FULL SEND PODCAST - Francis Suarez x Nelk Boys | Ep. 88

Episode Date: June 2, 2023

Presented by Happy Dad Hard Seltzer. Find Happy Dad near you http://happydad.com/find (21+ only). Video is available on http://youtube.com/fullsendpodcast/videos. Follow Nelk Boys on Instagram http://instagram.com/nelkboys. Part of the Shots Podcast Network (shots.com). You can listen to the audio version of this podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts & anywhere you listen to podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, boys, we're back with another pod episode. We're at the mayor's office right now. So we're going to do the mayor of Miami. He's a really cool guy. I met him a few times. You saw him at the Trump. Yeah. He was there after we did the Trump podcast.

He was at like the fundraiser or whatever it was. I met him at a, it was UFC weekend. And Dave Gretman, we had like a dinner at Gecko. I saw that. And like the mayor came, Dana came. Like a bunch of cool people came. and that's when I first met him he's like really cool

and I was just talking to him and it was like it's really cool like how on fire Miami is in like every way as like a city I just think that in being a mayor you have to be like little like bipartisan when I noticed too like I posted like I mixed him in my like feed post on IG

carousel and so many Miami birds hit me up but when you posted him yeah how is that possible you know the mayor no well just like if you're like if you're boys with a mayor like you're like it's not going to hurt like when you're outwheeling miami what's the biggest power the mayor holds though dude that's what i want to ask him i don't it's it's it's mayor francis though like he's like he's like a beauty like he's jacked like he's good like he trains i feel like we would pass the line in gecko he would pass him in the line though i feel like grutman wouldn't do

that though do you think so or no i want to know like you could ask him what levels to this like do you think we would have you're saying you have more sauce than the mayor of miami i'm not saying that but i'm saying if we just said that if we're at live we're probably going to have a better table than him. Well, you think if we're out? Yeah, I mean, is that fair? Well, he could join us, though. I'm just saying, bro.

I don't think so. I think the mayor can walk in anywhere at any time. Oh, definitely he can. 100%. We'll see. No line, nothing. Straight through the back door. We'll see what he can do here.

I wonder if he abuses that power. He's in charge of the city. I lived here for a year and a half, okay? What does that mean? That doesn't mean you're in charge of the city. I've seen a lot of shit. Okay. Met a lot of people.

Got it. You're definitely not in charge of the city, though. said he fell off when I left, bro. Oh, it fell off. You're going to tell him that when he pulls up? Yeah, sure. You should. That should be the first thing you say, listen, I've been gone for about a year.

I don't know what you're doing around here, but you should tell him that, dude. Do you even know what a mayor does, honestly speaking? Yeah, bro. What do they do? I'm not even trying to try to you. I'm going to ask him because I don't know myself. I actually don't know either. I'm going to ask him myself.

I'm sure a lot of people don't know. I'd love to tell you, but I'd actually like to hear what you think the mayor does first. Yeah, okay. It's because you don't know the answer. It's fine. I know. Dude, I don't know the answer. I'm telling you.

He, like, fucking signs documents and stuff, bro. Yeah, but exactly. Like, what are those documents? Like, he passes, like, a Miami bill. Like, if Miami wants to keep the bars open till 6 a.m., he signs that. Okay. And approves of that. But, like, who's all agreeing to that?

You know what I'm saying? Like, to make. Yeah, how much authority does the mayor? Like, how much, like, fuck you, authority does the mayor really have? You're like the mayor of zoo culture. So, yeah, but, so, so that's true. I own it. I can close.

Does he could walk to any business and be like, this bitch is closed down now. Can he do that? Yeah, I think so. Damn, that's power in Miami. Well, I'm sure he's got to have like a reason for it, though. Yeah. Dude, I'm curious. I actually don't know.

I really don't know. It's pretty funny. We're going from interviewing the mayor straight to booby trap. If he comes. Do you think he'll come to booby trap? That was crazy. Absolutely not. I mean, they probably pay a lot of taxes.

Like, yeah, for sure, bro. Do you think you would go? Yo, you know. I don't think so. I'll tell you one thing. I do know. The mayor of Denver owns the biggest strip club in Denver, shotgun willies.

What in how that works? Denver's a dump, though, you know? Yeah, I mean, we're in Miami. The mayor comes in with the sauce is fit in the room. What the heck? Yeah, I know, man. Listen, I'm, I'm... Well, it's a Saturday, too, right?

It is Saturday. It's, you know, 45, or not 105. Are you normally suited up? Yeah, normally. Yeah, okay. But it's F1 weekend, so Formula One is in town, so... Damn. It's all good.

I always, I'm branded, man, so I got to get the branded. I know. The logo. You guys are very hospitable. Yeah, they're going, thank you. No problem. Cuban coffee's right. way really good too so you know about the Cuban coffee now yeah you've heard

security always uh Chris always gives me some too it's fire what's that dude you're taking a shot it's a green shot this is I want to talk about this right I mean yeah you never heard of magic mind no no no what is that it's like a it's like I don't know you look like you look like adoptogens new tropics and immunity yeah you look like that kind of guy like fully workout gym bro like no you're right now you look like the post or boy from a Miami mayor. Well, thank you. So I'll tell you a funny story. This is actually a true story and funny story. I was doing a conference and I was, I met Oliver Stone, the director. So apparently he had done a movie in the 80s. My dad was a mayor, Scarface or whatever. And

you know, we're talking and you're telling me how about my dad was a man in the 80s. So he's telling me about, he's telling me how, whatever, he knew my dad, all my stuff. And I said, look, and I was like look you know if you ever need a mayor in one of your movies i'm i'm game you know he goes oh no you're too good looking and to be in one of his movies no he was telling me that oh okay oliver stone i'm like um okay and he's like yeah you could be like uh like a cartel boss or like a like a hitman i was like okay that's weird that's crazy yeah yeah it was a little crazy oliver stone no we thought uh we thought it'd be really cool to to have you on i know we met at uh First time we met was at Gecko, right?

I was still in the audience. We had a dinner at a gecko with Dave Groutman and Dana White came through. You came through. Drew shoes, man. Oh, nice. Yeah, shout out Dave, obviously. Yeah, of course.

But, no, you're just like a very, like, unique mayor and, like, leader and just, like, the way you kind of carry yourself and everything. So I think it would be cool to have you on and just what really made me want to have you on was when me and you were talking at dinner and you were talking about all the statistics about Miami and how well the city's doing. Yeah, that's incredible. And I was just like, I don't know, the, the, facts were like pretty crazy to hear yeah yeah no it's it's amazing what's happening here it's a

you know i think what we're seeing in the world and in and particularly in this country is what i call quad-generational disruption right is it's the world is changing very rapidly it's very disruptive and uh i think we're going from a from a highly industrial economy to an increasingly digital economy and what you guys are doing on the content side is incredible it's incredibly different and um you know we want to position herself as a city to take advantage of that for, you know, my children. I have a nine-year-old and a five-year-old and sort of for the next generation. And so we're number one in the nation right now in Gen Z tech workers. We're number one of nation's tech job migration. We have the lowest per capita

homicide rate since 1964. And this year we're like 40% below that number. And number one- Since 1984? 1964. 64. Yeah, yeah, lowest per capita. That's pretty crazy, yeah. It's crazy. And, you know, we're number one in wage growth in the country. And I think our unemployment rate is 1.7%. So, I mean, the city is doing phenomenally well. Obviously, now we have a tremendous amount of activity in terms of events, F1 that's in town, Formula 1 now. Before that, we've had milk in Aspen, FI. UFC was just here.

UFC, Dana, came by. They broke all the records. First time in 20 years. First time in 20 years. The first time they came, had. like a $400,000 gate. This year they did $12 million, which I think is, if not number one, it's one of the top gates that they've ever had in history. So, you know, I just, I think it, you know, Miami right now is the place to be. It's literally the hottest city in America

and arguably one of the hottest cities in the country. Everyone's so proud if you live here, like, every time I come to visit here, everyone's so proud to like live here too. Like they convince you to stay. They tell you why it's such a great city. If you go back to like other cities and we travel a lot. You don't really like get that in every city you go to where people are really proud to like live here. You know, it's interesting. So I'm the first mayor of Miami that was actually born in Miami. So we've been, we've been in existence as a city for 127 years approximately. And, and that's interesting because 70% of the people that live in Miami were not born in Miami. And I think that's also interesting because it means that we, like you said, we love like bringing

people in. We're very hospitable. You know, we, as a culture, we, you know, we're very accepting and, and we are proud of being Miamians. We're are proud of, like, what we've built here. It's amazing. That's crazy. You're the only Miami mayor that was born in Miami. Yeah, yeah, yeah, in 127 years. Wow. And first father and son. My dad was mayor from 85 to 93. My dad was, so it was a first father and son mayor and the first mayor ever born in the city. It's crazy. Does having like a father who had done it prior make it easier for you to be able to do it? I think so. I mean, I think, look, if my dad wasn't the mayor, I'm not so sure that I would want to be the mayor.

