PBD Podcast - Mafia States of America | Episode 4 - "Mob vs Government"

Episode Date: November 10, 2025

In Episode 4 of Mafia States of America, Sammy Gravano and Michael Franzese expose the ties between organized crime and government. From Hoover and the Kennedys to bribes, unions, and corruption, nothing is off limits in this explosive sit-down.------👍 RATE US ON SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/3FVOp5guWNV4b0S9pfuVcw🖊️ VT AUTOGRAPH COLLECTION: https://bit.ly/4qO3qGK📕 REGISTER FOR BPW 2025 - FRIDAY, DECEMBER 12TH 2025: https://bit.ly/3IU2YWx🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON SPOTIFY: ⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4g57zR2🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON ITUNES: ⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4g1bXAh🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON ALL PLATFORMS: https://bit.ly/4eXQl6AⓂ️ CONNECT ON MINNECT: ⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4kSVkso Ⓜ️ PBD PODCAST CIRCLES: https://bit.ly/4mAWQAP🥃 BOARDROOM CIGAR LOUNGE: https://bit.ly/4pzLEXj🍋 ZEST IT FORWARD: https://bit.ly/4kJ71lc 📕 PBD'S BOOK "THE ACADEMY": https://bit.ly/41rtEV4👔 BET-DAVID CONSULTING: https://bit.ly/4lzQph2 📺 JOIN THE CHANNEL: ⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4g5C6Or💬 TEXT US: Text “PODCAST” to 310-340-1132 to get the latest updates in real-time! SUBSCRIBE TO: @VALUETAINMENT @ValuetainmentComedy @theunusualsuspectspodcast @HerTakePod @bizdocpodcast ABOUT US:Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller “Your Next Five Moves” (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what? Sounds like Ojo time. Play Ojo? Great idea. Feel the fun with all the latest slots in live casino games and with no wagering requirements. What you win is yours to keep groovy. Hey, I won! Boarding will begin when passenger fisher is done celebrating.

19 plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Concerned by your gambling or that if someone close, you call 1866-3-3-1-2-60 or visit comicsontario.ca. Previously, on Mafia States of America. Was there names? Was there anything when you met with the Feds? Yes. They asked me about a lot of stuff.

Okay. And I didn't tell them. We talked with that, but he didn't tell them. Sammy, you did this, this, and this and that because of that you're a rat? Amirth is a piece of shit if you don't agree to it. If you don't agree to it, it's nothing. Why are they talking about me?

Either of you regret breaking the oath or no? Would you, if you had to done it again, would you have done it the same exact way? If you were done a second time around, what I should have done, I was in jail with John, I should have killed him in prison. That's what you should have done.

And did life without parole. There are a few people that are genetic, inherently bad, evil, but most people are shaped that way by circumstances. See Yeah He cried Like a river The sea to shine and see

And see The more money The Mob life is a paradox These guys do it for the money But the more money they make, the more the government They all want to be boss. But the more powerful they get, the more the government wants them.

So you tell me, how do they win? When we were doing things, rigging all kinds of things, the public, it didn't do anything. Nothing. I would see a woman, good look a woman with a beautiful dress. We were getting kicked back from the garment industry. I blow the horn. She thinks I'm flirting with us. She smiles, I smile.

I don't give a fuck about how. That dress, I make five dollars a dress. That's why I'm blowing the horn. She thinks I'm flirting with her. I'm happy she's wearing that dress. But the people are like zombies sometimes. Every time we would tax them in one way or another, raise the price of bread.

We had the bread association. Raised the price of construction. Raise the price of this. They bids you won't, but did nothing. It's the same thing right now. We're politicians. When I became U.S. attorney in 1983, they were the most powerful organized crime group in the country,

and they were the only organized crime group that had become semi-legitimate. They infiltrated on politics and infiltrated on. businesses, they infiltrate of the church. Church. Yeah, they had certain cardinals and bishops that they did business with. Catholic Church. Catholic Church.

I mean, the way they would run the garment industry is a little different the way it usually run. They have to do a lot of factoring. They have to do a lot of very, very sketchy loans just as part of their business because of accounts receivable. But now, if they don't pay, then it's a legitimate operation. You take them to court. They would break their legs.

