Speaker 1: What's meet Ball my Ron's This is Behind the Bastards,
Speaker 1: a podcast about the worst people in all of history.
Speaker 1: And this week we are talking about Ronnie the Big
Speaker 1: d DeSantis Meet Ball ron ron desanct Demonious lockdown, Ron,
Speaker 1: I think is the other thing that Trump.
Speaker 2: Calls Anyway, we all have horrified faces.
Speaker 1: I know, I know you all have have beautiful faces.
Speaker 1: And let me introduce those beautiful faces right now because
Speaker 1: no one else could be the guests on our Ronathan
Speaker 1: Sanctimonious d episodes. But Cody Johnston and Katie Stole here
Speaker 1: for me is that I was amazing.
Speaker 3: It's he's doing wrong.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like a frozen animatronic if you were to see.
Speaker 5: Him do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like it was unsettling functioning. It was. It was
Speaker 1: when Cody becomes president and gets his his his animatronic
Speaker 1: Cody in the Hall of Presidents.
Speaker 3: When I become president, and that's the big reveal. That's what.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Actually I'm like this.
Speaker 1: So guys, y'all, yin's what would your nicknames be if
Speaker 1: Trump gave you a nickname?
Speaker 3: Uh, probably something like like dirty Cody or something dirty
Speaker 3: like lose to like the the unkempt nature of my
Speaker 3: persona disheveled Dusty Cody, Dusty Cody yor something like that.
Speaker 5: Little beardy Beardo Cody Yeah beard o.
Speaker 1: Yeah Beard Yeah.
Speaker 5: I don't know what. Mine would be probably crazy with
Speaker 5: a k or something.
Speaker 4: Crazy, Katie, mine would Mine would just be that woman.
Speaker 1: That woman. See. I think he would just alter his
Speaker 1: his Ron DeSantis nickname for me and call me meatball
Speaker 1: Rob because because Ron and I are both very Italian,
Speaker 1: tragically Italian.
Speaker 3: That's not wrong.
Speaker 5: But I have never ever thought of you as a rob.
Speaker 1: I thought you were going to say you never thought
Speaker 1: of me as a meatball? Wow, Katie, Wow Wow?
Speaker 4: Occasionally sure, yeah, honest with each other. No wait, though, seriously,
Speaker 4: has anybody called you rob before?
Speaker 1: Not and lived?
Speaker 3: No? Yeah? So okay, so Ron, get on.
Speaker 5: Something with machetes.
Speaker 1: Maybe it is. No, that's too cool sounding, very funny.
Speaker 1: My favorite thing about Donald Trump because you know he's
Speaker 1: a bad person. Hated him, done tremendous damage both to
Speaker 1: my family and to the world. But I have, you know,
Speaker 1: as a writer, as a longtime comedy writer, game recognized
Speaker 1: game and he is an incredible nickname giver, just one
Speaker 1: of like stunningly effective. My favorite example of that is
Speaker 1: meet ball Ron. Because people may not be aware of this,
Speaker 1: he hasn't publicly called Ron de Santis meet ball Ron.
Speaker 1: In fact, it was like back in February, a story
Speaker 1: broke that in private, Trump was calling him meet ball
Speaker 1: Ron as an insult. This is back when he was
Speaker 1: publicly calling him like lockdown Ron and dsanct demonious, which
Speaker 1: are both much worse nicknames. And as soon as everyone
Speaker 1: heard he's calling him this in private, it instantly became
Speaker 1: like nationwide.
Speaker 3: Trump was like, from the privacy of your own home,
Speaker 3: you still did it.
Speaker 1: Trump has even been like, no, I'd never call him that,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a it's an appropriate I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: engage the Italian discription.
Speaker 3: Oh he's a he's an amazing it's so funny. He's
Speaker 3: so good at the at the this, the marketing, and
Speaker 3: just like he knows how to do it because all
Speaker 3: he do is like I would never call him that. Maybe,
Speaker 3: you know, maybe some people call him meat Ron. I
Speaker 3: wouldn't call him that. Men off the tongue. I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's a great nickname made up by a smart man,
Speaker 1: but no, but I would know something, so are are
Speaker 1: y'all ready to learn the Ballad of Meatball. Ron will
Speaker 1: not be titling this episode.
Speaker 3: I have a I have a question for you before
Speaker 3: we begin. Do you address his name? His last name? Oh?
Speaker 4: Yeah, wait, his last fun Yeah, because this is God's
Speaker 4: fat hobby horse.
Speaker 3: A little just a little factoid. His name is pronounced
Speaker 3: de Santis. Yes, but he pronounces it DeSantis. Yeah, because
Speaker 3: when he was running for governor, he people call him
Speaker 3: DeSantis and he's like, I guess it's DeSantis. Now he
Speaker 3: just changed the way he pronounced his name under like
Speaker 3: vague social pressure. Yeah. I think it's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: And that's and very consistent to the to the man
Speaker 1: we are going to be talking.
Speaker 3: About, exact color it with uh yeel.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, yes, uh so. Ronathan J. DeSantis was due
Speaker 1: to a filing mishap, born under the legal name Ronald
Speaker 1: Dion DeSantis on September fourteenth, nineteen seventy eight, in Jacksonville, Florida. Now,
Speaker 1: but you're all wondering about that middle name, right, Dion.
Speaker 1: That's an odd middle name for a meatball. Uh Well,
Speaker 1: Ronnie's father, also, Ron DeSantis, was a huge fan of
Speaker 1: Dion de Mucci, The doo wop singer whose most well
Speaker 1: known hit was the nineteen sixty one song run Around
Speaker 1: sou Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's why Governor On DeSantis'
Speaker 1: middle name is Dion.
Speaker 5: That's so funny.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just right out the gate with some with some
Speaker 1: mind blowing fact on. Yeah, Dion de Santis.
Speaker 3: It's a good most almost runner out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, almost the same name as Dion Sanders, who would
Speaker 1: have been a better governor of Florida. Probably he might
Speaker 1: have been a terrible person.
Speaker 3: I oh, we are all in on Sanders.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's good. That's good. So I should note off
Speaker 1: the top here that when I say Ron was born
Speaker 1: in Florida, I am referring to the state in the
Speaker 1: southeastern portion of the United States, not the seminal genre
Speaker 1: defining rap artist flow Ryda aka Tremar Dillard, who recently
Speaker 1: represented San Marino in the twenty twenty one Eurovision Song Contest.
Speaker 1: Listeners get confused whenever we mentioned the state, and I
Speaker 1: want to assure you that Meatball Ron was not birthed
Speaker 1: z A morph like from the belly of one of
Speaker 1: America's great cultural treasure is just a yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: double checked. I double checked. I even sent in an
Speaker 1: email request to the sheriff of Jacksonville, who responded, please
Speaker 1: stop messaging us about flow Rider.
Speaker 5: Seems like a pretty good conversation and.
Speaker 3: You trusted them.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I just I legally, I can't uh
Speaker 1: u further by suspicions until we get some sort of
Speaker 1: like a photo for the police. All right, uh see
Speaker 1: A I will not be of any use to me
Speaker 1: until we can generate a perfect, perfect cover of that
Speaker 1: scene from Alien where it's Ron Desantist bursting out of
Speaker 1: flow Righter's chest and flow Right is singing whatever song
Speaker 1: flow Right I got famous for. I know nothing else
Speaker 1: about flow Rider.
Speaker 4: Pretty someone has to be able to do something like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll see.
Speaker 1: Proved me right or wrong? I forget which. So before
Speaker 1: we discuss Rod DeSantis's childhood, we should talk briefly about
Speaker 1: his family background. His mom and dad were the first
Speaker 1: generation of their family to move to Florida. He is
Speaker 1: fairly recent about was recent. I think about as recent
Speaker 1: as my family is. Immigrants too good old fashioned the
Speaker 1: United States. Most of his relatives remained in western Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: and northwest Ohio, which is why now Yeah, classic grease
Speaker 1: ball stuff.
Speaker 3: But Italians and Western Pa and Ohio.
Speaker 1: Damn, oh yeah no, it's what we do.
Speaker 3: Baby, Get up there, get to Akron.
Speaker 1: Come on, yeah yeah, Akron, the Promised Land. That's what
Speaker 1: for generations, Italians were like, sitting around in Tuscany looking
Speaker 1: out at like the unfolding glory of nature and going, fuck,
Speaker 1: I wish this was Akron.
Speaker 3: I want, guys.
Speaker 1: So because of the fact that most of his family
Speaker 1: has stayed in this chunk of the Midwest, Ron claims
Speaker 1: in his memoir, which he published immediately prior to launching
Speaker 1: his presidential campaign, that despite growing up in Florida, he
Speaker 1: is culturally a Midwesterner Quoa. I was geographically raised in
Speaker 1: the in Tampa Bay, but culturally my upbringing reflected the
Speaker 1: working class communities in western Pennsylvania and northeast Ohio, from
Speaker 1: weekly church attendance to the expectation that one winner in
Speaker 1: his keep. This made me god fearing, hard working, and
Speaker 1: America loving. And there's a lot that's funny about that,
Speaker 1: particularly the fact that it's kind of insinuating that Floridians
Speaker 1: are like shiftless, godless degenerates, which.