You know, I think a lot of people in my generation just took a pass on politics for a lot of good reasons and obvious reasons. It's kind of like a, it can be. It seems sometimes like a thankless task, but it's actually quite the opposite. It's very fulfilling. You get to help a tremendous amount of people. You got to build an ecosystem, which impacts people's lives. I mean, yesterday I was an event where somebody was thanking me for the way that their life turned out, that they had met me, you know, 13 years ago before I became a councilman

and that they attribute a lot of success in their own life to interactions that we had and to the ecosystem that we built. So when you think about those numbers that we talked about, homicides, growth, technology growth. Those are people, you know, like they're numbers, but they're people, right? Like, the fact that we have less homicides means less people died in your city. You know, it's profound. The fact that we're number one in wage growth means that everybody in Miami is making more money, right? And stuff like that.

So it's, it's, it's, it, to me, it's a compensation that's way more than financial success. The, the crime stats are really interesting to me. Can you repeat this, that does the homicide one again? So homicide, we're in the lowest per capita since 1964, meaning on a per capita basis, on a per person basis. it's never been safer to be in Miami since last year, 2022 for the last since 1964.

How does that compare to other like major cities in the U.S.? Oh man. I think I think the major cities in the U.S. are struggling, man. They're struggling big time. What do you think that is? Like what's the difference between like the way you're running it and like the mayor of Chicago or something?

So I know gets a shit ton of flash. Yeah, I think it's a lot of things. I think the first thing is we never got into this defund police movement. You know, a lot of people across America got into like defund police. We didn't get into it. That was the stupidest thing. It's crazy. It's just stupid. Supporting police has never been political, right? Like, you know, we have, you know, inner cities in our city. And I've never been to an inner city neighborhood where the people that have told me, we want to see less police officers. They're always like, we want to see more. We want to have more officers. We think the wealthy neighborhoods have more officers. So you never see that. And so I think we never got into that. We support our law enforcement. They have the hardest job in America. When you consider how much they make and you compare,

that to the risk that they take. And when you compare that to the scrutiny that they're under, I mean, they literally work with a camera. I mean, I know you guys are used to working with a camera following you around, but, you know, it's not all the time like them, right? All the time. I mean, nine to five, you know, whenever they're working, they have a camera on and everything they do, they rewind it.

They're like, oh, did they do this right? So there's a tremendous amount of scrutiny. Yeah. And one of the things I'm proud of is, you know, last year we only had 237 officer-related complaints. The year before that, it was 280. So we went down 15%. but what's really impressive is we have 330,000 citizen interactions.

So when you compare, like, if you think about any job, any business where if your customer service was you have 330,000 interactions and only 237 complaints, I mean, that's phenomenal. So we just, I feel like we just don't give them enough credit. I also think the fact that we have a low, you know, a low unemployment rate, the fact that we're ranked, I know these things may sound silly to some, but like happiest city in America, a healthiest city in America. You can talk about working out.

How do you define that happiest? It's just the rankings that come out. You know what I mean? Dude, it's the sun. It's got to be the sun. It's definitely the sun. It's definitely related to it. No, you've never seen it a depressed tan guy.

Yeah. It's like, vitamin D. But yeah, absolutely. No, I think, and health. I mean, talk about working out. Like, there's no doubt that, you know, we do something called the mayor's fit series.

So I do a mayor's challenge every week. I put out a workout, a limited equipment workout that we put out on social. And then we highlight. gyms throughout the city. So sometimes it's CrossFit, sometimes it's yoga, sometimes it's whatever. We've, you know, supplement whatever. You know, we do a variety of stuff because we want people to focus on health. Listen, mental health, I think in this country is one of the biggest problems, right? It's fucking, it's important to. And substance abuse, right? Like the combination of those two. And they're interrelated. If you're, if you're suffering mentally, you go to the

substances to like like make yourself feel better right and i think you know it's important we we don't talk about it enough in this country and we don't dedicate it enough energy and time and everything is about medicine it's like there's a problem take medicine as opposed to work out as opposed to you know even go out in the sun like you were saying you know like do something that's healthy that doesn't involve medicine you know what i mean it doesn't involve you know these things but we're so we're so we're so we're so stuck on that like huge that that that that business cycle really the whole pharmacy is it's a huge business cycle you know it's a huge business So that's the frustrating part.

And it's like, of course, people should know that the actual fix, not necessarily for all mental ailments is like training, working out and it's a son. But we get so caught up and just trying to like fucking band-aid it instead of actually make it better. Yeah. Like no, like for kids, for example, resiliency, right? Like, you know, sometimes adversity is, it's not a bad thing. It's how do you handle the adversity, right?

And I think what happens is we don't teach our kids skills on resiliency on how to deal with adversity. which leads to mental health issues. Obviously, you know, we love these things, but they're, you know, they're a challenge, you know, particularly for the next generation for my kids. Yeah. If I let my son play video games literally all day long from the moment he woke up to the moment he went to bed, it would be, you know, game old is he?

He's nine. Yeah, yeah. So I try to put him in sports, you know what I mean? And, and do healthy things so he can develop that way. Why do you think overall we got like just, it seems like as a whole country, right? We got so far away from, like, basic things that are just really good for us as people. I think you hit the nail on the head. I think it's, I think it has to do with, you know, the pharmaceutical industry.

I think it's a profit-making business. And I also think, and I'll say this. And I'm not, I'm never critical of doctors because my father-in-law is a doctor. My two brother-in-law's are doctors and I have a sister that's a doctor. But there's a tendency among doctors. And I think this is like prior generation. I think it's starting to change in this generation, which is when, you know, you have a sickness, there needs to be medicine, right? It's sickness medicine. Yeah. Right. As opposed to,

well, how are you eating? Are you sleeping enough? Are you, you know, exercising at all? You know, there's just no sort of holistic approach, in my opinion, oftentimes, to the problem. It's more like, if you're feeling bad, this is the pill that you take, right? Exactly. Why is that? Yeah, it's so weird. I think humans just, I mean, technology, all this stuff, we just got so caught up and like, just, like, fixing thing as fast as possible like a like a fix a pill like you know if you're like okay how do you lose weight take a pill how do you lose this what's the easiest way for me to do this and on that note too I think like we should talk about like the COVID thing too because I think that was like I was going to bring that up I just want to kill no not for sure I think I think that was like a big thing during

COVID too is like because I know Brad you could talk about your gym too but they didn't promote any other types of how to like kind of deal with COVID and you know strengthen your immune system it was all just one thing after they're like oh this is also really important well they also didn't explain that the comorbidity for COVID was obesity was a big comorbidity. In other words, like people who didn't take care of themselves were at higher risk of suffering like serious complications or death. Right. Right. And I think that again goes back to the basics, right? Like, if you take care of yourself, if you, if you, you know, you do the very basics, then you have a much better chance of having better outcomes in a variety of different health settings. Yeah. Well,

that's the thing. Yeah. I kept my gym open during the whole pandemic and I was like, I just you didn't understand the whole thing was like we're trying to like fix a problem that is everyone's already kind of having regardless i'm in la i'm in california cool i was just um so we're trying to fix this like problem with like just the thing that we at the same time didn't even know what's going to work or not yet where it's like the base problem is just like being healthier yeah and obviously people died you can't take that away from what happened but i just find it so interesting like the stats of things and then people are so afraid of like the the dying at like this tiny tiny percent and they're like all these other things that are killing them anyways like

high blood pressure heart disease that people don't worry about or think about because it's not some sort of televised pandemic thing yeah i have i have an interesting jim covid story so i was the first person in miami to test positive for covid which is crazy is that that's a fact that's a fact or one or one or one it's kind of dope it's a crazy story so um the president of brazil comes to Miami. And we receive him, right? You gave it to the president of Brazil? No, no. He gave it to you. He didn't give it to me. Someone on his staff gave it to me. Come on, man. So it's always the fucking Brazilians, man. Wow. So, so he comes to Miami. He actually had met, he had gone to Marlago that weekend. He comes to Miami on Monday. I'm with his delegation Monday and Tuesday.

And the following Thursday, there's a report that his press secretary has COVID. So So I get a call and they're like, hey, we want you to take a test and we want you to quarantine. And I'm like, meanwhile, nobody had gotten COVID in Miami. So it was like, why don't I need to quarantine for? Like, you know, I feel fine. I feel 100%. And they're like, yeah, no, you're going to have to quarantine for 14 days. And like, imagine like 14 days.

You're like, what do you mean 14 days? And no one's done it. And nobody's gotten it. So I'm like, what do you mean 14 days? Just in case. So they're like, take a test. I was like, okay, I'll take the test. No problem.

