¶ Billy Corben joins the Chuck ToddCast
And joining me now is somebody I've known a long time. We share a love of the Miami Hurricanes. We both grew up in South South Florida. I always forget exactly where you grew up, Billy Miami. I grew up in Miami. In Miami, which part of Miami.
On northeast mind, like just east of Joe Robbie Stadium. Right, you were sort of an Aventura boy. Well, Aventurer didn't exist, but we you were just we're between ninety five and Aventur and this sort of No, let's just let's put it in good Miami terms. I was a Dadland Mall kid and occasionally a cutler Ridge Mall kid. Were you yeah, my god, you lived in Guanta. My grandfather lived in p ri.
No, that is you are. Yeah, you're a Southwest kid.
I was very northeast and there were those were the two like get out, those were sort of the two suburban pockets.
Arguably, Yeah, and you would know there would be really little to no reason for you to ever venture to that end of the.
I know, going to north North part of the county is like going to Sarasota for me, Like it's just like could be all the same.
And now more than ever. In thosees it could take about a half hour. Now it takes about the mountains.
It might be easier to fly to Sarasota. But Billy, you are are like I said that, probably the definitive documentary slash film, because I think you're you're one of these documentarians. It's a filmmaker who does journalism. I would say, there's two types. You know, we know there's I just interviewed the the gentleman behind the new Orwell doc that's out two plus two equals five. And it's very much a filmmaker who does journalism, not just a bunch of
talking heads and cocaine cowboys. To this day does a better job of explaining Miami in the eighties than any other entity you can watch. And I think I think your success since then proves that. And I think you did do this and so you found there is so
¶ Men of War is basically "Bay of Pigs" for Venezuela
many rich stories in Miami to tell and you have another one, Men of War. It couldn't be more well timed. It actually came out last year. You can see it everywhere right Apple, Amazon, Yeah, anywhere you want to get this. It is about it's like Bay of Pigs, for Venezuela. Is that? How am I doing?
Like, yes, someone said, like Bay of Pigs. What they call it Bay of Piglets? But someone someone described it as Rambo meets Firefest.
Yeah, and I remember when it came out, when I first read about it, I'm like, wow, what this is interesting And I can't wait to talk to Billy about this. Now, all of a sudden, we we have our interview in the United States government. It's taken over. It's amazing.
¶ Men of War is perfectly timed for today's news cycle
Where so kind of like semi relevant on the verge of war with Venezuela and with our documentary about a failed coup of Venezuela that was what happened like five four years ago.
But so here we are. Tell me the story. And you know, in Miami you can always find somebody who claims they're going to be starting something somewhere.
Yeah, well, this is a perfect racking tour.
Our company Racin Tour, which has been in Miami Beach for twenty five years.
And you mentioned Cocaine Cowboys. It turns twenty next year. Next year is the twentieth anniversary of the first Cocaine Cowboys documentary. I made it when I was ten. It's true of course you did, and of course you did this.
And so this is what I love to tell people, by the way, why it's so, you know, because I have often that people you grew up in Miami in the eighties, you know, it was our cocaine everywhere, And I'm like, you know, it's the strangest thing. It was everywhere, But if you weren't involved, it was nowhere. And I literally lived next door to somebody who worked for one of these cartels, who couldn't have been a better neighbor,
¶ Cocaine boom was huge in Miami in the 80's & 90's
who was just sort of a like, And I didn't fully know it until after I left, how connected they were, and it was always happening and.
Right around us. But if you show if you weren't involved, you never saw it well in your doc cap sure my understanding of it even better.
The only.
Real world successful case study of Reagan's trickle down economics is Miami in the Cocaine Boom, because it really did the rising tide, at the risk of using a climate change metaphor, really did raise all the ships. And you saw that all over your neighborhood, but you weren't necessarily touched, like you didn't have to even be in the drug business to be positively or negatively for that matter, impacted by it. But it wasn't like this idea that drugs
were everywhere. Cocaine was everywhere, but the money, I feel was everywhere.
Like you like, no, I've always I've compared it to and I think we've had this conversation. What bootlegging meant to Chicago is what the cocaine sort of gang's cartels, whatever you want to call them, meant for the rise of Miami. We don't have what the modern Miami without these guys, just like you wouldn't have had the modern Chicago without the criminal element.
It's a gold rush. It was a gold Russian dodge city.
¶ Men of War is "Florida Man w/ international implications"
I mean, that's exactly what it was. So mena war this So listen when you know they had me at Venezuelan coop hatched in a we work in downtown Miami.
I mean, you have my attention.
You know this is our this is our genre, right, Florida fuckery, which which I can also sum up as like Florida man behaving badly with international implications, And that's kind of that's that's really what this is. And and what was even more intriguing about it for me is that like we always look for that irreverence and that comedy.
Dare I say in our stories especially.
There's like like Argo had this, you know, right, and you yours is real life the way you capture it.
It's a great guy.
I haven't heard that Argo is a great comparison, uh for for this and and it does it. It kind of starts out as this like irreverent, like geopolitical action thriller, but like by the Coen Brothers almost, and then it evolves into I think a pretty surprising character study and of this like of this damaged war hero and this exploration about like what happens to captain America's and g I jans when governments are done playing with them and in this case, they kind of are never done playing
with them. And this idea of like a generation of perpetual war or I should say, now multiple generations of Americans who are who were us trapped in a perpetual war, and then this idea that what do you do with these guys after we've invested millions of dollars in their training and their deployments. In this case, Jordan Gudreau, who is a legit war hero and you know, with with a dozen deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan starting literally at his age of adulthood, all the way.
And this is one of those does any human Can any human do a dozen right like I've done? You know, as you know, I love me a good document I
¶ The psychological damage of multiple tour deployments
promote festivals when I can. I've probably I've been, I know, I've helped with two or three of them, showcase these documentaries about how this stuff just totally damages guys after the third or fourth tour, and add doesn't I mean it's it's it's I don't know if the human brain can handle it, and and his could until it couldn't anymore. And it's it's really something to just see how we abuse these men and women when they come home, and by.
Abusing them just by doing nothing for them, like providing little to know, so.
We break them emotionally. We make that where they are incapable of just having normal interactions and normal relations. It's it's it's a but hey, this is Pete Haikseth's Warrior Ethos, right, Well, this is a human tragedy. And if it's if it applies to this guy, it applies to you know, mountless managed women, you know, coming back from the His grandfather was his hero, who fought in World War One, trained
soldiers for World War Two. But he describes accurately he went to war and then he came home from war and that was the end of it. This guy lived in war and would occasionally get a hiatus, you know, to come back home.
But for him, there was no home for him. It was Fort Brad was his home.
Because he was a Canadian kid who was kind of a rough kid in school and decided to go to the into the military early in Canada. Needed his mother to sign off because he was only straightened himself out.
That's always one of those, yeah stories.
One of those exactly.
And his mom had to sign off on it because he was only seventeen. And then he goes into the Canadian military and he's bored. He's bored because he knows he's never going to see any action and there's not a lot going on. So he decides to move to the United States and join the army the military here, and he does so less than one year before the
¶ The main character Jordan is a "post-modern" version of a soldier
nine to eleven terrorist attacks. And so he describes a scene at Fort Brad. He well, as he often does, He compares it to pop culture and to movies. He's he's kind of a he's kind of a postmodern soldier in the way the Sopranos were postmodern gangsters. You know, they're constantly referencing the pop culture that they are both like making new and emulating at the same time.
It's like it's life imitating art imitating life.
See how I described Trump. I say, he's a movie mobster. Like he's not a real mobster, but he plays a movie mobster in real life.
