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Would you be willing just to have the clerk put you under oath and state that since you sign up to run for office- No, sir. I am not in the courtroom. You are not a judge. You are not going to be closing me, and I know my rights. You can take that out. I am not under a deposition. I am not under a deposition. Do I have a motion to- They need to hear the other side. What's just the other side? That we put your house in and you put a croaker of growth to protect you, to protect your asset, sir.

Is that the other side? Let's go.

Let's talk about that.

Let's talk about you.

Let's talk about how you put Oklahoma Gloves to protect your homeset and to protect your house and to protect your house because- It ain't going to happen. This man wants to stop me and all he can, and we're going to battle here. Commission meeting is now in recess.Thank.

You.yeah, chair.

Happy New Year. Feliz año Nuevo, Roy. If you say so. It's a new dawn. It's a new day in the city of Miami, certainly in Miami City Hall. That bully Joe Carollo. He's a wife, be her wife, be her. Is she He's not just going to be up there on the dais pushing people around anymore because we've got a new sheriff in town. We'll be talking with Commissioner Miguel Gabela, Mike Gabela, who replaced your boy, Alex Diezla Portia. Roy, who you member was arrested on charges, including bribery, money laundering, and campaign finance crimes. I don't know about that.

I fool in Thorsam. That's my boy.

Later in the show, Marco Pudo joins us to stick a fork in what's left of the DeSantis primary campaign. And later, my grandpa is on the program. Awelo is the new poppy on Because Miami. But, Roy, I got to tell you, it's so heartening to see somebody on the dais Speaking truth to power, pushing back, telling the truth. I mean, it's been exhausting watching the Miami Mafia circle the wagons and put their head in the sand. Joe Correia, especially, has been up there pushing people around, not just in the government and his fellow commissioners, but the residents and the business owners and the taxpayers and the activists and the people who care, who show up to the meetings to talk to and engage their government, he tries to shout them down. It's not happening anymore. I mean, craziness is happening. I mean, up is down, down is up. The cows have come home. The pigs are flying. Ball in chain. Ball in chain. Big victory. I mean, I want you to take a look at this. After decades of silence, Joe Correlio's daughters have broken their silence. They told Linda Robertson at the Miami Herald, Kelly Correlio, 32.

She's an interior designer in New York City. She hasn't seen her talk to her father since 2003. She says, We used to get a birthday phone call two days late, but that stopped. I was emotionally attuned as a child, I'm told, and I remember I used to cry when he held me. He was not likable, and I just sensed it. Her memories of him, Him yelling, throwing tantrums, being unpleasant. Asked if there's another side of Coroyo beside his cantankerous public image, Kelly paused. No, she said. He's a controlling, chauvinistic man who has to dominate and make others suffer. What have I learned from my father to seek the exact opposite of him in a partner? Caroline Coroyo, 34, a Miami attorney, has had no contact with her father since 2008. She said the most important lesson she's learned from him is, It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove of all doubt. By the way, Kelly Correil was 10 years old, 20 years ago, when she called 911 to report that my dad is hurting my mom. Mom, please. What happened? My dad's hurting my mom. What happened?

How did my dad hurt my mom? What's your address? In her house.

Give me your address, ma'am. Go.

Please come now, please.

Do you have any weapons or guns on knife? Anything? I don't know. No, he doesn't know.

Give me your address.

Well, Joe Correo has victimized his wives, his children, and the city of Miami. But no more. Commissioner Miguel Gabela, thank you for joining us. Thank you for telling your truth and speaking truth to power and being a voice for so many who have felt powerless and voiceless. That includes thousands of decent, hardworking city workers who have been held hostage through this toxic culture of fear and revenge and intimidation that has run the city. You were elected on a mandate of anticorruption, of pro-accountability. Now, you have joined your colleague, Sitting Commissioner Damian Pardo, elected the same election as you were this past November, calling for the resignation of Miami mayor, Francis Suarez. Let's start there because we are turning the page here in the city of Miami, and these are exciting days. Why have you asked for the resignation of the mayor?

So first, before I get to that, let me thank you for having me on your program. And let me just also say, I'm not the sheriff in town. I'm one of the sheriffs in town because Pardo is also a sheriff. Commissioner King is also a sheriff. Manuel Reyes is also a sheriff. So we're five sheriffs here. It's just that we've been accustomed to here in the city of Miami to had him one sheriff, which is Caroyo, that was imposing his will, and now that's gone, and he's having a little bit of a temper tantrum because he can't deal with it. But that's the fact of the matter. We're many sheriffs, and I'm proud to be here. Billy's sitting. I'm on Pardo, and Commissioner King, especially, as I say, the good commissioners that actually want to get things done for the benefit of the residents. Now, the question was, I'm sorry, why I was calling for the resignation of the mayor? Yes, sir. What happened to me was Pardo must be given credit because he was the first one that actually called for the resignation of the mayor, so that credit cannot be taken away from him.

