The Culture War - Tim Pool - The Culture War #83 Michael Franzese, Was Life Better Under Mafia Rule? w/ Michael Franzese & Shane Cashman
Aired: 2024-09-27
Duration: 02:01:50


=== Respecting Our Neighborhood (06:38) ===

[00:00:00]  What's up, guys?
[00:00:01]  Before we get started, head over to GetComingHome.com.
[00:00:04]  The new single just dropped.
[00:00:06]  Shout out to Phil Labonte, singer of All That Remains, guest vocals on the song.
[00:00:11]  The song is about coming home to find your home, your city, the things you once knew and loved in disrepair, decay, homelessness, poverty, etc.
[00:00:18]  Because the people that you entrusted to look after what you cared about dropped the ball and To those who make the greatest sacrifice and who serve, this one is for you.
[00:00:29]  And so we really do appreciate everybody's support so far.
[00:00:31]  Getcominghome.com.
[00:00:33]  We're going to talk about what's the state of this country.
[00:00:37]  And, you know, my question was, There's this viral video from A Bronx Tale, which I'm sure... Michael, you've seen that movie, right?
[00:00:45]  Many times, yeah.
[00:00:46]  And there's this great scene where the main guy beats the crap out of some bikers.
[00:00:51]  And it got me thinking about when I see these videos of these roaming bands just smashing department stores, taking whatever they want.
[00:00:59]  I'm like, I don't think that would have happened if the neighborhoods were still run by the mafia.
[00:01:04]  Michael, do you want to introduce yourself and just give your background?
[00:01:07]  Sure.
[00:01:07]  Michael Francis.
[00:01:08]  And I think most people know that at one point in time, I was a copper regime, a member of the Colombo crime family back in New York.
[00:01:16]  My dad was the underboss of that family for many, many years.
[00:01:20]  And I was part of that life for about 20 years, 20 plus years.
[00:01:25]  And did pretty well.
[00:01:27]  Became a major target of law enforcement.
[00:01:29]  Was arrested probably 18, 19 times.
[00:01:32]  Indicted 7 times.
[00:01:33]  Went to trial 5 times.
[00:01:37]  And I actually did 10 years.
[00:01:39]  Well, got a 10-year prison sentence.
[00:01:41]  Did 8 years in prison.
[00:01:42]  And then my life kind of turned around.
[00:01:44]  I met a young girl who's now my wife of 39 years.
[00:01:47]  And walked away from that life and, you know, been living a little bit differently for the past 20 some odd years, so.
[00:01:53]  Man, I got a million and one questions.
[00:01:54]  We'll get to it, we'll get to it.
[00:01:55]  Shane's hanging out.
[00:01:56]  So many questions.
[00:01:57]  I'm very happy to be here.
[00:01:58]  Looking forward to this episode.
[00:01:59]  Shane Cashman, host of Inverted World Live, and let's get to it.
[00:02:03]  So, I obviously want to ask you, you know, the story of how it all begins, but just right off the bat, you know what I was saying?
[00:02:12]  Do you think, you know, is it romanticizing this idea that when the mafia is in charge there's some order, or is it, you said, you call it a crime family.
[00:02:20]  I watch these videos of roving bands in Chicago ramming cars into department stores, running and taking whatever they wanted, and I kind of feel like when you see these old stories about when the mafia was much stronger a hundred years ago, or when you've got strong organized crime, that kind of stuff doesn't happen.
[00:02:36]  But maybe it does in other ways.
[00:02:37]  I don't know.
[00:02:38]  What do you think?
[00:02:39]  You know, Tim, first of all, I slipped, you know, when I say crime family, even though obviously we were involved in criminal activity.
[00:02:45]  But, you know, I hear so many people say crime family.
[00:02:48]  We normally just call it the family.
[00:02:49]  But I guess I've been programmed lately.
[00:02:52]  But, you know, one thing I have to tell you, there was no crime in our neighborhood.
[00:02:56]  Nobody would ever get away with doing anything like that.
[00:02:59]  Never.
[00:03:00]  You know, we took care of our communities.
[00:03:02]  We took care of our neighborhoods.
[00:03:03]  People loved us.
[00:03:05]  I mean, look, if you see clips of John Gotti now, you know, the people in the neighborhood loved him because he took care of the neighborhood.
[00:03:10]  And all of us did the same thing.
[00:03:12]  So that would never happen.
[00:03:13]  There would never be rampant crime like that anywhere, you know, where we were.
[00:03:18]  It's better.
[00:03:19]  I don't know, I'm sorry.
[00:03:20]  You know, the way I think about it is, the family, mafia, whatever people want to refer to it as, because I'm sure people use different names for different organizations, whatever it may be.
[00:03:32]  I mean, they know outright if you piss off your neighborhood, your neighborhood's going to turn on you and they're going to work with other people to bring you down.
[00:03:38]  But more importantly, it's your neighbors.
[00:03:41]  It's what you're doing to improve your lives improves the lives of the people around you.
[00:03:45]  And I feel like what we see now with the crime in all these cities is just social disorder, no connections whatsoever.
[00:03:53]  And so the story I always love to bring up is that scene from A Bronx Tale where the mob boss hears the ruckus.
[00:04:02]  Motorcycles, he walks over and he sees the bikers and they're in the bar and he's like, hey, what's the problem?
[00:04:07]  The bartender says, these guys aren't dressed appropriately for the bar.
[00:04:11]  Biker turns around, he's like, look man, we just want to have one beer and then we'll go.
[00:04:14]  And he says, spoken like a gentleman, give the man a beer.
[00:04:16]  And I respect that tremendously.
[00:04:18]  That these guys don't fit in, they're not from the neighborhood, they're being noisy, but he was nice.
[00:04:21]  He says, okay, we're gonna get you a beer.
[00:04:23]  Then the biker shakes the beer up, they all spray the bartender down.
[00:04:27]  My boss says, okay.
[00:04:29]  He's like, now you gotta leave.
[00:04:30]  And then the guy turns around and says, F you.
[00:04:33]  Turns around, they start laughing.
[00:04:34]  He walks over, pulls the door closed, locks it and says, now you just can't leave.
[00:04:39]  And then the boys come in the back with guns and baseball bats and crowbars and beat the crap out of those guys.
[00:04:44]  You know, I'm not gonna, you know, in the real world, I'm not a big fan of going around and just getting into bar fights or anything like that.
[00:04:49]  But the idea of, The mob boss, he was being nice.
[00:04:55]  These guys weren't wearing suits, they weren't wearing college shirts, but he was nice to them.
[00:04:59]  And then they disrespected him, and then this is what you get.
[00:05:02]  And so that idea in my mind, I'm thinking, Were we not better off when you get a chance to be a gentleman, and they treat you with respect, and you can live your life?
[00:05:10]  Well, let me tell you, Chaz Palmaterri is a very dear friend of mine, and I've seen that movie so many times.
[00:05:15]  There's so many iconic little, you know, points of wisdom that Chaz put in that.
[00:05:20]  And he, you know, he wasn't part of the life, but he knew the life well.
[00:05:23]  You know, he had a lot of, you know, relationships there, but that's exactly how it would have been handled.
[00:05:29]  You know, it's all about respect.
[00:05:31]  All right, we'll show you respect.
[00:05:32]  Just don't cross the line.
[00:05:34]  And when they did, you know, they paid the price for it.
[00:05:37]  But, you know, again, it's about respect.
[00:05:40]  In the neighborhood, you respect your neighborhood.
[00:05:42]  You respect the people around you.
[00:05:43]  You respect your family.
[00:05:45]  And, you know, we've lost that.
[00:05:46]  You know, people say to me all the time, you know, Michael, you guys must have hated the police.
[00:05:51]  And, you know, what do you think about this defunding the police?
[00:05:54]  I said, that's the most ridiculous idea that I've ever heard.
[00:05:58]  I said, you gotta have law and order.
[00:06:00]  You know, we didn't disrespect the police.
[00:06:02]  What we used to tell the FBI and the cops, listen, we understand you're on one side, we're on the other.
[00:06:08]  We get it, you have a job to do, fine.
[00:06:10]  You know, do your job.
[00:06:11]  If you do your job better than we do ours, and we go down, we go down.
[00:06:15]  Just don't frame us.
[00:06:17]  And don't harass our family.
[00:06:18]  That's what we would tell them.
[00:06:19]  But if you get us fair and square, no problem.
[00:06:21]  We were never disrespectful to them in that way.

=== Racketeers and Repercussions (15:28) ===

[00:06:23]  Did they try that often?
[00:06:24]  Framing?
[00:06:25]  Well, listen, my dad was framed on a case.
[00:06:27]  He got a 50-year sentence, did 40 on the 50, and I'll take it to my grave that my dad was innocent in that case.
[00:06:34]  I investigated it thoroughly.
[00:06:36]  So yeah, does it happen?
[00:06:37]  Absolutely.
[00:06:38]  You know, today I can't even believe how, you know, wide open it is.
[00:06:42]  You know, they don't even care anymore.
[00:06:43]  Back then they used to hide it a little bit, but now it's...
[00:06:46]  It's gotten out of hand, but you know, it is what it is.
[00:06:49]  When do you think that change happened?
[00:06:50]  When it stopped being hidden and they became so blatant with it in terms of the government and police?
[00:06:55]  You know, for me, it seems like it happened in the last, you know, seven, eight, nine years.
[00:07:00]  I mean, you know, I don't recall being at this, this out in the open.
[00:07:04]  Right.
[00:07:06]  And it's, listen, for me, the most frightening thing you can have in government are two things.
[00:07:11]  Number one, when the party in power starts to weaponize the Department of Justice and their other agencies to go after their political enemies, problem.
[00:07:20]  Really problem.
[00:07:21]  And I think we're seeing that.
[00:07:22]  And secondly, when you have the media that's supposed to be non-biased and impartial start covering for that, you know, same party.
[00:07:30]  And I think we're seeing that now both ways.
[00:07:33]  And it's, to me, it's very dangerous.
[00:07:35]  Very dangerous.
[00:07:35]  Let me ask you about the family, right?
[00:07:38]  You said, initially you said, you know, people refer to it as the crime family.
[00:07:41]  You said maybe you're programmed, it's called the family.
[00:07:44]  What is the average day-to-day for the family?
[00:07:48]  What do they do?
[00:07:49]  Well, you know, it all depends on who you were in that life.
[00:07:54]  You know, I would separate the guys in that life, the made guys, guys that actually took the oath.
[00:08:00]  There's two categories.
[00:08:01]  You had the racketeers and you had the gangsters.
[00:08:03]  Now, the racketeers, normally, they were the guys that brought the money in.
[00:08:07]  You know, they knew how to use that life to benefit them in business, and they were earning money.
[00:08:12]  In our family, Colombo family at that time, we had 115 made guys, guys that actually took the oath.
[00:08:18]  Out of that 115, maybe 20 of us were earners, the racketeers.
[00:08:23]  The other guys, they were the gangsters, they did a lot of the heavy work, and they just didn't have the ability to earn.
[00:08:29]  So maybe they had a no-show job, maybe they're doing a little gambling, little numbers, you know, whatever they could do to, you know, to grind out a living.
[00:08:36]  But the gangsters couldn't really be the racketeers because they didn't know how.
[00:08:41]  But the racketeers had to be a gangster also because you're going to get called upon to do certain things.
[00:08:45]  So, you know, it all depends on what your level was in that life.
[00:08:50]  Well, listen, I get asked this question all the time, and I'm not going to sugarcoat it.
[00:08:55]  And look, people got killed in that life.
[00:08:58]  There's no question about it.
[00:08:59]  You cross the line, you suffer the consequences.
[00:09:04]  So it could have been that.
[00:09:05]  Do you send people out to beat people up?
[00:09:08]  Not really, but it happens.
[00:09:10]  Sometimes guys get crazy and they do things they shouldn't be doing.
[00:09:16]  You know, look, and I want to set the record straight.
[00:09:19]  When we take the oath, we're told that there are certain things that we can't do.
[00:09:24]  You never, ever mess around with another made guy's wife, daughter, sister, mother.
[00:09:28]  That's death.
[00:09:30]  That could be very, very serious.
[00:09:32]  You know, you don't betray the family, obviously.
[00:09:34]  You don't become an informant, obviously.
[00:09:37]  You gotta be honest in business.
[00:09:38]  If you're caught stealing and you shouldn't be, that could be, you could suffer serious consequences.
[00:09:44]  But the thing is, we all understand that going in.
[00:09:47]  And you're told straight out, you violate the life and you could pay for it and it might be your best friend that's called upon to do it because the life comes first.
[00:09:57]  So, um, it's just the way it is.
[00:10:00]  What would you say is the primary purpose of the family?
[00:10:03]  I mean, was it just you guys were, you were in this together to work together to better each other's lives or was there a stated goal of we're going to rack it, we're going to be gangsters?
[00:10:13]  Well, listen, we wanted to make money.
[00:10:15]  At the end of the day, it's about money.
[00:10:16]  You know, we had a lot of power and influence.
[00:10:18]  I always say the golden years of Cosa Nostra, mafia in this country, really from the late 40s, early 50s, right through to the mid 80s.
[00:10:27]  That's when we had a lot of power and control.
[00:10:29]  We had a lot of control over the unions.
[00:10:31]  We had influence right into the White House.
[00:10:34]  I mean, there's no question about it.
[00:10:35]  We had a lot of power.
[00:10:38]  Not the same now.
[00:10:41]  You know, what was the idea?
[00:10:42]  Make money, have influence, and live a good life.
[00:10:45]  That was it.
[00:10:46]  And we would cross the line if we had to.
[00:10:48]  It's also worth noting that a lot of people who came over and started the families were leaving Italy because of Mussolini.
[00:10:55]  Absolutely.
[00:10:56]  In a way, they were escaping fascism.
[00:10:58]  Mussolini did not like the mobsters in Italy.
[00:11:01]  He did not.
[00:11:02]  No, Mussolini was upset because he was slighted.
[00:11:05]  He went into Sicily, thought he was going to get a hero's welcome, and the mob guys just ignored him.
[00:11:10]  He never forgot it.
[00:11:11]  Didn't they steal his hat or something?
[00:11:12]  Yeah.
[00:11:13]  They didn't like him.
[00:11:15]  So he never forgot it, and he declared war on the mafia.
[00:11:18]  And that's when they started coming over here.
[00:11:21]  Racketeering, gangsters, what is the racketeering?
[00:11:25]  What did that look like for the family?
[00:11:27]  The RICO statute was devastating to the families, no question about it.
[00:11:32]  You know, a lot of people like to say it was John Gotti that took the family down because he was flamboyant and he was out there and all of that.
[00:11:39]  John did not take the family down.
[00:11:40]  There were other guys like him.
[00:11:41]  Joe Colombo was a flamboyant guy.
[00:11:43]  There was a lot of guys that, maybe not as outspoken as him, but he didn't bring the family down.
[00:11:49]  It was the racketeering law.
[00:11:51]  You know, I believe till today the law is unconstitutional, but it's there to stay.
[00:11:55]  And they used it very effectively against our families.
[00:11:59]  And it was very hard to defend.
[00:12:02]  And, you know, it took away double jeopardy.
[00:12:05]  There was no double jeopardy before.
[00:12:06]  There was no federal murder before racketeering.
[00:12:09]  But under the RICO statute, murder became a predicate act and people can go down for murder.
[00:12:15]  So it was very devastating.
[00:12:17]  Well, what was the racket?
[00:12:18]  What was the family doing?
[00:12:19]  Well, first of all, you had to be part of a criminal enterprise, and you had to do certain acts in a pattern of racketeering.
[00:12:26]  But you had to first prove that you were part of a criminal enterprise, which wasn't too difficult, you know?
[00:12:33]  And then anything, it could be murder, it could be extortion, it could be the numbers, but it could be anything.
[00:12:38]  It could be a predicate act of the racketeering statute.
[00:12:43]  But I just mean, what was making money?
[00:12:46]  You know, in the majority for the family.
[00:12:49]  Was it gambling?
[00:12:49]  Was it casinos?
[00:12:50]  Gambling was big, obviously.
[00:12:52]  It was always a mainstay of that life.
[00:12:54]  You know, union labor racketeering was big.
[00:12:56]  We controlled the unions.
[00:12:57]  You controlled the unions in this country back then.
[00:13:00]  You controlled the country in a big way, you know, politically.
[00:13:05]  What do politicians want?
[00:13:06]  They want money and they want votes.
[00:13:09]  Well, you control the Teamsters.
[00:13:10]  You got two and a half million people, you know, plus their families.
[00:13:13]  So you got a couple of million people.
[00:13:15]  That's a couple of million votes.
[00:13:17]  And then we had huge pension funds so we can support and donate these politicians.
[00:13:22]  So we didn't have to chase them.
[00:13:24]  They warmed up to us.
[00:13:25]  I'm just trying to figure out.
[00:13:29]  Why the government went after the mafia?
[00:13:31]  Was it really bad stuff?
[00:13:33]  Was it drugs?
[00:13:34]  Were innocent people dying?
[00:13:36]  Taxes.
[00:13:36]  Was it taxes?
[00:13:38]  Let me tell you why I believe it until today.
[00:13:41]  We weren't big drug dealers.
[00:13:42]  We were told straight out if we dealt with drugs during my era, if we dealt with drugs, we'd die.
[00:13:47]  And I know guys that got killed because they were dealing with drugs.
[00:13:50]  We were not the big drug dealers.
[00:13:52]  You mean like the family would say it's a violation for doing or selling drugs?
[00:13:56]  Yeah.
[00:13:56]  Drugs were off limits.
[00:13:58]  I mean, John Gotti, the reason he was in trouble with Castellano was because his crew was dealing drugs.
[00:14:03]  And so Castellano was going after him for that.
[00:14:06]  So we weren't big drug dealers.
[00:14:08]  We weren't even in the same league as the cartels.
[00:14:10]  So you can't put us in that league.
[00:14:12]  But, you know, why did they come after us?
[00:14:16]  Because we made headlines for them.
[00:14:20]  That was it.
[00:14:20]  And you know what?
[00:14:22]  We didn't shoot back at them.
[00:14:23]  We had a code.
[00:14:24]  You don't go after, you know, in Italy, they went after everybody.
[00:14:27]  Judges, politicians, cops, everything.
[00:14:30]  In America, that was hands off.
[00:14:32]  So we were easy.
[00:14:33]  You come after us, you know, you want to lock us up.
[00:14:36]  We put our hands up, put the handcuffs on, we get in the car and we go and we fight you in court.
[00:14:40]  But we made the big headlines.
[00:14:42]  And so it was very, you know, it was career building to come after us.
[00:14:46]  Were we the worst guys in town?
[00:14:48]  Absolutely not.
[00:14:50]  And I'll say that, and you know, people may say, oh, come on, Michael, you know, you're putting a good face on the mafia.
[00:14:56]  Well, in some ways I am, yeah.
[00:14:59]  I, you know, look, I gotta learn a lot.
[00:15:02]  You know, and I'm sure if we had a prosecutor here who worked on these cases, he's gonna say all these really evil and awful things.
[00:15:07]  I just can't get over watching videos of people ransacking businesses.
[00:15:11]  And then I hear these stories about, oh, the protection racket, right?
[00:15:15]  Mobster walks in, two guys show up, they say, you're gonna pay us for protection or else.
[00:15:19]  And it always came off when I was a kid that it was a trick.
[00:15:23]  You weren't really getting protection.
[00:15:24]  It was protection from the guys who were coming in.
[00:15:26]  Exactly.
[00:15:27]  Yeah, but now I look at things and I'm like, if a couple of mobsters came in your place and said you're gonna pay us protection money or else, and they paid it, and then a day later a roving band of youths started smashing everything up, the mob is gonna come in and actually protect who's paying the bills.
[00:15:43]  100%.
[00:15:44]  Otherwise they ain't getting the bills paid.
[00:15:45]  100%.
[00:15:46]  It would have stopped immediately.
[00:15:49]  I kind of want that back.
[00:15:50]  And let me ask you this, Tim.
[00:15:51]  Why isn't the FBI going after these Venezuelan groups right now?
[00:15:56]  Exactly.
[00:15:56]  They don't make headlines.
[00:15:58]  There's nothing colorful about it.
[00:15:59]  There's nothing big.
[00:16:01]  They're denying that it's happening.
[00:16:02]  Exactly.
[00:16:03]  And they could destroy them the same way they destroyed us, if they wanted to.
[00:16:07]  If they put the resources against them the way they did with us, they'd clean it up immediately.
[00:16:12]  They don't want to do it.
[00:16:13]  I think we're still under mob rule.
[00:16:14]  They just don't have an oath to anything other than themselves and their own greed and power and lust for destruction.
[00:16:20]  I wrote a book, Mafia Democracy, and because I see exactly what they're doing.
[00:16:24]  It's all about money and power and staying in power.
[00:16:27]  That's it.
[00:16:27]  They don't want to give it up.
[00:16:28]  Maybe you can break down how Pelosi is a mob type figure for us.
[00:16:33]  Well, listen, Pelosi's father was mobbed up in Boston, no question about it, 100%.
[00:16:37]  There's no, you know, I mean, the evidence is strong there.
[00:16:41]  That's how he stayed in office, became the mayor the whole bit.
[00:16:44]  I mean, you know, it was his connections.
[00:16:47]  So Pelosi was around Nancy at that time, and she learned from that.
[00:16:50]  She grew up in it.
[00:16:51]  She lived that part of it.
[00:16:52]  And you can see it in her mannerisms and the way she acts.
[00:16:55]  And look, Nancy Pelosi has made hundreds of millions of dollars by insider trading.
[00:17:01]  Something that you or I, we go to jail for.
[00:17:03]  And everybody else.
[00:17:05]  She squashed bills that Congress tried to put forth to stop insider trading among Congress and the family.
[00:17:12]  She's the one that squashed it.
[00:17:13]  Because she made hundreds of millions of dollars.
[00:17:15]  She made her husband wealthy and of course, you know.
[00:17:17]  You know, in 2020 or 2022, their trades beat the S&P by 15%, making them the most brilliant stock traders in the country, maybe in the world.
[00:17:31]  Wow.
[00:17:31]  Now, is that luck?
[00:17:33]  Of course not.
[00:17:33]  I doubt it.
[00:17:33]  You know, they got one trick they do, too.
[00:17:35]  So, a lot of people think they've got insider access, classified information, they know it's coming, so they make those trades.
[00:17:41]  They do something else.
[00:17:43]  They will introduce a bill that they know will fail, but it'll go in the press.
[00:17:48]  New bill to ban this product.
[00:17:51]  And they've already put the shorts on it.
[00:17:53]  The bill hits the news.
[00:17:55]  Stock tanks.
[00:17:56]  They get their gains from the shorts.
[00:17:59]  Then they say, ah, bill was killed.
[00:18:01]  Prices go back up.
[00:18:02]  Michael's got a great example in your book in Mafia Democracy about how all these politicians were saying in the news, it's going to be fine during COVID and lockdowns.
[00:18:09]  Meanwhile, they're doing insider trading, making all this money because they see what's coming down the pike.
[00:18:15]  100%.
[00:18:15]  You know what gets me?
[00:18:17]  You take a Pelosi.
[00:18:19]  You know, the woman is 80 something years old.
[00:18:21]  She's made hundreds of millions of dollars.
[00:18:24]  Don't you want to go home and be with your husband and your kids and your grandkids?
[00:18:28]  No.
[00:18:29]  She wants to stay in power until she's gone, until it's over for her.
[00:18:33]  They can't give it up.
[00:18:35]  I mean, that's so many of them.
[00:18:37]  I mean, all these people.
[00:18:38]  Absolutely.
[00:18:39]  I mean, you remember Feinstein, they had to put her in a wheelchair.
[00:18:42]  She wouldn't give it up, you know?
[00:18:44]  Was it like that in the family?
[00:18:46]  Did you have people who are really old and just didn't want to back down?
[00:18:48]  No.
[00:18:49]  No, when guys knew the time was up, they left.
[00:18:52]  Costello retired, right?
[00:18:54]  Costello retired.
[00:18:55]  After almost getting shot, which... Yes.
[00:18:58]  Kind of like a Trump situation, right?
[00:19:01]  He raised his head and... He was blessed big time because he was coming out of an elevator and went blank.
[00:19:08]  Crazy.
[00:19:08]  And he went down, so Chin thought he was dead.
[00:19:11]  Right.
[00:19:11]  But he survived.
[00:19:12]  Wow.
[00:19:13]  Yeah.
[00:19:14]  It's kind of funny that, you know, the stories are always just so negative.
[00:19:17]  All the mafia these days were so bad, and now we're talking about how awful the current government is, and how corrupt and evil and busted the DOJ is.
[00:19:24]  And it's like, man, can we go back to when it was bad?
[00:19:26]  Because this is really bad.
[00:19:27]  The old mafia to take care of the new mafia.
[00:19:29]  Return the RICO charges against the politicians.
[00:19:32]  How can we make that happen?
[00:19:34]  Okay, let me take, because this is a pet peeve of mine.
[00:19:37]  Joe Biden, probably the worst president ever, certainly in my lifetime, no question about it.
[00:19:42]  But I will tell you this, the information that they have against him with respect to his influence peddling as vice president through his son and his brother, okay, between the suspicious bank accounts, The $27 million plus that went into 18 or 21 shell companies.
[00:20:00]  These shell companies did nothing, okay, but exist to collect money.
[00:20:05]  There was no brick and mortar.
[00:20:06]  They had no service.
[00:20:07]  Nothing.
[00:20:07]  They did nothing.
[00:20:08]  How do I know this?
[00:20:09]  I had 18 shell companies when I was defrauding the government out of tax on every gallon of gasoline.
[00:20:15]  All we did was use those companies to set up a bank account to collect the money.
[00:20:19]  They did nothing else.
[00:20:20]  They have all that information on the laptop that they said was false, and then they used it as evidence against his son in trial.
[00:20:27]  The same Justice Department that said it was phony at one time used it to prosecute his son.
[00:20:32]  They've got whistleblowers.
[00:20:33]  They've got text messages.
[00:20:35]  They've got emails.
[00:20:37]  This is a racketeering indictment 1000%.
[00:20:41]  I know that statute.
[00:20:42]  Now whether he's innocent or guilty, prove it at trial, but he should have been indicted 100%.
[00:20:46]  And I believe until this moment that Hunter Biden took a plea because all this stuff would have came out at that trial and it would have buried Joe Biden.
[00:20:56]  Wow.
[00:20:56]  So he takes a plea.
[00:20:58]  Joe Biden is a pathological liar.
[00:21:00]  He's going to either commute a sentence or he's going to Do you think Biden's always been that way?
[00:21:05]  Yes!
[00:21:05]  He's always been like a plagiarist liar, right?
[00:21:07]  And these people get away with this stuff.
[00:21:09]  He's treasonous.
[00:21:11]  He sold out America.
[00:21:12]  Do you think Biden's always been that way?
[00:21:13]  Yes.
[00:21:14]  He's always been like a plagiarist liar, right?
[00:21:17]  He's pathological.
[00:21:18]  The guy makes up stories out of there.
[00:21:20]  There's something mentally wrong with him.
[00:21:21]  Yeah, I agree.
[00:21:22]  His 80s presidential campaign.
[00:21:24]  What did he do?
[00:21:25]  He plagiarized an Irish politician's speech?
[00:21:27]  Yeah, I mean, there's many times he plagiarized other people's speeches.
[00:21:29]  He's been doing it his whole career.
[00:21:30]  Yeah.
[00:21:30]  Yeah, it's wild.
[00:21:31]  His whole career.
[00:21:32]  And look, who sums it up?
[00:21:34]  Barack Obama.