Yeah, life imitating art imitating life imitating art. It's like this, it's this. We're stuck in that postmodern cycle now. And that's what this guy. Jordan's constantly making allusions to James Bond. I think he has double O seven in his email address, you know, to Jason Bourne, to Rambo, to in this case, Starship Trooper. He wants to be a super soldier, is what you're sapaying. And he was for a for a time.
There's no denying it. And but like this is you were talking about sort of the mentality and and and what the human brain is capable of as a warrior.
And he described this scene comparing it to Starship Troopers where everybody cannot suppress their joy at going to war, like the fist pumping and the the high fiving and like we're going to war like so where the rest of us were watching, we can put ourselves in that moment, watching the Twin Towers on television and just the state of mind that we were in a shock of fear, of uncertainty. These guys on base were like, fuck yeah, you know that Team America, you know America.
Fuck yeah, Like that's going crazy, you know. But but again that's a mentality.
And and there's a moment where I'm like, fuck yeah, I want you on that wall.
I need you on that wall.
And by the way, there are times you want those are the soldiers you want there, you know, right, those are the guys you want out there if if shit's gonna happen.
And he is one of those guys. And they and he renounced his Canadian citizenship so that he could expedite his Green Beret, his Special Forces training, and so he could get the you know, the the access to classified you know, the clearance that he needed. And he was and he became an American hero like kind of overnight.
So how does he get into the world of trying to overthrow Maduroy.
It's like us, Chuck, when we're done with corporate media, we go, Indy, right, we go, we become mercenaries.
That's that's kind of well, that's what he became.
He's right, one of those mercenaries, right.
He wanted to be Eric Prince when he grew up, you know, That's that's what he wanted to do. And so he starts this company. Here's a deleted scene. You didn't get this. It's really interesting. He starts his company, Silver Core in like Sarasota, Florida, shortly after the the tragedy, well, the mass shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas implantation. He gets this one, I think is a very good idea many years later, I feel like Lindsay Graham floated it on
an interview someone. But Jordan's idea was that in order to make work and protect schools, he was going to start a company that took former soldiers, retired soldiers in plane clothes or in suits and ties, and was going to get contracts with school boards or public schools and systems and put these guys into schools as safety officers. Security whatever you want to call them.
Better trained than than probably regular law enforcement officers at least on that kind of stuff.
Absolutely, and also again like what do these guys do.
We've spent, we've invested as taxpayers as a military, so much money in training these men and women.
Why not why not get the roi, you know, so to speak.
And so this was his idea, and he started to go to like, you know, PTA conventions and school board conventions and started it never quite got off the ground, but that's where this started. And it evolved into an opportunity to go to Puerto Rico after the hurricane and do some hurricane relief and security efforts down there. And
¶ Protagonist accidentally entered Trump's high end orbit
then kind of one thing led to another and he winds up working a Trump rally I think in Tampa, Florida as security, playing close security. This is pre twenty sixteen so or during the time I should say during the twenty sixteen campaign.
And now he.
Kind of falls into some kind of upper level people in the first Trump administration, including this guy Keith Schiller, who was the President's body man from.
Miss Trump body man for he was the president.
Yeah, I mean it was, I mean, the kind of loyalty that this president demands the kind of guy who was not just by his side but in front of him, you know, uh, for decades at the truck organization. And so this guy is working for a company and they start having conversations about what they're calling humanitarian aid in Venezuela. I think I should maybe should I do air quotes.
I'm doing quotes for it. Yeah, video so hard.
I'm getting crympal tunnel right now from my haircut.
But like, but so there is some discrepancy about this we work meeting Chuck and whether or not it was about you know, humanitarian aid, or whether there was an overt conversation about regime change, and depending on who you asked. I think Keith Schiller said he was present for a conversation about humanitarian aid and if there was any talk about military or intervention, it happened while he was in the bathroom, is what he said.
So that's a direct quote. I know.
It's funny about all of Trump world, like that they're all well trained. Jason Miller was king of this with me. I'm like, I heard this, What can you tell me about this? And he says, well, I haven't heard it, but it's possible, you did, like would never rule it out like you don't because you learn in Trump world somebody. You know, every reporter has six people of in Trump world on speed dial, not just one or two.
Everybody's running to the bathroom.
You know, everybody's figured out. Yeah, you didn't hear everything, and you probably don't try to own everything because you won't. I mean Trump had literally two different political consulting teams looking at twenty twelve, and the two didn't know the other was working for him. Roger Stone was doing one and he had he had these other aunt Michael Cohen, doing another, and they weren't communicating.
Well that's how that's how you get the best intel I guess right, Yes, yes, accurate information. But this guy gets dragged into this scheme. The question is what was this scheme? Jordan comes along with a lot of receipts, a lot of text messages, a lot of video. Again, he was postmodern. He was kind of self documenting a lot of this adventure on social media, on private.
Sort of building, you know, just to protect himself or just because you just said he's postmodern, meaning this is just the way the world works. I'm gonna share it. All.
I think there was three reasons. One was self promotion.
I mean, you can see on his Instagram it's you know, a lot of you know, bad sort of you know rambo stuff, and hire me to help. We're the only ones who can help. Second is self preservation. He does indicate in the documentary that, as you know, being trained in the military, he's like, I should record, I should memorialize this to ensure that in the event that they deny my.
You know, the mission impossible style. Yeah, there was in his contract, because ultimately he signs a contract with this so called interim government of Venezuela, this Jan Guido character, who's an interesting Guido.
Okay, yeah, right, yeah.
So he signs this contract and there is this this kind of disclaimer clause, this mission impossible clause. In the event that you and your men get captured, we will disavow your existence, like any knowledge of of you, this contract to your existence, et cetera. So he was recording for that. And lastly, at some point, well two points, the funding fell through. His Parkers fell through at least twice that I know of, and he needed he actually
¶ Jordan needed to put together a trailer to find financiers for his coup
he made a sizzle reel chuck to go out to investors, to private investors to finance his coup. So the video that he would you know, he had some videographers embedded so that he could put together a trailer basically for his for his proposed coup, and go out to financiers.
And so those were the three.
The three it's very key Meani and for documentarians now that oh, I mean, you know, you went.
So much at access and footage that it almost felt like this was a ruse.
Yet there were various times when I felt like, is this guy.
Are you being played? Yeah? Were you worried or you were being played?
Well, I mean he is not the world's most reliable narrator, which I think is part of what makes this story so compelling.
But then when you're when you're.
Thinking this this is at its most outlandish, suddenly he produces receipts. There's text messages, Instagram, dms, emails, videos, audio recordings, and you're like, oh shit, I guess.
This really did. But think about your own experience in Miami. Is it shocking? It's you know, it's never shocking. In Miami. There is weird There is a weird amount of those type of people always in circulation.
In Miami, Florida rarely shocks me, but regularly disappoints me. So that's a good way of putting that. Yeah, and no, but you're right.
I mean, listen, the assassination of a Haitian president at the same time happened out of out of Miami.
It was basically planned out of Miami.
Well totally see, I don't think it the we work per se. I mean they had an Airbnb. I don't know, Verba, I'm not sure. But but no, I mean this is this is always right. My Miami is America's Casablanca, and like this is where and like I've always my pastime here has always been dive bars. I'm not much of a club guy because you go to a dive bar in Miami and you want to find the crustiest old dude you can find. I mean literally a guy who
¶ Shady international characters are common to find in Miami
just who just looks like, you know, a crustacean, like growing out a pile on sure.
And you know, way too sun dried, you know.
And he's like he's like attached to the barstool and idle up. You strike up a conversation and invariably you're talking to a guy that just left federal prison three days ago, or a deposed third world dictator or his son or what like.
