0:45:23.320 --> 0:45:26.239 It's very say you could drink some water with some 0:45:26.320 --> 0:45:29.520 teenage girls in class, I suppose, but that's sure the 0:45:29.520 --> 0:45:30.600 same thing at all. 0:45:31.000 --> 0:45:33.440 Although I would say if anyone ever described to me 0:45:33.480 --> 0:45:36.360 that they were drinking water with teenage girls at their 0:45:36.520 --> 0:45:38.080 I'd be like, well, why are you? Why are we 0:45:38.120 --> 0:45:39.120 talking about this this way? 0:45:39.160 --> 0:45:39.520 That's all. 0:45:41.280 --> 0:45:47.200 That's that's peculiar. Most people don't describe it that way. Yeah. 0:45:47.239 --> 0:45:50.080 So The New York Times followed up the Hills reporting here, 0:45:50.160 --> 0:45:53.680 positively iding DeSantis as the man in the photo and 0:45:53.800 --> 0:45:57.040 finding further sources that would back up in several interviews 0:45:57.040 --> 0:46:00.560 that quote. Several students recalled mister DeSantis has a frequent 0:46:00.600 --> 0:46:03.120 presence at parties with the seniors who lived in doubt. 0:46:03.560 --> 0:46:04.839 So that is deeply off. 0:46:04.960 --> 0:46:05.560 Frequent. 0:46:06.160 --> 0:46:06.640 Frequent. 0:46:07.080 --> 0:46:14.600 Yeah, he is crashing a regular face at the drink parties, yes, which. 0:46:14.680 --> 0:46:17.640 I don't think their parents would like that. 0:46:18.400 --> 0:46:22.600 Yeah, And it's the Times is what feels nothing damning 0:46:22.760 --> 0:46:25.480 in a legal matter, right, there's no no one is 0:46:25.520 --> 0:46:28.759 accusing him of like sexual harassment or assault or of 0:46:28.800 --> 0:46:33.200 like anything like that. Those allegations just aren't present. But 0:46:33.920 --> 0:46:37.239 there's not a good reason why, as a teacher and 0:46:37.320 --> 0:46:41.120 an adult you become a frequent presence at high school parties. Like, 0:46:41.160 --> 0:46:44.720 there's not a non creepy way for that to happen. 0:46:45.280 --> 0:46:48.920 Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're not there because you're just you 0:46:49.000 --> 0:46:52.439 really get on with these No, you're in part like there, 0:46:52.440 --> 0:46:55.719 You're you're really lit up intellectually from the conversation at 0:46:55.760 --> 0:46:56.520 the drink party. 0:46:56.760 --> 0:46:59.560 I don't think so the best case scenario is like 0:46:59.760 --> 0:47:03.240 you have no friends and no sense of judgment. Uh, 0:47:03.280 --> 0:47:06.160 and yeah, yeah, feel like you get her along better 0:47:06.200 --> 0:47:08.120 with people who have less life experience. 0:47:07.880 --> 0:47:09.960 Because it's not even like this is like his hometown 0:47:10.160 --> 0:47:13.680 or something. No, like oh I knew like, oh I 0:47:13.840 --> 0:47:15.560 was a senior and this was a sophoire. 0:47:15.640 --> 0:47:18.040 Yeah, and they were like they were yeah freshmen or whatever. 0:47:18.200 --> 0:47:20.920 Yeah, it's like a new town and you're like hanging out. 0:47:21.000 --> 0:47:22.560 Yeah god no. 0:47:23.520 --> 0:47:23.640 Uh. 0:47:24.360 --> 0:47:27.080 One of the sources that I'm going to continue to 0:47:27.160 --> 0:47:29.960 quote from that Times article, two former students, both women, 0:47:30.600 --> 0:47:33.680 remembered him attending at least two parties where alcohol was served, 0:47:33.840 --> 0:47:36.160 but they said that the parties took place after graduation 0:47:36.320 --> 0:47:38.200 and that they were not bothered by his presence at 0:47:38.200 --> 0:47:40.719 the time, although they question it now. It was his 0:47:40.719 --> 0:47:42.960 first job out of yet he was cute. We didn't 0:47:42.960 --> 0:47:48.000 really think too much about it. Yeah, you kid, Yeah, 0:47:48.040 --> 0:47:52.480 that's why it's the adult's responsibility to wed. Yeah. Well, 0:47:52.600 --> 0:47:54.680 mister D shows up at a lot of parties. 0:47:55.800 --> 0:47:58.360 He's always taken a pictures. 