The Eric Metaxas Show - John Gleeson

Episode Date: June 1, 2022

John Gleeson stops by the studio to discuss his revealing new book, "The Gotti Wars: Taking Down America's Most Notorious Mobster," with insights only Gleeson, the young prosecutor on the case at the time, can provide.

Folks, welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m.investments.com. That's legacy p.m.investments.com. A taxes show with your host, Eric Mettaxas. Hey, folks, welcome to the Eric Metaxis show. I am particularly excited about the show today. We have a guest.

You kind of can't make this stuff up. I've had Rudy Giuliani here. Curtis Slewa here, but I've never had it. The reason I bring them up is because we're talking about New York, organized crime, John Gotti, the Gotti family. I have with me here, Judge John Gleason, who has written a book called The Gotti Wars, taking down America's most notorious mobster. And it was you, Judge John Gleason, you were the determined young prosecutor who in two of America's most celebrated trials, man. to convict John Gotti. It is my honor to have you. Thank you. You're so nice to say that. Thanks for having me on your show, Eric. I appreciate it. Listen, as somebody, you know, I'm a sort of a sensitive soul. I never worked in law enforcement or in law. And so when I would hear, you know, these stories of organized crime, it's chilling. It's horrifying to me the brutality of that world. Absolutely horrifying. And of course, I was thrilled.

when the mob in New York began to be dismantled and never more thrilled than when John Gotti was gotton. I didn't know who was behind that, and now I'm sitting here with you. So, hey, here's a question. What took you so long not to get him to write the book? Because this is a little while ago. Yeah, great question. Look, those experiences are the kind of experiences anybody would be lucky to have. I knew I had to write them down.

I knew it right after we convicted him in 1992. I figured, and originally I thought my daughters, one of whom wasn't even born yet, would, you know, would need to know what their dad did. And I was afraid I'd be too old or too dead to tell them. Or whacked out by the mob. Something like that. So I decided I was going to write it down for them. And then life got in the way.

You know, I went on the bench. I had those two kids to raise. Who benched you? Wait a while, wait a while. A prosecutor like this, who put you on the bench? What's the story? I was put on the bench in the Clinton administration after 10 years investigating and prosecuting John.

Oh, you don't mean you were benched. You mean you were put on the bench as a judge. That's the judge. You see, I knew that, but I wanted you to say it. You became a judge, which is why today you're Judge John. They still call me Judge. They call you Judge? Which is out of respect, not for me, but for the position I used to occupy.

But it's not like Judge Reinhart. You're actually a judge. I was actually a judge for 22 years. Now I'm practicing law. Now I'm a defense lawyer. Well, people want to know, you know, a young man. You go to law school. And how do you get involved? How did you become the guy tasked with actually prosecuting the so-called Teflon Don, the fearsome John Gotti? Like everything else in my life, I got lucky. Do you believe in luck? I believe in luck. You do.

Better to be lucky than smart. And I put myself in that former category. Look, I went to law school. I was at a big firm. I went to become a prosecutor in Brooklyn, federal court in Brooklyn. And within three weeks, I was assigned to the first of the Gotti Wars, the seven-month racketeering trial of John Gotti. That was, that case was underway when he murdered his predecessor boss, Paul Castellano.

Like that's a bad thing. Come on. No, seriously, I got to make him a bad person, maybe. I have to joke around because it's just too painful for me. That's a really famous thing. What was that? What was that? That was December 16th, 1985.

Could you be more specific? Yeah, it was 6 o'clock in the evening. 6 o'clock in the evening. So this is the early bird special. Castellano, he's getting up in years. The Golden Corral was not open at that time. So he goes to Spark Steakhouse. 6 p.m. he has gunned down. You said it was what year?

85. Okay. So this is famous. Sparks is still open. You can go there now and see the chalk marks. But that was really famous. And it was brazen. And if I remember correctly, this was the way.

John Gotti showed that he's the tough guy. He's going to whack the boss to become the boss. This is kind of like vintage mob stuff. Even it was vintage mob stuff, but

to a degree no one else had ever reached. I mean, what a way to burst on the scene as boss when you commit a murder in the busiest part of New York, the busiest time of day, busiest season of the year, dozens of eyewitnesses.