So I take the test and I get a call the next month. morning. Oh, and by the way, it turns out that I was in a picture with the guy, so, you know, there's no denying that I was around the guy, right? So, so I was like, okay, so sure, I was around the guy, I'll take the, I'll take it. So the next day they call me in the morning, he's like, yeah, you're, you're positive. And I was like, are you sure? And I swear to the guy goes to me, I'm 98% sure. And I'm like, no, no, no, you don't understand. You need to be 100% sure because this is like a big deal. And this is going to like, I mean, I interact with thousands of people. Like, I'm, you know, this was before social distancing or any of that stuff.

I'm like, this is going to cause a serious problem. And the guy, the guy, he really literally said, I'm 100% sure. I'm like, oh, God. So I had to, you know, obviously I had to, I had to say it. And, but the gym part about it is everybody in my eyes. Wait, what was the response when you announced it? Oh, no. People went.

Like, it was crazy. How did you announce it? I think I announced it by like, I think I announced it on virtually. Yeah. and yeah it was it was crazy so i was doing i was in i was quarantined for remember this is at the this is literally at the beginning this was march 12 of 2020 yeah okay this is it was like scary that's when people were like where i lived i was in l.a people were like running the grocery stores huge lines like buying up the whole store i think it was the first politician in america

it was also like the fourth person to donate plasma um in the country and uh yeah it was crazy it was um so yeah so so yeah it was pretty bonkers but but the gym part about it was I felt bad because everybody in my gym freaked out they had to close the gym they eventually closed all the gyms uh but they initially had to close that gym and then from that point forward I just worked out at home because I just I should have kept my gym open I feel bad man I feel bad like I feel like you know I felt bad for them when it was during COVID like you say the gyms closed like whose decision was that like did you have any authority and like what stayed open or what kind of authority So, you know, I think people forget, they have kind of like selective memory about what happened.

Like you said, you know, at that moment, everybody was freaked out. Oh, yeah. So the general recommendation was shut everything down. I think everybody did that from the governor to the county mayor to us. And there was a period of time where everything was shut down. You know, I think. At the beginning, it was more about the hospitals were overcrowded. The hospitals were overcrowded.

That's why we were social distancing for a bit, right? The hospitals were overcrowded. You saw what was happening in New York. We saw it was happening in Italy. In Italy, people were dying. like left and right and it was there was definitely a run on the hospitals and I would say throughout the process that was one of the biggest concerns that we had right it was our hospital system can they manage and we were constantly looking at that on a regular basis yeah that'd be

that was like the number one consideration so yeah so what type of like how was handling COVID in general like that was like probably one of the craziest things of the century it was tough because we didn't I don't feel like we had that much support so we had to like basically invent our own like epidemiologists, not invent the epidemiologist. We brought people from the university system, but we have to invent kind of like our own team to deal with it. And then I always felt like I was the only person in the room that was kind of like articulating the economic side of it, right? Because like you're saying, you have to close down your gym. There's an economic side, which is, yeah, there's a risk, but you have to balance that risk with the economic impact,

right of like shutting down the entire universe right in a given moment so i think that was a mistake that there wasn't enough economists in the room that are saying like hey look you know this disease has this much morbidity but at the same time it has this much of an impact on the economy right so i think miami and and florida were relatively open compared to everybody else miami for sure i was yeah we would come here and it was like kind of almost like yeah not normal but it was compared to L.A. or other cities, it was like totally. And I think it benefited us because I think, you know, at the end, we're number one in pandemic recovery. So when you consider like the stats, again, economic, we're number one in pandemic recovery.

And I think part of the reason why is because people decided at that moment, it was a watershed moment because people decided at that moment, wait a second, maybe I don't have to be in New York or in California to do certain things. Like, for example, if you're in finance, maybe you don't have to be in New York to do finance. or if you're in a venture, maybe you don't have to be in California to do venture. And I remember Ken Griffin specifically coming to Palm Beach. I'm basically taking over the four seasons in Palm Beach. And he's a huge market maker. What does he do? He runs Citadel.

Okay. Massive company. Yeah. And, you know, he's arguably one of the biggest market makers in terms of buying and selling of stocks. And so when he left, I think people for the first time really, realized that you didn't have to be physically somewhere to be successful. Like New York could literally overnight, like move to Miami or soak in Silicon Valley. And right around that same time, somebody put out a tweet on December 4th that said,

what if we move Silicon Valley to Miami? And I responded, how can I help? And that was like. That was a big shift that whole time. Super viral. I feel like, I don't you say Miami like COVID kind of like made Miami in a way? It was a big part of it because the remote work phenomenon. Yeah. People leaving. And then I have something I call the flymo effect, which is flywheel

plus foam combined, flymo, right? Like the flymo effect of people just sort of saying, hey, wait a second, there's something special going on here. I got to be here too, yeah. And this place that we've always loved to come visit and have a good time at is now a place where you could do serious work. And so now we moved in about two years, and this is a rough estimate, about $3 trillion in assets under managed companies to Miami. It's about $130 plus companies nine billion in wages so i have a question on that like migration of people to a to a different state or city um like i would talk about opening gyms in different places and i'm from

california so i talked about opening a gym in texas and i would always get comments where people would be like don't california my texas which is like don't which is something i would never do obviously i was go to tex because i wanted to see a little bit different scenery so my question to you is can can enough people move from like a place like let's say california and like change the dynamics of that city as far as like what's happening or what's you know what I'm saying great question so I'll give you an interesting story from my background and I'll and I'll tell you how I'll play it out in Miami yeah so my parents came from Cuba right my dad came at 12 and my mom at seven fleeing communism right this idea that like just give me all your property give me all your business don't worry we'll

make everybody equal it never works yeah right it made everybody equal right equally poor and equally miserable right so my view of it is if you're getting up and leaving and you're leaving and you're bringing your family, which is like a huge decision in your life, you're not going to some place to redo what you left, right? So I, you know, people would always say that, oh, be careful, mayor,

you're inviting all these people from all these blue states, right? Yeah. And I said, trust me. The people that are coming here are not coming here. Trust me. They're not making, so let me, so I'll tell you the fact. So in 2016, the presidential election, President Trump lost Miami-Dade.

County to Hillary Clinton by 30 points. Okay, this is in 16. I got elected in 17, okay? 30 percent? He lost by 30 percent, right? He lost by 30 points. I got elected in 17. In 2018, DeSantis loses Day County by 20 points, 10 points better, right? In 20, former President Trump loses to Biden by eight points, right? Yeah. In 22, Marco and And DeSantis went downing by 10 points. So it's a 40-point swing, which is huge in politics. You have no idea how big that is. So even DeSantis, 30% difference, just him?

Well, yeah. But it's just the Republicans, right? So basically, Republicans went from negative 30 to plus 10 in six years. So that migration is people that were Republican or people that became Republican coming to Miami saying, we want these policies. We have the lowest tax rate in history. We keep people safe. We talked about the crime numbers. And then we focus on the economy.

We focus on innovation. We want to make sure that our economy fits the moment and creates the maximum amount of prosperity for the maximum amount of people. How do you see that playing out in like the next election, 2024? Do you think that streak continues in Miami-Dade? I do. I do think I don't see it reversing. You know what I mean? I think unless something changes, right?

and I don't see anything changing. I think, look, we've built a great city. I think, you know, look, people often ask me, what's the formula for success, which I just sort of articulated, right? But the real formula for success is courage, right? Because you have to have courage to implement the policies that create that kind of prosperity. And you have to fight a narrative, which is that socialist narrative, right?

Which is, you know, when things are not going well for somebody, just take it from someone else and give it to them. you know I always remember the you know right I mean that's what it is right and so like I always remember like this whole example that someone told when I was a kid it's like let's say you're in class and you study hard right and at the end of the year you're you know you got great grades you get you're you know somebody's going to get an A someone's going to get a C and someone's going to get enough right and let's say that the teacher at the end of the year says everyone who got an A who worked hard guess what you're going to get a C and everybody who

didn't do anything guess what they're going to get a C what do you think everybody's going to do the people who work hard are either going to leave or they're not going work hard anymore. And the people that don't do anything, they're like, I'm not going to do anything. Even the people that got Cs are like, I'm not going to do anything either because everybody's getting the same thing that I have. So the problem with communism, you're conditioning people to not want to work. The problem with communism is it ends up being a huge disincentive for production. And that's what made, look, our country's not perfect, but we're the best country on the planet. And, you know, Winston Churchill once said, democracy is the worst form of government

except for all the others, meaning we haven't found a better one. And it's hard. Democracy's hard. because there's a lot of division right now in the country. So much. So much. And I think, frankly, our enemies are the ones that are benefiting. I think if you're China, if you're Russia, if you're North Korea, if you're, you know, any of these countries Iran that hates us, the best thing that we can do for them is to be divided, right?

Because it means we're half as strong. We're just talking about that in the car. We're like, we kind of said, like, the U.S. society is, like, kind of, like, slowly crumbling in front of everyone's eyes. Yeah. And, like, some people see it and some people don't. Like, we're just at all time. I have a couple of theories on that.