I joined Pardole days later because what happened to me, as you well know, I wanted to give him a chance to in front of the commission. He wanted a meeting with us. We had the meeting, and it was clear to me after that meeting that he was not going to show up to the commission. I don't think he's going to have many answers for us because they're not good answers, according to the accusations that the Harold has made. That's my impression of the body language and what I took away from that conversation. I then switched gears because I realized, as you know, I made it public weeks earlier that I made no bones about it, that I was going to motion to put my house back in the district For those of you that don't know, my house was taken out of the district June 14th, illegally to favor then candidate Portillo, Commissioner Portillo, which was then arrested on corruption charges. At the same time, Correil's house in district 2, which was never part of district 3, was put into district 3 to favor Correil. Correil that day gained an advantage, a benefit they didn't have before.

Because unlike my house that was always in district 1 for more than 23 years, Correil's house was never in district 3. They did that to to accommodate Correil, so he would have homestead exemption. Now, he has protection against his creditors against Bill Fuller and company in the $63 million lawsuit awarded to them. He now doesn't have to rent in Little Havana like he had to before. Now, he can move to his house and still be part of the district. So they broke Coconet Grove up in half to accommodate Mr. Caroleo. This is a pure benefit that he gained. What I was trying to do was to put my house back in the district as it's always been. I'm not gaining a benefit. They took a It was a little bit away from me. I was just regaining that act, that resolution that was passed on June 14th, which in my view was illegal. There was malfeasance involved, and probably they violated the Sunshine law.

Essentially, what happened is there was an illegal and, in fact, unconstitutional redistricting process. Multiple judges, appeals courts have already found this to be the case. In addition to the racial gerrymandering involved, there was, as you put it, this corrupt horse trading going on between Joe Carillo, Alex Dias La Portilla, in which they were putting for their own personal political and just personal benefit, their own homes and their opponents, in your case, home, in and out of the districts as they wished, which undoubtedly gave them a benefit. They did not recuse themselves from that vote. The city attorney, Vicky Mendez, allowed them to vote on these matters that had a benefit to them, which one could reasonably was a conflict of interest. Now, in your effort to undo that illegal and unconstitutional redistricting effort and put things back simply to the way they were before, now there's all these accusations against you that you're acting in your self-interest, that you have a conflict and should have recused yourself from this vote, that there's some state law that prohibits you from doing this, the mayor has argued. What do you say to your critics about this?

I I got plenty to say the mayor is a hypocrite at the least and intellectually dishonest at the worst. Why do I say that? Because he cites a law that took effect July the first. In other words, if this thing were done to me after July the first, it wouldn't have flown. Their resolution wouldn't have passed because they were clearly taking a candidate out. Now, he's citing this law and hiding behind this law because he's got a personal vendetta, I think. He wants to join the bad guys, and he's got a personal vendetta against myself. Why? The man called me on election day, and I couldn't talk to him. I didn't talk to him until 10 days later. I think he's resented about this because maybe he thinks I'm not showing him respect. This is his way of showing me that, Hey, you mess with me. I have veto power, which is Okay, he has the right to do what he has to do, and I got the right to do what I have to do. But here's the thing. He's hiding behind the July first law that says, number one, there must be an election.

In this case, in my case, of trying to right the wrong that has been done to Coconet Grove, the Grovanites, the disenfranchized voters in Grove, the disenfranchized voters in district One, because there were three houses apart from mine that were taken out just south of me during this process. So many voters have been disenfranchized without them even having a say in this process, and this was done all illegally. And so the fact of the matter is that the July first ruling or statue, if you will, that Tallahassee passed early in the year and took effect July the first, doesn't apply in this case because number one, that applies to when there's an election or 70 days before an election or a candidate or an incumbent. In this case, I am not an incumbent because there is no candidate. I am a sitting commissioner, but I am not an incumbent because there is no candidate, because there is no election.

In fact, Commissioner, that law that the state passed was specifically to make it illegal what it is the city of Miami did to you last summer. That's exactly what the law does, because what they did was so flagrantly inappropriate. I guess my question is, I'm looking at the agenda for This is going to be a wild meeting. I've done a strip club flyer for it because this is the hottest show in town, this novella at City Hall.

You're making me laugh, man.

You're making me laugh. The agenda is absolutely wild. There's all kinds of things on there. There's the absentee mayor and his side hustles. We've got the reunification of the Grove. We've got Bayfront Park on there and Correillo's corruption over there. I mean, there's all kinds of stuff. Now, how do you overcome, though? Christine King can vote with you. She can win the meeting, but then she can also win the issue when the mayor vetoes. She could say, Hey, I tried to help, but what can I do if the mayor is going to veto it? She gets to have her pasta Litos and eat them, too.

Well, look, in the case of Christine King, she voted in our favor. It was Christine King, Pardo, and myself that voted for the resolution to pass, and it passed. Then the mayor vetoed it simply because now the mayor, after he's been absent for a whole year or maybe more, now he wants to prove to the world that he's the mayor. What does he do? He vetoes my My resolution, which I made clear to the public that I was going to do. I've never hit anything, Billy. I went on Roberto Tejira and other newscasts and radio, and I said I was going to do this before it happened. So I've got nothing to hide here. There's no impropriety here. I'm just remedying my own situation that they put me in with malfeasance in mind to keep me out as a candidate, then running against Commissioner Portillo. Also, the city attorney has acted in all of this. She's interfered in this election. She had three lawsuits against me, and she's lost them all. The latest one, I think she lost on the 28th, I think it was the appeal on the appeal, and she's lost that, too.