I had one guy, a lone sharking guy, who got involved with him. He came from a very rich family. He was sort of a near-do-well who had a trust. And he got in very deeply to Vito's brother-in-law, Giulio Gossier. Gossier was a cruel, sadistic human being. And he got him to pay. He took his hand. They held one side of the hand on one side of the judge.

door, the other, and they crashed his hand over with the door. They just closed the door and said, when I tried the case, I let him show his hand to the entire jury. It was all caved in. That's how they collected money. It's sort of almost romantic when they say, oh, it was legal. Yeah, it's legal now to loan money at interest, a big interest, but the bank can't come in and crash you and bust up your hand or break your kneecaps or beat up your daughter,

which they would do. Does their business model work without that? Does a business model work without the violence? Some of it, yes, some of it, no. They never would have control of the garment industry if it wasn't ultimately for universally illegal tactics. So it was a smart thing they did. They focused on the garment industry

because heavy gamblers and always looking for a loan because of the nature of the business where you're producing the garments and you don't get paid for six months. So they go to the bank, then they got to go to a factor, and in those days there was only a limit you could get to,

and then you've got to go to the mob. Plus, right near Madison Square Garden, I can't tell you how many of those guys I prosecuted through tax evasion. I prosecuted them to get them to testify against the mafia. I mean, they're massive gamblers, particularly sports gamblers the joke is

you go to Madison Square Garden to watch a college game and the team is winning and you should be really, really excited and then all of a sudden they're losing the points spread and you can hear the crowd go the team is winning by 10 points

but they're supposed to win by 14 and nobody understands New York New York is rooting for the point spread they're not rooting for the team So they got a sense of that right away And they realized, boy, we can move in on this We start loan of the money At ridiculous rates of interest

We start taking their bets and getting them into us And then one day we visit them and say, look, what you owe me? You can't pay this Well, you got a choice We're not greedy Give us half the business We're your partner You run it, you can still keep 50%.

That's a nice living. You give us the other 50% and you turn the business over to us. But we'll let you stay here and work. And they did. For the guys who wanted, the guys who didn't want to do it, ended up in, you know,

in Canarsie somewhere. That's the part that they leave out. Our criminality, I think, was a little different. We kind of, and I got to be careful how I say this, because I don't want to say that we were good criminals. I'm not saying that. But we did things not to hurt the vast majority of people.

I don't think we were pulling a wool of eyes at all country. You know, we did things within our sphere of influence. Organized crime by the 80s, but say right before I started to get involved, had really become a massive illegal business. multinational illegal business. Unlike other criminal groups, it had infiltrated into legitimate parts of life. I viewed it as you have a lot of organized crime groups, Russian, Chinese, various other groups.

But the mafia grew tentacles, like an octopus. So the tentacles were Las Vegas, the Teamsters Union, the garment industry in New York. You could not get a hauler without picking a mafia business. And it turns out you paid about 30% more than you should pay. That was the mafia tax. The fish market was famous for being controlled by the mafia. The pornography bars on the west side, maybe 67, all controlled by the mafia. Controlled for a lot of reasons.

Cash for laundering, but for extortion. Judge Jones had come in. Dressed a little different, looking a little different. He'd pick up a guy. Nice picture. We got Judge Jones. District attorney, so-and-so comes in. Another nice picture.

We got that one. Maybe we never use it. Maybe we get in front of them and somebody visits them and says, do I just show this to your wife and kids? It was a great place for extortion. Or extortion of businessmen. A business guy comes in,

he runs a big company. They want to move in and take half the company to put the pictures on the table. So what was easier to control back in the day? Local cops or federal? Mayors or governors? CIO cops. Local cops were easier.

Patrick, I'm going to tell you this. At the time, I had plenty of money, had plenty of resources. I would have paid anything to anybody in the federal system to get my dad out of jail. I couldn't do it. There was no amount of money that I was able to pay to get my father out. And I offered it.

It was hard with the feds. Couldn't do it. Local was easy. Locals. Look, the locals. You know what the locals were easier? We grew up in the same, before, they do a different system. We grew up in the same neighborhood.

We would fight, we would go out with the same girls. I went into the mom, he became a cop. We knew each other. We had neighbors in our family. So it was easier to do that. Yes. And then what they did, the cops were smart too. We came out of beds and us.

He became a cop. He couldn't work in Benson House. He worked in the Bronx or in Holland. or somewhere, they didn't want him there because a cop, even cops, I had cops who weren't on the day, who would say, whispered like, Sammy, watch your back, bro. He didn't want no money. He didn't want nothing. We grew up together, so he had a little bit of feeling towards me.