0:47:58.680 --> 0:48:01.080 They're like, mister D's not a normal teacher, he's a 0:48:01.160 --> 0:48:02.000 cool tool. 0:48:02.080 --> 0:48:02.239 Yeah. 0:48:02.280 --> 0:48:05.320 But then like five years later they're like, oh no. 0:48:04.920 --> 0:48:07.399 Wait yeah right, because it's also not even like high 0:48:07.440 --> 0:48:10.680 school like in twenty twenty, where like that is kind 0:48:10.719 --> 0:48:13.120 of like understood. It's like, no, this now that's weird. 0:48:13.200 --> 0:48:13.760 It's weird. 0:48:14.160 --> 0:48:16.800 Yeah, lots changed in the last twenty years. 0:48:16.880 --> 0:48:21.319 Yeah, yeah, good for that changing at least, yes, and 0:48:21.719 --> 0:48:22.600 hasn't changed any. 0:48:22.800 --> 0:48:26.560 It also hasn't changed it. So after this really creepy 0:48:26.640 --> 0:48:30.200 gap year, he enrolls in Harvard Law School. Again. He's 0:48:30.239 --> 0:48:33.080 doing this because he is trying to maximize his chance 0:48:33.200 --> 0:48:36.560 of like being accepted as a member of like the 0:48:36.640 --> 0:48:40.200 upper crust concert to get intelligence, rule the club. 0:48:40.480 --> 0:48:42.080 You want to be a part of the illuminati, you 0:48:42.080 --> 0:48:43.399 gotta do the game. 0:48:43.520 --> 0:48:46.080 Yeah, yeah, you got to do the gig. He claims 0:48:46.160 --> 0:48:48.960 now that he decided to go to Harvard because he 0:48:49.040 --> 0:48:52.200 was motivated by Tom Cruise's performance and a few good men, 0:48:53.600 --> 0:48:57.600 and yeah, like Tom's character. He became a judge advocate general, 0:48:58.080 --> 0:49:00.920 joins the Navy, and gets deployed to Iraq as a 0:49:01.000 --> 0:49:06.240 lawyer with a seal team. Now, because the Navy Seals 0:49:06.280 --> 0:49:09.440 have the reputation that they have among conservatives, Ron has 0:49:09.480 --> 0:49:12.520 attempted to beate. He's basically like claim like he will 0:49:12.520 --> 0:49:15.960 always say I deployed with the Seals, which is technically accurate, 0:49:16.360 --> 0:49:20.200 but he's clearly trying to like, like he's a lawyer, 0:49:20.239 --> 0:49:22.960 his job is when they go shoot people, to be like, yep, 0:49:23.000 --> 0:49:25.839 you're allowed to shoot these people like that. That's why 0:49:25.920 --> 0:49:29.120 what he was doing. He makes a big point about 0:49:29.120 --> 0:49:31.919 this now in all of his campaign events. He told 0:49:31.960 --> 0:49:34.399 a voter in New Hampshire this July, I'm the only 0:49:34.480 --> 0:49:38.840 veteran running out of all these candidates. Yeah, I'll be 0:49:38.880 --> 0:49:41.720 the first president elected since nineteen eighty eight who's actually 0:49:41.760 --> 0:49:45.759 served in a war. Now, that is true. Although he 0:49:45.880 --> 0:49:49.000 was not out, you know, getting shot at or doing anything. 0:49:49.120 --> 0:49:52.280 He was looking at paperwork. He was being a lawyer. 0:49:52.880 --> 0:49:55.960 He was also not universally popular among his comrades at 0:49:56.000 --> 0:49:58.920 the time. From the New Yorker quote, a colleague who 0:49:58.920 --> 0:50:01.800 served with DeSantis remembered Ron was a voracious worker, and 0:50:01.840 --> 0:50:04.439 he worked at phenomenal speed. He was a superb writer, 0:50:04.640 --> 0:50:08.160 especially for his age. But even then his ambitions seemed consuming. 0:50:08.520 --> 0:50:11.000 Ron's a user. The former colleague told me, you had 0:50:11.080 --> 0:50:12.920 utility to him. He would be nice to you. If 0:50:12.920 --> 0:50:14.759 you didn't, he wouldn't give you the time of day. 0:50:15.600 --> 0:50:19.440 Yeah, you know, I gotta say this is a little controversial, 0:50:19.480 --> 0:50:22.000 but I hate people like that, I really do. 0:50:22.239 --> 0:50:25.920 Yeah, bold, bold plenty, of. 0:50:26.680 --> 0:50:30.440 Course he is. And it's like, yeah. 0:50:30.800 --> 0:50:33.640 This is also it's interesting because I mean, sure, we'll 0:50:33.719 --> 0:50:36.360 get into this, but it's that a lot of these 0:50:36.560 --> 0:50:41.719 elements are very heavily reflected in his governance. Yes, absolutely 0:50:42.000 --> 0:50:48.080 everything about how he approaches politics. And yeah, it's not 0:50:48.120 --> 0:50:49.880 a good guy. No bad bad meatball. 