The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - #BecauseMiami: Nice Jewish Boy

Episode Date: October 13, 2023

Billy Corben during public comment in a Coral Gables commission meeting got into a testy confrontation with mayor Vince Lago that, to Billy, felt anti-semitic. Plus, we have former state Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith on to talk about how Florida governor Ron DeSantis covered up statewide COVID data. During the Wheel of Despair in the second segment, there is a story involving a suicide. 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. When it comes to politicians like the mayor, every accusation is a confession. It's impossible for paid-a-play people to fathom that anyone will say and do things just because it's the right thing to do for our community. And not because we're being paid, but people like the mayor who only act in their own self interest cannot understand such a concept. And it's no wonder that Lago is losing it and lashing out. He's left in the lurch.

Everyone around him, his friends, political allies and business partners are under investigation or under arrest for crimes like bribery, money-laundering, fraud, and illegal campaign contributions. They probably have enough dirt to make him afraid that they're singing in surround sound to law enforcement right now. Now, we expect this from the city of Miami. This is the MO of the mayor's BFF, Francis Suarez of Commissioner Joe Corroyo, and Lagos political pal Alex Diaz-Laportia. But that incestuous cesspool of Miami corruption cancer has metastasized to the city-beautiful Viavin's Lagos.

That was me. Sound alike you. That was me. Sound of like you. Early with bronchitis. Earlier this week at a city of Coral Gables commission meeting, talking directly into the eyes, maybe 10 feet away from Mayor Vince Lago. How can I describe Vince Lago? I'll put it this way.

My mom texted me when she saw this video and she's like, oh my god, I'm shaking at this video of you in Francis Suarez and I'm like, oh. And I'm like, not exactly, but kind of like a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy, remember multiplicity with Michael Keaton when he keeps copying himself and they get like, dumber and dumber and slower and slower.

Yeah, maybe a dull, yeah. Yeah, that's kind of like what's happened. Like that's Vinzlago, like Vinzlago of like, yeah, that's kind of like what's happened. Like that's Vin's logo. Like Vin's logo is like if Francis Suarez were a mogwai and you got him wet and it started, they started spitting out those hairballs and they get dumber and dumber and the eyes get all like roly-poly and crossy and then if you got Francis Suarez wet,

you took the dumbest hairball and fed it after midnight. That's Vin's logo. So, Vin's logo is a Gremlin. Yes, but like one of the dumbest hairball and fed it after midnight, that's Vince Lago. So Vince Lago is a Gremlin. Yes, but like one of the dumb slow Gremlins, who is like wishes he could be Francis Suarez when he grew up. And what's, what's the, what's the first movie? Not the sequel, not the one with the, the female.

Hot, hot take. Hot take, Gremlins 2 is one of the best sequels ever made. Up there with like Godfather II, Superman II, Empire Strikes Back, it's a solid, solid entry and a Trump parody as well. So the guy that was playing the owner of the building is that's the Trump. It's Trump Tower.

That's right, that's exactly right. That was the satire there. Wow. You see that? Look at that. That's very good. So here's what happened in this nonsense. City of Coral Gables is in a land grab real estate hustle

is trying to annex certain areas of of unincorporated Miami-Dade into the city trying to plan their flag and bring it in the city. I went to a public meeting and spoke out against this plan and I called out Vince Lago who is a real estate broker who has been working in the city of Coral Gables, basically making money off of his job as the mayor, just like Francis Suarez does in the city of Miami. He didn't like that. That I called him out. His brother also is the lobbyist for one of the biggest landowners in one of the areas that they want to annex. And we're saying like, let's just call it what it is. It's a land grab in a real estate hustle,

like everything else in this town. He didn't like it. He ran to Telemundo and various Spanish language media to talk all about. Billy Corbin. That card is actually Vince Lago on Telemundo. And what he said was Roy, while we were recording this podcast last week,

my phone's blowing up. And they're like, Vince Lago was on Telemundo talking about Billy Corbin. And how you are me, I'm being paid to speak out against him and the annexation by the firefighters union. I'm like, what? The firefighters are...