So it made it a little easy. Now, if he had a little bit of corrupt or he needed some money, then maybe we could. So it was easier to deal with that. Now, feds, but who the fuck knows where they come from? Alabama, Utah, they're coming from different states. They don't even know what we are. So how do you approach these people? Meaning befriending them build on a relationship with them

that made it harder like that? Was that a part of the strategy? Yeah, of course. And so at that point, they couldn't be bought. So there was no check that could buy the federal agents. And then they made a lot more money. I offered millions. Couldn't do it.

Couldn't do anything to help your debt out. Okay. Well, by the way, that he means... Some of the couple of them were bad. Scapa, senior, had a guy who was cooperating on a snake. He had a couple of guys in. In some ways, that kind of shows credibility to them, doesn't it? No, no, because maybe they didn't have the juice to make... Look, the federal system is different.

I mean, people are looking and watching all the time. I mean, they rat on each other. You know, they're after... It's just different. People are scared some of them at that level, maybe to do something with us. Not with each other, each other. They don't have to worry. or maybe to do something with us.

See now, and then if you go back a little further, we had Hoover. Hoover was with the mafia. That's another fucking weird thing I'm going to come out with, that people are going to know, oh, you're crazy? He was with the mafia. There's history of it now. Yes, that's fact.

And a fact. And a little bit he was afraid of the mafia that he was a closet gay and he was afraid for it to come out. So, and they never, they helped him. And he abided by, this is a guy, as the director of the FBI, for years, denounced, there was no such thing. There was no such violence.

Even when fucking, who was that guy who cooperated, the first guy, Farachi, got out of the thing, that embarrassed him into he was puzzled. He still denied it. Is this because one of the, members showed up with pictures of what they had of his. Is that what it was? No, I don't really think they put pressure on him that way.

He liked the horses. They were fixed races. They'd give him the horses. He had no malice towards that. And with other little secrets like that, they held them. They never heard him. They never tried to hurt him. And I don't think it was, from what I understand, big money is transplanted.

They had a relationship. Frank Costello took over the family. right after Lucia went away. He took it over. Luciano put him in, and he took it over, ran it, and he was like this with Homer. Then he had another reason that Bobby Kennedy, he hated Bobby Kennedy and vice versa.

So this is where there's Kennedy, you go back to them, Bobby Kennedy had so many enemies. So was the mafia? Looks like a lot of those old, you know, cut off the head, the fish dies, all that shit. Bobby was the one that got his brother killed. Oh, of course. And without a doubt.

Yeah, that's, yeah. Without a doubt. And I will tell you this, Patrick, there is, that's the word, classified documents in the Kennedy assassination that I believe two years ago, Trump was talking about who wanted to release those classified documents. And then all of a sudden it stopped. I've heard this my whole life. I don't know why people would have to tell me.

something different. My father, just general conversation. I know it all my life too. Yeah, general conversation that we had a hand in killing Kennedy. Those classified documents will never be exposed because the federal, the government will never want to admit that the mob had a hand and killed the city president. Why wouldn't they? Come on, the embarrassment. Could get to a sitting president?

But why? I'd rather say it was a lone maniacs. Here's why. Today, though, why wouldn't they matter today? wouldn't they matter today? Here's why. His wife. Bobby had so many, John wasn't disliked by a mafia at all.

Bobby had so many enemies, whether it was Hoffer, whether it was the unions, whether it was the mafia in different states, powerful mafiosos all over the place. Hoover hated him. That's right. So you don't know,

I'm not saying a mafioso shot him from the grassy north. Could have been CIA, it could have been the government, but it was such a group of people that he hurt, Bobby. And all Italian things, you cut off the head, the fish dies. When he, his head was cut off, blown off, the fish died. They came in one day, and they said, we'd like to talk to you about the killing of President, I'd like to know the information that you have on that. Me? Yeah.

Are you joking? Does this look like a joke? I said, bro, we don't shoot from a grassy node. Maybe you guys did that. Maybe the CIA did that. Close this meeting. Get those notes. and they left.

They didn't even let me finish and walked out. We have never discussed this ever. No. He comes from a difference the least than I came. He heard it all his life and he's involved in. I heard it my whole life.

Why would they make it up, our guys? Who learned from you guys from you guys the most, free enterprise, free market, or politicians and the government? Who took the most pages out of your playbook? Not learned. Not learned. The government, I could learn more, but they used some of our evil ways and brought it to a whole other level. Wow, this is good what they were doing. With the union. We were controlling unions. He could tell you, almost all with them in construction.