0:50:50.600 --> 0:51:02.400 Yeah, bad meatball. Now you know what is a good meatball? Like, Yeah, oh, man, bison, 0:51:02.600 --> 0:51:05.400 you can make a fine bison meatball. You guys, what 0:51:05.640 --> 0:51:09.000 my uh my, my wild game meat recipe that I 0:51:09.080 --> 0:51:10.840 that I that I It's great if you've got like 0:51:10.880 --> 0:51:14.279 wild boar uh, you know, anything that's like kind of 0:51:14.280 --> 0:51:16.239 get get you know, if you've got like a bunch 0:51:16.239 --> 0:51:17.799 of ground up boar meat or whatever. 0:51:17.520 --> 0:51:21.120 Anything anything for like uh, impossible beef. 0:51:21.840 --> 0:51:24.680 You could you could do this with impossible beef. You 0:51:24.680 --> 0:51:27.200 could do this with like ground venison. I would get 0:51:27.239 --> 0:51:31.120 I would take a pound of ground venison, a pound 0:51:31.200 --> 0:51:35.600 of ground boar meat and mix them together with a 0:51:35.640 --> 0:51:39.160 whole sleeve of saltine crackers. Just crumble up in there. 0:51:39.440 --> 0:51:42.160 You crack one maybe two eggs in, stir it all together. 0:51:42.560 --> 0:51:45.600 Then you baste it with either barbecue sauce or ketchup, 0:51:45.640 --> 0:51:47.960 and you bake that ship in the oven. Uh, and 0:51:48.000 --> 0:51:51.959 you cook yourself a delicious meat loaf. It's perfect like food. 0:51:52.440 --> 0:51:55.960 Yeah, Like when do we roll the meat loaf into balls? 0:51:56.040 --> 0:51:56.239 Oh? 0:51:56.280 --> 0:51:57.960 I see no, no, no meat loaf. 0:51:58.200 --> 0:51:58.399 No. 0:51:58.520 --> 0:52:01.080 But because the loaf is the loaf is the strongest 0:52:01.120 --> 0:52:04.640 shape in nature, you could do a meat loaf ball, Katie. 0:52:04.680 --> 0:52:05.920 You could chop up meat loaf. 0:52:06.600 --> 0:52:09.480 I'm sorry, that just sounds like a nice thing for. 0:52:10.760 --> 0:52:13.960 You know, It's like it's like the crab shape, how 0:52:14.000 --> 0:52:18.320 like it sort of independently appears in all all across nature. 0:52:18.400 --> 0:52:20.400 The loaf appears all across. 0:52:20.280 --> 0:52:22.920 So question, were we about to throw to ads? 0:52:23.440 --> 0:52:25.640 Yes, okay, yeah, that's what this whole thing is about. 0:52:25.760 --> 0:52:36.400 Okay, yes, yes, here's an ad Ah. We're back. And 0:52:36.480 --> 0:52:39.120 I wanted to delay this next part because it's horrible 0:52:39.520 --> 0:52:45.440 because after being in Iraq, Ron gets stationed in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Now, 0:52:46.280 --> 0:52:49.200 this is by far the most contentious part of his backstory, 0:52:49.239 --> 0:52:51.719 and so I will be very careful in my phrasing here. 0:52:52.239 --> 0:52:55.120 In a two thousand and six interview with CBS, Decantists 0:52:55.200 --> 0:52:58.200 told his interviewer that at one point, several prisoners launched 0:52:58.200 --> 0:53:01.080 a hunger strike while he was at Guantana. He says 0:53:01.120 --> 0:53:04.200 that his commanding officer asked him, how do I combat this? 0:53:04.600 --> 0:53:07.959 And Ron answered, Hey, you can actually force feed. Here's 0:53:08.000 --> 0:53:11.120 what you can do. Here's kind of the rules for that. Now, 0:53:11.400 --> 0:53:14.400 there's some questionable elements of this recollection because force feeding 0:53:14.520 --> 0:53:19.239 started at Guantanamo somewhat slightly before Desanta's actually got sent there, 0:53:19.320 --> 0:53:24.200 So he's probably exaggerating in order to take credit for 0:53:24.280 --> 0:53:26.000 this what is torture? 0:53:26.160 --> 0:53:26.279 Right? 0:53:26.360 --> 0:53:28.280 This is torture we're talking about. 0:53:28.360 --> 0:53:31.480 I actually invented a fun new way to torture people. 0:53:31.640 --> 0:53:37.879 Yes, hurting them was my idea. Ultimately, the Pentagon authorized 0:53:37.920 --> 0:53:41.440 force feeding. Detainees would be strapped to a chair, a 0:53:41.520 --> 0:53:44.319 nurse would force a lubricated tube down their nose and 0:53:44.360 --> 0:53:48.080 then would pump in nutritional supplements. Lawyers for detainees have 0:53:48.239 --> 0:53:51.200 argued that this was torture because force feeding is banned 0:53:51.200 --> 0:53:55.360 by a UN Convention against torture. Former inmates now released 0:53:55.440 --> 0:53:58.720 have accused DeSantis of having played a role in their torture. 