Latest / Miss Understood with Rachel Uchitel / Encore! Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich Says He’s Still Not Guilty!

Transcript

Encore! Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich Says He’s Still Not Guilty! · Miss Understood with Rachel Uchitel

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  Speaker 1: That's B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash P-O-D. Start your journey to
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  Speaker 1: real conversations in a new language today. Hey guys, thank
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  Speaker 1: you so much and welcome back to Misunderstood with Rachel Uchitel.
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  Speaker 1: appreciate all of you guys for coming back so consistently.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: All right, this episode today is really amazing. I mean,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: I'm at a loss for words because I don't even
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: know how to categorize it. Let me give you a
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: little background on who this guest is, if you don't remember.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Rod Blagojevich is a former American politician who served as
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: the 40th governor of Illinois from 2003 to 2009 as
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: a member of the Democratic Party. Blagojevich's political career was
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: marked by controversy and scandal, if you don't remember. He
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: was arrested in December 2008 and subsequently convicted on multiple
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: counts of corruption, including wire fraud and extortion. One of
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: the most notable incidents in his political career was his
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: attempt to sell the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Barack Obama, who had been elected president of the United States.
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  Speaker 1: After two trials, he was then sentenced to 14 years
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: in federal prison in 2011. Blagojevich's case received significant media
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: attention on its own, but then he went on a
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: year-long media tour doing everything to tell his side of
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: the story, including being cast on Celebrity Apprentice. This is all,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: of course, before he went to prison. After serving nearly
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: eight years of his sentence, his sentence was commuted by
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  Speaker 1: then-President Donald Trump in February of 2020, and he was
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: released from prison. Blagojevich's case remains a subject of controversy
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: and debate, with some arguing that his sentence was too severe,
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  Speaker 1: while others maintain that it was justified given the corruption
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  Speaker 1: charges against him. He is still a topic of some debate.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Is he a symbol of political corruption and the abuse
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: of power, or is he someone who was failed by
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: a corrupt system? We have one of the most in-depth
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: interviews ever done on Misunderstood today. It's two hours long.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: You really have to listen to it all. If you
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: have to pause in the middle, please come back to
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: it because you don't want to not hear where he
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: goes with this. What he says is so important. We
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: cover all the latest issues, the mass shooting and his
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: views on gun laws, the new Speaker of the House.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: the issues Trump may be facing with recent people taking
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: plea deals. He discusses his thoughts on the Democratic Party now,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: his thoughts on Trump and his chances for reelection. We
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: talk about his life before politics, how he got into it,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: and where it took a wrong turn. He candidly discusses
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: what it was like in jail and what it was
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: like to finally have a chance at freedom again and
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: what he's doing to reverse the narrative on him. Like
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: him or hate him, this is worth listening to. And
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: I want to remind you of the premise of my show.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: This podcast delves into the lives of those who have
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  Speaker 1: been reduced to a single headline. Each episode will take
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: a closer look at the stories of those who are
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  Speaker 1: on a mission to change their narrative. Through raw and
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  Speaker 1: honest conversations, we will reveal the human behind the headline.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: We uncover the truth behind these misconceptions, shed light on
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: the stories of those who have perhaps been wrongly portrayed,
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: explore the complexities of the human experience, and celebrate the
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  Speaker 1: power of second chances. I'm very interested to hear what
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  Speaker 1: your thoughts are on today's guest, Rod Blagojevich. Governor Blagojevich,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining me at Misunderstood. I'm
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: so happy to be here in person with you.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you for having me, Rachel.
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  Speaker 3: Hello.
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  Speaker 1: Absolutely. Okay. So it's been a huge week in the news,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: and I have an expert here to go over it.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: So before we get into you, I thought I could
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: ask you a few questions about your thoughts about what's happening.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Is that okay?
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: Sure, of course.
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  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: So finally, we have the next speaker of the House,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: a little-known lawmaker from Louisiana, Mike Johnson. he prevailed after
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: a chaotic process that saw three other nominees fail to
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: get the votes. Did they get it right this time?
