WEBVTT - Part One: Joe Arpaio: America's Favorite Concentration Camp Operator 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:07.600 What's torturing my people who have not, in most cases 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:12.039 committed a crime or at least been convicted of it. Ah, 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:15.400 Jesus ship, that was a bad introduction. Um, this is 0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:20.560 Behind the Bastards, the podcast that is incompetently introduced and 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:25.120 competently produced by by my producer Sophie. I'm Robert Evans, 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:29.400 the weak link in this in this chain. UM, here 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:34.920 to talk with my guests this week. Noah shacked. Mean, Noah, 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:38.000 how are you doing? What's up? Man? That intro really 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:41.519 was fucking deplorable. Yeah, it was horrible. It was horrible. 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:44.040 I was going to start with what's concentrating my camps? 0:00:44.040 --> 0:00:48.920 But I figured that I should have dove in. I 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:53.200 should have gone for it. Come on, Noah, you are 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:55.840 about to be fixing to be as we say. Where 0:00:55.880 --> 0:00:58.480 I come from the editor of Rolling Stone. You've been 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:00.720 editing editor in chief the Daily East for since what 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:04.280 two that's eighteen? Right? Um, We've used I mean we 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:08.080 I use Daily Beast articles constantly as sources on this show. 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:10.080 I'm a big fan of your work, have been for 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:12.800 a while. You worked at Wired, you were embedded with 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:15.520 the Iraqi the Bagdad bomb Squad at one point right. 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:18.440 That was a story you did earlier. In your story, 0:01:18.720 --> 0:01:21.520 you've done a bunch of cool ship. Um, a real 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:26.000 journalists journalist, uh, and now you're gonna sit down with 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:28.399 me uh and talk about a real shitty person. So 0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:31.399 how how are you feeling? Noah, I'm feeling great. I'm 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:34.520 feeling great. And I gotta say the the staff of 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:40.600 the Daily Beast are all like collectively huge fan boys. Uh. Um, 0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:43.680 that's great to hear. Fair, we were talking about the 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:46.480 show funck Boy Island. I feel yes, you know, the 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:51.680 Daily be staff is itself a fun boy island behind 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:55.320 the bastards. You could have just left it at a 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:59.640 funck boy Island and then never explained the rest of that. Yeah, 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:08.120 can't call hrmy now I'm leaving. Motherfucker's No. How do 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:11.240 you What do you know about a little fella fun 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:17.799 little guy named Joe R. Pio. Oh yeah, like that's 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:22.760 that's the right answer. Yeah, I'm like, you know, I 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:28.360 certainly know he is uh no friend to the immigrant community. 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:32.440 That would be a fair statement. I certainly know that 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:35.640 he has not been a model for m police reform 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:38.920 in this country. That would also be a fair answer. 0:02:39.600 --> 0:02:44.040 But I feel like he's always one of those guys like, Um, 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:46.800 I knew he was bad. I would read the episodic coverage, 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:50.360 but I always knew there was more. And uh, I thought, 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:53.600 if only there was going to be a multipart podcast 0:02:54.160 --> 0:03:00.440 that could explain to me exactly how shitty this motherfucker was. Well, 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:06.040 miraculously there is one, and it's it's this podcast right here. 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:08.160 And also, my cats figured out how to open the 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:10.320 front door to the house. I'm not sure how that happened, 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:16.000 but that death that just occurred, Yeah, yeah, they're probably 0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:20.240 agents of the of the Merricopa County Sheriff's Department. So 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:25.080 Joe R. Pio is interesting because he's at he's at 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:27.440 the crossroads of a lot of things. He will claim, 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:30.480 um that he's the guy who kind of provided the 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:32.840 blueprints in a lot of ways for how Donald Trump 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:36.360 organized and focused his not not not necessarily for how 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:38.720 he uh he won election, but for how he kind 0:03:38.720 --> 0:03:41.880 of responded and used the media. Um. And I actually 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:44.680 think our Pio is a narcissist, right like or that's 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:47.160 not a clinical definition, but he thinks highly of himself. 