=== Politics Unchecked (02:19) ===

[00:21:36]  Never underestimate Joe's ability to F things up.
[00:21:39]  He said it.
[00:21:40]  He said it.
[00:21:41]  Yeah.
[00:21:42]  Well, I mean, it must be wild.
[00:21:43]  It's funny that this all comes back to politics, but it sounds to me like The real issue may be a loss of competition between crime families.
[00:21:52]  That when you've got the mobsters at the height of their power and the government, it's effectively two mobs going at each other, playing this game cat and mouse.
[00:22:00]  Now there's just one unchecked, can do whatever it wants.
[00:22:04]  You know, when I look at these people, I describe them as...
[00:22:08]  We're on the Titanic, we hit the iceberg, they saw it happen, and instead of announcing it to the ship, they're running around taking as many valuables as they can and rushing for the lifeboats.
[00:22:16]  So all this crime running rampant through our cities, the human waste, the homelessness, the poverty, everything that's causing this decay, and they say it's not happening, everybody shut your eyes, go back to bed.
[00:22:27]  Meanwhile, those of us who are paying attention, we're watching Joe Biden run off with the silverware, and they're telling us, nah, it's fine, nothing's going on.
[00:22:34]  And no one's gonna stop him either because The DOJ, it works for him.
[00:22:39]  He's not the boss, but he's one of them.
[00:22:42]  So that's just it.
[00:22:43]  We sit back and we watch them do all these things.
[00:22:46]  I don't know.
[00:22:47]  I don't know where we go from there.
[00:22:48]  You know, Tim, I have to say this, you know, people sometimes, oh, you're getting into too many political issues.
[00:22:55]  This is not politics.
[00:22:57]  When you have people coming over the border that are swarming into your neighborhood and creating havoc and crime on taxpayer dollars, OK, when you have inflation the way it is, when you have All of this stuff going on, these are issues that are affecting our life.
[00:23:11]  Unfortunately, it's politics that control these issues.
[00:23:15]  But I try to make people aware of the issues, and you can't let this happen again for another four years.
[00:23:20]  You know, I say this too.
[00:23:21]  You can't trust these people.
[00:23:23]  They've lied to us about Biden.
[00:23:25]  They lie to us continuously every single day.
[00:23:27]  They don't even care.
[00:23:28]  They lie on video.
[00:23:30]  It doesn't even matter anymore.
[00:23:32]  If you have a friend or, you know, a companion, a partner, he lies to you once, all right, you know, stuff happens.
[00:23:38]  Second time, you start to get a little unnerved about it.

=== Garbage Pile-Up? (14:10) ===

[00:23:41]  Third, fourth, fifth time, hey, I'm done.
[00:23:43]  It's over.
[00:23:44]  So when these people are lying to you consistently, how could you trust them for another three or four years after the destruction that they've caused and the dishonesty that they bring forward?
[00:23:55]  And you know, that's my whole thing.
[00:23:57]  I do not think, I know we're getting into politics here, I don't think America is going to survive another four years of this administration.
[00:24:03]  - I think we all agree. - I agree.
[00:24:05]  How do you think the mafia or the families that you knew from the '70s, '80s would have dealt with the collapsing border crisis now?
[00:24:11]  'Cause fentanyl's coming over, you know, well, you said your family wasn't dealing with drugs, but others were, you know, would they have kept, would they have like used that and be happy about the border failing 'cause they could get access to the drugs easier?
[00:24:23]  - No. - But then it would be hurting their neighborhoods, right?
[00:24:26]  We wouldn't have any crime in our neighborhood.
[00:24:27]  Absolutely not.
[00:24:28]  If we had to shoot people, we would have done it.
[00:24:30]  Nobody's going to come into our neighborhood and cry.
[00:24:32]  Look, you know, I grew up, we never locked our doors.
[00:24:35]  We never shut our windows.
[00:24:36]  If my sisters would come home 12, 1 o'clock at night, if they were walking alone, guys would walk aside them and bring them home.
[00:24:43]  You know, there was no crime in our neighborhoods and we would not allow it.
[00:24:47]  And if we had to go to war with those committing it, They'd know that, you know, here's the border, don't come here.
[00:24:52]  Right.
[00:24:53]  You know, look, what's going on today is just, I never thought I'd ever witness this in my lifetime.
[00:25:00]  I mean it.
[00:25:01]  And they made us to be demons and devils.
[00:25:04]  Listen, I go out to Vegas, people say, Michael, can you guys come back and run this town for us again?
[00:25:10]  I'm not kidding.
[00:25:12]  And it was so much better when we ran it.
[00:25:14]  You know?
[00:25:15]  Yeah, I watched Casino.
[00:25:17]  And I love Vegas.
[00:25:19]  I'm not going to go there.
[00:25:20]  I think I've been there like three times in the past decade or whatever.
[00:25:23]  But watching that movie, they sure do make you love what Vegas used to be.
[00:25:28]  Absolutely.
[00:25:29]  I started going there in the late 70s.
[00:25:31]  Don't cheat.
[00:25:32]  It was so wide open.
[00:25:33]  It was just great.
[00:25:35]  When they bring the guys in the back who are cheating and they deal with it, you know, I'm not gonna pretend like these are good things, but there's something about where we are today with a lack of any kind of accountability or justice for criminals, where you watch a movie like that and you're like, the cheaters got caught, they messed them up a little bit and threw them out and said don't come back or else, and it's like,
[00:26:00]  You know, it's sad to say, because again, I'm not saying that we should have a system like that, but some accountability, it feels like, would be better than what's going on now, and that's kind of terrifying.
[00:26:10]  You watch these videos of these people going, there was a, during the riots, a small family shop gets ransacked by just a roving band.
[00:26:18]  And no accountability, no arrest, nothing happens.
[00:26:20]  You hear these stories now.
[00:26:23]  In Jersey, for instance, when I lived there, someone tried to break in, the cops told me, well, a lawyer told me this, if you defended yourself with a firearm, you'd be in prison.
[00:26:33]  Someone can break into your house with the intent to kill you, and you can't do anything to protect yourself, and then you look back at these old movies, which I'm sure kind of gloss over the nastier elements, sure, but at least the idea of your neighborhood's going to be safe, you can leave your door unlocked, and You know, as long as you're not being disrespectful or causing problems, then you are good.
[00:26:55]  It's kind of terrifying to say it again.
[00:26:59]  That's better than what we're seeing now in these cities.
[00:27:01]  I go to D.C.
[00:27:02]  I see tents everywhere.
[00:27:03]  I see homeless people.
[00:27:03]  I see drug addiction.
[00:27:05]  I went to California.
[00:27:05]  Some morbidly obese homeless woman pulled her pants off in the middle of the street and just started relieving herself in front of everybody.
[00:27:11]  Nobody does anything about it.
[00:27:13]  San Francisco's got the poop department.
[00:27:14]  Not a joke.
[00:27:15]  It's a poo department that goes around to clean up the human waste all over the streets.
[00:27:19]  And then you're like, Was the mafia really that bad?
[00:27:22]  It's like the government made the mafia to be out to be like these demonic figures that you were saying just to become it, right?
[00:27:29]  Like, you know, you think in the 50s they had those hearings with Costello and stuff and they're getting headlines then saying these are the dark, you know, these dark figures lurking in the shadows.
[00:27:40]  But then they become that and they let everything collapse around them.
[00:27:44]  Let me ask you real quick.
[00:27:48]  Is New York City a good example of where there was strong, you know, mafia presence, obviously?
[00:27:52]  It was the strongest presence in this country.
[00:27:54]  Was there a fear among the people living in these areas that they could be shot randomly?
[00:27:58]  You walking down the street?
[00:28:00]  Absolutely not.
[00:28:01]  Gangster might just shoot you for no reason?
[00:28:02]  Not at all.
[00:28:02]  That's Chicago today.
[00:28:04]  That's Chicago when I was growing up.
[00:28:06]  We get off the store.
[00:28:07]  I got a couple stories, but one is me and my brother were driving on 290.
[00:28:10]  For those that don't know, it's east to west.
[00:28:12]  It goes into the city.
[00:28:13]  And we are exiting at Independence to go to the north side.
[00:28:16]  Car driving past for no reason aims a gun and just shoots at our car.
[00:28:19]  And we're just like, why?
[00:28:20]  Why did that happen?
[00:28:22]  And fights would break out, people would have guns.
[00:28:24]  And so, you know, you say it would never happen.
[00:28:28]  I'm curious, were there ever any instances?
[00:28:30]  I mean, was the mafia roughing up innocent people and causing problems for innocent people?
[00:28:35]  Or were they left out of it as long as it's like they're taking care of their business with other, you know, other groups or what?
[00:28:41]  Tim, I honestly can say that I only know of the 20 years that I spent in that life, I only know personally of one time when an innocent person got shot.
[00:28:50]  It was an accident.
[00:28:52]  Got shot.
[00:28:54]  No, I mean, we roughed up our own.
[00:28:59]  That's it.
[00:29:00]  You know, and people, we heard the expression, we only killed our own.
[00:29:03]  Well, to a great degree, that's true.
[00:29:06]  We didn't go after shooting people in stores and doing all that.
[00:29:08]  And you know what?
[00:29:09]  And that stuff did happen in the 20s and the 30s.
[00:29:12]  That was kind of the Wild West before there really was an organization.
[00:29:16]  The days of Al Capone, there were a bunch of gangs around.
[00:29:18]  It wasn't really organized.
[00:29:19]  Chicago.
[00:29:20]  Yeah, until Luciano organized everything.
[00:29:22]  But, you know, what's happening in Chicago now?
[00:29:25]  Oh, my God.
[00:29:26]  And listen, this happened during Obama's administration, Trump, and now Biden, and I don't know why they're not cleaning it up.
[00:29:33]  They can!
[00:29:34]  Trust me when I tell you, they can.
[00:29:35]  It has to be.
[00:29:36]  It's on purpose.
[00:29:37]  Yeah, they can clean it up.
[00:29:39]  The same way they came after us, they can go after them.
[00:29:41]  No question about it.
[00:29:43]  This Trende Aragua stuff is pretty crazy.
[00:29:45]  Oh, God.
[00:29:46]  Yeah, you got the stories out of Colorado where they take over the apartment complex, the media says it's not happening, you're lying.
[00:29:52]  And then I'm seeing these progressives be like, wait a minute, I Google-searched this, here's a story from a year ago talking about it.
[00:29:58]  Why are they denying it now?
[00:30:00]  It's almost like they want these criminal gangs to come and start taking over.
[00:30:05]  You have to say that they do.
[00:30:08]  Why would they allow it to happen?
[00:30:09]  How can they maintain power much longer if they've got everyone living under fear constantly?
[00:30:13]  Maybe that's how.
[00:30:15]  But if at some point, maybe not, these people are going to realize it's because of these people.
[00:30:20]  You defend yourself, you go to prison.
[00:30:22]  These gangs run around.
[00:30:23]  This is like what Solzhenitsyn was saying.
[00:30:25]  That, you know, there was the famous passage in the Gulag Archipelago where Red soldier is in a fight.
[00:30:33]  Guy pulls out a knife.
[00:30:34]  They're fighting.
[00:30:35]  He takes the knife and he stabs the guy.
[00:30:36]  Gets arrested, and they said, why did you kill him?
[00:30:38]  He was trying to kill me.
[00:30:39]  They said, why didn't you run away?
[00:30:40]  Yeah.
[00:30:41]  Well, a guy's trying to kill you.
[00:30:42]  I mean, there's no excuse.
[00:30:44]  I mean, a reasonable person knows that you can try to run, but you might not be able to, and this person might take your life.
[00:30:49]  You got to defend yourself.
[00:30:50]  And the way they treat it is, nope.
[00:30:52]  And so now we're dealing with I love this.
[00:30:55]  The FBI crime report comes out and they say crime is down.
[00:30:59]  And what they're actually saying is reported crime is down because majority of the large city police agencies have stopped sending us their data.
[00:31:06]  Right.
[00:31:07]  We've redefined crime.
[00:31:08]  Exactly.
[00:31:09]  And then the news tells everybody it's down.
[00:31:12]  It's the dishonesty and the hypocrisy that's just so hard to take.
[00:31:17]  I feel like the cities are going to have a breaking point, though, where people are going to realize we have to change the way we vote, perhaps.
[00:31:22]  Like, I don't know what's going on with Eric Adams yet, but it seemed like he was upset about immigration, the way it was hurting his city.
[00:31:28]  And the second he starts to say things that they don't like, the people on his side don't like, all of a sudden how, you know, everything's happening to him.
[00:31:34]  All of a sudden he's indicted.
[00:31:35]  All of a sudden they investigate stuff that happened many, many years ago.
[00:31:38]  They bring it up on him because he said, rightfully so, why are we paying for this?
[00:31:43]  You're allowing it to happen at the border.
[00:31:45]  Why isn't the federal government paying for it?
[00:31:47]  And they didn't want to.
[00:31:48]  He went to the White House a couple of times.
[00:31:50]  They said, no, you're on your own.
[00:31:54]  These people are backstabbed.
[00:31:55]  They're the worst people.
[00:31:58]  And you're hearing that from an ex-mob guy.
[00:32:01]  I'm telling you, these are the worst people I've ever seen.
[00:32:05]  You know, I gotta tell you another thing.
[00:32:07]  I went to trial five times.
[00:32:08]  I was never even five minutes late for a trial.
[00:32:11]  Never missed.
[00:32:12]  I stood in front of five juries that could have put me away forever, right?
[00:32:15]  Never missed.
[00:32:16]  I get indicted on a white-collar crime, it was a racketeering case, defrauding the government.
[00:32:21]  I get no bail.
[00:32:22]  No bail.
[00:32:24]  This guy's been on, five times he stood in front of a jury that could have put him away forever.
[00:32:29]  This is a white collar crime, basically, defrauding the government out of tax on gasoline.
[00:32:35]  And because why?
[00:32:36]  Because I beat them so many times, they figured, you know, lock him up, it's harder to defend yourself and prepare a defense.
[00:32:42]  And now you go rob a store, you go hit somebody over the head, you shoot a cop and you're out the next day.
[00:32:47]  Crazy.
[00:32:48]  It's crazy.
[00:32:49]  Was that Giuliani prosecuting you?
[00:32:50]  Was Giuliani prosecuted?
[00:32:52]  Giuliani prosecuted, yeah.
[00:32:53]  Who ended up writing his introduction for his book.
[00:32:55]  No, really?
[00:32:56]  Wow.
[00:32:56]  He wrote the foreword to my book.
[00:32:57]  So you've probably hung out with Giuliani since then and talked to him about this stuff?
[00:33:01]  We haven't been hanging out, but we did get together on a radio show and we did speak afterwards and yeah, he was pretty nice.
[00:33:08]  I gotta ask him about this.
[00:33:09]  You know, he went after you, he went after the mob.
[00:33:12]  Look at the state of New York right now and look at what the machine is doing to him.
[00:33:16]  I have to wonder what his opinion would be on how things ended up.
[00:33:19]  Well, I gotta tell you something.
[00:33:20]  People have asked me about that.
[00:33:21]  Michael, it should be sweet to see Giuliani go through the same thing.
[00:33:25]  I said, why?
[00:33:25]  I said, Giuliani did his job back then, okay?
[00:33:29]  He was a federal prosecutor.
[00:33:30]  His job was to go out and get the mom, and he did it.
[00:33:33]  He used the racketeering law very effectively.
[00:33:36]  Isn't he responsible for it?
[00:33:37]  Yeah, well he was the guy that really, it was on the books for 10 years before he used it.
[00:33:42]  And he figured it out and he used it effectively.
[00:33:45]  And then, boom, he put a lot of guys away, right?
[00:33:47]  So, you know, fortunately I beat him because he told, yeah, he told me and my lawyer, asked him about this.
[00:33:54]  In the day of my arraignment, I got a million dollar bail, I think it was.
[00:33:59]  He said, Francis, if I convict you on this case, you're getting double what your father got.
[00:34:02]  My father got 50.
[00:34:04]  And that's the kind of time they were giving us guys back then, 50, 100 years, like nothing, right?
[00:34:09]  I said, hey, Rudy, bring it on.
[00:34:10]  I beat you guys four times.
[00:34:12]  Let's go for round five.
[00:34:13]  And it was a dumb thing to say at the time.
[00:34:17]  You don't want to give them any more reason to come after you.
[00:34:20]  Fortunately, I was acquitted in that case.
[00:34:21]  But yeah, you know, he, when we went on this radio show, he says, Mike, I've been looking at you for the last 30 years.
[00:34:29]  And I think your transformation is genuine.
[00:34:32]  So he actually gave me a compliment.
[00:34:34]  But I'll tell you this.
[00:34:35]  He was a darn good mayor.
[00:34:37]  He was a good prosecutor.
[00:34:39]  What they're doing to him now because he aligned himself with Trump is just terrible.
[00:34:46]  Terrible what they're doing.
[00:34:48]  I'd probably just romanticize it.
[00:34:51]  I want to believe there used to be honor, to some degree.
[00:34:54]  You know, that, like you mentioned, certain things were off limits.
[00:34:58]  There was certain respect.
[00:34:59]  Like you said, the cops come, you put your hands up, you don't fight.
[00:35:02]  You play it out in the system.
[00:35:04]  You know, everyone knows the rules and you're going to play this game.
[00:35:06]  You told Rudy, come at me, you win.
[00:35:08]  And it's all through the process.
[00:35:09]  Everybody understands.
[00:35:11]  There's no honor at all today.
[00:35:12]  None.
[00:35:13]  You know, and again, maybe I'm just romanticizing because maybe there never was and we just highlight these moments and we wish it was like that.
[00:35:20]  But now it's just... Come on, I mean, first of all...
[00:35:24]  I mean, you got to look what they did to Trump.
[00:35:26]  The first time in 200 plus years that they go after a former president the way they did with such vindictiveness and such garbage.
[00:35:35]  Garbage.
[00:35:36]  I mean, what they're prosecuting for is garbage.
[00:35:38]  And then obviously what?
[00:35:40]  Two impeachments of, you know, baloney, you know, Mueller investigation with this stupid.
[00:35:46]  You know what they did to me with this Russian thing?
[00:35:48]  Listen to this.
[00:35:50]  During the Mueller investigation, when I was back in the day, myself and my Russian partner, I was in partners with Russia, we were doing gas business together, right?
[00:35:59]  We put up $6 million to buy condos in Trump Towers back then, right?
[00:36:03]  And we gave them cash.
[00:36:05]  Nothing wrong with that, right?
[00:36:07]  Well, do you know that during the Mueller investigation, the FBI came to me and they were asking me about that incident that happened in the early 80s?
[00:36:16]  And I said, wait a second, wait a second, because my partner, his brother-in-law or something, was a KGB agent.
[00:36:23]  I said, are you guys trying to make a Russian connection?
[00:36:26]  Because me and my partner, who was Russian, bought, you know, condos at Trump Towers.
[00:36:31]  And are you stretching to that?
[00:36:33]  I said, I'll tell you what, bring me in front of the Mueller investigation.
[00:36:36]  I want to testify.
[00:36:38]  I want to testify, you guys are really reaching.
[00:36:41]  And I never heard from them again.
[00:36:43]  But that's how far they went.
[00:36:45]  How desperate they are.
[00:36:46]  Yeah, how desperate.
[00:36:47]  You've had more modern, obviously, interactions with FBI and federal prosecutors.
[00:36:52]  How would you compare the guys today to the guys, you know, in the 80s and 90s?
[00:36:57]  Well, look, you know, it starts at the top.
[00:36:59]  I think there was a different culture back then.
[00:37:02]  You know, look, again, we respected the agents.
[00:37:05]  We just told them, don't frame us, do your job.
[00:37:07]  I want to say we liked them, you know, obviously they were out to get us, but we didn't have this hatred vendetta against them.
[00:37:15]  But today, I don't know, man, they just operate on a different plane.
[00:37:19]  But I think, look, I'm friends with a lot.
[00:37:21]  I'm friends with Joe Pistone, Donnie Brasco.
[00:37:24]  Great guy.
[00:37:25]  People, oh, Michael, how could you be friends with him?
[00:37:28]  Once again, he did his job better than we did ours.
[00:37:31]  He was undercover for six years, and we didn't know it.
[00:37:33]  When I say we, we're all one.
[00:37:35]  We didn't know it.

