The Chris Cuomo Project - A Major Democratic Donor on Money, Politics, and Kamala Harris’ Tough Road Ahead

Episode Date: August 13, 2024

Influential Democratic fundraiser John Morgan (founder, Morgan & Morgan law firm) joins Chris Cuomo to discuss his decades of political fundraising for prominent figures like Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. Morgan shares his perspective on the current state of campaign finance, the effects of Citizens United, and his concerns about Kamala Harris’s candidacy. He also offers a surprising take on why he believes Donald Trump might win the next election. Through candid stories and insider knowledge, Morgan provides a revealing look at how money drives political power and what it means for the future of American democracy. Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Join Chris Ad-Free On Substack: http://thechriscuomoproject.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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happened? Oh boy, do I have the guest for you. I'm Chris Cuomo. Welcome to the Chris Cuomo Project. John Morgan. Now you google that name and Morgan and Morgan is gonna come up, the largest personal injury firm syndicate in the country, okay? Probably in the world. And when you have a lot of money, you know what you become? Important in politics.

And John Morgan has bundled a lot of money for the Democrats and Republicans, but he can take you inside the process of how money works in politics, conversations with Pelosi, about Bill Clinton, about Barack Obama, about his concerns with Trump, about what's happening with Harris and Biden and how it happened from a perspective that you never hear in politics. Not a pundit, not a former, not an administration guy, the money guy. And he's going to tell you why the most dangerous, insidious, poisonous money in politics is not illegal money, it's legal money.

Wow, let's get after it. ["The Big Game"] John, I have to say it is a true pleasure. You blew up my show, you blew up the internet. People were so moved, is the right word, by your candor and your honesty in the assessment. So let's give people some shape to your experience in politics.

How long have you been active in politics? Really active, I would say, Clinton 1996. I had served on the finance committee, I would say, Clinton 1996. I had served on the finance committee. I hosted him. I met Terry McAuliffe, who was the son-in-law of Richard Swan from Orlando, Florida. And I became a bundler for Bill Clinton and a friend for life.

And that's how I first got into it. What is a bundler? How important are they in politics? How many are there? What people don't know? Well, a bundler is somebody who asks friends and family to give money for a political candidate. And they have become less important in this year. It's now there

were bundlers who were very important and now the billionaires have really, you know, a guy like me, if I raised three or four billion dollars, I don't know if that's even significant anymore. Back in the day, if you raise that kind of money, you went to the Christmas dinner and were seen in the map room downstairs. But now I'm lucky to get to the Easter egg roll. And so they used to be something, but with Elon Musk and Jobs' wife and Mrs. Gates, I mean, we are now peons.

But- What changed the game? Citizens United? Citizens United. And look, and there's so many back doors and these super PACs and I never liked the super PACs because you got all these people making these big commissions. So I always liked to get in mind to the candidate instead of to the sales people. But I've bundled, look, I had Obama in my house when he was president. You know, you can raise a lot of money when you bring the most dynamic politician in the

last hundred years to your home. But my neighbors didn't like it because I live in a very Republican neighborhood. They were protesting him as he came in. So I've bundled for him Hillary, Clinton, Kerry, and then Biden. And I was very important for Biden because he was gone. They couldn't even get a surrogate to speak for him. And I had to do that because they thought he was gone. And then he won South Carolina, and then he went. Now, your personal politics, you're independent, pissed off by the far left of the Democratic Party,

which is not unusual. But do you think that you are a dyed in the wool Democrat, or are you open to Republicans as well? I hope you don't take this as bootlicking, but I'm like a Mario Cuomo Democrat. With a much better head of hair. Which, but not the speaking skills. No, I believe in doing the most for the most with the least.

But I also believe very strongly in capitalism. When they started putting socialists at the end of Democrat, bye bye. Because socialists to me end of Democrat, bye bye. Because socialists to me is a weak country. The only reason those countries exist is because we have a nuclear capability. So I would describe myself like that.

And have you ever raised money for Republican candidate? Oh yeah. Charlie Chris was in my law firm after he was governor. Wilton Simpson was the president of the Florida Senate. He's now the Ag Commissioner. We started a bank together. I gave him two million. I didn't start it. I gave him two million to start a bank.

Yeah, I play, you know, I'm more a people than candidate kind of guy. So that's how I describe myself. What do you want people to know about how you made your money? My brother got hurt. My brother just passed away. And my brother got hurt when he was 18. We were very, very poor. It was against Disney World. They fought him like crazy, like he was the Taliban.

And I became enraged. I didn't know what a personal injury lawyer was. But that happened 47 years ago. And when it happened, I became so upset that I said, you know, I couldn't be a doctor or an accountant because I was no good in math or science. So I was, you know, political science. And so I went to law school. When I came out, I only interviewed to be a personal injury lawyer. A lot of people were trying to hire me because I was president of this organization at the University of Florida called Florida Blue Keys. So I had a lot of offers, but I took the job as a personal injury lawyer. I've never done anything else. I've

never represented a defendant, an insurance company. To me, they are the Taliban. And so when you have purpose and passion in your life, you're very good at. And if you don't, if I say, are we able to cuss on this? Oh, yeah. Knock yourself out. I say to people, I wrote a book called You Can't Teach Hungry. And I said, if work is work, you're fucked. And I believe that most people, a lot of people get in the car every day, they put the key in, they're going to work. I didn't need an alarm clock, because I was up.

