The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - #BecauseMiami: Blood on the Governor's Hands

Episode Date: September 1, 2023

Carlos Hernandez of Only in Dade joins Billy Corben in the guest co-host chair as we continue to make the job harder for comedians who join the show. On the subject of the murder of three Black people in Jacksonville by a white supremacist, talking about the racial and political aspect will be Florida state representative Angie Nixon. Later, talking about the gun control side of the issue will be Jennifer Mascia of The Trace, a publication which is devoted to gun-related news in the U.S. Plus, Miami Herald politics writer Sarah Blaskey joins us to talk about the recently discovered financial records of Miami Mayor Francis Suarez. We do mention the story of former Miami-Dade police director Freddy Ramirez, so we ask that if you are having thoughts of suicide, you can call or text 988 to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to Giraffe King's Network. Alright, let's get the funny out of the way. Now, because I'm in a foul mood. What else is new, right, Roy? And there's a lot of grim stuff to talk about today, but we are here with Carlos Hernandez, who is one funny mother. Such a mouth.

I'm talking about Carlos. I mean, I appreciate it. I can do it. All right, there you go. So, he's hosted only in Dade, one of the most fun Instagram accounts in the world. Carlos Hernandez Comedy.com, Instagram, Carlos with an H. That is C-A-H-R-L-O-S.

Because I know it's how Cubans pronounce it. Oh, no. That's really the remainder of the song. You can see him live September 15th at Coastal Creative Theater in the Florida, Florida. Yeah, Tampa Bay area. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Same. Same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, same, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah the panhandle. You also be headlining. Yes. The Dania improv October 4th. Come out to that. That's going to be a really good time. Right here in South Florida.

We're going to be dope. We have some lighter issues coming up like Frances Juarez. 5, 8, 8, 8, 8. Underhanded man child fell son. But really first because Carlos was late, he missed, I think, a pretty important interview. You sure did. Yeah, you missed the important time. Important time. Because my Emmy.

I like to really keep it, you know what? Because my Emmy. Keep it on brand. I think Matt told him what, like, heart, hearty, and it won, you know, 115, hearty, and- Well, Matt was like, hey, listen, you can come in at 115, but also this guy pushed back with his 245, and then this guy and all this, so I was like,

it is just too many off-mourams, man. There was just get here, I want to call- I got it, and I got it, next it. Next time, I know what to do. Next time I won't, I'll make sure that'll be here on time to join the Republican National debate. Great. State Representative Angela Nixon represents Florida's 13th district, which includes Jacksonville,

the community where she was born and raised. She was on hand for the now infamous vigil last weekend of the three people who were murdered by a white supremacist in a racist hate crime at the dollar general. This vigil had a surprise attendee fresh off the presidential primary campaign trail in Iowa. Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who was given will call it a jeering welcome. We're going to be on the help one. We're going to be on the help one. We're going to be on the help one. We're going to be on the help one. We're going to be on the help one. We're going to be on the help one.

We're going to be on the help one. We're going to be on the help one. We're going to be on the help one. We're going to be on the help one. We're going to be on the help one. We're going to be on the help one. We're going to be on the help one. We're going to be on the help one.

We're going to be on the help one. We're going to be on the help one. We're going to be on the help one. We're going to be on the help one. We're going to be on the help one. We're going to be on the help one. We're going to be on the help one. We're going to be on the help one.

We're going to be on the help one. We're going to be on the help one. We're going to be on the help one. We're going to be on the help one. We're going to be on the help one. We're going to be on the help one. We're going to be on the help one. We're going to be on the help one. We're going to be on the help one. We're going to be on the help one. We're going to be on the help one. We're going to be on the help one. We're going to be on the help one. We're going to be on you're stupid. In addition to the booze, he was met with chance of these deaths are on your hands. We don't want you here. Your policies cause this. Power to the people, black lives matter, and black history matters. On hand, as I mentioned, was representative Nixon in a now iconic and meamed photograph standing next to the governor listening to him speak wearing a stand with black women shirt and an expression on her face that I can only be described as child please

Representative Nixon. Thank you so much for being here. I'm happy to see that you have survived the hurricane This is a storm. It seems we as soon as we weather there's another one and whether it's a mass shooting as soon as we weather, there's another one. And whether it's a mass shooting, this one is particularly distressing because we know that this man was a racist and a white supremacist who deliberately targeted your community in Jacksonville to target people of color. Everybody asked you this, but I have to.

What was going through your head when you had a surprise guest in Governor Ron DeSantis at that vigil? Yeah, for sure. So there was a lot of things going through my head, some of which I cannot repeat here because it's entirely politically incorrect. However, for the most part, I was really disgusted and just felt like he had a lot of audacity to show up knowing that he is one of the ones, one of the reasons that this man went out and committed these crimes, committed an act of terrorism. I was very, very upset. It just completely called me off guard and then for him to say something and, you know, offer up blood money. I'm just,