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:50.240 But I don't think that's an unfair statement. Necessarily to 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:51.960 make You can see in a lot of the way 0:03:52.080 --> 0:03:54.960 Joe uses the media through his career, a lot of 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:59.240 Trumpian stuff. Um. He's an interesting guy, and he's kind 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:03.520 of also at he's he's been. This guy's a long 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:06.360 career in law enforcement. He's the sheriff America County for 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:08.840 the twenty four years, UM. And so he kind of 0:04:08.880 --> 0:04:11.800 straddles a few different eras in the evolution of American 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:14.160 law enforcement to what it is today, starting with like, 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:16.960 you know, the the horrible, horrible crime spree that we 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:18.600 had in like that kind of reached its peak in 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:22.120 nine that's about when he comes into office. Um. And 0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:24.320 he rides that through to the start of the War 0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:27.880 on Terror and like the big immigration panics of the 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:31.080 of the mid aughts. Uh. And he stays in office 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:34.800 right up until Trump's elections. So he's he's an incredibly 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:37.719 influential guy, both in the way he uses the media 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:40.600 as a right wing politician and in what he is 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:43.560 what he represents as a law man. UM. So yeah, 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:45.760 there's there's there's a lot of good reasons to study 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:48.680 to our bio um, and also just a lot of horrible, 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:51.080 horrible stories. We're gonna try to balance the two because 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:53.680 I don't want to just make this misery porn, but 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:57.840 there is a lot of that in Um. Yeah, all right. 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:03.040 So Joseph Michael R. Pio was born on June fourteenth, 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:07.640 ninety two in Springfield, Massachusetts. His parents were Italian immigrants, 0:05:07.640 --> 0:05:10.360 and our Pio would later insist in interviews they came 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:13.560 through Ellis Island legally. He says this a lot because 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:17.040 he becomes a big anti immigration guy after a certain point, 0:05:17.040 --> 0:05:20.240 although not originally. Um. Now, it's true that his parents 0:05:20.320 --> 0:05:23.599 did immigrate legally into the United States, but the reality 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:26.800 of the situation is more complex than that. His father, Cerro, 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:29.600 fled Italy during the reign of Benito Mussolini in n 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:32.560 three for reasons that should be obvious. Not a lot 0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:36.640 of good reasons to stay in Italy in nineteen Um, 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:42.320 unless you're a really specific kind of dude. Yeah. I 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:44.440 mean it's kind of ironic, right, given who who are 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:47.080 Pio the camps? Yes, and given that a lot of 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:49.159 the people he's locking up are people who are fleeing 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:53.200 their own authoritarian leaders. Yeah. Um. And and Cerro comes 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:55.680 very close to not being let in the United States. 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:58.200 So at the time that he's immigrating to the US, 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:02.799 we have an immigration up. And so he sets sail 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:05.880 on a steamship that's leaving Italy alongside like ten other 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:09.440 immigrant ships, and everyone knows when they all set sail, 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:12.520 only the first one or two boats are going, like 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:14.279 the only the first couple of boats, the people in 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:15.680 them are going to be able to immigrate because then 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:17.640 the quota will no one else is going to be 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:20.680 allowed I legally. So that's and and like newspapers are 0:06:20.720 --> 0:06:23.800 covering the race between all these immigrant ships. Who's going 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:28.800 to get into be citizens? Oh my god, Yeah that's 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:36.719 the man. That's Yeah, it's a nightmare, just sitting on 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:39.080 a boat for weeks, Like it's a steamship, it's not 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:41.400 that fast, and just like not knowing if you're just 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:44.960 gonna get sent back to the ocean. Um sent back 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:50.400 to Mussolini. Yeah, it's horrifying. Um that said the President A. Wilson, 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:53.040 which is the steamship that Zero his dad is on. 