At the same time, she tells me that she's working for all the commissioners, but when we ask her for certain things, we don't get them. Now, if Joe Caroyo ask her for anything, he'll get it. For example, right now, I understand that Joe Caroyo has another lawsuit against him personally, has nothing to do with the city. It's him personally. I understand that she's provided outside counsel of three separate attorneys. We've asked for outside counsel a couple of days back now, and the email that we got from her is she's got to think about it. The explanation is very simple. We're asking for outside counsel because she says that she represents all the commissioners. Well, how can she be representing me when she had three previous lawsuits against me? I am now a sitting commissioner, and the third lawsuit she still had against me, which she did not retire willingly or voluntarily. She lost that one in order for that to go away. Okay? So then how in God's name, can I trust this woman when this woman has done all of the opposite to try to take me out first as a candidate and now making it impossible for me as a sitting commissioner?

She responds, in my view, to Joe Caroyal. She's Joe Caroyal's personal attorney paid by the taxpayer, and this, in fact, is what's going on in City Hall. And Francis now comes in and now wants to use a petty thing that he knows that the law is not on his side. He says he's an attorney. He says he's paid a lot of money for being an attorney. I don't know about that because this interpretation of this statute, using it for what I did, what I did was to put my house the way it was before and to put the district the way it was before before they gerrymandered the district.

Well, let's be honest, Commissioner, he doesn't get paid over a million dollars by Quin Emmanuel, the law firm, to be a lawyer. He gets paid to be an unregistered lobbyist and foreign agent for his private clients and to exploit his public position for profit. I mean, that's the bottom line. You have also, of course, called for the resignation of City Attorney Tricky Vicky-Mendes, who I agree has worked as nothing but a mob lawyer for Joe Carollo and the Miami Mafia. How could she possibly be representing your best interests? Of course, you need outside counsel. You've also revealed that day one of your very first commission meeting that the city has spent over $8 million on just one of the myriad lawsuits that they are defending the taxpayers or defending Joe Correo over. We're out of time, Commissioner, but I really look forward to next week's commission meeting. Commissioner Miguel Gabela has come to kick ass and eat croquettas, and he is all out of croquettas.

Thank you, Billy, and hope to be on your program very soon. Thank you for the invitation. I appreciate it.

Folks, whether you're hosting a game day, a movie night, DiGiorno knows that planning a watch party on a budget isn't easy. You need the perfect setting, the perfect squad, the perfect eats. Luckily, you're a game time mastermind, and you know that grabbing DiGiorno Classic Crust Pizza can bring home the dub because it's packed with half a pound of cheese, sauce, and other toppings, and comes at an incredible price. Make the game-winning call and grab a DiGiorno Classic Crust Pizza from the grocery store today. It's not delivery, it's DiGiorno. Hey, everyone. I got some exciting news to share with you. We are changing our format from Caffecito Tech Talk to the How Can I Help podcast.

Welcome to another edition of the Kingdom podcast. I am Christine King, Chairwoman of the City of Miami Commission. Hey, everyone. This is Art Noriega, City Manager for the City of Miami. I think it's probably the appropriate time to reintroduce myself to social media.

I'm going to start a regular series where every week or two, I'm going to focus on what's happening in the city.

Roy, I have a confession to make. What's that, Billy? During the holiday vacation, I'd made a decision that I was not going to come back to the show in the new year. I was going to put it on an indefinite hiatus. This is a lot of work, this show. You know that. Yes. It's a lot of work to prep for. It's a lot of work to produce. Yes, it is. I don't get paid for this. No, you don't. I got to go back to my paying job. I knew we were doing the right thing. I just didn't know if we were making a difference. I thought, Let me put it on the back burner for a bit. Maybe we'll revisit it later in the year. Then a few things happened, Roy. First thing that happened was, while out and about in Miami during the holiday season, I ran into people at restaurants and bars, grocery stores on the street who came up to me and thanked me for what we're doing here. People who thought that they had no voice, that you can't fight City Hall, that this accountability journalism doesn't make a difference. But now we're starting to see some positive change just by virtue of sunlight being the best disinfectant.

Speaking truth to power, calling these clowns out. If you put garbage in, you're going to get garbage out. Honestly, it was humbling and it was heartening. It made me feel like, Oh, maybe people are paying attention, and maybe it is making a difference. Then, as you saw from that little montage that David put together for us, the city of Miami has launched not one, not two, but at least three podcasts to counter what it is that we do here on the Because Miami podcast.

The How Can I Help podcast. How Can I Help? That is a shot across the bow.