They got money? First of all, I didn't even know that was a thing. Like, can I get paid by the firefighters i'm like is that a real thing but he just made this bullshit up to out of whole cloth this is science fiction you might as well said i'm getting but being paid by unicorns and so

i decided to go and confront him at this meeting and challenge his defamatory lies about me i will take a lie detector test a polygraph on my podcast because my amy, to prove that I'm not paid by anyone. As long as the mayor agrees to come on the podcast as well and take a polygraph to answer questions about your dealings with your real estate partner Bill Riley, his co-conspirator and now co-defendant Alex Diaz Laportiaa who was also your political consultant, your real estate client, disgraced developer Rishi Kapoor, and any other ways in which you exploit your public office for private profit. I challenge you to take that lie detector test with me, live on my podcast.

You know what we got a guy for that? Big Joe Harper. You have a polygraph guy? Yes we do. I wouldn't call him so quickly. I know. I was on a retainer. I don't. I wouldn't call him so quickly. I know. He was on a retainer.

I don't, I mean, that suggestion went over like a fart in a submarine. I gotta tell ya. I just got nothing but like scared eyes and kind of a panicked expression from Mayor Vince Lago. And I'm guessing he's not gonna come on the show to take a polygraph. Not a sub-head.

And while he didn't address my offer head on, I will say that our exchange did not end well. Mayor, you can sell your soul, but please stop selling out your city. Coral Gables deserves better. Thank you. Hold it, Espinoza. Mr. Cohen, you may sit down now. I'm sorry.

I had a respect. I had a respect. What did you call me? I called you Mr. Cohen. I had a respect. Why, you wanted to just say, Jew, isn't it appropriate that you're sitting under the portrait of a noted anti-semacist? Like racist.

What I said was, I had a respect for the residents. I will not respond. We will address this later in the court. I will be formally bringing you in in regards to a lawsuit and we will address that in the future. But I respect for the residents. I will not allow you to make this into a circus like you make everything else into a circus. I hope you have a wonderful day.

Thank you, sir. You're the ringmaster, sir. I should note that shortly after that exchange at this meeting where he threatened to sue me, the commission voted three to two to censure Mayor Vincelago for being an asshole. Yeah. Not just to me, but to his colleagues on the city commission and for violating least six or seven of the criteria in his very own code of civility that he sponsored and passed at the city. It's a pretty scumbag thing to do what he did there at the end. Yeah, let's talk about that. let talk about the the lawsuit threat because this

guy's a bully and he ain't gonna do shit uh... and the reason he isn't is because in the last twenty four hours right i've had no less than six attorneys people who i associate is being affiliated with the left and the right cold me unsolicited to offer to represent me pro bono. And that doesn't even include the first amendment attorney we have on retainer at Racken

Tourter Company because we're documentary filmmakers. And that's the thing you need to do. But these attorneys are so excited, Roy. They can't wait to dig into VinSlogo's financials to get his tax returns, to get his bank accounts, his deposits, and to start to put together for, this isn't some sort of defamation case against me. This will turn right into a corruption case against Vince Lago. And they will get to depose under oath Francis Suarez and Rishi Kapoor and Bill Riley and

Alice Diya's La Portia and Keon Hardeman. And I mean, like, just this David Lila sentner, I mean, Liske goes on and on. Now, a bunch of those people will probably plead the fifth because this guy is surrounded by criminals. They seem to be salivating at this Pandora's Box here. But I gotta tell you, and this revolution will be televised because all of these depositions will be video recorded and we're gonna make a documentary about it too.