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:59.360 Is the President Wilson? Like what it was going to 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:03.400 appeal to? I think I think that's what the Italians 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:09.960 were thinking. Uh yeah, we got the name of everyone's 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:14.600 favorite president. Uh that boat did win though. It was 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:17.760 the first of these ships into New York harbor. Um 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:23.840 and so yeah, so they get to be citizens. So 0:07:24.040 --> 0:07:26.160 Joe's family's story here starts with a hell of a 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:31.080 lot of luck. I mean, it's just it's just so crazy, 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:36.320 Like you, your family comes here on the dumbest of 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:40.280 dumb reasons, and it's like what they like happened to 0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:42.560 you know, hit a tide or hit a hit a 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:49.640 end just right, and otherwise they'd be back in, like 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:51.680 he's bragged, or they'd have come in illegally, right, A 0:07:51.720 --> 0:07:54.800 lot of people did do that. But he's like bragging 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:56.560 about my family did it their right. We was like, no, 0:07:56.640 --> 0:08:00.640 your family got lucky because racists were trying to limit 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:04.880 how many Italians could come into the country. Um. Now, 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:09.440 Joe's mother, Josephine, was also an Italian immigrant. She taught kindergarten, 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:12.440 and she was the daughter of the publisher of Springfield's 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:16.320 Italian language paper. Uh Cerro met Josephine when he placed 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:18.440 ads for his new grocery store in the paper. He 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:20.520 starts a grocery store not long after he moves to 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:23.240 the country. The two were married when she was twenty 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:24.920 two and he was thirty, so he'd been in the 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:27.600 US seven or eight years at this point, right when 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:30.280 he gets married to this lady. They had Joe a 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:34.160 year later, and it was a horrible, horrible labor Um. 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:37.319 Josephine died nine days after giving birth to Joe R. 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:40.920 Pio of a pulmonary edema. The local paper called her 0:08:41.000 --> 0:08:46.920 death sudden and obviously a horrific thing for the whole family. Um. 0:08:47.120 --> 0:08:50.360 Decades later, when he ran for governor, Joe put out 0:08:50.400 --> 0:08:54.280 a kind of a biography as a very succinct biography 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:57.120 of himself UM on the early live section of his 0:08:57.160 --> 0:08:59.480 website Sorry when he ran for Congress, Uh, and he 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:01.760 noted that he had a quote tough start in life, 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:04.760 which is fair. Losing your mom at nine days old 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:07.880 is a tough start in life, to be certain. Um. 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:10.480 In his biography he claims that his dad owned a 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:13.520 small grocery store in town, while the New Yorker profile 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:16.640 claims he owned grocery stores. I'm not sure which of 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:18.199 those is more accurate. I really have been able to 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:21.200 find much detailed. They definitely paint somewhat different pictures of 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:25.360 the family socio economic status, obviously. Um. Either way, Cyri 0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:28.080 was very busy with work and did not have time 0:09:28.120 --> 0:09:30.880 to take care of his son. Joe was raised by 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:34.160 friends and family. Now Joe claims that he was an 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:38.440 accomplished athlete and an average student, but Terry Green Sterling 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:41.520 and Jude Joffey Block, who wrote a book about our 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:44.880 Pio titled Driving while Brown, paint a less pleasant picture 0:09:44.920 --> 0:09:47.600 of his time in school. Quote Joe R. Pio had 0:09:47.640 --> 0:09:49.760 a difficult time in school. He struggled to get passing 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:52.320 grades and often bore the brunt of anti immigrant taughts. 