So in the most violent, conspicuous, brazen way, he bursts on the scene as boss during our first case. That was, we had him under indictment. We were running up to trial. Now, wait a minute. This I didn't know. So in 85, you're a young guy, you're a prosecutor. You are already involved in trying to bring down the mob.

And in the middle of that, this event doesn't. not precipitate going after him. This was in the middle of this initial trial. Yes. In that first case, he was a captain in the family when he was indicted. And it was a big deal in law enforcement because he was a very tough and dangerous guy, but it was not on the public's radar screen. It very much got on the public's radar screen on December 16, 1985. He became a household name essentially overnight. Well, part of what makes the Gotti story extraordinary is that he, this was not old school mob stuff. This was new school mob stuff. In other words, that the mob had wanted to be in the shadows. They didn't enjoy the limelight. He deliberately put himself in the limelight and

enjoyed the limelight, which is what made him to some extent quite different from his predecessors, like the man he rubbed out on that 6 p.m. evening. You're good at this. Oh, I'm very good. It's exactly right, right? What he did, not for nothing, as we say in Brooklyn, they're criminals, right? It's called organized crime for a reason. Yeah.

All of his predecessor crime bosses and all the ones who were bosses of the other families at the same time acted like they were criminals. They'd stay, lay low. I mean, Chin Gigante, the head of the Genevese family, stumbled around Greenwich Village for 20 years in a bathrobe, just so he would have a defense when we indicted him. And that was his defense. What was his first actual name?

Vincenzo. Yeah, Vinnie the Chin Gigante. He would run around. I mean, there's so many pictures of him stumbling around little in his bathrobe. So everybody knows, like, he's a little off. And then everybody also knew it's an act to throw off the feds and whoever is coming after him.

So, yeah, they would make, they could be, in his case, almost histrionic in being unhistrionic, because here you have Gotti really embracing the theater and the drama. And then you have these other people in dramatic ways shying away from the limelight. And it's exactly right. It has everything to do with why that era, and specifically that case,

was the beginning of the end of the mob as we knew it because John Gotti decided he was going to be a celebrity boss that he had a public. Who were his role models? I mean, is he thinking back to Al Capone? Is he thinking back to... Maybe, although he was a very uneducated guy. He was really feeding off the media.

You know, as a culture, we really belong on the therapist's couch when it comes to the mob, right? we see in them what we want to see. Everybody, I grew up on the Godfather, which was a pretty poor attempt at art to imitate life because the mob really isn't like the Godfather. I was going to say, we've got to be very clear. I love the Godfather and Godfather 2. Godfather 3 is dead to me. But I want to say really clear that when you see the Godfather and Godfather 2, it doesn't begin to show the horror and the brutality.

There's a brutality, a thuggishness, an ugliness, a stupidity that they, you know, Puzzo and Francis Ford Coppola, they portray it almost romantically. They make it something that we can all identify with. We all want to be Michael Cress, something stupid like that. And what you're saying is when you actually see it,

it's dramatically different. We've got plenty time with Judge John Gle. Listen, the new book, The Goddy Wars, Taking Down America's Most Notorious, Mobbster, Don't Go Away. Tell me, Eric, why is Relief Factor so successful at lowering or eliminating pain? I'm often asked that question. The owners of Relief Factor tell me they believe our bodies were designed to heal. That's right, designed to heal, and I agree with them. So the doctors who formulated relief factor for them selected the four best ingredients,

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It is real, it is physical, it's always been valuable since the dawn of time. Legacy precious metals is the company I trust for investing in gold. They can help you roll your retirement account into a gold-backed IRA where you still own the physical gold. They can also ship gold and precious metals safely and securely to your house. Call Legacy at 866-528-1903 or visit them online at LegacyPMinvestments.com. Welcome back. I'm talking to the author of the brand new book, The Gotti Wars, taking down America's most notorious mobster. You wonder, hey, who took him down? Who was the determined young prosecutor who took him down?

Of course, we don't know. We don't know nothing about that. We was just in the olive oil business. No, actually, we do know. He's sitting right here. His name is Judge John Gleason. You were that young prosecutor. Yeah, I was.