Yeah, I have a couple of theories on that. One is we spent 80% of the time arguing about the 20% of the things that we don't agree on, right? Instead of 80% of the time focusing on the 80% of the stuff that we do agree on, right? And like, how do we create prosperity? How do we make life better for people? So I think that's part of it. I do believe, and I'm not like a huge conspiracy theorist, but I do believe that our enemies abroad are using our social channels to divide us. I think that's the only logical answer, right?

Right? Is that like foreign entities must have some sort of influence over our media? Listen, the TikTok thing, it's very controversial, but the sophistication and AI to try to use our preferences, everything that we do against us, it's real. I mean, I'm telling you that part, it's not conspiracy theory, right? It's marketing. If you think about it, it's not even like, and marketing is about influence, right? Like if you can predict what somebody wants to buy, you know, this is a local barbershop that came up with this God is good concept. right like if you if you if you can predict what people want to buy you can you can put it in front of them right and then they'll buy it right so they're making the choice but you're serving them

based on a ton of different data points that they're looking at right because of what you've looked at before because of what you're doing so it's extremely sophisticated and they think that our weakness is that they can feed us information and we're just going to buy right and frankly that's what we've been doing so we've got to kind of toughen up a little bit we've gotta kind of get smarter. But why do you think that would relate to, like, certain, you know, political things or things that are, like, issues in the world? What would that relate to, like, as far as the division on social media and how the algorithms

work? And you think it's like, because, like, how do you make some division of, like, some negative topic, right? Sell someone something. Well, I think, I don't know that, you know, the sort of intricacies of how the technology works specifically. But I do know that, like, I mean, if you think about, for example, just products, right? Like you're talking about or you search something and then all of a sudden for the next for 14 days, you know, that thing that you search for, you're getting different sort of on Instagram.

You get it all the time. Not even search like say out loud to your friend and your phone or like, like let's say for example, you see some tennies that you like or whatever, some a shirt that you like and it's a, you know, it's a collared shirt or whatever. For the next two weeks, you get collared shirt from different manufacturers that are sent, you know, that are feeding you that stuff and maybe you like one and you buy it, right? So it's not that complicated, but it's based on your own clicking, right? What you click on. Well, I know that's definitely happening. I was just talking about it because I thought you were trying to relate it to the division that we all have. Yes.

So the way I would relate it to that is, you know, there's a variety of issues that are divisive. Yeah. Right. Culture issues, for example. You know, these cultural issues are extremely divisive, right? People are very fired up about them. The social issues, right? The social issues.

But do they help people find a job? do they help do they make america better or worse right like i'm not by the way i'm not saying that they're inappropriate to talk about but do they have to be everything that we talk about do they dominate every single conversation right and i think if you're an enemy of the country and you're trying to divide us you're going to constantly feed that that those kinds of issues that are devised you're saying is that makes sense yeah yeah absolutely we were saying one of the hottest topics and you don't got to speak too much on it if you don't want to but we're even like the transgender topic it's like i thought it represented

represents like one percent of maybe the population. But somehow it's like 85% of the conversation, right? Everything you see is like, we're debating about that, we're debating about that, we're talking about it, we're talking about it right now. That's a perfect example. And I think there's got to be an easier way to solve that issue without it becoming so divisive, right? Like in competitions, it's pretty clear that someone who's a man or shouldn't necessarily be

competing against women, right? That's sports things to me, it's just so obvious. It should be pretty simple, right? Or like, for example, you know, not teaching kids' sexuality at a very young age, right? Or letting the parents do that. Those are pretty basic things. It's the same thing as the defund police, right? Like, this is never used to be controversial.

And now all of a sudden, it's controversial. It makes no sense. Yeah, that's scary. I don't get it because it's like the, like, we talk about the kids thing. It's like someone already so impressionable of anything. Like, I'm a parent. I have a nine-year-old and a five-year-old. I don't want anybody talking to my kid about, like, in school, about sexual acts.

Is that, like, happening now? I presume it's happening at some level, which is why this is all being discussed. But I never thought it was such a huge problem until it became part of the everyday conversation, right? And it's like, and then it seems like the media will cherry pick, oh, there's a school here or a school there. And it makes, like you said, like an isolated incident look like it's a huge issue, right? Like, I remember one year, we had a series of, like, shark attacks, right? And if you, you know, shark attack is a rare occurrence, right? Thankfully.

Yeah. But if it's a slow news day and there's a shark attack in Australia, then there's a shark attack in the Gulf of coast of Florida, then there's a shark attack, you know, it can dominate the new cycle in the absence of other news, right? And then it's like, oh, my God, you can't go in the water because you're going to get attacked by a shark. No, you're not going to get attacked by a shark, right? like it's like getting hit by lightning but but it you know then a hurricane comes and no one's talking

about the shark attack everyone's talking about the hurricane or some other may you know major event media is just about clicks right yeah even for this podcast we're going to try to i mean get as much views as possible so like in a way i kind of like understand what they're doing but it just sucks right like journalism in general it's all about clicks but but i'll tell you this let me tell you why i think you're very different number one long form is huge like i think i'm big into long form like if you look at your podcast rogans you know all these big podcasts people think that people only want to digest 30 second increments or too many i disagree with that i think if you're giving people good content they they're into that right so i actually think you're kind of

anti-click in a way because click is just how do i get somebody's attention and certainly there's a piece of that because you don't want to be boring but but you're you're getting good people you're talking about really important topics, right? They're exciting people that people want to hear from. That's really what generates the clicks and what generates the people, you know, sticking around and listen. To share. I think it also just depends on the demographic of it because like, for example, this podcast, like certain things will get cut up or clicked into like TikTok and it'll get millions and millions of views. Yeah. Because like they're waiting for that like that little click moment. Sure. But I think we do that too. We have a podcast and we, you know, and we and we do content on

on everyday basis. I think I'm rare, and I'm probably the only mayor in America that has a podcast. Maybe the only public official. I don't know how many public officials have podcasts. And I've had great people on my podcast from David Beckham to Connor McGregor to, you know, technologists. You have McGregor on? Yeah, I had McGregor.

That's sick. Yeah, it was really good. What's the pod called? Cafesito Tech Talk. So it's kind of like a play on, you know, coffee, Cuban coffee, and then tech and then Miami. So we try to integrate everything kind of ties back to Miami. had Magic Johnson had some really great amazing guests yeah yeah so some cool what made you start that understanding that you have to tell your story like I realized in this moment when we when we

did this when we had this how can I help moment which went viral I did two things one I mean I did some guerrilla marketing things like one thing I did was we put a billboard outside of Google in San Francisco with a fictitious tweet that said thinking of moving to Miami DM me and I got thousands of DMs. Wow. So I realized, I can't do this by myself. So we actually created an office called Venture Miami to sort of onboard all these companies that were coming to Miami that wanted to come. Like I said, 130 plus companies, 9,000 jobs. By the way, average job over $100,000. And so that was part of it. The other one, as I realized, you know, if you don't tell your story, someone else is going to tell it and you're not going to like their version of it, right?

And I think what's cool about this moment when you're talking about clicks and the radical differences of the moment is that you can go direct to consumer. And that for a public official is incredible. I mean, you know, a former president had, what, 80, 90 million Twitter followers at one point, going direct to consumer and he comes on your pocket. He's smart. He knows what the viewing, you know, what the viewership is, right? Going direct to consumer with no filter, you know what I mean? before when my dad was mayor you had to go to the press the media you have to answer you know and then they filter it their way and they put it out their way to serve their purposes if they

don't like you you're done i mean they used to say there was an old saying don't you don't pick fights with people who buy ink by the barrels right and so that's all from like the media is so powerful that you don't want to pick a fight with them because they're going to destroy you and i think the beauty of this moment is people can see who you are like unvarnished yeah right like unfiltered and they may like you they may not like you and whatever but at least you don't have a filter of somebody trying to you know make you into something that you're not what's going on is snoop and i'm here to announce that the new happy dad and death world record's flavor is great and now it's officially in store i chose the flavor and the team in happy dad

they spent months perfecting it and it's my new favorite drink if you're chilling at home or turning up at the club make sure you do it right with the happy dad and death row break call your local liquor stores and see who has it it's everywhere now you can also order it on gopuff app instacart and drizzly in some areas you got to be 21 and over and drink responsible and also look out for the official death row and happy dad merch collaboration please believe it when I tell you this Do you think it can be somewhat like a double-edged sword? Because like at the same time, like, obviously I do think it's very important to like spread out like the media like shifting and changing of what someone's saying for their own narrative.

Yeah. But then now you go to like just a single person like you, for example, or anyone else doing an interview. Do you think then though that person's agenda is like outweighing like the overall good of like a, you know, like you being a mayor, you being like, oh, I want all these things for myself? And I'm not saying that what you're doing. Yeah, yeah. Some people will take those moments for themselves, and it's, which one's better? Look, I think every iteration has positives and negatives. Of course, yeah.

