Will Cain Country - Is James Talarico Really the Democrats' Next Star? (ft. Eric Metaxas & Eric Shawn)

Episode Date: June 4, 2026

Texas Democrats have found their darling in State Representative James Talarico, but are his policies really as mainstream as they want you to believe? Author Eric Metaxas joins Will to pick apart what lies behind Talarico’s carefully curated public image, and share some of the American Revolution’s most fascinating untold stories, as featured in his new book “REVOLUTION.”Plus, FOX Nation Host Eric Shawn joins the show to explore the Mafia’s roots in the U.S., and preview his new FOX Nation specials, “Gotti’s Guy,” and “Stories of the American Mafia.”Subscribe to ‘Will Cain Country’ on YouTube here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Watch Will Cain Country!⁠⁠⁠Follow ‘Will Cain Country’ on X (⁠⁠⁠@willcainshow⁠⁠⁠), Instagram (⁠⁠⁠@willcainshow⁠⁠⁠), TikTok (⁠⁠⁠@willcainshow⁠⁠⁠), and Facebook (⁠⁠⁠@WillCainNews)Follow Will on X: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WillCain⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Mainstream Democrats defined by James Talaureko of Texas. Plus everything you need to know about the revolution with Eric Metaxus, and everything you need to know about the mob with Eric Sean. Will Cain Country streaming live at the Will Cain Country YouTube channel, the Will Cain Facebook page. Always here. It followed at Spotify or on Apple. In New Jersey, Democrats have nominated a man who befriended and budded up and associated with the blind shake behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Across the country, Democrats have nominated,

increasingly radical, increasingly democratic socialist, and increasingly of poor character, evidenced by Graham Platner in Maine, candidates to represent them at both the state and federal level. Leaving the open question as to what is now a mainstream Democrat. Yesterday at 4 p.m. Eastern Time on the Will Cain Show at the Fox News Channel, I hosted a panel That included Democrat operative Matt Engel. Engel came in to suggest Republicans to nominate people who are radical. And the true future of the party, the true future of Democrats, is represented by mainstream Democrats like James Talleyco of Texas. Watch.

Most of those people will never walk into Washington, never walk into Congress. I mean, a couple of them sit in very safe Republican districts. Those organizations really aren't very influential. Democratic primary voters pick Democrats. And if you just look here in Texas, you've got the Democratic ticket in Texas, the most mainstream Democratic ticket we've had in years. The most mainstream Democratic ticket we've had in years is represented by James Talo Rico. Joining us now is the author of Revolution,

the birth of the greatest nation in the world, a brand new book out on June 2nd in celebration of the 250th birthday of the United States of America. It is Eric Metaxus. What's up, Eric? Good to be with you. You probably don't remember, but I think you interviewed me back when you were at National Review like 20 years ago. I definitely remember, Eric. I remember being in those small rooms off in that building on whatever 33rd Street in Midtown Manhattan. Probably talking to you at the time about Bonhofer or perhaps news of the day, but how would I forget, Eric? It's good to see you again. I'm glad to hear that. Very kind of you and great to be with you today.

Although I don't think it was 20. I'm going to give it 16 years ago. But, you know, close enough. Let's not prematurely age ourselves. Close enough. Round down. Round down. I know you were just a kid.

Yeah. Well, let's talk about for a moment, if you wouldn't mind. Let's talk about James Tala Rico of Texas. Do we have to, will, must we? It's unpleasant, but we must do it. Okay. So off camera, I was talking to this man, Matt Engel, about various Democrats.

They were prepared to talk about some of the people that I've listed here today. There was also a Republican operative. And I said, somehow the conversation moved along and I said, I had seen this video in the past couple of weeks. I disagreed with what was being said. But I thought, you know, John Ossoff of Georgia is showing political talent.

Like he is showing something while Democrats are searching for whoever could arrive at some higher ceiling. Would not that be presidency or whatever it is, just some talent. I mentioned John Ossoff. And he goes, well, if you like Ossoff, you're going to love Talarico. And I didn't really say anything because I've already got my baked-in opinions about Talarico.

But what I found fascinating, Eric, is this belief on the left that Tala RICO represents some higher ceiling, that he represents the future, that he is their talent. That's the best news I've heard in years. That's just beautiful. The left, listen, we have. lived to see this. They are melting down. They're in a death spiral. They cannot pull out of the death spiral. They are doubling down on lunacy when everything would tell anyone with an open mind, this is not a winning position. They seem to have no choice. They're just hoping it works out.

Talariko is, you know, is as mainstream as, you know, Lenin and Stalin. What does it mean even to use a term mainstream? He looks strange. if a Republican looked like him, they would be endlessly mocked for looking strange, like some kind of a humunculus or something. I didn't think I'd use that word today. But just who knows what they're thinking. But I'm glad that they seem unwilling to deal with reality, unwilling to do a genuine autopsy on why they fail over and over.

And so I'm just genuinely hopeful for the nation, that we are seeing. nakedly who they are. They cannot, you know, they're not even pretending anymore. So they can use terms like mainstream. But when you say things like he has said, their hope will, of course, here's what they're banking on. They're banking on enough people being enough, being ignorant enough, just like Mom Donnie one in New York City where I am. You have to have enough people that know nothing about anything and can be persuaded about anything and want to believe what they want to believe. That is what the Democrats are desperately banking on with figures like Tala Rico, and he's just one. Yeah, you have to hope that people don't hear things like this,

wherein he describes Tala RICO, God as a verb. Oh, watch. God is so much bigger than our human categories. God is not a Presbyterian. God is not a Christian. God is not a noun at all. God is a verb. God is not a being. God is being itself. God is what? Is that last part of being itself? Listen, there's some wisdom in that, but I just want to point out

that weasel, weasel is also a noun and a verb, Mr. Talariko. Yes. Wiesel. Look, he has said so many preposterous things, far more proposite. I mean, that is not,

that preposterous. It's just kind of funny that he is opining on this kind of stuff. But hold on, Eric, I like where you started here, because there's something to dig here with Tiger. You said that is not without wisdom. You certainly God is not a Presbyterian. I mean, God is not a Presbyterian. God is not a Methodist. God is not a Baptist. God is not a This is pro-abortion progressive. We can start there. But I'm saying that the idea that, you know, God doesn't fit in categories, well, okay, it's like there's some wisdom there. I mean, in my own book, which I'm not trying to leap into talk about it, but I mean, I talk about in the Continental Congress where they say God is not a Quaker or an Anabaptist or whatever, we can all get together.