And over the years, you know, I didn't plan this, but over the years, we built the largest injury firm in the history of the world. We have a thousand lawyers, 6,000 people. We've settled $20 billion worth of settlements and verdicts. We try a lot of cases. But every time I go into one of my firms in my lobbies, I know that those people were Tim. My brother's name was Tim. And so that's what got me into this. And now I'm an old man with gray hair, but work was never work for me.

It was never a job, it wasn't a vocation, it was an avocation. That's a great distinction. Two words that are lost to time. Vocation, which is from the Latin, what gives voice, what you give voice to, avocation, is that which is aside your voice. So it would be like a hobby. So let me ask you this.

You are clearly not on empty. You got a lot of gas in the tank and you have a lot of passion still. When you look at our society, where is it directed for you in terms of being worth getting involved? Well, what I believe is this. In Florida, I've funded three constitutional amendments. I funded one to legalize medical marijuana. Why did I do that?

Marijuana was very important to Tim's health. He was on Xanax and Percocet and opioids, but marijuana was his salvation. I failed the first time, I failed the first time, because you gotta get 60% of the vote. Tim called me the next day, so what are we gonna do now? I said, you know, Tim, always tell people failure is your friend. If you don't use failure to win, I said, we're going to

go and do it again, we're going to win. And I did it again, and we passed. It was 73% of the vote in Florida. From that, I thought, you know, maybe I could do something else with my money. I called it political philanthropy. And I had another constitutional amendment to raise the minimum wage from $8 an hour to $15 an hour in Florida. Everybody told me it couldn't happen. I came up to New York City and it's not gonna happen.

It happened. How, how do you win those? Here's how. You take the D and the R away. And you will then find that most of us agree on most things. Now I don't agree with the maga people, the ones that you know, they are the toothless guys. And I don't agree with the squad. And I don't agree with the squad. I find them both repulsive. But they're Ds and Rs. And so everybody just like cattle, both D and R.

But when you take the D and R away, we all really agree on both things. And how you do it is you just make your case. I mean, the thing that frustrates me with the minimum wage too, our hamburgers are going to go up. Fuck you. So what? It's not fair.

We built a food bank. It's called the Morgan & Morgan Hunger Relief Center in Orlando. It's Second Harvest. We feed 250,000 people a month. And guess who they are, Chris? It's the working poor. They come in uniforms. They come from grocery stores in their uniforms

to get free food. See, that's what your party's gotta remember though, John. You know, I was just doing this piece about Harris and what Harris has to do to win. And this idea that, hey, you know, the economy is really just chirping right along. That doesn't work as a narrative. You got to meet people where they are, and there is pain in the pocketbook. And if Harris doesn't speak to that, you got a problem. When they came out with Bidenomics, like that's the mistake. Here's why. Look, 40% of America doesn't have $400 in the bank.

60% of America doesn't have, it's paycheck to paycheck. America's hurting. If you go to the Morgan Morgan Hunger Relief Center, you can see it every day. Can you imagine going to work and then showing up with your kids to get vegetables and food? Yeah, because we keep hearing this story and I don't understand why people don't

believe there's a constituency there for them to access on a national level. All those people of common concern as you said earlier could be knit together into a massive constituency and yes for you at home who are watching this or listening to it wherever he just said Morgan and Morgan that's who this John is. We've all seen the commercials. This is what he built. This is why he's so important in politics. But doesn't my politics sound like your dad's? Well, yes.

He had a... Yes, it's about where you're coming at it from, right? Pop was first generation, was still seen as an ethnic. The last joke my father ever told, okay? And he was funny. People didn't know that side of him as well. He's losing it, right?

He's home, we got the nurse, it's a whole nine yards, the whole misery thing. And he hears, he couldn't read anymore. He lost his ability to read. Nerve deterioration was horrible. And he would have people read to him. So someone's reading him a piece about me and how I and my success at CNN

is proof of white privilege. And he stops the guy and he goes, hot damn, we made it, Christopher's white, he said. Because, and the guy was looking at him who read it to him, like, what the hell? But he was an ethnic gap-tooth grin, mercurial Mario, swarthy visage. You know, they always described him as an Italian.

Most people to this day who asked me about my father and why he didn't run for president, say without offense, they're not trying to offend me. There was something about the mafia though, right? I mean, he had some mafia issue because he was Italian. So he was coming at it that way. Huge chip on his shoulder, huge champion of the underclass. I'll show you.

He was the original, the OG anti-elitist. Everybody says it now, but they're really just hating on success. He wasn't hating on success. He was hating on people who thought he was less than. And it was very formative for him. Support for the Crispwomo Project comes from Cozy Earth. Is your house a home? Is it a sanctuary? Is it where you can feel and be your best? Well, if not, check out Cozy Earth and their products because they have helped me and my wife do exactly that,

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of how important money is. And you're a great storyteller. So I want you to like let people in a little bit. Don't you know, fuck anybody over who you don't want to. But what should people know about how it works? It works like this. You run for Congress, you get elected, and the next day you go to a little room in D.C. and start calling for money for the next election two years down the road. All they do is call for money. All they do is call for money nonstop.

Just calling for money, calling for money. And that's what I think burns a lot of them out, is that calling for money, because money is the fuel. And I think that's why you lose a lot of politicians. And right now, I mean, I'm inundated with phone calls. And you see these telephone numbers that are showing up on your cell phone, it's these little call centers in DC, because you can't do it in your office office and you got to walk across the streets to make the phone calls. And you know, Citizens United was a disaster, I think, but you got to play the game now. And so the big money donors are really taking over, but it never ends. I mean, today, I've received four calls from four United States senators looking for money. Now, what do they say they need it for? Like, what does the money do for them?