And I didn't do it alone. Look, I was the lead prosecutor when we took him down, but I had great people helping me. Prosecutors in my office who worked under my supervision. And the FBI, FBI knows what it's doing when it comes to organized crime. Oh, so there is something they know their way around. I'm glad to hear that, actually, because I thought that they were all like page and strach

and all those evil, bad people. But you're telling me, listen, we know who the good guys are in this story. And when I think about going up against something, because listen, let's be honest, people didn't think you could take down the mob. And so the fact that that even happened is extraordinary. It's amazing. But you were talking about how you found yourself,

you're a prosecutor, and you find yourself being assigned to this case. So the first case, because most of us don't remember these details, was going on at the time that in 1985, John Gotti decides to make a name for himself, brutally murder Castellano in broad daylight. And is there any other kind of daylight? They always say that in broad daylight. I think there might be narrow daylight, but...

I think. Or medium-width daylight. but this was in broad daylight. Yeah, it was also 6 o'clock in the evening in December. Oh, December, so there's no daylight. It was broad dark night. All right. I'm a human being.

I make mistakes. But in the middle of this, this murder happens. So take us back, because he was, we have to say too, for people that don't know. He was known as the Teflon Don, because many efforts were made to get him that failed. Correct. He beat that case, the one that we had him under indictment for at the time they killed Paul. Castellano. Then there were two other cases in state court that he beat, one fair and square, one kind of scared the witness, intimidated the witness?

Well, the witness, it was a little dopey assault case, really. It was a very small case, but the witness produced that famous headline in the post, I Forgotty, because he got up on the witness stand and said he couldn't remember the person who slapped him. I don't remember that. Yeah. I was, uh, what year was that? That was 1987 or so. Yes.

And then, then there was our case. So yes, he had earned one way or the other, the nickname not only the Dapper Dahn, but the Teflon Don. So, um, what do you suppose it was about Gotti that made him want, the limelight other than he was a cheap thug? Well, I don't know, Eric, I mean, a lot of people

want to be famous and he found an adoring media that was perfectly willing to make him famous. He ended up right before the first trial. He ended up on the cover of time

is one of Andy Warhol's last renderings was a rendering of John Gotti. So he wanted to be a celebrity. But I remember Gotti didn't like what Warhol did, and he had him rubbed out. He whacked him out. We don't know where Warhol is to this day. Yeah, that's the next thing.

Yeah, he's at the bottom of Lake Mead. He's like Jimmy Hoffa. You'll see, you'll all see. Hey, I don't look like that. It's a matter with you. No, it's, you can't make, this is like, it's like New York comedy. Andy Warhol does a portrait of John Gotti. And, you know, I want to smack Andy Warhol.

Unfortunately, he's not with us anymore. But it's just, it is amazing that people, they glamorize this. You referenced the Godfather earlier. Part of, I think, Godi's impetus in wanting to be famous comes from the romance of the Godfather movies. Absolutely. You know, we see in gangsters what we want to see. You know, I think going back to Jesse James and Boddy and Clyde, all the outlaws. We love outlaws.

Yeah. But the thing, what he did unintentionally, I mean, when you think about it, when he's a celebrity boss, that's a stick in the eye of the FBI, right? So that mobilized law enforcement not just against him, but against all of La Cosenostra. At the time, there were eight squads in the FBI devoted solely to organized crime. There were only five families. So that's why John Gotti was the beginning of the end of the mob as we knew it, was he brought the wrath of, you know, they're human beings. They were embarrassed.

So they did something about it. And we had 20 prosecutors in my organized crime section. So the whole mob paid the price for him being a celebrity. And as they say, ha-ha, it's kind of funny, actually, because you're right. You know, if you want to play that game, you know, people don't. don't like to be embarrassed, and the FBI thought we will, now we're going to work overtime to take you down. Then that's, of course, what happened. Yeah, and it was pre-9-11. It was pre-terrorism. It's hard for young people, young listeners, to understand that this dominated New York,

in terms of law enforcement, and dominated American culture in terms of attention, organized crime. It's, in a way, it's a bygone era, but I think it was worth memorializing. You mean in this book? Yep, I do. So there's a book out, folks. It's called The Gotti Wars, taking down America's Most Notorious Mobster. Judge John Gleason has finally put this down. You said the case was concluded in 93?