I mean, this would be an absolute blast. But let's talk about the other thing that I think you were actually talking about, which was the the Billy Cohen of it all. So I was born William Marcus Cohen. I am named for my father's father's father, my great-grandfather. And when I was, we'll say, a child actor in Los Angeles working as a kid, I did a lot of like TV shows and movies and commercials and pilots and stuff, and I'll put it to this way. The name Cohen is like the name Smith or like Martinez. It's like a very common Jewish name, and not that Smith or Martinez are common Jewish names. I just mean the sort of the Jewish equivalent of that. And so it was collective with my representation to change my name because

despite the conventional wisdom that like Jews run Hollywood. Yeah, a lot of directors and producers are Jewish, but that's not necessarily an advantage. Content is made for everybody. And so when you walk in his Billy Cohen, they say, well, can Billy Cohen play Kevin Costner's son in a movie? I'm not going to get that part. And I walked into an audition. I'll never forget when I was 12 or 13 years old. And the producer or director looked at my resume, looked at my name. And by the way, this person might have been Jewish themselves, but they said, oh, Billy

Cohen, nice Jewish boy. So immediately in the room, that turned into can a nice Jewish boy play this part? Not can Billy play this part, but can Billy go in nice Jewish, so you kind of want to level the playing field and have an, you know, it's a very competitive business. And so the idea was to come up with kind of a neutral name. So my mom always called me Billy, not William or Guillermo, but Billy. And so Billy Corbin became the name. So we didn't have to change it too much.

It was just sort of COHN now now just changed the H2NR and a B. And I remember being in a car with my mother talking about this, and I was sobbing. I was crying, and I said, I am not ashamed of my grandfather's name. I am not ashamed of my great-grandfather's name. And my mother's like, well, that's not the point. The point is if you want to keep at it in this business, which is your choice, are you going to create a competitive disadvantage for yourself? And that's just the reality.

So I basically changed my name to avoid anti-Semitism or to avoid some kind of stereotyping as a result of having a very common Jewish last name. And now we'll call them my enemies and politics weaponize that against me. And let's be clear, it is not an anti-Semitic dog whistle. It is an anti-Semitic fog horn. It is used specifically to pander to a base, a certain segment of their base that is racist and anti-Semitic to say, he is not one of us. He is an other. And it's tantamount really to pinning a yellow star on me

to say, Jew, he is a Jew. Take from that what you will judge that how you will. But in a time in which Notsees are marching in Florida. Notsees are marching in Texas. Israel is under attack, experiencing the greatest mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust, the most perverse genocide of the 21st century so far. This is the tactic that he chooses to use and he is not alone. He is not alone. Here's what's interesting about this, Roy, is I went to this meeting specifically to point out how unfortunate it is that the city beautiful, which is the slogan of Coral Gables, that the government there is turning into the incestuous cesspool of corruption cancer that is Miami and that is spreading via VinSlago, metastasizing into

Coral Gables. And what does this guy do? He just proves my point for me and he tears a page right out of the. Corbin. Corbin. Corbin. Corbin. Corbin. Corbin. Corbin. Corbin. No, no, no, no, no. That's a real name. It's Billy Cohen. Oh, I don't think he likes his last name. So he uses Corbin. You're right. Yeah, it does sound like it's Lago Joe Croyo thinks that you're a nice Jewish boy.

Quotal quote. I am proud of my name. I am proud of my father's name. I am proud of my name. I am proud of my father's name. I am proud of my grandfather's name. My great grandfather's name. And I will say this, Vince Logo's mama didn't name him Vince. Joe Corroyo's mama didn't name him Joe.

I don't know what it was. Jose? Jose, Joseph, Vincent, Dave, and Chenzel. I don't really care. I'll call them whatever they want to be called. I'll call them Vince Lago and I'll call them corrupt and I'll call them an asshole. I'll call him. You want to be called Joe Correo? I'll call him Joe Correo and I'll also call him a wifebeater. You're gonna tell lies about me because I tell the truth about you.

That's fine. But I'm also sitting there, Roy, in the chambers of choral gables, looking at this painting, this portrait of the founder of choral gables, George Merrick, a proud segregationist, a man who specifically created choral Gables. So it would be all white and all wasp. The country clubs and Coral Gables, Coral Gables Country Club Rivera, restricted. No Jews, no people of color allowed.