I'm just disgusted with it all. Do you agree with some of those chants from the people in the crowd that were protesting at the vigil, specifically these deaths are on your hands? Yeah, most definitely. I definitely agree with those chants. Look, many of my colleagues in the back roles because that's where they put us. The Republican leadership puts us in the back roles. Many of us have begged and asked time and time again

for the leadership and for the governor to stop that hateful and divisive rhetoric and yet they still do it. As you have seen and heard probably, Brian DeSantis has said some of the most anti-black things has pushed so much anti-black policy. And now we see the fruits of his labor. And that is the unfortunate loss of lives

of three innocent people. And the fact that he has still not been able to say that it was racist violence, that it was an act of white domestic terrorism just illustrates that he was only going after low hanging fruit all these years, which is to divide and stir up a base of people and create culture

wars as opposed to actually helping Floridians across our state. In a time where we're facing 9,000 educator shortage across the state, trying to figure out who's going to teach our babies, right? At a time where we're facing a rising cost of rent, Florida is now the least affordable state in the country. At a time where we're facing a rising cost of rent. Florida is now the least affordable state in the country at a time where we have property insurance

that is off the roofs and where people are under insured or not adequately insured. And now we're in hurricane season and I am on the outer bands of a hurricane right now. People don't know if they are going to be made whole again if anything happens to their homes, but yet the governor decided to give out a $3 billion bailout to the corporations to the insurance companies as opposed to looking out for Floridians. It's just not right. Over the years, he's had so many anti-black policies. We knew who he

was when he first ran for governor against Andrew Gillum and said, don't monkey this up. And now he has all these divisor brotheric and these anti-black policies. And now he definitely has blood on his hands. What a situation where Nazis, neo-Nazis have marched and demonstrated in Florida for the past several years, all of them DeSantis supporters. In addition to waving swastikas, they have waved DeSantis flags and banners as well. He was not quick to condemn them. We used to live in times when it was, that was a, I mean, that was low-hanging fruit. Just like, say Nazi suck. Like, it was a pretty politically easy and bipartisan thing to say. He resisted that as long as possible.

And now we have a gunman, a white supremacist who targeted specifically black victims, who had swastikas drawn on his AR 15 style rifle. Can we talk about some of these anti black policies, these hate bills that as you have referred to them specifically, that DeSantis has, as you said, helped light the match and fan the flames. The first bill that he pushed when I came into office, HB1 in 2021, was in response to the majority peaceful protest

in 2022 of the unjust killing and execution of George Floyd. It was the anti-protest bill. And in intent for him to silence black people and silence marginalized communities from pushing back, from dissenting against police brutality and again, white supremacy, he decided to make it harder for us to congregate and to protest and speak out. Now, in a very subjective policy, we could potentially be seen as rioters, even though we're just gathering peacefully

because he doesn't want our voices to be heard. So that's one bit. Then, as you all have seen all across the country, he's going around touting the Florida's where vote goes to die and to stop woke agenda. And so what he has done is he has made it so that our kids, our children, the students will not be able to learn true history in our schools because it's making a group of people uncomfortable to learn about what their ancestors did to my ancestors in the past, right? And so that has happened.

Then I, along with Representative Travars McCurdy, led a peaceful city in because Governor DeSantis decided he wanted to draw unconstitutional maps to get rid of black congressional districts, black congressional access districts. Then this year, he decided he needed to go further. So, he went after diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in higher education because he doesn't want us to be critical. He doesn't want our children to think critically, to do them to think critically. He wants us to be ignorant and dumb down

so that he can control us at the end of the day. And so these are anti-black policies that do nothing but devalue black lives, which in turn leads to what happened on Saturday. And let's be clear, I will not allow them to sterilize what happened because I am seeing that the father of the killer of the races of the white supremacists is now saying that his son did not take his medication.

Let's be clear, this was not a mental health issue. This was a hate crime. This was racist violence. This guy, according to our own Republican sheriff, TK Warrantisters was very lucid in what he was doing. He knew that he was going to a historically black university. He attempted to take out students at a historically black university, but was ran off because he's a coward by security guards. And then he went and drove to a store

and was she shot a black woman who was waiting in her car, proceeded to enter into that store, kick all of the none black people out, and shoot and kill Niz, which is what he said he wanted to do in his manifesto. So I don't want anyone to say that this man had mental health issues. He had hate for black people period. Edward Waters University, the historically black college that you had just mentioned. Rhonda Santis came to that vigil and said that he is now offering, I forgot what the figure was, a million dollars or something to increase security at the university, which incidentally, it appears as though security successfully was able to

scare this racist killer off of campus. I guess as people are saying, why not just be grateful? Why not just say thank you, Governor DeSantis, for this funding? Why not? First of all, it's not his funding. It's the people's money. At the end of the day, he works for us. We are his funding. It's the people's money at the end of the day. He works for us. We are his bosses.

Like I need to remind voters and constituents and residents and whomever who live in Florida, elected officials work for you. That is your money. You should decide where it goes. But instead, we've allowed these corrupt racists, often racist politicians decide that they want to look out the interest of corporations, greedy corporations, corrupt corporations that care nothing about us. And so at the end of the day,

EWU has been requesting money and other HVCUs have been requesting money for decades. It has been vetoed, but that is our money and we need to demand that we get our just do our fair share. I'm just appalled because it shouldn't have taken the deaths of three innocent people for him to give us what we deserve as a community. Everyone who lives in the state of Florida should have the opportunity to live healthy, prosperous, and safe. But we don't underline the Sanctus.

Unfortunately, we don't. And now, black people, some of whom I've talked to, are now living in terror because they don't know if they're going to get shot and killed just for going to the grocery store. That is not a way to leave. Our communities deserve more. We deserve leadership that is going to ensure we have the opportunity to survive, not just survive. I'm sorry, but to thrive and to flourish.