You go to the publics and you're running to Bolsonnaro, right like that has one hundred.
That is like like just a thing. It's it's just a thing that in Miami and still is. And so these.
Characters are you could argue, are are pretty commonplace down here. So it's it's it's easy to doubt it and then
¶ Reception from the Venezuelan community for the doc?
it's really easy to go but no, but because Miami, right like, of.
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you need somebody to get your back. Check out for the People dot com, Slash podcast or now pound law, Pound five two nine law on your cell phone. And remember all law firms are not the same. So check out Morgan and Morgan. Their fee is free unless they win. So I'm just curious, what's been your reception in the Venezuelan community in Miami to this doc.
It's a good question. I'm mostly very positive. I think there was a lot of people who are skeptical about Wanguido and this interim government. By the way, that's why I want to be the fake president of a country, of an oil rich country when I grow up, because that is quite a hustle. I mean, being the so called democratically elected president in what are they like in exile?
But he was living in Caracas, which strikes me that, like do you not have to pay a viig to the dictator when you're living in like how dangerous?
Well, this is like Maduro's and before him, Chavez's genius. It was this weird way and it, frankly, it's a pattern Trump is following. And I'm I always vacillate by
¶ Everybody in Miami wants to be president of a free Cuba
how far down the road to go and the whole what is Trump and authoritarian and all this stuff? And and you know, I think he I think he's so lazy. He wants to be but he's too lazy to make it happen.
But either way, right, he surrounded himself with the right people to help, that's right, and he it is there's something about there's something.
About, you know, being able to I guess it was like, this is what the Shah did, right, we have these there's a there's a few other like leaders in exile from the Middle East or from African country.
It's it's the w W E.
Yeah, that's what I mean.
It's it's the Harlem blow trotters in the Washington generals. I mean, it's and what you're doing.
In some ways. What I loved about this is I have a feeling this is what the Cuban community was like in the sixties before you and I were born in Miami, when they were constantly somebody saying no, no, no, no no, I've got I've got all this land, I've got all this power, I can do all this. And I feel like that's what Guido and others do with Venezuela. Every now.
Oh yeah, there's always like a next the next president or the president of a free Cuba. Listen, Marca Rubio
¶ 1950s cars are the only private possessions in Cuba
wants to everybody in Miami wants to be the president of a free Cuba. You know, it's it's so so that's I think that that I don't know that well, I mean, I'd love to see that, but just just so I could go to Cuba. I've never been to Cuba. My grandparents used to talk about going to You never you never tried to go.
I went once.
You know what I went.
You know, I went to look in two thousand. I happened to be there during the summer of eleion, Oh my god. And I went through Mexico City. You know, my statute of limitations is up, so I fully will are you sure? I don't you know what? You know that just because just because the law should apply, it doesn't mean it will, right, And I'm really glad I did.
It is the greatest lesson of why communism is a failure that I've ever really And here's the here's the thing that sticks is stuck with me the most been twenty five years. There's a reason why those all those nineteen fifties cars are in pristine condition down there. It's the only thing you're allowed to own. Yep. You don't own your where you live, you don't own any of that stuff. So all of that stuff is just a pig style nobody. Most people don't keep there because it's
not theirs. It's just a government hand on all this stuff. But what they own, that car, that's theirs, and there is a reason why they're in amazing and it's just a it's my way of understanding. This is innate, you know what, no industrial revolution, it's the last thing probably yeah before and people saying having to whisper in order to tell you what they really feel. That it was an important experience for.
Me having grown up in Miami.
I grew up with a certain you know, conservative right wing think about.
And we both probably both did.
Yeah, I could never understand like for me like I was very much Yeah, I'm very much botherda ivida. I'm very much like I will go to I will spend my money in Cuba when it is free. When I am not, when I don't feel like I am supporting or buttressing that novel dictator, I will say that all the Cubans in Miami send money down there, and going.
I felt like I don't. I felt like I was there to help the people that are stuck. It is funny once you get there, you realize that's actually the reason to visit is to give them some hope.
¶ Chuck's grandfather worked in Cuba, had to display photos of Castro
Well, listen, I was always a big bill.
I've never really understood or not never, but as time war on, never failed to understand, came to fail to understand the wisdom of the embargo because like I thought about it, either like yeah, I thought like, well, free trade is probably the best hope we have, both to bring hope to the people, obviously to stop the suffering.
I mean, it's a humanitarian crisis there as we speak, and finally to to maybe bring a taste of American freedom and capitalism. I never really understood it, but I also felt very hardlined about it that I'm like, you know, I'm like, you know, Buck Fidell.
Because we liked we you know, we we liked our Cuban friends and neighbors, and it was really important to them.
But I understood, But I also like, I feel so much of it is like not been ingenuous, Chuck, Like, I like, I feel so much of it has been like if not a lie, then just certainly misinformation or probably well.
Yeah, I will tell you. I mean I had firsthand experience. My grandfather was an engineer. He moved. The whole reason my family ended up down in Miami was my grandfather got an engineering contract to build sugarcane plants to help with sugarcane plants in Havana in Cuba, not Havana, and so he moved his business from Iowa to Miami in order to go. And you know, we're one of the non Cuban Miami families that says, oh, you have no idea how how much wealth we might have had if
type of thing. But my grandfather used to constantly tell stories. He was living in the more rural parts of Cuba when he would go down there, and he had to keep photographs of Fidel in his trailer in order to make sure he didn't get harassed by Fidel's guys. And the point he was saying he had cia interviewing him and other American businessman saying, hey, what do you think of Fidel, and he'd be like, he's no better than Batista.
And it was like there was a whole bunch of American businessinessmen who who were like, don't trust this Fidel guy. And even as the CIA was working to overthrow Batista and thinking Fidel was going to be their guy. It is that is where there's an ingenuineness to this entire Cuba story, is the role that America played in getting Fidel into power.
True and the idea that's sort of been a sixty year battle of my dictators better than your dictator.
And basically that's right.
Yeah, I mean, my grandfather was in Cuba in nineteen sixty before anybody knew.
¶ Miami is misunderstood as a melting pot when it isn't
Who this cadell was as bad as he was right right, who this.
Guy was going to be and whose allies were He was in the lobby of the Hilton along with all the other businessmen looking for him.
He was like he had all sorts of friends and right, because it was like a presidential election in Cuba, except it was two dictators with their little armies Batista versus Castro, but they each had their funders.
My grand my grandfather was with a buddy or his business partner who was friendly with Rita Hayworth, and so they were sitting with Rita Hayworth.
Feeling our grandfathers probably knew each other and didn't realize it.
But feeling they probably did.
And so what happened was I said to Grandpa, I'm like, did you ever get an audience with Fidel?
He goes, No, he goes, But Rita.
Did, and because because somebody came down to the lobby
¶ Miami has self segregated its neighborhoods
there and to go get her, to get her and them, but they never came for my grandfather, and it's harder to have their meeting.
And then of course the ship hit the fan, and that was the end of doing business with Cuba, you know, Yeah, no, And that's why.
I just sort of is that the vet is is there that kind of expat Venezuelan in Miami the way there was those expat.
Cubans Jude Darrowzuela.
I mean, we have a whole municipality that you know, I I I often say that that, and this is true of a lot of major America, you know, diverse American cities, if I'm allowed to use that word.
The d word.
Then you know, there's a misconception that Miami is a is a melting pot, and we are not a melting pot.
¶ 60% of Florida Venezuelans voted for Trump, now leaving the state
We are far more akin to a TV dinner where sometimes the peas fall into the mashed potatoes, you know.
And obviously we'll.
Share the same county boundary. But my god, there's like seven ethnicities and nationalities represented within it.