But under what ideas, under biblical ideas, Tala Rico is pushing infinitely past biblical ideas. and wisdom and Christian scripture into progressive lunacy, which is Marxist atheism. But he's pretending not to do that and sort of trying to sound intellectual. Right. So I don't think it's going to work. So I want to dig on this for just a moment more. And I think you're one of the perfect guys to talk about this with your knowledge of not just the American founding and philosophy, but also your religious understanding as well. Okay, if I squint, Eric, I think I can see why Democrats can convince themselves this guy is a future star.

Yeah. Like, he's, I don't know what it is because I think like many people, your strength is your weakness. Like the same things that turn me off about him, I can see turn them on in some way. his ability to couch his positions in the frame of Christianity. His, I mean, he's got, he's got it, you know, he does look like a weasel. He does sort of, what did President Trump call him? The guy from Mad Magazine. Alfred D. Newman, yeah, Mad Magazine.

Yeah. But at the same time, he's put together. He doesn't look like Graham Platner, okay? He knows how to do boots and jeans and a blazer. You know what I mean? He looks, he's got the Beto element. Well, I mean, but the thing is, Beto was at least good looking. He looks, honestly, to sum him up, he is a soft man.

He is an unthreatening, feminized man, which is all the kind of man the left can handle. And so if you're willing to amasculate yourself. With a deep voice, which I think is key. No, I do. No, I do. Because you're right. It's like taking masculinity and softening it. I mean, clearly, and that appeals to the left, they can't handle masculinity.

Do you think actual masculinity is toxic masculinity? You know, they're unfamiliar with the Jesus who turned over the tables in the temple. They're unfamiliar with heroes, you know, like David and Samson. For them, it's got to be all sort of soft. And, you know, we don't want to trigger any of the women out there with blue hair. We've got to kind of present this. He is good at presenting that. I was telling, I was having coffee with a friend this morning trying to figure this out

because I think it's so interesting that two sides of the political aisle, two groups of people, in this case, potentially two different kinds of Texans, can look at something and see something so different in Tala Rico. And I was telling my friend, I think that the thing, and it's going to be, November will be fascinating. It'll be who actually sees reality in the way that it is. I mean, if Tala RICO loses by 10 points, then it's going to confirm that, you know, people can see through things. But if Tala Rico, you know, pulls within three or, God forbid, wins, it's going to be a different analysis. But I was telling my friend, Eric, I think that the thing that turns me off about him the most, you know, to call someone a liar does not land like it used to. Like, you can call someone a liar, and I feel like it's water on a duck's back politically. But you're making a point about the culture, and that's what the left has done to the culture.

Truth, people don't care about truth. They care about power. And it doesn't matter if you have a Nazi tattoo. or you've done this or done that. They just want power. It is as naked as it's ever been. It is ugly. Let's be clear.

But I think it's his style of lying that turns me off the most. It's done with sort of this sanctimony and this smile and this condescension. And it comes off to me, and I am not holier than thou. I don't feel like I'm someone who is in a position capable of judging others well. But it comes off as a false profit. And it's the biggest turn off to me. Like, here's this man presenting himself, and he's so nakedly a false prophet. I think the word we're looking for is unctuous.

He is unctuous. He's oily. But a false prophet, yes. I mean, that's the scary part. That's where it's demonic. To speak with the kind of language of God, to pretend to do that, and then to say evil antichrist things. about the unborn, about what you say, listen, you know, you can have what positions you want,

but when you start claiming that Jesus took those positions, I wouldn't want to be around that guy, you know, like, that's a scary, that's a scary thing to me. And there's a brazenness. There's a tremendous brazenness to lie like that. That, to me, is scary. I don't think in the past people would have dared to go there, but where the climate has changed in the culture. Let's take a quick break, but continue this conversation with the author of Revenue.

Evolution, the birth of the greatest nation in the world. Eric Metaxis on Wilcane Country. Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. BetMDM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly.

If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600, to speak to an advisor. Free of charge. BetMGM operates. pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Welcome back to Will King Country. We're still hanging out with Eric Metaxus, the author of a brand new book, Revolution, The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the World.

Okay, this is a good transition in talking about your book, Revolution, the birth of the greatest nation in the world. I want to get to some of the particular stories, but let's make this a clean segue in some ways. One of the things I always hear people talk about when it comes to the founders, Charlie Kirk and some others have pointed out the falsehood in many ways of this. But to talk about the founders themselves were deists. Not all of them were Christians. Right.

And it's a rebuttal that they often use to suggest that this country is founded as a Christian nation. Right. Well, listen, when I decided to write the book, I said, I just want to tell the story of the American Revolution. I'd want to tell the stories of the American Revolution, the run up to Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill and Nathan Hale and Henry Knox and George Washington. And these are amazing, great stories. And every single American is on the hook. You need to know those stories.

We need to know these stories. A lot of us forgot this stuff. A lot of us don't know this. And I'm guilty of that. And it's one of the reasons I said, we've got to know all these stories. Every nuance. And this is part, this is our history. Americans used to know this.

In 1960, if you put a microphone on somebody's face in Main Street, America, they knew all these names and all this stuff, and it's kind of drifted away. So that was my goal, was simply to tell the story in a way that's very readable. I want people to love reading the book. It's not just it exists, but like you're going to read it and you're going to enjoy it and you're going to, you know, you're going to want to tell people about the stories. Okay. People said, Eric, what's your angle on the revolution? There's so many books on the revolution. I said, well, there's not one book that tells the whole story of the revolution. But yes, there's a lot of books in the revolution. They said, well, but what's your angle? And I said, I have no angle. I just want to

tell the stories because I think they kind of tell themselves and, you know, but when I did the research, Will, I was honestly astonished. And it speaks to what you just said. This lie that has been peddled for decades of this secular founding based on the French Enlightenment and that they were all deists, that is a vile lie. When you see how untrue it is, you realize we've been lied to because there are people uncomfortable with the idea that the founding is inescapably Christian. And by the way, at the heart of Christian faith is liberty, is religious liberty. Christians cannot force others to convert. We don't convert by the sword the way other religions do or the way atheism, which is a secular religion does,

by threatening people, bullying people, imprisoning, torturing, killing people. We don't do that. Christians believe in liberty out of Christian faith, out of the Bible. You get the idea of liberty. all the founders understood that. And it is inescapable that almost all of them were dramatically, explicitly, openly Christian, including George Washington, who is ridiculously referred to as a deist. I mean, just in my book, this stuff that he says, I thought, deists don't talk like this. This is ridiculous. And it's such a lie that it got my backup. I thought, I had no idea how

dramatically untrue this is and how all of us have heard this as though, well, it's sort of true. it's sort of true. And that's why they keep pushing Jefferson. I guess he's the truest version of this, but he is in the tiny, tiny, tiny minority. And, you know, the more research I did, the more I thought John Adams should be a thousand times more famous than Thomas Jefferson. But even Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, when they were charged to create a seal for the new nation, both of them came up with images of the Israelites in the wilderness, the Sinai covenant that they, the narrative, They leave Pharaoh in Egypt, like we're leaving King George III, and we're out on our own looking directly to God. That's the only way any of the revolutionaries understood we could govern ourselves is like, yes, we're going to be under a different king.