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  Speaker 2: Well, they've got a speaker. The question on whether or
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: not they got it right remains to be seen. Let's
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: see what they do and how they approach it. But,
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: you know, I spent six years in the U.S. Congress,
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: and so I'm no stranger to those caucuses where you
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: have to pick a leader. I want to confess to
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: your audience that I actually supported Nancy Pelosi. Of that,
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  Speaker 2: I'll plead guilty. But He seems to be a guy
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  Speaker 2: that was able to build a consensus. Obviously, he did,
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  Speaker 2: necessary to be in the position that he's in. He's
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: a supporter of President Trump, and President Trump supported him.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: And so if he's good enough for President Trump, then
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: as far as I'm concerned, he's good enough for me.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, interesting. Do you think Democrats can work with him,
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  Speaker 1: considering that he was against certifying the election?
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: I think Democrats will not want to work with him.
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  Speaker 2: They're going to be all about playing politics, which is
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  Speaker 2: what they've done since the Republicans took over the House.
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  Speaker 2: In the last election, it's what they were all about
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: when President Trump was president. So I don't expect the
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  Speaker 2: Democrats to be just as much an obstacle as they
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: have been before and to resist that. However, in a
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: not very long period of time, they're going to have
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: to come up with some sort of a budget where
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: the government's going to shut down. So there will be
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: an opportunity to try to find some common ground and
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: ways to compromise to actually do things for the people.
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  Speaker 2: But we'll have to see.
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  Speaker 1: But so you personally, when you heard he was the guy,
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  Speaker 1: were you like, oh, this makes sense. I like him.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, do you have a personal thought on him?
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  Speaker 1: Had you heard of him before this time?
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  Speaker 2: I had a little bit. I'm not that familiar with
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: a lot of the members of Congress today because, well,
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: I was in exile for a while. But I have
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: seen him on television, and I do know that he's
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: been supportive of President Trump. And today the Republican Party
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: is going through a political realignment. It's changing from the
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: old corporate country club. Republican Party that really had no
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: interest in looking after the little guy's interests to the
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: party that Donald Trump is making it into, a party
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: that's about a lot of different things, including concern for
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: working people. And so Congressman Johnson, now Speaker Johnson, the
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: fact that he is supportive of that agenda, to me,
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  Speaker 2: indicates that there's hope for this session of the United
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  Speaker 2: States Congress. Right. Okay.
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  Speaker 1: I can appreciate that. Something else that happened this week.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Four Trump co-defendants have taken plea deals in Georgia. Who
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  Speaker 1: should Trump be worried will flip next?
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  Speaker 2: Well, you know, I'm no stranger to that, that dynamic
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  Speaker 2: and how those federal prosecutors who are weaponized and rotten
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: and dirty and dishonest and corrupt when they use legal
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  Speaker 2: things and routine practices and turn them into criminal things
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: for political purposes. They did that to me. They're doing
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: it to President Trump. They've been doing it to President
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: Trump for a very long time. It's unprecedented. So with
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: the power that they have, and it's an uncontrolled power,
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: there's no check and balance on these people, with the
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: unlimited resources they have at their disposal, they have the
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: ability and they're very skilled at shaking people down for
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: things they want them to say. And if they say
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: the things they want them to say, they'll go easier
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: on them. If they won't say the things they want
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: them to say, they'll go harder on them. And those
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: four that you're talking about, you know, know that reality.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: I'm becomes unfortunately a real test of loyalty when you
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: find yourself in that position. And very few people have
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: the backbone and the wherewithal to stand up to that
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: kind of pressure and do what's right. Uh, so if
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  Speaker 2: you're asking me, am I surprised by those four particular people?