TV, internet, staff, knocking on doors, signs, all of it. And it's never ending. And it's never enough. And a lot of them end up, you know, sometimes they end their campaigns like in this campaign, all the money we're raising, both sides will end up with money in the bank. They'll over raise. And you know, and then you got these people, the commission based people who are out there selling, they're getting their percent. And so they're, they're calling too. So money is, you know, you always follow the money.

You gotta follow the money to see who's given to what and why. And that's what you see in politics. And it's, you know, your brother had to do it. Your dad had to do it. It's a necessary evil. If you don't do it, you don't get to go on TV. You don't get to define yourself. You don't get to define your opponent.

And you lose. Trump is always't get to define yourself, you don't get to define your opponent, and you lose. Trump is always desperately trying to raise money, but the counter-narrative is that he gets so much free media. Do you ever say to these guys, go do more interviews and you won't have to run commercials as much? Go get on TV? You know, I do because I think people piss a lot of money away.

One thing I have found about all these political pros, they're dumb as fuck and they usually lose. I mean, when you go and say, you know, look, if I manage, with all due respect to my great friend, Jim Messina, I could have won the Obama race. You can't out-coach recruiting in sports, and even John Morgan can win with Obama.

But when you look at their records before Obama and after Obama, they fucking lose everything, and we think they're geniuses. They won one race. They won one race because Obama was magical. Magical. one race because Obama was magical, magical. We've been, you know, my kids were driving home from college to vote for him. You know, that doesn't happen.

Do you think it was just his race? What made him special? Obama, some people I believe are like divinely created. You know, Martin Luther King was divinely created. Abraham Lincoln, I think sometimes God goes, you know what, I'm just going to give us that guy. I'm going to give us this girl. What made his cadence, his cool? There's not enough ohs and smooths to describe Barack Obama. He's that good. And Clinton had it too. Clinton had it too.

Clinton told me one time, I said, you know, what's your secret? He goes, my secret is this, treat everybody in life like there's an election tomorrow, and you're running and they're voting. He said, I call it one at a time. And when you do that, that kind of adds up. Now some of these, you know, John Kerry ran the day John Kerry blocked up the nomination.

Me and him had lunch at the Citrus Cup in Orlando. And over the course of the lunch, he used the word visceral about five or six times. So I'm looking out on I-4, which is where the election was going to be decided in Florida. He says, what do you think? I said, during this lunch, you use the word visceral five or six times. I said, you see out there on I-4? I said, 90% of the people don't know what the fuck visceral means. And I'm about 50-50 on it myself. I'm not that, I mean, I had to, you know,

I said, you gotta dumb it down. Well, he didn't, he went, you know, kite boarding instead and fucked himself by just getting on the kite board. He was running against George Bush. George Bush didn't need to dumb it down. He just needed to be himself. So I'll tell you what, during the election, that election, I'm down in Texas. Bush shows up, then Governor Bush, shows up with a truck that is dragging a bass boat,

jumps out, he's got a blue shirt on, jeans, cowboy boots. I call my brother and I say, you have a problem. He was friends with Gore. And he says, oh, he fucking stunt with the thing. I said, it's not a stunt. The guy got out, he didn't say, how do you like my truck and my bass boat? He just started talking about how they were all caught up

in buying new engines all the time. Cause everybody knew he was rich. So he wasn't gonna play, you know, it's really important in politics, as we both know to be authentic to yourself. Cause we're gonna, people like me are gonna prove that you're not being that real easy. So, and he was like, you know,

we keep buying bigger and bigger engines for these things and I never catch more fish. I don't understand why they catch me with the engine. I obviously should be focusing on what lures we're using. And I was like, oh, this guy's a problem because that was exactly what Al Gore didn't have. Al Gore up close and personal, you'd be like, this guy can't lose.

You'd see him on TV or on the stage, you'd say, this guy can't win. And of course that's how it played out. I'll tell you an Al Gore story. Let me hear it. I supported Bill Bradley at the end. We love him. I just had him on, by the way.

He's the best. One time years later, a doorman, Bill Bradley wrote me a handwritten card. A doorman that worked in his building in New York was coming to Orlando, and Bill Bradley took the time to write me to introduce me to this guy and say, can you help him get a job in Orlando? He wasn't doing it for anything other than helping the doorman. But Gore came to Orlando, and he was at an elementary school and invited me to come out and see him. So I take my daughter daughter who's in the third grade, Kate,

we're sitting there and my daughter starts tapping me on the leg. And she goes, daddy, this guy's a fake. My daughter, and guess what? Al Gore might not have been a fake, but he was so damn stiff that he seemed fake. Yep. To your point about authentic.

Now, I believe Gore won the election. But that was Al Gore. And I was a Bill Bradley guy because I just felt that he was authentic, that he was the smartest guy in the room, and that his heart was good. Right. And Bill Brandt, I mean, Gorg grew up in a hotel. I mean, if you grew up in a hotel and your playmates are the doorman, you're gonna be fucked up. Yeah, no question. Bradley also had trouble translating what made him a mad, what makes him a magical personality to the public. Although I will say, it didn't play well at the time. He was too strident about it.

But when he told people to fuck off about his wife, and he didn't wanna talk about that, she wasn't part of the election, and their relationship was fine, but it's none of their business. Everybody played that cynically, but I had so much respect for it because I was like, we only care about this shit for bad reason anyway.