And it's my hope that the people across this country learn that we're on the Sanctus is done nothing but harmful to the audience and cause hate and division to run rampant through our state. And if he was to have the power that came with being in the White House, take more hate and fascism and authoritarianism would like just run rampant throughout our country. And that is not a way to live.

We deserve so much more. And I really believe that if we come together and we push back against him, I believe that we can win and we can actually build a Florida for all and a country for all Florida State rep Angie Nixon. I know that it is not easy to put yourself out here like this and speak the truth and I thank you for being here and I thank you for doing it. Thank you for having me.

Still not done with this, Carlos. We're not. Still not. No, we are still not done with this. This subject matter we have covered. I mean, there's a lot of angles to a tragedy like this. We talked with Representative Nixon about the race angle and the political angle, but there's also the matter of yet another. I don't know if this rises to mass shooting, but I'm going to call it a mass shooting.

I know sometimes the definition is four people, but I'll call it a mass shooting. It certainly was an attempted mass shooting and there's three victims. And once again, an AR-15 style rifle was the weapon of choice of another killer who was looking to victimize and murder as many people as possible. Jennifer Macea is a journalist. She's the author of a riveting autobiographical column, Turnbook, Never Tell Our Business Distrangers. That is a whole other podcast for another time. But she covered gun violence at the New York Times. And she is now a senior news writer and founding staffer at the trace.org, a nonprofit journalism outlet devoted to gun related news in the United States.

Jennifer, thank you for being here when you hear about these stories out of Jacksonville last weekend at a UNC Chapel Hill, watching students on their first days at school climbing out of windows and jumping in order to get to safety during a lockdown and a shooting. You've been covering this for so long now. Are you like the rest of you're just sort of, oh, just another one. It's just another day in the United States. Are we like numb to it already? It's at the point where if a couple of weeks goes by and we don't have one of these big

ones, I start getting itchy. My spidey sense starts going off. It feels like it's time for another one of these because it just every couple of weeks, every couple of months we have a mass murder, you know, something like the Alan Texas shooting. I think we're all numb to this. And the thing that hits me now is seeing new communities traumatized by this in real time. Like, you know, we have a whole school now and we've seen them jump out of windows

and we've read their text messages to each other. And I'm seeing they're getting baptized into this national trauma. As we all watched, just like we saw in Columbine in 1999, nothing has changed. It's gotten worse. Yeah, I'm watching schools ban books because they're concerned about traumatizing young minds.

And yet they begin every single school year and semester with a lockdown drill where they are forced into bathrooms or closets with the doors locked. And while they understand that they're waiting for a search or sweep of the building. And I mean, like, talk about trauma. I mean, it's not, don't read. It's not just drills.

People, schools are getting swatted left and right. Mass shooting threats called in. Every time something like that happens, those kids panic, they cry. They call their parents. It doesn't have to be a shooting or even a drill. We're having a lot of close calls, false alarms that are just traumatizing these kids left and right.

And I guess to your point, traumatizing their parents, because what happens when you are at work or at home, and you get a text message from your child, and you think you've all deen, you think, well, I gotta get there, because I'm the only can that actually cares and will do anything about this so it's traumatizing America it's traumatizing all of us I think. Yeah and their parents you know are like you know our age we didn't grow up with this and if they get numb to it then we're really screwed because then they're just going to

nod their head at it and it's going to continue for their kids. And I think the hope is that it stops with generation Z. It stops with generation alpha. They're growing up looking at this like, why is this like this? And those fresh eyes might be what gets us out of this mess. Well, as you know, in places like the free state of Florida and other states, we know what the answer to the gun epidemic is. And that's more guns, Jennifer. That's, you know, there's nothing, there's nothing that can't be fixed with a teacher carrying a gun, right, in schools.

These are the solutions. Why not the students carrying guns? Everybody have guns, more guns, less shootings. I mean, it's so obvious, right? Hey, you're gonna be the next governor of Florida. You keep up that rhetoric, Jennifer Holy shit. This is a whole campaign video we're making right here. Let's talk about that. The more guns policy here, I mean, we have states, their blue states, let's face it, their major hubs, their urban centers, their cities, where gun violence. In no small part, that's where people go, right?

Not just criminals, but that's where everybody goes. It's where the money is. Why do you rob banks? Jesse James, because that's where the money is. Why do people go to cities? Why do people rob and beats because that's where the money is? The issue is though that the guns in those cities are not actually coming from those states, those blue states, because they have more strict gun control laws. They're for lack of better term, they're being trafficked

in over the border. That border's not the southern border. That border is the border to other states like Florida, for example, like Virginia. I imagine in the case of New York, like Georgia, where are these guns coming from? Where I live in New York is the iron pipeline. It's all those southern states where it takes a two-minute criminal background check or not at all and your permit is carried just drive it on up like you said it's not the southern border. We don't have metal detectors, you know, between Ohio and Pennsylvania. So, you know, you are only as safe as the states around you. I'm lucky the states around me, you know, are only as safe as the states around you i'm lucky the states around me you know have very strict on laws but still they're coming up from the south

and we just waited so long to regulate this problem that there are four hundred fifty million guns out there this is not a problem that other countries have because they didn't wait so long we have a black market that will thrive for a hundred years, even if we ban handgun sales tomorrow, which nobody thinks is gonna happen, and nobody's proposing. It will take that long for all of those guns

to lead circulation. And that's a crazy thing to me. It's like you hear a lot of Republican talking points about violence, violence at a control in Chicago. It's at a control in Miami. It's at a control in California. But what's the cause of that? Why wire guns the number one cause of death for children let's i'm sorry we are here a lot about violence in mexico

ninety percent of the guns in mexico that are involved in these violent crimes they come from the united states for crying out loud we are to blame for the violence in mexico not the other way around and also the refugee crisis our guns blame for the violence in Mexico, not the other way around. And also the refugee crisis. Our guns are causing the violence that pushes people to our border. It's a problem we could solve with stronger gun laws. All those states on the border, they have really weak gun laws. And that's how they're getting in.