0:53:59.160 --> 0:54:02.120 Mansour a Day wrote an article for Al Jazeera and 0:54:02.160 --> 0:54:05.440 described meeting DeSantis, who initially told him that he was 0:54:05.480 --> 0:54:09.960 at Guantanamo to ensure that prisoner's rights were respected. Quote. 0:54:10.080 --> 0:54:12.120 I remember him asking why we were all still on 0:54:12.320 --> 0:54:15.120 hunger strike. We told him to look around. Camp Delta 0:54:15.200 --> 0:54:18.080 was constructed from metal shipping containers, divided into cages with 0:54:18.120 --> 0:54:20.840 wire mesh. In the summer, the cages were like ovens. 0:54:20.880 --> 0:54:23.280 In the winter, they were cold and wet. They were loud, 0:54:23.320 --> 0:54:25.720 with huge fans and the echoes of all the men's voices. 0:54:25.880 --> 0:54:29.279 There was the persistent harassment by guards, desecration of Koran's 0:54:29.320 --> 0:54:32.879 non existent medical care systematic torture, and being cut off 0:54:32.960 --> 0:54:36.319 completely from the outside world. We told Dasantis we were 0:54:36.320 --> 0:54:38.560 on hunger strike because we wanted to know why we 0:54:38.560 --> 0:54:41.560 were being imprisoned, because we wanted a fair judicial process 0:54:41.600 --> 0:54:44.880 to prove our innocence. He took notes. He promised to 0:54:44.920 --> 0:54:48.960 register our complaints. Now Ron may or may not have 0:54:49.000 --> 0:54:51.560 registered their complaints, we don't know, but it had no 0:54:51.640 --> 0:54:54.839 impact on what happened next. Days later, a day fee 0:54:54.960 --> 0:54:57.279 was brought back to the wreck yard where nurses and 0:54:57.400 --> 0:55:01.319 Navy corman which is Navy medicisent were waiting with a 0:55:01.360 --> 0:55:05.160 restraint chair in several cases of insure. Ron de Santis 0:55:05.200 --> 0:55:09.640 and other JAG officers stood nearby observing quote. I was 0:55:09.680 --> 0:55:12.160 informed that the US government was determined to break the 0:55:12.200 --> 0:55:14.759 hunger strike. The doctor in charge, a colonel, told me 0:55:14.800 --> 0:55:16.680 that he did not care if I was innocent or 0:55:16.719 --> 0:55:19.759 protesting mistreatment. He was there for one thing to make 0:55:19.800 --> 0:55:23.240 me eat. I refused and was immediately and violently strapped 0:55:23.239 --> 0:55:25.439 into the chair so tightly that I could not move. 0:55:25.800 --> 0:55:28.279 A nurse forced a thick tube into my nose and 0:55:28.320 --> 0:55:30.799 down my throat, My nose bled, and the pain was 0:55:30.840 --> 0:55:33.040 so great that I thought my head would explode. The 0:55:33.120 --> 0:55:36.200 nurse would not stop. Instead, he began pouring insure into 0:55:36.200 --> 0:55:39.080 a feeder bag attached to the tube. They poured can 0:55:39.120 --> 0:55:41.480 after can into the feeder bag until my stomach and 0:55:41.520 --> 0:55:43.680 throat were so full that in sure poured back out 0:55:43.680 --> 0:55:45.919 of my mouth and nose. I thought I was going 0:55:45.920 --> 0:55:48.600 to drown if you throw up. A corman said, we'll 0:55:48.600 --> 0:55:50.759 start from the beginning with a new case and fill 0:55:50.800 --> 0:55:53.799 you up again. As I tried to break free, I 0:55:53.920 --> 0:55:56.919 noticed Dessantus's handsome face among the crowd at the other 0:55:56.960 --> 0:55:59.440 side of the chain link. He was watching me struggle. 0:55:59.640 --> 0:56:02.040 He was smiling and laughing with the other officers as 0:56:02.080 --> 0:56:12.920 I screamed in pain. Mm hmm, it is very upsetting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Cody, 0:56:12.920 --> 0:56:14.080 you got a good meatball. 