=== Becoming a Member (03:03) ===

[00:37:36]  So he did a great job.
[00:37:38]  So we became friends.
[00:37:39]  He's a good guy.
[00:37:40]  And there's a lot of agents that I know now that are sick of what they're seeing right now in the FBI.
[00:37:45]  They're ashamed of it.
[00:37:46]  They're retired, but they're ashamed of it.
[00:37:48]  And this starts at the top and it trickles down.
[00:37:51]  I mean, it's like anything else.
[00:37:53]  How do you, how does this start for you?
[00:37:55]  How do you become, how do you join this family?
[00:37:57]  You know, you personally, but just in general?
[00:38:00]  Well, somebody's got to propose you.
[00:38:02]  You know, somebody within that life has to propose you.
[00:38:04]  You can't just go up to the guy and say, yeah, I'd like to join, you know?
[00:38:07]  Membership.
[00:38:08]  Yeah.
[00:38:08]  In my case, it was my dad.
[00:38:10]  He proposed me for membership.
[00:38:11]  And then you come in as a recruit.
[00:38:14]  And you're told straight out, you know, this is the life, it comes before anything.
[00:38:18]  You know, they told me if your mother is sick and dying, you're at her deathbed, we call you to service, you leave your mother, you come and serve us.
[00:38:25]  From now on, we're number one before anything and everything.
[00:38:28]  And when and if we feel you deserve this privilege and honor to become a member, we'll let you know.
[00:38:33]  You know, when I got made in 75, For 20 years prior to that, they had an expression that the books were closed.
[00:38:40]  They weren't bringing in any new guys.
[00:38:42]  The only time, and this was among all five families in New York, the only time they can bring in a new guy is if somebody died in the family and they replaced him.
[00:38:50]  In the mid-'80s, I mean the mid-'70s, they opened the books and they started recruiting new guys.
[00:38:56]  So when I got made, there was guys waiting 20 years to become made members, you know?
[00:39:01]  What does that mean, made?
[00:39:02]  It means you take the oath and you officially become a member of that life.
[00:39:06]  You start out as a soldier.
[00:39:08]  And then if you work your way up, you do.
[00:39:10]  If not, you remain a soldier.
[00:39:12]  But that's your official title.
[00:39:14]  And then you're, you know, you're officially part of the family.
[00:39:19]  And so for me, I was a recruit for about two and a half years.
[00:39:21]  I had to prove myself worthy.
[00:39:23]  And then 75, I got made.
[00:39:25]  Are they sending you out on certain jobs to see what you will, like, what you'll do?
[00:39:29]  Obviously, you gotta do it.
[00:39:30]  And then when the time comes, that's that.
[00:39:32]  Gotta do what you're told.
[00:39:33]  Yeah.
[00:39:34]  What are those jobs like?
[00:39:35]  Like, when you're first starting out?
[00:39:37]  Look, let's get it out in the open.
[00:39:39]  You know, everybody says in order to become a member of that life, you got to kill somebody, you know, and all I can say is this.
[00:39:45]  There was a lot of guys that were being made at that point, and you just don't go around killing everybody.
[00:39:51]  You can't find somebody to kill and say, okay, I killed somebody.
[00:39:54]  Can I now, you know, get made?
[00:39:56]  But you have to be ready to do that if you're told to do it.
[00:39:59]  And, you know, here's another thing.
[00:40:02]  When you take the oath to become a MAID member, it's an oath of omerta.
[00:40:07]  It's not an oath.
[00:40:08]  Omerta means silence.
[00:40:10]  You're not even supposed to admit that the life exists.
[00:40:13]  You don't take an oath to lie, cheat, kill, murder.
[00:40:16]  That's not the oath.
[00:40:17]  Now, obviously, those things happen as part of that life, but the oath is to be silent, Never talk about the life, never admit that it even exists, and that's it.