We're only looking for a chink in the armor or for a distraction from what people don't want to hear from us, which is the stuff that matters most. So I really had my respect. Now, somebody who you and I are gonna cross swords on a little bit, you were bragging about to no end. You referred to her on my show as little Bo Peep

with razor blades who was willing to do lion shit to get rid of Biden and get blood on her face and her teeth and take them out. Nancy Pelosi, why do you believe that Nancy Pelosi is the best? She wins. She wins. She wins. And she is a strategist like no other,

and she works behind the scenes. But I also believe that Nancy Pelosi believes what she says. Most politicians don't. I believe that she has this motherly instinct that people feel. But if she's got to get the nunchucks and the brass knuckles out, she can do that. So I've always loved her because she's a Catholic.

I'm a Catholic. But she, and she doesn't run for a Catholic faith. But she doesn't let it. Bleed into her politics, like on issues like abortion. So I just always thought the world of her because she is authentic to me. As she is, you know, she learned all that from her daddy over in Baltimore. And. And she's been a great friend. So I never say no to Nancy Pelosi because she's never said no to me. And I admire, I believe that she's the most famous female politician

in the history of America. Hillary would have been, but it's Nancy Pelosi. Why do you cross swords with her? Well, she doesn't like me. Why? But that's easy. Because I don't pay fealty to the Democratic Party. Okay. And she believes, my understanding is, that I bend over backwards to be fair and have created false equivalencies. My answer to her is,

I don't like the party system. I'm against the two party system. So she knows I'm against it. And all it does is take us down. It works for the two parties. And I think the Democrats are not as toxic as the Republicans, thanks to Trump. But it doesn't matter to me

because the game is a shitty game that we have to change. We have to have open primaries. We have to have ranked choice voting. We have to get more moderate voices because we're magnifying these minorities and these fringes. And it's not even a close call to me. So she rejects that, but that's because she's in the game. And I believe

that she was instrumental in Trump's ascendance. I think that what you value in her checks boxes for people and what they hate about the establishment. And this lady is 80 something years old. She was in there way too long. And it's all death by a thousand cuts and inside manipulation and corralling her people to do what she says they have to do to keep power. And you get 30% approval rate, 99% seat retention rate, or 95%, whatever it is. And she is at the root of all those problems.

And that was why he did well. What I would say to that is, don't hate the player, hate the game. Because I believe that she has kept the squad in check. The squad drove me out. The squad drove me out. FanDuel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling, out. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connexontario.ca. Please play responsibly. Now at JoeFresh, get 20% off children's active wear.

Only until Wednesday, August 14th. Shop smart with one cart and check everything off your back to school list all in one place. Now that's some smart shopping. Conditions apply. See in store or joefresh.com for details. I, you know, I agree with you. I want you to tell me something while I have you. So I was told that the reason that AOC came out for Biden was the grip of Nancy Pelosi.

But I thought that Nancy wanted Biden out. So even though AOC needs to be careful about Nancy because she put her on the committees, so she wanted to be nice, why do you think she came out for Biden if Pelosi wanted to get rid of him? Because Biden over the, you know, the progressives, once he got elected, he moved to the left.

And the, you know, Bernie Sanders came out for him, AOC, the, the progressives appreciated what Biden did. He moved to the left. So it was his move, not Pelosi. I think so. Interesting. And why do you think Pelosi wanted to get rid of Biden? I don't think she wanted to. I think she likes him. I think she loves him. I think though that the down balance, the House, like I said on your show,

this is about the White House, but it's also about the House. And at the end of the day, I think Biden was gonna stay until Donlon and Reschetti went to his house that Sunday and said, you're not only going to maybe lose the Rust Belt, you're going to lose Virginia and New Mexico. And the house was sinking.

And Pelosi is a creature of the house, that she loves the house. And so I think she tried to do it in a way that could have been gentle. I don't think she likes being the person that had to do this. And the truth of the matter is, now that we know everything we know,

she probably did the right thing for the Democratic Party. You know, and I think that Suzy Wallace is probably sorry she debated Biden. I think Suzy Wallace is like, you know, be careful what you wish for. They made me sorry, they made him look so old and so feeble for so long. Their strategy turned around to be a boomerang right up their asses.

Yeah, I mean, and again, you know, I have tremendous respect for your perspective. And so with me, every conversation we ever have, personally or on, you know, being recorded, whatever, for your perspective. And so with me, every conversation we ever have personally or on being recorded, whatever, you know, I always just want it straight. It's all that matters to me. Here's how I thought this story went down.

And I wanna see how it squares with your understanding. So Biden is struggling, polls are going south. The Republicans make a calculation that is obvious and ham-fisted the way everything Trump is, which is our best thing with this guy is that he's old and he seems like he's losing it. So they seed a story, S-E-E-D. I started hearing from people on the right

that Biden is out like a month and a half before anything happens, okay? I make my calls. Biden's people are like, yeah, in their fucking dreams. And, you know, whether it's Pelosi's people, Schumer's people, everybody, Hakeem Jeffries, everybody's people around and be like, yeah, they wish. And these are not people who would lie to me. Like, I've known them my whole life and they know I don't really care that much. So there's no reason for me to lie. I don't live on the incremental reporting. That's not what I do.