Republicans want to blame blue state policies for gun violence. Like when you have a red state in a blue city, oh, well, you know, it's Louisville, it's Miami, you know, they're run by Democrats. It's not the guns. It's the defund the police, you know, lenient on crime policies. Well, it's also the number of guns you're letting get into circulation because the guns that criminals are getting, they're stealing. So gun owners are leaving them in cars,

sometimes on lock. Police in many cities, do Google News Search? They're like lock up your guns, guns are getting stolen from cars, you need to be a responsible gun owner to be a gun owner, and that message is kind of getting lost. But I guess the answer there is permitless carry. Then we don't have to leave it in the car,

we just carry the guns with us. We want it, yeah. Well, there will always be places where you can't take guns, But I guess the answer there is permitless carry. Then we don't have to leave it in the car. We just carry the guns with us. Whatever we want. We'll always be places where you can't take guns. No matter what, government buildings, you know. Oh, goals, things. Government buildings, that's not fair. These are the same people who are telling us we need guns everywhere. I don't know for the, but not for me, you know.

Oh, no, no, no, no. I don't know. And meanwhile, we can't, come on in, no. I don't know. And meanwhile, we're spending millions of dollars in taxpayer money. I just saw in the Capitol building in Florida to reinforce the windows with bulletproof glass. We don't have that in our schools.

We don't have that in our shopping malls. We're solving the problem way too far down the line. If you want to harden schools and make some like military schools and put bulletproof glass, you're already waiting too long. It needs to be at the point of purchase. You have to regulate who you're giving guns to. Whether it's an AR-15, I'm rare. I don't necessarily blame the hardware. It's who you're giving the weapon to no matter what the weapon is. And in other countries, when people get gun licenses, the government makes you go training.

Maybe they'll interview you here, two-minute criminal background check, like the shooter in Jacksonville. And it doesn't matter that his Facebook page was covered in swastika. They don't check for that. It's like they don't do stuff they would do on a job interview.

And they're giving you a gun. So it's really, it's something that we take for granted that it's so easy to get guns here. I think it's got to, it's rude awakening when you see what they do in other places. They probably should try like, like, Latin X girlfriends to just look at like the backgrounds of these people, like their Instagram,

like try to find the DMs, like, dude, I have X's that know. I've all in here for four years, so don't sit with me. That was right, like, I feel like that's the way we got to have them. You never get a gun. Are you kidding me dude? They know, like, Latin that I know. I've fallen here for four years. I've fallen here. I'm all in here. That was right. Like, I feel like that's the way we got to happen. You'd never get a gun. Are you kidding me, dude? They know, like, Latin X girlfriends know, dude. My girl knows things I've done in places that I don't even know that I did them.

So, like, if they just hired the right people, that's what they got to do, dude. If they really want to find background, dude, you know you're got to hire, dude. But, you know, you should be a hair, to be a licensed hairdresser in certain stages, you need like a thousand hours of like training in school to get a permit to be a hot dog And most of them are Latinx girlfriends

That's they know the cheese bro. It's like they know the cheese It's very simple Jennifer I want to play you this clip from the Republican Jacksonville sheriff TK waters during a press conference about last weekend's tragedy This story is always about guns. People are bad. This guy is a bad guy. If I could take my gun off right now, it's not a way on this counter. Nothing will happen.

It will sit there. But as soon as a wicked person grabs the hold of that hand gun, they start shooting people with it. There's the problem. The problem is the individual. He's making a great case for you. You got to be careful who you're giving the gun to. He's saying it's not the gun that guns an inanimate object. Well, if he's a a great case for you got to be careful who you're giving the gun to he's saying it's not the gun the guns and an adamant object well he's a bad guy why would you

want to make it so easy for a bad guy to get a gun in Florida you don't even need a background check you can buy a gun from your cousin and know it'll know and it's legal and then you can go carry it in public maybe there should be checks on that yeah my my counterpoint to my gun here on the podium is what if there's not a gun on the podium also would be an alternative there. But I think you're right. I think he actually made an exceptional argument for gun control legislation, which is to say, yes, we know we're dealing with a man. As you said, with swastika's all over his Facebook, with multiple manifest racist and neo-Nazi manifestos, we know he's a white supremacist, we know he's had mental health issues, we know he's had mental health issues, we know he's

had domestic violence calls, let him legally obtain an AR-15 style rifle and a clock. Just because he didn't have convictions, and that's the barrier. In voluntary psychiatric hospitalization or convictions, you can be the most racist person, you could abuse people in relationships. You can be a domestic abuser as long as you weren't convicted. So you could be charged, arrested, charges dropped. You get to buy guns again. That seems strange.