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  Speaker 2: I'm not, uh, Sidney Powell really had, she was a
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: wild card from the very beginning. She was sort of
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: out there on her own, making crazy allegations that were
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: not part of what the Trump people were doing. Um,
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: Jenna Alice was like in over her head, very young. And, uh,
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  Speaker 2: and very fearful and afraid.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Scared, yeah.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, she told, said certain things, and then as
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: soon as the pressure was on, she immediately caved in
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: Colorado to save her law license and admitted that she lied.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: And then when this happened, it didn't take her long
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: to fold. So those don't surprise me. Mark Meadows, don't
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: know enough about the details of that, but I'm not
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: really surprised about that either. But I do believe that
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: really none of them can really say anything if they're
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: being honest that would be harmful from a legal point
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: of view to President Trump. You know, the things that
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: Mark Meadows is going to say are basically very much
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: similar to the stuff I've experienced. So what? It's legal.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: The President of the United States and any citizen of
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: our country has a right to question whether or not
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: an election was properly run or not. There's nothing criminal
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: about that. And when the President goes to Washington and
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: exercises his right as a citizen to redress his grievances
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: and hundreds, tens of thousands of people go there to
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: do the same thing, in other words, march on City Hall,
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: This is supposed to be what we're supposed to do
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: as citizens. Now, when some crazy people go off and
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: do what they do and break laws, well, they're accountable
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: and they should be held responsible for that. But there's
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: no evidence that President Trump's incited anybody to do that,
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: nor can Mark Meadows say that. So I'm not really
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: that afraid of that. What I'm fearful of is just
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: this constant assault against one man and his family and
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: his livelihood and his business because he's an agent of
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: change who wants to make things better change things in America,
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: and frankly, reorder the priorities of a place in Washington
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: that's broken, that's really all about serving itself on the
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: backs of the people. And this is why the establishment
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: in both parties, the Democrat establishment, of course, but also
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: that country club Romney, Liz Cheney, Dick Cheney, Bush, Republican
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: Party want to destroy him. And this is probably, I think,
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: the most serious constitutional crisis our country's facing since the
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Civil War. The idea that you can use weaponized prosecutors
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: to bring fake charges on things that aren't crimes and
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: eject it into the political process at the highest level.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: We've never seen anything like this before. And I would
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: argue it's among the many reasons why we have to
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: pray and hope and vote that President Trump wins so
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: that that stuff stops.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: You mentioned Jenna Ellis. She seems to be the one
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: so far that people are saying is the most damaging
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: to Rudy Giuliani. If you were advising him, what would
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: you say is his path for the future here?
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: Embrace the truth. Ride the truth, no matter the consequences.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: And stand up to this and never give in. Now,
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: I paid a heavy price for doing that and spent $ 2, 000.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: Right, I was going to say, even if that means
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: jail time?
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: Yes, because the stakes are too high. And you know,
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: when you're in this business, like I was as the
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: governor of Illinois, when you've been as Rudy Giuliani has been,
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: former U.S. prosecutor himself, mayor of New York City and
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: a very successful mayor of New York City, And I
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: would hope that the American people don't forget his service
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: to our country after 9-11 because it was heroic. But
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: when you sign up for those positions like I did,
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: like he did, like President Trump, you have a higher duty,
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: a higher responsibility than just to think about yourself or
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: even your family, as hard as it is to say that.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: You have a duty to protect the Constitution. You swore
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: on the Holy Bible to do so. And when these
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: corrupt prosecutors are doing what they're doing, when they're weaponizing
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: themselves and criminalizing things that are political and routine and
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: really legal, and that's the operative phrase, legal, they're destroying
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: our country. And so real leaders never give in to that.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: They stand up. And I would fully expect that Rudy
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: Giuliani will do that. He'll be a real leader like
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: he's always been. And, you know, my heart goes out
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: to him and what he's going through. But I have
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: great admiration for his fortitude, and I'm very confident he's
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: not going to give in. He's going to fight back,
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: as he has been. Yeah.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: It seems even today he made a statement that he
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: is going to continue on the path of truth. So
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: we will see where that goes. Michael Cohen was testifying
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: this week in Trump's civil fraud trial. How credible do
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: you think he was?
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: Not credible at all. He's a big liar. He's a sleazy,
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: cowardly scumbag. I was in prison with guys like that,
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: white collar wimps like that Michael Cohen. Can I say this?
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: That guy deserves a good old fashioned Chicago neighborhood playground
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: ass kicking. to the coattails of a guy who's going
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: up like Donald Trump, probably was an ass kisser every
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: step of the way. And then as soon as there
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: was trouble, he does what he does and flips against
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: the guy and lies against the guy that frankly made him.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: It's sickening. And yet it's common. It's not uncommon. Human
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: nature being what it is, there aren't a lot of
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: guys that have the backbone of Trump or frankly me.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: And so I have nothing but contempt for him. And
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't believe a word he says that he's already
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: been found to have, have lied and he changes his
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: story all the time. And when people change their story,
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: I think that tells you they can't get the truth
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: right because they're not telling the truth.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Right, right. Okay, in the last 24 hours, there has
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: been a mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine. At least 18
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: are dead that they've confirmed as of today. It's prompted
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: a manhunt and lockdowns there. When you were in office,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: you were an advocate of gun control. Has anything changed
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: since you were in office and how do you feel
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: about what's going on right now?