You know, you call that a bully. When people that don't have power on their own, use the power of government. to take advantage of people with less power than them. They're bullies, and they're cowards, as far as I'm concerned. Because, look, we had a lot of strength on the street. We couldn't fight the government. No, it's like somebody recently said to me, how do you fight somebody who wants two world wars, right, and controls the world practically?

How do you fight that? But they're bullies. And not only that, but they have companions. Big Tech shuts people down. Who fucks with that? The news media takes one part, not the other. It's not like when I was a kid. You listened to the news media.

You would say to yourself, wow, this guy said this. It was gospel. I don't even know who's telling the truth anymore. Who's not? Every day is another weird story. This Fauci guy, he's bouncing off the walls, a different story every other day. We lost a half a million people in this country.

And nobody's doing it. And we don't even know what the truth were liars yet. We don't know if this thing was created in Wuhan. Remember this affected the whole world. Not only did it kill people, people who are starving now. The business was destroyed. And they won't even tell us the truth. And I believe they know it.

How could they not know? They know it. And you know what I said, Michael. So how is that, how are we any worse than them? No, you're not even a people. on their wrist. But you know what I say to that? How can nobody say nothing

about the teachers' union shutting down all the schools? They are brainwashing our kids in schools. They're making white kids hate themselves because they're white. They're making black people say something to get them

to do something. And we don't say nothing. So how how bad is it when two former mobsters that did what they did in their life are sitting here? They're complaining about the government, and not that they're coming after us. They're coming after everybody. If I told you in 1983, okay, let's just say we meet someone and I say, guys, I got this newspaper from 2021. Casino is going to be everywhere.

It's going to be a multi, multi, multi-billion dollar industry. Be patient that's going to get legal. This whole loan sharking thing you're doing, Michael, that you're charging 25% per month, that's nothing. It's going to become legal. you can do 600% per year if you want to. It's payday loans. They're everywhere. Drugs, don't worry about it, guys.

Drugs are going to be legal. There's going to be a lot of ways to make money with drugs. It's the direction we're going on. This whole prostitution thing, only fans, you know, we've got stuff that's going to be. There's so many ways to make money with that. Be patient with that. Betting, don't worry about it. There's going to be this thing one day called fantasy football, fantasy baseball.

It's going to be multi, multi-billion dollar industries where presidents every year are going to pick in fantasy, a perfect bracket on who's going to win the NCAA. championship. Don't worry about it, guys. This thing's going to be legal. If I would have told you that in 1981, what would you have said to me? Because I hated the government and I believed they were corrupt. I would have believed it. Oh, so you would have believed that. You wouldn't. I wouldn't. I wouldn't think that it'd be possible because it's so hard to get so many multiple families, let alone fucking industries. Would the media confer with big tech with the Democratic Party, with this, what Hollywood, could you get all those people on board?

I would think, no. Would it happen? Do I think now? I think it happened. You know what? I believe it too, Pat. When OTB came into New York, when they started, when the state of New York took over the betting polish for the racetrack, I said, this is the start of it. They finally seen, okay, it was almost like prohibition. People want to gamble. You're not going to stop them from gambling.

Same with popular. Now it's illegal. It's legal. My uncle in Iran was a bootlegger. He said, oh my gosh, he's a bootlegger. I said, oh, that guy's a bootlegger. Guys do an Instagram commercial saying, buy my new tequila. Buy my new this.

People are becoming billionaires selling their tequila brands. And they're professional legal bootleggers. I think there was a time when street guys, the mob, we really had it over the government. Prohibition is a perfect example. You could say whatever you want about gangsters. When gangsters are knocking around, try to make a dollar here, a dollar there. dollar here, a dollar there. There's nothing there. When you put hundreds of millions of dollars in their pocket, they become an organization. Prohibition is what created them off in this country.

It's what made Kosovo's to grow in this country, because that's when the money came in. What do you say to a Sammy or a Michael that says, look, you know, we were doing this. It was illegal then, but a lot of people are using our model today. They're half right and half wrong. some of the things they were doing are legal today some of the things they're doing they were doing are not illegal it's not illegal to kill anybody

right came Michael are walking this is Godfather 1 I think I know the one you're going to talk about in New Hampshire or Maine or wherever the dog runs right by them and Michael says

to Kay you know Kay my father is no different than any other powerful man any man with power like a president or a senator Kay says you know how naive that you sound Michael says why

Kay says senators and presidents don't have people killed Michael says who's being naive Kate right so on the flip side of it you know Sammy says look I was in the Army if I go in the Army and kill a bad guy 19 people I'm a hero

I get a you know I get a badge I get to say Medal of Honor what a great soldier you know I went and killed people for my country right so that's what I did but on this end I go do what I'm doing, I'm a criminal, right? So what they're trying to say is politicians do the same thing as they're doing. So they saw themselves as a form of a government, just like the U.S. government did.