First of all, he's rebranding the Cafecito Tech Talk podcast because you know when anything is successful, the first thing they do, Roy, is they rebrand it and they rename it. Ponzi Potalita, obviously that he's a con man is the thing. When you're a con man, you don't have a brand. You have to just move on to the next hustle. That's what he's doing. He's moving on to the next hustle. Here's the thing. The taxpayers of the city of Miami, Roy, who are the victims of this Miami Mafia, of this criminal racketeering organization masquerading as a municipal government, their They're financing this. They're paying for this grandma-esque propaganda, this official mouthpiece of the regime. All these podcasts, Christine King's The Kingdom, which, by the way, I thought was about Saudi Arabia. It turns out it's just a pun on Christine King's name. Thousands of dollars an episode, taxpayers are spending. Francis Suarez announced in that video, they've got a new podcast studio, and Art General Noriega, the city manager, is doing his own podcast now. All of this, they're explicit in all of these podcasts that this is to counter us, the haters. By the way, haters is truth tellers because Miami is one of those places where lies or love and truth is hate.

Where we don't have reality, we have realty. We've got people like, The Underhanded Man Child Fail Sign. And, Vapid Niple Baby with the Brain of a Mosquito.

Art Noriega talking about he to reinvent himself.

Roy.

Allow me to introduce myself.

My name is Art.

Into the Noriega. Get out of here, man.

I got to tell you, with a lot of these guys, it's going to be grand opening, grand closing, because I think it's time to turn the page and flush the toilet on all these clowns. But I got to tell you, Roy.

Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in.

Welcome back.

I mean, if they just ignored us, then we'd all have it a lot easier. But the fact that they are going to combat our facts with their lies, and they're going to continue to victimize the residents, business owners, and taxpayers of the city of Miami by taking advantage of them and continuing to misappropriate their money to do what? To tell lies? To be like, to tell everybody that? No, no. Everything is just fine in the city of Miami. Pay no attention. Just to let us piss on your leg and tell you that it's raining. It's just an extraordinary bit of gaslighting. And that cannot stand, man.

You are definitely right about that.

But again, grand opening, glaring, and closing because Francis Suarez, most likely will be arrested, right?

Listen, let me tell you, if this lasts longer than four hours, I'm going to need to call the doctor. When you tease me like that, Roy. Other crazy shit that has happened has really inspired me to keep going here. We have these new commissioners like Abel and Pardo calling for the mayor's resignation, calling for the city attorney's resignation, really trying to just end this era of Criminal impunity in the city of Miami government is very inspiring. Also, breaking news this week, the federal government, the SEC, to be precise, is suing Richie Kippour for fraudulently defrauding his investors. This is the guy, by the way, who is secretly paying Mayor Francis Suarez $10,000 a month, at least $170,000 to be his secret consultant. While the mayor's office was working to help Kapor navigate the city and work through whatever issues he was having, basically his problem solver and fixer and expediter in the city. Meanwhile, Kapor was paying Miami Dade's second greasiest mayor, Vince Lago of Coral Gables, and Suarez's cousin, who was a real estate partner of his, over $12,000 a month in rent, totaling over $152,000 for an empty, never-used office building that Lago initially failed to disclose that he owns, at the same time that Lago was helping Kippur with real estate hustles in Coral Gables City Hall.

Now, we talked about this with Jay Weaver, remember, in the last episode of 23. But now, Vince Lago is suing the Spanish language radio station here in Miami, Actuallydad Radio, and veteran radio journalist, Roberto Rodriguez de Hera, who does outstanding work, suing him for liable because apparently, according to the complaint, he told the truth about him on the radio. That's what it said verbatim. That's not what it says verbatim, but I'm paraphrasing, allegedly, because he went on the radio and talked about how Vince Lago's little brother, Little Brother, who they call Little Lago, is a lobbyist for a real estate developer who was looking to get some stuff done in what they call Little Gables. And Vince Lago was trying to annex that neighborhood into the city in order to to expedite this real estate hustle, because everything in Miami, as you know, is a real estate hustle. Is there a big lago? There is a big lago. There's a great big old lago. Dropped a big old lago. At politicalcortadito. Com, Elaine Devier does a brilliant job of talking about how Vince Lago ruined his reputation all by himself. Did not need the help of any journalist telling the truth about him to do that.

And what's really funny, one of Lago's lawyers represents Joe Carollo and lost that 63.5 million dollar corruption lawsuit last year. So good luck. I just hope the judge doesn't throw this bullshit case out before actually Dodd's lawyers have a chance to give this guy a deposition on camera and under oath, because that's going to be a documentary, Roy. That you might do. That I'm going to do during the lawsuit, for crying out loud. That said, because Miami is here to stay.

I think that a guy like me as the nominee will be able to keep the focus on Biden, keep the focus on the Democrats' failures. But then, more importantly, after you win the election, start holding these people accountable who have weaponized the legal system to go after their political enemies. That starts with day one, firing somebody like Jack Smith. That goes to dealing with people who are violating constitutional rights at the state and local government area. Republicans have turned a blind eye to abuses of power for far too long. We need to actually do something about it. In Florida, we've actually done things. We've held people accountable, and we've drained the swamp in a major way. We need that in the United States.

Fear in Florida, men on the campaign trail once again.

I was right in the middle of a reptile zoo. Somebody was giving booze to these goddamn things.