And you better not get into a road rage incident until you see which flag is hanging from the rear view.
I'll tell you that right now.
I mean, and there's just self segregation. Listen in Miami Beach alone, in North what they call North Beach, every block, this is the Venezuelan building, This is the Brazilian building, this is the Argentinian building. Because one person moves there and then friends and the flag literally on the balcony.
The flags are flying at World Cup time.
It's very That's when you really see it was always World Cup tribu. Where is it? Yes, during the World Cup. I remember that feeling in eighty two and in eighty six, right when Argentina won, it felt like Miami blew up, like it was like the it was like why I knew we had some Argentinians here. I didn't realize how many, you know.
But Durau they call it Duauzuela because of the I think it's the largest Venezuelan population in the country outside of Yeah so and and I think sixty percent of them voted for Trump. Who are who are legal registered vote And now we're seeing the Wall Street Journal just covered a few weeks ago, there's like this peculiar exodus, like literally people leaving their furniture and their clothes and their belongings and just disappearing. Some of them going to Spain,
¶ If ICE targets south Florida, there could be a massive political shift
some of them leaving the state, some of them going back to Venezuela for crying out loud. So there's like this, there's a disproportionate number of like of vacancies in rental.
Units in Terurau, which has been growing exponentially.
There's at the starting price for a for a rental unit is much lower than it is in the rest of the county.
Well, they've made you know, they targeted, you know, when they when Steven Miller took you know, Steven Miller wanted to up the deportation numbers, and there were too many
groups that had temporary protected status TPS. Status, including Venezuelans for like a real reason, right, you know, you have a regime that will target these people if they go home like this is a real issue and they simply wanted to up their numbers, they take it away, and I think this is you know, look, I've seen those a few of those stories, but I think the Herald did one about we voted for Trump. We thought he was going to protect our people and he didn't. He and he goes.
I mean, I don't know that the President signed an executive order on March first of this year declaring English the official Language of the United States of America. They did,
¶ Marco Rubio = Anakin Skywalker? Preventing the very worst of Trump
we not get the memo down here?
What happened?
I mean, are we?
Are we?
I mean, if they're going to start hitting Miami and profiling and listening forive, I mean there's a lot of people or even people, if they are going after quote unquote convicted criminals, lot of our friends and neighbors who did their time decades ago and who have gotten out and have since been relatively productive members of society.
They do their annual check ins with with ice.
You know, they pay their taxes, they have jobs, their parents, their business owners, their homeowners, and if we're gonna say, oh, well you got convicted of something thirty years ago or twenty years old, forty years then I'm telling you there's gonna be there's gonna be a listen, it's really going to stabilize our housing market enough for US locals because we can't afford houses here right now. I mean, it's
¶ Rubio will be the fall guy for any major foreign policy failure
it doesn't It doesn't seem entirely productive to vote to deport yourself. And it also was surprising to me because I thought, what a fabulous moment in history to have our first Cuban American secretary of State and then to watch his soul leave his body in the Oval Office, sitting with you know, sitting with you know, Putin somewhere sitting with with with Zelenski, like just it's it was. It made me feel like so much of my childhood in my Miami education was a wy Like it's really.
I guess I still think there's a little Anakin skywalker in Rubio. And I say this, I'll say it this way. He keeps he keeps preventing Trump from going too far with Putin. He keeps preventing like it is it is.
You know what happens to Anakin Skywalker at the end, don't.
You I'm aware. I'm not saying the Emperor won't eventually get his revenge. Oh, is it not obvious that Rubio
¶ Administration is playing with fire in Venezuela
is going to be the Maga Patsy when all is said and done that when something goes extraordinarily wrong with all these blame the Mexican Yeah, they're gonna blame the guy who was not with them.
This is the beginning.
He is the guy that will be And whether Marco knows this or not, maybe he went in knowing this. He is going to be the fall guy for whatever foreign policy failure happens on Trump's watch. Be it this what's happening in Venezuela right now, what happens to you will he will be the fall guy. Look, he's got he's both National Security Advisor and Secretary of State and
the head of the National Archives. I never want to leave that job out in Craft Service, right, he's also with Craft Service, and he and he maybe the next
football coach at the University of Florida. Maybe you know so, right, this actually might be the time to get out, right, But he's going to be the mega fall guy because he's never been mega, right, so it's so obvious to me he'll be the fall guy win something goes wrong, because they're playing with fire with what they're doing in Venezuela right now.
I just this. I thought of him as for all the things I might have.
Liked and not liked about him ideologically and otherwise, I still thought of him as a statesman.
I thought of him as, you know, a responsible isten.
How many you know how many Democratic senators voted to you know, uh to to approve him and I.
They all bought it too, and I and I I look,
¶ Congress has no idea what the administration is doing in Venezuela
I will just leave you with the warning I've left my wife ten years ago. I'm still with my I didn't leave my wife, but I remember saying this to her ten years ago. Sorry, I said, be careful. You don't know who you don't like today. That might be the hero of the story down the road. And then within four years she's donating money to Liz Cheney, right like you don't know who's going to stand up when the chips are down.
Yeah, well, you can say, you can tell me whatever you want about your wife, because you know nothing is certain in this life except death taxes. And nobody's wife listens to their podcast, So so true.
She listens to the beginning every day. She tells me, I was.
Gonna say that you're enough of this us.
You know exactly do you want to hear more?
Right, I'm going to opt into this.
I hear it all all the time. I guess where I'm going here is I'm curious looking at your your doc now through the lens of what we're on the verge of doing. I mean, look, I'm just I cannot believe. I'm going to quote James Langford, Republican senator from Oklahoma, who is who said this weekend, if Biden were giving us the lack of insight into what they're doing in Venezuela, I'd be apoplectic. He's sort of admitting, well, because he's
on our side, I can't be upset about this. But Congress has no idea what the administration is up to in Venezuela.
And I mean, and Rand Paul is the voice of reason,
¶ The failed Venezuelan coup was memory holed because of Covid
and Marjorie Kaylor Green is the voice of reason.
All that.
By the way, there are real isolationists, and they're like, hey, he just.
Said be careful. You don't know who the good guy is going to be. That's right here, and yes, I think Rand Paul said it.
You.
A terrorist cannot be just whoever the executive branch says a terrorist is. And in foreign or international waters, we can not just be blowing up boats and fishermen. But what's interesting about this to your question is that, you know, a month before our world premiere of Men of War at last year's Toronto last Summer's Toronto Film Festival, we Jordan Gudreau, this.
Man who we had been embedded with and.
Spent years kind of documenting this misadventure, gets arrested by the United States, by the FEDS for arms trafficking related to this operation Gideon. This this this ill fated coup that resulted in two of his fellow compatriots from you know, the group from Special Forces being arrested sentenced to twenty seven years in a tropical gulag in Venezuela for for terrorism. Eight of their Venezuelan kind of defector military guys who
came back and they were killed. This debacle that got kind of memory hold in the pandemic because it happened right in the spring of twenty twenty. So this would have been a huge I mean, it wasn't big international story, but then it kind of got suppressed.
In nothing nothing has legs anymore. Have you noticed that, by the way, I mean, no stories have legs. We demolished the East Wing, We've already moved on. Now Trump has had an MRI that we're not sure about. Like it just it's astonishing our short attention span theater.
But so, Jordan Gudreau is scheduled to go to trial
¶ Feels like we're redoing Latin American policy of the 80's
shortly after the first of this year on these arms trafficking charges related to this coup alleged coup attempted Q.
I don't know what you call it, but.
His is effectively a public authority defense. Okay, what might otherwise be criminal is legally justified because I was doing this at the behest of my commander in chief of my government, which was then the first Trump administration.