92. April 2nd, to be exact. So a full three decades for you to get to writing this book. We're very glad you did because this need. needs to be told because most people, you know, we're sort of hazy on the details. So, I mean, if you don't mind, get us into some of the details. When we say a case against John Gotti, what is the case? And is it a case that he murdered Paul Costellano? Is it a RICO case? It's a whole raft of things. What is the case that you had against him? Sure. The best way of describing it is

the difference between the first case and the second case was we decided, after, you know, we lost the first case, which involved a bunch of low-level mobsters, not even made guys testifying against the boss. We decided that we were going to get the boss on tape. We meaning federal prosecutors, that's what I was, and the Gambino squad of the FBI. The Gambinos had a squad dedicated to them? Every family had one squad dedicated to them. And then there were some other squads that were kind of at large, but the FBI had a very serious focus on organized crime. And the Gambino squad found out that John Gotti had a secret meeting place above his social club.

The Ravenite, what is it, the hunt and game club, the fishing. Good for you. No, his Queens Club was called famously and hilariously the Bergen Hunt and Fish Club. Yes, the Bergen Hunt and Fish Club. What could be funnier than that, the Bergen Hunt and Fish Club? These are fly fishermen, ladies and gentlemen. They're hunting grouse. These are gentlemen estate landholders.

And, I mean, it is hilarious. Chasing the hounds around Ozone Park. And then the Ravenite was on 247 Mulberry Street in Manhattan. Right. So they had a secret meeting place above the Ravenite Social Club. And over the winter of 1989 into 1990, the FBI, with our assistance, with our, you know, lawyering assistants, got a bug in that club.

See, this kills me. When I read that, you know, 30 years ago, I mean, they got a bug in that club. How in the world did the FBI get a microphone into this super hideout on Mulberry Street? That's a great question, and it's about the only question I can't answer because they have these special ops people, special operations.

They wouldn't even let me meet the guys who put the bug in that secret apartment. It's like a state secret. This was Mulberry Street. Yes, in Mulberry Street. I'm not kidding. I wrote a long parody poem. Dr. Seuss wrote a book, I think it was his first book, and to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street.

I wrote a parody called, and to think that I saw John Gotti on Mulberry Street. and I want to share that with you, Judge John Gleason, because very few people would be able to appreciate it, but I'm not kidding. I really wrote it. It's excellent. And it's... I thought we were promoting my book. I'm the long...

No, I don't even... I didn't publish it as a book. Believe me, I didn't publish it as a book. It's just a... It's just on my website, Ericmataxis.com. But, I mean, if you're a New Yorker, as I have been most of my life, this stuff is almost unbelievable, really. I mean, what you're sharing, that they got a bug.

in this club. Do you think John Gotti had any dream that anybody could pull something like that off? Because that's like a nightmare. Yeah, well, he should have because he knew we were after him. Yeah. And he should have known

that we would try to bug anywhere he had these secret meetings. We had a bug in the club and a bug upstairs in that apartment. But it was wintertime. He was on trial in one of the other cases that he beat. So he was tired in the evenings.

That's one of those cases that got him the reputation. So he just go up there, have a little Zambuca, and he would talk and talk and talk, and you got him. We're going to be right back talking to the man who got him. The Godi Wars is the book, John Gleason, the author. Don't go away. Hey there, folks. Eric Metax is here. As you know, our friend, and he's a real friend, Mike Lindell, has a passion to help everyone get the best sleep of their life.

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800-978-978-3057. 8-78-3057. Folks, welcome back. It's here. Texas show. We always call this the show about everything because we like to talk about everything. but as I'm speaking to my guest today, Judge John Gleason, who's the author of The Gadi Wars, I realize we've had Johnny Russo sitting in this chair here. I think you know who that is. I do. We've had Giuliani here.

I don't know that Curtis Sliwa has ever been right here, but we've interviewed him a bunch of times. And, you know, he talks about almost being murdered twice by the Gatties. Judge. Do you know that story? I don't know if you know that story. Of course I do. Of course you do. Chilling stuff. Yes. Like mind-blowing stuff. And the fact that he survived seems to me miraculous. Yes. But these were the most brutal people. They're bad guys. You think? In three words, they're bad guys. Yeah, they're bad guys. Okay, so you, so take us into this. You get a bug into the Ravenite Club. on Mulberry Street.