So I'm sitting there, waiting to be heard during public comment the whole time, watching this portrait. Might as well be Robert E. Lee up there. This is the city where Vince Lago, a notorious racist and anti-Semite, Coral Gables was the last holdout to rename South Dixie Highway Harriet Tubman Highway. Because Vince Lago would not have it. Busy Whistland Dixie. So I am proud of who I am. I am

proud of where I came from. I am proud of my name, and it is because of racist and anti-Semites like Vince Logo and Joe Corroyo, that I was put in a position where I even had to consider creating a professional name. And I'm sitting here waiting to get served. Are they gonna? No, are they gonna? No, not gonna. Where's the process, server Roy? They're not gonna do it. They don't have the stones to do that. Absolutely not.

No, no, he's just bluffing. I don't think he's gonna actually do that. I'll call the lie detector test guy. Maybe, uh... Big Joe Harman. At Public Mobile, we do things differently. From our subscription phone plans to throwing a big sale right now when no one else is. Well, maybe they are, but who cares, our sale is better. And it's on right now, no waiting necessary.

You have the latest phone, now take advantage of a great price on a 5G subscription phone plan. It's the perfect deal for anyone who could use some savings right now. Subscribe today at publicmobile.ca. Different is calling. How you feeling, Roy? You full of despair? Yes. On brand? On brand. Why don't we? How are you feeling, by the way? My bronchitis is starting to slowly leave, but every time I show up here and start laughing, it reappears.

Is that not communicable? Bronchitis? I doubt that it is. I don't think anybody here is going to catch it. So I think we're all good. It's a good thing nobody uses their voice here to make a living. I think that's a plus. Yeah.

Roy, why don't we take a look at the wheel of despair and see what our topics are this week. Okay. Here we go. It's Roy stretching. Yeah. I think I bought my bronchitis. We got Miami Infrastructure Week. No, I think I bought my bro Kai just like it. We got Miami infrastructure week.

No, no, that's right. No, no, no. I put a hard hat on and duck and cover. Cost-behave in badly. Cops-behave in that's a perennial. Yeah. Proud boys behave in badly. As opposed to proud boys behaving goodly.

It's a very rare thing, but you know, gotta put it out. Gun-toting politicians. Hi, because Miami. Yeah, and, uh, well, at this point, because everywhere, because America. And backstage, tell us what sex scandal. That sounds like a cheap clickbait headline

by a producer Matt Sullivan. Hmm. So that sounds like. Matt? You got them right, Meatball. But there you go. You got Matt Sullivan. So that sounds like. You got damn right, Mipal. There you go. There's Matt Sullivan right there chiming in. Roy, before we spin the wheel of despair,

I want to remind everybody that they can share their despair on the Because Miami Complaint line. Yes, we're finally doing it. Thank you. You got it. Right down there, I'm pointing at the number down at the bottom of your screen. That's 786-505-9842 again.

Because Miami complaint line, share your despair, 786-505-9842. Call now. We'll throw in free shipping and handling. Roy, shall we spin the wheel? Wow. Gun-toting politicians. show he's been the wheel. Oh, wow. Gun-toting politicians. You said because everywhere, because Florida, because America, because Miami, this is all

Miami Beach. Miami Beach is famous. People know it all over the world, but it is just a barrier island with no more than 100,000 full-time residents. And it turns out a bunch of heavily armed politicians. And they are apparently pretty careless about how they handle said firearms. The mic. No, I should have made sure you were sitting down, right?

Are you sitting down, right? My fault, I'm not sure. Yeah, I'm actually standing. I don't know if you can tell but i'm standing right now my mbbj may or will candidate michael greeko who incidentally is a criminal this is a guy who was once charged in an illegal campaign finance scheme where he conspired to have a foreign millionaire donate money illegally to his campaign so obviously he's running for office again

and by the way i should say for the obviously he's running for office again. And by the way, I should say for the record, he's a Democrat. So just a couple of weeks ago, he left his satchel with his wallet, ID, cash, and a Glock 43 handgun, which according to a police report was loaded with six nine millimeter rounds in the magazine and one round in the chamber. That's a direct quote from the police report. He left it at South Point Park at the dog park at about 10 11 a.m. on a Sunday morning where it was found by a woman who immediately turned it in fortunately to the police department

and was luckily not found by, I don't know, a child in a dog park on a Sunday morning. And then Michael Greco, who was famous when he was lying to the Miami herald about those campaign finance crimes I told you about, he told Nicholas Neymos the herald. He swore to him. He was, he goes, look into my soul. That's what he said. That was the famous quote. That was the headline.