I'm a perspective person. I'm not a here's the newest niblet thing. So they see the story. The media picks up on it a little bit because we're bored. The debate happens. There's a great avenue of opportunity now to push the narrative. The right doubles down on it and they start making predictions that sound good and really scary to the white Trump base, which is Michelle Obama's going to run.

Everybody thinks that that's a flattering thing when the MAGA people say Michelle Obama. I don't think you get Trump without Barack Obama. There was a white fright reaction to what Obama represented and the encroachment of the radical left that brought us the movement that brought us Trump. Michelle Obama is the ultimate spirit animal of that fear among that population. That's why they bring up her name, because the irony is,

I think she'd kick Trump's ass, as do you. But they are seeding that story. Now you have Democrats who were nervous, but quiet, and complicit. The debate comes, the media comes, and they do what Democrats do uniquely well that Republicans don't, which is succumb to media pressure. The Democrats are susceptible to the media because they're their friends, and they worry about their opinions. And the right usually doesn't.

They're more estranged and they're more cohesive. And that's what began the momentum of the Democrats taking a hard look at the realities of what was going on and realizing all the trends are going the wrong way. And we have no more cards to play with Biden. He can't be better. He can't. He is who he is.

He's sometimes good and he's sometimes scary because of his sundowner or whatever he has. I don't care what it is. And that then they wound up picking up the momentum of that and making the move against Biden to Harris because they just couldn't overcome, even though a lot of them didn't want Harris, some on the left didn't want her because they wanted someone more progressive

and other people just wanted process and competition, but they couldn't move past the sitting vice president because they wanted someone more progressive and other people just wanted process and competition, but they couldn't move past the sitting vice president who's a black female in the party of DEI. And that's how it happened. What do I have wrong? You might be wrong. First of all, the Friday before Sunday that Biden left

was my brother's funeral. Frank Biden, his brother was there. He was still in the race. I said, Frank, is he getting out? No, that's Friday. there, he was still in the race. I said, Frank, is he getting out? No, that's Friday. Sunday, he's out. When he got out and endorsed Harris, I tweeted that Biden has said,

fuck you to the people pushing him out. Because the people pushing him out wanted a convention, including, I hear, Barack Obama. He wanted Kelly. I hear. I don't know. Pelosi said to her delegation, we're going to have a mini convention. I think Biden said, be careful what you wish for. You're going to fuck with me, I'm going to fuck with you. You're going to fuck with me? I'm going to fuck with you." Because he did it so suddenly, on a sheet of white paper and then added her to the end. That was his way of saying, if this is what you want, you're not going to control it.

I am. And he's got a temper, as you know. He doesn't seem like he has a temper, but you know, he has his temper. Yep. So I think that's what happened at the end. And now we got Harris who, you know, I had nothing against her. The person I just didn't like the process. I would rather had people that was too, it's too late. We can't do it. We don't have enough time to do it.

Listen, every year, a bunch of men go down to Key West. They have fantasy football drafts. They fucking pick their team in two days. First pick, Tom Brady. Okay, you're on the board. We can do it. We can do it in one day. You know, because here's the deal. Kelly, Whitmer, Newsome, Harris, Bashir. Shapiro. Shapiro, who do you want?

And now mix and match. One time Obama said to me, he said, you know, you and I could fix America in 15 minutes on the back of an envelope. He didn't say this, but hey, raise the Social Security age to 67. Means test Social Security. John Morgan, you don't get fucking dick when you retire. Here, America's fixed, the budget's balanced. We got a surplus instead of a deficit, but we can't do it because of politics. Right. And that's the poison of it.

The other narrative that I heard that I didn't like, but again, it was being seeded by the right. It was really interesting. So they say the chiefs of the Democratic party have decided he's out already. Now I knew that had to be bullshit, John, because as we both know, there are not chiefs. It's about who's relevant in that moment and why

based on what's happening within the party. And if you were going to say chiefs, you'd have to say Pelosi and Schumer. You'd have to because nothing happens that they don't know about on some level. Okay? Those names weren't offered. The offered names were Barack Obama, who was, as you know, not close to Joe Biden, not in his ear about this, not his, you know, his close to Joe Biden, not in his ear about this, not his, you know, his consulieri or any of that.

And the second name was one of the best bad plays ever. The guy says to me, and I'll tell you who it was in a second, but I don't want to prejudice before the analysis, Ron Klain. I said, wait a minute, Ron Klain. Ron Klain is what? He said, second most important person in the Democratic party.

I said, the guy calling my brother for advice about what's going on right now, who left Biden to go make money, you think he's calling the shots in the Democratic party when he's not even working for anybody? And that's when I knew this was bullshit, what they were saying, and they were just front running the story

in a way that made sense. Had you ever heard that Obama and Ron Klain were the ones driving this boat? Forced by now? Yeah. Well, you know, you know, George Clooney, and you know, he's from Kentucky like me, we get mixed up all with everybody mixes us up.

Makes sense. Makes sense. They look. Yeah. You got a little bit better presence. But George Clooney did not write that op-ed without Barack Obama. Right. I mean, I don't know it for a fact, but if I had to bet a lot of money and I think Clooney did it from the heart. Right. I don't think Clooney, you know, Clooney is a substantial guy.

He's not just a pretty face. But I think they got worried about it. They got worried about it. And I believe, as much as I love Joe Biden, I believe he would have been slaughtered in the election. Now that we see what has happened. I mean, even when he even when he did his address from the from the Oval Office, he was, you know, having trouble on the teleprompter. Yeah, I mean, look, he was definitely in minutes. He's definitely on the way down. There's no question about it. The rate and you duration. Joe Biden had a great saying in politics and it applied to him in this.