Who is really being naive? K. or Michael? It isn't a matter of being naive. It's a matter of being too romantic about what they're really like. Some of it's true. I mean, some of it is they're doing the same tactics that happen in legitimate businesses. It is true that there's politicians, some, who get people killed, and maybe there are presidents who do it also. I would distinguish having people killed because they're terrorists, and they're going to come and kill 10 million people?

That isn't what they're doing. I mean, if you're talking about presidents who get people killed in wars, it's a little bit different. I mean, did Roosevelt get people killed, or did he have to do it because Japan attacked Pearl Harbor? But there may be situations in which presidents have had people kill for political reasons. I don't know. There are people who think there were. People think there weren't. There's surely a situation where politicians have done it.

But they don't do it as part of the business. I mean, their business was, if we have to resort to it, we always have it there, which is what often made them successful. I mean, go right back to the beginning. They walked in on the little Italian guy running a bar or a candy store. And they said, you're giving me 20% per week. Why am I doing that? I'm not making much money. Because if you don't, you're not going to have the bar.

And then the few that resisted, they smashed up the bar, burned the bar, beat up the guy, beat up his daughter, and then everybody complied. That really isn't the way government operates, except when it's a real aberration. That's the way they operate as a rule. So I think there's a big difference. I think they like to see themselves that way. makes it easier on your conscience but it's a very different thing

when you're totally devoted to crime or you're totally devoted to something else and some people commit crimes and you take a police department I've prosecuted a lot of corrupt police officers but the police department wasn't corrupt the whole police department was a group of people that were corrupt and then you have an opportunity

to weed them out and whatever else you think of the New York City police department today with all the other charges, there's really no substantial corruption in the New York City Police Department anymore because that wasn't the main mission. Their main mission is to be corrupt, to be dishonest,

to make money that way. Why not legalize? Was it because you wanted to put it in their face? Was it because the money was easy to make? Was it the adrenaline? Was it the camaraderie? Was it the fact that what... was the reason why somebody didn't just say,

guys, let's sit here and figure this thing out. Let's go become a political party. Let's have a vision of what this thing can be one day. Let's build something big. That wasn't out of state. But what he's saying is, what probation did, and he's 1,000% right. And those piles of money that came in, that was used. They were private judges, senators, congressmen, cops, you name it.

And that really showed them what time it is. And then, again, like everything else, they throw us out, and they took all of us. So great idea. Exactly. Why did we think it is? The same with anything. Same with gambling. People want to gambling.

You're not going to stop them from gambling. So what does the government do? They capitalize on it. What is our big sports group? They capitalize on it because they can't stop it. The drug business is the same thing. People, look, unfortunately, I had drugs in my family. And I say this, you can take a drug addict, Patrick.

You can put them in the center of the drug. the Sahara Desert or the Pacific Ocean, they will find roads if they want it. I've seen it, witnessed them in my family. You're not going to stop it. So what does the government do? They get involved in it. And what do they do? They tax people.

They make money on it. They don't care about, I don't care what you say. They don't care about the health and the welfare of those people involved. They don't care. I want to read you a quote of what Abraham Lincoln once said. He said, Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself where it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes a crime out

of things that are not crimes, a prohibitional law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded on. Yeah, great wisdom. Great wisdom. Do you think a part of McCarthyism and Rico kind of open up the counterwarms where now it's past the tipping point and they can kind of push the envelope even more? Yeah. Yeah, no question about it.

I mean, you look at McCarthyism, which is very young, but my parents were very anti-communist. And kind of really, one was a Democrat, one was the Republican, but they both kind of like McCarthy originally. He was like almost a hero. So I had a great insight from them because they turned on him. And I remember when they did, it's when he did that thing with the, I've got the names of, I've forgotten the number. I have the names on this list of 230 Communist Party members in the State Department. And then it turned out he never produced a list. It reminds me of Adam Schiff when he said he had direct evidence of President Trump dealing with the Russians.