And by the way, his soul was lying. I'll tell you right there. Wow. And so now he has told two, three, four, five, six different versions about what it was stolen. I was about to report it stolen as I was on my way to the police station when they called me and told me they found it. It was snatched from me. I left it there, but it was taken while my back was looking to his sole way. He's got stories for days. Now, it's got six different souls by pure dumb luck. By the way, it was not found by a child, but as it turns out, a different Miami Beach candidate, a guy running for the city commission, David V Suarez. This guy was forced by a judge to temporarily surrender at least a dozen guns and his concealed weapons permit to police.

In 2020, after photographs showed his young child, quote, in close proximity to a variety of different weapons while in the care of his father. End quote. This was all in the process of a divorce, but he had to turn over several handguns, five long guns, including an AR-15, along with his concealed weapons permit, ammunition, and other firearm components. Why do you need all those guns? Well, to protect his child, who apparently, according to this photograph, was in the

presence of all of these guns. Now what he claimed was that there were added locks and that this image, purporting to show his child in a bathroom with a gun on the floor was actually only one part of a gun on the floor of the bathroom. What any part of any gun was doing on the floor of a bathroom with a child in it is anyone's guess,

but this man is running for Miami Beach commission and this is only the first wheel of despair topic. Oh yeah that's more. Should we spin the wheel again? Do we have time? Billy is Miami Infrastructure Week. Oh no. Billy is my me infrastructure week. Oh no. Hit the deck head for the hills. It's Miami infrastructure week. Hey, fun fact Roy.

Oh, here we go. Not so much fun for the people who died, but did you know? Oh. That three of the dead, failures, collapses. In the United States in the last decade, have all happened in one county, I will give you three guesses, which county that is. Munro.

I'll do my own says. No. You have big red X, big family feud red X. Duval. Err, orange. Err, okay,. Errgh. Okay, it's Miami-Dade. I was- Damn right, mate, Paul. Obviously, we know to, we know, so-so-so, we know the FIU bridge.

What was the third one? Miami-Dade College parking structure, while it was under construction, collapsed. Oh, three. Two, if not three construction workers at the time. And so it turns out now this is not, luckily this has not turned tragic yet, but this is a pretty big deal because the entire economic driver of Miami-Dade is tourism. And so the Miami International Airport is the heartbeat of this community, all the blood, all the arteries, they all stem out of this airport. And so it is some of the most important infrastructure we have.

And Daniela Levine-Kava, as county mayor, has been derelecting her duty to maintain the airport in any competent or meaningful way. And guess what they discovered? The Sky Train has extensive structural cracking. It is now closed indefinitely with absolutely no. There's no time table. No estimate for when it may be reopened again. Here's the thing about this. I don't know if you remember back in the day, but probably about 2010, Roy, they redid the Miami airport

where they took four separate concourses and they combined it into this big mega American Airlines concours D. This concours is over one mile long and this sky train connects most of that mile long 60 gates in this terminal building. And it's just one long, like endless term, it goes on forever and ever and ever. There's no like moving walkways like they have in certain airports. There is just this, this guy train, which is now apparently, despite the fact that we spent $130 million to build it back in 2010.

And we spend $22 million a year to a private company to operate and maintain the train. It is now unsafe. And basically they just have a handful of golf carts zipping back and forth for elderly and handicapped customers to have to traverse the mile long concourse. When I say Miami-Dade has third world government and fourth world infrastructure and people wanna give me shit for it. Like, exhibit, you know, 305. Here, exhibit nine, exhibit seven, eight, six. Here we are.

What other than new area code is now? Not like nine, two, not that exhibit nine, two, nine. Is that what it is? What is the new? I forget. But whatever the new one is. And this is why I fly out of FL long, by the way. This is a lot of fun, a lot of them. Exhibit 954.

Thank you, for people who know that 954 is the Broward area code. Remember when all of this was 305 country? All of it. Remember when we did it, had to use the area code? Oh, seven digit dialing, you mean? Yep. Yeah, no, I don't remember that, I'm too young. Right, to remember that.