0:56:13.800 --> 0:56:19.120 Joke, uh something about Oh no. But I did think 0:56:19.480 --> 0:56:21.840 when you were describing this it sounded like you said, 0:56:21.960 --> 0:56:22.760 jack Off. 0:56:23.160 --> 0:56:24.239 I get you. I did you. 0:56:24.680 --> 0:56:31.520 That's good. I'm glad we pulled out of this tale. 0:56:33.719 --> 0:56:38.440 Also, I mean, there's been some references to him being handsome, 0:56:38.440 --> 0:56:39.600 and I don't agree with them. 0:56:39.600 --> 0:56:40.760 They keep saying he's handsome. 0:56:40.840 --> 0:56:44.920 Yeah, subjective, but I know. 0:56:44.920 --> 0:56:49.440 But multiple people, there's been multiple suggestions in today and I've. 0:56:50.719 --> 0:56:51.400 I take issues. 0:56:51.880 --> 0:56:56.200 It is really interesting that a specializes, like specifies that 0:56:56.200 --> 0:56:59.560 that he's like getting torture is like, damn it. Guy's 0:56:59.600 --> 0:57:04.560 kind of good though anyway, peculiar the things that occur 0:57:04.640 --> 0:57:07.000 to you when you're in an intense situation. 0:57:07.800 --> 0:57:08.840 So A. 0:57:08.920 --> 0:57:11.600 Dafy was one of several former inmates who claimed to 0:57:11.640 --> 0:57:15.560 have recognized DeSantis. He was featured along with several whistleblowers 0:57:15.760 --> 0:57:19.840 in an unreleased Vice documentary. The whistleblowers include a former 0:57:19.960 --> 0:57:23.360 US Naval sergeant, Joe Hickman. So, Joe was on guard 0:57:23.440 --> 0:57:26.360 duty during a night when three prisoners, the ring leaders 0:57:26.360 --> 0:57:31.040 of the hunger strike, died somewhat mysteriously. Our government claims 0:57:31.040 --> 0:57:33.960 that these guys all, we had a suicide pack together, right, 0:57:34.000 --> 0:57:38.240 that they committed suicide. Hickman does not agree with this. Again, 0:57:38.280 --> 0:57:40.360 he was on guard duty that night, and he believes 0:57:40.400 --> 0:57:42.960 the men were assassinated to restore order and put an 0:57:43.080 --> 0:57:45.800 end to the strike, which was very bad pr for 0:57:45.840 --> 0:57:48.680 the US government. From a write up by The Daily 0:57:48.720 --> 0:57:52.400 Beast quote Hickman, who later contributed as a whistleblower for 0:57:52.480 --> 0:57:56.160 the Justice Department's investigation into the deaths, recalled to Santis 0:57:56.160 --> 0:57:59.280 as popular and extremely handsome. So here we go again. 0:58:00.080 --> 0:58:05.240 Balls would go crazy. No, I'm not, I swear to God, 0:58:05.280 --> 0:58:07.160 I'm not. I'm not adding a like, it's just a 0:58:07.200 --> 0:58:10.080 thing that comes up with like all everyone from these 0:58:10.360 --> 0:58:13.440 girls at this, at the school he taught at to 0:58:13.520 --> 0:58:16.280 this sergeant to the duty was tort helping to torture 0:58:16.680 --> 0:58:19.360 all mention this. I don't I don't get it, but 0:58:19.480 --> 0:58:22.880 it's it's like an undeniable thing you have to you 0:58:22.920 --> 0:58:30.400 have to acknowledge it, Like yeah, yeah, I agree, I 0:58:30.400 --> 0:58:33.080 I do agree. For the record, I I don't understand this, 0:58:33.240 --> 0:58:36.160 and it makes me question my own sanity. It's like, 0:58:36.480 --> 0:58:40.000 it's like fucking being best friends with Jimmy Stewart in 0:58:40.040 --> 0:58:42.400 that movie where he sees the giant rabbit and you're 0:58:42.400 --> 0:58:44.960 just like, they're really a rabbit. Like he's so consistent 0:58:45.000 --> 0:58:45.400 about this. 0:58:45.480 --> 0:58:46.280 What am I missing? 0:58:46.880 --> 0:58:52.920 Yeah, fucking Harvey somewhere around here. Yeah, great movie, by 0:58:52.960 --> 0:58:59.840 the way, Harvey, fucking absolute classic. Yeah classic. So yeah, 0:59:00.160 --> 0:59:03.440 I'm going to continue that quote. Navy girls would go 0:59:03.520 --> 0:59:05.960 crazy over him, Hickman said, although he added that he 0:59:05.960 --> 0:59:09.000 doesn't believe DeSantis, who became a jag straight out of 0:59:09.040 --> 0:59:11.600 Harvard law. I'd argue he's been a jag forever, would 0:59:11.600 --> 0:59:13.640 have been in the room that night. They weren't going 0:59:13.680 --> 0:59:16.560 to give somebody like that that kind of responsibility, Hickman 0:59:16.600 --> 0:59:21.040 said in the transcript. So that Vice documentary was canceled 0:59:21.080 --> 0:59:24.520 at the last minute for very shady but unclear reasons. 