Speaker 3: Is true, is exactly what he's saying, and there's this
Speaker 3: element of like I'm I invaded the place and took
Speaker 3: over with like it's like this weird like reverse like
Speaker 3: americanized like great replacement thing of like culturally I'm here
Speaker 3: and I'm bringing those values to Florida. But also he
Speaker 3: wants to make America Florida, right, yeah, so what like
Speaker 3: what is it? Do you want to actually make America
Speaker 3: like Ohio's version of Florida?
Speaker 1: Like yeah, he's saying, yeah, the Ohio version of Florida,
Speaker 1: which I don't know. There's a Jimmy Buffett joke there,
Speaker 1: but it's not coming to me right now. So Ron's
Speaker 1: decision to do this has been right, James James Buffett, that's.
Speaker 3: The Midwestern Jimmy Buffett.
Speaker 1: He's scared of the water. He doesn't get anywhere.
Speaker 4: I think it's actually pronounced James Buffet James.
Speaker 1: So this has been made fun of by a lot
Speaker 1: of people. It's worth noting that he only very recently
Speaker 1: started claiming to be culturally Midwestern. In his initial congressional
Speaker 1: campaigns and first governor goombinatorial campaign, he described himself repeatedly
Speaker 1: as from Florida, from Tampa Bay. So this is something
Speaker 1: he has picked up as an attempt to get votes
Speaker 1: in the Midwest himself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the common man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the common the common man, the common idiot. Like
Speaker 1: that's what that's how he's what he's saying about Midwesterners
Speaker 1: is like they're so dumb. I can pretend to be
Speaker 1: from there despite growing up as far away almost as
Speaker 1: you can.
Speaker 3: Right. It's funny because like he's like, he's insulting the Midwest,
Speaker 3: but you're dumb if you'll believe, yes. But also he's
Speaker 3: insulting Floridians by being like, yeah, they're fucking.
Speaker 5: I'm not one of them, and I'm not one of them.
Speaker 3: I'm bringing my good ship over there, like yeah.
Speaker 1: And it is. It has not seemed to work. A
Speaker 1: recent article on Florida Politics dot Com notes that he
Speaker 1: is at least ten points behind Trump in Pennsylvania, and
Speaker 1: he recently dropped to third place in the Ohio primary
Speaker 1: polls behind Vivic Ramaswami. Shocking. Hey, come on, he is
Speaker 1: fifty five points behind Donald Trump there.
Speaker 3: So that's painful.
Speaker 1: Hasn't exactly played out. That's Ohio, Okay, the Midwest isn't
Speaker 1: doing so hard.
Speaker 3: How's he doing in Florida?
Speaker 1: He's not beating Donald Trump last I checked, like, I
Speaker 1: don't think so. How could he be realistic anyway? That's
Speaker 1: actually what we're talking about. That's the whole point of
Speaker 1: this week's episodes. So back to his family. Ron gets
Speaker 1: his interest in politics from his grandfather, who was a
Speaker 1: major figure in the Republican Party of mid century Ohio.
Speaker 1: He was on deck in nineteen sixty for a major
Speaker 1: political scandal where a number of voting machines failed during
Speaker 1: an election and led to something like fifteen hundred people's
Speaker 1: votes failing to be accounted, effectively disenfranchising them. Right, this
Speaker 1: is like a very serious issue. The Secretary of State,
Speaker 1: who was a fairly rare Republican and state government at
Speaker 1: that point in time, cleaned house and put Philip Rogers,
Speaker 1: Ron's grandpa and his director. By all accounts, he was
Speaker 1: very good at this job, and he became a respected
Speaker 1: expert on election integrity. The Republican Party in Ohio in
Speaker 1: those days was not a mighty force, but Philip gained
Speaker 1: widespread respect and traveled around the state helping to ensure
Speaker 1: integrity in a number of smaller elections. When the local
Speaker 1: steel workers union needed to do a vote, they trusted
Speaker 1: him to manage it and ensure that it was done
Speaker 1: with integrity. He was even contracted out to other states,
Speaker 1: including Louisiana, to help them set up modern voting machine systems.
Speaker 1: Rogers is described by one colleague as quote someone who
Speaker 1: believed in the way the system worked. He was political,
Speaker 1: but not a politician, and instead someone who believed enough
Speaker 1: in the system to work a pretty thankless and intricate job.
Speaker 1: By all accounts, he was not especially ideological, and I've
Speaker 1: run into no complaints of him taking advantage of this
Speaker 1: job to further his own political INDs. Crucially, Roger was
Speaker 1: on the moderate wing of the Republican Party. One write
Speaker 1: up from NBC News notes there was a group of
Speaker 1: Goldwater rights who were a thorn in the side of
Speaker 1: the party at the time, says Binning, referring to acolytes
Speaker 1: at Barry Goldwater, the failed utra Conservative presidential candidate in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty four. Phil wasn't in with them. This was
Speaker 1: one of his fellow Republicans in Ohio at the time.
Speaker 1: So he's not an extremist, not a hard right guy.
Speaker 1: Ronda Santis, the dad of our Randa Sis Santis, the
Speaker 1: son of this dude, moved the family away from its
Speaker 1: Midwest roots after he graduated in nineteen seventy and got
Speaker 1: a job for Nielsen, the company that used to determine
Speaker 1: what TV shows got renewed. Most of our gen Z
Speaker 1: viewers will not know what the fuck we're talking about
Speaker 1: when we say mentioned Nielsen families. But once upon a
Speaker 1: time people paid money to subscribe to something called cable
Speaker 1: because we hadn't yet invented lime wire TV. Shit, they're
Speaker 1: not going to remember LimeWire either.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what is that?
Speaker 1: TV shows lived or died based on how many Nielsen
Speaker 1: viewers turned tuned into them. The basic idea was like
Speaker 1: a percentage of families in each state got like sent
Speaker 1: a box that they would hook up to their TV
Speaker 1: and it would record what they were watching, And then
Speaker 1: Nielsen would do some whack ass math to determine how
Speaker 1: many people are actually watching the show, and advertisers would
Speaker 1: use this data to decide where to buy ad space
Speaker 1: and what the value of ad space was. Right, And
Speaker 1: thus was American popular culture shaped for decades. Old Ron,
Speaker 1: as he probably is not called, was a low level
Speaker 1: cog in this system. He's physically putting the boxes into
Speaker 1: people's houses. Uh, r Ron DeSantis' mom, it was a
Speaker 1: first generation Polish immigrant and became a critical care nurse.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to look at what some of the elder
Speaker 1: adults in Ron's youth did for a living. His parents'
Speaker 1: siblings became a priest and a nun respectively, which suggests
Speaker 1: a strong Catholic upbringing. Ar Ron doesn't talk about this
Speaker 1: as much as he speaks generally about God and going
Speaker 1: to church, but it's worth noting that from what is
Speaker 1: publicly available for us to see, his nun aunt does
Speaker 1: not seem to be the kind of Catholic you might
Speaker 1: expect given her nephew's path. Here's NBC again. Be open
Speaker 1: to diversity, Sister Regina said during a twenty twenty commencement
Speaker 1: address to graduates at Ursuline High School. Do not be
Speaker 1: afraid of those who are different from you. It's okay
Speaker 1: to change your thinking. Change is the constant in our lives.
Speaker 1: Oh that's inesting, Yeah yeah, So that's different from.
Speaker 3: Artist in one ear in one end of the.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. His priest uncle, father Rogers, has been known
Speaker 1: to recite Teddy Roosevelt's Man in the Arena speech from
Speaker 1: the pulpit, but doesn't have a reputation for bringing up
Speaker 1: politics in a more relevant modern sense. He has a
Speaker 1: sizable fan pace among the Catholic subculture, including many people
Speaker 1: who have followed him from two different churches. Because of
Speaker 1: his raw charisma. It said he doesn't need a microphone
Speaker 1: to reach the back pews. I bring this up because
Speaker 1: it's a notably distinct difference between r Ron and his kin.
Speaker 1: DeSantis is known for a lot of things, but in person,
Speaker 1: charisma is not one of them. People who know the
Speaker 1: family will say that he takes after his mom, Karen Moore,
Speaker 1: as she is something of an introvert and uncomfortable with
Speaker 1: the spotlight. Even as he's become a national figure, she
Speaker 1: doesn't really show up in public, which you know is
Speaker 1: her right he should, He should take her take advice, Yeah,
Speaker 1: approach to avoid being known by people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, we become a big weakness for Ron
Speaker 3: seems to be being perceived.
Speaker 1: Being perceived exactly. If no one could see or be
Speaker 1: aware of him, he would be a lot more likable.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 3: I bet he was.
Speaker 5: I bet he wanted to be like his uncle so bad.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, No, it's too much of
Speaker 1: a meatball, not a speech, absolutely the driest meatball. As
Speaker 1: a kid, young Ron was bright and a good student.