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:55.840 Dago wop guinea. He took it, pretended to ignore it, 0:09:55.880 --> 0:09:58.560 because that's what you did back then, he told us. So, 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:01.640 Joe suffers a lot of they immigrant racism as a kid, 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:06.800 which is believable. God, and the abuser the abuse becomes 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:10.320 the abuser. Yeah, I mean that is that is the 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:13.839 story here. Um, And it's you know, it's one of 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:17.440 those things. Um. He's definitely by the time he's grown up, 0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:19.640 the thirties were not quite at the height of kind 0:10:19.679 --> 0:10:22.160 of anti Italian racism, but it is still like a 0:10:22.200 --> 0:10:25.920 pretty common thing. And his family is working class Italian. 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:28.880 There's there's certainly a lot of bigotry that he's he's 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:32.920 growing up in and around Um. When Joe turned eighteen, 0:10:33.000 --> 0:10:35.440 he joined the army. There was a draft on at 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:38.280 the time, so this may have been more him accepting 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:41.560 in inevitability than doing a patriotism talked to my grandpa 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:43.440 was kind of in the same generation, and a lot 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:45.760 of guys joined the army because it was like, well, 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:48.000 if you join, you get to pick your branch, you 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:49.719 have some choice in what you do is supposed to 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:53.360 just kind of waiting for your number to come up. Um. 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:57.400 The Korean War started immediately after he joins, and Joe 0:10:57.480 --> 0:10:59.880 later wrote quote, I wanted a piece of the Act, 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:02.040 but his luck would have it. Instead of heading off 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:04.480 to combat, the army saw an unusual talent in the 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:07.040 young Joe R. Pio something other men my age knew 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:09.880 nothing about typing some instead of issuing the off the 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:18.040 Korean the army. But wait a minute. This like a 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:21.040 guy who purports himself to be the tough guy of 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:27.800 all tough guys, meaner the mean sheriff, American's toughish sheriff. Yeah, 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:31.200 he's a fucking typist. He was the typest. Oh, and 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:33.880 it's it's great there's some real questions because he brags 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:36.719 a lot about all the gunfights he's in as a 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:39.200 law man. Later and there's some serious questions as to 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:43.040 whether or not he's ever seen in coming fire. Um. 0:11:43.080 --> 0:11:45.960 And this is like, obviously there's no shame in being 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:48.840 a typist or whatever in the military, but the way 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:51.040 he frames this is fat because he he needs you 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:52.800 to know, because of the guy he is. He needs 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:54.959 you to know he really wanted to fight, he wanted 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:57.120 to see combat. But gosh, darnett, he was just so 0:11:57.160 --> 0:12:05.040 good at type um because I mean, it's America needed 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:09.880 as the North Koreans were coming down the peninsula and 0:12:10.040 --> 0:12:14.880 one thing they needed for the Incheon landing there was 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:21.079 one touch type mastered the Corty keyboard saved all of 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:29.480 those Marines at the Chosen Reservoir. My grandpa was in 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:31.760 Korea and he kind of like by surprise, he had 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:34.640 been stationed in Korea before the fighting started and he 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:36.520 was just there as a medic. He was there the 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:39.840 whole war. Um, And I think would have given anything 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:42.680 to have not had those experiences after he had them, 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:46.000 Like it's you can tell the kind of guys who 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:50.360 never got into it but built this image of themselves 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:53.160 as a tough guy and really wish they'd seen something 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:56.360 that I think had he experienced combat in Korea, probably 0:12:56.360 --> 0:12:59.080 would have wished he'd done anything else for his time, 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:03.599 