God in heaven will be our king as he was for the Israelites before they chose a king. Everybody knew this, including Jefferson, including Franklin. This was the narrative that we're going to leave this tyranny underneath King George III. in fact, Samuel Adams, on August, sorry, yes, August 1st, 1776, he speaks to all of Congress. He's a member of Congress speaking to Congress, and he says, we have this day restored the sovereign, capital S. They knew exactly what they were doing. They were bowing to God, and they knew that by turning to God voluntarily, we will be able

to govern ourselves. We don't need to be governed by some big, deep state, or some authoritarian king. We're going to govern ourselves. knew that's the only way it works. And if you don't know that, all you have to do is look at the French Revolution. They kind of tried the same thing, except they kicked God out. After they killed the King, they killed all the priests and all the nuns. How did that go for them? It descends into a bloodbath, anarchy, and ends up with, yeah, we got rid of the King, but now we have a dictator-emperor. So over and over, when you kick God out, if you don't acknowledge God,

it happens, the Bolshevik Revolution, all those revolutions are false revolutions, The only true revolution, which is why my book's not titled the American Revolution, but revolution, is the American Revolution. It's the true revolution that creates a new way of a new nation, a new type of nation in the history of the world. We need to understand how totally wild and unprecedented that is and how at the heart of it all, unavoidably, is Christian faith. It's everywhere you look. I mean, it's absolutely inescapable. I was shocked by that. And so my book's not about that.

My book is just a gallop through these stories, but you just can't avoid it. It's just, it's not avoidable. What in your research and what in your stories led you to John Adams should be much more famous than Thomas Jefferson? Oh my gosh. This is why I wouldn't know where to start. We could do a show on that. John Adams, in 1765, so 11 years before the Declaration of Independence, he writes an essay. And I devote a whole chapter to it.

he basically says everything, he understands this as a 30-year-old, before any of this is even happening. This is the stamp act is, you know, in the middle of everybody's consciousness at that point. Nobody's thinking about independence and about, you know, the roots of liberty on this level. Everywhere I look, I'm astonished by John Adams and by his Christian faith leading him. I mean, for him to defend the British soldiers in the Boston Massacre, an incredibly honorable moment where he says our integrity matters. We're going to do this God's way. We're going to do what is right and we're going to trust God with the results. I mean, he really is just an extraordinary figure. And he's very funny and acerbic. But I guess, you know, the thing is

that Jefferson, I think a lot of times people say, like Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. It's like, well, that's not quite true. It's sort of like all the, the ideas in the Declaration of Independence were known by all of those figures. And they had talked about it and about it and they wrote it in all these different kinds of ways. And they declared independence. Who's the man who drives independence 100 percent? John Adams, and I write about that in the book. He's the man who drives independence. So once you've declared independence, July 2nd, now you say, well, we kind of need a document, you know, to kind of show what we're doing. We've already done it, but we need something, you know, to clarify what it is that we're doing.

So it's kind of like saying, well, the mother's giving birth, we're going to need a birth certificate. So when we talk about the Declaration of Independence, it's kind of like breaking into the hospital and saying, you know, where is he? Where is he? Where is who? The guy who printed the birth certificate. Oh, you don't want to meet the mother. She's the one that gave birth. Like the birth certificate is kind of kind of a formality. Now, the difference is because of what John Adams wanted, which was Jefferson's felicity of phrase, to say something in a way that would make it more than boilerplate legalese, to turn it into kind of poetry that becomes like American scripture. Yes, of course, Jefferson gets credit for that. But there's not a single idea in the Declaration that is original with him. How

could that even be? I mean, they knew exactly what they were doing and declaring independence. They weren't waiting for the declaration, the first draft of the declaration to find out, so what do we believe? They already knew that they believed this. So it really is, it's a story that needs telling. I mean, I told that in the book just because it's true and so many people misunderstand that, I think. What was so, I have a book that I have not finished, but I've read from times times called The Age of Revolutions. And it talks about this time frame in history. You brought up the French Revolution. There was revolutions all over the world at this time being attempted across Latin America and so forth. And when you understand.

understand that, it highlights what you just said, how unique the American Revolution is and what it accomplished and its success. Why? These guys that you tell stories about, you know, they're pretty young at the time, right? I mean, they're in there. You just described Adams as 30 during this time frame. You're talking about pretty young guys that are tapping into enlightenment ideals, eternal ideals, and creating a nation. around them. I mean, it's kind of, it's hard for us to think, okay, grab a random selection of 30-year-olds today and see if they could come up with these types of ideas, and they couldn't scratch the surface. They couldn't get to a tenth of the philosophical depth that these guys founded a nation on. Well, I mean, to be clear, again, it's like the Enlightenment is part of this, but it's not the French Enlightenment. It's the Scottish Enlightenment. And where do the ideas

come from that give us a Scottish Enlightenment? It's all biblical. These are biblical ideas. These ideas, frankly, come out of the Reformation, out of the Protestant Reformation. And where do those ideas come from out of the Bible, the idea that, you know, we're created by God as equal. And on these all biblical ideas, and obviously John Locke in 1688, you know, he talks about this. It's an appeal to heaven. This is our rights come from God. Apart from that, you have no rights. What are rights?

What does it mean to be a human being? You know, we're animals. What are we? So all of this stuff comes out of the Bible. And I think a lot of the Boston Puritans or the descendants of Boston Puritans, so Samuel Adams and John Adams and the others, they get this. This is coming out of the Reformation. It's coming at a Puritan theology. It's Puritan theology that when they come here in 1630, you know, on the Arbella, John Winthrop, they found the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The first thing they do is say, we need schools. We need Harvard College. In six years, they create a university. They create a town. They create grammar schools every single town of stuff of grammar school because they understand that everyone needs to know this stuff, needs to know how to read the Bible, needs to know how to think, needs to separate fact from fiction.