0:59:25.120 --> 0:59:28.520 It seems likely that it was killed to avoid angering 0:59:28.520 --> 0:59:31.760 a potential future president out of cowardice at the highest 0:59:31.800 --> 0:59:34.760 levels of a failing media company. But I just really 0:59:34.760 --> 0:59:38.360 have nothing more to say because it's unclear still at 0:59:38.360 --> 0:59:41.000 this point. In the spring of two thousand and six, 0:59:41.240 --> 0:59:44.280 Ron met his future wife, Casey, at a driving range 0:59:44.320 --> 0:59:48.320 at the University of North Florida, again not flow Rida. 0:59:48.440 --> 0:59:51.920 He and his wife did not meet on flow Rida. Again. 0:59:52.160 --> 0:59:53.080 Get we got that. 0:59:53.360 --> 0:59:56.640 The subreddit fills with confusion every time we mentioned this, 0:59:56.720 --> 0:59:58.560 so I just want to make sure we're really keeping 0:59:58.600 --> 1:00:01.840 it straight. It is from this period that we get 1:00:01.840 --> 1:00:05.320 our only context on Ron's flirtation techniques, which I know 1:00:05.800 --> 1:00:07.880 everyone's very excited to learn about. 1:00:07.960 --> 1:00:09.600 How does the handsome man flirt? 1:00:10.960 --> 1:00:11.840 I'm gonna read you. 1:00:12.000 --> 1:00:14.120 How are you gonna regret asking that? 1:00:14.360 --> 1:00:18.560 Yeah, this is how he opens with his future wife. Hello, 1:00:18.960 --> 1:00:25.040 somebody left these balls behind? Would you like to have them? Y? No, golf, 1:00:26.160 --> 1:00:31.240 it's a driving rage. Yeah, balls, Yeah, very very funny. 1:00:32.200 --> 1:00:34.960 This works on Casey and their first date is that 1:00:35.120 --> 1:00:39.600 evening at Beef o Brady's, which is apparently a restaurants. 1:00:44.080 --> 1:00:51.240 I'd like balls. Some people say I'm very handsome. 1:00:52.480 --> 1:00:56.400 Some people this guy I tortured. I'm very handsome. 1:00:57.600 --> 1:01:02.920 This guy tortured and teenage girls. He's got a. 1:01:02.920 --> 1:01:06.240 Poster in his like like, I imagine his apartment is 1:01:06.320 --> 1:01:09.800 completely empty aside from a pillow and a blanket on 1:01:09.960 --> 1:01:13.320 the floor and a poster he made that says like 1:01:13.640 --> 1:01:17.360 people who think I am attractive guys I tortured at 1:01:17.360 --> 1:01:21.440 Guantadamo teenagers. 1:01:21.480 --> 1:01:26.480 Sergeant you question? Mark? Uh? 1:01:26.920 --> 1:01:27.240 Great? 1:01:28.000 --> 1:01:28.120 So. 1:01:28.600 --> 1:01:33.040 Jill Casey Black, usually called Casey, had grown up in Troy, Ohio, 1:01:33.400 --> 1:01:37.320 one of two daughters of an optometrist and a speech pathologist. 1:01:37.720 --> 1:01:40.360 She had also been an active student athlete and had 1:01:40.440 --> 1:01:42.840 done very well in school. She went to the University 1:01:42.840 --> 1:01:46.240 of Charleston and graduated with a degree in economics and 1:01:46.360 --> 1:01:49.480 French She competed as an equestrian and had started a 1:01:49.520 --> 1:01:52.640 promising career as a reporter and on screen talent for 1:01:52.720 --> 1:01:56.760 the local Jacksonville station wj t x U. The one 1:01:56.840 --> 1:01:59.000 story I found of her as a as a TV 1:01:59.120 --> 1:02:02.120 reporter is that there was a story about an alligator 1:02:02.160 --> 1:02:05.480 that had gotten into a suburban neighborhood, which she described 1:02:05.520 --> 1:02:08.480 as a story with real teeth if you're if you're 1:02:08.520 --> 1:02:10.560 curious as to the level of rigor she brought to 1:02:10.680 --> 1:02:12.040 journalism as a profession. 1:02:13.720 --> 1:02:17.720 You know what they call getting a degree in economics 1:02:17.720 --> 1:02:18.160 and French? 1:02:18.520 --> 1:02:18.920 What's that? 1:02:19.560 --> 1:02:23.960 Monet? Okay, studying monette. No, studying monette. 1:02:24.800 --> 1:02:28.360 You're proud of yourself, aren't you. Yeah, studying money. Yeah, 1:02:28.800 --> 1:02:30.800 we get it. 1:02:30.760 --> 1:02:32.840 It's like wait, wait, wait, we get it. 1:02:32.920 --> 1:02:36.680 No yeah, good, good one, Thank you, good one, buddy. 