Genevasi, for Florida Governor, you can find her at thetrace.org. Thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having me. I know. Well, that's the good news. I know. I know. I know.

I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know.

I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. The good news is after 76 days, Miami mayor, Francis Suarez's presidential campaign has come to an end. Oh, no. I know. Well, that's the good news. Oh, good.

Yeah, sorry. So the bad news is he's coming back to Miami, I guess, and is gonna go back to work as the mayor, which is a petrifying thought. How can I help? So 76 days, I don't know what draft kings had. Did you take the over or the under? Honestly, I took the under. Okay, I don't know what draft Kings had. Did you take the over the under? Honestly.

I took the under. Okay, good call. I just took the over because I wanted to see what was like, you know, gonna happen. I think it's cool to just have like, you know, I'm like, I'm a guy thrown in there, you know, it's fun to just like, you know. It's just bitter sweet for me.

I kind of wanted him to stay. I kind of feel like he's having a Nixon moment. Like, like, you're not gonna have France just to kick around anymore, bro. Like, he's- I was pretty upset when I didn't see him in the debate Dude yeah, I'm not gonna lie. It would have been interesting to see that like dynamic. I wouldn't work I thought I would have thrown a bro in there like bro You're not like it bro. It's my turn like that would have been you know, honestly

I would voted for Pepe Biette like I want to see Pepe Biette in the debate He's still to be running. He bro was like a column. Yeah, that would have been hilarious But like I gotta get Pepe in So, but like, it was a disaster. I mean, what did I think the messenger called it an un- an un-serious end to an un-serious campaign or something like that. I mean, it ended with him lying to an AP reporter about making the debate and then he'd actually make the debate

and he's being investigated by the FBI and he all, like the whole thing was like, Is he the missing? He is for bribery. Oh. If you can believe that I should have double checked if you're sitting down girls. Yeah, I'm sitting at Miami. Yeah, and yeah, it's true.

Mr. Mayor, you're brilliant. You're super smart. So Sarah Blaski at the Miami Herald has been kicking ass and taking names part of the I team over there investigating all the Florida, referee. I'll say, referee. And thank you. One of the names, one less thing to bleep. One of the names that she has been taking is Francis Suarez. And just this week, not one, but two extraordinary pieces of journalism, the first of which

we should talk about. Because here's some breaking news. Roy, something you don't hear me say that often on this show. I was wrong. Oh, I'm leaving. I'll see you. I was wrong about. Yeah, he clearly probably think you've been out of the world. Thanks the yes. The cows have come home. I like Roy actually. Yeah, he knows it's over. He's going to kiss his family goodbye. He knows the end times are clearly upon us. So I thought that so Francis Wars had to file a financial disclosure form, which in the federal system is more onerous than what he has had to file in the state of Florida

and locally in Miami. And so he filed about a month and a half ago, he filed an extension for that form. And I had predicted that he would drop out of the race before he had to... Fill up the... Exactly, the race before he had to. Phil, up the. Exactly. The deadline came and he ultimately had to fill out the form. Now, here's the thing.

Instead, Sarah, he somehow stayed in the race just long enough to have to reveal a bunch of details about his finances that we never knew before. Is that like, by a day, what happened? It's not actually what happened. So there are you can get for this federal and mayor suarez extended one time. He had a second

available to him. He did not file for that extension as far as we know. And instead, he filed the paperwork, this sort of large disclosure on Monday, and then he dropped out of the race on Tuesday. If he would have dropped out of the race on Friday, he wouldn't have had to file anything because the FEC rules only require this for candidates that are actively campaigning. So I'm sorry. So it's not actually clear why this happened

or why now was the time that Mayor Suarez decided to disclose his client list, not client list, that's the wrong way to firm it, but at least the list of his outside employment and the contracts he's held for the last two years. This is a mayor who has been repeatedly asked for this list. He has repeatedly said no, he has said, I have confidentiality with my clients,

with my employers, I'm not going to disclose this unless I have to, he says he always follows the law. But in this case, there's a world in which he could have dropped out one day earlier, two days earlier, and he wouldn't have needed to file this, or he could have filed the extension, and then dropped out, and either of those ways would have meant he didn't need to file this but he did and so we have a lot more insights into Maris Morales' finances and how much

money he makes and where that income comes from than we ever had in the past. Let's talk about those new revelations. I think you reported that about a third of what appears on his federal financial disclosure was previously unreported. What have we learned? In addition to some rental properties, some investment properties that he makes some passive incomes from, he has 15 jobs. One of them is the city of Miami. So that's one job, $130,000 a year in compensation

for his public role as a part-time mayor. Then he works for a private equity firm as a senior partner. He is an attorney at Quinn Emmanuel and international law firm that he is on leave from as our understanding. He was put on unpaid leave at the beginning of his presidential campaign,

but we knew about that one. That is his largest source of income per these disclosures. There is one technology conference that he also disclosed on previous forms, and then every single other one of these things. So that's, I believe, if my math is not wrong here on the fly, that's 11 other side gigs in addition to the ones we knew about that were disclosed on this form and they were a wide range of there's a bank city national bank is on there their technology companies there are companies that he has promoted in the past you know on his Twitter account said the things about these companies. We don't have a full picture. We only have a, you know, idea of his sources of income,

every source of income since January 1st, 2022. Before that, we don't know. We don't have a lot of indication of the nature of the work that he did for these companies, but it's certainly the first comprehensive list that we've ever seen. I gotta be working harder. It's what this makes me real.