I thought that Kevin Pollack character told us in a few good men that that didn't work at Nuremberg.
Yeah, listen.
Also it seems here he was more reading smoke signals and wings and odds and then than he was actually getting direct orders. Also, so like there is this issue of who exact on whose authority are you claiming?
¶ How has Jordan Goudreau not gotten a pardon from Trump?
Whose public authority your claim? But that being said, what he is the argument he's making is that there was every indication that Trump one point zero was looking at regime change.
You know, there was the beginning of the of the there was the indictment against Maduro and some of his generals for drug trafficking.
There was the uh, the the bounty put on.
His look it looked like we were redoing Noriega and Panama. Absolutely, I mean it looks like what we're doing now. I mean this feels like, you know, Trump is obsessed with the eighties, and it's like, how do I take Granada and Panama and do it all in one felt swoop?
Here we are, and I think that's going to be I think the current policy might wind up being I have no insight to this, but it might wind up my just the theory based on your you know, thinking about it on your question, might very well.
That might very well be.
Jordan Gudau's defense is, look at the policy of this administration. It was always this, It was always regime change. It was always take Maduro out, and that was exactly what I was trying to do.
How has he not gotten a part?
I think it's a really good grades.
I guess he didn't have the cash or he hasn't hired the right lobbyist, I mean lawyer yet No, listen, I think that he is certainly attempted to get the administration's attention as far as I know, on social media through other other podcasts.
I also don't know that. I mean, I don't know that what.
He's saying, though, is entirely accurate. So the idea that he's you know, because I mean think it was it. The Secretary of State at the time said, what was the line? The line is we had nothing to do with this. If we had, if we did have something to do with it, it would have gone much.
Better or you know, it would have been much more interesting.
¶ American intervention in Latin America never goes well
Uh uh successful, So I feel like it was. So I feel like Jordan is maybe not playing his cards just right because because he has it it was Pompeo, was Mike Pompeo.
Sorry, when.
What I call I call it COVID brain, So like it's for fore like I feel like there are words that are or names that are on a top shelf that I can see but can't reach, you know, like and then and then.
They come to this all the time, I have this all the time.
Maybe it's just my late forties. I'm not sure.
Yeah, well, I kept messing up. I keep wanting to call the guy who did this, or well it's Raoul Peck. But it's like I can see the name and I want to say something else and it's terrible.
And I was like, I'm talking, I know the word, I know the name, and then all of a sudden it stops. You know.
So the great question that all of us have had be in Miamians and I'm curious is which is, if Cuba was free, would have the population leave Miami and go back to Cuba? If Venezuela is free, would draw empty out?
What say you define free? So if we replace.
Maduro with a Malay kind of character, like is that for like like when you say he wants to do
¶ End of USAID is creating vacuum in poor countries being filled by China
like like it's the eighties all over again. The theme of our I think the running theme of our intervention in Latin America is puppet dictators.
Right is which is like the fifties and eighties all over again. And this, I mean, this doesn't end well for us. The last time I checked, everybody's number one ally in Latin America is China, not the United States. I find it to be the biggest, like you know, there's and this has been multiple presidents have just botched the western hemisphere.
Well look at look at Argentina soybean sales for crying out loud, I mean, and look at America first, Yeah, and look at what I The guy cuts my hair as a South African white gun and he's talking to me. One of his clients is very conservative Cuban lady several months ago whispers to him, says, come here, come here, you know, ear to ear, like a lot of conversations that Ventana's in Miami. You know you're ear to ear.
He is your family, okay, and my family in South Africa are because she watched a lot of fun And she says, well, of course they're they're fine. Why do well because there's the the massacre of the white the white genocide, you know, the white people in.
South and she and he goes, no, she goes, sweetie, that's a that's a lot.
But I heard Elon Musk and I heard the But he goes, no, no, that's a that's totally made up.
That's a total lie. And and he tells his to me.
He says, you know in the poor, you know, Black nations of Africa. He said, What of course is happening
¶ What does a "free Venezuela" look like in the Trump 2.0 era?
with the the end of US aid, he said, is that it's not just simply people dying and suffering. There is a vacuum that is being filled and gangs and men and things like that by care packages that say
from your friends in China. So when you when you when you have a lack of sophistication on geopolitics and diplomacy and you don't understand that that you know, what, what what good we do in the world, not just for the purpose of saving lives and protecting children and and uh offering vaccines and AIDS prevention and cancer treatment is not just because that's what Jesus would do. It's because we also do earn goodwill and allies in the world.
You're describing soft power, Billy, and we just and this guy has gotten you.
Know, we've abdicated, we've advocated.
Well, I mean, I mean it's ironic to call it soft power, and it's be you know, this guy because he's soft it doesn't want to use soft power and it's like dude, But anyway, sorry, I was going down a weird rule decide where I was.
This is the question, like, what what does a free what does a free Venezuela look like in this era of the United States of America when you don't necessarily.
Peace Prize winner as president, Maybe that's a real free Venezuela. She sees, sweet shit.
¶ Jordan Goudreau feels betrayed by the American government
You mean if Obama runs in twenty eight, is that what you mean for a third term? Is that what you mean?
I was talking about the new woman who won. But I take your point. I take it. Well, that's always the reminder I have of like, if you think Trump can run again, soa can Obama? You sure you want to go down that road? Maybe it's the ultimate showdown American needs.
I mean, I mean, listen, in a democracy, we get the government we deserve, and that is the election we deserve.
Chump. I think, yeah, probably it probably is. I don't know. Every time, every time I think you can't top what you do, this one is one of those that you're just like and it's sort of like life imitating arn't back to imitating life. Have you talked to him since the military campaign against Venezuela.
No, I mean he's in quite a bit of legal jeopardy obviously, I mean he is.
He nervous about talking to you now because.
His liberty is on the line.
You know, his freedom is on the line, and obviously
¶ Algorithms have ruined social media
he feels a sense of betrayal.
By everybody I imagine, right, yeah, and this is the.
Country that he's fought for and now and to do what this guy did in the name of freedom and democracy in the United States, to change the flag on his arm, you know, from being a native Canadian to an American war hero, and then to see the words United States of America versus Jordan Goudreau.
I mean he's having a hard time with it. Yeah.
It damages an already damaged psyche, you know, it does.
No, it's another way we're letting we abuse these soldiers. You know, I'm not sure, you know, I go. I've said this about social media in general, right, I think social media is a human experiment that has failed, and here we are, we're living with the consequences of It's a total I mean, what good has social media brought to the world. Well, we're friends, So I do miss
¶ Is Miami-Dade red, blue, purple or something else politically?
those first couple of years when we we were like, Wow, this is great. I get to interact with people that I've been meaning to interact with. But never had a chance to it was. It was.
It was a real community.
It was novel. Look, it was the first couple of years.
It was the it was town Square. It was what it was, as Adams.
It's the algorithm. What really destroyed it is the algorithms. Right, Like when we were organically building it, it was great when they decided, hey, this is so much fun, let's keep people on it, let's pee, let's actively get them addicted to it. It's like, you know, it an occasional cigarette might have been okay, it was smoking twenty a day. That was terrible.
Right.
It was the nicotine that right, it was the ninety nine percent pure coke was good. The second they started cutting it with fent and all that other shit, it started to get sort of but it was it was as advertised. Early on, it felt like that town Square. It felt like well, you know, like it went from Arabs Spring to like storm storm front.
You know, like very you know, and you know, in some ways, this this guy, it is sort of the transition right during you know, in Arab Spring, we were celebrating stuff like this.