We think of that as enlightenment stuff. That's reformation stuff. That's the whole idea of we've got to read the Bible for ourselves and understand this. So that's something that it comes out of the Bible, comes out of the Reformation, comes out of Puritan theology, and it really filters down through the decade so that by the time you get to 1750 and on, word, everybody, certainly in Massachusetts, understands this. There's actually a famous sermon preached in 1750, and John Adams quotes it. He says, everyone read that sermon by Jonathan Mayhew about rebellion to tyrants being obedience to God. That's in 1750. So this comes right out of Puritan theology. So I would say it's simply Christian theology that leads them all to say, we're not going

to bow to tyranny. We're not going to take this lying down. If you try to take it. take our rights, we're going to challenge that. We have a duty to stand against this. We have a duty as men to stand against this. And it's really, it's not something that I had really understood. If these ideas are born out of the Scottish Enlightenment, thus born out of the Reformation, is that the, and you've already said this to us today, but you take the French Enlightenment, you've got all the Latin American, not French Enlightenment, French Revolution, all the Latin American revolutions as well going on in the 1700s against the Spanish. And those obviously would not be grounded in the same philosophical underpinnings.

Those are Catholic nations with their own set of issues that they have baked in. And they wouldn't have been able, they didn't see the world through the same lens. They wouldn't have been able to organize a government and write these documents to the same level of understanding philosophically. That is absolutely inescapable. And I did not understand that until I did the research for this book. And then you realize, how did I not know this and why isn't this taught in schools? because it's kind of like math. Like you can't get the liberties that we have

apart from the way they got them. It's like, I want to see your work. Show me how you got these numbers. That's how you got it. There's no other way to get it. So when we sometimes talk about the French Revolution in the same breath, it's bizarre. We might as well talk about the Bolshevik revolution

in the same breath as the American Revolution. When you reject God and you reject these ideas, you can't end up with liberty. You will not end up. You might want to, but you won't. And they don't and they can't. And, you know, Americans need to know that. We need to know our story.

Because, again, this is history. This is not a Christian history. It's American history. It's true. And it would be nice for us to understand it because it actually matters to how we govern ourselves today. How you've approached this book telling stories

like you've described for us. And by virtue of telling stories, these men become characters, characters in the sense of human beings with layers in depth and complexity and so forth. Yes. What is, like you said, like we're handed the mythology of the American founding.

Yeah. And in the process of that being handed down generation to generation, they do become simplified, cardboard cutouts, ideas sometimes. Yeah. What is the most surprising character that you kind of discovered? Like, oh, this guy is not the guy at all that I thought he would be. Probably. Besides John Adams. Well, I was going to say, first one is John Adams because he's so funny.

He's a Serbic. He has, I mean, I found his journal when he goes to the Continental Congress, so 1774, none of these guys has met the other guys. And so for the first time in history, all these disparate colonies are gathering in Philadelphia. And they gather. They don't know who I'm going to meet. What is this going to be like? And they meet each other. And Adams writes little sketches of all these people. It's absolutely hilarious. I said, I've got to put this in the book. This dude is very funny. And he's not trying to be funny. He's just just the way he talks. But, I mean, there's so many of these figures that you just... So Paul Giumotti, playing him in that HBO, John Adams, might actually be the right actor. Well, I would...

I mean, that's what it sounds like you're describing. Yeah, no, it's kind of amazing. Well, again, he left so much for us to read and to see that you can kind of see what he's like. But I guess George Washington, I mean, I almost could weep at the beauty of this man.

character. It's so incredible because there's, you know, the run-up to the revolution to 1775, that's a fascinating period. And I really talk a lot about that and I'm amazed at it. It's just amazing because you get no revolution without these guys in Boston and stuff. It's amazing and it's, it comes out of their Christian faith. It's inescapable. But then you get 7075 and you get to Washington taking command in Cambridge. And you think, who is this man? Wow. Wow. What an extraordinary human being, and he really was that. He wasn't play acting. It's, you kind of think, where would we be without Washington? And when one part of the story is the two generals, Charles Lee and Horatio Gates, both of whom were openly more qualified than Washington, but Congress picks

Washington. And these two guys are gunning for his job, hoping he fails. And they really reveal the baseness of their own characters, that these are not good guys, and they are ultimately humiliated in the end. But I never knew that, that, you know, Washington doesn't just have to deal with the enemy enemy, but these people that are supposedly on his side, not to mention a Benedict Arnold, which is, it's a story like, it's like the story of Judas or Lucifer in Paradise Lost. It is absolutely an astonishing tragedy. And I tell that story. in detail because we need to know that story too but I mean there are so many of these characters Henry Knox his his going to Taekondaroga 300 miles through the snow and ice over the mountains

to get the cannon to bring back I mean this is like a story out of a fairy tale and it's true and they did it and there's so many stories like that that we are responsible for this infant it's going to be on the test ladies and gentlemen we need to know these stories it's insescapably inspiring. It's beautiful, you know, and I just think I wanted to really come up with a book to give people something to read other than Jill Biden's memoir. That's really, that was my goal. Something substantive. She's got a hell of a, she's got a hell of publicity to her going. I was not on the view, by the way, in case you're wondering if you missed me on the view, no, you didn't miss me on the view. Actually, yes, I will nakedly ask the audience, please vault me

ahead. I'm actually, I think I am ahead of Jill Biden and the Amazon rankings, but I'd like to stay there. It is just the world that we live in that. The New York Times is pushing her memoir, and I think is this real? I guess it is. We live in an insane world. Pushing forward James Tala Rico as mainstream

and pushing forward whatever she ghost got ghost written as some kind of a book. It's just, it's amazing. So yeah, I'd like to think that my book might be more substantive, potentially more substantive, even than Jill Biden's memoir.

Well, if you want to ace the test, or more importantly, if you want to be entertained and informed about the American Revolution, the book is entitled, Revolution, the birth of the greatest nation in the world. The author is Eric Metaxus. And Eric, it's good to see you again. Thank you for being with us here today. My privilege. Thank you, Will. All right, take care. Coming up, Fox News, senior correspondent and the host of Fox Nation's Stories of the American Mafia, Eric Sean on Will King Country.

Hey, who helps America go further? Fly higher. Dream even bigger. Well, the answer is people do. Since 1879, our people have been more than a source of energy. They've been a source of progress. Today, at the same progress is helping deliver record U.S. energy production, fueling the workers, the makers, the boundary pushers, and the risk takers who spark the breakthroughs that move America forward. Learn more about what our people do at chevron.com. 250. Let me run over to the wool issue here and see what you guys have to say. Joining us in just a few moments is going to be Eric Sean from Fox News. We're going to make the transition from talking about the American founding and Christianity to the mafia. So that's an easy transition. Over on YouTube, Tala Rico represents the Democrats perfectly because they are anti-Christ. They have no morals.