Oh, yeah. You need another 12 sign-hossel. I was like, what am I doing? Yeah, I thought I had enough working harder. That's what this makes me real. Oh yeah. You need another 12 side hustles. I'm like, what am I doing? What am I doing? I know I had enough. Well, it's hard to get those jobs if you're not the mayor of Miami. It has long been alleged that Francis Suarez has been exploiting

his public position for private profit. This seems to be the best evidence that we have so far, particularly all the work in tech companies and real estate companies, which he has been a big hustler for using his, you know, bully pulpit and public position to promote and exploit. Sarah just about 10 or so years ago, as he was entering public life as a city commissioner, he had a net worth in the negatives. I mean, he was very much in debt by six figures. And now 10 plus years later,

particularly in the last few years that he has been the mayor of the city, what has happened to his net worth and what have we learned about his net worth from these most recent disclosures? So it's important to note that he files multiple disclosures each year, one with the city and one with the state.

And those kind of require different things. So one of them requires him to disclose sources of income, primary sources of income, so not every source of income, but those that he makes the most money from. So that's how we had some eyes on the private equity firm and the law firm in the past. So that was previously disclosed. Another one requires him to disclose his net worth.

And so that's how we've had this information since he became a commissioner 10 plus years ago at the city of Miami. And it is true that his net worth was something around negative 100,000 early on in his years in public office. And then that has grown. And I can't say steadily grown. I have to say exponentially grown. Now he's reporting as of the end of 2022.

So before a bunch of these new rental properties that he has bought before all of these other things that are now on this federal disclosure. At the end of 2022, he reported a personal net worth of $3.4 million. That was more than double the year before. And the year before was more than double the year before, and the year before was more than double the year before that. So you can see that exponential curve.

So we knew about his net worth, but we didn't know what the primary sources of income were, like we didn't know how much money he was making from the law firm. And so on this federal disclosure, not only do we have a complete accounting of all of the sources of income that Mayor Suarez has, but we also have income ranges. So these are predetermined ranges. It's that you know, people have asked me, why is there such a big spread? You know, why is it like he could have made 2.1 million or he could have made almost

13 million. And the answer is because it's the minimum of all of these spreads and the maximum. And that wasn't him, these are predetermined spreads. So, you know, it's somewhere in that range is the income he's made since the beginning of 2022. We now know that. We know that Quinn Emmanuel, the law firm, was where, you know, the largest chunk of his income came from. But if you add all the other non-employee compensation gigs, that's what they call them, non. So he's not salary. He has some sort of contract with these other companies.

If you add all of those together, they are the vast majority of what he does on the side or what he has done on the side as mayor. And he is making, there's been a lot of guessing about how much he's made, right, from these jobs because his net worth has expanded so much. But we never actually knew what kind of money he was making. And, you know, we see indications of $10,000 a month contracts for sitting on a board of a particular tech company.

You know, there's all kinds of stuff like that. And so, so all of that is new information that we just got. When it's interesting about the law firm, Kig, by the way, is that he's not like billing hours. He's got like a flat salary and they're most likely paying him origination fees, which means that it's his job to go out and bring in new clients, which is obviously he's exploiting his job as the mayor to be like, oh, come to my firm, we'll take care of you. And then he gets a piece of that action.

Basically, he's not actually like literally representing these clients. Sarah, two more questions real quick. In your reporting this week, you seem to have discovered what may be some, to put it diplomatically in consistencies with his local financial disclosures and what he's now saying in these federal reports, particularly about the origin of the FBI bribery investigation. What do we know about what he's reported now, what he hasn't reported in the past? So, as I was saying, those local disclosures, state and local, that require him to identify primary sources of income. Well, what defines primary and what does is does that source of income account for more

than 5% of his net earnings in that calendar year. So it's proportionate to everything else he has, right? And so what we saw was on his most recent local filing, he filed that he was this board member on eMERGE Americas, this technology conference that happens here in South Florida. Okay, but you know, that's there, but his work for this local developer, the work that is under federal investigation after it was revealed by the Miami Herald

and in a lawsuit that there were $10,000 a month payments going out to the mayor from this developer, right? At the same time that the developer was asking for help going through the permitting process in the city of Miami and actually there was a phone call made from the mayor's office. Well, this payment was happening, right? So we got $10,000 a month. We know that, but that one is not on the local disclosures, but this tech conference is fast forward to the federal disclosures

And we see that there was also $10,000 a month going to France as far as from this tech conference So when the disclosure requirement is proportionate, right? If it's over a certain percentage of the total you have to report it Why would the same dollar amount be reported differently? And that's an open question. And, you know, he didn't report the developer. He did report the tech conference and previous disclosures. Last question, Moishamana is a local oligarch. I think he is the single largest landowner in the city of Miami.