You know, eventually it turns into this, you know, right, and it's it's not entirely pleasant. But listen to paraphrase one of my favorite Miami artists, the algorithm is going to get you.
Miami politics really quickly. What is Miami Dade County right now? Red?
Blue?
Somewhere in between? In transition it's I find Miami Dade's the most fascinating I think political community in the country, and in some ways it is it is served to sort of be both a precursor and a and a PostScript to what's going what's happening in the Trump era. You live it and breathe it, and you're very active in local politics. What would you describe the state of the political world in Miami Dade County as far as you're concerned these days?
Oh, it's redder than red, I mean. And is it an ideological red or a cult red?
Do you know what I mean by that?
Yes?
Yeah, the answer to either or question is affirmative.
I think because I well, obviously now there's a lot of people, or quite a few people who are having other ideas or adding second thoughts about some of this. Even though I think the Trump this second Trump administration has been as advertised, I don't know, you know, none of.
This is anything we didn't see coming. It was like, you know, you're just like, you know, we knew he would do stuff like this, but the details have been fascinating, but the general pattern was very pret Trump is a terrible poker player. I've always said I'd love to play poker with him because he literally holds his cards this way. I mean, he just flips them around so you can see him.
Yeah, and then and then lies to you about what he has. Yeah, and a third of the country believes it. On question, I mean, Billy I only knew he was going to knock down the entirety of the east wing. When he said he wasn't going to touch the east wing to build this ball, I'm like, oh, that's probably the end of the entire wing.
Just I mean sure, yeah. And that's the thing too, is that, like, there's this really interesting moment where you know, we're getting away this three hundred and sixty million dollar piece of property for the Trump Hotel and casino and also Presidential Library in downtown.
Just I can't believe this. By the way, this is
¶ Trump's future presidential library slated for Miami
where the Marlin Stadium should have been. But that's a whole other story.
Well, when they talk about waste fraud and abuse. It's like, well, I just I found some I mean you just you just violated sunshine laws in the state of Florida to secretly give away like this last piece of property that is owned by what was our community college. It's now a college. But like this is I think by student body size, is the largest college in the country.
It is. Yeah, college is for four year college.
Consequential to Miami both economically and educationally. Eduardo Padron, the president many years ago, what he had to go through to generate to raise twenty four million dollars to buy this piece of property because when you're in a landlocked downtown area, there's not a lot of room for growth, and so he wanted to preserve the future of this institution.
So they buy this property.
It's now appraised, not even a praise, but the property appraiser of the county says it's worth estimates it's worth sixty five people have said easily on the open market three hundred and fifty million dollars, and.
They they want to give it away like for free. It's it is the biggest land.
I mean, it makes the Melury Soccer Stadium hustle and the Marlins Park scam look like good deals in comparison.
¶ Miami is still a firm red county
By the way, I have no problem with there being a Trump Library or whatever. It's going to be just you know, in downtown Miami, but you got to pay some market value for you. I mean, especially if you're going to deprive Mini Dade College of its future effectively like and I also have no problem with the fact that it shares a lot with the Freedom Tower, which of course is the elis Island of the South where refew the earliest some of our earliest Cuban refugees fleeing the tyranny of If.
I were Trump, it's where I would want my library. It would be a symbolic place to go row.
I love it.
That the Deporter in Chief, the proud Deporter in Chief, is going to be I think it's like listen, I've been I've been sitting Shiva for irony for years now, so I think it's I have no problem with that.
It's just the For me, it's always the real It's Florida. It's always a real estate hustle. And by the way, a majority of Miami Dade County residents certainly more NPAs and Democrats than Republicans, but a vast which you're talking almost sixty percent are against this land giveaway. So there is a tied a sentiment on certain things that that is turning. But we are I mean, this is a firm red county.
What will be your canary in the coal mine to see if there's movement in there? Is that the one congressional race, I'm Jorona blank in her name real here is Salazar? Y Salazar, Yeah, who replaced Ileana.
No, I don't think.
I mean, listen, speaking of the Washington generals, the Florida Democrats are the Washington generals of politics. I mean they are unbelievable control that position at this point. I mean, they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity, so I wouldn't so, I mean, I think we've seen the canary in the coal mine. I think I think the Democrats are not a broken brand or a damage brand. I think they're just a dead brand in the state of Florida and certainly in Miami Dade.
I would love to see a John Morgan that was fifteen years younger running right like you know you could see. I just don't know if he's got the energy or
¶ Nothing is going well in Florida for the Democratic party
the or the ambition to do it. He talks about it, but I just think, you know, there's you could just sort of tell it's like I'll do it if somebody else will do the work.
No, No, he doesn't want to listen. He loves the real liar won't die as Trump did for a while.
You know, well, that's why you're like, none of us are fully dismissing it. You're like, well, the dude can write a check, and my god, those ads are he is in. He figured out how to create a fifty state law firm. Right.
I mean, his job sucks, the job of being Florida governor actually sucks. He's got a great life. This guy's got life perfected. John Morgan, what.
The hell would you want?
That's right, the.
Hell would you want with that job? I mean, but you're right, I mean, is it gonna be?
I mean, listen, he strikes me a little bit more as like kind of a blue dog Democrat, that style
¶ Trump is less popular in Florida than he was a year ago
of like miamas Mia.
When I've interviewed him, you can't once you spring up Bill Clinton. I mean, it's just like I'm brought up his first wife, the one he fell in love with, Like he just loves you know, that's what he wants the Democratic Party to be. Was what Bill Clinton was in nineteen ninety seven.
You know, I don't think that's the future of the party either.
So I don't think that that's going to be what is going to win the day here for Democrats in the state of Florida.
I mean, listen, it's a red state. I mean that's the bottom line.
Certainly Jerry manderdt into being that. So I don't really see. And again, there's no leadership here, there's no vision, there's just like just bad ideas. I left the party.
Listen. Donald Trump was a Democrat longer than I was. But I left the party last year with an open letter that was I said, this is not exhaustive, but it is thorough and.
Or not comprehensive, but exhausted perhaps and all hyperlinked. I brought the receipts, and I wish that was just over a year ago. And I wish I could say, I wish I could say that it's it's just as bad,
¶ Who wins the mayor's race in Miami?
but it's not.
It's it's worse. And how the Democrats could be worse off now than they were a year ago? When when when I think Trump is arguably less popular now.
Right now he is, and especially in communities like you know, if a functional Democratic party is all over Durra.
Well, absolutely functional being the key, No.
I mean, it's just your you should be there, you know. That's what the Republicans did really well when Democrats weren't in some of these communities. They showed up.
And and and stayed and and and yeah.
I mean, believe me, people in this community always say, you know, why aren't you here at church when you're not running for office? Why do we only see you once every two years or four years or what?
You know.
It's it's it's hard not to be cynical. Uh when when when? That's how the party operates.
But to be fair, they have no money, they have no leadership, they have no vision, so it's really hard to have any kind of consistency or any kind of I mean, look at the voter registrations.
It's it's unbelievable.
It's insane.
I mean, part of it certainly is transplants and and you know, people moving here, but but the rest is just bad.
This is this is going to air before election day next week. Who's going to be mayor of Miami City of Miami, do we care. I mean, it's a weak mayor, So it's you know, it's really more of a market It's like you're the it's like you're a marketing executive when you're the mayor of the City of Miami versus the actual work. But still it is it is. Uh, Francis Suarez showed you could make a ton of money being mayor of Miami, So it's good. It's good.
Uh, it's good business. Who's the mayor with socialism to hustle? No?
Yeah, like you said, the mayor of Miami is like
¶ Mayor's race will head to a December runoff
a mascot who thinks he's the head coach.
You know.
That's that's kind of what that position is.