1:02:36.760 --> 1:02:38.760 Yeah. 1:02:38.800 --> 1:02:41.880 So they get hitched in two thousand and nine at 1:02:41.880 --> 1:02:42.600 Disney World. 1:02:43.440 --> 1:02:46.720 Oh now, how about that? 1:02:46.720 --> 1:02:49.360 That is funny because of the war he's going to 1:02:49.440 --> 1:02:50.360 have with Disney later. 1:02:52.840 --> 1:02:53.040 Yeah. 1:02:54.600 --> 1:02:57.600 By all accounts, it's not a very Disney Disney wedding. 1:02:57.600 --> 1:03:00.920 There's not like Mickey or any characters hanging around. They 1:03:00.920 --> 1:03:03.640 go to Epcot after, which is like the least Disney 1:03:03.640 --> 1:03:06.919 thing to do at Disney World. I think it's more 1:03:06.920 --> 1:03:11.480 of a rich Florida people thing than a Disney super 1:03:11.520 --> 1:03:13.560 fan thing, right, like Disney World's just. 1:03:13.680 --> 1:03:17.280 Yay, Yeah you got to get you get the photos. Yeah, yeah, 1:03:17.400 --> 1:03:19.840 oh I got the prince is here and the other prince. 1:03:19.960 --> 1:03:21.360 Oh the Prince is over there. 1:03:21.480 --> 1:03:23.480 Yeah exactly. Uh so. 1:03:23.640 --> 1:03:23.880 Yeah. 1:03:23.920 --> 1:03:28.400 The two are a famously power couple in Florida politics, 1:03:28.680 --> 1:03:31.760 where Ron is tight lipped and reserved and introverted. Casey 1:03:31.880 --> 1:03:34.120 is an extrovert. She's going to do when he runs 1:03:34.120 --> 1:03:37.280 for office. She does a lot of on the ground campaigning, 1:03:37.320 --> 1:03:39.640 even like knocking on doors for him. She does a 1:03:39.640 --> 1:03:42.360 lot of introducing him at evinsign stuff like. She is 1:03:42.440 --> 1:03:44.439 the talker of the two of them. 1:03:44.760 --> 1:03:45.600 She's more likable. 1:03:45.680 --> 1:03:49.400 Here's my weird husband by far. Yeah, here's handsome. Look 1:03:49.440 --> 1:03:49.680 at me. 1:03:50.440 --> 1:03:52.200 Just look at him. Don't listen to his word. 1:03:52.320 --> 1:03:55.960 Yeah, I'll talk. I'm attractive and charismatic. Please ignore my 1:03:56.040 --> 1:03:56.840 husband's words. 1:03:57.080 --> 1:03:58.960 Yeah, I studied money in college. 1:03:59.040 --> 1:04:04.640 Yeah, way to go, Cody. So these ambitions and she is, 1:04:04.840 --> 1:04:07.160 you know, the two are, by all accounts, deeply in 1:04:07.240 --> 1:04:11.080 love and partners in Ron's political ambitions, and those ambitions 1:04:11.160 --> 1:04:13.720 would become evident for the first time in twenty twelve 1:04:13.960 --> 1:04:17.520 when Ron noticed that the newly drawn sixth district in 1:04:17.560 --> 1:04:21.600 Florida had again not flow Rida, Florida had an open 1:04:21.720 --> 1:04:25.440 campaign for Congress. It was a tweener district in between 1:04:25.600 --> 1:04:30.080 Jacksonville and Orlando and had no incumbent. Because of the 1:04:30.120 --> 1:04:32.919 demographics of the district, it would be a guaranteed win 1:04:33.080 --> 1:04:36.480 for any Republican who could win the nomination. With Casey 1:04:36.520 --> 1:04:40.160 at his side, meetball Ron decided he was going to 1:04:40.200 --> 1:04:43.760 be that Republican and we will talk about that and 1:04:43.880 --> 1:04:45.919 his rise to power in part two. 1:04:47.840 --> 1:04:51.760 God, here's also something to say about the phrase tweener district. 1:04:52.000 --> 1:04:54.560 Yeah, Ron's yeah, it's uncomfortable to me. 1:04:54.640 --> 1:05:00.320 Yeah, yeah, tweens. Yeah yeah. His wife is age appropriate though, 1:05:00.520 --> 1:05:03.000 so good for that. 1:05:03.000 --> 1:05:06.640 That is good. Yeah, yeah, yeah he is. He is 1:05:06.760 --> 1:05:10.520 married to an adult. That's positive shows growth. 1:05:11.080 --> 1:05:11.240 Mm. 1:05:12.080 --> 1:05:13.800 I'd like to end things on a positive note. 1:05:14.080 --> 1:05:16.080 Yeah, modern politics. 1:05:16.560 --> 1:05:19.760 Yeah great, Well, thanks for having us here for this. 1:05:20.000 --> 1:05:21.640 Yeah. How you feeling, guys? 1:05:22.880 --> 1:05:26.280 I feel excited to see Meet ball Ron up on stage. 1:05:26.440 --> 1:05:32.880 Just yeah, you know, just being around, just just being himself. 