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: Well, of course, Our hearts go out to all the
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: people who were killed by this maniac who did that
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: and their families and their loved ones. And we hope
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: and pray that this guy is apprehended as soon as possible.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: I don't know if the latest news is on whether
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: or not they caught him yet.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: They haven't as of now.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: So he's a real serious danger to wherever he may be. And,
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: of course, it's obvious that he needs to be brought
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: to justice. You know, when I was a congressman representing
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: a city district, where crime is rampant in Chicago, the
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: issue of gun control is very real to us here.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: And I have to say that the NRA was never
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: a big fan of mine. In fact, one year they
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: gave me an F- rating. I think I deserved a D, frankly,
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: but they gave me an F-. Okay. Is that a thing? F-. Wow. Yeah,
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: an F-. And so my politics was different back then
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: because my priorities were different because of the district that
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: I represented. I've learned a lot through the many years
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: since i've been in politics about a lot of things
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: about life in different ways but certainly the way i
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: view politics today is a little bit different than it
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: was back then and the cynical aspect of it the
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: fake part of it is a lot more profound to
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: me it's a lot more obvious to me that it
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: was back then uh... because what's unfortunate about the democrat
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: party my party and you have to include me in
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: this because i was doing it back then although i
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: really believe my heart was right i felt like and
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: i still do that You know, as much as you're
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: asking law-abiding citizens to make sacrifices, you really need an AK-47.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: I think there's some guns that are just so inherently
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: dangerous that should not be legal. And I haven't changed
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: my position on that. But I do think that when
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: you live in a place like Chicago where crime is
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: rampant now, we have a mayor and we have a governor,
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: Governor Pritzker and Mayor Johnson, who have pushed through. Pritzker
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: did it. Democrat Governor Pritzker. These no-bail laws. They're sending
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: signals to the criminal element. It's very real and organized,
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: the gangbangers, that there are little or no consequences. And
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: they also know that the police are on the run
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: because the Democratic leaders like Governor Pritzker and before him,
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: before Mayor Johnson, Mayor Lightfoot, don't have the backs of
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: the police officers. The city of Chicago is facing a
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: major serious crime problem. Violent crime. Muggings are up. Carjackings
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: are up. And the murder rate continues to soar. And
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: so it's understandable that everyday citizens who follow the law
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: want to protect themselves because the police can't protect them
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: because they don't have the backs of the political leaders,
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: nor are there enough police officers to deal with the gangbangers.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: In Chicago, gangbangers outnumber police officers 75 to 1. So
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: if a person feels like his government can't protect him,
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: which is the first duty of government, then I think
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: it's very understandable and reasonable to understand and support them
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: having the right to bear a weapon. to protect themselves
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: and their families. So on the concealed carry issue, for example,
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: that I always opposed, I look at it very differently today.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Then the other thing I would say to your listeners
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: is there's so much baloney in politics, it's really maddening
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: on both sides. But the Democrat side is every time
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: there's a terrible shooting, they start calling for gun control
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: laws and all the rest, and yet they don't do
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: what is necessary in the process to actually pass those things.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Make it happen, yeah.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: And they don't want to pass those things because they'd
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: much rather have that issue. Mm-hmm. that actually make the
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: communities and streets safer. And the biggest loser in that
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: kind of fake politics by the Democratic Party is the
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: black community because it's in the black communities where crime
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: and violent crime continues to be higher than any place else.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: And it's in the black communities where there's a real
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: need for law enforcement, for police to protect them. And
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: it's really upside down in so many ways. The Democrats
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: claim to be the friend of the African-American community when
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: in so many ways they're the reason that conditions in
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: too many of those neighborhoods continue to be difficult and
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: strained and crime-ridden as well as poverty-ridden.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: You brought up something before that I think I really
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: want to touch on. So as someone who's not in politics,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: doesn't have this conversation with people like in a serious way,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: but as someone who watches these things happen continually in
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: the news, these mass shootings, why is someone allowed at
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: the age of 21 to buy a semi-automatic assault rifle?
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: It makes no sense to me. I just am... baffled by,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: there's a difference between the freedom to buy guns for whatever,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: for protection, for shooting, for, you know, whatever it is.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: But like, why would anyone need a gun like that?
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Like really explain that. I just don't get that. No, no.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: And I haven't changed my position on that.