Uh, they're really they're really a glorified hood ornament is kind of of of what know.
I mean, because the county does all it has all the power, all the money, all the every the city is is you know has.
You know, there's this city's opery budget is now over a billion dollars for as while city like four hundred and fifty thousand people. They were just absolutely stealing from us.
Yeah, and well, the fact that Joe I always look at it this way, The fact that Joe Corroyo never tried to go anywhere else, tells you it was just too much. Why would I leave a good thing? Sorry that dude, you know you're like, You're like Joe Croyle's been ripping people off since I was a kid, and he's just never left.
Joe Kroyo was the youngest to this day, I believe, the youngest city commissioner ever elected in Miami in nineteen seventy nine.
Think about the fact that they's never progressed because you know what, it must have been too good.
It reminds me it's like when when Trump said, like, like, if I ever run, I have to run as a Republican because they'll vote for anybody, and I love them. I mean, like he carved his niche. That's what Joe did. Joe Carl is unbelievable. Now I don't think he wins this marriage rate. What I love is the drama between Francis and Javier. So nobody, nobody's gonna win this mayor's race. By the way, here's a runoff, right, it'll be top two fast baby.
Right, there will be.
I think there's no question this goes to a December runoff. So now I'm just choosing the top two. And you are right.
Francis Suarez is not supporting his father in this well, his father is.
Literally when people talk about voter fraud, I always say, we actually had one. We had the most outrageous voter fraud scam ever, and it was for Javier Schwirez to.
By the way, I keep I've been, I will I will pick up when when when Xavier or Javier Suarez announced he was running, Yeah, which is it?
It's Javier now used to be Xavier.
It's I think it's I think it's either it's like it's a it's a it's sort of the English version or the Spanish.
I've always assumed Xavier because you and I grew up down there, and that's what. And yet he will use Xavier everyone and he.
Well he likes x because like it also because he's like you know, and then Francis is Francis x Francis
¶ There's historically been brazen corruption in Miami mayoral races
Xavier Suarez or Francis on Also. I think with the popularity of x men, uh, it was it was a good adaptation.
But he so I start reading about his run, you know, a couple months ago, and all the headlines and all the leads are Miami's first Juban born mayor in nineteen eighty five, And I said.
Big deal. I remember when it happened.
It was it was, It was the guy. It's nineteen eighty five, the guy showing up to debates today in a DeLorean with a flux capacitor, Chuck in nineteen the guy talks about every year except twenty twenty five.
It's unbelievable, So bless his heart. It's like, what did Jim Norton say? It that watching them, watching at one of the roasts, watching Norm McDonald do his set was like watching Henry fond of pick blueberries. That's what it's like watching Xavier Suarez and these It's like watching Henry Fonda pick blueberries and so so this. But I called all my friends.
In the media really pissed, because you know, this is a town Chuck with a transient population and a lack of institutional memory.
Oh my god.
What we need the local media to do is to when the city transforms as often as it does, to remind us who these dynastic political crime families are, what they've done, and what they're capable of. And I called them all. Nobody mentioned Chuck yes, they mentioned in nineteen eighty five. The first thing he did.
Was they didn't mention the absentee ballot. I mean, it's
¶ Trump thinks "asylum" means mental institution
the greatest chilote fraud we've ever said.
They didn't mention your last thing he did is mayor in nineteen ninety eight is get removed from office by a judge for absentee ballot fraud so bad in fact, that they didn't even order a new election.
They just gave it to the other guy. They gave it to Joe Corolla of all people. Well that was the reason. You're like, who could out corrupt who? It was just like, you know, that's why at first you're like, I don't know. They both probably tried to cheat. One guy just was more brazen about it.
Extremely relevant that you bring this up because all of Trump's a kind of like what sounds like this sort of apocryphal demagoguery about not only election fraud but immigration emptying out the asylums. Dude, that's the Mariel vote lift. And when he talks about dead people voting, that is the nineteen ninety seven Miami mayoral election. Where As Carl Hyasin called a manny yip and his buddies down at the cemetery who were super voters.
They voted in every election since they died seven years ago, and that's how they got caught.
Because you're like, wow, all, First of all, if I remember correctly, Suarez got more absentee votes than real votes back in a time when we weren't doing a lot of early voting in the late nineties.
But listen, that's like, but so the kernel of truthiness in Trump's in Trump's election fraud that election, yes, but a lot of it comes from Miami. The kernel of his emptying out the like I said, the emptying out the asylums, dead people voting, Well, you know what happened in Miami.
WHOA be careful falling for his asylum line. You know, this is one of those where I'm pretty sure he used about what asylum is. Yes, every time he hears the word asylum, he doesn't understand what it means. He thinks it's the insane asylum. But it's a what you know that you seek it.
I think he's conflating it though, because he knows he's seen Starface, he knows.
Did that, and you know it's Miami politics. He's seems scarface.
That's what I'm what I'm saying is that it's a movie mobster. I know it's the kernel of truthiness there. You know that that begs.
But I think on I you cannot and you know this, you cannot count.
Joe Carollo out.
No, somehow he could end up being mayor.
He knows how to drink this better than anybody else, does Dude like, because this isn't a citywide election.
This is a bulletarra election. Because we're going to have such low voter turnout that it's gonna come. It's going
¶ Thoughts on Mario Cristobal
to be about it. There's nothing else on the ballot, right, I think there's a there's a couple of referendums in the city, but no no statewide, no county wide, no, you know, obviously no nation.
This is one of those where and I know it got turned into Francis Soarez was trying to go another year.
This was not He's not wrong.
We actually, if you want more voters participating in this election should be in the even numbered year. La Mayor did this and they extended they had one five year term in order to do the same thing. It is. The problem is in Miami, the assumption is. You know, this must be a corrupt angle here.
No, no, but but it was because I mean if you saw it, like all he cares about is next year is World Cup in g twenty.
No, he wanted the tickets.
He's not the mayor, then he's a relevant and this guy has zero path forward politically or diplomatically for the man he really wanted to be. He worked basically as a unregistered lobbyist for Saudi, the Saudis, and then wanted to be the the ambassaard you know.
You know, he was a never trumper and he's like hates DeSantis for some in that, you know. And there was a minute that he flirted with running for governor as an independent for like two seconds. And then now he's trying to get into Trump world, you know. And he hired Kelly Ann I think as a consultant for a while there, which got him. That's when the VP running mate stuff got got created. Right, it was because he basically tried to get back into Trump world.
That was a m that was a rumor that he started. It is correct, correct quite successfully.
Mind you. All right, how are you feeling about Mario Cristabal these days?
Listen if Mario can't do it. Nobody can. It's over like that's interesting. I sort of agree.
I hate admitting that, but Mario is what got all the investment, and you can't. And right now, that's the way college football works. There are forty programs that can play at the top level, and somehow Miami decided to become one of those financially and that's because of Mario and his friends.
NCAA fucked up their own their own game, and now we're all living with the consequences of.
It now, for better or for worse. I mean, you know, it's funny. I admitted this to a friend of mine the other day, which is, if if Miami weren't weren't able to show that it could play in this new world, I'd hate this and I'd be criticizing it. Right I'm less critical because at least we're the have because it's a we're going to the premier league. There are going to be forty programs that can play at this level,
¶ Miami can survive 1 loss and make the playoff, but not 2
will consistently have the resources to do it, and they'll have another twenty programs that every once in a while we'll get lucky and it'll be a fun little thing like Wichita State in the basketball world, right every once in a while, or a Gonzaga and and you know, unless they less the Feds truly get involved, and and you know, Miami is going to be a market that survives and a school that's a that's on the alet on the A team, and you have all the what's
interesting is watching whether a Florida can do it, right, whether Florida State can do it, whether a Clemson can do it. And some of them aren't going to be able to do it.