Betty Wheaton says, good hair, doesn't. mean a good brain. So does Talarica have good hair? I guess he's good hair. I mean, super young. Was he in his 30s? So no hair loss there. Mike Lasseter says it's so sad that he is so lost, speaking of Tala Rico. And then over on Facebook, James Gates repeats one of the nicknames being given to Tala Rico, Talafrico. What, what, there's so many, is that what President Trump is calling him? Talafriko, there's been a couple of different nicknames that have been bouncing around about Tala Rico. By the way, Alfred E. Newman's not going to stick.

Nobody knows who that is. Connor didn't know who was. Yeah, yeah. I tried to explain it to him. Well, hell. Why would he? I know. I mean, I don't know who it is.

Now, you show, ask Connor this. If you show Connor a picture of Alfredi Newman, does he know, like he's seen that before? Could he associate that with anything? Yep. Yeah. He's like, oh, yeah. Has he heard of Mad Magazine? No.

Absolutely not. I don't think I've ever read a Mad Magazine. That feels like very 1960s, right? Or what was it? 40s, 50s, 60s? Mad Magazine? Yeah. I don't even, what'd they do in Mad Magazine?

I don't even know. Was it the comic strips? Or Madlibs? Is that them? I don't think that came out of that, did it? Did it? I don't know. I'm not going to ask him because then it suggests that he's a lot older

and, like, he would have some knowledge. this. So I won't ask Eric, Sean, the host of Fox Nations. Got two new series, by the way. Goddy's Guy and Stories of the American Mafia. Don't ask you, because I don't want you think I'm presuming you would know anything about Mad Magazine. Right, Eric? Are you kidding me? Alfred E. Newman? What? Me, Worry? Madlibs? I did MadLibs all the time. Wasn't it spy versus spy? So MadLibs was from Mad Magazine? Yes, it was like a thing. You got MadLibs and you'd like fill out the different words. It

was great. We loved it. You know, it was the Bible. It was like the Bible of growing up as a teenager in America, every time Mad Magazine would come out with Alfredine Newman and all the great cartoons. Boy, they'd send up. Make fun of everybody, Will. What was the version of that when I was a kid? It was like, was it Tiger Beat? Like where they would have the kids magazine. That's for the girls.

That's for the girl, the teen girls. Oh, sorry. Yeah, you're right. Totally, Eric. I don't know what that was. Okay, I got to make a segue here. Somehow, I've got a segue from talking about the American Revolution and the Christian founding of America and all this stuff. Talking about John Gotti, and I don't know how to do it.

But you do have these two new specials up at Fox Nation. Gotti's Guy and Stories of the American Mafia. Now, I was looking at some of the clips coming out of this, and you are, I believe at least in one of these, probably stories of the American Mafia. You're looking into some things that I'm curious about. You know how I am on this stuff. I'm super curious about the American Mafia. So all I'm going to do is follow my curiosity. One of the things that I do, Eric, is mafia is one of those topics that when, and it's often on a weekend, when I just want to lose myself into Wikipedia and rabbit holes, I sometimes do.

I just start reading about the mafia. And I realize something, you're really always focused on the five families. Like, you're always focused on New York. And Chicago only has so much appeal to me because it's like Al Capone. dominates it, and you're like, okay, I got it, Chicago. Then you watch, like, casino, and you start thinking about Vegas, and you start realizing the connections to Kansas City. And so at various times, Eric, I've been interested in the mafia's presence across America

in places that you would not necessarily think. At one time, no longer here, really, there was a mafia presence in Dallas. And people think about that because of JFK. But when you think about JFK, the mafia, you really need to think. think about is New Orleans, right? Carlos Machello. Is it Carlos Marcello? Yeah. Yep. And you've looked into, you've been, you've, you've, you have at least explored in some extent the New Orleans mafia. Let's talk about the mafia outside of New York for a minute. Yeah, fascinating subject. I'm dying to do that on Fox Nation as part of our series because people,

as you said, think of New York and Chicago, Detroit. Okay, Kansas City had a big family involved. Oklahoma, Indiana, Dallas, of course, Tampa, places out in Middle America had a mafia presence. Some of those families are not really not existing anymore. New Orleans, of course, we all know because of Traficonte, and we know because of Carlos Marcello, Traficante was in Tampa. Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby, and all that sort of thing. But it goes back in New Orleans, 1890 or so, was the big, first mass, largest mass lynching in American history, the mafia killed the police commissioner of New Orleans at the time. And a mob came and stormed the jail and they lynched 11 Italian

Americans and members of the mafia at the time. And that led to the mob's edict that they do not attack police officers or law enforcement. You don't kill law enforcement. But you've got a fascinating subject. You know, it used to be loan sharking and gambling. It was all over the country. Before the states legalized it. And where you are in Dallas, there was a family. I don't think they're really in existence anymore

at all. But you do have that legacy around the country when all the focus has been on the five families in New York, on the godfather and, of course, on Chicago. So let's, let's, um, 1890, New Orleans Mafia.

Now, So when most of these, in order for the mafia to proliferate in the United States, it had to follow immigration. So immigration waves come. So in my head, Eric, the first real Italian immigration waves didn't start or the big waves until the 1900s, the early 1900s I would have thought. Like when you're talking about, if I can remember the names correctly, Salvatore Maranzano. and what was the other guy's name? The two that ran New York. In New York.

But in New York, before Lucky Luciano took over, there was two main guys, Maranzano and what was the other guys? And they had a... They were immigrants. They were immigrants. They were immigrants. And if you go back... And they spoke Italian.

Yes. They weren't Americans. You know what I mean? They weren't American Italian. Yes. They came from Italy. So you're talking about people that would have come. in the early 1900.

So you're, but you're taking me now back to the 1800s in New Orleans. Yeah. So what wave of Italian immigration is that? That was a wave that went down into New Orleans because it's down in the south. It was a port. These were the first, basically the first generation of Italians who came to America and the two families in the 1890s. It was the black hand. That was the original name.

And they preyed on their own in the Italian American community. and it was the Matrangas versus the Provenzanos. Those were the two main families in 1890 in New Orleans. And it was a result of that war of the Matrangas versus the Provinzanos that Chief Edward Hennessy, no, David, sorry, David Hennessy was assassinated. And when the police rounded up some of the Italian Mott black hand members, I would say maybe before you call it the mob, that's when anti-Itayan sentiment just exploded.