I think one positive is direct-to-consumer, unfiltered. People get to know who you are. You get to shape your own narrative. I think the negative is if you don't use it responsibly, you can essentially people get away with lying, right? Because there's very little fact-checking. It's a very fast news cycle. So whatever you say is forgotten tomorrow, and that's a reality. So I think we all have a responsibility to be responsible and moral and ethical on it.

But I think, you know, I think one of the biggest things coming into our generation is going to be the search for truth. How do you find truth? Where do you find truth? How do you know it's true? But that's such a crazy thing because now everything's getting so untruth. AI should. There's so many different ways to manipulate what's happening. It's crazy.

The deep fakes, now you don't know anything. like if i say something is it really me i know it's like can you even like when can you not use like video proof in like court and shit anymore i i i don't know how i really don't know i really don't i really don't how they're gonna how they're gonna solve for that i really don't because it's it's it's really crazy i mean like literally you could like frame someone like yeah i mean it's crazy anything you say anything you say anything you hear anything you see because it's not just you can't believe it anymore now it's also it's also it's also it's also face like it's so this is what crazy we're talking about truth going towards truth but it seems like

It's like, I don't want to say they are ahead of us, but it's like they knew that that was going there. And now it's like more distortion. So I'm wondering, and one of the things we've been into very much into is we are into like next generation technology here in Miami, like AI, quantum and crypto. I'm a big crypto guy. I get paid in Bitcoin. I'm the only mayor in the country probably that gets paid in Bitcoin. Your full salary? My full mayoral salary.

Yeah. Wow. And I'm about to, you know what? I'm probably announcing here. Why not? I'm about to something really radical, which is I'm going to buy a investment property and I'm going to get it, you know, lent, like the, I'm going to have the, the Bitcoin that I've been accumulating in my salary is going to be the security for the loan. So, you know, one of the big issues with Bitcoin is people say, oh, the utility of Bitcoin, right, can it be used? Yeah.

So I'm going to borrow money against my Bitcoin account to buy a property. So I think it's going to be cool. It's going to be first of its kind. You're renting it out? Yeah, I'll probably rent it out. Yeah, it'll be a rental property for income. Funny, Stein. We're looking for a rental property, too, no?

because we're thinking of actually moving maybe our content operation here. Yes. See, we're doing business, baby. I want to open a gym out here. You should. There's no spaces. There's no parking.

We'll help you out. Venture Miami will help you out. I'm not kidding. I really, no, I'm serious. Venture Miami will help you out for sure. But we have a lot of gyms.

Obviously, we need the best real estate plug from, bro. I got you, I got you, 100% zero commission. It's all good. I do it all every day.

It's crazy. I'm like the world's least paid a real estate broker in Miami here. We saw you after the Trump podcast at that. Was it like a fundraiser? Was it like just a dinner or something? It was like a dinner in Nashville. Let me tell you, Nashville's crazy, man. Yeah.

It's like the, you know, it's the bachelor's capital of the world or something like that. And I was there with my wife and, and it's just, dude, a place is crazy? And I was like, is it like this every weekend? Apparently it's like that every weekend. I know. And we're staying at a hotel and we couldn't sleep because of the noise. And they actually gave us a baby. like a baby noisemaker and we still couldn't sleep it was crazy i'm like listen in miami we party

you know we're a party city we're known as a party city it's part of our uh ethic right it's like part of who we are our dna but we keep the noise inside and uh and the beauty of that is we actually party harder longer i suppose because we have 24-hour entertainment districts as opposed to last call at two or three a m but we i just tell my guys listen man don't kill the goose that they the golden egg right keep it inside so i haven't said a word yet but uh no no sorry i've been listening i've been learning for me he just came from space that's why yeah is that what happened no similar something similar okay unfortunately um why is that a thing though here where places are open 24 hours so that's not like anywhere else yeah so i think it was first

of all like i said you know Miami was always known part of our DNA like we have the winter music conference we have ultra yeah we started ultra right we've had ultra for 20 plus years right the badass electronic music conference um so it's part of who we are. I think back in the mid-200, sort of 2000, the 2010 range, they wanted to reinvigorate a part of downtown that was kind of like, it was kind of like just not very nice. And so they created a space, which they called an entertainment district, and they said, look, 24-hour, 24-hour liquor license, just to get investment in the air. And it worked when there's multiple establishments like that. And what's interesting is, you know, I'm not the mayor of Miami Beach. A lot of

people mistaken because they see what stuff that happens during spring break that's not me that's my name is different really yeah it's a different city spring break is fucking crazy it's crazy so it has its own mayor but what happens is what's interesting is you know while spring break was crazy right we had ultra 150,000 people no issues no incidents yeah why i don't understand that there's like it seems like for how crazy it is here everything runs pretty smooth yeah i think there's a couple reasons one is we know how to do it right like we do g7 fencing like there's magnetrometers wands to make sure nobody's bringing weapons or anything like that so people we want people to have a good time we just don't want them to get hurt right and then the second piece is it goes to the pro

law enforcement thing which is we you know we want you to have a good time but there's a there's a line you can't cross you can't hurt somebody you can't destroy property if you do that we're going to hold you accountable and I think that's what makes us different and so people know you can have fun in Miami in Winwood. You can have fun in the entertainment district, but just have fun. You think the crime rate would be higher with the 24-hour, like, partying? No issues. No issues.

What does Miami need to improve on? I think every city in America, number one, needs to become more affordable. I think cities in America are becoming very unaffordable. And I think, frankly, I blame the federal government in the sense that you've had massive amount of spending, right, deficit spending. You know, we all have to live within our budgets. The federal government just decides we don't have to do that. And what happens is 15 to 20 percent increases in rental cost across America.

This is not a Miami problem. This is a Denver. You know, this is a Nashville. This is an Austin, New York, San Francisco problem, right? So that's the first problem. And then, of course, everybody wants to come here. So you layer on top of the 15 to 20 percent. You layer another 10, 15 percent in hyper demand because now everybody from New York, Chicago,

and California wants to come here in addition to South America. so that that creates but we're building a lot i mean so that's that's one thing we're building 30 to 40 000 residential units in the next uh two years and then uh you know obviously water hurricanes we do get hurricanes so we're we're constantly trying to increase our infrastructure to deal with water flow uh traffic any every major city in america has traffic issues so we're trying to be disruptive there and and look at urban air mobility stuff and the boring company which is Elon's uh underground tunneling company urban air mobility what's that yeah so So urban air mobility is probably like the Jutson's like the next generation.

I know I just kind of like glanced over. Yeah. So urban air mobility is basically, so we have decentralized parking garages throughout the city. So eventually you'll have vehicles that and Hyundai is 350 billion dollar annual revenue companies is really focusing on this, which will land, kind of like helicopter looking things and we'll take you around the city. And then, yeah. Well, like a flying car?

Yeah, pretty much. How far around? Yeah. That's not anytime soon. Well, I think that was supposed to happen like 10 years ago. Yeah, look, it's like, it's like in back to the future. They had like flying cars like, you know, it's funny. Like disruption is interesting.

You never really know when it's going to take hold, right? Like electric vehicles are now, you know, whatever from there. You're going to go to autonomous vehicles, right? Like you're seeing more automation. Yeah. So when will a fully autonomous vehicle, when will we all be on just fully autonomous vehicles where we're just sitting sitting in the car and vehicles doing it? Not for a while.

Who knows when it, who knows when it will be? What do you think? This is kind of a random question. do you think about like the importance like in miami the culture to like compete with who has more money who has the nicest car like it seems so important here you know i mean look yeah yeah look is that like a personal question or no no no no no no no no i think i think i think i think look we're a city that we have that reputation but like i think cities like like la have that same reputation right um and i think part of our focus on business and doing stuff right as opposed to just

being more on the sort of showy side I think is part of what we're why we're focusing on that right we want to be just but more than a place that you can have fun in that it's that's a place where you can um retiring because there's also a big retirement community we want to be a place you can do serious business and I think we're changing that reputation as we speak yeah but it's there as you're aware you got a mix of like this is a rare city where you have a mix of like a lot of new money and whole money yeah a lot of young people like like crypto is so big here I noticed in Miami. We were number one in the nation for blockchain investments. We had $800 million of companies funded. We went up 2,000 percent. And I think that was kind of intentional. That's why

I put Satoshi's white paper on our website. We allowed for employees to get paid in Bitcoin. I'm obviously getting paid in Bitcoin. So yeah, we wanted to go all in on that because not because we believe in a particular company per se or a particular iteration of the technology, but because we wanted to send a signal. So you have to understand at that moment, New York had kicked out Amazon after winning the HQ2 prize, right? The headquarters, the second headquarter price.