And of course now, he goes there and he's talking. Yes. And you're literally, you've got guys listening to this and taping this. That's like a dream come true. Absolutely. Two really, really critical things happen. One is they talk about who they killed and who they're going to kill, which from a prosecutor's standpoint is pretty good evidence.

And the second thing is in one of the conversations, only the boss and the consuliere are present. And in that conversation, the boss, John Gotti, is complaining about his underboss, Sam Gravano. Uh-oh. Sammy the Bull is in trouble. Sammy the Bull is not present for that conversation, but a little less than a year later, we arrest them. You arrest Sammy the Bull? All three of them.

We arrest the administration of the Gambino family. Boss, under boss, concierge. Who's the consigliary? Frank LaCasio. Frank, okay, I've heard that name. And you pronounce it, consiglier. How do you pronounce it? Consolier.

Consolier. Is that the right way? That's the right way. I'll give you lessons later. But yes, a lot of people say, use the hard G, it's wrong. But let me get back to Garvano. You tell me the Godfather was wrong? Yeah.

This interview is over. Albin, shut off the tapes. So, so, so they arrest Gotti, Sammy the Bull, and his consiglier, consulier. And now? And now we have a detention hearing, right? They're arrested. Are they going to get bail or not? We play snippets of the tapes, and Gravano hears excerpts of a conversation that occurred on December 12, 1989, where his boss is complaining about him to his concier. And Gravano hears that and thinks, is this guy getting ready to kill me?

And he hears that tape, just excerpts of it. For the next 11 months, John Gotti refuses to allow Gravano or Lacassio to listen to the recordings because we turned them over the moment they were arrested. And Gravano thought this is bad, even if we beat the case, I might have to kill him because he's looking to kill me. And he decides, as he put it, to switch governments. He reaches out to me and he becomes the most high-profile mob witness in history.

So Sammy the Bull turns state's evidence. As we say it, he flipped. He flips. He sang like a canary, too. I spit on him. No, it's so funny because you get this whole mob thing that we don't do that. that, right? And La Gosa Nostra, we don't do that. So part of what makes this so exciting is here you have a top guy who does that. And it's fascinating because up until this time, no one was able to

get somebody in the mob to do that, which was what enabled them not to get brought down. Right. So how did that work? Was that your idea that we're going to play this tape for Gravano, knowing what the likely outcome is? I wish I were that prescient to tell you the truth. At the time, I just wanted to make sure they didn't get out after we arrested them. So we played the snippet, the excerpts from those Raven Eye tapes that showed how dangerous they were, and we got them detained. But I really didn't think that 11 months later, nobody thought Sammy the Bull would flip.

No one thought that ahead of time. And of course, because he flipped, he got off, even though he murdered, what, eight people? 19. 19. Doesn't anybody can murder eight, but 19. 19, yeah. You've got to give him credit. He's an ambitious murderer.

He murdered 19 people, but because of his value in taking down the whole mob, he is effectively set free into the witness protection program. and he gets plastic surgery. And I got to tell you, I'm that guy. You don't recognize me? You know, you didn't recognize me. You think I'm stupid. Life is full of surprise. I figured.

We got him. Shut the doors. Yeah. Okay. No, it's kind of, this is like, you know, this is the stuff of which movies are made, and in some ways it's more dramatic than a movie. But the fact that he, we know that he murdered 19 people, but because he feared for his life and he turned state's evidence,

and he says, I'm going to give you what I have. You all must have, somebody must have been high-fiving somebody when this happened. Yeah, although let me make a really serious point. There's debate about whether a guy who committed 19 murders really ought in our criminal justice system to get a five-year sentence, which is what he got. And that's a legit debate. I concede that.

The one thing that's rarely on the table when that debate is happening is how many, people, I mean, Sammy helped us put almost 50 guys in jail. Right. And those people had committed more murders put together than Sammy had. Oh, listen. And would have committed some more. I mean, you really don't need to make this point because I agree with you, but it is valuable to talk about that. We'll be right back talking to Judge John Gleason, the new book. You've got to get it. It's called The Gotti Wars. Folks, we continue the conversation with the author of the brand new book, The Gotti Wars, taking down America's most notorious mobster, Judge John Gleason,

was the young prosecutor who took down John Gotti, an extraordinary credential to put on one's resume. I think you're going to get some employment out of this. Do you think? Okay, good. That's pretty good. You know, you've got some pretty good SAT scores. I think you can get a good job.