Where is it, Adam? It's four years now. We still don't have the direct evidence. He hasn't a tragedy with McCarthy. He was right, and then he overdid it. Yes, the communists had infiltrated the government. Yes, the Roosevelt administration, going back to the 30s, had very significant communists advising him. And they gave him some bad advice.

Just give an example. We were anti-Germany, anti-Japan, and then all of a sudden, Stalin and Hitler make a pact. And all Roosevelt's advisors are now advising to stay out of the war. Because they were more loyal to Stalin than they were to the U.S. When we go to Yalta, basically he caves in. into Stalin because he's getting sick and old then. Churchill had a much healthier view of Stalin. We got to use

him. We got to make Uncle Joe feel really good. And once we win the war, we double cross him. For the good humanity. So Roosevelt, really, I can control him. I can control. Because his people were telling him that, because they had communist sympathies. Al Jaze, his, whatever.

So he had a real thing. Probably at the beginning, then that power went to his head. Piersy became an alcoholic. And then he was accusing her. Anybody who said anything to robert became a communist. Reporters,

celebrities. Would you call it essentially the first canceled culture that we experienced? It was a canceled culture type of an environment. It's very, very interesting Patrick. Tremendous, tremendous analogy to today. How concerned are you about how far

this thing can go? Are we at a tip and point where there's no turning around? I'm very concerned about it. It's a little bit different because mostly these laws we're talking about had and have a good purpose and have a history of being used for a good purpose and then they begin to become abused when you go into maybe a second generation or a third generation of using them

and people that don't have the same moral constraints see the advantages they can get out of it uh... whether you're talking about RICO which would be one of the early or the Patriot Act Things like that. And right now, so we fast forward from 1981, 182, when they never used RICO, to now, basically, it's all of this secret surveillance that they do. Rico's almost irrelevant to the things they use now. And I see all these lies to the FISA court, but no consequence to it.

It means the next guy's going to lie even more. How do you view the government? It's very corrupt. How do you view the government? Listen, you can't draw, you can't throw a blanket over the entire, everybody in the government, obviously, but the government is corrupt.

There's no doubt about it. How do you beat a government that won two wars and prints its own money? Chas Bombatieri said that I've forgotten the last part of it. They do basically what they want, Patrick. It's become a, I personally believe this country in a lot of trouble. I don't think we're going to recover. I think it's reached a point where we're in a lot of trouble. I worry about my kids and my grandchildren. And you're talking

to a guy that was a criminal at one time. Going back to saying this government being corrupt, when has the government never been corrupt? I mean, historically, if you look at government, I can't think of any government I've ever read about. No. That hasn't officially used their power to bully people. No. Kennedy's were clearly the worst. They were caught with everything. I mean, It was ridiculous what they did, and we did. But here's the difference. I agree with what he said. When we had, when we doing all these things, I call it, we had our beak in it.

Otherwise, we took a little bite of the pie. Like I said about that woman walking around with the dress. I give $5 a dress. These people want $30 or $40 out of that dress. So now a woman can't even go buy a dress. She's going to go look for the John's Bargain store or something. That's the difference. We took pieces.

I was in Paul's house doing a garbage strike was sitting in his house he sent for Jimmy Brown to win the union there. Clean up these things. You got garbage stacked up in front of hospitals,

old age homes, schools. Clean that up. You could win with everything else. What are we animals? It wasn't he didn't want the whole part. He was content on taking a piece and not hurting everybody. And I've heard it with my own two years.

So what he's saying is 100% right. We all did it. I did it as well. I don't want to say I'm a good guy, but I do have children and grandchildren. It's like he does. And I worry about that because they're so greedy, they want the whole part. And they don't care who dies. You know, I'll say this, we've talked about people.

I believe Mario Cuom was the worst guy. The father? Absolutely. Not Mario, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Chris Commer or Andrew? Governor Coleman. Okay, Governor Coleman. Mario was a pretty decent guy.

Yes, he was a decent guy. He was a decent guy. I don't think his father would have proven him. He's your era, right? Yes. Yes. How did you guys view him? It was a legitimate policy.

Did you ever deal with him? Did you have any dealings? Did the mob do business with them or now? I had some experience. with him and meet Esposito at the time. Favors? Or no. Favor?

Favors? Yes. So the mob helped Mario out? He wasn't an enemy. I'll put it that way. No, I'm not saying anybody else. Yeah. But wait a minute.