Speaker 1: Excellent student. Actually, his grades were so good that one
Speaker 1: the teacher would describe him as having a Stepford report card.
Speaker 1: He was also a very capable athlete, and in his youth,
Speaker 1: Ron's first love was baseball. He was known to other
Speaker 1: kids as D, which he still prefers to be called
Speaker 1: and claims to like more than his real name. So
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's the add he should have gone
Speaker 1: with Florida got that D you know some D. Yeah
Speaker 1: that D take this D D in you, Ron, If
Speaker 1: you weren't a coward, we would support you, just just
Speaker 1: based on that. Don't even care about your politics.
Speaker 3: It's a good D joke, can't I can't go find that.
Speaker 3: I feel like if you weren't a coward, he'd be
Speaker 3: uh uh saying a lot worse stuff than he already.
Speaker 1: That is almost certainly true, Cody K Money see money anyway.
Speaker 1: The earliest influential book that Ron read as a kid
Speaker 1: was the Science of Hitting by baseball legend Ted Williams.
Speaker 1: One of Ted's pieces of advice in that tone is
Speaker 1: to be very careful about the swings that you choose
Speaker 1: to take. Ron's father claims his son took this advice
Speaker 1: to heart, telling the New Yorker, I must have thrown
Speaker 1: half a million pitches to Ron. I think he swung
Speaker 1: at about five hundred of them. What are you laughing
Speaker 1: at about their Cody he.
Speaker 3: Would after Disney like seven months.
Speaker 1: I know, I know he did not learn that fucking lesson.
Speaker 3: I did not stick with you.
Speaker 1: Man. Well it's you know, I might argue Cody. And
Speaker 1: this is one of the things I find interesting about Ron.
Speaker 1: He did abide by that advice in his life and
Speaker 1: career up until like a year and a half ago.
Speaker 1: Like he's even the most of his political career extremely consistent.
Speaker 1: It's really about littless than two years ago that he
Speaker 1: decides to take some really wild swings that have just
Speaker 1: just shattered him, which is interesting to me, Like you
Speaker 1: almost get the feeling like this guy is like this disciplined,
Speaker 1: coiled spring and managed to like keep himself in line
Speaker 1: and then just for whatever reason twenty twenty two, decides, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's time to go off the leash.
Speaker 3: No it was not, No, it was not. Yeah. I
Speaker 3: think the topification of his desires, and I think the
Speaker 3: libs of TikTok talkification. Like he's got some people surrounding
Speaker 3: him that are very online and radical in the bad
Speaker 3: sense of the word radical. You could call him, you could.
Speaker 3: I feel like even that gives him too much Uh yeah,
Speaker 3: rad but like the yeah, this sort of like he's
Speaker 3: been sort of injected with a lot of awful shit
Speaker 3: that he's let sort of steep into him because he's
Speaker 3: a dry meatball. So they're they're pumping him full of
Speaker 3: like the poison, yeah, meatballs juice, which he needs. Oh okay, okay, okay,
Speaker 3: So I'm mixed up. I don't know.
Speaker 1: His hometown was Dunidin, which is famous both for its
Speaker 1: long standing lawsuit with a Tolkien estate over its name
Speaker 1: and for baseball. It was the spring training home of
Speaker 1: the Toronto Blue Jays, so as a kid, Ron could
Speaker 1: easily go down the street and watch the pros play.
Speaker 1: His upbringing was very parochial, and he notes that he
Speaker 1: graduated that until he graduated high school, he had rarely
Speaker 1: traveled further than five miles away from his house for
Speaker 1: anything but baseball. In his memoir, he writes, baseball was
Speaker 1: the engine that expanded my horizons In those days, little
Speaker 1: leagues like DUNI in national had a regular season in
Speaker 1: which the individual teams, each sponsored by a local business,
Speaker 1: would compete against each other. Now, I also played Little
Speaker 1: league baseball. Did you play Little league either, y'alls?
Speaker 3: I did?
Speaker 5: I sure did.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it should be a federal felony to
Speaker 1: make children play baseball. But I'm not sure if you
Speaker 1: guys had a better experience, maybe maybe slightly better.
Speaker 4: I enjoyed it personally, Okay, okay, wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well there's diversity on the panel today. It's good.
Speaker 4: Sure, yeah, criminals a variety of opinions.
Speaker 1: Well, meatball Ron loved it. Couldn't get enough baseball, and
Speaker 1: he was very good, and so was his team. He
Speaker 1: kind of like lands in with this group of boys
Speaker 1: who were all they make like a pact when they're
Speaker 1: eleven or twelve together to get to the Nationals effectively,
Speaker 1: and you know, they do very well. The first big
Speaker 1: year they get to the district tournament, they're eliminated by
Speaker 1: game three, but like it's further than they thought they
Speaker 1: were going to get. Ron and his teammates are super
Speaker 1: like four of them are going to wind up getting
Speaker 1: drafted into the into the majors, like they are, like, uh,
Speaker 1: it's kind of a dream team of little boys ue
Speaker 1: baseball Ron.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: So, after getting eliminated in game three the district tournament,
Speaker 1: they train even harder to compete the next year with
Speaker 1: the hope of earning a spot in the prestigious Little
Speaker 1: League World Series. In williamsport news articles often include a
Speaker 1: photo of Ron's team from this period. You see him
Speaker 1: holding an aluminum bat on his shoulder. One local Tampa
Speaker 1: source described him as staring into the camera with a
Speaker 1: look so assured it's almost unnerving on a twelve year old.
Speaker 1: You get similar hype and other write ups, most of
Speaker 1: which describe him as an unusually serious kid. I don't
Speaker 1: see it. I haven't found that photo, but I found
Speaker 1: I've got another one here, and like he just looks
Speaker 1: like a normal preteen boy.
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, I want to see that the unnerving one,
Speaker 3: because I feel like unnerving is a very another good
Speaker 3: word to describe him and his interactions with people.
Speaker 5: Yes, he's a very serious kid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean he doesn't. In this photo he looks
Speaker 1: he's just laughing like the others, Like he just looks
Speaker 1: like a smiling kid. He does look like it.
Speaker 3: He's not put on the face right.
Speaker 1: No. No.
Speaker 3: Also, we've also all seen him laugh at this point.
Speaker 1: I guess his his nightmare laugh, like the like the
Speaker 1: crowing of a fucking funeral bird.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, he's like smiling, looks like yeah, he's yeah,
Speaker 3: what happened, Ron, what happened?
Speaker 1: Well, that's what we're talking about today. Whether or not
Speaker 1: he was an unusually serious kid, he was openly ambitious
Speaker 1: in a way that is not the norm for preteen boys.
Speaker 1: From that Tampa Bay ride up quote. I always knew
Speaker 1: he was going into politics, said Brady Williams, who is
Speaker 1: now the Raised Triple A manager in Durham and was
Speaker 1: then one of Dessanta's closest friends. His goal was to
Speaker 1: be the president of the United States. Was that far fetched?
Speaker 1: A lot of things we talked about that summer were
Speaker 1: far fetched, and a lot of them happened. So he
Speaker 1: is one of these And I do feel like I
Speaker 1: think we need a government agency specific to go after
Speaker 1: little boys who talk relentlessly about becoming the president or intah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: parents have to like register them, like, yeah, my son's
Speaker 1: been talking about becoming the president or the first trillionaire.
Speaker 1: You know, we gotta gotta tamp down.
Speaker 3: On that deal with those ambitions. Yeah, are kids fucked up?
Speaker 1: Yeah? This is this is a use that we could
Speaker 1: have for like Philly sports fans, right where the government
Speaker 1: sends a bus of them out to each of these
Speaker 1: kids with just like eggs to just like start pelting them. Actually,
Speaker 1: I think we may have solved a major societal problem here.
Speaker 3: Jobs.
Speaker 1: It greats jobs for Philly sports guys, most of whom
Speaker 1: are unemployed.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Jobs.
Speaker 5: There's nothing anybody could possibly find wrong with this.
Speaker 1: I think we've gotta I think we've got a playing
Speaker 1: all the meatball. Yeah, yeah, we've got it.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: The next year, his little league team does much better.
Speaker 1: He describes them as storming into the regional tournament and
Speaker 1: making mincemeat of the other's southern teams. One of his
Speaker 1: former teammates has discussed how manically they had to train
Speaker 1: that year, rarely going two days in a week without playing.
Speaker 1: They eventually made it to the regional championships, where they
Speaker 1: won the Southern regional title and earned a spot in
Speaker 1: the national contest or in the World Series. Quote. I
Speaker 1: was surprised at how big of a deal it was
Speaker 1: for our community. We found ourselves on the local news
Speaker 1: and on the front page of the local newspapers. A
Speaker 1: long way from being a bunch of kids putting on
Speaker 1: a far fetched motto beneath the brims of our hats.
Speaker 1: Williamsport is the Shangri Law for Little leaguers. The games
Speaker 1: take place in an actual stadium that can hold more
Speaker 1: than forty thousand spectators. Thanks to the terrace hills beyond
Speaker 1: the outfield fence, the field was perfectly manicured. When we
Speaker 1: first got a peek at the stadium, it was like
Speaker 1: entering Finway Park or Wrigley Field for the first time.