That's when people grabbed the 11 suspects, 11 of them, and had this mass lynching. And then that started to lead toward what we now know as the mafia in the beginning in the early part of this century, the first wave of Italians. Then you had the wave of Italian sons in the 20s and the 30s, Castello, Frank Costello, for example, was originally, well, he was born in Italy, and that led to the generations continuing down to what we have today. So one more question about this sort of spread of the mafia across the United States. From a market perspective, Eric, you would say, I've looked at this, like if you look at the

commission, right, the commission is the governing body of, at one time, the governing body of the mafia, which was dominated by New York, but not exclusively New York. And we're not talking about just New York and Chicago. Cities like Buffalo had a big presence. Cities like, I believe it's Scranton, Pennsylvania, had a big presence in leadership. Buffalo, kind of family. These are not, these are. Russell Buffolino.

Russell Buffalino, we've in our Fox Nation Hoffa series that we did about Jimmy Hoffa, huge part of that. I've been in his house. I've been down in his basement. It hasn't changed. Russell Buffalino in Kingston, Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania has his house. It was given to Billy Delia, who was his right-hand man, Billy's son named Russell, owns the house now. I've been in it. Well, we've got to go there. It hasn't, the basement is like, hasn't changed since 1972 since Russell Buffolino was there. It's got the bar. It's got

the napkins. It's the Godfather's Lair. And that's part was one of our shows in the Buffalo family, by the way, you got to, in a certain way, you have to at least admire the way they did business. You had Capos, who were multi-million dollar businessmen, legitimate businessmen, in the Buffaloino family. And there's not, people really don't think of them as one, they're really the sixth family in my view. Sorry, go ahead. The Buffaloino family is the sixth family. In my view, yeah. Yeah, it was always the family in New Jersey. Or the Decova Contes. The Cavalantes were in New Jersey.

Yeah. You could say they're the six family, but my, you know what? My affection because of the Hoffa series goes to the Buffalinos. Sorry, Jersey guys. Yeah, if you want to watch Russell Buffalino plays a massive role in Martin Scorsese's film about the Irishman, right? That's the, of Frank Sherry. So what I was saying is, markets, and it would have been different in the early 1900s, but markets like Scranton don't compare in size to markets like Atlanta or, you know, Dallas was beginning to grow in the early 1900.

Cities like this, and Dallas did have a family. But these families were never as big and as powerful as some of these East Coast smaller market families. And I'm kind of always curious about that. And because if you're the mafia and you're looking to extort or loan money out, you're. You would, like any other business, you would benefit from being in a big market. But I guess the essential components probably missing is a large Italian population. Because, like, as you pointed out, even New Orleans, the mafia starts out preying on its own people. It's you're praying on your fellow Italian immigrants.

That's right. You need that basis of the Italian-American community to start. You did not have as large a community of that in Dallas and in other cities. And that's why they weren't as big. Or Los Angeles, right? Los Angeles is another one I've always wondered about. Yeah, Jack Dragna was the head of that family. Nick Licata, he came from Detroit, was kicked out.

He ran the Los Angeles families. And they were very involved, of course, with Johnny Roselli and others. And, of course, when Bugsie Siegel was assassinated, sitting in his house, they were very active in Los Angeles. But you don't have as big and powerful families across the country. but what I'm fascinated about is the fact that Las Vegas was basically not a New York, was not a New York controlled operation. It was Chicago and the other families. Kansas City, huge in Las Vegas. Kansas City, yes. Tropicana Hotel, I've been told at the time. You know, Chicago, Detroit, those other cities ran Las Vegas. New York didn't have as much of a very much of an influence there,

which is why is that, Eric? Bugsy, Bugsy Siegel was a New York Mafia guy. He was buddies with Meyer He Meyer Lansky and Charlie Luciano are the founders, in essence, of the modern formation of the mafia. Bugsy is huge in creating Vegas. How did that then not become a New York operation? Even in the movies we see when they say the guys back home in casino, they're talking about Kansas City. They're not talking about New York. So why does Kansas City have a bigger presence than New York in Vegas? That's a great question.

And I think one reason for that is the muscle of Chicago. the Midwest guys. Yeah, you had Bugsy Siegel and the Flamingo, and Bugsy represented, as you said, Lansky and the New York people. But you had all those other hotels that were then built, and they were controlled by the Midwest families. There was a guy from New York, who I met and met with in Las Vegas. He was the general manager at one point of the Tropicana, and he had said it was run by Kansas City. So you did have New York-type people in there, but they all, which is fascinating about Vegas, as they answer to the other families, in large. That's so interesting how you would just assume New York. That's the biggest project

really in, I think, is this a fair statement? The biggest project in mafia history is the creation of Las Vegas. Absolutely. For which, for which Bugsy Siegel was killed because they all thought it was going to be a bust, right? Yeah, we part. He went on, he, he overran. He doesn't control it. No, he overran his expenses. He may have been skimming money off and on the, on our show on Fox Nation stories of American Mafia that that they're on now. We have. have a segment on Bugsy Siegel and Las Vegas and on New Orleans and on someone we don't think about who really was Lieutenant Joseph Petrosino. He was a New York City Police Department detective. He started the Italian squad. He was Italian. He was in the community in the neighborhood and worked

with them police commissioner, Teddy Roosevelt. And Petrosino is an American hero. He was sent to Sicily, and because the mob would not assassinate law enforcement in America, they did that in Sicily, and Petrusina was killed by the mob. And he's a great American hero who a lot of people don't really think about that much. Hey, Eric, what is the connection, is there any connection between Vegas and Cuba in that the mob was investing heavily in Cuba becoming essentially something like what has evolved in Vegas? Maybe not the exact same style. but casinos, you know, resorts, the play, you know, the playground of East Coast Mafia. And then Castro comes along, right, and kind of puts an end to that.

Is that when efforts go to Vegas? Yeah. Like if Cuba had never, if Cuba had never turned communist, would we have Vegas? We would have something in Vegas, but not like it is today. You're absolutely right. Or a bonus series or episode on Stories of America Mafia. is about Cuba, is about Batista, President Batista, who he was totally in bed with Meyer Lansky

and the organized crime families with all the great lavish casinos. Castro comes in, shuts it down. The CIA and the mob tries to kill Castro. It doesn't work. He survives. Because of that, yeah, they had to then take, what, 59? A lot of focus then after 1959 went to Vegas

because gambling was legal there in Las Vegas. So that's a great point. You know, I think that if, if Castro never took power, you'd have, Vegas would be Cuba these days. Let's take a quick break, but continue this conversation with the host of Gotti's Guy and Stories of the American Mafia. Eric Sean on Will Cain Country. Hey, y'all. It's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair.

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Welcome back to Will King Country. We're still hanging out with Eric, Sean, Fox News, senior correspondent, but also the host of Fox Nation's Gotti's guy. I know you've looked into this, and it gets the minute you bring up the CIA and the mafia trying to kill Castro, which they did together. And so there's a relationship. And then there's also a connection between the Kennedys and the mafia, right?