We are on the DeSantis campaign, Death Watch. Mark Caputo is the national political reporter for the messenger. Com. Are we ready to stick a fork in it yet, Mark, or to paraphrase Mark Twain, our reports of DeSantis's campaign's demise, greatly exaggerated?

I'd say it's a little bit in between. At a certain point, the question is going to be this. Is everything we're seeing on the ground in Iowa, everything we're seeing in polling, both conducted by internet, by phone, by robo call, are all the experts we're talking to in the Iowa caucus who understand Republican politics and how the caucus works? Are all of them wrong? And is DeSantis right? And therefore, DeSantis will win Iowa. If they're all right, then yeah, I think DeSantis is pretty much going to be done. He's barely holding on to second in Iowa, well behind Trump. And then in New Hampshire, he's fourth or fifth, DeSantis is. So it's difficult to see how DeSantis could lose Iowa and still make a claim to even being in second place in this race.

So you're telling me there's a chance?

A dumb and dumber chance, yeah. There's a chance. Not a big one.

But also, does Iowa even matter at this point if he comes in second? Yes. Does it?

Yeah, it does. I have to say this in a simple way. I understand the presidential campaigns, people We're not talking about delegates and all of these things of what you need to win to get to the convention. Presidential campaigns are essentially momentum campaigns. We've never seen a candidate who's a non-incumbant, and technically, yes, Donald Trump is a non-incumbant, in such a strong position in all the polling in all the states. So the rational reasoning goes this way. If Donald Trump wins in Iowa, where he's up by big double digits, what's going to stop him from losing losing, or better said, what's to stop him from winning in New Hampshire, where he's up by big double digits? And if that happens, what's to stop him from winning in Nevada, where he's up by big double digits? And then South Carolina, where he's up by big double digits. No one has ever won all of the early states and not been the nominee in either party in modern times. And let's say it gets down to a two-person race after South Carolina, where, again, he's up by double digits over Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina.

Why is she suddenly going to start to win after losing all this time? Why is Donald Trump going to start losing after winning all this time? It just doesn't add up. Bottom line, yes, Iowa matters because that's the beginning of the snowball effect of Trump's cascade of wins. If indeed, he wins, and right now, all the indications are that he's going to win.

Well, to be fair, Trump's base believes that he is the incumbent, so there's that and there's that, too. But my question is, I just think that many people in this country I don't know just how batshit 2024 is going to be politically in this country. I mean, people thought 2020 was nuts with the pandemic, the George Floyd uprising, with the presidential election that led to an incumbent president of the United States denying the outcome of the election and an insurrection at the beginning of the following year, the second impeachment of the President at the beginning of 2021. But I think that 2024 could dwarf all of that, and hopefully without a knockwood, a pandemic or a George Floyd-like incident. But we've got potentially five trials of a former President of the United States. We've got all kinds of craziness here. But is that DeSantis' Trump card? Is that what he's been waiting in the wings for, is for this guy to wind up on a private jet to Moscow or Saudi Arabia as a deposed candidate. And there he is showgirl style, tossing the beads onto the staircase like going, now the understudy is going rise here.

Yeah, I think another way to phrase that is the choke on a cheeseburger hope. That is, if you talk to somebody, I'm not joking, that's actually a phrase. There are some folks in DeSantis's orbit a few weeks ago, a few months ago, I should say, who were acknowledging privately that look, it doesn't look like DeSantis is going to make it, but hey, anything can happen. And then you'd say, Well, what could happen? And then they would literally say, Well, Trump could choke on a cheese burger. So yeah, that could happen. But I might take the under on 2024 being crazier than 2020? Simply because when you just listed out 2020, we had a pandemic. I mean, that was really nuts. I'm not saying this is going to be sane by any stretch of the imagination, but maybe we're going to be less crazy. We are certainly in uncharted waters here. We have no idea What's going to happen if Donald Trump actually goes to trial, if he gets convicted? It's really, really going to be a mess.

But let me ask you, if Trump chokes on a cheeseburger in that hypothetical scenario, is DeSantis the second guy? Or No, not right now.

I mean, that's the thing is, is like he's barely coming in second in Iowa. And again, he might be in third. And if he does come in third, it's hard to see him staying in the race. Now, that having been said, when you start to drill down into the mind of Republican voters, Ron DeSantis is much more in line with today's Republican voters and Republican Party than Nikki Haley is. But he, in part because of the way in which he's run his campaign, DeSantis has, and in part just because of the dynamics of the race, there's been the space created for Nikki Haley to fill this void and be this alternate brand X.

Quick, Mark, what was the cause of the Civil War?

Slavery.

Not the role of government, not states' rights? Roy, what was the cause of the Civil War, Roy?

The state's rights to have slavery. Exactly. I love the role of government to have slavery. What's really remarkable, by the way, of Nikki Haley's Civil War slip up there is it was in New Hampshire. If you go to New Hampshire on the campaign trail or whatever, and you go in these lovely small New England towns, you'll actually see Civil War monuments and statues of Civil War soldiers, not Confederate soldiers. They are Union soldiers. For her to come up there in that patriotic place to say, Oh, we don't basically... Silent on slavery, that just does not hunt. That dog does not hunt in New Hampshire at all. You saw the result.