=== Gallo's Informants Risk (15:43) ===

[00:40:28]  So, um, and I want to get that clear because people think you take the oath, okay, now I'm taking an oath to kill somebody.
[00:40:33]  No, you're not.
[00:40:34]  Taking an oath to be quiet, basically.
[00:40:37]  But, uh, look, things happen in that life.
[00:40:39]  But there definitely is murder.
[00:40:40]  I mean, I wonder how many people are in the East River or underneath buildings in Manhattan.
[00:40:45]  Well, you don't have to wonder anymore.
[00:40:47]  There's been so many informants that, you know.
[00:40:49]  True.
[00:40:50]  Talk about it.
[00:40:51]  So there's the Midlothian Turnpike in South Side of Chicago, South Suburbs.
[00:40:56]  They call it Bachelor's Grove.
[00:40:58]  And this is what we're told.
[00:41:00]  I mean, I haven't researched or anything.
[00:41:01]  You could probably check this out.
[00:41:02]  This is where Al Capone dumped all his bodies.
[00:41:04]  There's a bog down there.
[00:41:05]  And now it's considered one of the most haunted locations in the world.
[00:41:09]  Oh, wow.
[00:41:09]  And weirdos go down there for satanic rituals and other creepy- Of course they do.
[00:41:14]  I mean, I'm familiar from- I've heard about it.
[00:41:16]  Yeah.
[00:41:17]  Yeah, when the Long Island serial killer was happening and they found his graveyard, supposedly the theory was that it could have also been a mafia dumping ground on Kilgo Beach.
[00:41:27]  There's a lot of people out there.
[00:41:29]  But this was recent, wasn't it?
[00:41:31]  That's over the past 30 years that the bodies were found.
[00:41:34]  So you're saying it may not be a serial killer?
[00:41:37]  I think it was, but I think he could have been sharing that dumb spot with other people.
[00:41:41]  Like I said, basically you don't have to guess anymore.
[00:41:44]  There's been so many informants that have said things over the years.
[00:41:47]  Nothing is really secret anymore.
[00:41:49]  Were you worried about surveillance in the 70s at all?
[00:41:52]  Constantly.
[00:41:54]  I became a major target.
[00:41:56]  My dad was a major target.
[00:41:57]  It came right on me the minute I got involved.
[00:41:59]  I had so many undercover investigations on me.
[00:42:03]  Like wiretapping?
[00:42:04]  What were you thinking about back then?
[00:42:06]  I worried about everybody.
[00:42:08]  My father gave me a lot of good advice.
[00:42:10]  He was my mentor.
[00:42:11]  My dad was a good student of the life.
[00:42:14]  He knew it well.
[00:42:15]  And he used to tell me, you know, he used to pick up a phone and he'd say, you see this?
[00:42:19]  This is a cop.
[00:42:20]  Don't ever talk on the phone.
[00:42:21]  It's a cop, you know?
[00:42:22]  Watch everybody.
[00:42:23]  Be very careful.
[00:42:24]  You know, so he drummed it into my head early on.
[00:42:27]  I was a good listener.
[00:42:28]  I paid attention because you want to survive in that life and prosper.
[00:42:32]  You gotta know what you're doing.
[00:42:34]  It's a tough life to navigate.
[00:42:35]  There's no question.
[00:42:36]  You said there's a lot of informants.
[00:42:38]  Is this basically the life itself?
[00:42:42]  The style is breaking down?
[00:42:44]  Everyone's just spilling the beans and walking away?
[00:42:46]  I'll tell you again.
[00:42:48]  I'll give you a story.
[00:42:49]  Chaz Palminteri again, in the movie The Bronx Tale.
[00:42:53]  Remember when he's talking to Calogero?
[00:42:55]  And Calogero says to him, Chaz, Sonny, is it better to be loved or to be feared?
[00:43:00]  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:43:01]  Remember?
[00:43:01]  And Sonny says, in my line of words, better to be feared.
[00:43:04]  All right?
[00:43:05]  So I talked to Chaz afterwards.
[00:43:07]  I said, Chaz, remember that line?
[00:43:08]  What do you think about that now?
[00:43:10]  I said, oh, Michael, you know, in your life, it's definitely better to be feared.
[00:43:13]  I said, you're wrong, Chaz.
[00:43:14]  He said, what do you mean?
[00:43:15]  I said, let me tell you why.
[00:43:17]  He said, yes, fear kept people in line.
[00:43:19]  There's no question about it.
[00:43:21]  But what happened in my life is that when the RICO statute came in, And they were going to guys that were in trouble, and they tell them straight out, listen, you cooperate with us, or you're going to get 50 or 100 years.
[00:43:35]  There's no more parole.
[00:43:36]  You're doing 85%.
[00:43:36]  We're going to lock you up someplace.
[00:43:39]  You're going away.
[00:43:40]  And that's it.
[00:43:42]  Or you can cooperate with us.
[00:43:44]  We'll put you in the Witness Protection Program.
[00:43:46]  We'll give you some money.
[00:43:46]  We'll change your identity.
[00:43:48]  And don't worry about it.
[00:43:49]  The guy you testify against is going away forever.
[00:43:52]  Well, what happened, the fear of the life was transferred to the fear of the government.
[00:43:56]  And that's why so many guys flipped.
[00:43:58]  Don't let anybody tell you any different.
[00:44:00]  When these guys, most of them say, oh, you know what, the mob did me wrong and that's why, you know, I flipped.
[00:44:06]  Let me tell you something, we all know.
[00:44:07]  I mean, nobody's a saint in that life.
[00:44:09]  You know, you get involved in the street, you know, things are not going to go right all the time.
[00:44:14]  Guys don't want to go to jail.
[00:44:15]  So, but when you love somebody, you're not going to hurt them.
[00:44:19]  You're not going to hurt them.
[00:44:20]  That love is stronger than any fear.
[00:44:23]  And that's what destroyed the life.
[00:44:24]  There's no question about it.
[00:44:25]  Wow.
[00:44:26]  I mean, I just think about it simply.
[00:44:28]  A person, if somebody loves you, they'll step in front of, you know, they'll take a bullet for you.
[00:44:32]  Exactly.
[00:44:33]  But if they're scared of you, they're running.
[00:44:35]  Exactly.
[00:44:35]  They're going to run, or they're going to seek protection somewhere else.
[00:44:39]  And that's what happened.
[00:44:41]  And look, I don't like the use of informants for the government.
[00:44:45]  I don't think it's good, you know?
[00:44:48]  I really don't.
[00:44:49]  You know, they give guys break.
[00:44:50]  Guys can murder five guys.
[00:44:52]  And because, you know, this guy has a bigger name, they'll give the guy that killed five guys a pass, and they'll want to get the guy with the bigger name.
[00:45:01]  Why?
[00:45:02]  Bigger headlines mean something more.
[00:45:06]  So, I mean, The families, they still exist, don't they?
[00:45:10]  They exist, yeah.
[00:45:11]  It's not going away in my lifetime.
[00:45:13]  But it's not what it was before.
[00:45:15]  Yeah, I mean, what do they do now?
[00:45:18]  Well, I really don't know.
[00:45:19]  I'm not too up on it.
[00:45:21]  I'm imagining it's probably a bit more mundane.
[00:45:24]  I mean, look, they're pretty resourceful, you know, so they'll figure things out.
[00:45:29]  I mean, listen, gambling, you still got bookmakers on the street, you know, and stuff like that.
[00:45:34]  They're still running numbers.
[00:45:37]  But I don't know of any major scams that are going on right now that are really making money.
[00:45:43]  You know what I never really understood is in all these movies when there's this like, and they do this in every show, there's always some guy with a gambling debt to the mafia and they beat the crap out of him and they're like, you got three days.
[00:45:53]  It's like, why did they lend money to a guy they knew couldn't pay it back?
[00:45:56]  You've got to make money, right?
[00:45:57]  Yes.
[00:45:58]  First of all, the only time somebody's going to really get beat up is if they're just thumbing their nose in your face and they're saying, screw you.
[00:46:07]  Because why are you going to beat somebody up?
[00:46:08]  You want to get paid.
[00:46:09]  Right.
[00:46:10]  So you give the guy a break.
[00:46:11]  You know going in, you know that you're going to have a little issue.
[00:46:14]  Look, I had more money on the street than you can imagine, you know, back then, because I was making a lot of money.
[00:46:18]  And, you know, I knew sometimes guys couldn't pay.
[00:46:21]  You're not going to beat them up or put them in a hospital, because give them a break, let them continue paying you.
[00:46:27]  You know, the only time, like I said, that happened, and it's rare, you know, it's rare, is if somebody just was way out of hand and thumbing their nose in your face and just acting like a jackass, then maybe he's going to get hurt.
[00:46:38]  But other than that, it didn't happen a lot.
[00:46:40]  Yeah, it makes no sense.
[00:46:42]  That's why I'm like, I don't understand.
[00:46:44]  They give money to a guy who can't pay it back, then they beat him up so he can't pay it back.
[00:46:47]  If you want money, you know, that's what we're seeing now.
[00:46:50]  This is kind of funny as a total aside.
[00:46:52]  But that's what law enforcement makes you believe, that we're out there, you know, breaking legs and we're hurting everybody that owes us money.
[00:46:58]  It wasn't true.
[00:46:59]  Were the terms of the loans that were given, like, really awful?
[00:47:02]  Because it's another trope.
[00:47:03]  It's like, you know, 20%, some ridiculous amount that's almost impossible to pay back.
[00:47:07]  Normally between, I'll tell you what was common, one to five percent a week.
[00:47:13]  But you're not going to charge, yeah, you're not going to charge a guy five points that you knew he couldn't pay.
[00:47:18]  If somebody came to me at the time, and they were in business, and they were making money, and they needed money, they couldn't go to a bank, and I would kind of evaluate the situation, okay, you can pay me three percent a week.
[00:47:28]  If not, I might give it out at one point.
[00:47:30]  That's 52 percent a year.
[00:47:31]  What's wrong with that, you know?
[00:47:34]  It all depended on the situation.
[00:47:37]  Yeah.
[00:47:38]  I mean, why do you think it is that All the movies, all the shows only ever show this as a bunch of, you know, malintent, malicious, callous.
[00:47:50]  They go and they hurt people.
[00:47:52]  To be fair, like we talk about a Bronx Tale, it's not always that way, but it's always, you know, beating up a working family.
[00:47:58]  Like there's a guy who's got a gambling debt and they come and they, you know, harass his family and things like this.
[00:48:04]  I think, you know, law enforcement and the media has made that life out to be just that way.
[00:48:12]  And so it's expressed in Hollywood, you know, in movies and TV series, but it's not like that all the time.
[00:48:19]  It does happen.
[00:48:20]  I'm not saying, well, I'm not saying we were angels out there.
[00:48:22]  Don't get me wrong.
[00:48:24]  But a lot of the things are just, you know, embellished to a degree where it's, to me, I look at it and it's silly.
[00:48:29]  Who was the last, like, unhinged gangster?
[00:48:31]  It was like a Gallo character?
[00:48:33]  No, Roy DeMeo.
[00:48:34]  Okay, when was that?
[00:48:35]  Roy DeMeo, you know who that was.
[00:48:36]  I know the name, I remember when that was.
[00:48:37]  Well, Roy DeMeo, you'll look him up afterwards.
[00:48:39]  He was allegedly killed over 200 people.
[00:48:42]  He had a place called the Gemini Lounge.
[00:48:44]  Okay.
[00:48:45]  And Roy DeMeo was a serial killer.
[00:48:51]  But Roy would have been a serial killer even if he wasn't in the Mafia.
[00:48:54]  The Mafia didn't make him that.
[00:48:56]  He just had more advantages because he was part of LA.
[00:48:59]  And eventually he got killed.
[00:49:01]  So I was going to say, how did they handle that type of figure?
[00:49:03]  It seems like he got away with a lot of murder though.
[00:49:05]  Until at some point, what does he step on someone's toes and they're like, this is it?
[00:49:08]  You know what?
[00:49:09]  Guys like that don't last.
[00:49:12]  Sooner or later, somebody's gonna say, what do we need this guy for?
[00:49:16]  He's a loose cannon, let's just get rid of him.
[00:49:18]  And that happens, it happens a couple of times.
[00:49:20]  That's what happened to Joe Gallo, eventually?
[00:49:23]  Yeah, Joe Gallo, yes, but I think there's a lot of wrong impressions about Joe Gallo.
[00:49:30]  Like everybody, Joe Gallo killed Columbo, or shot Columbo that day, it was him.
[00:49:34]  I don't believe that.
[00:49:35]  You don't believe he shot him, or?
[00:49:37]  I don't believe he was behind that.
[00:49:38]  Oh, wow.
[00:49:39]  I believe it was the FBI.
[00:49:41]  Oh, wow.
[00:49:41]  And they framed him?
[00:49:42]  Yeah.
[00:49:43]  Wow.
[00:49:44]  No, no, they didn't frame Gallo.
[00:49:45]  Gallo got killed afterwards.
[00:49:46]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:49:47]  Yeah, but they made it seem like this might have come from Gallo, but I believe, they've never proved who shot Joey that day.
[00:49:53]  Wow.
[00:49:54]  I believe it was the FBI.
[00:49:55]  They hated Cohen.
[00:49:56]  It was like four people, right, that showed up and shot him?
[00:50:00]  Gallo?
[00:50:00]  Yeah, in Humberto's.
[00:50:02]  Right, on his birthday.
[00:50:03]  Yeah, that's a crazy story.
[00:50:05]  Crazy Joe Gallo.
[00:50:07]  What would happen if, you know, because you mentioned that some of these guys are flamboyant or eccentric.
[00:50:12]  This guy's crazy.
[00:50:13]  Was it, I don't want to use the word common, but I mean, would other guys just get together and be like, the boss has got to go?
[00:50:22]  Well, listen, you know, Gotti, Gotti was in trouble because he didn't have a sanctioned hit on Castellano.
[00:50:30]  Normally, if you're going to take out a boss, you know, you got to discuss it with members of the commission, at least.
[00:50:37]  Well, you got to get some kind of sanction on it.
[00:50:39]  He didn't.
[00:50:40]  And, you know, the Chin Giganti was very powerful.
[00:50:43]  He was the head of the Genovese family at that time.
[00:50:46]  He had an attempt on Gotti because he did that.
[00:50:53]  You know, look, it all depends in a situation like that.
[00:50:56]  I mean, look, Joe Colombo, people were upset with him because he was on the news and all of that.
[00:51:01]  But I don't think it got to a point where anybody was looking to kill him.
[00:51:05]  I don't believe that.
[00:51:05]  They say that Carlo Gambino was behind it.
[00:51:07]  I don't believe any of that.
[00:51:08]  There's no evidence to prove that.
[00:51:10]  And I never heard that on the street, really.
[00:51:12]  You hear rumors.
[00:51:13]  Right.
[00:51:15]  You know, look, you're going to kill the boss.
[00:51:17]  You better be prepared.
[00:51:18]  I forget who it was.
[00:51:19]  Maybe it was during Dewey, when he was investigating everybody.
[00:51:22]  And someone hired a hitman to take him out.
[00:51:25]  Dewey?
[00:51:26]  Yeah, right?
[00:51:27]  And then they said, don't do that.
[00:51:29]  And then they hired the same hitman to then take out the guy who planned taking out Dewey.
[00:51:32]  Yes, correct.
[00:51:33]  I forget who that was.
[00:51:34]  It just seems like word spreads.
[00:51:37]  And once people hear that, they're like, that's a bad idea.
[00:51:40]  Don't do that.
[00:51:40]  Because it's going to be worse for us.
[00:51:42]  Because we did, you know, the idea if you start taking out politicians and cops, you're going to have more heat on you than ever.
[00:51:48]  So you fight them in court.
[00:51:50]  I'm curious your thoughts on Chicago gangs and not just Chicago gangs, but you got East Coast, West Coast gangs as well.
[00:51:56]  But it's funny because we don't call them gangsters, we call them gang bangers.
[00:52:01]  But there is some similarity?
[00:52:03]  Is it just that these gangs in the cities are, I don't know what the right word would be, less organized than the families were?
[00:52:11]  What's your view on that?
[00:52:13]  Well look, we had a very definite structure.
[00:52:16]  And we had rules that you had to abide by and we had discipline and we had respect, you know, among one another.
[00:52:23]  And I know, you know, law enforcement would laugh at that, but they know.
[00:52:27]  Look, we survived and prospered, Cosa Nostra did in America, for over 100 years under some very difficult conditions.
[00:52:35]  And like I said, we had connections right into the White House.
[00:52:39]  So in order to survive and prosper like that, for that length of time, you have to have structure and discipline and authority.
[00:52:47]  And you've got to have respect of the life.
[00:52:50]  So nobody can deny that.
[00:52:52]  And if they did, they're just kidding themselves, because that's a fact.
[00:52:55]  These gangbangers don't have that.
[00:52:57]  You know, they don't have that structure.
[00:52:58]  I don't believe they have that loyalty among one another.
[00:53:02]  You know, these Venezuelan gangs that are coming in, I don't know.
[00:53:05]  You know, this is something that's kind of foreign to me.
[00:53:08]  You know what it is?
[00:53:09]  They have no value for human life.
[00:53:12]  And I guess it's culturally, because where they came from, they grew up in a tough way, so the only way they knew how to earn was to rob and steal.
[00:53:20]  And, you know, it's part of their life, but they shouldn't be here in the United States.
[00:53:23]  It seems like they're more day-to-day, right?
[00:53:25]  We're just trying to survive, whereas families back then, they had longevity in mind.
[00:53:31]  Absolutely.
[00:53:31]  We want this to keep going on.
[00:53:33]  Absolutely.
[00:53:34]  What I always heard when I was young in Chicago is, uh, most the gangs.
[00:53:41]  They're, I don't know, tangentially organized.
[00:53:43]  They're moderately organized to some degree.
[00:53:45]  They've got rules, you know.
[00:53:48]  They would always say, when you're in the gangs, they're usually selling drugs.
[00:53:52]  And that's a principle way to make money, but you're not allowed to do them.
[00:53:55]  And if the gang catches you doing drugs, you're stealing product.
[00:53:58]  You're stealing product and you're putting them in legal jeopardy.
[00:54:02]  But it wasn't very sophisticated.
[00:54:03]  However, What I'd often hear from people is that the Latin Kings were much more like the crime families, that they were older guys with families that ran the show.
[00:54:12]  Me and my friends would always be concerned, but the way it usually happens on the South Side is somebody would pull up in a car next to you and say what you is.
[00:54:25]  And it's like, they're trying to figure out what gang you're in.
[00:54:27]  I remember my friends were walking down the street and a car pulled up and they were like, what you is?
[00:54:30]  And they were like, what?
[00:54:30]  It's like, what you is?
[00:54:31]  And the kid was like, skateboarders?
[00:54:34]  And they started laughing and they were like, man, and they drove off.
[00:54:37]  But they thought these kids were in a gang because that's what happens.
[00:54:40]  So we knew the gangs were Some of them, there was one gang that would just smoke pot all day, and they'd sit around and everybody was cool with them.
[00:54:49]  It was a gang.
[00:54:50]  If you wanted to get in the gang, they'd V you, they'd beat the crap out of you, and then you're in the gang.
[00:54:54]  And then what do you do when you're in the gang?
[00:54:55]  They sold pot, and then they smoked it, and everyone was like, nobody cares about those guys.
[00:54:58]  The cops didn't even care about those guys.
[00:55:00]  But then there was another faction.
[00:55:02]  related to that gang.
[00:55:03]  They weren't necessarily the same gang.
[00:55:05]  It's kind of weird, I don't know.
[00:55:07]  And those guys would rob you blind.
[00:55:08]  They'd act nice, then they'd find out where you live, come in and take everything you got.
[00:55:13]  And so when my friends were always talking about it, the one thing they always pointed out was the Latin kings will treat you with respect.
[00:55:20]  There's a 35-year-old guy who's a high-ranking dude in the gang.
[00:55:23]  He's got a family.
[00:55:23]  He doesn't want any trouble.
[00:55:25]  He doesn't want young kids coming around with guns and doing dumb things in his community.
[00:55:28]  And it was much, much more organized like the crime families were.
[00:55:31]  I don't know if you ever had any experience with them, or... Yeah, I did have some experience with the Latin Kings, and I agree with you on that.
[00:55:38]  They were more organized than, you know, they were adults, let's put it that way, in crime.
[00:55:42]  But you know, these gangbangers, 90% of their income comes from drugs, as far as I saw, you know, from drugs.
[00:55:50]  And they weren't sophisticated in their criminal activities, you know?

=== Contracting Lot Without Names (00:59) ===

[00:55:55]  They rob, they do what they do, and they're big in the drug business.
[00:55:59]  You know, again, we were not, and we had a level of sophistication about us.
[00:56:04]  We got around politicians.
[00:56:06]  We controlled the unions.
[00:56:07]  We were into contracting.
[00:56:09]  You know, we did a lot of things that were, you know, just different level than most of these street gangs.
[00:56:15]  You infiltrated institutions.
[00:56:17]  Absolutely.
[00:56:17]  How do you make it to the White House?
[00:56:18]  Is that just because you get a politician starting out real young, and they happen to ascend, or are they helped to get up there?
[00:56:25]  Without mentioning his name, you know, I had, you know, I had 18 licenses to collect tax on every gallon of gasoline.
[00:56:32]  I couldn't get the license.
[00:56:33]  I had a political connection.
[00:56:34]  And at the time, my connection was the most powerful Democrat in all of New York.