If you're not going up, you're going down. That's right. Remember that's his, that was his deal. And that's what happened to him. I own nursing homes in Florida and there's this look and it starts like, you know, like Mitch McConnell. I mean, Mitch McConnell looks like he just escaped from one flu over the cuckoo's nest.

Right. I mean, he doesn't know where the fuck he is. No, but they don't talk about him the way they went after Biden, which just shows you it's all party. They didn't demand he step it out. But so I think that Clooney was absolutely part, you know, he didn't run that fundraiser thing. It was run by another of Biden's Hollywood guys, but that's not the point. Clooney felt what he felt. I think he's acting in good faith.

Yes. I'm told it was a courtesy call to the president that he and Clooney, former president, and he and Clooney aren't that close. It's that he just wanted to reach out to him to make sure it wasn't going to piss him off. But that my understanding, unless I'm getting it wrong, and you tell me John, because you know Ron Klain is a Biden consult at this point, but he is not in charge or influential with anyone and anything that had anything to do with this. And he was backing Biden until the end.

So he certainly wasn't part of the move to push him out. Do we agree on that? Yes, and we also know that Klayne gave us Harris because when Chris Dodd and I were trying desperately to get Val Demmys, my congressman from Orlando, and I lost out, and I found out I lost out to Ron Klain. Right. So, yeah, but I mean, Ron Klain was the president whisperer.

He trusted Ron Klain. I never understood why Ruschetti didn't get to be chief of staff instead of Ron Klain. Ruschetti deserved it. He's the loyal soldier, and Ruschetti's the one that gave us the infrastructure package. But he never got rewarded. Well that's why Steve Rashidi is who he is.

Is that he believes in the work and the ideas. Klain wanted more of the shine, but he's certainly not a chieftain of the Democratic Party. Also that Obama may have had his opinions about this and his preferences, but my understanding is again, subject to what you say next, John, is that he wasn't running anything. That he, it's not that there are people who are listening to him and he's calling the shots in the Democratic party, it's not how it works.

I agree, but I also wondered why the Clintons endorsed so quickly. I mean, they were like, they endorsed her like that. So I always wonder how that happened. I think for Hillary it was that she's a woman and they want to win and Biden's a loser. And they believe he's always been a loser and that it was silly that he was ever in there

in the first place, but it was just right person at the right time. Hillary's still bitter. I raised a shitload of money for Hillary. I was destroyed when she lost. I mean, you know, very seldom you go to bed like, you know, fuck four years. I mean, what, you know, what just happened? I mean, I was Hillary all the way.

And I believe Hillary, I believe that if people had got to know Hillary, like, you know, or in my kitchen, she would have won. But she's gotta be that person. I'll tell you, I know her obviously, right? But it is really frustrating to interview her. It's really frustrating, John, because you know she's not giving you who she is. Right.

And she's playing you the whole time. And I can't say that because I'll never talk to her again. Right. But her husband's not like that. Her husband's not like that. There's finesse, there's an artfulness to his answers. He is the best. He's a, you know, we were pen pals during the pandemic. Everybody's so bored in the pandemic. We're

all talking to each other. But even now, if I text Bill Clinton, he texts back. He says me funny shit, I send him funny shit. I think he's the best I've ever seen. Ever. My brother was totally enamored of him. That's why he went down to Washington to work for him at HUD. I told Clinton, one of my pen pals, I said, you know, because I read somewhere that he could actually run for vice president. Yeah. And then here's how smart he is. He writes me back.

He goes, I said, then if something happened, you would be, he goes, I don't know about that. And if the house is led by the Republicans, I don't know if I could constitutionally move into president to be the speaker. Man, he's that smart. I could constitutionally move into president to be the speaker. Man, he's that smart. I mean, this guy. So smart and so talented and capable

that my father forgave him also largely because of my brother asking him to. If you made a mafia crack about my father, you were dead to him forever. And that's if he didn't hit you, okay? And when Planton was worried that my father was gonna run against him, and he put out the mafiosi stuff, my father was livid.

My brother went to him and was like, he didn't mean it that way. I know the guys from the South. That's how they talk about us. It was nothing personal. He doesn't know anything about you. And my father felt that it was so fundamental for him to run and win that he not only forgave him,

he nominated him at the convention. And I actually thought that his speech at the nominating convention in 92 or whenever it was was better than his keynote address in 1984 because it was more specific to getting it done for the Democrats. I felt that his speech in 1984 was a great and rare look at a social condition and a tale of two cities that this country can be. But that's how good my father thought Clinton was, that he forgave him for something I never

saw him forgive in anyone else ever again. Clint is a special guy. I remember one time he said something that I never forgot. There's a politician that had kind of fucked him over. And we were talking about it. And this applies to politics like nothing I ever heard. He said, John, the number one cause of Alzheimer's, as he had done a great thing for this person,

the number one cause of Alzheimer's is ambition. And I've never forgot that. And when you watch politics, when it comes to them and their own ambition, they won't stab you in the back, they'll stab you in the chest. Yes, lion shit. Lion shit, right in the chest. Yes. Lion shit. Lion shit right in your chest.

And, uh, so Bill Clinton to me is number one, all time. He left office with, with everything that happened was 66% approval. Republicans love Bill Clinton. Yep. He was just that guy. And the reason he's that guy is even today, he will text back John Morgan one at a time. He never forgot that.