Where the mafia did help. When the mafia claims they helped Kennedy get elected, how? Well, that's the old, you know, Richard Daly, you know, county votes in Chicago story. You know, Joseph P. Kennedy, the patriarch, was said to be, you know, in bed with the mob, started the liquor business in the empire, and they felt betrayed. When JFK comes into power by Robert F. Kennedy in the Keefalfour hearings, in the late 50s, the Senator Keefalfour has the hearings that exposed the, The mafia, Robert F. Kennedy, is the chief counsel.

He is tough on all the mobsters. He's embarrassing them. He becomes attorney general, and they say there was a deal, and that RFK broke it, that they went after the mafia, and they say, well, that led to JFK's assassination. My own personal view is one of the most fascinating interviews ever did well was with a woman who knew both JFK and Lee Harvey Oswald, if you can believe that. She worked for JFK in the Senate, and then she went. went to the American embassy in, oh, she went to Russia in Moscow and as a correspondent for what they say was a CIA front. She denied she was in the CIA with me, but when Oswald defected, he was in her hotel and he wouldn't talk to the Americans at the embassy. So she

talked to him. She claimed Oswald was a long gunman. You know, we'll be discussing that forever. But that's one of the episodes in our show. before we get to Gotti, this kind of takes everything full circle because, of course, when you talk about the mafia and Lee Harvey or the mafia and JFK, it does take you back to New Orleans. You know, like what was the relationships with the, what was it, the anti-Castro stuff going on in New Orleans? It's Marcello's always connected to these conspiracies. The mafia clearly had it out for Kennedy. and then you've got this weird connection where the mafia has relationships to the CIA. So this is when it all gets super convoluted. You know, like all of these things start tying together like really fast based on past relationships.

But when you, so when you, but you've looked into all of this. In the end, you don't think the mafia has much to do with the death of Kennedy? In the end, I would have to say, and I could be wrong, that Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone gunman. I only say that because. of the fact that he tried to kill. There was a general he tried to shoot at beforehand. The Dallas newspaper put the root of the motorcade. He comes in with the curtain rods.

You know, he was always off his rocker a bit. And I think the whole cover-up, and I do believe there was a cover-up by the government. But the cover-up was not that, was it the mafia and the CIA? I think the initial cover-up by Jay-Hager Hoover, you've got to bring us back to that time. the FBI and the government is all knowing. They knew Oswald.

He was on their radar. James Hostie was an FBI agent. And Oswald yelled and screamed at him. Burst into his office in Dallas and the FBI office yelling at him because Hostie had contacted Marina, his wife. I think that's the whole basis of the cover-up that the government knew about Lee Javier Oswald. They had him on tape, on audio.

He visited the embassy. the Russian embassy in Mexico City to get some visas to go to Cuba. And if that came out at the time, holy hell would have been unleashed with Jay Edgar Hoover as head of the FBI. On the incompetency? Yes. On the incompetency of the FBI? My own view is that's the cover up. You can talk about the CIA involved and all that and Jack Ruby.

Someone I know who was there at that time in Dallas said Jack Ruby was not sent by the money. to kill Lee, Harvey Oswald, to shut him up, because Jack Ruby went to wire 25 bucks to a stripper for the Carousel Club, and he had his dog in the car. He wouldn't have his pet in the car. And he knew all the cops, because they all come to the Carousel Club. He walks down the ramp to see what's going on with everybody. And my friend, who was with the New York Times, was standing next to Jack Ruby when he shot Oswald. So you can go down a rabbit hole, but I am absolutely convinced that there was a cover-up over the then incompetence and or, can you imagine if it was made public that the FBI and the CIA knew all about the assassin of JFK at that time?

We have to put that in the context at that time with Jagger Hoover. So the Jack Ruby angle is, you're saying, he decided in that very moment, oh, here it is. It was a crime of opportunity. His dog was in the car. He had just paid a stripper. He was doing things at a guy who was getting ready to do something that was planned. wouldn't do. Yes. Now, yeah, Mickey Carroll, who is the great New York Times reporter, standing next to Ruby when he was shot, and Mickey on his life said, you know what? I absolutely believe that. It was happenstance. But I know people disagree and say, no, that's not true. But, you know, I think you just got to go, what's the most simple, non-conspiratorial explanation for anything? And the most simple thing is it's just weird happenstances. Let's talk about Goddy's guy.

Wow. You've got Gotti's guy up at Fox Nation as well. So in some ways, as much as I, and I've read all about a lot about John Gotti, but there's something about him, I want you to tell me differently that I find less interesting than reading about Vincent the Chin Gigante or, you know, any number of other guys. And I think it's because he's too obvious. Like he, the way that he became a celebrity and embraced it and was out front in so many ways takes away the mystery of him to me in some ways. Eric, and I want you to tell me where I'm wrong.

Like, he seems like, you know, this was a copo with a lot of balls and maybe not a lot of smarts who bullied his way to the top and enjoyed the spotlight in the short period of time that he had it. And I don't know. Is there more than I'm missing to John Gotti? He was a superstar at the time. And on Fox Nation, we have the show Gotti's Guy. It's about, I'll give you the setup. Louis Casman, it's a show about a young kid from Long Island, young Jewish kid, grows up, goes to summer camp, has a bar mitzvah. And in Lewis's words, I became the chief of staff of the Gambino crime family.

That's the fascinating part of this show. What you talk about, John Gotti, superstar. celebrity the incredible excitement yes he was the mafia yes he was a killer people kind of put that on the side if you're talking about pure lecoza nostra organized crime as much as he said on those tapes i'm lecoza noster until i die uh the fact is someone like the chingiganti that's not the way of the mafia it's supposed to be secret you don't call all the all the all the capos to come down to the raven ice social club on what tuesday or wednesday night so the fbi i can tape everybody. In his defense,

he was charismatic. He was handsome. He was perfectly tailored. His hair was quaffed. So the cameras were drawn to him, and he had these quips that were tailor-made. If he was a different type of person, I don't think you would have had

that adulation and celebrity status that he experienced. And many say, in other ways, he led to some of the destruction of the mob through what his It was not La Cosa Nostra. And Lou Kassman, Lou talks all about this.