Speaker 1: The teams all stayed in cabins on site, and there
Speaker 1: was a dining hall for all all meals. And this
Speaker 1: is this is Meatball Ron's first brush with fame. This
Speaker 1: is the first time he's like on TV. He gets
Speaker 1: like a card made of himself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sees himself how he can be, how he should be,
Speaker 3: how he has the right to be, how it's his
Speaker 3: destiny to be.
Speaker 1: You do get that feeling again. Bring in Philly sports
Speaker 1: fans for the Little League World Series. You know, give
Speaker 1: him free batteries just to pigs Tampa batteries. Oh yeah, Phillies.
Speaker 1: Guys love their fucking batteries. So uh, every biographical look
Speaker 1: at Ron will discuss his little league team's rise to
Speaker 1: the championships. It does seem to have been a crucial
Speaker 1: moment for his self conception, the time where he realized
Speaker 1: that his humble middle class upbringing wouldn't lock him out
Speaker 1: of national aspirations. In his memoir, he also uses it
Speaker 1: as an excuse to make a baffling political point about China.
Speaker 1: So currently, the big little league competition includes a team
Speaker 1: from Taiwan. It is the World Series, and like, I
Speaker 1: don't know why they lost their big game at Williamsport,
Speaker 1: and he describes the other team's pitcher as throwing like
Speaker 1: Nolan Ryan, which makes me think of the time Nolan
Speaker 1: Ryan coldcock that dude on the field, and I want
Speaker 1: to see Ronda Santis take a hey Maker from anyway
Speaker 1: whatever after losing to the Taiwanese team, this is the
Speaker 1: thing I don't understand why he brings up. So they
Speaker 1: eventually lose to this Taiwanese team, and then after noting
Speaker 1: this disappointing loss, Ron gives us this gym. I also
Speaker 1: think it may have informed some of my later political judgments.
Speaker 1: For example, while my hostility towards the Chinese Communist Party
Speaker 1: and my support for Taiwan is reflected by my general
Speaker 1: political outlook, the respect I had for Taiwanese baseball no
Speaker 1: doubt made my pro type stance more natural. After all,
Speaker 1: I remember playing ping pong against these guys and they
Speaker 1: were just normal kids having fun, not maoists trying to
Speaker 1: further a cultural revolution. Yeah, I'm sure all pre teen
Speaker 1: shiniest kids are a hardcore maoist political opinions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like the idea is, so it's just like yourself.
Speaker 1: If they'd been kids, you would have had the same
Speaker 1: experience because you're all fucking kids. You're playing sports game like,
Speaker 1: they're not going to be just like reading from the
Speaker 1: fucking Red Book to you.
Speaker 3: So sure it just speaks to like the way like
Speaker 3: his mind, like yeah, this mind works of like yeah,
Speaker 3: an experience, what experience with people who are different from me? Yeah,
Speaker 3: and now that that informs my entire worldview, whether it
Speaker 3: be negative or positive, it's just weird, like well whatever, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I hate meatballs.
Speaker 1: Now I don't like meatballs anymore.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 1: After graduating high school, Ron claims to have worked full
Speaker 1: time at an electric company that had sponsored his little
Speaker 1: league team in order to pay for college. So he's
Speaker 1: they sponsor his team, the guy who runs the electric
Speaker 1: business company. Thing is like Meatball Ron, if you ever
Speaker 1: want a gig when you're done with the with the baseballs,
Speaker 1: you gotta gig here. So he he gets this job,
Speaker 1: and he he will not shut up about this job. Right,
Speaker 1: this is like the one blue collar moment of his life.
Speaker 1: And that absolutely as hard as he can and he
Speaker 1: will use this. He's gonna make as much political hay
Speaker 1: out of this motherfucking gig as it's possible to make.
Speaker 1: But you know who else will? Milk and Meatball Cody,
Speaker 1: you know who loves milking meatballs. Can't get enough of
Speaker 1: that of that ball milk as they call.
Speaker 3: Yeah, who's the ball milk milkers?
Speaker 1: Well, if you want wow ok ball milk meat is
Speaker 1: your question? Uh huh yeah, well you can ask Meatball
Speaker 1: Ron that her name is Casey. So you know here's
Speaker 1: an ad Oh yeah, oh yeah, I don't know why
Speaker 1: I came back that way.
Speaker 5: It was a fun choice, I think I do.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you, thank you both. So Meatball Ron
Speaker 1: is very proud of his working class credentials as a
Speaker 1: briefly an electrician. Now he never bothers to interrogate whether
Speaker 1: anything has changed to make it harder for a kid
Speaker 1: today to pay for Yale tuition with an entry level
Speaker 1: gig at a power company. What he does make time
Speaker 1: to do in his memoir is shit on those lazy millennials.
Speaker 3: Quo, thank goodness.
Speaker 1: Will it was come and for rising college freshmen to
Speaker 1: spend their summer enjoying themselves on the beach and sleeping
Speaker 1: in until noon. I was up at the crack of
Speaker 1: dawn to start work just after six am, five days
Speaker 1: per week as an electricians assistant. I made a mere
Speaker 1: six bucks an hour, but it felt great to receive
Speaker 1: a paycheck for a good day's work.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, she's just rotting a job.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Also yeah, because you were a kid that didn't know
Speaker 4: better than you had a job.
Speaker 1: But also, like you, you are going to Yale and
Speaker 1: you are legitimately one of the few working class kids there.
Speaker 1: But like going to guarantee you, most college students in
Speaker 1: most colleges worked because they're not Yale's. They don't have
Speaker 1: like millionaire parents with legacies.
Speaker 3: Right, like go to a different school and you'll experience
Speaker 3: will be like, Oh, everybody's kind of doing this the
Speaker 3: thing that I'm doing.
Speaker 1: You. You chose to go to the school for rich assholes,
Speaker 1: which is what Yale is. Everyone knows it. It's the
Speaker 1: school for rich psychopaths. And like you're being like, Wow,
Speaker 1: nobody else here as a fucking job. Yeah, of course not.
Speaker 3: You expect they're all Yale.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a mix of George H. W. Bush's blood
Speaker 1: sons and fucking illegitimate children. That's all of Yale except
Speaker 1: for you in this period. I assume. So assumes yeah,
Speaker 1: one one assumes. Uh so. Ron also uses his early
Speaker 1: work history to make the usual litany of conservative complaints
Speaker 1: against the regulatory state. When I showed up to work
Speaker 1: that first day, I will retire, that was typical of
Speaker 1: what an electrician would wear, jeans, a long sleeved shirt,
Speaker 1: and an old pair of work boots. Then I was
Speaker 1: promptly sent home. Why because it wasn't clear if the old,
Speaker 1: worn out boots were actually OSHA approved. I didn't know
Speaker 1: what OSHA was, but I soon learned that the Occupational
Speaker 1: Safety and Health Administration was a federal agency charged with
Speaker 1: promulgating workplace safety rules. The net result for me was
Speaker 1: that I had to spend the lion's chair of the
Speaker 1: share of what would end up being my first week's
Speaker 1: paycheck buying a pair of boots that were clearly approved
Speaker 1: by OSHA. I doubt this made me any safer, but
Speaker 1: it did make me a tad bit poorer. Now, uh,
Speaker 1: I have my doubts. We'll talk about this, but I
Speaker 1: have my doubts as to whether or not this happened
Speaker 1: more accurately. I doubt if Ron DeSantis at the time
Speaker 1: had a serious issue with being required to wear approved
Speaker 1: safety footwear. It is very silly that he chose to
Speaker 1: complain specifically about footwear to make a point about unreasonable regulations.
Speaker 1: Because electricians die all the fucking time if they don't
Speaker 1: wear proper footwear. It's an extremely reasonable regulation written in blood.
Speaker 1: Here's one quote from a twenty fifteen article in Electrical
Speaker 1: Contractor magazine titled feet on the Ground. Bad things can
Speaker 1: happen with the wrong footwear. These are two real life examples.
Speaker 1: An electrician wearing cowboy boots loses his footing and slips,
Speaker 1: and he comes into contact with a life conductor, resulting
Speaker 1: in his electrocution. In another example, alignment wearing tennis shoes
Speaker 1: is electrocuted when his foot comes into contact with a
Speaker 1: fallen energized wire. The incident occurred when the victim was
Speaker 1: attempting to restore power disrupted by a severe storm. Both
Speaker 1: incidents could have been prevented had the victims been wearing
Speaker 1: proper protective footwear. And he does describe his boots as
Speaker 1: worn out.
Speaker 3: Now worn out. I was gonna say, yea thank you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, you say your boots sucked, Like this is
Speaker 1: a job that can't boots and more.
Speaker 3: The point it's it's this element about regular regulations general.
Speaker 3: It's that Dave Ruben thing on Rogan I you've seen
Speaker 3: where he's like, yeah, all these regulations for building stuff
Speaker 3: this Yeah, it's so you don't cut corners and like
Speaker 3: houses collapse or like the wires, Like there are reasons
Speaker 3: that these exist on not every single regulation in the world.