Crysland, so old. When dinosaurs roamed the earth, I got Fuentes in my ear who was apparently still here. You know where he's gonna be tomorrow? It's also dancing. Queue the music, queue the music, do we have it? You know I have it. We have to have it, all right.

But he is gonna be shaking his hips in the DR. Pack me in your carry on luggage. Actually, better yet in your check baggage, cause I don't want you to have to shut me around my minorational airport for a mile. No, I just had the people on the run rate just throw you into the dog on plane, man. I guess it could be worse the Sky Train situation.

It could be bright line, so there could be just piles of dead people. Yeah, run it to planes. Wait a second, are they a sponsor? Am I? No. Okay, good, all right. One more time, shall we spin the wheel of despair? Wait a second are they a sponsor? No. Okay, good. All right. One more time, shall we spin the wheel of despair?

Oh! Backstage telescope sex scandal. Oh, the... This is my shock face Roy, that it landed on the clickbait headlines. This is my shock face. Roy, you are a living breathing emoji. I really are. Yes, I am.

I, this is a horrific story because it ends in a man's suicide. And what happened here is that this GOP insider, best friend of Governor Ron DeSantis, very generous donor to Ron DeSantis and to the Jacksonville Sheriff, where this guy had a key card with full access to the Jacksonville Sheriff's office since 2013. So this guy was under investigation by that office and the state attorney's office in Jacksonville. For I guess kind of a sex extortion scheme involving an underage girl who in what officials called a quote bizarre and fraudulent scheme to trick a young woman to expose herself using the promise of Taylor Swift tickets and backstage passes.

So this BFF of Ron DeSantis, of Jacksonville Sheriff, Mike Williams, former Jacksonville Mayor, Lenny Curry, he was appointed by Ron DeSantis on the Florida Board of Governors. He was named the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office citizen of the year in 2016. This guy was on the verge of being charged criminally when he committed suicide, this criminal and this coward. While my heart goes out to his family, my heart really goes out to this young woman and her family who had to deal with this traumatic event as she described it.

And she also said that despite this ordeal, mine my family's heart breaks for the sermon family, that was this guy's name. I should probably say it out loud. His name was Kent Sturman, this Florida Republican insider. And I'd like to add just a few details about what it is that he did here. He basically

exploited his power to say, I know the people at this venue in Tampa where Taylor Swift is going to be playing. I can not only get you tickets, but I can get you backstage to meet her. You just need to give me something. And he lured her into his office and basically talked her into exposing herself to him and tried to talk her into sending, compromising inappropriate pictures, this underage woman. And she felt essentially kidnapped. She felt that she could not get out of that office unless she did this. He offered her $10,000 to give him a lap dance or $5,000 if she had quote,

facetime sex with him. The whole scene was extremely creepy. If you wanna read about it, I would like to stop reading about it and stop reading it aloud. But needless to say, this man escaped justice. Perhaps the easy way.

By meeting his maker and now, he is no longer a problem for Ron DeSantis and no longer a problem for the various Republican politicians that he was allied with, that he helped support financially and who also helped to scratch his back. That's the thing too. If he wanted, he could have just Ron DeSantis would have given him that massage probably. You got damn right, Meatball. Daisy Duk, boots at, always wears a cast. Not Daisy Dukes, but there is Daisy Duk, you know what, let's end the segment on that,

there he is. There is Daisy DeSantis live from Disney World and Ron and his platform boots. I'm just gonna breathe a sigh of relief and just say, because Miami. Breaking news here in DeSantis, Dan Roy, after two years of denying that detailed COVID data and vaccines even existed, they said it didn't exist. Now after, I don't know how many tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars in litigation,

Governor Ron DeSantis and Florida is like, oh no, no, it does exist and we're going to release it and now we're going to pay your attorney's fees too for screwing around for the last two years in this public records request. As a documentary filmmaker, this makes me so angry because we rely on transparency and accountability to be able to get the information we need to process it, to do investigations, to make decisions about like our lives and our families here in the state of Florida. And when they cover this shit up, these records don't belong to the governor. These records don't belong to the government.