=== Cents per Gallon Scheme (12:38) ===

[00:56:42]  And, you know, he had relationships in the White House.
[00:56:46]  You know, and I was paying him.
[00:56:47]  Can I guess a name?
[00:56:48]  No, I'm just kidding.
[00:56:49]  You probably could.
[00:56:51]  Is there a bridge named after him?
[00:56:52]  Huh?
[00:56:52]  Is there a bridge named after him?
[00:56:53]  No.
[00:56:54]  Okay.
[00:56:54]  So, when you went to prison, that was over the gasoline thing?
[00:56:58]  Yeah.
[00:56:59]  What exactly was that?
[00:57:00]  Are you allowed to talk about it?
[00:57:01]  Yeah, I mean, you know, basically we figured out we had a scheme to defraud the government out of tax on every gallon of gasoline.
[00:57:09]  And I ran that for about between seven and eight years.
[00:57:12]  I had the Russian mob guys with my partners.
[00:57:15]  And basically at the time, the tax on gasoline, state and local, was about 25 to 30 cents.
[00:57:22]  And the feds were nine cents.
[00:57:23]  So we had about 40 cents a gallon.
[00:57:26]  And at the height of my operation, we're selling a half a billion gallons of gas a month and we're taking down 20, 30, 40 cents a gallon, whatever, you know, whatever we want to do to, uh, whatever deal we wanted to make.
[00:57:36]  So one point in time, we're taking in eight to 10 million a week.
[00:57:40]  Wow.
[00:57:40]  You know, in real money.
[00:57:42]  And where does that money go?
[00:57:44]  Well, we got expenses, you know.
[00:57:45]  I can't say that, Tim.
[00:57:48]  No, but as an aside, I mean, you know, with a profit like that general question, I mean, Well, are you allowed to say how much you got personally?
[00:57:57]  Yeah.
[00:57:58]  Listen, it was basically my... I'll tell you what happened.
[00:58:01]  When I realized what I had, and I can get into the whole backstory, but when I realized what I had and that this was going to be a real deal, I went to my boss at the time, Carmine Persico.
[00:58:11]  He's dead now.
[00:58:13]  And I said, Junior, we called him Junior.
[00:58:14]  I said, Junior, look, I'm going to show you more money than you've ever seen before.
[00:58:19]  And he looked at me.
[00:58:19]  He said, we don't do drugs.
[00:58:20]  I said, Junior, come on.
[00:58:21]  You know I hate drugs.
[00:58:22]  Nothing to do with drugs.
[00:58:24]  He said, what is it?
[00:58:25]  I said, it's gas.
[00:58:26]  He said, gas?
[00:58:27]  I said, yes.
[00:58:28]  It's a tax scheme.
[00:58:29]  We're going to defraud the government out of tax on every gallon of gasoline.
[00:58:32]  I said, but here's what's going to happen.
[00:58:34]  He said, what?
[00:58:35]  I said, everybody's going to want to get involved in this.
[00:58:38]  Across the board, all five families, when they see the amount of money, is it going to be that much?
[00:58:42]  I said, trust me, when they see the amount of money, everybody's going to want a piece.
[00:58:47]  When that happens, we're going to blow it.
[00:58:49]  So what do you want me to do?
[00:58:50]  I says, every time I have an argument, I gotta win.
[00:58:54]  I said, I'm gonna be right.
[00:58:55]  I gotta win.
[00:58:56]  Play no politics, nothing like that.
[00:58:58]  I said, just make me win.
[00:59:00]  I'll be right every time.
[00:59:01]  I says, and I'll show you more money than you've ever seen before.
[00:59:04]  So I'll never forget.
[00:59:05]  He sat back.
[00:59:06]  He said, show me.
[00:59:10]  I was bringing him $1.2 million a week.
[00:59:13]  That buys a lot of loyalty.
[00:59:15]  I never lost an argument.
[00:59:17]  And I'm telling you, everybody, Gotti and people came at me.
[00:59:21]  I'll tell you a funny story, I've said it before.
[00:59:24]  You know, the word gets out when you're doing that, right?
[00:59:27]  And I had a pretty big crew.
[00:59:29]  So Fat Tony was the boss of the Genovese family.
[00:59:31]  And do you know who Fat Tony was?
[00:59:33]  I heard the name, yeah.
[00:59:34]  You know who he is, Tim?
[00:59:35]  No.
[00:59:36]  Right out of Central Casting.
[00:59:37]  He was about 5'6", you know, a little bit chubby, wore a fedora, smoked a cigar, and had the gravelly voice, right?
[00:59:45]  Just like that.
[00:59:45]  Typical mob guy.
[00:59:47]  So he had a club in Harlem.
[00:59:49]  So he calls me, he sends for me, rather, to come and see him.
[00:59:53]  So I go put it on record.
[00:59:54]  Whenever you go see the boss of another family, you've got to put it on record with your guy that you're going there, right?
[00:59:58]  And I was a captain at the time.
[01:00:00]  So I'll never forget.
[01:00:01]  It was a summer day.
[01:00:02]  It was in August, I think.
[01:00:03]  So I go see him in Harlem.
[01:00:06]  And he's sittin' outside his social club with three or four guys, and he's sittin' there, hands on his belly, he's got the cigar and the fedora.
[01:00:13]  He comes up to me, he says, you know, we do all the nice things.
[01:00:16]  He says, Mike, let me ask you a question.
[01:00:18]  I said, what, Tony?
[01:00:18]  He said, you're doin' good, huh?
[01:00:22]  I said, yeah, Tony, I'm okay.
[01:00:23]  He says, you makin' money?
[01:00:24]  I said, Tony, no complaints.
[01:00:25]  He says, what do you got, gas or something?
[01:00:27]  I said, yeah, you know, we figured out a scheme.
[01:00:29]  We're doin' okay.
[01:00:30]  You robbin' the government?
[01:00:31]  I said, absolutely.
[01:00:32]  That's good, that's good.
[01:00:35]  So then he says to me, he says, I need a favor from you.
[01:00:38]  I said, Tony, anything you want.
[01:00:39]  You're the boss.
[01:00:39]  What could I do for you?
[01:00:40]  He says, just like this.
[01:00:42]  I got these five mama lukes around me.
[01:00:44]  They can't earn three cents.
[01:00:46]  He says, you give them a job?
[01:00:48]  I said, yeah, Tony, I can give them a job.
[01:00:50]  He said, what will they do?
[01:00:50]  I said, well, I had about 300 gas stations.
[01:00:53]  I either operated or leased at the time, right?
[01:00:56]  I said, Tony, how about I give them a job?
[01:00:58]  You know, they'll run a gas station for me.
[01:01:00]  It's easier to collect the money and they'll watch the guys.
[01:01:03]  I said, but Tony, don't let them rob me.
[01:01:04]  You know these guys, if they rob you, I'll cut off their hands, their ears, just like that, right?
[01:01:09]  I said, no, you don't have to do that.
[01:01:10]  He said, don't worry about it.
[01:01:12]  So I said, you got it, Tony.
[01:01:14]  He says, how much are they going to earn?
[01:01:16]  So now I'm thinking, I don't want to insult the boss, but I'm thinking for a minute.
[01:01:19]  I said, Tony, how about I give him $1,500 a week?
[01:01:22]  This is back in the 80s.
[01:01:24]  $1,500 a week each.
[01:01:25]  He looks at me, he almost dropped the cigar.
[01:01:27]  He goes, $1,500?
[01:01:28]  Give them $500.
[01:01:29]  Give me the $1,000.
[01:01:33]  I said, Tony, you got it.
[01:01:34]  Oh, man, that's amazing.
[01:01:34]  In front of them.
[01:01:36]  Right in front of them, yeah.
[01:01:37]  Wow.
[01:01:38]  So I'm saying, you make a lot of friends when you're doing that, and you spread the money around, you make people earn.
[01:01:43]  You know, that's part of that life.
[01:01:45]  So, I mean, was this just that you owned 300 gas stations and you didn't pay your taxes?
[01:01:49]  We either owned or operated.
[01:01:50]  We either owned or released them, you know, whatever.
[01:01:52]  We owned all the, you know, Grand Central Parkway, all those parkway stations.
[01:01:57]  Wow, really?
[01:01:59]  And you're just scooping up all the tax.
[01:02:00]  All the tax, yeah.
[01:02:01]  But are you literally just not paying taxes?
[01:02:05]  Not paying the tax, yeah.
[01:02:06]  I had 18 companies, they were shell companies, and it was a daisy chain.
[01:02:11]  You could get, the way we worked it, you could get about 10 months out of the government before they come down on you.
[01:02:18]  And come down on you, all we had was an office that this thing was operating at, so they'd come down at 10 Ten months, they rate it, we close it down, we jump onto the next license in a different part of town.
[01:02:27]  How soon after you started this does it take for them to kind of start catching on?
[01:02:31]  Ten months.
[01:02:32]  Is it ten months for you?
[01:02:33]  Okay, and then how do they catch you eventually?
[01:02:35]  Well, they don't.
[01:02:37]  They never caught us.
[01:02:38]  The only way they got us is my partner became an informant.
[01:02:42]  Ah, that's it.
[01:02:43]  That's it.
[01:02:43]  It's always there.
[01:02:44]  Were you on trial for that stuff?
[01:02:46]  I didn't go—I took a plea on that.
[01:02:48]  That's the one I took the plea on.
[01:02:49]  Wow.
[01:02:49]  Wow.
[01:02:50]  So how does—you basically have a shell company.
[01:02:53]  It's running gas stations.
[01:02:54]  It doesn't pay taxes.
[01:02:55]  And they come to this company and say, you're not paying your taxes.
[01:02:57]  And you're like, okay, well then the company's out of business.
[01:02:59]  Is that it?
[01:02:59]  Yeah.
[01:03:00]  I mean, you're simplifying it, but we had to give reports.
[01:03:03]  So every month, I had accountants working, and every month they would send in the report, but not pay any money, and it would be a whole process.
[01:03:10]  And then finally, after 10 months, they're mad, they're upset, and they come and raid your office.
[01:03:15]  The office is closed, the license is gone, and we're on to the next license in another part of town.
[01:03:20]  How much would you have made if you paid the taxes?
[01:03:22]  I mean, gas stations make money, right?
[01:03:24]  Yeah, but here's the deal.
[01:03:26]  Let's say we had, you know how it is in Long Island, you can have a big intersection where you have four gas stations, one on each corner, right?
[01:03:34]  So I'd scoop up one gas station.
[01:03:36]  I'd go to the other three.
[01:03:37]  I'd call them all in.
[01:03:38]  I said, come here.
[01:03:39]  I want to talk to all you guys.
[01:03:40]  I said, listen, here's the deal.
[01:03:42]  Whatever you sell your gas for, I'm going to be $0.02 under you.
[01:03:45]  Wow.
[01:03:45]  If you try to go $0.02 under me, I'll go $0.05 under that.
[01:03:48]  You go $0.05, I'll go $0.10.
[01:03:49]  Wow.
[01:03:49]  I said, until I put you out of business, I'll keep going.
[01:03:52]  So that's the deal.
[01:03:54]  Now, they kind of knew what I was doing, but they didn't know.
[01:03:57]  So before long, they're all buying gas from me anyway.
[01:04:00]  You know, and I would go to them and I'd say, you're a mobile station.
[01:04:04]  How many loads are you buying for mobile?
[01:04:06]  Oh, I buy six.
[01:04:07]  Okay.
[01:04:07]  Buy four from them, buy two from me.
[01:04:09]  Because for me, I'm going to save you ten cents a gallon.
[01:04:12]  That's a lot of money for, you know, ten cents a gallon cheaper.
[01:04:15]  All I do is I give them a bill of sale, all taxes included.
[01:04:18]  That's all they cared about.
[01:04:19]  So this ended up actually, these other gas stations were Oh, absolutely.
[01:04:27]  Let me tell you something.
[01:04:28]  We were stealing the tax money, but we were cutting prices at the pump.
[01:04:32]  So we were giving some of the money back.
[01:04:34]  You would love us right now.
[01:04:36]  They call us the Robin Hoods.
[01:04:38]  We were giving money back to the people because we were digging into the tax money.
[01:04:43]  So we would drop the prices at the pump.
[01:04:46]  Because we didn't care.
[01:04:46]  If we made 10 cents a gallon, 20 cents a gallon, what was the difference?
[01:04:49]  How long after the gas shortages in the city was this?
[01:04:53]  Oh, well, this was, when we were doing this, it was the, um, I started this in like 78.
[01:05:00]  So Carter, right up to 85.
[01:05:01]  Yeah.
[01:05:02]  Wow.
[01:05:02]  Cause the gas shortages, the lines in like the Bronx and Brooklyn, you had different plate numbers.
[01:05:06]  You can go get your gas.
[01:05:07]  It was a shootout sometimes.
[01:05:08]  You know how it got, I bought a terminal off of British Petroleum.
[01:05:11]  We had, it was, I think it was 3 million gallons it would hold, but we were buying barges from all the major oil companies.
[01:05:19]  When the feds had an inkling, they were trying to figure out what we were doing.
[01:05:23]  Well, they went to all the majors and they said, you know, these guys are mob guys and they're buying gas from you and you're going to your gas station.
[01:05:30]  And they would say, oh, we're upset with them and we're going to watch for it.
[01:05:33]  They didn't care because we were buying the gas off of them and selling it back to their stations.
[01:05:36]  They didn't care.
[01:05:38]  We were increasing their business.
[01:05:40]  Yeah.
[01:05:40]  Incredible.
[01:05:41]  I had one day, I had a Mazda dealership that I owned, a Mazda and a Chevrolet dealership.
[01:05:45]  So I'm in my office and two FBI agents come over and they said, Francis, we got to talk to you.
[01:05:51]  So I said, okay, we go outside.
[01:05:53]  And they said, listen, this was after about five years, we're in the business.
[01:05:56]  We know what you're doing.
[01:05:57]  We just can't figure it out.
[01:06:00]  Okay.
[01:06:00]  Tell us what you're doing.
[01:06:02]  We'll give you a pass.
[01:06:03]  Yeah.
[01:06:05]  I was born in the morning, not yesterday.
[01:06:07]  I said, guys, I go to the gas station, I put gas in my car.
[01:06:10]  I don't know what you're talking about.
[01:06:11]  If you want to buy a car, I'll give you a good price on a car.
[01:06:14]  You don't want to tell us?
[01:06:15]  I said, I don't know what you're talking about.
[01:06:16]  They curse me out and everything.
[01:06:18]  We're going to put you away forever.
[01:06:20]  And all this guy says, yeah, OK.
[01:06:22]  Come back later, you'll feel better.
[01:06:23]  Did you just say, I'm running a bunch of gas stations.
[01:06:26]  It's a legitimate business.
[01:06:26]  We make a lot of money.
[01:06:27]  I never even admitted to the game.
[01:06:29]  Too much?
[01:06:29]  Oh, not even that you own it?
[01:06:32]  I have nothing to do with it.
[01:06:33]  I don't know what you're talking about.
[01:06:35]  How about getting involved with the unions in the city?
[01:06:37]  It's such a big deal.
[01:06:38]  The unions today still seem like they're kind of mob-ish in the way they make people vote in certain ways.
[01:06:43]  Yeah, not like before when we had control over the unions, you know.
[01:06:47]  Look, we started the unions way back then.
[01:06:49]  I mean, you know, it was with our help, I should say, we started the unions.
[01:06:54]  Huge money maker.
[01:06:55]  I mean, I had a job in Glen Oaks.
[01:07:00]  They were apartment to condominium conversions.
[01:07:04]  It was 3,500 of them.
[01:07:05]  It was the biggest job in the city, in the country at that time.
[01:07:09]  So, my friend was a contractor there and he called me up and I made a deal with Jerry Guterman to keep the union out.
[01:07:16]  I said, under two conditions, because we'll keep the union out, we'll save you some money.
[01:07:22]  I said, but I got to be a general contractor.
[01:07:24]  And all the subs will come in through me.
[01:07:26]  So I became the contractor.
[01:07:27]  We kept the union out.
[01:07:28]  I went to every single trade.
[01:07:30]  I said, look, we'll put one of your people in so that it is a union job and only one person at a time.
[01:07:36]  And then we paid them, you know, for that.
[01:07:37]  And we kept the union out and got them and made a lot more money than they would have with the union.
[01:07:42]  I was making money as the GC.
[01:07:43]  I mean, that's how we worked.
[01:07:44]  And so everybody was happy at the end of the day.
[01:07:46]  Did I make it seem like we were?
[01:07:48]  Everybody was happy.
[01:07:49]  Right.
[01:07:50]  People—Donald Trump, come on, he was with the mob and he was paying off the mob.
[01:07:54]  I said, yeah, so was, you know, Jerry Gutterman and so was Hemsley and everybody else.
[01:07:59]  You wanted to build something in New York, you had to deal with us, period.
[01:08:02]  Because you were running concrete, right?
[01:08:04]  Everything, yeah, concrete big.
[01:08:05]  Yeah.
[01:08:06]  Concrete was among the families.
[01:08:08]  They all had a piece of that.
[01:08:10]  Everything.
[01:08:11]  You built the city in a big way.
[01:08:13]  Absolutely.
[01:08:14]  And it's built, right?
[01:08:15]  The buildings look beautiful.
[01:08:16]  Sure, it's built.
[01:08:17]  These days.
[01:08:18]  They're not falling down, so we did a good job.
[01:08:21]  Things are getting kind of bad these days, though.
[01:08:23]  The buildings are still standing, but it's kind of sad how it's being mismanaged.
[01:08:26]  I think the unions are going to start turning against the Democrats, honestly.
[01:08:30]  Well, they did.
[01:08:31]  Teamsters.
[01:08:31]  Well, the Teamsters did, yeah.
[01:08:33]  I'm thinking, like, I know people in the Hotel and Trades Union, and they've pretty much voted a certain way for a long time, but they're giving hotels up to immigrants now, to these illegal aliens coming in.
[01:08:42]  I know I have family who used to work in that hotel, and we're not working there anymore.
[01:08:45]  Look, the only union that The real union that they have locked up is the teacher's union.
[01:08:50]  Yeah, for sure.
[01:08:51]  Because they don't care about the kids.
[01:08:53]  You know, they're sacrificing our kids.
[01:08:56]  And it's terrible.
[01:08:59]  Terrible.
[01:09:00]  Wow.
[01:09:00]  Real quick, just because the gas station story is so fascinating to me.

=== Larry's Tax Trouble (11:20) ===

[01:09:04]  What was the reason it ended?
[01:09:06]  You had a guy turn informant and they came after you?
[01:09:08]  My partner was 6'5", he weighed 450 pounds.
[01:09:10]  Yeah.
[01:09:14]  I hope that was muscle.
[01:09:16]  No, it wasn't.
[01:09:17]  You know what?
[01:09:17]  He wasn't a sloppy fat.
[01:09:19]  He was big.
[01:09:21]  He was a big guy.
[01:09:22]  And we're partners for seven years.
[01:09:24]  We never had an ill word between us.
[01:09:26]  His kids used to call me Uncle Mike.
[01:09:28]  My kids called him Uncle Larry.
[01:09:31]  But he got in trouble on an unrelated case, a tax case.
[01:09:35]  He's halfway through the trial.
[01:09:36]  He and I, we had a jet plane, we had a helicopter, we had homes in Boca Raton next to each other, right?
[01:09:43]  So he gets in trouble on this case.
[01:09:46]  He's in trial.
[01:09:49]  And he says, I'm not staying.
[01:09:52]  I can't go to jail.
[01:09:53]  Look at how big I am.
[01:09:54]  I said, no, Larry.
[01:09:55]  I said, maybe it'll give you two years if you get convicted.
[01:09:57]  I said, if you run, they're going to catch you sometime.
[01:10:00]  They're going to add on another five.
[01:10:01]  I said, finish the trial.
[01:10:03]  Can't do it.
[01:10:04]  We had a compound in Panama.
[01:10:06]  You know, we had down there, the reason we had it there is allegedly there was no, what do you call it, deportation.
[01:10:12]  Extradition.
[01:10:13]  Yeah, extradition, rather, between Panama and the United States.
[01:10:16]  So we had this compound down there.
[01:10:18]  And so he says, I'm going to live down there.
[01:10:20]  He says, I can still run part of the operation from there.
[01:10:23]  I said, you're crazy.
[01:10:23]  But he went, right?
[01:10:25]  Well, this is what this maniac does.
[01:10:27]  His daughter is getting married in Austria, and he starts sending out invitations from Panama.
[01:10:33]  Oh, no!
[01:10:34]  So now, there's no expedition, right?
[01:10:36]  But the Feds don't care about that.
[01:10:38]  What do they do?
[01:10:39]  They make some kind of deal with Noriega, and they go down there and kidnap him in the middle of the night.
[01:10:44]  Damn!
[01:10:45]  And they bring him to Florida.
[01:10:46]  Larry!
[01:10:47]  And the FBI agent told me this afterwards.
[01:10:49]  He said, Michael, he took one look at that little cot, and he says, I'll tell you anything you want to know about Michael.
[01:10:56]  He became the informant and he blew the whistle on the whole operation.
[01:10:59]  So that's when I took a plea for that.
[01:11:01]  So was that guy in jail?
[01:11:04]  Or did he make a deal?
[01:11:05]  No, listen to what happens, right?
[01:11:08]  He just loved the game of doing this.
[01:11:10]  I mean, the guy was insane.
[01:11:11]  He was very smart, don't get me wrong.
[01:11:15]  He testifies.
[01:11:15]  He didn't testify.
[01:11:16]  He makes the deal against me.
[01:11:20]  They release him.
[01:11:21]  They give him back two and a half million dollars of stolen gas tax money.
[01:11:24]  That was part of the deal.
[01:11:26]  And I told the feds at the time, I said, listen, he'll never be out of the gas business.
[01:11:30]  He knows it too well.
[01:11:31]  There's too much money in it.
[01:11:32]  Right.
[01:11:33]  So he leaves New York.
[01:11:34]  He goes to Florida, goes to Texas, and he starts an operation down there.
[01:11:39]  He has his whole family working for him.
[01:11:41]  Well, after about two years, the feds go down and they indict him there.
[01:11:46]  He immediately tells them, there's some things I didn't tell you about Michael.
[01:11:49]  I was already doing my time.
[01:11:50]  They didn't care.
[01:11:51]  And what happens?
[01:11:52]  His son and his daughter testified against him.
[01:11:56]  He got convicted and they gave him 20 years.
[01:11:58]  He ended up doing 17 out of 20.
[01:12:00]  He did more time than me.
[01:12:01]  I did eight.
[01:12:02]  He did 17 years.
[01:12:04]  And he got out and two years later he passed away.
[01:12:06]  Wow.
[01:12:06]  Damn.
[01:12:07]  What's it like being in prison when you come from the family?
[01:12:11]  Like, are there people inside that help?
[01:12:13]  I never had a problem in prison.
[01:12:14]  You know, my father, again, very smart guy, he says to me, son, when you go to prison, he said, remember these three words.
[01:12:21]  They're going to help you get by with no trouble.
[01:12:24]  Please, thank you, excuse me.
[01:12:27]  He said, because Mike, everybody in prison who never got respect on the street, they want all the respect in there.
[01:12:32]  So they want to prove something, right?
[01:12:35]  You know, you bunk into somebody, excuse me, you know, somebody you want to break in line with your friends in front on the child line, please do you mind if I get in?
[01:12:42]  That's okay.
[01:12:43]  You know, somebody hands you something, thank you.
[01:12:45]  Never had a problem.
[01:12:47]  You know, but I saw a lot of stuff go on in there.
[01:12:50]  That's Chicago growing up.
[01:12:52]  Yeah.
[01:12:53]  Respect.
[01:12:54]  Respect.
[01:12:54]  And, you know, because I know people who grew up in nicer parts of the city or grew up in different places and they got a bone to pick because you don't dare disrespect me.
[01:13:03]  How dare you?
[01:13:04]  And I'm like, you bring that attitude to Chicago and you'll find a bullet.
[01:13:08]  If there's somebody, you don't even know if they're in a gang or not.
[01:13:12]  If you're at a bar and someone's getting aggressive with you, I'm so sorry about that, man.
[01:13:16]  Can I buy you a drink?
[01:13:16]  Exactly.
[01:13:17]  You're good.
[01:13:18]  The fight you avoid is the fight you win.
[01:13:19]  But there's just too many stories where one guy's aggressive, he gets at it, he says, you don't know who you're effing with, he shows a gun.
[01:13:28]  Someone else pulls a gun and then there's a couple of dead guys and it's just for what?
[01:13:32]  I knew people, the one that always really bothered me was the road rage from people who don't understand the city and they're driving on the highway or whatever and someone cuts them off and they start screaming and flicking them off and then that car slams their brakes on and the guy steps out of the car and he's got a gun and it's a gangbanger and it's just like, dude, it's not worth it, man.
[01:13:48]  You got cut off, carry on with your day, go feed your family, get your job.
[01:13:52]  And, you know, so that I understand.
[01:13:55]  But what you're saying, people on the street, they want respect, they don't get it other places.
[01:13:58]  They don't get it in there.
[01:13:58]  And I saw some, you know, it's stupid.
[01:14:01]  I mean, there's a lot of stupidity in there with guys.
[01:14:03]  But, you know, I did almost three years in solitary, they had me.
[01:14:08]  Oh, crap.
[01:14:09]  29 months and seven days, to be exact.
[01:14:12]  Feds were pretty upset with me.
[01:14:13]  They tried to get me to cooperate when I walked away.
[01:14:15]  And, you know, they got even with me in a lot of ways.
[01:14:19]  Sorry, where were you?
[01:14:20]  What prison?
[01:14:21]  Well, they had me on diesel therapy for a while.
[01:14:24]  They had me shipped all over the country, but I did most of my time in Terminal Island and Lompoc.
[01:14:29]  Okay.
[01:14:29]  Wow.
[01:14:29]  Both out west in California.
[01:14:31]  Wow.
[01:14:31]  Terminal Island was the best prison to be in.
[01:14:34]  It was a medium security, but it was right on the water, you know, in sunny California.
[01:14:38]  It was great.
[01:14:39]  No, you gotta see what happened.
[01:14:40]  We were right on the water, right?
[01:14:42]  So, a lot of times we were out there, and girls used to come by in a boat, and they used to pull their tops down, and you'd see a wave of people running to the fence, right?
[01:14:55]  Even the cops would laugh at it, you know?
[01:14:56]  And they'd be on that fence, and these girls would come.
[01:14:59]  Almost every weekend it would happen.
[01:15:01]  It was a great place to do time.
[01:15:02]  It was pretty good.
[01:15:05]  That's what you should be asking for if you can, huh?
[01:15:06]  You hear stories about Lucky Luciano.
[01:15:08]  He had a pretty sweet deal.
[01:15:09]  Was he Danimora?
[01:15:11]  It seems like they let him have his own kitchen and stuff.
[01:15:15]  You know, in a state place, you couldn't do that in the Feds.
[01:15:18]  In a state, they were looser back then.
[01:15:21]  It wasn't like Goodfellas.
[01:15:22]  You didn't have that kind of luxury there.
[01:15:25]  But you had it better in certain state places.
[01:15:28]  Look, we knew how to conduct ourselves in there, you know?
[01:15:31]  I mean, look, we ate a little better, we'd take care of the guards, we had Italian guys in the kitchen, and they'd take care of us, you know?
[01:15:38]  But basically, prison is prison.
[01:15:41]  Yeah, you don't want to go there.
[01:15:43]  No, no, you don't want to go there.
[01:15:44]  Especially now in the cities, like New York City's prisons seem so corrupt.
[01:15:49]  Like whatever they have Didion is, you know, that prison is not, does not have a good history.
[01:15:54]  Let me tell you something.
[01:15:55]  I was in, this is a funny story.
[01:15:57]  When they locked me up, they had me in, I was in MDC in New York, and then they had taken me cross country to my designated spot, which was Terminal Island.
[01:16:06]  So on the way, they brought me to Lewisburg, right?
[01:16:09]  Penitentiary level six and at the time all the blacks in DC had rioted and they burnt their prison down So they were dispersing the blacks all over the system.
[01:16:19]  So they didn't have a place to put them.
[01:16:21]  So they open up the basement in in What I say in Pennsylvania and it was condemned they weren't allowed to open it, but they opened it up for this, right?
[01:16:31]  So now the feds are mad at me They bring me there to Lewisburg, and they bring me to the basement, and it's 250 black guys and me, right?
[01:16:40]  And I'm a young guy, I'm 30-something years old at that time, and as I'm walking down, they got me shackled, and I'm walking through the tier down there, and these black guys are going, oh, Whitey, we're gonna get you, and I'm saying, man, I'm gonna have a tough time here.
[01:16:52]  I hope these guys figure out who I am.
[01:16:54]  That's what I'm saying to myself.
[01:16:56]  No, sooner than I say that, it was like God was shining down on me.
[01:17:00]  They had televisions on the tier, right?
[01:17:02]  So as I'm walking down, all of a sudden, newsflash.
[01:17:06]  Michael Francis, captain in the Colombo family, stole two million dollars.
[01:17:11]  And they're looking at the TV, and they're looking at me, and all of a sudden they start cheering.
[01:17:14]  Oh, that's amazing.
[01:17:15]  I said, God, thank you, right?
[01:17:17]  That's amazing.
[01:17:18]  Yeah, and then I had it made down there for a while.
[01:17:21]  How long were you there?
[01:17:22]  I was there three months they got me there before they moved me out, yeah.
[01:17:25]  Are they driving you across the country when they're doing this?
[01:17:28]  No, you get in a bus, plane, you know, whatever.
[01:17:30]  You get in some plane that the marshal's confiscated off of some drug dealers that, you know, you're almost praying it goes down.
[01:17:36]  But, you know, that day, too, I'll never forget.
[01:17:40]  One of the cops calls me over to COE.
[01:17:42]  He says, come into the bathroom for a minute.
[01:17:44]  I said, why?
[01:17:44]  He says, come in there, Mike.
[01:17:46]  So I go in the bathroom.
[01:17:47]  He says, look out the window.
[01:17:48]  So the window's got bars on it, right?
[01:17:50]  So coming down from the top is a pillowcase tied from a sheet, right?
[01:17:56]  So I go, and I pull it in.
[01:17:58]  And I open it up.
[01:17:59]  And there's cigarettes and everything there.
[01:18:01]  And in the note, it says, love, Jimmy.
[01:18:03]  It was Jimmy Burke.
[01:18:04]  Because all the guys were upstairs that got locked up.
[01:18:06]  Oh, wow.
[01:18:07]  So he had sent it down.
[01:18:08]  He said, anything you need down there, let us know.
[01:18:11]  So now they had, when I was in prison, I cared about two things, visits and phone calls.
[01:18:17]  That's it, because I wanted to try to keep my family together, right?
[01:18:20]  So they only had two phones on that tier for 250 guys, and they were on every other day.
[01:18:27]  So, you know, the phones are a hotspot.
[01:18:28]  You never get to the phone.
[01:18:29]  It's very hard.
[01:18:30]  So you've got to have a connection.
[01:18:32]  So I grabbed one of the black guys, and I said, listen, who's your leader here?
[01:18:35]  Who's your main guy?
[01:18:36]  You know?
[01:18:36]  So he points him out.
[01:18:37]  I says, call him over here.
[01:18:38]  So he comes over.
[01:18:39]  I'm in the bathroom, and I lay everything out.
[01:18:41]  I said, look, I don't smoke.
[01:18:43]  You got cigarettes.
[01:18:44]  You got soups.
[01:18:45]  You got this.
[01:18:45]  Anything you guys need, you got.
[01:18:48]  Just let me know.
[01:18:49]  I got friends upstairs.
[01:18:50]  He's, OK, what do you want?
[01:18:51]  I said, that one phone on the wall, that belongs to me.
[01:18:54]  Because you got it.
[01:18:55]  That's how I made the deal for the phone, right?
[01:18:57]  And I was able to call my wife a few times a day, every other day.
[01:19:01]  But, you know, you got to maneuver like that to get some kind of conveniences.
[01:19:06]  Are they making a movie about all this stuff?
[01:19:08]  Yes.
[01:19:09]  I'm like, I want to see it.
[01:19:10]  Yeah.
[01:19:10]  I want to watch it.
[01:19:11]  Yeah, for real.
[01:19:11]  We'll have a script by Thanksgiving, and I think it'll go into production early next year.
[01:19:16]  That's awesome.
[01:19:16]  We need a good mafia movie, man.
[01:19:17]  Yeah, they're the best.
[01:19:18]  Those are always so good.
[01:19:19]  I love those movies.
[01:19:20]  Yeah, hey.
[01:19:21]  I don't love him.
[01:19:24]  Man, it's funny to hear these stories and then just think about how crappy everything is today, you know what I mean?
[01:19:30]  I mean, it's the only thing I can point to because it's what we're experiencing every day, it's what we talk about.
[01:19:34]  And then it's almost like, you said they called you Robin Hood?
[01:19:38]  Yeah.
[01:19:38]  It seemed more gentlemanly.
[01:19:40]  You know, now it's just chaos and destruction.
[01:19:44]  These younger criminals, the people coming across the border, it's kind of wild because I suppose when I talk about, you know, the neighborhoods being safe under the Mafia, it's this idea that there was still some respect for life, and an understanding that, I don't want my family put at risk, so I'm gonna try and minimize these... It's almost like how in, you know, European countries have this idea of war crimes.
[01:20:07]  If we go to war, okay, fine, but you can't do this, because that crosses the line.