I will say that I thought that we grew out of being the team that has that senseless mid season loss that we had.
Yeah. Well, by the way, though, I sort of ask me again next week because I'm going to that game. My son's at SMU, so, got my daughter at Miami, my son at SMU, so we don't have a family outing to the Miami SMU game. I'll learn a lot about We'll learn a lot about this team to me in that game, because that's the game they lose the last five years. Right.
But I think we did it to Louisville already. I think, well, that's my point. You're okay to do one that happens every season. We had this even during the heyday. I remember a game against Boston College in two thousand and one where Ed Reid saved the game, right, you know, we almost blew that game. There's always a game LI that where you either do lose or you almost lose it. We lost a stupid game at BYU one year that cost us a title, you know, So I'm not I'm okay.
With one and this new system. At least for the ACC schools, you can survive one. You can't survive two. Only SEC schools get to survive too.
I think I don't think there's going to be another loss this sub.
I worry about the PIT game, and I worry about this the two road games SMU and PITT.
I just think I hope, I hope they've learned some lessons. I hope they've made some adjustments. I hope they're going to it certainly seems from this, you know from this week's game that they are last week's game, that they're going to be coaching a bit more aggressively.
They're not.
I appreciated that they ran up Mario Christabald never cares about covering spreads, and they they they went to score that touchdown. They knew that. Look, the difference between Miami getting a buye or not getting a buye, or getting into the tournament or not getting into the tournament might be. How big victory is. I mean, look what Florida State got left out after being undefeated, right, we know that the ESPN Invitational will leave teams out. Is if Alabama's a Notre name are available.
It should have been forty to seven at the half of the Notre Dame game, like it just like like the conservative I'm hoping that.
You know, we're this conservative coaching.
It's the first half stubbornness. They stick to the game plan, and then God bless them now that they have all these advisors who basically come up with the game plan at halftime while the coaches are on the field. I mean, this is what these big time programs can afford to do now, and Miami's now doing that. We have an entire coaching staff that does nothing but scout the next opponent and then here's your game plan.
Yeah, I listen, I saw that.
And it was three of our signature wins this year were as close to meltdowns and major meltdowns as they were like Major wins.
You ten years ago, we lose those games. Two years ago.
¶ Reuben Bain feels like a vintage Miami player
We lose to Florida State. Two years ago. We might have blown that Florida game. At Florida Game. It was there Dame game, right, and and we didn't. I didn't Mario the Louisville game. Can't do it. In the Louisville game. Louisville threw everything at us in that first drive, got their touchdown, and basically they hung on for dear life. Carson Beck just tried to be a hero. If he doesn't try to be a hero, we win that game about probably with the last minute field goal.
I again, if Mario can't do it. No, I think this this investment by this this school, which you and I are both extremely impressed, and.
Because they've never done it in the past. Despite all the rumors about Miami and money, it was never anything like Alabama and A and M and l s U. Nobody Miami never spent like those three programs. And this year they are.
And I think that this is this is like, this feels like the last coach of the Canes in meaning like it.
Right, It's it's either he's our Saban and the next Jimmy Johnson or or Miami is you know, Georgia Tech football at best an occasional an occasional lightning strike once a decade, but that's probably it.
And all of our games are on the History Channel kind of vibe and like that. And they and they, well, they do what they did during the Shalila era, which is to kind of trade on their reputation and rest on their laurels, which they're not doing right now.
They're trying to build their own reputation in a new dynasty.
And yeah, I mean, I mean, I'm sure you feel this, and we're going on too long here, and I apologize, but Rubin Bain is the first guy that's reminded me of old Miami. I'm like that. That's what I'm telling my son, I Mike, that we always had a guy like Ruben Bain always, whether it was Daniel Stubbs, Kevin Fagan, you know, a Cortes, Kennedy, Wolf Fork sap right, we always had a Ruben Bain and we haven't had one in a while. It's nice to have one.
I'd like to see that the players, you know, get coached up, play more aggressive, maybe even you know what you also had in that era, was you had players who were calling audibles, who were changing the play on the field. It didn't matter what they said on the sideline, if they were reading E fense differently, if they were you know, if they had something else, some other scheme in mind, like and I know that gets you benched
these days in this big time college football game. But that that was the It was the what was that great line from one of the U documentaries. It was the first the U documentary when Dennis Erickson came in, I think Jerome Brown or somebody went to him and said, you've just been handed the keys to a Ferrari, like just you know, just you know, like this is not something you have to worry about, like.
Just if a perfectly oiled machine. Just don't fuck it up, dude.
And by the way, he kind of he won two titles. Can't say he messed it up. He didn't leave us in the best of shape.
No, listen, I mean that's sort of that's the sort of semi absentee coaching style, letting the assistance and the and the lunatics run the asylum got them and some jewelry, man, I mean.
Yes, it did and it got them in a couple of NFL coaching gigs to boot. I like the siren, by the way, I like that. We I rarely like trying to start a tradition that never existed. Don't hate it. I think the Sirens are pretty good new tradition.
I also love that, like Michael Irvin is it every game is hit every game.
So my daughter's a little She's like, what does he do for the university? And I'm like, she goes because he's every He's at every game and you know, she's part of homecoming. And she's like, and then, so have you ever been to a Cowboys game?
No?
This is a little disturbing. So I went to a Packers Cowboys game a couple of weeks ago and Michael Irvin the you know that, you go to a Miami game and before the fourth quarter, right, they blair the Michael Irvin.
Raw Ross speech to get you fired up. It's a fourth quarter, it's green tree, right, all this stuff. He does the same thing for the Cowboys for their fourth quarter. And I'm like, and I tape it and I send it. You know, I record it. Listen to me.
I'm an old guy, right, I tape it, I record it and send it to my daughter and she went, so he does he just do this for every team, And I'm like, well, every team he played for. But it's literally the same stick that he does for Miami, that he that he does for Jerry and the Cowboys.
I love it. I love it, and I love that. I mean he's like Sebastian and Michael Irvin. I mean like they are are, like he is our mascot.
I love it. I think some of I think Malachai Tony's probably had to google Who's Michael Irvin? I mean, like, I you know, it's been that long.
These kid Yeah, these kids were eighteen nineteen years old.
Right he was, he had already he literally he was in the Hall of Fame when they were born.
Dude, two thousand and two was the last time this team won a national championship. I mean there are people on this team who were not born yet. I mean not born, not alive.
We may live in the past, but they weren't even there for the past anyway.
Uh.
The doc if you want to see the preview to Donald Trump's New War with Venezuela, Billy Corbyn already did it.
Cocaines.
All right, my man, good to talk with you. Thank you.
Sorry I stepped on your plug at the end.
There, No, it's your plug. Men of war. I know everywhere everywhere you want to get you know, do you have a it's you can stream it everywhere? What Amazon? Apple?
Oh yeah, everywhere, I mean direct TV, anywhere you rent or buy or stream movies.
Very nice, very nice. Well go say it. It's it's worth it's worth the money, it's worth your time, worth the rental ownership I assume you do. What what is the difference in your finances between rental and owning?
Nothing?
Zero?
Uh?
Yeah, the the Yeah, it's because Neon is distributing so what No, I don't know if there's any trick down.
It doesn't help you either way.
Renting it just seeing is what I would I would love for people to see it. I think it's I think it's some I think we did. I think I think it turned out very well. You know some of these things to do with.
Some of them, and as anything, would you do it? You're like, oh my god, it's even more relevant now that's my point. It's even more relevant now. All right, my friend, thank you, Thanks so much,