These are our records. We pay to create them, we pay to keep them, and we pay to get them when we request them. And then they lie to us and they say, you know what, they don't even exist. And then they go, eh, psych. I mean, it's crazy. Meanwhile, we have this absentee governor

who is so busy, you know, fear and Florida men on the campaign trail. I was right in the middle of a fucking reptile zoo. Somebody was giving booze to these goddamn things. This guy is so busy pretending to run for president that we can't get, forget good government. We can't get any government here in the state of florida and

now we have former state representative carlos gear most myth from central florida a friend of the program you've seen them on here before he was actually the plaintiff in this public records case and led the fight along with his his attorneys from the florida center for government accountability and nonprofit public records watchdog thank god for them. That's a thing too about about public records Carlos.

They are bipartisan. This is not about being a Democrat or a public and this is about giving Florida the information we need. So I want to start there. Public records man, this is our information. And you know, what happens when the government does not give us our information? What does it cost us to get our information? And how has the Florida legislature over the past several years made it harder for us to get that information? Well, first of all, Billy, thank you for having me back on because Miami,

look at the center of this fight, which is why I filed a lawsuit against the DeSantis administration, is freedom of information, the public's right to know. It is a constitutional right to know. Florida has some of the strongest sunshine laws, also known as government in the sunshine, in the country, because we know that open government is more accountable to the people it serves. It's more transparent when we have open government, which means that we would have a more effective government. And that is why it's so important to, first of all, not allow for the diminishment of our public records laws here in Florida. But also, it's important that when government violates our constitutional right to know that they are held accountable. And that's exactly what I did.

I sued the DeSantis administration a couple of years ago to get critical public health data that the public needed to know while the Delta variant was assurging in our state, it was making its way through Florida. The Dessantis Administration unlawfully denied our requests for public records. And we sued them. Of course, they dragged their feet in court, they dragged this out for two years, they did everything they could to stall, stall, stall. They actually lied about the existence of these public health records in court in front of a judge. And when they were finally caught, read handed the way they were caught lying about the

existence of these public records, they agreed to settle on our terms. They agreed to not only give us all the records that we asked for, that they claimed didn't exist, but they also are now required to disclose and be more transparent with the public health data that they have for the next three years, the next 36 months, and they had to pay 100% of my attorney's fees, which wasn't cheap. We accumulated just over $152,000 in legal fees because the DeSantis administration decided that they wanted to drag this out because they chose to deny our lawful requests for public records.

Yes, they dragged it out for two years, but we persisted, and ultimately we held them accountable and we won. This seems like a gross stir election of duty here. What are the repercussions for this? Could there be civil lawsuits from residents here in Florida? We pay. That's what happens. We get victimized, and then we pay to defend the victimization and then we pay the victim i mean it's there is no really the only remedy is the taxpayers continue to pay is not right kirlis well that's right well that this is what's happening what's happening is the de santa's administration is used

is using millions of taxpayer dollars to defend the the indefensible. They are defending their unlawful conduct as it relates to not complying with public records requests. They are defending unconstitutional six-week abortion bans in court. They are having to defend themselves are having to defend themselves from a series of lawsuits against unconstitutional laws, and they're doing it all with our taxpayer dollars. But then what they do is they have the nerve to then turn around when they lose,

because they broke the law, and they decided, for example, in this case, not to comply with our lawful records request, they turn around and they say, oh, case, not to comply with our lawful records requests, they turn around and they say, oh, well, it's the plaintiffs that squander taxpayer money. No. It was the Distanthood Administration's decision to not disclose public records as they are required to do under the law.