And California said F. Elon Musk, and he replied, message received, I'm out of here. He went to Austin. Right? So that was the context of my tweet of how can I help, right? Which is the opposite. It was like, I want people in my city. I want people like you guys in my city.

I want people who want to build. I want people who want to fund companies. Because how does a company grow? Either you borrow money. money to grow or someone invest in you, right? So, I mean, that's how you get scale. And I think Miami was always a very entrepreneurial city. We had, you know, very immigrant city, intensive city. People work hard and want to do well for themselves. But we never really had that kind of scale. Yeah. I think for the first time, what do you think like the Cuban culture has a big

effect on that, the hardworking like nature here? Yeah, look, my parents came at 12 and 7. It's a great story. My dad is the ninth of 14 kids. Came to this country with nothing. They emigrated to Washington, D.C. My grandfather was a professor of engineering, and my dad got a full scholarship to high school, a presidential scholarship to college, graduated sum up, mechanical engineering, got two graduate degrees from Harvard, an MPPJD. He's written like nine books, speaks five languages, and was the first Cuban mayor in Miami. He's what I would consider an IQ genius.

Yeah, I mean, that's a pretty good resume. Yeah, my mom is like the life of the party. She's the EQ genius. Like, she comes into the room, everybody, she makes everybody smile, she hugs everybody, By the time it's all done, you may not remember anybody, but you're going to remember my mom. What's your accolades for school? I was kind of a flunky, to be honest with you. Does dad pissed about that or not?

Not really. My dad's pretty cool. I mean, he's pretty like a bohemian about it. But yeah, no, I went to FIU. I went to a local school. I wasn't like someone who like really put in the effort early on when I was younger. And I kind of got it together later on in life. And then went to University of Florida law school.

It's a great law school. Now it's a top 20 law school in the country. But yeah, man, I got my act together a little later. I was like, so there's hope, guys. You don't have to be like. Dave Grumman went to FIU, yeah? Did he? Right?

He taught there. I don't know if he went to FIU. Dave teaches at FIU. I don't know if you went to FIU. I don't know if he went. No, Dave, Dave's a great Miami story too. Like Dave was in the nightclub business. And he then creates a club called Live, which is still there and it's amazing.

And then he started getting into restaurants. And I think his first restaurant, if I'm not mistaken, was Komodo. Camoto, yeah. And then now he's got, I mean, restaurants all over the world. I mean, it's incredible what he's done. He's just a force of nature. Camoto just opened up in Dallas. Dallas, that's right.

The Dallas one. I think he's got some stuff in the Middle East, if I'm not mistaken. And he's got here. He's got Komoto. He's got Swan. I hope I don't forget one. He's got Gecko in Miami proper. He's got Poppy is in the beach.

He's got Liv, too. Liv. He's got strawberry moon. He's got strawberry moon. Yeah, yeah, the hotel. So he went into a hotel. I was with Farrell, which was a big deal. Is that something important for you to, like, pop into the hot spots?

You know, I try to support. Yeah, what are you allowed to do? Because as the mayor, you're in the spotlight. But clearly you're a different kind of mayor. And like you said, Miami, in the DNA, it is the party. So, like, are you allowed to pop up to live? Yeah, you're going out to the town like that. You're going out.

100%. Yeah. Like, your fit is insane. What is the rules? I'm too embarrassed right now. So, first of all, I've been married for 16 years. So I have to be very careful. I answer this question.

I'm scared. No, I take my wife with me to a lot of places. look I try to support my friends and I try to support Miami business owners that's a good card to play support in the friends yeah I do I support that so so definitely there's a piece of that you also understand that you live in a world of this yeah right so you have to be conscientious of that and obviously not do something that's going to embarrass yourself your family or your city so that's always something that's I'm mindful of but yeah I I the days of me, you know, partying until late are probably over.

But I'll pop in, say hi, you know, drink a couple of barriers and then leave. Kind of kind of going off what he was saying. Like, what are some of like maybe the unknown perks of being the mayor? Unknown perks. Well, I have a security detail. I haven't driven a car in a couple of years. And it's helpful to me because I can work while I'm in the car. And obviously, I don't have to worry about some of the logistics surrounding, you know, getting in, getting going.

to and from. So some people will consider that a perk. You know, I travel a lot. I'm also now, and I didn't say this, but I'm also the president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, so I'm president of all the mayors

in the country. So that's part of the reason why I'm traveling. That's a flex. Yeah, I'm traveling a lot. You see a president of all the mayors in the country? So there's an organization called. Like you're the mayor of all the mayors.

Pretty much. Oh, that's a huge flex. Yeah. So there's an organization called the U.S. Conference of Mayors, which is basically it's all all the mayors like support that? Or does like the Chicago mayor not show?

up to that. No, they show up. They all show up. So it's about 500 mayors of population over 30,000 are all the members. And I'm the president of the organization. So until June. Yeah. That's pretty cool. Are you going to the heat game tonight? No, I'm not going to. What do you think about the people that say that like heat fans are fair weather fans? Well, I'll tell you, I got, so talk about perks and I got heat, no pun intended, because the last time I went to a heat game, I stood in the front row. I was in the front row. Somebody invited me and the herald, the newspaper gave me a hard time. They were like, why is the mayor sitting in $10,000 tickets? You know? So, you know, why wouldn't you though? I have no idea. How do you like take that type of criticism?

Like, because you're unorthodox. So like you get those. Dude, I, I, I, you know, I've learned. I mean, look, you appreciate this from working out. You see these, these are calluses from working out. Oh, yeah. For the camera calluses. Just so you see too. There you go. That was it. I don't, I didn't see any on that one. No, I see those. You saw it. You saw it. Maybe those from something else. We have a magnifying glass. That might be from something else. I have three.

Yeah. I have three. I have three. Okay. Cool. Right. And so. Are you natural?

Yeah, of course. Yeah, of course. You too? Yeah. Awesome. What about you? I'm Natty. So anyways, so you have these calluses from working out.

So listen, you have to develop emotional calluses when you, when you're in politics, right? Like you can't let every criticism, everything upset. at you. And look, you realize that there's a risk. If you go to a heat game and sit in the front row, there's a chance that the newspaper is going to give you a hard time about it, right? You have to accept that risk and juxtapose it against, you know, enjoying your life and also like representing your city. Like, I think the mayor should be at playoff, like a playoff game or at a, you know, at a, I think there was a, it was a conference finals game. And by the way, it was the only home game that we won, which kind of sucks. Yeah, you can't pass the court side

to that. It was like, what was their, what was their narrative? You're at, you shouldn't be in those seats. Yeah, they're expensive seats. But again, it just gets clicks. No, and I have to disclose it. So I had to disclose it's a $10,000 seat or whatever and have to disclose it and all that. And I do, you know.

So this weekend, there's an article out right now, literally, about, you know, am I going to go to another heat game? Am I going to go to, yeah, yeah, am I going to go to anything related to Formula One? Yeah, of course, I'm going to go to Formula One. It's, it's in Miami. So it's like, why wouldn't you? Of course. Do these, like, athletes or anybody? ever ask you for like personal favors or anything like that well i mean as mayor you get calls all the

time about a variety of different things you know what i mean like it's not just athletes and entertainers no but i just mean like you know what i mean like mcgregor had to ask for get out of jail free yeah like do you have the authority to no i'll tell you a funny mcgregor story this is a true story too he came in on a friday we did the podcast he left and uh his people were like you know he's a little disappointed and i'm like what year is a certain oh this was a couple months ago. Okay. So if you want that, right?

Six months ago. So his people were like, oh, he's a little disappointed because he didn't get the key to the city. And I was like, oh, I was like, okay, well, if he comes back on Monday, I'll give him the key to the city. So I'm thinking this guy probably got on his plane and took off, right? Like all these famous people, they're always jet-setting around the world or whatever. The guy showed up on Monday at 9 a.m.

You give him my fucking key. No, no, wait, it gets better. No, it gets better. So we had something going on at the time So those media So we didn't want to expose them to that So we brought them in through the side And there's a spiral staircase

Now this guy had broken his tibia in the last fight Okay so he was coming up The staircase on the side Like kind of like hobbling up And my security details like look man We're really sorry We're just trying to protect you You know the media whatever blah blah

He's like sorry I'm getting the key to the city He goes I would have repelled into the building I was like Okay I didn't realize was that important. But yeah, he came back and everything. I mean, it was amazing. It came with his family, the whole thing. What is the key to the city equal? It's a symbolic gesture. It's like, have you ever denied anybody AP? Yeah. You have to. So it's interesting. I actually

hate it when people ask me for the key. Yeah, that's, I mean, it's pretty weird. I didn't no, no, no, no, no, because because it's, it's, it's something, it's like, it's something that I should come from. like the heart you know and you know it's it's one of the one of my responsibilities and so it's something that um i want to be able to give because i want to do it not because somebody wants it right that makes any sense i don't know if that makes any sense i don't know if that makes you ask for that oh yeah why i just want you to know like that's crazy i love this city so much i'm serious i like you're gonna get you'll get it don't worry about it what's all good what so then what makes you want to give someone the key then you got to do a lot i think i think what it is what did mcgregor do

for Miami. Did he do like he was coming here he wants to be a part of this ecosystem and so we you know I thought it was a nice way and it's McGregor yeah what's that it's McGregor too it's McGregor can't say no to him really fair by the way of all the podcasts in fairness to him of all the podcast that I had I think that was the most watched of course a couple million is fucking huge yeah yeah yeah that's and we did my mom's without too nice yeah so we've done listen we've done a lot of cool people and it's uh we did I did the mayor of New York I did you know Both people on their conservative side, on the Republican side, we've done, you know, McCarthy, we did, yeah, so we've done some cool people. What's your relationship like with Governor DeSantis?