Speaker 3: But it's such a weird complaint. Also, shouldn't your boss
Speaker 3: buy those? Maybe that's your that is.
Speaker 1: Like, this is not an issue with This is not
Speaker 1: an issue with regulations. This is an issue with the
Speaker 1: fact that independent contractors are Like the legal classification is
Speaker 1: so fucked that your boss doesn't have to equip you
Speaker 1: with proper safety gear, like it be required.
Speaker 3: That the bosses provide these that you should Yes, you
Speaker 3: need them, they're making you get them. You shouldn't have
Speaker 3: to pay for them necessarily. There's there's your little complaints, Ron.
Speaker 1: Now, but you can't that can't be the complaint because
Speaker 1: that doesn't go along with conservative dogma.
Speaker 4: And and it probably that probably was the complaint at
Speaker 4: the time, Like that's probably what bothered him at the time.
Speaker 3: I can't believe I have to buy these?
Speaker 5: Why do I have to buy this for myself?
Speaker 1: But I mean, I will say I wish he'd been
Speaker 1: allowed to work as an electrician wearing let's just put
Speaker 1: those worn out now, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now. Because he
Speaker 1: was such a good student with excellent grades and extracurricular performance,
Speaker 1: Ron earned admittance to Yale. He was not a legacy admission.
Speaker 1: His parents certainly did not have the money to bribe
Speaker 1: a spot for their son in the prestigious school. It
Speaker 1: seems clear to me that Ron say Yale is an
Speaker 1: opportunity for him to increase his social class and network
Speaker 1: with powerful, rich people in the hopes of becoming one himself.
Speaker 1: He was successful there, becoming captain of the baseball team
Speaker 1: and rushing for the famous Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. Now
Speaker 1: he is going to as we'll say, really try to
Speaker 1: downplay the degree to which he fit in at Yale,
Speaker 1: but going to this fraternity puts him in rarefied air
Speaker 1: because DKE is one of the oldest frats in the country.
Speaker 1: Its alumni include George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush,
Speaker 1: Teddy Roosevelt, and Rutherford B. Hayes, who I know is
Speaker 1: your favorite president, Cody, You're a big hate so Rutherford
Speaker 1: to stay on as we call them mmmmm heads yeah,
Speaker 1: Hayes heads, sure, Jesus yeah, you got hay fever. That's
Speaker 1: another good term for Rutherford B. Hayes fans uh. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Although I will say dan Quail was also a member
Speaker 1: of dk So it's not that rarefied, right the.
Speaker 5: Let Quail sure, sure, sure.
Speaker 4: So it's the club that little boys growing up who
Speaker 4: wanted to be president.
Speaker 3: Yeah go to.
Speaker 1: It is exactly that club, and like it is the
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Clearly, this was the thing he did
Speaker 1: because he thought at the time, this is the way
Speaker 1: to become president. Right, you go to Yale, which is
Speaker 1: a very fancy school for presidents, and you go to
Speaker 1: fucking you get into DKE right now. Because Republican politics
Speaker 1: have since taken a major populous plunge, particularly in the
Speaker 1: last six seven years, Ron has now been forced to
Speaker 1: disavow his alma matter. Roughly half of the first twenty
Speaker 1: percent of his MEMOIRIR is just him shitting on everyone
Speaker 1: but him at Yale to try to salvage his blue
Speaker 1: collar credentials. He does this by trying to paint the
Speaker 1: school that both Georges Bush went to as a breeding
Speaker 1: ground for communists. What he's really.
Speaker 5: Trying to dance a tight rope right now?
Speaker 1: All this different, Yeah, this part's fun. While Yale's popular
Speaker 1: motto made homage to God and country, the ethos of
Speaker 1: the university's academics was hostility to the Almighty and disparagement
Speaker 1: of America. Before I got to Yale, I believe that
Speaker 1: almost all Americans were proud that our nation defeated the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union to win the Cold War. But at Yale
Speaker 1: I was told that the United States was to blame
Speaker 1: for the conflict in the first place, not the Stalin
Speaker 1: era Soviets. Well the late nineteen nineties was one of
Speaker 1: the most prosperous times in human history. At Yale, we
Speaker 1: were led to believe that communism was superior, even though
Speaker 1: it was impossible point even one example of the superiority
Speaker 1: since real communism had never been tried. I wondered if
Speaker 1: some of my professors in class it's rooted for Ivan
Speaker 1: Drago to defeat Rocky Balboa in Rocky four. Just what
Speaker 1: an amazing paragraph, What.
Speaker 3: A rich, rich, rich passage.
Speaker 5: He didn't get his book.
Speaker 3: Wow, I don't believe saying that what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: I don't believe anybody could push back on this. They've
Speaker 5: never taught that, not now, not then.
Speaker 3: It's so funny, how like I simply don't believe it.
Speaker 3: This like red scary stuff is so funny and like,
Speaker 3: I mean, it's alarming for sure, but like just like
Speaker 3: how hard he's going in on this, Like, oh, I
Speaker 3: just need to like say that communism is bad and
Speaker 3: also like distance myself from the clear path that I
Speaker 3: chose for myself. I don't believe you, Ron, is my point.
Speaker 1: I think, Yeah, I don't believe he's definitely a liar.
Speaker 3: The commis at Yale, What the.
Speaker 1: Fucking commis at Yale. Don't even like Rocky Yes, don't
Speaker 1: even like seminal film Rocky fo Yeah, not even one
Speaker 1: of the good Rockies.
Speaker 3: And he's such a like a it's such a funny
Speaker 3: like he's such a ted cruise in so many ways too,
Speaker 3: of just like the touch that cultural touchstone too. You're
Speaker 3: you are culture pop culture.
Speaker 1: Ha yeah, yes, fucking fucking meatball. Anyway, DeSantis goes on
Speaker 1: to note that experiencing unbridled leftism on the fucking Yale campus, yeah,
Speaker 1: pushed him right. Uh that so he does say that
Speaker 1: he he includes that line, I was I was forced
Speaker 1: into conservatism by those Yale communists. My god, the gender
Speaker 1: studies at Yale, Like, give me a fucking wild god. Now,
Speaker 1: as you're.
Speaker 3: Probably not gonna Saarl Lawrence or something.
Speaker 1: As you're probably not going to be surprised here. Not
Speaker 1: everyone who went to college with old Ronnie d had
Speaker 1: a positive opinion of him. And I'm going to quote
Speaker 1: from an art Yeah, yeah, yeah, here's a fun quote
Speaker 1: from an article in The New Yorker. Some recall that
Speaker 1: DeSantis was so intensely focused that he wasn't much of
Speaker 1: a teammate. Ron is the most selfish person I have
Speaker 1: ever interacted with. Another teammate told me he has always
Speaker 1: loved embarrassing and humiliating people. I'm speaking for others. He
Speaker 1: was the biggest dick we knew. But the same teammate
Speaker 1: praise DeSantis's intellect. This is the frustrating part. He's so
Speaker 1: fucking smart and so creative. You couldn't even plagiarize off
Speaker 1: his work. He takes some angle and everyone knew there
Speaker 1: was only one person who could have done that. So yeah,
Speaker 1: he's a smart asshole who likes to bully people. That's
Speaker 1: that's that's that's.
Speaker 5: Making president, I tell you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean like not that smart though,
Speaker 4: because sometimes.
Speaker 1: Well this guy may not be very smart. Right, he's
Speaker 1: another gay, old dude, and yeah, it's given us a
Speaker 1: lot of dipshits.
Speaker 3: So well, there was an element too of just like yeah,
Speaker 3: you got good crazy like worked hard, but like there's like.
Speaker 5: It's different than it's just related.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah him, what is intelligence?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: That gets us into anyway, whatever, Let's let's move on.
Speaker 1: He's a dick and selfish. After he graduated with honors,
Speaker 1: Ron became a history teacher and taught for a year
Speaker 1: at the prestigious Darlington School in Rome, Georgia.
Speaker 3: I A.
Speaker 1: It is here that he first runs into his initial
Speaker 1: his first serious controversy. Last year, a source with quote
Speaker 1: close knowledge of the matter provided information to The Hill
Speaker 1: about a photo that had started going viral. This photo
Speaker 1: showed a young adult Ronnie d posing with teenage girls,
Speaker 1: some of whom were students of his, while holding a beer.
Speaker 1: Now this picture that first came to prominence when Trump
Speaker 1: started his campaign against meatball Ron. The former president shared
Speaker 1: this picture from another user's post with a text that's
Speaker 1: not Ron, is it? He would never do such a thing?
Speaker 1: Question mark now the origin? Indeed he did, indeed, And
Speaker 1: this original post, like Trump was, the post he was sharing,
Speaker 1: included a caption by another user that read Ron DeSantis
Speaker 1: was having a drink party with his students when he
Speaker 1: was a high school teacher. Yeah, such a weird way
Speaker 1: to frame it.
Speaker 2: Having party also, but also trum Trump competing on it.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of photo woman silly.