=== Morals And Laws (05:50) ===

[01:20:10]  I don't want you gassing my people, I won't gas your people.
[01:20:13]  But now we're entering this territory of, all that matters is winning.
[01:20:18]  And so the gangs now in Chicago and other places, they literally don't care.
[01:20:23]  They'll hand a gun to a 13-year-old and say, go do what needs to be done, because the kid will go to juvie for five years.
[01:20:30]  Yeah, or he gets out, he's got to be released at 25.
[01:20:33]  Right.
[01:20:33]  He gets indoctrinated while he's in there, and now he's a full-fledged member, he comes out.
[01:20:38]  I mean, I had some experiences with it, but you know, I have to say something.
[01:20:43]  You know, my YouTube platform is pretty big, and I built it on telling mob stories and crime stories, and I'm starting to get away from that.
[01:20:51]  There's only so many stories you can tell.
[01:20:52]  I'm not going to make things up.
[01:20:54]  And so I've been getting into a little bit more of the politics, and I got a big platform on Rumble now where you can speak freely.
[01:21:00]  But, you know, one of the things that's really bugging me, and I try to make people understand, you know, to me the sin of omission is as serious as the sin of commission, maybe even more serious.
[01:21:11]  When you know something's wrong and you have a platform, okay, to where you can try to make it right or at least educate people and you don't do it, that's wrong.
[01:21:20]  So what I'm saying is, you know, with Biden, one of the worst things, and maybe this is part of my upbringing, part of my life, when you're in a position of trust, And you violate that trust in such a way that it's dangerous and it's and it's hurting people in a bad way.
[01:21:37]  And I'm talking specifically about the border and this soft on crime policies when people are getting murdered and cities are getting destroyed and neighborhoods are getting destroyed.
[01:21:47]  And you're the president of the United States.
[01:21:49]  These people put their trust in you.
[01:21:51]  They nominated you.
[01:21:52]  They voted for you.
[01:21:53]  And you're destroying them.
[01:21:55]  There's nothing worse to me than that.
[01:21:58]  I mean, I think this is, and again, people say, Oh, Michael, you're a Trump lover.
[01:22:01]  I don't love Trump.
[01:22:03]  I love my wife.
[01:22:03]  I love my kids.
[01:22:04]  I love my God.
[01:22:05]  I love people, but I don't love Trump.
[01:22:07]  But you got to be honest.
[01:22:08]  The guy gave us four good years as president.
[01:22:11]  His policies were good.
[01:22:12]  That's all I care about.
[01:22:14]  You know, it could be Trump, could be anybody else, if you're doing the right thing for the country.
[01:22:17]  But this guy and this administration, to throw people to the dogs the way they're doing, it's just... We wouldn't do that on the street.
[01:22:26]  I don't think Biden's... We would not do... I'm telling you, we wouldn't do that on the street.
[01:22:30]  Because they have no loyalty to America, to their neighborhoods, and to their citizens.
[01:22:34]  Trump does.
[01:22:34]  People are getting killed.
[01:22:36]  You know, another thing.
[01:22:38]  I mean, 13 military people died in Afghanistan because of his blunders, and he didn't even respect the families of these people.
[01:22:48]  This is a bad guy.
[01:22:49]  Oh yeah.
[01:22:50]  Lies about his own son's death.
[01:22:51]  He's a bad guy.
[01:22:52]  Lies about everything.
[01:22:53]  I got a question.
[01:22:54]  I mean, you mentioned loving God.
[01:22:56]  Were the families religious?
[01:23:00]  Listen, on Ash Wednesday, you know, growing up Catholic, you see more guys with ashes on their head than you can believe.
[01:23:05]  You know, everybody was Catholic.
[01:23:08]  You know, look, are they good Catholics?
[01:23:10]  If you're out there committing crimes, I don't know.
[01:23:13]  But look, you know, here's another thing I say, and people, oh, Michael, everything that's illegal is not always immoral.
[01:23:22]  You know what I mean?
[01:23:23]  You could have a law... And a lot of good things are legal.
[01:23:25]  Yeah, you could have a law that you're not supposed to violate.
[01:23:28]  It doesn't mean that it's immoral, because you can have an unjust government putting unjust laws on you.
[01:23:33]  If you break that law, it doesn't mean you're committing a sin.
[01:23:35]  It doesn't mean it's immoral, you know?
[01:23:38]  Now, I'm not saying we didn't, you know, break the law and do immoral things, because we did.
[01:23:42]  There's no question.
[01:23:42]  I'm not trying to clean that up.
[01:23:44]  But there was... Look, I know a lot of good guys in that life, and it's the age-old question, why do good people do bad things?
[01:23:51]  Well, sometimes they think they're doing the right thing when they're not.
[01:23:56]  So everybody wasn't a bad guy and a demon.
[01:23:58]  I brought up Roy DeMeo.
[01:24:00]  That's a different story.
[01:24:01]  That guy was insane.
[01:24:03]  But there's a lot of guys that I thought were good guys, good people.
[01:24:09]  I guess that's what I was curious about.
[01:24:11]  There's like two things I was thinking.
[01:24:12]  I wonder if a loss of religion as this country starts becoming more secular, and of the people who do claim to be Christian, they're not really practicing.
[01:24:24]  And I wonder if that was a component of why there was at least some degree of honor relative to what we see now.
[01:24:31]  The gangs that come in, they'll kill anybody they don't care.
[01:24:33]  The government, politicians, they'll insider trade, they'll strip the value, they'll pull the copper from the walls of the country while the cities burn down.
[01:24:42]  I wonder if it's just there's no fear of God.
[01:24:45]  Tim, you nailed it, 100%, because they're trying to get God out of our institutions, out of our kids' psyche and their head, out of our schools.
[01:24:54]  I mean, it's—you know, look, I have seven kids, I have seven grandchildren, right?
[01:25:00]  I have to say this.
[01:25:01]  I saw something just today on the plane coming in that just got me sick.
[01:25:06]  Senator John Kennedy, I love that guy, he's from Louisiana, good old boy, right?
[01:25:09]  Straight shooter, just a great guy.
[01:25:12]  But he was talking to a woman, I think she was from Planned Parenthood, and he was describing in detail, with charts, everything, what an aborted baby, what happened to that baby at the age of 23 weeks, 23 weeks old.
[01:25:29]  And as he's describing it, I couldn't even watch it.
[01:25:31]  Yeah.
[01:25:32]  As they're tearing this baby apart and they're saying to the woman, the baby's feeling pain, right?
[01:25:37]  As they're pulling his legs apart and pulling his, how could you watch this?
[01:25:41]  And these people get up there and say, you know, I mean, abortion is okay because it's a woman's body to do what she pleases with it.

=== Christians and Ideological Voting (05:05) ===

[01:25:48]  Well, it's not the woman's body anymore.
[01:25:51]  You know, and I say, I have seven kids, seven grandchildren.
[01:25:54]  My daughters and my daughter-in-laws, their body was never in trouble.
[01:26:00]  Now, I would say this, if there was a case where, you know, God forbid it's the mother or the baby, okay, you know, you're gonna pick the mother 99% of the time, we get that, we understand that.
[01:26:11]  If there's a situation, rape, okay, we get it.
[01:26:14]  There are certain instances where we get it.
[01:26:17]  But to try to say, you know, it's a woman's health issue, it's not a woman's health issue.
[01:26:22]  And if Christians would vote their morality, There would never be a progressive president.
[01:26:28]  Never.
[01:26:30]  But Christians don't vote.
[01:26:31]  They don't get out there and vote.
[01:26:32]  They don't.
[01:26:33]  No, they don't.
[01:26:34]  We got out here in Charlestown, West Virginia—Charlestown and not Charleston.
[01:26:40]  Big mistake people make.
[01:26:41]  And, you know, they had this procession of like 2,000 Christians, Catholics—it was a Latin mass—Catholics marching through the streets in protest of a lot of what we're seeing.
[01:26:51]  Yet the city council is all progressive, or it's dominated by progressives.
[01:26:56]  And so I met a city councilman who is, I'd say, I wouldn't call him far right or anything like that.
[01:27:01]  He's a conservative guy, you know, moderate.
[01:27:03]  And I asked him, how is that possible?
[01:27:05]  That you've got a Latin mass in West Virginia, of all places, second most Trump-loving country, Trump-supporting state in the country.
[01:27:13]  And he said, they don't vote.
[01:27:15]  Exactly.
[01:27:16]  They go to church and they think that church is all they need to do.
[01:27:21]  They're not showing up, and for these progressives, the ballot box is their church.
[01:27:25]  Yep.
[01:27:26]  When they show up to vote, they're tithing, they're worshiping, and when the Catholics and the Christians go to church, they think that's it.
[01:27:31]  And then they cast aside the rest.
[01:27:33]  And that's exactly my point.
[01:27:35]  The sin of omission is as serious as the sin of commission, because if Christians, Catholics would vote scripturally, we'd never have a progressive president or a progressive administration, because they couldn't.
[01:27:47]  Well, that's the argument made by many liberals, leftists, secular individuals, is that Christians want to moralize.
[01:27:55]  They're voting for religion in government.
[01:27:56]  They shouldn't do that.
[01:27:58]  Meanwhile, they're doing exactly that.
[01:28:00]  Their ideologies have been described as non-theistic religions or, in a much more derogatory way, cults.
[01:28:07]  That's what I like to say.
[01:28:07]  I think they're a death cult.
[01:28:08]  Yeah, and they go and vote based on these ideological beliefs and then criticize anybody who does otherwise.
[01:28:18]  There was this post that someone made from—Daniel Radcliffe had a comment where he said—you know, he's Harry Potter—he said that he was an atheist and he has no problem with religions, just people shouldn't be voting based on religion.
[01:28:30]  And he's a militant atheist who thinks that should be stopped.
[01:28:32]  And he's basically saying, my worldview is absolute and no one else should be able to influence government based on their worldview.
[01:28:38]  That's all he's really saying.
[01:28:39]  I think these people genuinely don't understand religion and morality.
[01:28:44]  They genuinely think they are morally superior for not having a religious view because they're smarter and better than everybody.
[01:28:50]  They want to divorce everyone from God, and they want to destroy the family, and they want the government to be the family.
[01:28:55]  And that's what they are doing all the time.
[01:28:57]  You're exactly right.
[01:28:59]  What you both said is exactly right.
[01:29:01]  And look at the havoc that's being caused.
[01:29:03]  Yeah, total chaos.
[01:29:04]  Yeah, Christians are at fault for that.
[01:29:05]  You know, Catholics are at fault for that, because they don't go out and vote, and vote the way they're supposed to.
[01:29:10]  But I thought Joe Biden's a Catholic?
[01:29:12]  Joe Biden?
[01:29:14]  What?
[01:29:15]  That guy is...
[01:29:18]  You know what?
[01:29:18]  I never wanted to say this because this country is so divided right now.
[01:29:23]  It's horrible.
[01:29:24]  It really is terrible.
[01:29:25]  But I think people with knowledge now, if they can vote for Harris in this administration, I think I'm going to be really upset with them, you know?
[01:29:36]  And, you know, I think it was Megyn Kelly that said, all right, you know, you people go out and vote, but if you put this person in office, you're causing me to suffer.
[01:29:45]  And I don't ever want to resent somebody because of their political views, but I think I'm going to be angry at this point.
[01:29:53]  Yeah, I understand the anger now, because they actually are going after children.
[01:29:57]  They're mutilating innocents.
[01:30:00]  They don't care about the country.
[01:30:01]  They're loyal to foreign, you know, people in other countries like Biden and China.
[01:30:06]  It's nuts.
[01:30:07]  Massachusetts now, they're trying to pass the bill.
[01:30:09]  It's in front of their legislature where a mother on a birth certificate is no longer called mother.
[01:30:17]  She's the birth person.
[01:30:19]  And the father is the other person.
[01:30:21]  Right.
[01:30:21]  Well, there was a I saw a story the other day that said a throuple of three gay men Had a baby through surrogacy, and they put all their names on the birth certificate.
[01:30:30]  I haven't fact-checked this, so... But, you know, these days, things that are caricatures are so easily believable, it's insane.