So we're talking about how Sammy the Bull turns state's evidence, and even though he murdered, people. Look, we did the same thing with the Nazis after the war. You know, you try to make, there's this really grim calculation. You know, can we use them, can we use Werner von Brown in our rocketry program to put a man on the moon, even though he was one of the Nazis? This is always kind of the real world in which we live, where you have to make these ugly decisions. Cost benefit. It's why you need people with good judgment who exercise

that kind of power, right? Yeah. A prosecutor who gives, puts a judge in a position to give a break to someone who cooperates, who flips. Right. You got to do it right. I mean, you can't, you can't give a break to a murderer to prosecute somebody who stole a truck. Right, right. You need good judgment.

Well, although I always find it funny because then, you know, decades later you find out that Sam of the Bull was, you know, running a drug operation outside Vegas. I mean, like these people, they don't know how to do anything legitimate. They just go right back to usually what they were doing in any event. So that's a big moment for you, obviously, when Sammy the Bull Gravano decides I'm going to sing. And in his own way, the way that Gotti goes against sort of the mafia code, Sammy the Bull goes against the code in a way, too. Like they're both kind of the new vulgar version of, you know, Omerta doesn't, these are not,

men of honor. These are men in it for themselves. And so you worked that to the advantage of your fellow Americans. I did. And, you know, with Gravano, you know, that trashing of Gravano by Gotti on our tapes was very significant in this way, Eric, very important. Before Gravano flipped, on occasion, there would be a very low-level gangster who flipped. Henry Higgins. Henry Hibon. Hill, good fellas, one example. And whenever that happened, the word in the street in the mob was, you know, there's something wrong with that guy. He flipped.

When Gravano flipped, the word in the street from all of the informants to their FBI handling agents was, if Sammy the bull flipped, there's something wrong with the mob. And that, in addition to John Gotti having chosen to become a celebrity boss, those. are the two things, more than anything else, that brought down the mob as we knew it. Because Gravano was a gangster's gangster. And John Gotti trash talked them, caused him to flip. And that's when all the pieces, to my mind, one of the reasons the mob is just an absolute shell of its former self. It's very sad. Pray for the mob. No, we, the funny thing is, of course, because we live in a fallen sinful world, you know, you take down the mob and they're, you know,

just like there's somebody to replace Castellano, there's somebody who plays guys, there's always somebody waiting in the wings and maybe now it's not the mob, maybe now it's the, you know, the Russian mobsters in Brighton Beach or what, there's always somebody looking for an opportunity. Absolutely. And of course, that's kind of where we are today. So I don't know who are we facing today. If the Italian mob, the fabled Cozonostra is most. gone. Who are we dealing with? Whose law enforcement dealing with today?

Yeah. No one in particular to the degree they focused on the mob, but you're right. There became these, in the Bureau they call them emerging groups, Russian organized crime. Other ethnic groups, some involved solely in drug trafficking, some involved in labor racketeering. But there's no one set of organized group. or no one group per set of groups that does what the mob did in terms of labor racketeering and the breath of what it did. Yeah. Well, it's amazing. So, again, heading up this, being the head prosecutor on this, you must have feared for your own life.

I mean, that's kind of an obvious thing, but how does that go? I mean, you live in New York. You have a family here? Yes. What was your life like during this intense season? Sure. Well, look, as a general matter, one nice thing about the American mafia, unlike the Sicilian mob, is they tend not to whack agents and prosecutors. They're businessmen, which is why John Gotti becoming a celebrity boss was such a bad idea to all of them.

You know, they don't want to bring attention down on them. All of that said, so there was not like, you know, I wasn't living in mortal fuel. of my life for nine and a half years. That said, during the second trial, when we had about a month left before we rested, I was told by the FBI and the marshals that there was a contract on my life. And even then, we didn't think it was that higher risk because he was in prison. The rest of the mob didn't like him. Really, who's going to kill the prosecutor in a pending trial for him? I think it was just done to rattle us, rattle me. And it rattled me a little bit.