Speaker 3: Wait, So who used the phrase drink party?
Speaker 1: The person who originally posted, because that is a Twitter
Speaker 1: blue ass phrase. That is a is a very Twitter
Speaker 1: blue phrase.
Speaker 3: A drink party. Yeah, having your drink parties with your leftists.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I get that is that is Yeah, that is
Speaker 1: a phrase written by someone who has forgotten the face
Speaker 1: of his mother in favor of an Elon Musk Snapple fact.
Speaker 5: And has never been invited to a drink.
Speaker 1: Party and never would be invited a drink party.
Speaker 3: I also love just like, obviously we don't need to
Speaker 3: too much into the Trump of it all, but the
Speaker 3: idea of Trump sharing this photo, bro, there are stories
Speaker 3: of you walking in at miss plain dog, what are
Speaker 3: you doing? But also like he's teflon. It doesn't matter,
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter, god man, guy.
Speaker 1: The the post that Trump was quoting went on to
Speaker 1: say having drinks with underage girls and cuddling of them
Speaker 1: look pretty gross and a foebopheliesque.
Speaker 3: Oh it's also.
Speaker 1: You get a lot from the post because it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you gotta make a you gotta like it's the very
Speaker 1: libertarian thing to like really emphasize the difference between pedophilia and.
Speaker 3: Gotta make.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Yeah, this guy owns a bored ape.
Speaker 3: Absolutely absolutely all his apes are gone, though all his
Speaker 3: ages slurp juice. You know, he doesn't have slurp juice
Speaker 3: that's right.
Speaker 1: Can't even slurp now. This created an uproar on conservative
Speaker 1: social media and The Hill, which is a liberal leaning publication.
Speaker 1: Talk to someone who had apparently Yeah, yeah, it's kind
Speaker 1: of kind of libby. Yeah, more on the lib side.
Speaker 1: It's not it's certainly not like a left wing rag
Speaker 1: or whatever. But it's like, it's not a not conservative media.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, talk to someone who had apparently been at
Speaker 1: the party where Ron has his arms around these girls
Speaker 1: drinking a beer. According to our whistleblower, very silly thing
Speaker 1: to call a whistleblowering, fucking ridiculous.
Speaker 3: According to the micro yeah, like.
Speaker 1: Uh. DeSantis had a reputation among students for being a young,
Speaker 1: hot teacher who girls loved, and the girls in the
Speaker 1: photo are believed to have graduated in two thousand and two,
Speaker 1: making them seniors at the time. Hill reporter also added
Speaker 1: the source who provided the photo says that it was
Speaker 1: taken prior to graduation, meaning the young girls would have
Speaker 1: still been with the Santas responsibility at the time.
Speaker 3: That is gross. Even if they weren't his responsibility, he
Speaker 3: is grabbing drinks with By the time.
Speaker 1: You have graduated college and are working as a teacher
Speaker 1: shouldn't be drinking with high school.
Speaker 3: Girls, especially not a drink party.
Speaker 5: It's not a drink party, not a drink party.
Speaker 1: It is also sad. It's like we all we all
Speaker 1: knew guys.
Speaker 4: It's very say you could drink some water with some
Speaker 4: teenage girls in class, I suppose, but that's sure the
Speaker 4: same thing at all.
Speaker 1: Although I would say if anyone ever described to me
Speaker 1: that they were drinking water with teenage girls at their
Speaker 1: I'd be like, well, why are you? Why are we
Speaker 1: talking about this this way?
Speaker 3: That's all.
Speaker 1: That's that's peculiar. Most people don't describe it that way. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So The New York Times followed up the Hills reporting here,
Speaker 1: positively iding DeSantis as the man in the photo and
Speaker 1: finding further sources that would back up in several interviews
Speaker 1: that quote. Several students recalled mister DeSantis has a frequent
Speaker 1: presence at parties with the seniors who lived in doubt.
Speaker 1: So that is deeply off.
Speaker 3: Frequent.
Speaker 1: Frequent.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he is crashing a regular face at the drink parties, yes, which.
Speaker 5: I don't think their parents would like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's the Times is what feels nothing damning
Speaker 1: in a legal matter, right, there's no no one is
Speaker 1: accusing him of like sexual harassment or assault or of
Speaker 1: like anything like that. Those allegations just aren't present. But
Speaker 1: there's not a good reason why, as a teacher and
Speaker 1: an adult you become a frequent presence at high school parties. Like,
Speaker 1: there's not a non creepy way for that to happen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're not there because you're just you
Speaker 4: really get on with these No, you're in part like there,
Speaker 4: You're you're really lit up intellectually from the conversation at
Speaker 4: the drink party.
Speaker 1: I don't think so the best case scenario is like
Speaker 1: you have no friends and no sense of judgment. Uh,
Speaker 1: and yeah, yeah, feel like you get her along better
Speaker 1: with people who have less life experience.
Speaker 3: Because it's not even like this is like his hometown
Speaker 3: or something. No, like oh I knew like, oh I
Speaker 3: was a senior and this was a sophoire.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they were like they were yeah freshmen or whatever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like a new town and you're like hanging out.
Speaker 3: Yeah god no.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: One of the sources that I'm going to continue to
Speaker 1: quote from that Times article, two former students, both women,
Speaker 1: remembered him attending at least two parties where alcohol was served,
Speaker 1: but they said that the parties took place after graduation
Speaker 1: and that they were not bothered by his presence at
Speaker 1: the time, although they question it now. It was his
Speaker 1: first job out of yet he was cute. We didn't
Speaker 1: really think too much about it. Yeah, you kid, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's why it's the adult's responsibility to wed. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: mister D shows up at a lot of parties.
Speaker 3: He's always taken a pictures.
Speaker 4: They're like, mister D's not a normal teacher, he's a
Speaker 4: cool tool.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: But then like five years later they're like, oh no.
Speaker 3: Wait yeah right, because it's also not even like high
Speaker 3: school like in twenty twenty, where like that is kind
Speaker 3: of like understood. It's like, no, this now that's weird.
Speaker 3: It's weird.
Speaker 5: Yeah, lots changed in the last twenty years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, good for that changing at least, yes, and
Speaker 3: hasn't changed any.
Speaker 1: It also hasn't changed it. So after this really creepy
Speaker 1: gap year, he enrolls in Harvard Law School. Again. He's
Speaker 1: doing this because he is trying to maximize his chance
Speaker 1: of like being accepted as a member of like the
Speaker 1: upper crust concert to get intelligence, rule the club.
Speaker 5: You want to be a part of the illuminati, you
Speaker 5: gotta do the game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you got to do the gig. He claims
Speaker 1: now that he decided to go to Harvard because he
Speaker 1: was motivated by Tom Cruise's performance and a few good men,
Speaker 1: and yeah, like Tom's character. He became a judge advocate general,
Speaker 1: joins the Navy, and gets deployed to Iraq as a
Speaker 1: lawyer with a seal team. Now, because the Navy Seals
Speaker 1: have the reputation that they have among conservatives, Ron has
Speaker 1: attempted to beate. He's basically like claim like he will
Speaker 1: always say I deployed with the Seals, which is technically accurate,
Speaker 1: but he's clearly trying to like, like he's a lawyer,
Speaker 1: his job is when they go shoot people, to be like, yep,
Speaker 1: you're allowed to shoot these people like that. That's why
Speaker 1: what he was doing. He makes a big point about
Speaker 1: this now in all of his campaign events. He told
Speaker 1: a voter in New Hampshire this July, I'm the only
Speaker 1: veteran running out of all these candidates. Yeah, I'll be
Speaker 1: the first president elected since nineteen eighty eight who's actually
Speaker 1: served in a war. Now, that is true. Although he
Speaker 1: was not out, you know, getting shot at or doing anything.
Speaker 1: He was looking at paperwork. He was being a lawyer.
Speaker 1: He was also not universally popular among his comrades at
Speaker 1: the time. From the New Yorker quote, a colleague who
Speaker 1: served with DeSantis remembered Ron was a voracious worker, and
Speaker 1: he worked at phenomenal speed. He was a superb writer,
Speaker 1: especially for his age. But even then his ambitions seemed consuming.
Speaker 1: Ron's a user. The former colleague told me, you had
Speaker 1: utility to him. He would be nice to you. If
Speaker 1: you didn't, he wouldn't give you the time of day.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I gotta say this is a little controversial,
Speaker 4: but I hate people like that, I really do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, bold, bold plenty, of.
Speaker 5: Course he is. And it's like, yeah.
Speaker 3: This is also it's interesting because I mean, sure, we'll
Speaker 3: get into this, but it's that a lot of these
Speaker 3: elements are very heavily reflected in his governance. Yes, absolutely
Speaker 3: everything about how he approaches politics. And yeah, it's not
Speaker 3: a good guy. No bad bad meatball.