I think, I mean, it was just, you know, people complain about what happened with Trump. Trump did all the shit he's accused of, whether or not it's crimes, whether or not it's crimes, whether or not it's worth prosecuting, those are separate discussions. But Clinton got chased for the stupidest shit in political history.

I mean, white water. You know, well, that's how it started, right? And that was really about Hillary. He didn't even know anything about that. No, he didn't care about Clinton. And I wound up with fucking around with a young girl. She never said it wasn't consensual. She never said there was anything wrong with it.

And they, of course it was wrong in quotes, but our entire country stopped for a year and a half trying to fry his ass for something that like, who knows how many of the people chasing after him were involved in the same shit. And for him to survive it as narrowly as he did with that, you know, that vote in the Senate and then to come back stronger, we've never seen anything like it. And Joe Biden has had probably one of the most consequential presidencies, at least since LBJ and probably FDR and being down to the 34.

I mean, whoever's running his messaging. That's the problem. But you know what? But here's what they do wrong. And I see this all the time in our political coverage. There is no economic reality except the economic reality of the group that you're speaking to.

So in this election, the people who are gonna decide it are independent voters who tend to be a little lower on the economic scale. That's the only story that you have to speak to. And it's not as good a story for the Democrats, I get it, but you have to deal with it. And the worst thing that you can do is tell them they're wrong about how they feel.

That is absolute kryptonite in politics. You can tell people things that aren't true. You can tell them things that will make their situation feel like it's gonna get better when it won't. But if you tell them that their pain isn't real, you are a dead man. And that's what the Democrats are flirting with right now is saying this is the best economy.

And what's really going on in America right now, if you really want to look at it, it's a race war. Why do I say that? The MAGA, the people with that one tooth, you know, dangling, they believe that the blacks and the browns are their problem. They believe that the illegal immigrants are their problem, taking their jobs, jobs they would never do. If you ever see somebody up on a skyscraper hanging with a bungee cord and suction cups and a squeegee. It's an illegal immigrant from Guatemala.

Now the blacks and the browns feel oppressed because they have been oppressed for so long. And they've sat at their kitchen tables listening to the stories, hearing, you know, white kids are not shot by police, black kids are. And what you have underneath is both groups believe that both sides are their problem. The Maggots with the one tooth swinging, that the illegal immigrants are taking their jobs. They won't do the jobs the Mexicans do. If you want to get rid of all the illegal immigrants,

be ready to pay $10 per strawberry. The blacks and the Browns are saying no. And so here's what we got. It's a race war and it's culminating with MAGA, Trump, and Harris. And it's going to get very, very nasty. And it's going to get into the gutter before it's over. Who do you think wins? I think Trump wins.

I hope he doesn't. I think Trump wins. I hope he doesn't. I will say this. When Trump was president, the money I made in tax savings is unbelievable. My jet was almost free with the Trump tax cuts. Now you want a free jet? Vote for Donald Trump.

Okay, vote. But it's all about what's in it for me. What's in it for me. The Pope said something great recently. He said, in the world now, what he's most troubled about is the global indifference. You know, you got this JD Vance, he's like a fat Don Trump Jr.

He's a disaster. I would not be surprised to see him dump. They look at Ukraine and say, write them off. Global indifference. Raising the minimum wage. My hamburger's going to go up a dollar. Global indifference. It's all about what's in it for me.

What's in it for me. I don't care about anything else. I think Trump will win because Harris has to run a perfect gamut. She's gotta win Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, keep Virginia, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Nevada. I mean, but I think she can because Trump doesn't look good now. I think Trump is very sorry.

He took the debate. I think Trump is sick. The Biden is gone. He's still talking about him and he's gone. But I think and I don't like, but I think he's gonna win. And then you know what? What? I'm gonna go get a new jet for free.

Do you think, are there, now that they changed horses, are they coming to you because they need fresh money? I've already raised 800. I don't, I'm not gonna participate because I've already given them 800. They don't need fresh money? I've already raised 800. I don't, I don't, I don't, I'm not going to participate because I've already given them 800, they don't need my money anymore. I've never been a big Harris fan because the debate in Iowa where she threw him under the bus, that pissed me off because it was premeditated. She had a t-shirt, but I said long ago that I'm Irish, but that's not my grudge

to hold that's not my grudge to hold. That's Joe Biden's brush of also John Morgan. You know, if I vote, I'm voting for Harris, but I'm not going to raise money for Harris because I'm not enthusiastic about it. I'm not passionate about it. And by the way, raising money for Democrats in Florida, especially where I live, is a motherfucker. It's hard.

I mean, it's hard. It's hard. It's hard. It's hard. You got to wind up promising everything. You got to go to every gala. You got to write checks for everything they come to you for the next three years. I got to have everybody who's doing business with me. Everybody who's building my apartment. I build apartments. I have nursing homes. You're going, you know, I'm going to all my vendors. They're coming. They don't even want to be there. They're coming to see me and ask for business. So, you know, but if it's Barack Obama, I'll put the arm on everybody. If it's Bill Clinton, I'll put the arm,

and it did for Joe Biden, because you know what I loved about Joe Biden? Here was a guy who every night got on the train, didn't lead a double life like the rest of these motherfuckers, got on a train, went home, had dinner with his family, had true, true trauma. When he called me the first time when he was running for president,

he started sobbing about his son, not fake tears, real tears. Yeah, I believe it. This guy is real. Right. And so I stayed with Joe Biden hard, hard, hard, all the way. They couldn't even get people to talk for him

because he was so dead in the water. And they called me up, they go, well, if he wins South Carolina, I said, look, if he wins South Carolina, they go, he's out of money. I said, listen, I live very close to Daytona Speedway. A lot of people win the 400 on E and guess what? They get the fucking tank filled up the next race. So, and that's what happened. He came swinging out of New, you know, South Carolina, game over. Thanks to Clyburn. Oh yeah, 100%. And he is a great man who I hope his legacy will be

very strong and instructive for people because Clyburn has been a leader in a very tricky time where the purity of the cause hasn't been there. And by the way, Clyburn wanted a mini convention. Yeah, that's the word. A lot of them did.