You know, we don't have much of a relationship, to be honest. Yeah. Yeah, he's, you know, and I've said this before, we're just very different in terms of, yeah. How so? I'm a people person. I love to, you know, sort of interact with people. I don't know that. Yeah, I heard him say he doesn't go to no cocktail parties or like anything like that.

He doesn't socialize. Yeah. So it's different personality types for sure. Really? I would have thought like, I mean, you're the mayor of the biggest city. Listen, I think from a policy perspective, we agree on some things or some things that we don't agree on. But yeah, we're just different. You know what I mean?

I think, you know, I'll give you an example. So the first time I met the former president, really the only time that I've actually interacted with him, we were, I was at a wedding. and somebody was, like, really interested in us meeting. And so I met with him and, you know, and they said, you know, President Trump, this is the mayor of Miami. The mayor of Miami? He goes, you're the only politician in America hotter than I am. You know, so it's that sort of like, you know, you can like him or dislike him,

but there's just a warmth, you know, like a... Very charismatic. Charisma, right? And sort of like, that's more my personality, right? I think the governor would probably not react that way. He might make my shake my hand, might look at me in the eye, might not. You know what I mean? Like, you know, that's that's sort of, he's just different.

We're just different people. Do you plan to continue to like climb as far as political rank goes? Do you want to like continue to, you know, I'll tell you, man. It's, it's, it's a, this has been a phenomenal experience for me. I'm in year 13. It's like dog years, you know? Yeah, because it's four, four, five years is mayor. I was elected by 86% and I was reelected by close to 80%.

and eight years before that as counsel. So it's 13 years in public service. If I do something next, it's going to be something that I think is significant, right? Like I'm also lucky because as a mayor, I'm able to have most mayors in the Miami area can have a private sector life. Like, I can work in the private sector. So I'm happy and I'm successful on that side. So I'd be giving up a huge amount to continue in politics.

I thought about it. There's a couple jobs that obviously I would consider doing. And there's a lot of jobs that I would. didn't want to do. What are the jobs? Governor and President? Yeah, pretty much. That's it?

That's it. And what we don't want to do is pretty much everything else. I mean, look, there's, you know, for example, if somebody became president wanted me to run as their, as their vice president, it'd be something I would obviously seriously consider. I mean, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity to try to serve the country at that level. But other than those two things, you know, there's just not much. I've done a lot. I'm very satisfied with what we've done here in Miami. me. I do think that our recipe for success is scalable nationally. And I do sometimes think about

the possibility of running for president because, and I've talked about this publicly, because I just think that we need something generational at this point. And we need someone with a track record of success and someone who can inspire people. And I think that is missing right now in politics. And no matter how you feel about, you know, the current president, the former president, it's hard to argue that they fit that box, right, without being disrespectful, you know? Do you think Trump's going to win this year? It's going to be, we'll see, we'll see. I mean, look, politics is hyper dynamic.

It's one of the most, particularly presidential politics, one of the hardest things to predict. My dad, who's, like I told you, we talked a little bit about him, he has this concept called chaos. And chaosplexity is chaotic environments are impossible to predict because of the number of inputs, right? And so when you're game theorying these things, it's just impossible. There's so many things that can happen. You know, everyone is trying to go after the former president, you know what I mean, now and trying to take them down in ways that I think are probably not healthy for this country. And I've expressed that publicly because, you know, you can dislike him, but to try to take him out

of a political race through the judicial system, it's not what this country's about, right? And it's not what we should be spending judicial resources on, right? We should be focusing. If you don't like them, beat them at the ballot. right present a different vision an alternative vision that you think is better and more compelling and and that's the way it should be that's the way elections should be decided in this country um not in the way that it seems like happens in third worlds or like you lose the election and then the government comes after you it's it's it's crazy man by the way it's a huge disincentive for people to run for office i think one of the biggest issues is it's hard to have an incentive

to run for office because there's you're getting criticized if you go to a heat game you know what i mean, you get, you know, everyone thinks you're corrupt. Like, that's like, you know, there's no trust with, with politicians. I've done a lot of focus groups and talk to a lot of people and they're just, the level of confidence in public servants right now is at, I think, an all-time low. And it's hard to work in that environment. And then obviously, you don't get paid a lot or anything like that. I take my money in crypto and whatever. But like, it's not for the money. You don't do it for the money, right? You do it for the satisfaction. You do it for those moments, like, the one I had yesterday where the guy came up to me was like, hey, thanks to your intervention,

thanks to what you've helped create, it's, it's impacted my life. And I just want you to know that. And that's what you do it for. Yeah, I'm curious. What do you think is the most significant change you've made since you've been in the mayor? Yeah, I think there's a lot of things I'm proud of some of the educational initiatives. Like I funded a savings account for all kindergartners And coupled that with financial literacy, which is something I'm super proud of. Some of our educational initiatives, we have a two scholarship funds. So if you're a Pell Grant recipient in Miami and you want to get a STEM degree, you go to school for free. If you're a Pell Grant recipient, you're first in your family to go to college, you go to school for free.

By the way, I raised that money in the private sector. So it wasn't government fund. This was private sector funded. We did a charter school for a tech charter school that you go to school for free with a community college. and you graduate with an associate's degree in a tech field so you can go right into the workforce. So those are things I'm super proud of. But I think overall, I'm proud of where we've taken the city from a city that was like a party city, from a city that was, you know, a retirement city to a place where you could do serious business where, you know, the average tech job

that's been created is over $100,000 where we're number one in wage growth and all those statistics that we shared. I think they tell a story of a city that is going to position itself as the most important city. We're ranked by Financial Times, the most important city in America. I believe that. It's so interesting because, like, Miami's the most diverse city I've ever seen.

It's the most unified. We were literally ranked the most diverse city in America too. But it seems so unified to me, at least. You know, because we have a hustler mentality, a hustle mentality, right? Like, we're a lot of us are immigrants. Yeah. And we think that we've got to work.

And I think we've always been ranked high in, like, entrepreneurship. but now we're getting scale, which is, you know, you're getting investment. And I think when you combine that, that entrepreneurial spirit with investment, I mean, look what you guys have done. You guys started at zero. And like in a year, you guys are one of the most watch podcasts in America or in the world, potentially, right?

Like, that's just entrepreneurial spirit. That's great. That's hard work. That's, I'm sure there's a million people that told you guys, you guys were crazy. You shouldn't be doing this. It's not going to work. You know what I mean? Yeah.

And now people are probably throwing. opportunities at you, right? And that's just the way it works. It's, it's, it's, it's, uh, you got to grind through it and have a profound belief that what you're doing matters and what you're doing is meaningful and what you're doing is going to work and it's different, right? And I think if you have that, um, you can create a ton of success for yourself. What's a shifting to topics a little bit, but, um, out of all your time as the mayor, what do you think you've had the most fun doing? Oof, the most fun doing. Um, I think when I do stuff with the public, and like, like, I like the workout stuff.

You know, we do a lot of stuff outside. Big gym, bro. It's, it's fun. You know what I mean? For me, and like, it's, it's, you know, I like to work out. So it's, it dovetails with what I enjoy doing. But I also think there's a benefit, right? And I think, again, like, I'm working on some partnerships now to have a certain kind of

training in our parks for kids, particularly underprivileged kids who maybe can't afford to go to a gym and spend 100 bucks a month or whatever. So I'm really focused on that. And I just think when you look at the country, it's the most, underappreciated thing. Nobody talks about it. And nobody talks about it in terms of the health benefits, but like the medical benefits, right? Again, it's, and if you think about health care, it's a multi-trillion dollar expense in the country. Right? We have one of the largest public hospitals. It's a multi-hundred billion dollar public hospital. I mean, again, nobody's talking

about these things. So for me, doing things different, probably the most fun that I do is when I do things different, right, the podcast, to this, that, you know, I'm, what's great about the podcast is, I'm sure you guys feel the same way, you guys would normally and ordinarily because of your success meet the most incredible people. What's different is now you're sharing that with the public. Right. So that's what's cool. Because now they get a portal into how cool your life is. You're not just doing it. Does give us a lot of opportunity to like meet with like sit down with cool people like you and just, yeah, we've met so many people that it's a privilege to be able to do it. You know what I mean is what's fun because like like again, you know, you've seen we're here in the office.