Dude, she was the governor of South Carolina, the first state to secede from the Union, the first domino that fell on the road to Civil War, and they were explicit in their secession documents. Explicit like line one.

At the very beginning. Yeah, I know.

The S-word was right there. I mean, it was right there. She just couldn't reach up and grab it off the shelves.

They're trying to forget history, Billy.

You know how it is.

Oh, man. Mark, so Last couple of things. First, what does a downdefeated DeSantis returning to Florida look like? What is the revenge tour when so many Florida lawmakers, he probably perceives it, betrayed him, endorsed Trump early and often. They've got a legislative session coming up right that's going to run concurrent to his losing, effectively, the Republican primary. What does this look like? Is he powerless? Is he out for blood? What does a Florida with a DeSantis retribution tour look like?

I don't fully know that, but number one, only about what, eight, nine, I think about eight Florida legislators out of 160 have endorsed Donald Trump. So there's not going to be that much revenge meted out on those Republicans, and mainly in the House. Now, that said, he does return to Santas. He would return, he will return, diminished politically overall, but he He still has powers of office which give him line item veto authority. That is, he can cross out little sections of the budget and cancel hometown spending projects to lawmakers, and he can also veto their entire legislation. He's shown a willingness and a zeal for using his veto pen and has certainly communicated to people not to cross them and showing them what happens when they do or when he even perceives the slide. So he's not going to be that weakened legislatively. So the question to recast is, what does a DeSantis look like after he comes back home and has to rebuild his brand nationally through his office? I do see him continuing to pick culture war fights, continuing to govern as a very reactionary and powerful conservative. I would caution people against writing as obituary.

The guy's 44. There's a lot of time for him to run for office again. So you were going to see. Now, the reality is, is he does get out of office in two years, right? And there's going to be an extra two years there for him to do nothing. And the question is, who's going to succeed him? And there is chatter about Casey DeSantis, his wife, possibly running it again because that carries on to DeSantis' name, and it also keeps him relevant and possibly eyeing another presidential run. I don't know. That's BS. No, totally BS.

The rise of tacky O. Speaking of Republican primary losers, I know you read the news, the Miami Hérald, their bombshell investigative series, Shakedown City, which covered the latest scandal regarding Miami mayor, Francis Suarez. One of the shortest primary campaigns in the history of Estados Unidos, you tweeted in reference to this scandal involving the mayor, possibly working as an unregistered foreign agent for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, particularly using his mayor's office. Saudi Arabia is a client of his private law firm, and he used the mayor's office to help set up this junket, this infomercial that happened in Miami Beach. And according to your Twitter feed, you were actually offered a chance to interview LiveGolf's Greg Norman at this event that Francis helped put together. Sports. And despite good money, you turned it down because they wouldn't let you ask the questions I don't know, a journalist would want to ask. Tell me about this.

Yeah. I got a text message from a PR person who I've known in the past, but not very well. And they offer me this chance like, Hey, do you want to come to this LiveGolf event? You've written about LiveGolf in the past. You can talk to Greg Norman. I said, Look, that sounds great, but I don't want to fly under false colors here. If I'm going to have Greg Norman there and I'm going to be talking to him about LiveGolf, I got to get into to the Saudi-related issues. And then it was like, Well, you're sure you got to do that? I'm like, Yeah, I have to do that. Like, nothing personal. I told him, I'm not going to devote the entire time to this issue. But if I'm talking to him about this, it would be a conspicuous absence not to ask about this very timely issue. Again, having written about it, literally people criticizing Donald Trump for having the LiveGolf tournament hosted in Dural. I I said, I just couldn't see how I couldn't ask about it. We went back and forth, and we just couldn't make it work. I thought it was just best to just not fly in our false color, say, Look, I'll do this happily, but I can't just be silent.

They're like, Well, we probably need someone to be silent about it. They didn't quite say that, but certainly was the implication. I don't know who wound up doing it, but I can assure you this, they didn't ask about the Saudis, 9/11 and live golf.

To be clear, then, this event that mayor Francis Juara has helped to put on, this was effectively a sportswashing type of event, right? This was a PR event, a junket, an infomercial the way I've characterized it. I mean, that was the information you were going on, no?

I didn't quite know what fully it was, but having written about them in the past, I knew what Saudi Arabia, the Sovereign Wealth Fund, was doing. Yeah, I mean, part of the problem that the Saudis have is there's a section of the 9/11 Commission report, which has still not been released, which shows complicity by people in the Kingdom, and the 9/11 attacks in 2001. Then in addition to that, you had the new dictator or strongman or whatever we want to call it of Saudi Arabia, Mohamed bin Salmon, who had been complicit, allegedly given the order for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist. The response to this from the Saudis has essentially been to expand their cultural and sport footprint in the United States accordingly. I'm not saying they have no right to do that, but if you're going to have a reporter or a journalist on stage at one of these events, it's certainly stuff I'm going to ask about.

Well, you said no, thank you. And Francis Juara said, How can I help? Marco Pudo, National Political Reporter. Find him at themessenger. Com. Thanks, Mark. Happy New Year. Thank you, man.

Happy New Year.