Lewis talks about this in our program, being with him, the excitement. Lewis said the money. Lewis said that he had six, eight, $10 million in his kids' toy chest in the attic. The amounts of money was staggering coming in, cash, and it was just this incredible over-the-top time at the time in the 1990s. when Gotti was running the Gambian O'Kine family. What do you, on that note that Gotti in some ways killed La Cosa Nostra, I just watched a documentary series recently, Eric, about basically the mafia from the mid-1990s up through,

I think it gets me through about 2010, so it's only like a 15-year period. And it manifests in this, in this telling, that the next big star, in the mafia, but not a star in the Godiway, is the banana crime family. Because in the mid-90s, the bananas, or the late 80s, because of, oh, the Johnny Depp movie, Donnie Brasco. Because of Donny Brasco, yeah. Because of Donny Brasco, yeah. Bananos are kicked out of the commission. They're no longer a five family. And then you have a massive bust in the 90s of all the families, except for the bananas. Because the fed's like, well, they're not big time anymore. So they didn't devote resources over there. And they fill the vacuum. With,

the guy, and I'm not going to remember his name, who Joe, Joe Masserio. Joe Massino. Joe Massino. He was Colombo. Joe Massino, he flipped. He was the boss of the Clabo Crime Family. Oh, he was Colombo Crime Family. And he's the one that ultimately turned Fed Witness, right? He ran the mafia. He was the big guy, and they said he was an old school mafia guy, secretive and everything for 10 years. And ultimately, he ends up becoming the first Godfather to turn state's witness, right? Yes, he did. I went to his restaurant.

He had a restaurant, and we, let me just look him up for a second because I'm having a brain issue. Was he Colombo? That's where I'm looking up right now. I apologize. I love it. He was a banana.

No, you're right. He was a banana. I apologize, yes. He was the boss of the banana crime family. I did cover him. And Tommy Karate, and other people at that time, Tommy Crotty, Pietra, life in prison.

And they were kicked out of the commission because they dealt with drugs through the Montreal connection. And you're absolutely right, well, because of that, they were on the side, but that became their great strength because then they came back, you know, like gangbusters. Messino's the first godfather, basically,

a boss of a family who flipped. You also have Ralph Natale in Philadelphia. and I mentioned Messino's restaurant. One day we go to lunch, and I'm with, at Fox, you can't, we take the camera with us. We're responsible for the camera. The camera is, Mr. Cammer is our friend. It's like they're really expensive. And so we walk in and we put the camera down, and we're about to sit there and Majority comes over, says,

excuse me, sir, but we can't allow to have cameras here. And I said, I don't know, I understand we, but we, we, we, we, we, we, we're not shooting anything. we're just going to have lunch. She said, excuse me, sir, but we don't allow cameras here. I said, I got it. Thank you very much. And I walked out. And I get to the door and I look toward him. I say, let me just explain. I want to explain that we're the way it's, the rule is we have to take the camera with us. You can't leave it in the car in the trunk. You know, the reason is it could get stolen in the car. And the guy looks at me and goes, stolen. Here? But anyway, that's an aside.

Yeah, no, you're right. And it's fascinating how the families fluctuate right now. Genevese are big. Gambinos learn their lessons from Gotti and are quieter. And they're still there. They're still active. But look, the state gambling. You know, look at gambling.

The state's government does that now. All this stuff that used to be, a lot of it, some of it, that used to be mob related is now run by the governments. So a lot of the bus lately will have been just, it's sports gambling, loan sharking. They're still active. They're still out there. Of course, you have drugs, which have always been huge, but that's also gone off into, you know, other, you know, the cartels and that sort of thing. So just to go back to Gotti's guy, so what did you learn?

You've got, Casman. You get this long interviews with him. What did you learn about Godi that you didn't already know? You know, the fact that John Gotti, and I've seen this, you saw this with Jimmy Hoffa, John Gotti needed someone that was not a made man, that was not one of his capos, but someone he could trust, who was loyal, who did not have an agenda, did not have an axe to grind, and that was Lewis Casman. Lewis said that he could tell Godi straight.

He called him Grandpa, tell him straight about other capos. He said that when he went to meetings that everyone knew that he represented John Gotti. He was Gotti's guy, hence the name of the show. And what I learned is that Gotti in many ways was very strategic and knew that he needed someone legitimate, someone in the legitimate world outside the organized crime family that he could use as a sounding board. That he could also use, said Lewis, as someone who could represent him in areas and places that he as the mob boss couldn't go and deal with people. And that's the fascinating part. And Lewis's personal story.

That's why I just love the show. His personal story is how, imagine you, Will Kane. Will Kane becomes the close confidant. They shared a brotherhood together of a mob boss. And the arc of the story is eventually Casman turned on the Gambino family. And in a way on the personal family, he got into trouble. After God he died, we're sent away to prison for life. God he died.

Lewis was indicted for perjury. He had to wear a wire for the FBI, and that's the betrayal. But at the end of the day, he comes out and says that he misses it. He doesn't miss it. He misses Gotti. He was young. He was involved. It was addictive. And I think that's the sad part is that this becomes so addictive. And he realized the error of his ways at the time because it basically, it damaged his family. family severely he has p s p t s d health problems and that sort of thing but it's a fascinating window into living with and being with the mob bus every day he said he used to call goddy up plan the day he said i was the susy wiles of like donald trump to john goddy you know organizing everything right and and you need and i could see jimmy hafa had the quote adopted son uh chucky o'brien john goddy had the quote adopted son lewis casman and the show got his guy uh... Lewis tells the whole story about what life was like with John Gotti. All right, Gotti's guys up at Fox Nation along with stories of the American Mafia

and your host, Eric Sean. Always love talking Mafia with you. I do too, Lewis. It's good to see you. Well, good to see. Will, thank you so much. It's all good. All right.

I think tomorrow I want to talk more about why I'm so fascinated by this. I think there's an answer, and I think it ties into Game of Thrones. I think it ties into the Mexican drug cartels, which I'm also fascinated by. Oh, yeah, what? You know, you see the connection. It ties into Game of Thrones. Interesting. It does.

Yeah. Mafia, Game of Thrones, Mexican drug cartels. I think I know what it is about that that gets me. And it's all the same for all of them. Interesting. So much so that I can overcome my difficulties in remembering Italian last names. Joe Masseria, Joe Massino, Salvatore Provenzano. This doesn't come easy to me, remembering all of these names with all these vowels.

I just remember, yeah, the vowels. You know, it's even harder? The Mexican drug cartels. Because it's inevitably, nobody has just two names. It's like four names and luckily they do nicknames. One Carlo Ramirez, Dominguez, yeah. El Chapo. and what were the Zeta guys?

It was like M40. They all had like nicknames like that, so that makes it easier. All right, make sure you hit follow and spot of our Apple. We're going to hang out tomorrow. We'll break it all down, whatever pops into our mind. Thank you for hanging out with us today on Will Kane Country. Listen to ad-free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcast. And Amazon Prime members, you can listen to this show Ad-Free.

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