because it was a pretty horrible war. Yeah, even for 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:08.360 wars COREA was really bad. Is that true about all 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:12.960 these fucking yes want to be fashismo types, right, It's 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:15.920 like none of them actually see any action. I mean, 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:19.400 with the exception of I suppose one Austrian. But other 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:22.320 than that, yeah, you're getting at Hitler that, but I 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:25.800 mean they really like they never see any action. They 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:29.080 just sit on the sidelines and and and you know, like, 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:30.960 oh my god, totally would have done it if it 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:33.280 wasn't from my bone spurs. He totally would have done 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:36.920 it if it wasn't for my fucking killing typing. You know. 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:42.760 It's it's this frustrating aspect of American of the American 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:46.120 hawk culture, where not that you you definitely do I 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:48.080 don't want to like paint it. There's definitely some hawks 0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:51.120 out there who saw some serious combat, but it's not 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:53.600 most people who do that. And the ones who I 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:56.000 think it was, I think he was Jim Jordan, who 0:13:56.040 --> 0:13:58.760 just posted a video of himself like firing a machine 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:03.280 gun at arrange and just looking looking miserable doing it 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:05.600 like he's got it braced in this like really like 0:14:05.679 --> 0:14:08.280 he's not. He's shooting it like somebody who's scared of 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:10.520 the gun he's using as opposed like none of them ever, 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:12.280 I don't know. They never pull any of this off, 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:15.880 like they all It's like it's like Ted Cruz trying 0:14:15.880 --> 0:14:19.280 to or or Jeb Bush posing with his monogrammed handgun. 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:22.920 It's like, you obviously don't and that's fine, you don't 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:27.600 have to like this stuff. What stop pretending? Stop? Was 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:30.200 Jim Jordan's in Like did he wear a jacket that 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:36.920 one time? To machine gun? Um? Opposing what? You know? 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:41.080 How like he never wears a jacket? Is this a thing? No, 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:42.680 I'm not aware. I don't know much about I think. 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:45.240 I mean it may I may be getting it wrong. 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:48.480 It may not be Jim Jordan's um, which case I'm 0:14:48.520 --> 0:14:56.560 I'm ashamed. Um now I'm googling Jim Jordan's machine gun. Yeah, hm, 0:14:57.480 --> 0:15:03.840 I see something about machine gun Kelly boyfriend. I also 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:06.520 think somebody has somebody backing up with a really a 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:09.280 loud truck. Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm calling from New York. 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:13.880 Never apolicize. Are we here to talk about trucks and 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:20.920 machine gun Kelly? Yes, yes, yes, but so yeah, Joe, 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:23.600 the way he frames this, he needs to let you 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:26.960 know that he desperately wanted to fight, but he was 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:29.000 just so good at typing. But he also wants you 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:32.320 to know that him being in the army like equipped 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:34.720 him with key skills that made him a badass cop. 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:38.280 So he continues after stating that the military had preferred 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:40.560 him typing and fighting. He goes on to write, so 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:42.600 instead of issuing me off to Korea, the army put 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:45.960 me in the military's Medical Detachment Division, where report writing 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:48.960 skills and interviewing techniques were critical. And this is where 0:15:49.000 --> 0:15:51.480 we get to a really interesting discrepancy in his background, 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:53.560 as will become clear Joe. As we've talked about Joe 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:55.440 as a real vested interest in wanting people to see 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:57.640 him as a warrior, but since he didn't do any 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:00.040 cool stuff in the army. In his own bio, he 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:02.920 uses that section to immediately pivot towards his career in 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:06.440 law enforcement, saying, the Army