It's a beautiful office. Right. Like the people that come here. to meet and want to do stuff and want to come up with ideas is great but the fact that I get to share with everybody that makes it really fun who's the craziest person that's been in this office craziest like cool like I don't know cool probably McGregor like McGregor like big celebrity I don't know McGregor is pretty big in terms of we had Ice Cube as like 30 million followers we're about to do him on the podcast he just did he's brought the big three here oh that's here yeah I didn't even know that he's bringing it here yeah big three so he had like 30 million followers uh Mark uh Mark uh

who I haven't had here yet, but I really admire him for his working. It's a workhorse, right? He's a workhorse, faith and exercise. That's a guy who, I think, posts almost daily exercise videos. He's like a 4 a.m. guy. Yeah, but it's a crazy. It's amazing. You got to admit, like, the PEDs in Miami are pretty high.

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I don't know. For Jim Bros. Why are you so like, why is he talking about this twice now? Have you ever worked out of elevation? Yeah. You just switched out. Oh, okay. No, no.

But there's an anatomy close by that. Anatomy is great. Yeah. Yeah, we go there. Yeah. It's right next. Like, there's one that literally outside here, just opened up.

What are the top three, like, best gyms in Miami? Oh, man. This is a huge endorsement right now. You're going to get me in huge trouble. Damn. This is not here yet. Anatomy. I hate it.

Train 8-9 is the gym that I went to before I got COVID and they're a coconut grove gym. So shout out to them for sure. Shout out to them for sure, big time. And then there's something called 54D. 54D was invented by a South American soccer player. And it's a 54-day. program. So that we just did a podcast with them, not that long ago. And it's more of like a boot camp style. It's not so much heavy weights or anything like that. You know, so yeah. And then I

got to give Ozzy Alfonso, who's my trainer from optimum performance. I got to give him a shout out too. Fair. Oh, yeah. We do a function. I'm 45, man. So I can't work out like I used to. Like when I was 35 or 25. So, but I'm working out my whole life. And I love it. And I do some functional stuff i do some h i t stuff you know high high intensity stuff um and and then that's it just try not to get hurt what about what about top three clubs dave's close shout out to dave he's got happy to our seltzer at all his clubs too so yeah so live we only pretty much i think live story if i'm not mistaken story closed did it did it yeah that was the whole thing with manmy beach that they shut down yeah yeah that's terrible so what happened with that because

If you're past a certain street, you can't be open. So in an effort to manage the spring break stuff, I think, they implemented a law that says you can only party until a certain period of time. So my view of it, having grown up and my parents have an apartment in the beach, is they made a big mistake years ago. They actually used to have 30 clubs on the beach. And I think 5 a.m. was a closing time. And what happened is you'd have an infrastructure. So this idea of South Beach, you know, like when LeBron said, I'm taking my talents to South Beach.

I don't know if you guys remember that when he said to come to Miami. When he said that there was no South Beach, there was very little infrastructure at that point because they had been very anti-business and had shut down. This is government at its finest, you know, shut down almost every single nightclub. So what happens is people instead of going into a, what happens when you go to a nightclub? They wand you. They make sure you don't have a weapon. And if you do something dumb, usually you have to deal with the bouncers, right?

And then the balancers take you out and then you get arrested. But there's like a mechanism to make sure that nothing really, really bad happens. When people are out in the street, there is no mechanism. So people have a gun. You bump into somebody, you know, people shoot. And then, you know, we live in a world with these things. So then it becomes, it's CNN, it's Fox. So then you go from, you know, a local incident to a national incident, like, right away.

And that hurts your brand. So I just think being anti-business years ago really hurt the beach now. What's your take on like spring break here because it's so crazy every single year? My take is it's not well managed. Yeah. You know what I mean? Number one. I think my take number two is people believe that South Beach is something that it's not anymore.

Right. Like they're thinking, oh, we're going to come here and party. Then they get here and they're like, oh, where's the party? You know, so everybody's just hanging out. And then that's a, that's a recipe for disaster, right? Like people, you know, just running into each other and stuff. And over the years, it's been a recipe to disaster. Look what we do by contrast in ultra.

We have 150,000 people. It's a ton of people, right? But we do it in a very, very methodical venues for it. Yeah, and we've learned, by the way. Nothing physical bad ever really happens there. What about? A lot of mental health issues after Ultra, right? Weekend?

Yeah, that's a different story. I mean, I had to reconsider my whole life after three days at all times. Yeah, me too. What about Rolling Loud? So Rolling Loud, I think, is in Hard Rock, if I'm not mistaken. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's in a state. Out of your jurisdiction?

Yeah, it's not in a jurisdiction, yeah. Have you ever attended Ultra? I have in the crowd or where you called out for being in the, you're in the VIP. No, I just call as mayor to just make sure that everything is, you know, on the up and up and make sure that all that security protocols are being followed. Because at the end of the day, you know, obviously it's a huge event in your city. You want to make sure that it goes off smoothly. What do you say this is the most fun city to be the mayor of?

Oh, by far. Yeah. By far. I mean, look, I'll tell you this. And I don't know if I should say this, but what the hell? I can only serve two terms. So I just got re-elected to my second term. It'll be over in 2025.

If God came down tomorrow and said, I will give you a choice to be mayor for a third term or be president in the United States, I'd have to think about it. Wow. That's how awesome it is to do my job. For sure. Yeah, it's fun.

This is a city I grew up in. This is a city I was born in. This is in my DNA. And I love it. And I enjoyed it. And, you know, walking my city, which you wouldn't get to do if you're the president, I'd just walk around, right?

Like walking and people coming up to you, like, hey, man, you're doing a great job. Thank you so much, which I hear every single day. I have this concept of spiritual gas tank, you know, and, you know, having a full spiritual gas tank. And that's the kind of stuff that fills your gas tank, you know, and it makes you want to keep working hard and grind, you know. I'm sure you guys, when you're out in the street, people are constantly, you know, telling you guys how awesome it is. And that gives you energy. What's like your ultimate goal in life? Well, my ultimate goal in life is to live a life I can be proud of, to live a life that

is meaningful, to live a life of meaning, frankly. That's my ultimate goal. Yeah. I mean, when your second term is up, what do you do then? Well, I might do something before then. You know what I mean? I might do something after them. I'm looking at a variety of different opportunities in politics.

And then the other thing is like, I think what happens is if it's not in politics, that's okay too. You know, I think there's this notion that you have to just constantly be in politics, right? in the sort of lifelong forever. And I, listen, I've served. I've done a lot of great things, in my opinion. And we'll see what God has in store for me next. It's, you know, I'm a spiritual person.

And I believe that our goal in life is to unify ourselves to God's power for us. I love it. Yeah. One thing I want to ask, too, is like one person I feel like doesn't get a lot of credit for like what he's done in the city is like Purple Miami. but what do you think like what do you think it's like the best thing he's done for the city i think he definitely is underappreciated you think so purple yeah yeah he's the best he's a great guy does he ever key to the city he doesn't we should get a one after we based on this i think i

should get him he hooks me up with the hookah every club i go to so yeah yeah in that case yeah and then when that that that makes it automatic right yeah no purple is a great guy he works hard he's you know look it's it's people like purple it's realtors you know realtors are people that are working hard men they're grinding they make commission but they go out did i hit you on a good one no he loves purple miami it's oh yeah he's a big fan purple's great purple's great he waits in who isn't who isn't he doesn't get walked in he waits in line oh you wait yeah sometimes he gets us turned away before we came in mary francis stony said that you can't skip lines at restaurants or like he was basically saying he has more sauce than

you in Miami. I absolutely would never say such a thing. How did, yeah, you, I thought you said that, but when you, it's all good. Did you say that when you went out? You said if we went to live, we have more sauce than Mayor Francis. I think he does for sure. That's outrageous. That's before the whole, that was before the whole key talk, so. I would never say that. Yeah, that's right. We don't want to unwind this. We don't want to go backwards, right? I need that straight up. I love it. No, this has been amazing though. Yeah, thanks, guys. It's been a lot of fun. Yeah, this is awesome. We love this city and hopefully we'll move here soon. So come back anytime. We're definitely i mean we're here all the time i know yeah we love being here we run into you guys all over

the country so it's all good um and let us know if you want us to do anything with your podcast we're in of course i love that yeah i'm gonna check that out what's the name more time it's gotficito tech talk yeah we'll put the link in the description check that out appreciate let us know if you guys want us to do the mayor's podcast we're more than happy i hope i hope they say yes yeah 100% awesome awesome oh thank you all right man thank you thank you all right man thank you so much thank you