1:05:33.640 --> 1:05:37.360 Yeah, just be and just you, just be yourselves. You know, 1:05:37.840 --> 1:05:41.680 if you are a relentlessly dedicated psychopath who wants to 1:05:41.720 --> 1:05:45.240 become the president purely for reasons of self gratification, don't 1:05:45.280 --> 1:05:49.160 let anything stop you, you know, relentlessly craft a life 1:05:49.360 --> 1:05:53.640 towards that goal. Uh and and proceed on a rocket 1:05:53.640 --> 1:05:57.960 ship like course towards it until fucking Biff Tannon calls 1:05:58.000 --> 1:06:01.160 you meetball Ron and utterly and iholates all of your 1:06:01.240 --> 1:06:06.880 dreams in a single shot back to the Earth. Yeah, 1:06:06.920 --> 1:06:10.200 it's like the Death Star shooting a taxi cab. 1:06:10.200 --> 1:06:14.800 Just absolutely wiped out some taxi. 1:06:14.840 --> 1:06:18.120 Hands, some taxi cab. Anyway, you guys got some plugs. 1:06:18.600 --> 1:06:20.080 Sure you got shows? 1:06:20.360 --> 1:06:22.400 Oh yeah, we got shows. Yeah, check us out. We 1:06:22.480 --> 1:06:24.439 got a YouTube show called some more News. It's also 1:06:24.480 --> 1:06:27.400 a podcast, and we have a companion podcast called even 1:06:27.400 --> 1:06:27.920 more News. 1:06:28.040 --> 1:06:28.760 Hell yeah you do. 1:06:29.240 --> 1:06:32.320 Hell yeah, we do gues. I've got oh we've got 1:06:32.320 --> 1:06:34.120 a Patreon for that as well, Patreon dot com. S 1:06:34.120 --> 1:06:35.960 hast some more News. I've got a band called the 1:06:35.960 --> 1:06:37.920 Hot Shapes. It has an album out now. Check it 1:06:37.960 --> 1:06:40.600 out on band camp and SoundCloud. The Hot Shapes dot 1:06:40.600 --> 1:06:41.760 band camp dot com. 1:06:41.960 --> 1:06:42.640 Yeah, we do. 1:06:42.760 --> 1:06:45.520 Work with this out where we split up the plugs 1:06:45.560 --> 1:06:46.960 because yeah, I. 1:06:46.880 --> 1:06:48.800 Got it all well, you said, you said, Cody go, 1:06:48.960 --> 1:06:50.240 so I did. But then I was like, well, O, 1:06:50.280 --> 1:06:51.880 Katie's not going to want to plug my band. 1:06:52.680 --> 1:06:56.640 Oh you're right, Yeah, I agree with what he said, 1:06:56.640 --> 1:06:58.320 but also I do want to plug his band. 1:06:58.480 --> 1:07:01.200 Go ahead, listen to. 1:06:59.400 --> 1:07:03.840 His yeah stuff. Check it out, all right, the next 1:07:03.880 --> 1:07:05.240 episode probably. 1:07:05.000 --> 1:07:07.720 Yeah, see you next episode. You can find us at 1:07:07.840 --> 1:07:10.520 Cooler Zone Media. If you want to get this without ads, 1:07:10.560 --> 1:07:14.000 you can subscribe, and uh, I'm gonna I'm gonna also 1:07:14.040 --> 1:07:16.560 put in a free plug for a YouTube channel that 1:07:16.640 --> 1:07:20.160 I like. Just just google Bobby Fingers YouTube. Watch the 1:07:20.520 --> 1:07:23.800 watch the Steven Sagall video first. You'll be pleasantly surprised. 1:07:24.120 --> 1:07:28.360 All right, no, no, no, this is just like my 1:07:28.440 --> 1:07:31.360 favorite thing that exists. This this artist. I don't know 1:07:31.440 --> 1:07:33.680 why he doesn't have tody. You need to you need 1:07:33.680 --> 1:07:35.520 to watch these videos. Bobby Fingers. 1:07:36.840 --> 1:07:40.320 Okay, I don't know, I don't know. I'm not familiar 1:07:40.360 --> 1:07:43.000 with this, but the thumbnails. 1:07:42.400 --> 1:07:44.920 Are Yes, I have no way to describe this to you. 1:07:45.000 --> 1:07:48.200 There's three videos so far. Watch the one about Steven Seagal. 1:07:48.280 --> 1:07:50.640 That's all I'll tell you listeners. I have no affiliation 1:07:50.800 --> 1:07:51.400 with this guy. 1:07:52.360 --> 1:07:55.080 I just love him, all right, all right, looking forward 1:07:55.120 --> 1:07:56.080 to that support. 1:07:56.160 --> 1:07:59.120 Supporting Bye Bye. 1:07:59.000 --> 1:08:05.280 Bye Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media. 1:08:05.640 --> 1:08:08.920 For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website coolzonemedia 1:08:09.080 --> 1:08:12.320 dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, 1:08:12.400 --> 1:08:14.960 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.