=== Private Turf Wars (10:46) ===

[01:30:37]  I have to wonder what the families in, like, the 80s would be thinking if you showed them a newspaper from today.
[01:30:43]  Yeah, that's a time travel mobster movie where they had to come from the 70s to 2024.
[01:30:51]  I'm telling you, when you gotta hold up- We should make that short film, that'd be fun.
[01:30:54]  When you gotta hold up the mob as the moral standard of this country, and actually, we can do that.
[01:31:00]  But that's basically the premise here that I was bringing up.
[01:31:05]  Somebody shared that clip from the Bronx that went viral several times over the past year because people keep saying, That scene where they beat the crap out of the bikers is better than what we have now.
[01:31:18]  Not that we want any violence, but right now it's absolutely insane.
[01:31:24]  You've got, as I mentioned, the homelessness, the poverty, the drug abuse, camps all over these cities, and no accountability.
[01:31:30]  And now we're looking at in Seattle, after the police got defunded, they're saying they will not respond to emergency alarms anymore.
[01:31:38]  They don't have the resources.
[01:31:40]  So if an alarm goes off at a building, they just say, well, you know, good luck.
[01:31:44]  I wonder if something like this re-emerges then, if a family-type, mafia-type thing can re-emerge.
[01:31:50]  I don't see it happening from the legal aliens coming by, because I think they're probably loyal to stuff going on wherever they came from and to their day-to-day survival here.
[01:31:59]  Well, this, you know, I don't know, maybe Michael would know better, with the trend of Aragog coming in.
[01:32:05]  And with, you know, the Summer of Love riots we saw.
[01:32:09]  There was one video where some Antifa far-left guys were trying to riot in a small town, and a bunch of the men got up and just stood firm and started pushing them out as they were screaming, and they were like, get out.
[01:32:21]  Is it possible that With Tren de Aragua, you're gonna get a bunch of local guys coming together and just being like, maybe they're union working guys, being like, we gotta come together, we can't let Tren de Aragua come in.
[01:32:32]  And that turns into a family.
[01:32:34]  Well, I read that some of the gangs in Chicago were now pulling together to say, we gotta go after these guys, so we're not gonna let this happen.
[01:32:42]  You know, look, I wouldn't doubt it.
[01:32:44]  Yeah, seems like it's natural, that's a natural progression of what's going on.
[01:32:48]  This is, the Tren de Aragua Chicago story is I think it's one of the more interesting and very worrying stories.
[01:32:56]  I remember a long time ago, I was at a police station when I was a teenager, and they have maps of gang territory.
[01:33:01]  The cops know who they're going, and they have to know the rules about what these gangs do.
[01:33:07]  Some gangs might shoot on sight.
[01:33:08]  I mean, no respect, they don't care, they give a 13-year-old kid a gun, and they say, don't let cops come in.
[01:33:14]  And they know that that kid, they tell them, like, don't worry, you'll get out when you're 18.
[01:33:18]  So now what we're hearing is, Rumors.
[01:33:21]  I don't know to what extent it's actually starting to develop, but one story of one of the local gangs, they were outside of some building and they said the Venezuelans have come in here and they're selling drugs on our turf.
[01:33:31]  You can't do that.
[01:33:32]  The other gangs know better.
[01:33:34]  I'm not going to start naming which gangs or anything because I know all of them, but gang one says, don't worry.
[01:33:39]  Gang number two, they know not to cross this street because this is where we do business.
[01:33:44]  And we have an agreement, because we don't want to go to war.
[01:33:46]  So we don't go over there.
[01:33:47]  Sometimes you get a young guy who's going to be like, I'm going to take this turf, and they can't do anything about it.
[01:33:52]  But you know, I feel like that's more rare, at least when I was growing up.
[01:33:56]  But the Venezuelans don't care about any of that.
[01:33:57]  They don't care about treaties.
[01:33:58]  They don't care about agreements.
[01:34:00]  And so now, Gang one goes to gang two and says, if we don't stop these Venezuelan cartels and drug dealers coming into our turf, they're coming for yours next.
[01:34:10]  So work with us.
[01:34:11]  If you see them, let's not let them.
[01:34:13]  The scary thing is what that turns into.
[01:34:15]  You see this video out of Aurora where they come and knock on the door and they're banging on it and then they start drilling through the door or whatever and they go inside.
[01:34:22]  If that were Chicago, They'd knock on that door, they'd pull out a drill, whatever, and then bullets would come flying right through that door.
[01:34:30]  And that's it.
[01:34:31]  You know what?
[01:34:32]  It's going to come to that, I think.
[01:34:33]  It really is.
[01:34:34]  If they don't get hold of this, it's going to come to that.
[01:34:37]  It's like an evolved version of what you're saying with working with the Russian guy, right?
[01:34:41]  It's for money's sake, right?
[01:34:43]  At some point, there's going to be a defensive version of that.
[01:34:46]  Did you have to deal with the Irish mafia at all in any way or compete against them?
[01:34:50]  We dealt with the Westies.
[01:34:52]  I knew Jimmy Coonan really well.
[01:34:55]  And they were a good bunch of guys.
[01:34:57]  We got along with them.
[01:34:58]  And that was probably the only group that we dealt with at the time.
[01:35:03]  That was it.
[01:35:04]  And we didn't go to war with them.
[01:35:06]  We dealt with them.
[01:35:07]  You were mentioning that Fat Tony, when he called for that meeting, that was a different crime family.
[01:35:11]  But you guys worked with each other.
[01:35:17]  We didn't go to war.
[01:35:17]  You know, people think we went to war with each other.
[01:35:19]  That ended in the 30s and the 40s.
[01:35:22]  Whenever there was a war in a family, and unfortunately at Columbo's we were a warring family.
[01:35:25]  We had three wars in my lifetime.
[01:35:27]  But there's a civil war, and it's usually over power.
[01:35:31]  Who's going to be the boss or whatever.
[01:35:33]  But it's an internal war.
[01:35:35]  It's never a war among the families.
[01:35:37]  We don't go to war.
[01:35:37]  We settle things.
[01:35:38]  When you say there's a war within the family, is that people within making their own It's always a power.
[01:35:43]  Grouping and being like, we're going to take this guy out.
[01:35:45]  Well, it's who's going to be the boss.
[01:35:47]  Right.
[01:35:48]  It's always over the top spot.
[01:35:49]  Right.
[01:35:50]  Did you, uh, was there ever a circumstance where one of your guys on his own for whatever goes into another family's territory or businesses and causes problems?
[01:36:01]  Happened all the time.
[01:36:03]  I mean, but like, what's the remedy then?
[01:36:04]  Does like, you know, Fat Tony say, Hey, look, your guy came in here.
[01:36:07]  What are we going to do about this?
[01:36:08]  Like, how is that handled?
[01:36:09]  Sit down and discuss it and, you know, hopefully you can resolve it without anybody getting hurt, you know, depending upon what the situation was.
[01:36:17]  But, you know, I had to sit down almost every other day, you know, over some of my guys doing something or somebody wanting a piece of business.
[01:36:26]  Yeah, when you're a captain, you're constantly doing that kind of business, you know.
[01:36:31]  And I had a couple of crazy guys around me.
[01:36:32]  Wow.
[01:36:33]  I was talking to Michael Malice about private security.
[01:36:37]  He's an anarchist, so he views police as a private institution better than a governmental one.
[01:36:43]  I don't completely agree.
[01:36:44]  And I said, how would it work?
[01:36:45]  I mean, look, I live in this town.
[01:36:48]  I pay my private police department.
[01:36:50]  They keep me safe.
[01:36:51]  And if someone comes to rob me, they'll come and they'll arrest them.
[01:36:54]  Let's say there's two cities.
[01:36:56]  They each have their own private police force.
[01:36:58]  One guy comes to my house and robs me.
[01:37:00]  Gets chased by my private cops to this other city where he runs in his house and then calls his cops and says, these other cops are lying, they're coming to get me, come defend me.
[01:37:10]  And he said it'd be like the Mafia.
[01:37:12]  That's how things would be run.
[01:37:13]  And it was better then.
[01:37:15]  And, you know, I don't completely agree, but that did entertain the idea that things, that crimes could be resolved better.
[01:37:22]  But I'm curious, you know, if something like that were to happen, how do the families resolve that issue?
[01:37:27]  Well again, they would sit down and make a decision.
[01:37:30]  If the guy at fault was really at fault and he had to be eliminated, it would happen.
[01:37:38]  It would be a joint decision at that point.
[01:37:42]  But I'd imagine there are a lot of circumstances where if one of your guys was accused and it's looking like I think he might be innocent.
[01:37:52]  However, they're demanding something that if we don't give them, it could make things worse.
[01:37:56]  It could be.
[01:37:57]  I mean, you defend your guy as best you could, but look, there's politics played at times too, you know.
[01:38:02]  That's why when I sat down with you, I said, please, no politics.
[01:38:05]  You know, because I know, you know, they do favors for one another and you get the short end of the stick.
[01:38:10]  You know, it's like anything else.
[01:38:11]  Same thing in government, you know, any organization.
[01:38:14]  But no, we tried to resolve things amicably, you know, as best we could.
[01:38:18]  Look, it's to nobody's advantage to be killing each other in the streets.
[01:38:22]  We all knew that.
[01:38:23]  You know, people think, oh, we went to war, we want to fight.
[01:38:26]  No, I mean, it was a last resort.
[01:38:28]  Always a last resort.
[01:38:29]  Speaking of killing in the streets, what do you think about the mob ties and the JFK assassination?
[01:38:36]  My whole life, all I ever heard, and I have no reason to disbelieve it because it was from the right people, without a doubt, that it was a mob hit.
[01:38:46]  No question.
[01:38:47]  And look, Jack Ruby, come out of Chicago, he was around the Capone guys back then.
[01:38:56]  All of a sudden he goes into a police station out of nowhere and he kills Lee Harvey Oswald?
[01:39:00]  Come on.
[01:39:01]  It was a setup.
[01:39:02]  The CIA knew about it.
[01:39:04]  I mean, what's his name?
[01:39:05]  Ocardo said it.
[01:39:06]  You know, we killed the wrong Kennedy.
[01:39:08]  He had it on tape.
[01:39:09]  I mean, look, Joe Kennedy made a deal.
[01:39:12]  We were supposed to have access to the White House if we delivered Illinois.
[01:39:16]  We delivered it.
[01:39:17]  When I say we, you know, the family there.
[01:39:19]  They delivered Illinois.
[01:39:20]  And what happened?
[01:39:21]  Bobby Kennedy went just the opposite.
[01:39:23]  You know, as U.S.
[01:39:24]  Attorney, he started prosecuting.
[01:39:25]  He went after it.
[01:39:26]  Yeah, he went after it.
[01:39:27]  After Hoover did nothing for so long.
[01:39:28]  Well, remember, J. Edgar Hoover would never even admit that the Mafia existed.
[01:39:33]  Well, they had a little stuff on them.
[01:39:34]  Why did that happen?
[01:39:35]  J. Edgar Hoover used to go to the Stork Club, which Frank Costello had a piece of.
[01:39:40]  And, uh, what's his name?
[01:39:41]  Yeah, I forget his name.
[01:39:42]  Whatever, the owner.
[01:39:44]  He had that place wired and bugged.
[01:39:46]  Yeah.
[01:39:46]  And he was trying to catch celebrities in acts so he can have something on them.
[01:39:50]  But he happened to catch Hoover in a bathroom with his boyfriend.
[01:39:53]  That's right.
[01:39:53]  And they had it on him.
[01:39:54]  True story.
[01:39:56]  And Hoover would never mention that the mafia... The only time Hoover had to mention it was after Appalachia.
[01:40:01]  Right.
[01:40:02]  And he had to.
[01:40:03]  That's like 30 years later, right?
[01:40:04]  Yeah, it was later.
[01:40:05]  And he had to say, okay, it does exist.
[01:40:08]  He wouldn't prosecute, he wouldn't do anything.
[01:40:10]  But Bobby Kennedy took the opposite.
[01:40:12]  He said, no, we're going after these guys.
[01:40:14]  Do you think the mob then did Bobby too?
[01:40:16]  No.
[01:40:16]  Really?
[01:40:17]  No.
[01:40:17]  And when you say the mob did JFK, does that mean the CIA worked with the mob?
[01:40:21]  Yes.
[01:40:22]  Yes.
[01:40:22]  Wow.
[01:40:24]  Was that, you know, it wasn't the first time.
[01:40:26]  Yeah.
[01:40:27]  I mean, they came to us to try to kill Castro.
[01:40:32]  How public was, you know, all of this stuff went, you know, from the 50s to the 80s.
[01:40:38]  Was it very common in the press?
[01:40:40]  Everybody knew the mob was out there.
[01:40:41]  They're doing stuff.
[01:40:42]  They're in the news every day.
[01:40:44]  You mentioned walking to the prison, you're on the TV.
[01:40:47]  There wasn't, I'll be honest with you, you know, New York Times, Daily News, New York Post, during my era in that life, there wasn't a day or two that went by without a mob story.
[01:40:59]  About somebody.
[01:41:00]  Usually two or three of them.
[01:41:02]  Now, I read the New York Post every morning.

=== Talking Trump's Legacy (06:41) ===

[01:41:05]  Maybe every six months you might read something.
[01:41:07]  And then you read, what do you read?
[01:41:09]  These guys got busted for the same old thing.
[01:41:11]  Gambling.
[01:41:13]  It's the same nonsense, silly things that they, you know.
[01:41:18]  I just don't hear about it anymore.
[01:41:19]  But I wonder if that's it.
[01:41:20]  You know, with the obsession over Donald Trump starting in 2015, CNN turned into the Trump News Network.
[01:41:27]  I remember, I used to watch CNN every day.
[01:41:30]  This is six, seven years ago.
[01:41:32]  I had a projector screen on my wall playing CNN, ten feet wide, and I would just leave it running, so for breaking news.
[01:41:39]  And then one day I'm watching it, and I see online that there's riots going on in Iran, and I'm like, what's happening in Iran?
[01:41:45]  And I look at the screen, and they're having a roundtable talking about Trump.
[01:41:48]  And I was like, I don't know, I gotta change channel.
[01:41:51]  Fox News, Iranian protests.
[01:41:53]  And I'm just like, they became obsessed talking about Trump.
[01:41:56]  I'm wondering if now the media stops writing about the families and their dealings and what's going on because they're not getting the traffic and the attention they used to get.
[01:42:07]  Maybe the story was just the American public was thirsty for news about what the families were doing.
[01:42:11]  They made movies about it.
[01:42:12]  Endless movies.
[01:42:14]  To a degree, but I'll tell you what.
[01:42:15]  Back in my day, we had, among all five families, we had about 750 maid guys, guys that actually took the oath.
[01:42:23]  We had a lot of associates, but guys that actually took the oath.
[01:42:26]  Back then, the FBI had 1,200, 1,200 to 1,400 agents assigned to the five families.
[01:42:34]  There was two agents to every one guy, maid guy.
[01:42:38]  Now, there's less than 100 agents.
[01:42:40]  That's right.
[01:42:41]  For all five families.
[01:42:42]  What I'm saying is, either it's a prime time for resurgence because the public doesn't care and the feds don't care, or they already have an operation going but they're keeping it under the radar.
[01:42:52]  They are keeping it under the radar.
[01:42:54]  They're not going away.
[01:42:55]  That much I can tell you.
[01:42:57]  They're just, the feds are just not on them anymore.
[01:43:00]  They feel that they did the job to a great degree.
[01:43:02]  They gotta go after the J6ers.
[01:43:03]  Yeah, but they're not.
[01:43:06]  But again, let me tell you, you know when I get me started.
[01:43:09]  Yeah, we do.
[01:43:10]  They go after the J6ers much harder than the mob guys?
[01:43:13]  You know what gets me upset?
[01:43:16]  Who the heck are these people that they made such a big deal out of?
[01:43:19]  First of all, I think that whole thing was a setup.
[01:43:22]  I mean, come on.
[01:43:22]  Trump asked Pelosi, have the National Guard there.
[01:43:25]  She refused.
[01:43:25]  He asked the mayor, you know, get more police.
[01:43:28]  They refused.
[01:43:30]  You know, they're walking people into there.
[01:43:31]  For sure.
[01:43:32]  And they made such a big deal out of it.
[01:43:33]  And I'm saying, well, who the heck are you people?
[01:43:35]  Our cities were burning down.
[01:43:38]  They funded those.
[01:43:39]  Yeah, after Floyd.
[01:43:40]  Burning down, businesses closed, riots, people getting killed in the streets.
[01:43:44]  It was a summer of what?
[01:43:45]  What'd they call it?
[01:43:46]  Love.
[01:43:46]  Yeah, summer of love.
[01:43:48]  Mostly peaceful.
[01:43:49]  So now we gotta worry about you.
[01:43:50]  Not one of you got hurt.
[01:43:51]  You're hiding under the desk.
[01:43:52]  You got a police force around you.
[01:43:54]  Nothing happened.
[01:43:55]  But, you know, it was an assault on democracy when normal people are getting killed, businesses are getting closed, thousands are getting burned down.
[01:44:02]  But you're special.
[01:44:04]  Come on, you know?
[01:44:06]  You know, it's funny, it just sounds like a gang.
[01:44:09]  When, you know, it's funny you tell this story about your gas stations.
[01:44:13]  The problem was that you were taking money from them, right?
[01:44:16]  Exactly.
[01:44:17]  They don't care if the people are robbing each other, but don't go after their paychecks.
[01:44:21]  Exactly.
[01:44:22]  That's when they get mad.
[01:44:23]  Exactly.
[01:44:24]  That's why they didn't care about the Summer of Love.
[01:44:26]  Rioters threw firebombs at the White House, torched the guard posts, set fire to St.
[01:44:30]  John's Church.
[01:44:30]  The president was forced into an emergency bunker.
[01:44:33]  But they don't like Trump, so that was fine.
[01:44:35]  They didn't care.
[01:44:35]  They don't care about it.
[01:44:36]  They don't talk about it.
[01:44:37]  There's no commission about it.
[01:44:38]  They didn't want it to end.
[01:44:39]  Yeah, right.
[01:44:40]  No.
[01:44:40]  They were done.
[01:44:41]  Kamala was, uh, she put out that link to donate to help get these people out of jail.
[01:44:44]  Yep.
[01:44:44]  Maxine's orders to get in their faces.
[01:44:46]  You know, they all, they loved it.
[01:44:48]  Did you ever think in your wildest imagination that we would see something like that?
[01:44:53]  No.
[01:44:53]  No.
[01:44:54]  You know, and Jack Masobik has a really great post.
[01:44:56]  I want to pull this one up.
[01:44:58]  It's heavy political, but I think this one matters.
[01:45:00]  Let me... What surprised me is, like, knowing history, you know what happens, and it's bound to repeat itself, but it was just shock of people I knew overnight being brainwashed into being bloodthirsty.
[01:45:12]  For your neighbor, or for your loved one, and banishing your family if they had wrong think, you know?
[01:45:17]  Or seeing people donate money to arsonists, or marching down to the city and doing violence themselves.
[01:45:21]  This is a great post from Jack Posobiec.
[01:45:23]  He says, I really have to tell the Zoomers politics is not usually like this.
[01:45:26]  Presidential elections are not usually like this.
[01:45:28]  Usually they're kind of boring.
[01:45:30]  Multiple assassination attempts, sitting presidents dropping out nuclear war threats, one party trying to lock up the other candidate.
[01:45:36]  There's never been anything like this.
[01:45:38]  Yeah.
[01:45:39]  A hundred percent.
[01:45:41]  100%.
[01:45:41]  I mean, it's like, you know, a fictionalized novel that you'd read 20 years ago that this could happen and you'd laugh it off.
[01:45:48]  It would never happen.
[01:45:50]  How old are you?
[01:45:52]  73.
[01:45:52]  73?
[01:45:52]  Wow, I did not expect you to be 73.
[01:45:54]  I thought you were younger than that.
[01:45:56]  But you've been around for a lot of presidential elections, and you agree with Jack?
[01:46:00]  It's usually pretty boring?
[01:46:03]  Yeah, I mean, you know, first of all, it was great because one day, Okay, you went out and vote, by the next morning you know who the president is, or by later that night.
[01:46:11]  Do you think the elections were rigged before, though, at some point?
[01:46:14]  I absolutely do.
[01:46:14]  Presidential ones?
[01:46:16]  Before what?
[01:46:17]  Before the 2020 one.
[01:46:20]  I have no evidence to say that that happened.
[01:46:23]  I didn't even think of it.
[01:46:25]  Really?
[01:46:26]  Yeah.
[01:46:26]  Because knowing you could fix games, you know, knowing World Series have been fixed, it's like it seems nothing is safe.
[01:46:32]  Yeah, I have no evidence of that.
[01:46:34]  Never heard anything on the street about that until, you know, the last election in 2020.
[01:46:40]  But, you know, do I believe that that election was rigged?
[01:46:44]  100%.
[01:46:44]  There's a lot of weird stuff going on.
[01:46:48]  100%.
[01:46:48]  Yeah, I mean, come on.
[01:46:49]  You know, look, COVID was the best thing that ever happened to progressives.
[01:46:54]  You know, again, too, I wish people would just wake up, you know?
[01:46:58]  These people have lied to us.
[01:47:00]  I mean, they caused people to die during COVID.
[01:47:03]  Oh, yeah.
[01:47:04]  These are murderers.
[01:47:06]  These are murderers.
[01:47:07]  They are murderers.
[01:47:09]  What Cuomo did with the nursing homes.
[01:47:11]  Yeah.
[01:47:12]  I'll never forget it.
[01:47:12]  And now he's entertaining a run for New York City mayor with what's going on with Eric Adams.
[01:47:16]  I know.
[01:47:17]  And people are actually suggesting he'll probably win.
[01:47:19]  They deserve him.
[01:47:21]  He's a genocidal maniac, in my opinion.
[01:47:23]  But it wasn't just him, it was other Democrat governors.
[01:47:25]  I think Whitmer did it as well.
[01:47:26]  Yeah, I think it was also, what, Wolf in, uh, where was he, was he PA?
[01:47:29]  PA.
[01:47:30]  Yeah, there's three or four governors that did the same thing.