Speaker 1: Yeah, bad meatball. Now you know what is a good meatball? Like, Yeah, oh, man, bison,
Speaker 1: you can make a fine bison meatball. You guys, what
Speaker 1: my uh my, my wild game meat recipe that I
Speaker 1: that I that I It's great if you've got like
Speaker 1: wild boar uh, you know, anything that's like kind of
Speaker 1: get get you know, if you've got like a bunch
Speaker 1: of ground up boar meat or whatever.
Speaker 3: Anything anything for like uh, impossible beef.
Speaker 1: You could you could do this with impossible beef. You
Speaker 1: could do this with like ground venison. I would get
Speaker 1: I would take a pound of ground venison, a pound
Speaker 1: of ground boar meat and mix them together with a
Speaker 1: whole sleeve of saltine crackers. Just crumble up in there.
Speaker 1: You crack one maybe two eggs in, stir it all together.
Speaker 1: Then you baste it with either barbecue sauce or ketchup,
Speaker 1: and you bake that ship in the oven. Uh, and
Speaker 1: you cook yourself a delicious meat loaf. It's perfect like food.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Like when do we roll the meat loaf into balls?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: I see no, no, no meat loaf.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 1: But because the loaf is the loaf is the strongest
Speaker 1: shape in nature, you could do a meat loaf ball, Katie.
Speaker 1: You could chop up meat loaf.
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, that just sounds like a nice thing for.
Speaker 3: You know, It's like it's like the crab shape, how
Speaker 3: like it sort of independently appears in all all across nature.
Speaker 3: The loaf appears all across.
Speaker 5: So question, were we about to throw to ads?
Speaker 3: Yes, okay, yeah, that's what this whole thing is about.
Speaker 1: Okay, yes, yes, here's an ad Ah. We're back. And
Speaker 1: I wanted to delay this next part because it's horrible
Speaker 1: because after being in Iraq, Ron gets stationed in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Now,
Speaker 1: this is by far the most contentious part of his backstory,
Speaker 1: and so I will be very careful in my phrasing here.
Speaker 1: In a two thousand and six interview with CBS, Decantists
Speaker 1: told his interviewer that at one point, several prisoners launched
Speaker 1: a hunger strike while he was at Guantana. He says
Speaker 1: that his commanding officer asked him, how do I combat this?
Speaker 1: And Ron answered, Hey, you can actually force feed. Here's
Speaker 1: what you can do. Here's kind of the rules for that. Now,
Speaker 1: there's some questionable elements of this recollection because force feeding
Speaker 1: started at Guantanamo somewhat slightly before Desanta's actually got sent there,
Speaker 1: So he's probably exaggerating in order to take credit for
Speaker 1: this what is torture?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: This is torture we're talking about.
Speaker 3: I actually invented a fun new way to torture people.
Speaker 1: Yes, hurting them was my idea. Ultimately, the Pentagon authorized
Speaker 1: force feeding. Detainees would be strapped to a chair, a
Speaker 1: nurse would force a lubricated tube down their nose and
Speaker 1: then would pump in nutritional supplements. Lawyers for detainees have
Speaker 1: argued that this was torture because force feeding is banned
Speaker 1: by a UN Convention against torture. Former inmates now released
Speaker 1: have accused DeSantis of having played a role in their torture.
Speaker 1: Mansour a Day wrote an article for Al Jazeera and
Speaker 1: described meeting DeSantis, who initially told him that he was
Speaker 1: at Guantanamo to ensure that prisoner's rights were respected. Quote.
Speaker 1: I remember him asking why we were all still on
Speaker 1: hunger strike. We told him to look around. Camp Delta
Speaker 1: was constructed from metal shipping containers, divided into cages with
Speaker 1: wire mesh. In the summer, the cages were like ovens.
Speaker 1: In the winter, they were cold and wet. They were loud,
Speaker 1: with huge fans and the echoes of all the men's voices.
Speaker 1: There was the persistent harassment by guards, desecration of Koran's
Speaker 1: non existent medical care systematic torture, and being cut off
Speaker 1: completely from the outside world. We told Dasantis we were
Speaker 1: on hunger strike because we wanted to know why we
Speaker 1: were being imprisoned, because we wanted a fair judicial process
Speaker 1: to prove our innocence. He took notes. He promised to
Speaker 1: register our complaints. Now Ron may or may not have
Speaker 1: registered their complaints, we don't know, but it had no
Speaker 1: impact on what happened next. Days later, a day fee
Speaker 1: was brought back to the wreck yard where nurses and
Speaker 1: Navy corman which is Navy medicisent were waiting with a
Speaker 1: restraint chair in several cases of insure. Ron de Santis
Speaker 1: and other JAG officers stood nearby observing quote. I was
Speaker 1: informed that the US government was determined to break the
Speaker 1: hunger strike. The doctor in charge, a colonel, told me
Speaker 1: that he did not care if I was innocent or
Speaker 1: protesting mistreatment. He was there for one thing to make
Speaker 1: me eat. I refused and was immediately and violently strapped
Speaker 1: into the chair so tightly that I could not move.
Speaker 1: A nurse forced a thick tube into my nose and
Speaker 1: down my throat, My nose bled, and the pain was
Speaker 1: so great that I thought my head would explode. The
Speaker 1: nurse would not stop. Instead, he began pouring insure into
Speaker 1: a feeder bag attached to the tube. They poured can
Speaker 1: after can into the feeder bag until my stomach and
Speaker 1: throat were so full that in sure poured back out
Speaker 1: of my mouth and nose. I thought I was going
Speaker 1: to drown if you throw up. A corman said, we'll
Speaker 1: start from the beginning with a new case and fill
Speaker 1: you up again. As I tried to break free, I
Speaker 1: noticed Dessantus's handsome face among the crowd at the other
Speaker 1: side of the chain link. He was watching me struggle.
Speaker 1: He was smiling and laughing with the other officers as
Speaker 1: I screamed in pain. Mm hmm, it is very upsetting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Cody,
Speaker 1: you got a good meatball.
Speaker 3: Joke, uh something about Oh no. But I did think
Speaker 3: when you were describing this it sounded like you said,
Speaker 3: jack Off.
Speaker 5: I get you. I did you.
Speaker 1: That's good. I'm glad we pulled out of this tale.
Speaker 4: Also, I mean, there's been some references to him being handsome,
Speaker 4: and I don't agree with them.
Speaker 3: They keep saying he's handsome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, subjective, but I know.
Speaker 4: But multiple people, there's been multiple suggestions in today and I've.
Speaker 5: I take issues.
Speaker 1: It is really interesting that a specializes, like specifies that
Speaker 1: that he's like getting torture is like, damn it. Guy's
Speaker 1: kind of good though anyway, peculiar the things that occur
Speaker 1: to you when you're in an intense situation.
Speaker 3: So A.
Speaker 1: Dafy was one of several former inmates who claimed to
Speaker 1: have recognized DeSantis. He was featured along with several whistleblowers
Speaker 1: in an unreleased Vice documentary. The whistleblowers include a former
Speaker 1: US Naval sergeant, Joe Hickman. So, Joe was on guard
Speaker 1: duty during a night when three prisoners, the ring leaders
Speaker 1: of the hunger strike, died somewhat mysteriously. Our government claims
Speaker 1: that these guys all, we had a suicide pack together, right,
Speaker 1: that they committed suicide. Hickman does not agree with this. Again,
Speaker 1: he was on guard duty that night, and he believes
Speaker 1: the men were assassinated to restore order and put an
Speaker 1: end to the strike, which was very bad pr for
Speaker 1: the US government. From a write up by The Daily
Speaker 1: Beast quote Hickman, who later contributed as a whistleblower for
Speaker 1: the Justice Department's investigation into the deaths, recalled to Santis
Speaker 1: as popular and extremely handsome. So here we go again.
Speaker 1: Balls would go crazy. No, I'm not, I swear to God,
Speaker 1: I'm not. I'm not adding a like, it's just a
Speaker 1: thing that comes up with like all everyone from these
Speaker 1: girls at this, at the school he taught at to
Speaker 1: this sergeant to the duty was tort helping to torture
Speaker 1: all mention this. I don't I don't get it, but
Speaker 1: it's it's like an undeniable thing you have to you
Speaker 1: have to acknowledge it, Like yeah, yeah, I agree, I
Speaker 1: I do agree. For the record, I I don't understand this,
Speaker 1: and it makes me question my own sanity. It's like,
Speaker 1: it's like fucking being best friends with Jimmy Stewart in
Speaker 1: that movie where he sees the giant rabbit and you're
Speaker 1: just like, they're really a rabbit. Like he's so consistent
Speaker 1: about this.
Speaker 3: What am I missing?
Speaker 1: Yeah, fucking Harvey somewhere around here. Yeah, great movie, by
Speaker 1: the way, Harvey, fucking absolute classic. Yeah classic. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm going to continue that quote. Navy girls would go
Speaker 1: crazy over him, Hickman said, although he added that he
Speaker 1: doesn't believe DeSantis, who became a jag straight out of
Speaker 1: Harvard law. I'd argue he's been a jag forever, would
Speaker 1: have been in the room that night. They weren't going
Speaker 1: to give somebody like that that kind of responsibility, Hickman
Speaker 1: said in the transcript. So that Vice documentary was canceled
Speaker 1: at the last minute for very shady but unclear reasons.