My grandfather, Jerry Cohen, was born 95 years ago in Manhattan and has been in Miami more or less since 1946. Graduated University of Miami law school. All four of your kids, two sons, two daughters, including my father, were born in Miami Beach.

St. Francis Hospital.

Making me a second-generation Miamian, I suppose, in part, anyway, half. You spent part of your time here. I mean, you were always in building, construction, real estate, for a spell in the peak era of the golden age of Miami Beach nightclubs and entertainers. You were briefly in the nightclub business, in what we now know as South Beach, a business that at the time was filled with celebrities, gangsters, and racism. Could you tell us a little bit about what that was like in Miami Beach? Then really, I guess in the 1950s.

My introduction to the business was in 1948 when I became friends with Murray Wanger, the owner and proprietor and the showman of the Copa. That friendship continued right up until his passing.

Where was the Copa?

Dade Boulevard, between Alton Road and Venetian Causeway entrance.

So you managed to get involved in this business? Who were the entertainers like at the time?

Well, for example, when Copa City reopened, which my company built, the building, they played the biggest stars with many movie people, et cetera. The important thing is that in the lounge, they had a commentator by the name of Barry gray, and they had Steve Gibson and the Red Caps with his wife, Demita Joe. That's important because that's how I got into the night club.

Demita Who else would we have heard of that was around in Miami Beach in those days?

Oh, my goodness. I can't even remember them all. Jimmy Durandy was a regular. Sophie Tucker. No. No. Sammy Davis Jr. Was a new act that was first played at the Beach Coma right next door to the Copa.

Nat King Cole?

Nat King Cole was a regular Copa City. Not Copa City, but Copa Cabana, and then Copa City after that.

A lot of these were Black acts. At the time?

I wouldn't say a lot. No, there were singular black acts. I can't remember a lot of black acts at that time, except for the musical groups that played the Lounge. Each nightclub had a lounge. They were big money makers because the heavy drinkers were in the lounge.

But Miami Beach was basically... I mean, it was the south in the 1950s. It was essentially- Very much so. It was a sundow town, which meant that Black people were not in Miami Beach after dark?

Well, they were welcome to do all the jobs that Black people were doing in those days. That's what welcomed them. They all had to be registered.

Well, what does that mean? They had to be registered.

Well, that's interesting because you have to understand how I got in the nightclub business. I wasn't really in the nightclub business at that point in time, but I was friends with Murray. Every year, Murray came back and I leased the copa from from the then owner of the Copa, and Murray ran it because Murray had beverage Department issues.

Was that mob related?

No, not at all. He was not a mobster of any shape or form. The mobsters came later. I I was concerned. There were very few Black acts or entertainment on Miami Beach, at least. They were not limited, but generally appeared at the various clubs in Overtoun.

But you had Black employees, and you did occasionally have Black entertainers. You said they had to be registered. That's what I was asking. That's correct. What does that mean?

They had to get an ID card in order to be on the beach after sundown.

Where would you go?

To the police station to be fingerprinted.

This was just Jim Crow shit?

Absolute Jim Crow.

And what did you do?

Well, later in the story of my nightclub story, it's when I bowed out of the nightclub business. The next nightclub is a small house, about 200 seats called Ceeero's. In this particular nightclub, the mob was just slightly involved. That's what you're waiting to hear.

Okay.

I went into this deal with one of the well-known mobsters, and he and I were partners in the nightclub. We opened up with Demita Joe and the Terneya's in the Lounge. They were going down to register on Miami Beach for the ID card.

At the police Department.

I said, I'll go with you. I took them down there in my vehicle, and they were going through the process. I said, Okay, where do I register? And you don't have to register. I want to register. If they have to register, I want to register. So I registered. You've seen this card, and that's how this card got actually. He's got props.

He's got props. He carries it around in his wallet with him.

I've got two props. This is the first one. This is the card. My picture's on the back.

It's from the Miami Beach.

And that's 1958.

Miami Beach Police Department. That's a good looking guy. It says in the back, 1958, Miami Beach Police Department. December third, actually, in 1958. About a month after my dad's birthday. Really? Yeah. Happy birthday. Feliz cumbleaños. Yeah. Grandpa, why did you insist upon registering along with the acts?

I thought it was untoward. I had plenty of experience with help that I had needing cards to be on the beach. I did a lot of work where we stayed very late if you're pouring concrete. So I had to get a lot of my people registered over the years, and I resented it. So I said, If they have to register, I have to register. Fine. All the policemen me because I was in the nightclub business. The end of my nightclub career is both mobbed up. It's a very quick story. It's mobbed up. I can make it very quick. And it deals with Sammy Davis Jr.

I don't believe you. About the quick part. Let's do it. Tell me about the end of your nightclub business.

After being registered, we played an act in the club, and he was falling flat on his face. He was a friend of mine. I asked him to get out of the contract, and I went to my partner, part of the mob issue, if you will, and I told him that we need an act.

He's a mobster, is what you're saying, or was he mobbed up?

He's mobbed up more than being a mobster. Within an hour or two of telephoning, back and forth, he said, What do you think about Sammy Davis Jr? He came down, no contract, till halfway through his performances and smashed hit. And that was the end. I went out on a big, big round of applause with Sammy Davis Jr.