=== Walk Away Scot-Free (10:56) ===

[01:47:32]  New Jersey, I think, I think Newsom maybe did the same thing.
[01:47:35]  Yeah.
[01:47:36]  But you know, look, you get guys like Fauci.
[01:47:39]  Who misled us, who lied to us, who had something to do with the whole China at the Wuhan lab.
[01:47:44]  These guys walk away scot-free and they got blood on their hands.
[01:47:47]  I mean, they caused innocent people to die.
[01:47:51]  Hundreds of thousands, maybe more than that, and scot-free.
[01:47:55]  Isn't it kind of funny when you're getting your morals from a former mafia guy over your government officials?
[01:48:01]  Listen, if it's shocking to me, who's seen a lot, I mean, think about it.
[01:48:08]  But you know, for me, again, it's all a violation of trust to such a degree that you cause people to die.
[01:48:16]  And you're a public official.
[01:48:20]  And I don't know why, I just cannot, I can't.
[01:48:24]  You wanted your neighborhoods to be nice.
[01:48:26]  Yes.
[01:48:26]  You wanted to go to your restaurant, bring your family out, not worry about it.
[01:48:29]  I mean, there's parts of the New York City I just won't go to anymore, because they're lost.
[01:48:33]  I know.
[01:48:34]  They're insane.
[01:48:34]  And listen, Chicago, I love that city.
[01:48:36]  Yeah.
[01:48:37]  Chicago is a great town.
[01:48:38]  I always looked at it as a miniature New York, easier to get around with great food, good people, great.
[01:48:44]  And look at it now.
[01:48:46]  Yeah, man, to see the Magmile, Watertower, Gold Coast areas, what they're turning into, it's kind of, it's kind of, it's kind of, it's crazy.
[01:48:54]  The downtown storefronts just closed.
[01:48:57]  And I was there a couple of years ago and I couldn't believe how many businesses had shut down.
[01:49:01]  It's not just about the crime, it's the economy.
[01:49:03]  I think, you know, it's one thing when you look at the local level, defund the police, the political climate around policing, the cops can't do anything.
[01:49:09]  Not to mention, I mean, Chicago cops are corrupt.
[01:49:12]  Not all of them, but Chicago's got corrupt cops.
[01:49:15]  And I think now what we're looking at is, I guess the inverse of when things break down the other direction, and now it's just gang crime and theft and robberies, now there's no town at all.
[01:49:25]  Look, you know what's gonna happen is, I go back home and I'm shocked to see what the city's turned into.
[01:49:31]  But the people who never left, It's just the same, right?
[01:49:34]  So the younger people are like, what do you mean?
[01:49:36]  It's always been like this.
[01:49:37]  Older people are like, no, there used to be a hot dog stand over there.
[01:49:39]  There used to be a barber shop over there, an ice cream shop right there.
[01:49:42]  I think a lot of that is what breeds nihilism in the younger people who are doing this like petty violent crime day-to-day stuff because they have no meaning in their lives.
[01:49:49]  Going back to having no God and stuff like that.
[01:49:51]  You know, people used to say, well, you guys corrupted the cops.
[01:49:54]  Yeah, OK.
[01:49:55]  So we had a card game, and they would come, and we'd pay them off and look the other way while guys are sitting down playing cards.
[01:50:01]  They're not shooting each other.
[01:50:02]  They're not robbing people in the street.
[01:50:04]  They're not selling drugs.
[01:50:05]  They're playing cards.
[01:50:06]  OK, sorry the government isn't getting their cut out of it.
[01:50:09]  OK, so the cops, they would look the other way.
[01:50:11]  We'd pay them.
[01:50:11]  They'd go away.
[01:50:13]  I mean, we're corrupting the cops?
[01:50:14]  That's corrupting the cops?
[01:50:15]  I mean, come on.
[01:50:16]  What else did we do with them?
[01:50:18]  Really, that was it.
[01:50:18]  They weren't hiding bodies for us or anything like that.
[01:50:21]  In the 70s and 80s, the city also wasn't the best of places, too.
[01:50:23]  There were a lot of, like, crazy... It was, like, sand was happening.
[01:50:28]  Absolutely.
[01:50:29]  The city went bankrupt at one point in the 70s.
[01:50:31]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:50:31]  And I think the president at that point said, no, I'm not bailing you out.
[01:50:34]  I'm not bailing out, yeah.
[01:50:35]  So, I mean, you were dealing with a lot of crazy stuff happening around you.
[01:50:39]  Did you find yourselves having to defend yourself against some of the dystopian things happening in the 70s and 80s, or were you just trying to stay out of it?
[01:50:47]  Yeah, it didn't trouble us.
[01:50:50]  Really?
[01:50:50]  Yeah.
[01:50:51]  No, we didn't have any of those issues.
[01:50:54]  We were doing our own thing, and just don't bother us, and don't mess with our neighborhoods or anything like that, or stay away from our stuff, and we're all right.
[01:51:02]  Right.
[01:51:03]  But listen, if they would have engaged... Look, understand this too.
[01:51:07]  I mean, this is kind of ironic, but most of my guys, they all fought in the war.
[01:51:12]  Right.
[01:51:13]  Either the Korean War, World War II, a lot of guys, they were patriotic.
[01:51:17]  Hey, we'll steal money from the government.
[01:51:19]  Don't you mess with my country though, you know?
[01:51:21]  A lot of the guys had that view.
[01:51:23]  Sure.
[01:51:23]  Believe it or not, you know, but... Oh man, I'm looking back at my old neighborhood and there's a vegan sandwich shop where the people used to be.
[01:51:30]  We're lost.
[01:51:32]  That's it.
[01:51:32]  Seems like refund the mafia.
[01:51:34]  Vegan food now.
[01:51:35]  Oh jeez.
[01:51:37]  Refund the mafia.
[01:51:39]  Let me ask you this, okay?
[01:51:42]  Do you think That America can survive four years of Harris and whoever's really pulling.
[01:51:48]  Barely survived four years of her now.
[01:51:50]  Exactly.
[01:51:51]  Do you think another four years that we can survive this?
[01:51:55]  Well, you know, I'll say this.
[01:51:56]  I think.
[01:51:58]  I think this country will exist.
[01:52:00]  It's a question of, will we like what it's become?
[01:52:03]  You know, there's always going to be people here, even if the apocalypse were to happen and the sun were to, you know, solar flare out, all the technology, whatever, the American people will figure it out, but a lot of people are going to be in really, really bad spots.
[01:52:16]  I think we got a lot of people in this country who don't know how to survive, don't know what it means to work hard.
[01:52:22]  There was a report out the other day, a survey found that Gen Z college graduate employees are getting fired At an extremely high rate, extremely quickly, and companies are reporting that when they bring in these, you know, 23-24 year olds, they make excuses, they don't dress properly, they talk weird, they're insulting, condescending, lazy, they call in sick all the time, they're quiet, quitting, and I fear for this next generation of where we're already at, because this is a problem of 20 years ago, that these things have been bubbling up, and I wonder if
[01:52:52]  This is kind of worrying.
[01:52:53]  The real issue is that 20 years ago, when the problems emerged, most people didn't realize that the roots of this nation, the next generation, were being poisoned.
[01:53:03]  And now, 20 years later, this generation set to take over has got some serious problems.
[01:53:09]  There are good and honest, intelligent Gen Z people.
[01:53:12]  I'm never saying that every generation is bad or whatever.
[01:53:15]  But there are a lot of, you know, there's a greater degree, as you get younger and younger, of people who don't understand work ethic, sacrifice.
[01:53:23]  And I think that even if we get Trump in and he tries to turn things around, we are going to be in some turbulence for a little bit.
[01:53:31]  But to be fair, I think the preferable alternative would be Trump, obviously.
[01:53:36]  I don't know that, you know, should Harris actually win.
[01:53:40]  I think that the tailspin that we're in turns into a crashing at sea and the survivors got to figure out how to stay afloat.
[01:53:46]  I think Donald Trump pulls us out of the nosedive.
[01:53:48]  We get real close.
[01:53:50]  Things get shaky and things get rough, but we make it through.
[01:53:54]  Here's hoping, I guess.
[01:53:55]  Yeah, I hope people find God more.
[01:53:57]  You know, I think how bad it's been.
[01:54:00]  I see a lot of people going to church now who I didn't expect going to church.
[01:54:04]  I'm one of them.
[01:54:05]  You know, I didn't see myself doing that.
[01:54:06]  Well, I can tell you, I believe there is a Jesus revolution.
[01:54:09]  Oh, for sure.
[01:54:10]  Yeah.
[01:54:11]  I'm seeing it among college-age kids.
[01:54:14]  Yep.
[01:54:15]  That's what we need.
[01:54:16]  I mean, there's no question about it.
[01:54:17]  And the more they try to push God out of our institutions and out of our daily life and alienate our children from God, the worse this country is going to get, you know.
[01:54:28]  And listen, I'm praying.
[01:54:32]  I really am.
[01:54:32]  But I don't think we survive.
[01:54:34]  You know, one thing.
[01:54:36]  Being on the Rumble platform, it's a different platform than YouTube in that people are very angry.
[01:54:42]  I mean, I get messages like this, and they just go on and on and on.
[01:54:46]  They're very angry with what's going on now.
[01:54:48]  I think if Trump loses, this anger is going to spill over, because there's a lot of people that just can't take what's going on here anymore.
[01:54:56]  And I, you know, I'm only hoping that they're really paying attention.
[01:55:00]  And again, you know, is it personal with Harris?
[01:55:02]  I mean, just go away.
[01:55:04]  Just go away.
[01:55:06]  Go back to, well, California.
[01:55:08]  I lived there.
[01:55:08]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:55:09]  You want her back?
[01:55:10]  Huh?
[01:55:10]  You want her back there?
[01:55:11]  I'd rather have her in California.
[01:55:13]  I can deal with that rather than make the United States California.
[01:55:16]  Yeah, yeah, for sure.
[01:55:17]  You know what I mean?
[01:55:17]  And destroy it even further.
[01:55:19]  You know, the Pelosi's, just go away.
[01:55:21]  You did your damage.
[01:55:21]  You got Newsom too, my goodness.
[01:55:23]  You made your money, go away.
[01:55:24]  Newsom, go away.
[01:55:25]  You know, just people, just go away.
[01:55:26]  Don't wish them any harm.
[01:55:28]  Right.
[01:55:28]  Just go away and let us get back to some normalcy here, you know?
[01:55:33]  But I'm telling you, I don't know how we're going to survive, you know, the influx at the border.
[01:55:37]  And remember, something we're not talking about, with $36 trillion in debt, how do you get out from under $36 trillion?
[01:55:45]  The answer is you don't.
[01:55:47]  Something has got to give.
[01:55:49]  This is why they're opening the border.
[01:55:53]  They've got TPS, temporary protected status, and they're trying to expedite work permits.
[01:55:58]  Their answer to this is just flood the country with as many workers as possible.
[01:56:02]  We don't even care where they're from or what they do.
[01:56:05]  Give them work permits and then we'll tax them.
[01:56:07]  That's how they're trying to make up for the debts.
[01:56:10]  It's not going to work.
[01:56:10]  It's not going to work.
[01:56:11]  You can't do it.
[01:56:12]  It's ridiculous.
[01:56:13]  It is a band-aid and a bullet wound.
[01:56:16]  And it's not only that.
[01:56:17]  They'll outspend any revenue that comes in.
[01:56:20]  That's just their way.
[01:56:21]  It doesn't matter.
[01:56:22]  Man.
[01:56:23]  Well, what's your prediction then?
[01:56:24]  Are you optimistic?
[01:56:27]  You know, gosh, if I was a betting man, I wouldn't bet, but I want to have some confidence in the American people and say they're really seeing through all of this and that, you know, it's not popular to be a Trump supporter, but hopefully when they go in the booth, if it's legit, and I always say if it's legit, because these people are so underhanded, so sneaky, so shaky, You know, and they can get these voting machines and who knows what they can do with them.
[01:56:54]  You know, so who knows?
[01:56:57]  But I think if this election is legit that Trump will win.
[01:57:02]  I agree.
[01:57:02]  I agree as well.
[01:57:05]  He did something yesterday, you know, in preparation for Harris going to the border for the second time, right, in four years.
[01:57:13]  And she was going to make her whole play that it was Donald Trump's fault and all that lie that she's going to... He gave an excellent speech in New York yesterday.
[01:57:21]  He just stayed on the issues.
[01:57:23]  And he kept saying, Kamali, why didn't you do it for the past three and a half years?
[01:57:27]  He kept pounding that home, pounding that home.
[01:57:29]  And if enough people are listening to this, and they have any kind of sense, they're going to say, well, yeah, why didn't she?
[01:57:35]  Do you think he can win New York?
[01:57:38]  No.
[01:57:38]  I don't think he can win New York, but I love what I'm seeing, the crowds that he's bringing in.
[01:57:43]  People forget New York has a lot of red areas.
[01:57:45]  I know.
[01:57:45]  The city does ruin it for everybody.
[01:57:47]  The city ruins it.
[01:57:48]  But they've had Republican mayors.
[01:57:49]  I mean, how about Giuliani?
[01:57:51]  I know.
[01:57:51]  Well, Cuomo will be a Republican.
[01:57:52]  He wins New York.
[01:57:55]  He wins the election.
[01:57:56]  There's no question.
[01:57:58]  Oh yeah.
[01:57:58]  100%.
[01:57:58]  Well, he's surprisingly close in Jersey against Joe Biden.
[01:58:02]  Yeah.
[01:58:02]  Harris improved a little bit, but this is why they had to, you know, I mean, it's pretty wild to think.
[01:58:08]  Let's just, once again, I shout out to Jack Posobiec.
[01:58:11]  Two assassination attempts, technically three with the Iranian plot.

=== Starting a Bible Study Platform (03:35) ===

[01:58:15]  Five teams, according to the DNI.
[01:58:18]  Even Donald Trump has now acknowledged this, targeting him.
[01:58:21]  The sitting president has dropped out abruptly, only three months before the election was to take place.
[01:58:27]  This is wild time.
[01:58:29]  And so I just remind everybody, May you live in interesting times is meant to be a curse.
[01:58:36]  Absolutely.
[01:58:37]  It was just last summer that the Mexican government had alien corpses in their Congress.
[01:58:42]  It was cake the whole time.
[01:58:43]  It was cake, that's true.
[01:58:44]  It was cake.
[01:58:45]  This has been absolutely fun.
[01:58:47]  It's been a blast, Michael.
[01:58:48]  Is there anything you want to shout out or final thoughts as we wrap up?
[01:58:51]  No, you know, one thing I do want to talk about, you know, I get so many requests, I would say, you know, people are really struggling, really struggling.
[01:59:02]  And I get requests for mentorship and, you know, advice all the time, and a lot of personal things that people are going through right now.
[01:59:10]  So recently, I just started a platform And we got an influx of membership.
[01:59:18]  We only launched it a week ago.
[01:59:20]  And in that platform, it's michaelfrancis.com.
[01:59:23]  It's in my website.
[01:59:25]  We are offering a family and a community for people where like-minded people can get together, get some help, have some fellowship.
[01:59:33]  And you'd be surprised how people need this today.
[01:59:37]  They're looking for it.
[01:59:39]  They don't have it.
[01:59:39]  They don't have communities like they had before.
[01:59:42]  We have nobody.
[01:59:43]  So, you know, I just want to mention that, that that's something that we started and that I'm totally committed to try to get this country unified again and try to get people thinking the right way.
[01:59:53]  I'm doing a Bible study twice a month.
[01:59:55]  Awesome.
[01:59:55]  You know, it's amazing, Tim.
[01:59:57]  I just announced this.
[01:59:58]  I said, look, you know, God put it in my heart.
[02:00:00]  First Wednesday and last Wednesday of every month I'm going to do a Bible study.
[02:00:04]  I said, free, just jump on.
[02:00:06]  It's michaelfrancis.com slash Bible study.
[02:00:10]  And we got a flow of people.
[02:00:12]  It was unbelievable.
[02:00:13]  And I said, listen, you don't have to be a Christian.
[02:00:16]  You know, I'm not a Bible thumper.
[02:00:17]  I don't hit you over the head with the Bible.
[02:00:18]  I'm not trying to turn you into a Christian.
[02:00:21]  But there's a lot of scriptural foundation that can help you with the issues that you're going through today.
[02:00:27]  And people responded immediately.
[02:00:29]  I'm getting so many requests.
[02:00:30]  We couldn't believe how many people jumped on.
[02:00:33]  You know, we're out there to try to do that.
[02:00:35]  You know, I believe this.
[02:00:37]  To those of us who have been given much, much is expected in return.
[02:00:41]  And for me to be sitting here and to be alive and to be free is a big deal.
[02:00:46]  And I believe God had a different plan and a purpose for my life.
[02:00:49]  So you want to give back.
[02:00:51]  And, you know, it's really, it's really been a great, you know, thing in my life to be able to do that.
[02:00:58]  And we're going to continue it.
[02:00:59]  And hopefully we get a bunch of people that will benefit from it.
[02:01:02]  Where can people find you?
[02:01:04]  Well, I'm all over.
[02:01:04]  I mean, most people know me.
[02:01:06]  But this site is michaelfrancis.com.
[02:01:09]  And just go on my website and you can jump in and join the family.
[02:01:13]  And there'll be a lot of benefits to this.
[02:01:14]  And on YouTube, Rumble, I'm all over the place.
[02:01:18]  Right on.
[02:01:18]  Thanks for hanging out.
[02:01:19]  It was a real pleasure.
[02:01:20]  It was awesome.
[02:01:20]  Yeah, you guys were great.
[02:01:22]  Thank you.
[02:01:23]  I love you.
[02:01:23]  Down-to-earth, real.
[02:01:25]  That's what we need today.
[02:01:26]  Yeah, that was a great talk.
[02:01:28]  I'm Shane Cashman.
[02:01:28]  You can find me online, also everywhere.
[02:01:30]  And the show is Inverted World Live every Sunday at 6 o'clock.
[02:01:33]  Right on.
[02:01:34]  We are back tonight at 8 p.m.
[02:01:35]  for YouTube.com slash TimCastIRL.
[02:01:39]  And make sure you check out the new single.
[02:01:41]  We just put it out with Phil Labonte on guest vocals, All That Remains.
[02:01:44]  Getcominghome.com.
[02:01:46]  It's also on YouTube if you search YouTube music, TimCast music.
[02:01:49]  Thanks for hanging out.