Speaker 1: It seems likely that it was killed to avoid angering
Speaker 1: a potential future president out of cowardice at the highest
Speaker 1: levels of a failing media company. But I just really
Speaker 1: have nothing more to say because it's unclear still at
Speaker 1: this point. In the spring of two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: Ron met his future wife, Casey, at a driving range
Speaker 1: at the University of North Florida, again not flow Rida.
Speaker 1: He and his wife did not meet on flow Rida. Again.
Speaker 3: Get we got that.
Speaker 1: The subreddit fills with confusion every time we mentioned this,
Speaker 1: so I just want to make sure we're really keeping
Speaker 1: it straight. It is from this period that we get
Speaker 1: our only context on Ron's flirtation techniques, which I know
Speaker 1: everyone's very excited to learn about.
Speaker 3: How does the handsome man flirt?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna read you.
Speaker 2: How are you gonna regret asking that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is how he opens with his future wife. Hello,
Speaker 1: somebody left these balls behind? Would you like to have them? Y? No, golf,
Speaker 1: it's a driving rage. Yeah, balls, Yeah, very very funny.
Speaker 1: This works on Casey and their first date is that
Speaker 1: evening at Beef o Brady's, which is apparently a restaurants.
Speaker 3: I'd like balls. Some people say I'm very handsome.
Speaker 1: Some people this guy I tortured. I'm very handsome.
Speaker 3: This guy tortured and teenage girls. He's got a.
Speaker 1: Poster in his like like, I imagine his apartment is
Speaker 1: completely empty aside from a pillow and a blanket on
Speaker 1: the floor and a poster he made that says like
Speaker 1: people who think I am attractive guys I tortured at
Speaker 1: Guantadamo teenagers.
Speaker 3: Sergeant you question? Mark? Uh?
Speaker 1: Great?
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 1: Jill Casey Black, usually called Casey, had grown up in Troy, Ohio,
Speaker 1: one of two daughters of an optometrist and a speech pathologist.
Speaker 1: She had also been an active student athlete and had
Speaker 1: done very well in school. She went to the University
Speaker 1: of Charleston and graduated with a degree in economics and
Speaker 1: French She competed as an equestrian and had started a
Speaker 1: promising career as a reporter and on screen talent for
Speaker 1: the local Jacksonville station wj t x U. The one
Speaker 1: story I found of her as a as a TV
Speaker 1: reporter is that there was a story about an alligator
Speaker 1: that had gotten into a suburban neighborhood, which she described
Speaker 1: as a story with real teeth if you're if you're
Speaker 1: curious as to the level of rigor she brought to
Speaker 1: journalism as a profession.
Speaker 3: You know what they call getting a degree in economics
Speaker 3: and French?
Speaker 1: What's that?
Speaker 3: Monet? Okay, studying monette. No, studying monette.
Speaker 1: You're proud of yourself, aren't you. Yeah, studying money. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we get it.
Speaker 3: It's like wait, wait, wait, we get it.
Speaker 1: No yeah, good, good one, Thank you, good one, buddy.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So they get hitched in two thousand and nine at
Speaker 1: Disney World.
Speaker 4: Oh now, how about that?
Speaker 1: That is funny because of the war he's going to
Speaker 1: have with Disney later.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: By all accounts, it's not a very Disney Disney wedding.
Speaker 1: There's not like Mickey or any characters hanging around. They
Speaker 1: go to Epcot after, which is like the least Disney
Speaker 1: thing to do at Disney World. I think it's more
Speaker 1: of a rich Florida people thing than a Disney super
Speaker 1: fan thing, right, like Disney World's just.
Speaker 3: Yay, Yeah you got to get you get the photos. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: oh I got the prince is here and the other prince.
Speaker 3: Oh the Prince is over there.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. Uh so.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The two are a famously power couple in Florida politics,
Speaker 1: where Ron is tight lipped and reserved and introverted. Casey
Speaker 1: is an extrovert. She's going to do when he runs
Speaker 1: for office. She does a lot of on the ground campaigning,
Speaker 1: even like knocking on doors for him. She does a
Speaker 1: lot of introducing him at evinsign stuff like. She is
Speaker 1: the talker of the two of them.
Speaker 5: She's more likable.
Speaker 3: Here's my weird husband by far. Yeah, here's handsome. Look
Speaker 3: at me.
Speaker 5: Just look at him. Don't listen to his word.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll talk. I'm attractive and charismatic. Please ignore my
Speaker 1: husband's words.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I studied money in college.
Speaker 1: Yeah, way to go, Cody. So these ambitions and she is,
Speaker 1: you know, the two are, by all accounts, deeply in
Speaker 1: love and partners in Ron's political ambitions, and those ambitions
Speaker 1: would become evident for the first time in twenty twelve
Speaker 1: when Ron noticed that the newly drawn sixth district in
Speaker 1: Florida had again not flow Rida, Florida had an open
Speaker 1: campaign for Congress. It was a tweener district in between
Speaker 1: Jacksonville and Orlando and had no incumbent. Because of the
Speaker 1: demographics of the district, it would be a guaranteed win
Speaker 1: for any Republican who could win the nomination. With Casey
Speaker 1: at his side, meetball Ron decided he was going to
Speaker 1: be that Republican and we will talk about that and
Speaker 1: his rise to power in part two.
Speaker 3: God, here's also something to say about the phrase tweener district.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Ron's yeah, it's uncomfortable to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, tweens. Yeah yeah. His wife is age appropriate though,
Speaker 3: so good for that.
Speaker 1: That is good. Yeah, yeah, yeah he is. He is
Speaker 1: married to an adult. That's positive shows growth.
Speaker 4: Mm.
Speaker 5: I'd like to end things on a positive note.
Speaker 3: Yeah, modern politics.
Speaker 5: Yeah great, Well, thanks for having us here for this.
Speaker 1: Yeah. How you feeling, guys?
Speaker 3: I feel excited to see Meet ball Ron up on stage.
Speaker 3: Just yeah, you know, just being around, just just being himself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just be and just you, just be yourselves. You know,
Speaker 1: if you are a relentlessly dedicated psychopath who wants to
Speaker 1: become the president purely for reasons of self gratification, don't
Speaker 1: let anything stop you, you know, relentlessly craft a life
Speaker 1: towards that goal. Uh and and proceed on a rocket
Speaker 1: ship like course towards it until fucking Biff Tannon calls
Speaker 1: you meetball Ron and utterly and iholates all of your
Speaker 1: dreams in a single shot back to the Earth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like the Death Star shooting a taxi cab.
Speaker 3: Just absolutely wiped out some taxi.
Speaker 1: Hands, some taxi cab. Anyway, you guys got some plugs.
Speaker 5: Sure you got shows?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, we got shows. Yeah, check us out. We
Speaker 3: got a YouTube show called some more News. It's also
Speaker 3: a podcast, and we have a companion podcast called even
Speaker 3: more News.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah you do.
Speaker 3: Hell yeah, we do gues. I've got oh we've got
Speaker 3: a Patreon for that as well, Patreon dot com. S
Speaker 3: hast some more News. I've got a band called the
Speaker 3: Hot Shapes. It has an album out now. Check it
Speaker 3: out on band camp and SoundCloud. The Hot Shapes dot
Speaker 3: band camp dot com.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we do.
Speaker 4: Work with this out where we split up the plugs
Speaker 4: because yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Got it all well, you said, you said, Cody go,
Speaker 3: so I did. But then I was like, well, O,
Speaker 3: Katie's not going to want to plug my band.
Speaker 4: Oh you're right, Yeah, I agree with what he said,
Speaker 4: but also I do want to plug his band.
Speaker 5: Go ahead, listen to.
Speaker 4: His yeah stuff. Check it out, all right, the next
Speaker 4: episode probably.
Speaker 1: Yeah, see you next episode. You can find us at
Speaker 1: Cooler Zone Media. If you want to get this without ads,
Speaker 1: you can subscribe, and uh, I'm gonna I'm gonna also
Speaker 1: put in a free plug for a YouTube channel that
Speaker 1: I like. Just just google Bobby Fingers YouTube. Watch the
Speaker 1: watch the Steven Sagall video first. You'll be pleasantly surprised.
Speaker 1: All right, no, no, no, this is just like my
Speaker 1: favorite thing that exists. This this artist. I don't know
Speaker 1: why he doesn't have tody. You need to you need
Speaker 1: to watch these videos. Bobby Fingers.
Speaker 3: Okay, I don't know, I don't know. I'm not familiar
Speaker 3: with this, but the thumbnails.
Speaker 1: Are Yes, I have no way to describe this to you.
Speaker 1: There's three videos so far. Watch the one about Steven Seagal.
Speaker 1: That's all I'll tell you listeners. I have no affiliation
Speaker 1: with this guy.
Speaker 4: I just love him, all right, all right, looking forward
Speaker 4: to that support.
Speaker 3: Supporting Bye Bye.
Speaker 2: Bye Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website coolzonemedia
Speaker 2: dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
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