For the last, I think, 10 years at least, Francis War as his cousin has worked for him. It's the classic Miami like, oh, talk to my primo, talk to my deal. It's literally Francis's cousin has been basically like the bag man and the middle man between the mayor and Mana. Mana during the pandemic famously commissioned a mural on the wall of one of his buildings in Windwood,

which was a picture of him, Moishamana embracing Francis Juarez. In one of the most audacious displays of like third world corruption I've ever seen in an alleged first world city. Like, here I am, I'm the oligarch, the mayor is my boy, don't mess with me, it was extraordinary. And there's a bombshell in my opinion in your reporting this week, Sarah, where Moishamana who donated a lot of money to Francis Suarez is either political committee or presidential campaign basically had a, that

we didn't know of previously unreported falling out with Francis Suarez. Well this guy is proactively developing in downtown, in winwood, and some of the hottest neighborhoods in Miami. What have we learned? Our understanding is that Mana didn't think that Mayor Suarez was running a legitimate national campaign. He thinks he made mistakes and that he even expressed this to the mayor at one point. He told my colleague, Joey Fletcher, and that the mayor eventually asked him to stop calling,

to stop telling him these things. He didn't wanna hear this feedback from a donor to his campaign. And I think that there are a lot of things to say about Mayor Suarez's presidential campaign. He was obviously the first presidential candidate to drop out of the race. He was also one of the more recent to join the race,

maybe even the most recent. He's faced a lot of criticism. He's had a bunch of struggles on the campaign. There is this famous infamous moment on conservative talk radio where he didn't know what weegers were. And he's just sort of stumbled time after time. But I will say, you know, I was at the Republican debate in Milwaukee last week,

and I was covering it for the Harold. And I did talk so that we're going into that debate that would have liked C. E. Mayorswara's on the debate stage. And he didn't make it. The rules for how to qualify meant that he didn't have the polling numbers. He needed to poll it at least one percent and several polls. He was polling at 1 percent and didn't count for one reason or another. But, but it is true that there were people nationally that were interested in seeing him. What's interesting to me is that locally, it kind of seemed like there were fewer people interested in seeing the Miami mayor on that debate stage. And I think that's really reflected in Manna's comments.

Well, while the mayor got zero local support for his presidential campaign or endorsements, Carlos and I as fans of good comedy did miss him on that debate stage. That would have been great. Because if you put garbage in, you're going to get garbage out. Sarah Blaski, keep up the great work. Mimeherald.com, help support local journalism, get a subscription, doing amazing work. Thank you so much for being here again. Thank you. I mean, to Francis as the fence, CrossFit is really expensive, so if you do kind of need

multiple, like, I got CrossFit once I had to cut it off for two months, it just too much. I'm like I need like a count. I need like a keen say so I don't like 15 more jobs really That's really what I need. I'm gonna look out into it. That's that's gonna be my blame for not losing right Just now and being in shape Financial literacy skills. It's time once again For our wheel of despair Roy Roy, our in-house wipeipologist. Hello, that's Dr. Roy Bellamy, do you? Dr. He, yes, he is doctorate in wipeipology. What are the topics for this week's,

because Miami Wheel of Despair. Okay, let me get it. Yeah. All right. All right. A paper rustling for this one. All right, we have shooting yourself in the foot. Okay.

Shooting yourself in the eye. Okay. We have opposing viewpoints on slavery. Who's that? In what sense is that? Well, I guess we'll find out if we, if the wheel lands on it. Right, whatever I'm on your side.

I just, I'm just, yeah, I'm just gonna let you know right away. I just showed enough for you. White people doesn't want, they don't want to talk about slavery. White people don't want to talk about slavery. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm just, yeah, I'm gonna let you know right away. I just showed enough for you. White people doesn't, they don't wanna talk about slavery. White people don't wanna talk about slavery. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, white people wanna talk about both sides of slavery, right? Oh, my ass.

I really don't know what the other side is. And number four is Florida fatigue. Florida fatigue. I'm feeling it, I'm feeling it right now. I always feel it, that's it. In my bones I feel like feel like we should also we should also add Carlos is Jersey to the wheel of the spare

Is wearing a pink interfort Lauderdale Jersey interfort Where do they play dude? That's true. It isn't a lot of but I almost opinion at the Danian Prove Which is in for Lauderdale If you live in Miami, you can also come to the show, just like you could come to watch in a Miami. Professional. There you go, thank you. I think they should open an improv. They should build an improv at No Reese. Is what I think they do.

Maybe that's what they should do. Maybe that's next. Next. Right, shall we spin the wheel? Shall we? Shower. Shower. Shower.

Shower. Shower. Shower. Flutter fatigue. Oh, amen. I think I expect that to happen. I like that the sound effects sound like Plinco, Rest in Peace, Bob Barker, Rest in Power King. Yes, sir. Rest in Power in the... Okay, Florida fatigue, you've seen the story after like a pandemic boom, Carlos. Yes.

South Florida tourism is now starting to slow down. Right. Why do you think that is? I mean, it's just, I mean the title of the... I mean, the title of the... Tourism is now starting to slow down. Right. Why do you think that is? I mean, it's just, I mean the title of this on its own. You kind of get enough of like, you can't party too much. You can't be doing this for that long.

You're gonna get tired of the bottle, girls. You're gonna get tired of like the wet teaser contest. You're gonna get tired of the pool. You're gonna get tired of it. I mean, I- Why would anybody get tired of this? Because just one time. I'm tired. I mean, I would anybody get tired of it. Because one time. I'm tired. I mean, I, Roy's tired of hearing you talk about it.

There you go, that's Florida fatigue on its own. So I think it makes sense, now people are gonna probably go to Denver and go to places that have like snow at times that they like a place like this might not have snow. So I think it makes sense why people were get tired of it. I get it, but that better mean that the rent prices are going down. that's what that meant to mean.