never got me over to Korea, 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:08.600 but it did get me abroad for a while. That's 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:11.200 where I was bitten by wanderlust. Little did I know 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:13.120 then that France would be the first of many foreign 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:15.440 countries where I would be sent to fight crime. After 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:17.000 getting a taste of what a cop would be like 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:19.080 in the military, I was discharged from the Army and 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:21.080 immediately signed up to be a streets cop in one 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:24.120 of the toughest cities in America, Washington, d C. Now 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:26.760 do you see the nonsense there, Because he's not being 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:30.200 a cop in the army. He's doing medical paperwork. That's 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:33.680 not he's not fighting crime in France. He's like filing 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:37.680 out v A forms and which is again a necessary job, 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:43.080 but is not anything like police work. What the fighting 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:50.280 crime by get their doctor disappointments right to make sure 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:55.680 that like their chlamydia gets treated in from it's very 0:16:55.840 --> 0:16:58.000 it's very funny. He wants you to like see this 0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:01.520 direct line that he's kind of like just building up 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:04.840 to be a great, great warrior cop. So yeah, and 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:08.800 then he goes straight to d C. Well not quite. Actually, 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:11.920 what he doesn't say in his his sanitized biography that 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:14.440 he wrote for his campaign is that he didn't immediately 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:16.760 go into being a d C cop. He actually attempted 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:19.119 to join the U. S. Border Patrol, but he flunk 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:26.879 to the entry test for the border which is I 0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:30.200 think the test is mainly can you hold a gun 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:33.000 in your hands? And are you angry all the time? 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:40.720 Oh my god. Yeah, I couldn't get in. Couldn't get 0:17:40.720 --> 0:17:45.160 into the fifties border patrol. Oh my god. So this guy, 0:17:45.760 --> 0:17:48.879 who like his family is an immigrant family, gets here 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:54.520 at a dumb fucking look. Then he can't even he 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:59.160 types his way out of fighting in Korea and Korea. Yeah. 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:04.399 Then he tries to kick it out on immigrants by 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:08.240 joining the border patrol, and he can't even do that. Yeah, 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:12.360 they won't take him. He failed, he flunks out. So thankfully, 0:18:12.600 --> 0:18:14.200 if you're not good enough to be in the border 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:16.560 patrol at this point in time, at least you can 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:19.480 still be a DC cop. And he doesn't do this 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:21.520 for long. In fact, over the next three years he 0:18:21.560 --> 0:18:24.200 has four different law enforcement jobs. Now, when he talks 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:26.360 about his time as a d C cop, he consistently 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:28.919 describes it as a black neighborhood, like he needs you 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:31.280 to know that was that was where he patrolled in 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:34.480 one interview, he admitted I was a pretty aggressive cop, 0:18:34.640 --> 0:18:37.080 made more arrests than anybody in the precinct. Not that 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:44.040 I was prejudiced. I wasn't prejudiced. We got three jobs 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:46.480 in four would you say three jobs? Three jobs in 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:50.960 four years? I think? Yeah, four different law enforcement jobs 0:18:50.960 --> 0:18:54.359 in three years. Yeah, that's not great. That is not 0:18:54.520 --> 0:18:58.680 a sign that you are you know, Jack Webb here 0:18:58.800 --> 0:19:03.240 that you are Sherlock Holmes. No, he's He's not Holmes. 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:08.320 On what I'm sure was a completely unrelated note, he 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:11.640 brags that he was the department's quote most assaulted officer 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:17.240 in nineteen A lot of people wanted to kick the 0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:21.400 shin out of me for the two months I had 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:25.520 this job. Yeah, he was not there long. He claims 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:27.919 that he was. He would have made detective, but quote, 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:34.560 the promotion rolls were backed up and absolutely Joe, Yeah, totally, dude, 0:19:35.280 --> 0:19:39.880 absolutely getting your ass kicked all the time, you're definitely racist. 