And look, they are where they are. They got bigger problems than themselves and they're lucky they're running against Trump because anybody else would have used the lack of process against them. But no one's gonna be swayed to vote for Trump by concerns about the democratic process within the Democratic Party.

The hypocrisy's there, but you're not gonna hear it from him, that's for sure. And it's really nuanced. It's not, I mean, this is an emergency type of thing they've done here. I mean, and guess what? You know who caused it? Trump, Trump pushed him out.

His people seeded it. His people seeded it. Yeah, they said Obama has decided he's out and Ron Klain. Bill O'Reilly said it on my show, that Obama and Ron Klain have decided. And it was complete nonsense. And it worked. Biden did not go gently.

No, why would he? He didn't think he should. His record didn't deserve it. His record didn't deserve it. The way I always left it is, I knew the sister would always protect the brother. I was always looking not to the wife, but to the sister. And I thought, if Valerie lets him go, he's okay. That was kind of my calculus. Because remember, I went to the state dinner for the Prime Minister of India, he was fantastic. I went to the Christmas thing, fantastic.

State of the Union, I'm like, this motherfucker's on fire. That's the last I saw it. Then here comes the debate and you're like, it's like James Carpenter said, you know, see your grandmother naked, you can't unsee it. And it's like, everybody's like, we're all checking away. What's going on? And it happened. And so that's just that. And then from then, I guarantee you the Trump people are sorry they took that debate.

Yeah, they probably are. They're probably upset that they're going to take the next one too, because I think Harris, and I just was saying this about, you know, and this isn't fair, but this is the reality. Women don't get to play by the same rules as men. And so she's got to be careful about how she does it, but she's going to slice him like cheese. Yes, she is. And look, first of all,

the best person to make the case for abortion is a woman, not a man. She's the best one. Black women were, Biden was losing black women. I don't think one black woman in America will vote for Donald Trump this election. Not over Harris. And the millennials love Harris.

So it's, you know, she's gonna do way, way better than Biden would have done in my opinion. We will, well, I hope to talk to you many times before then, but the middle of September, I'll start talking about it. In the middle of September, when people are back at school, we get a fresh set of numbers, we see what the state of play is there, we see which states are in play. We'll know by then. Early voting starts right around the corner from then. People are doing their

organizing. They'll be knowing where the demand for ballots is. We'll be knowing what the outcomes of all the ballot referenda are in terms of what access is going to be. That's when the conversation starts in earnest. But I look forward to talking to you about it all the way through. What about this? A guy from my law firm, Bobby Kennedy, he was in my firm for quite a while before he ran for president.

I did not know that. Oh yeah. And you know, what's he gonna, what's you know, is Trump gonna make a deal with Bobby? Do you still talk to him? Bobby, hell yes. So you think he stays him? Bobby? Hell yes. So you think he stays in?

Oh yeah. I mean, unless he gets a deal somehow. But Bobby, Bobby's Bobby. I had to take him off the website when he started the vaccine bullshit. But there's a lot of crazies that like crazy. First of all, that's probably the most interesting thing that you've said to me today, which is a very high bar by the way a personal injury juggernaut

Didn't like that Bobby Kennedy was saying things that the vaccine was dangerous when you're in the business of Suing people who hurt you can't you can't sue vaccines. There's a vaccine court. They have immunity. That's what Bobby's pissed off about. We can never figure out what's really going on. Bobby's right about that. So there is no cause of action against anybody if you have an injury with the vaccine, not even the government.

They got vaccine courts. It's so fucked up. And no, this person, I, and Bobby's right about that. And he is, I don't know how old you are, but I didn't know anybody with autism. When I was a kid now, like one out of 40 boys have it. What, so I don't know, and I don't wanna get into Bobby's crazy stuff.

I mean, Bobby is bat shit crazy, and I tell him that to his face, but there's something going on. You know Bobby is bat shit crazy and I tell him that to his face but There's something going on. Yeah, there's no question, but in the in the absence of transparency You get conspiracies and if they don't tell you what's going on I walked down my beach and there's these big tents for you know children with autism surf camps like what? I didn't know anybody now. I'm sure there were people with autism but why is it on such a, I don't know why there's so many people with autism now.

Or we just didn't know it then. And you have a lot of people with vaccine injuries. And you know they don't know what to do and nobody is giving them relief, nobody's paying attention. It's all real. How much of it will be dealt with by the country? I don't know, but I look forward to talking to you, John Morgan, all the way through. You are a gift to the audience. Thank you very much. Peace.

["The Real Inside Story"] I told you, he's not just a great storyteller. John Morgan is telling you the truth about the real inside stories of what's motivating our politics and this poison two-party system that I am so against. That's why you gotta be a free agent. Thank you for subscribing and following here

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