Well, I'm gonna venture a guess that it has to do a little something with the fact that like we are the inflation capital country. Oh, 100%. Inflation is 9% here, the national average is 4%. So you wanna come here, you wanna get a hotel room here, you wanna buy a beer, a cocktail here. Way more expensive than it should be.

Yeah, it's ludicrous. Like people are going like there's so many cheaper destinations. Some of them are even more, you want to buy a beer, a cocktail here. Way more expensive than a showby. Yeah, it's ludicrous. Like people are going like, there's so many cheaper destinations. Some of them are even more, you are even further in Europe, even further away, and even more exotic, like, than coming here. Also, you know, when the NAACP released several months ago, a travel warning to people of color, basically say like, Florida is not friendly.

They're right. To people of color, it turns out. As we witness early in the show. It turns out, as we witness early into show. It turns out, they're absolutely right. And so I think that, you know, the LGBTQ plus people, I think people of color, I think my people, the Jewish people, are thinking like no me. And immigrants in general, just period. Immigrants in general, those laws were probably.

They are thinking like, yeah, am I going to go to my, to Florida on vacation and get deported? Like, yeah, people are scared uh let's spin the wheel the wheels on the tire on that one yeah yeah a lot of it's like it's time to be spinning shooting yourself in the eye oh man this is well oh no all right I don't even know where to begin I mean you're gonna feel that something you want to fill at this I know Freddie I met his No. All right. I don't even know where to begin. You're going to feel it. You're going to feel it. You're going to feel it.

You want to feel it. I know, Freddie. I met his family. He was going to be the next, or the first sheriff of Miami-Dade County, where I mean, the first one since the 60s anyway. Now we have to vote in a sheriff. Next year, he was running for sheriff. And five weeks ago, he basically attempted suicide three times in one day and failed.

The first time he allegedly put a gun to his head during a domestic incident with his wife, the typically show up, they let him go, the hotel, the Marriott doesn't want him there. He and his wife have to check out, driving home on I-75, he pulls over to the side of the road, puts a gun to his head and shoots himself, taking out his right eye,

his wife frantically calls 911 while he runs into traffic to try to kill himself again and then tries to decline medical. The whole thing is an absolute horrific tragedy. A man who has served Miami-Dade County police for 20 years, the last seven as our chief as the director. And now it seems according to Miami-Dade Mayor Daniela Levine-Kava that he may actually keep running. The man is obviously suffering. The man needs to, the man needs to retire, in my opinion, needs to, for the sake of himself, his family, this community, this county.

I don't know that he should be, let's set aside for a moment that like maybe he shouldn't be the sheriff, maybe he shouldn't even have firearm yeah right now, but he is on a paid leave. I think that he needs to do him I mean, you know, and he needs to you know take care of his family. He has Florida fatigue of anything. Oh, no I'm just saying I mean, I'm that I'm not even trying to be funny It's just like he's it when you deal with the things that you see in this town and you're at that you're at the level that he is Like we are at the level that we're commentating on it. He's at the level that he's dealing with. Could it be said that he feels now that after three attempts that he has found his purpose to actually be here

and actually run to silver purpose? That's a good point. That was five weeks ago. The man is clearly unwell and he needs to take, I'm just saying like, he needs to take care of himself. He needs to take care of his family, this was an alleged domestic incident that happened here. And like, I just think it's, I don't know,

it seems like really reckless for his sake, for his family sake, for the community sake. I mean, it just seems like, it's, ugh, dude, I mean, to your point, it is true. Like if he's gonna try three times and they're gonna, and God is gonna still keep him here or whatever force may keep him here, then maybe there's like, oh, hey, listen,

you should keep on going into your path. It is, he's definitely clearly not well. I'll put it to you this way. There are mental health issues. You are right. He's a man who's very empathetic. So in his job, he internalizes a lot of the tragedy that he can tell what he's like on TV talking about it. For two decades, he feels it a lot of the tragedy. That he goes through. That you can tell what he's like on TV.

Absolutely. For two decades, he feels it. He literally feels it. Okay. That said, law enforcement sources have been raising the issue that if he had been a rank and file officer in the department, this would have been handled very differently. It's possible that in dealing with this mental health issue that he would not still be employed that he would probably not

Still have a weapon right I'm seeing is we have it's Miami though But we just had a conversation today about mental health and access to guns and if this does not exemplify That I don't know what does and I wish him and his beautiful family well And I I want what's best for the county and for him and his family and I just I mean I just think it's it's time to rest and you want to have that conversation for four or five years from now the next election maybe but like this happened five weeks ago this tragedy and I just think that you know it's time to it's time for everybody to just to just move on and it is time for us to move on to the next one. To move on. No, it's done.

It's all about it. It is over. I just, uh, it's a lot of listening. Thank you. Thank you. And of course, of course, thank you for being here for the least funny episode ever. Truly, this was great. I think that's because my him. I appreciate it. You're like, hey, listen, we got to get you in the pond. And I'm like, hey, of course, I'd love to. And I were talking about not only our mayor, not even being able to vote for president, but guns, a hurricane, and now a chief Lucic and I. So I'm very happy that I was able to make this funny.

I still can make anything else funny at the shows. In Tampa, and in Dania Improv, Tampa, September 15th, Dania, October 4th, thank you, billy and speaking of the hurricane we hope that everybody is fearing well in the panhandle and on the west coast and uh... in georgia uh... coca uh...