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:45.440 You couldn't hear the roles were backed up. Oh yeah, 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:49.920 way back. He also says he was in constant pain 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:52.400 from being assaulted all the time. That might be true. 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:54.760 I do not have trouble believing he got beaten up 0:19:54.800 --> 0:20:01.360 a lot. God, I will believe that. Um, he decided 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:03.359 to move on next to the next police department he 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:06.760 would serve in Las Vegas. Joe's most prominent claim from 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:09.080 this time is that he once pulled over Elvis Presley. 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:12.000 Sometimes he claims that he actually arrested Pressley and took 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:14.520 him down to the station to meet other officers. I 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:16.960 do not believe either iteration of this story. I think 0:20:16.960 --> 0:20:20.199 they are both lies. UM never seen any evidence that 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:22.320 he arrested Elvis. Obviously, I think a lot of people 0:20:22.359 --> 0:20:24.720 pulled Elvis Presley over. Does not feel I can obey 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:28.840 the rules of the road guy, But Joe R. Pio 0:20:28.960 --> 0:20:34.560 also seems like a liar. Yeah, um yeah, Now he 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:37.560 was a Vegas cop for about six months when he 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:40.320 signed on as an agent for the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:42.159 and this is the job that he would stick with 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:45.639 for years and years. Uh. The officer the authors of 0:20:45.720 --> 0:20:48.560 driving while Brown Right, We came to understand that our 0:20:48.600 --> 0:20:51.439 Pio learned and the small drug enforcement agency then overseen 0:20:51.480 --> 0:20:53.560 by the Treasury Department, a lot of things that would 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:56.679 inform his tenure as Americopa County Sheriff. He learned how 0:20:56.680 --> 0:20:59.200 to assume a fictitious role. He learned how to self 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:01.520 validate by an a serting himself in the news, and 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:03.840 he learned how to create chaos on the United States 0:21:03.880 --> 0:21:07.400 Mexico border to achieve a political goal. In the early days, 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:10.120 Our Pio dreamed up tough guy characters for his undercover 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:12.679 work and jumped into those roles with Gusto. One of 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:15.480 his partners in Chicago, Bill Mattingly told us he and 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:18.359 our Pile went undercover, passing themselves off his pimps, looking 0:21:18.400 --> 0:21:23.840 for drugs to buy for their junkie whores to place again, 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:27.520 they say, is their language nineteen fifties so sixties, I 0:21:27.520 --> 0:21:29.639 think maybe at this point. To play these roles, the 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:32.480 duo tooled around in fancy cars that authorities had seized 0:21:32.520 --> 0:21:35.320 from suspected crooks. Are Pio smoked a cigar and dressed 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:38.560 in flashy sports coats. He purchased five dollar nickel bags 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:41.080 of heroin for the whores, after which he and Mattingly 0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:43.040 placed the low level dealer into the back of the 0:21:43.040 --> 0:21:45.359 car and threatened years of prison if the dealer didn't 0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:48.280 name his supplier. This earned Our Pio the bureau nickname 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:56.280 of Nickel bag, Joe, that's amazing. Yeah, not necessarily. Here's 0:21:56.320 --> 0:22:03.440 the part in why the elaborate pimp car cost Like, right, 0:22:03.640 --> 0:22:06.119 you can just buy a nickel bag on the street. 0:22:06.880 --> 0:22:09.320 I bought a handful of nickel bags at no point 0:22:09.320 --> 0:22:14.199 if I been wearing a pimp costume. Like it's like 0:22:14.240 --> 0:22:18.560 when he's like the James O'Keefe of the uh of 0:22:18.640 --> 0:22:22.359 the of the Narcos, Like, yeah, dress up like a 0:22:22.400 --> 0:22:24.399 pimp in order to do it? Yeah, you get that. 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:26.840 And I also think he wanted to he wanted to 0:22:26.880 --> 0:22:29.680 feel cool, like he wanted to drive the flashy car 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:34.280 dressed like a dressed like a fucking hip guy. Like. 0:22:34.680 --> 0:22:36.879 You get the feeling. This will come up later with 0:22:36.920 --> 0:22:39.199 some of his posse members. You get the feelings. Some 0:22:39.280 --> 0:22:40.760 of this is just like him wanting to have a 0:22:40.800 --> 0:22:43.639 cooler life than he did and the best way to 0:22:43.680 --> 0:22:45.800 do that is to bust people for nickel bags of 0:22:45.840 --> 0:22:53.000 heroin while driving around confiscated fancy cars and ship I 0:22:53.040 --> 0:22:55.280 feel like that's what's going on here. Wait, when you 0:22:55.320 --> 0:22:57.880 say posse members, do you mean like in the hip 0:22:57.880 --> 0:23:02.600 hop Like no, No, in the his as sheriff, we're 0:23:02.640 --> 0:23:05.119