It was their decision to drag this out for two years and even appeal like the most minor decisions that our judge was making just on administrative procedures to the first DCA court. And they squandered taxpayer money because they didn't want it to be exposed that while the Delta variant was ripping its way through Florida, which by the way was the deadliest period of the pandemic in our state 23,000 Floridians died during that time, they limited access to public records and information about the virus to fit their political narrative and help run DeSantis run for president. So the delay of this information, of course helped him politically and helped him continue to push that narrative. Though Florida's open for business and everything's okay and everything's fine and I'm the

champion of COVID, no it wasn't. So many people died that didn't have to because they decided that they were going to downplay the threat of this virus. They were going to withhold information and they did so for political reasons. And as I said before, of course, public records are bipartisan. And also you didn't know what this data was going to show. You didn't know if it was going to prove some point you were trying to make. You just wanted the public records.

You wanted the data to see whatever it would have shown, but it does strike me, as you just said, that there was an effort here, I mean, it pretty desperate and transparent cover up of this data. I would have to imagine in an effort to support DeSantis's revisionist history on his pandemic record. In an effort, desperate effort to try to gain some traction for his failing presidential campaign. I mean, is that what's happening here? Does Florida continue to pay for this guy to run for president? Oh, we're absolutely subsidizing his presidential campaign, whether it is waste of taxpayer It is wasted taxpayer dollars to defend unconstitutional laws that have been passed by the state that he rammed through the legislature just so that he could have a talking point on the Republican presidential stage, or whether it's us having to pay for his security and his

travel around the country when he meets with millionaire and billionaire donors to his campaign that he's beholden to, not only as a governor, but as a potential president in the United States. But let's not kid ourselves. Ron DeSantis has a close to 0% chance at this point of becoming the Republican nominee. And he's tried to change the subject of his campaign message, probably a hundred times since he booted the campaign. He of course launched the campaign repeatedly continuing his war on, his so-called war on woke,

the culture wars. You know, he went on Fox News the day that he announced his presidential campaign and was asked, what would he do about the conflict in Ukraine? And he talked about how he would get rid of gender ideology in the US military, which of course makes absolutely no sense. We don't have any troops in Ukraine.

How is gender ideology in the military? What does that have anything to do with the conflict in Ukraine? Of course, it has nothing to do with it. I think people finally tired of the anti-woke culture wars and the agenda because they realize they've been sold a bill good. So then, he pivoted to COVID and it's like, I was the champion of COVID. And this is what we did in Florida. And of course, he relied on his revisionist historical record

of what happened in the state of Florida during COVID. Republican voters weren't interested in that either. So now, he just keeps pivoting from topic to topic to see what will stick. But at the end of the day, none of it's sticking because he's a sucky presidential candidate. He's all talk. He has no core values other than political ambition, and I think people see right through it.

All that's BS. No, totally, totally BS. Carlos, in the last 60 seconds here, let's talk about what this is a distraction from, which are the real problems that Floridians are facing every minute of every single day while this guy is off pretending to run for president headline just this week bad news for Florida homeowners. High insurance premiums unlikely to drop anytime soon and this is despite all of these efforts supposedly as we say in Miami by the Florida legislature to stem the tide here, you'll

pardon the climate change metaphor there. But 30 seconds, what is really affecting Floridians here and what are the consequences of having an absentee governor? Well, the consequences are our property insurance market is going to continue to collapse. We know that we're going to continue to see a severe shortage of affordable housing while in while Florida is the number one inflation hotspot in the country. We have a massive public school teacher shortage. It's been made worse by a legislature that has politicized our classrooms and turned them into political battlefields. Look, we have real problems that we

need to solve. We need leadership in our state that is going to be ready to solve those problems with real solutions. But as said, we have a governor who, when the last property insurer left the state of Florida, farmers insurance, his response was to just call the insurer woke on the way out the door and thought everything was going to be better. It's not. We need real leadership. That's one of the reasons I'm running for Florida Senate, but also so that I can continue to hold this administration accountable, especially when they violate our public's right to know. You God damn right, meatball. Got the plug in there at the end. Came in on time. Carlos Guillermo Smith, thanks so much for joining us again.

Thanks for having me because Miami, thank you. And in lieu of a Miami moment today, we will end the show with a moment of silence for the people of Israel who are undergoing the worst attack on that country since the 1970s, and the worst attack on Jews since the second World War. And I hope for a speedy and just resolution and response to these terrorist attacks and for a hopefully meaningful and lasting peace.