Grandma, let's flash forward to the 1990s, Gianni Versace moves to South Beach. He buys this beautiful mansion on Ocean Drive, 11th Street. He wants to build a pool next door, just to the south of his property, right there on the corner, actually, of Ocean Drive in 11th Street. Do you remember this?

Very well.

All right. What happened? What was there, actually, on that corner?

What was there was a hotel I built called the Revere.

You built in 1950?

Built in 1950, yes. But it was an Art Deco hotel.

In that style? In the style. Right. Versace wants to knock it down to build what is now this gorgeous pool With this very elaborate mosaic with 24 karat gold. Gardens. Yeah, it's beautiful. Right there next to the house. Tell me about the demolition of the hotel that you built.

Well, I didn't know anything about what was going on. It with respect to Versace, until I read in the paper that a very good friend and an attorney who represented me, Cliff Schulman, was representing Mr. Versace with an effort to demolish the Revere. And I was absolutely shocked. I got a hold of him on the telephone and I said, Cliff, how can you think about knocking down that beautiful Art Deco hotel and representing Versace to do so? So he said, What are you talking about? I said, Cliff, I built it. It's not much of a building. But I said, You can tear it down with my permission.

You told me this story a little bit differently, and I was I'm wondering how you were going to tell it today, because what you told me is that you called him a little later in the process working to get the building knocked down. That's correct. Yeah, it was a little late. He had to go through design preservation. He had to go through all of these... That's correct. Jump through all these hoops. You said you called him and you said, I built that garbage building and I hope you knock it down. And he says, Jerry, we're very good friends. Why didn't you call me sooner? If I had the original builder of the building to appear at these meetings and to basically say there's no historic value, we would have gotten done easier. And you said to him, you said, and admit I built that piece of shit? That's how you told it to me. Do we have to bleep that, Roy? I don't know if we have to.

No, I think you're the one who embellished that story.

No, that's how you told me the story. What is it? Props, Roy. Props. What do we have here, grandpa? Careful. No.

I first said to him that, how can you demolish that gem? And I said, I built it. He said, No, you didn't build it. Allied built that. I said, That was me. But by then, I was laughing so hard as what I told you that I said, Cliff, tear it down. It's a mess of a building.

What do you have there?

Clifford gave me that. He was with Greenberg Trauring.

The law firm, yeah.

The law firm Greenberg Trauring. It says, Built by Jerome Cohn in 1950, Demolished in-93. Yeah, I think so.

It's a rock. I'm guessing it's a piece- And it's a piece of the concrete. It's a piece of the Revere. It says Revere on the top. It's like a rocky. It's almost like the Berlin Wall. It's like this jagged piece of rock with a plaque on the top that says Revere Hotel, and then a plaque on the inside by this piece of rubble that says, Built by Jerome J. Cohen, 1950, demolished by Clifford Shilman in 1993. J. J. Cohen. It's a beautiful pool and garden area now. It's a lovely restaurant there.

I made it my business to go to several events there, and it's really outstanding what he did to that corner. By the way, I built three identical buildings at that time.

One of the- With the same plans as the Revere?

With the same architect, same plan. The other one is the Boulevard, but I can't remember for the life of me, the third one.

We'll find it, I'm sure. Thank you, grandpa. I love you. I hope you'll come back again and give us some more great old-school Miami stories. Now, the first Miami moment of 2024, Roy. We're going to kick it With City Attorney, Tricky Vicky Mendez, the mob lawyer for the Miami Mafia. At a recent hearing, she saw that I was on the Zoom. This is a court case that involves her and her husband allegedly exploiting her public position for his private real estate hustle of allegedly preying on vulnerable elderly and sick homeowners in Miami for this house flipping scheme that he's got going. They're being sued over this. During this Zoom hearing, after the porn hackers had hijacked the whole thing, she saw me on there. She saw Danny Rivero from WLRN and some other journalists on there. She was super scared that we were going to report the facts that were coming out of this public hearing. And so wanted to institute a gag order. The judge said, No, thank you. Cocaine's.

Judge Miller? Yes. Good morning. This is Victoria Mendez.

How are you?

Good. How are you, Ms. Mendez?

Good. Your Honor, I would ask that there's plenty of media in the room. I would ask that you instruct them not to take any photographs and post this on their media pages while the This case is ongoing, or at least this day on the hearing.

So you want a gag order?

Not a gag order, Your Honor.

Just at least not posting a photograph.

Unless you let everybody take photographs in your courtroom, that's a different story.

Well, I think if the media were allowed in, they'd have a camera. They're allowed one camera, so I'm not sure what the rules are on Zoom.

But generally speaking, There was always a pool camera because that was in the courtroom and we only wanted one camera, and everybody shared the feed.

With respect to Zoom, I really don't have a problem with it, mostly because I don't have any way to control it, Ms. Mendez. Could you imagine how am I supposed to stop someone from snapping a picture of the screen? And how would I enforce that? And what investigation?

It's just impractical.

So I'm not going to restrict it.

Okay. Thank you.