This is, what does that mean you help Mario out? Like, in what way? Was it helping him in an election? Was it helping him in a? Listen, you know, you fund operations that they have, you get a favor and return. Look, I can only tell you this. We, it wasn't easy to get licensed to be a wholesaler at the time of the gasoline business.

And we had, we needed political clout to do it. It wasn't easy to get it. He helped. We had help. Midespizio, this guy, there was a couple of people that were favorable to us. Many names were brought up. So I asked them, I said, who was easier to bribe, you know, when you were a mobster? Was it the Republicans, the Democrats, who was it?

They said, not even close. It was always easier to bribe and buy, you know, Democrats. I said, give me names. anybody that maybe you work with, they can talk about. We started kind of going through a list of names. They spoke very favorably about Mario Cuomo, Governor Mario Cuomo. Yeah, I would too.

Yeah, and they said very good things. But they also said, we had him in our pockets, you know, meaning the fact. They had him in their pocket somewhat because of his own, of his own limitations in his thinking, and somewhat because of his wife. So his wife's family, and I hate to say this, because she's a lovely woman. I think Matilda is just a grand lady.

But this is part of the Italian experience, had mafia connections. And the governor was always afraid that if he ran, they would be exploited. And I opposed Mario in the sense of my political philosophy was completely different than his, certainly at that point of my life.

Even though I endorsed him for governor, I'll explain why later, I needed the money for the city. I always thought Mario, did it. I don't think, I know, I know and really can't quite describe in detail to you, it wouldn't be right, the details of it. And it's not nearly as serious as he thought it was. I mean, it's the kind of thing you could easily explain as had nothing to do with Matilda, had nothing to do with Mario. And it's the kind of thing that happened back in those days

when you had to conduct a business and if you didn't play ball with them, they were victims. They They easily could have been interpreted that way. That's the way I interpreted it. He saw shadows about it. You know how sometimes people are more embarrassed about something than they should be? I always thought that was the case with Mario. Largely because he was very ethical and a very good man. Mario was.

Yeah, very, very good man. And someone I respected greatly. I hate to get into Governor Como. I will a little bit because he's Italian. I can't stand it. You can't stand Governor Cuomo? No. I won't because he's Italian.

I'm embarrassed to have somebody do what he did as an Italian. Why is that? He killed 15,000 people by putting people with the coronavirus in with all people. I don't give a fuck. Who tells me to do that, whether it's Trump, the president, the vice president, you, him, I would never do it. And I'm a badass. I would never do it. So when he gets caught doing that, and if he's, you know, he's not.

And if you look, there's money trail. There's all kinds of trails. He's going to get a slap on a wrist and killed $15,000 people. I'm actually curious. How do you feel about that? Because you killed 19, the number that you hear about. You involved in 19. You clarified the last time we did.

So the 19 that you were involved in, you get 20-something years, right? You hear the stories, your father, 50-some, 55 years total. His number is 40. Nobody knows the real number because Sunday doesn't seem like the type of person I would ever tell anybody would do that. But you see all these officials that get away with murder and, hey, was a mistake. We shouldn't do it.

How do you process it yourself? I don't care who gets away with anything. I'm not against, some person stole, like he says, well, but taxes didn't pay enough. I don't give a shit.

Some of my business. I don't care. But when you do things like that, you have no concern. It's not that I say, well, I did a 20-year sentence. And this guy's not going to do it, too.

I'm not even worried about my son. I'm beyond that. He's not, he's 70, I'm 76. But I think of my daughter, my son, my grandchildren, great-grandchildren who aren't even born, are going to deal with shit like this. Coming up on Mafia States. They say, you want to test someone's character, give it power. character, give it power.

When you were in our life, if you abused your power, you didn't last. You got people in government that are 81 years old that have been abusing their power occasions the day they got in office. I did it with the teams, as he did it with the guests. We did these things with using our power with unions and so forth.

And they're doing the same thing. It's that, Michael Flamesh or Sammy the book. It's the teachers union. And fortunately believe that from roughly the time that the pandemic broke, there's been the worst, most damaging assault on our civil rights and our constitutional rights ever in history of this country. waves of grain For

Purple Mountain Majestines Above the Fruited Plain America Sweet America

God's chances On these are things Oh, we cry that give With a river For sea to shine in sea Yeah Oh, beautiful

Four heroes Proved In liberated stride Hey, mark that's up there, country loving, mercy more than life.