He's a bad guy who don't want to hear there's a contract on your life. But that was it in terms of, you know, I wasn't looking over my shoulder on the street every day. I'm no, you know, I'm a chicken like everybody else. Well, but it's interesting because I mentioned earlier Curtis Sliwa, who had the temerity on his race. radio program to trash talk, the Gatties, and then finds himself nearly murdered. Is that because they would think differently about him than they would somebody who is official in law enforcement?

Absolutely. There's nothing quite like the cloak of protection you have when you're in law enforcement, prosecutor or agent. You know, the one experience in my career was the murder of poor DEA agent Everett Hatcher, which was committed by a member of the Banana Family, and the mob itself found him and killed him and left him in the street for law enforcement. So the mob knows the difference between someone in law enforcement and someone like Curtis Slewa. Wow. We're going to be back.

continuing the conversation. The book is The Goddy Wars by John Leeson. Some of my dearest friends have not yet seen 2,000 mules. And I want to say publicly on the air, they're dead to me. Do you understand you're dead to me? Maybe not, but go see the film. The film, I'm legally obliged to say that I'm involved in the film. I'm in the film wearing green pants. You could see, if you want to know who I am, I'm the guy wearing green pants. My character in the film wears green pants. And those pants are, they're going to be in the Smithsonian soon next to Fonzie's jacket and the ruby slippers and Archie's chair. But if you want to see the pants themselves, instead of taking a trip to Missonian,

why don't you just go to the theater this weekend? Go to 2000 and Mules.com. You can plug in your zip code. It'll tell you where the nearest theater is. But I feel like every American needs to see this film and needs to exhort others. to see it. I'm, as I said, legally obliged to let you know that Salem, we are on Salem Radio Network. Salem participated in the production of this film.

You can see it at SalemNow.com. And I, as one of the stars of the film, now I do my own stunt work. I've been very open about that. I don't care. But as one of the stars of the film, I participate in the back end. Now, it's so minuscule. It annoys me that I have to mention this. It's like, really?

But yes, evidently, legally I'm obliged to do that. But so if you want to put like a shiny nickel in my pocket, go see the film. Yeah, by the way, if you go to see the film, you do have to buy your own ticket that because you're in the film, you get a free box of gummy bears. That's right. Everybody who participates in the film, when you go to the theater, you get a free box of gummy bears. Now, we should be clear that the film is important. And I earnestly desire that not only would every Americans see it, but that we would have a national conversation about it.

You can't have a national conversation about it if you haven't seen the film. If you've only seen a trailer or something, there's a lot in it. You need to know what's in it, folks, because it will change your view of things, no matter what you believe. You'll have a different view of confidence. a different confidence that you know what happened. So I want to say that.

I should also say, Albin, I, some people keep asking me to update this. So I'll just say this. As you know, because of a guest that I had on this show like a year ago, I'm being sued. I can't get into the details. But it's amazing. It's just part of the cancel culture. It's part of this chilling effect. People are trying to shut people up.

So I'm being sued. The legal fees for that are very significant. We were knocked, as you know, off of YouTube. The financial hit from that is very, very significant. So if you want to help, you can help by going to give, send, go. If you subscribe to my newsletter, Eric Mataxis.com, sometimes at the end of that, we put a link to the give send go page for Eric with taxes, but I can use your help. We're in a battle. We trust God. Our job is to do the right thing, not to worry too much about the circumstances. I mean, just to simply worry about doing the right thing, not to shrink back and say, oh, I better be careful. Of course we better be careful, but most people are on the side of being too careful. And if everybody would speak up, if everyone

would use their voice and risk pushback or risk whatever it is, it would be easier for everyone. And so that's kind, we need to be in this together. So as I say, if you want to help me and what we're doing on this program and and all the other ventures that I'm involved in, we really can use your help very much so. And we've set up a give, send, go page for that purpose. If you're able to help, I'm really grateful to you. Give send go, by the way, they're fantastic. I'm glad that they exist.

Give send go. All right. When we come back, Albin, we're going to talk to the folks at the Babylon B. Get ready, folks. Yeah.