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: I agree.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: I think those should be banned. There's a gun called
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: a 50 caliber sniper rifle that can shoot as a
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: range of up to four miles and it can knock
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: through brick walls. That's available. That's actually legal.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: People are saying they're buying this for hunting. I mean,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: how are they getting these guns? I just don't understand it.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: It doesn't seem like common sense.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Well, they're legal, and the NRA and the other organizations
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: that protect the rights of the gun owners resist any
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: kind of effort to even try to address that and
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: make those illegal. Now, they would argue, and there's merit
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: to what they say. They argue an argument that I
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: always dismissed back then when I was getting those F-minuses
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: from the NRA. But today, I see that there's a
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: lot more validity to it. They argue that it's a
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: slippery slope, that if they give in on one of
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: these type of weapons, then these proponents for that are
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: going to keep going after more and more of them.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: I always felt that that was a false argument. but
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: in reality they were right and I was wrong. They're right.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: And that's part of the difficulty and problem that happened
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: in a democracy because those same groups that are interested
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: in going after the AK-47, which I do believe should
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: be banned to this day, and I would urge law-abiding
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: citizens who believe in gun rights, it's understandable that they would,
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: to understand that maybe they should make a few sacrifices
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: that are common sense for the common good and the
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: general welfare, but I understand their fears and their concerns.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: And the problem with that kind of view is that
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: on the other side, there's certain things that the political
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: left is interested in doing that is crazy. On the
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: other hand, some of the things they're supporting, I think,
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: are pretty good. And yet there's no compromise on that
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: side either for the same fears that if you give
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: in somewhere, the other side is going to try to
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: do it. The problem we have in that dynamic is
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: it's hyper– it's polarized politically. It's a hyper-partisan political dynamic.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: And the two sides are always fighting and nothing– Little
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: or nothing can get done to help the people. And
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: it's one of these reasons why Winston Churchill said, democracy
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: is the worst system ever devised by man, except for
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: all the rest. I hope they got me on camera there.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: Churchill said that.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Did he? Okay.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Let's go back to the beginning. I want to paint
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: a picture to our listeners of who you are and
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: where you came from. So you were born and raised
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: in Chicago, right?
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: Yes. Okay.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Tell me about what you were like as a child.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: What I was like as a child?
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: Well, I had two loving parents, my mother and father.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: My father was an immigrant from Yugoslavia, and when he
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: came to America, he didn't have a penny in his
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: pocket or speak any English. He was a prisoner of
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: war during World War II. The Nazis took him, and
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: he was in a German prisoner of war camp for
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: four years, and then after that, he was in a
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: refugee camp for three years until the United States Congress
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: that one day his youngest son, me, would become a
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: member of passed a law called the Displaced Persons Act,
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: which allowed my father and millions of others like us
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: from Eastern Europe with these long and hard to pronounce
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: last names, a chance to come here. He was a
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: factory worker, my dad, and worked real hard. He loved America,
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: really truly believed.
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: Itching, burning, soreness. When you know it's thrush, you want
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: it gone. Treat the cause, not just the symptoms, with
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• 22:20
  Speaker 3: pastry and cream contained, cotrimazole, always read the label.
• 22:23
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• 22:28
  Speaker 2: The gift of freedom felt that there was no place
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: like this place when it came to opportunity. And even
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: though his ship never came in and he was always
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: a working man, he believed that his sacrifice and hard
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: work would one day pay off and that what he
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: couldn't have for himself could happen for his two boys,
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: his sons, my older brother and me. And before calamity
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: came into my life, he was right. I mean, I
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: became the governor of the fifth largest state. at a
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: very young age, second youngest governor in modern political history
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: in Illinois. So his dream in so many ways for
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: this country was very real. Now my mom was a
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: working mom. She worked for the public transportation system here,
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: the CTA, taking fares and transfers, taking fares and passing
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: out transfers at the subway stations. We lived in a
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: little five-room apartment. They never owned a home. It was
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: all about working hard for their children to give us
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: opportunities they didn't have. So I had loving parents and
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: good parents and great parents. And, you know, I've lost
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: them a long time ago, both of them, but I mean,
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: they're always with me. I always feel their spirit with me.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: So I went to public school in Chicago, kind of
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: a rough neighborhood. You know, I wasn't exactly setting the
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: world on fire in school. Here I go again, but
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: that D in algebra I got was a common case
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: of grade inflation. There I deserved an F. But still,
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: you know, I was able to learn things and went
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: on to college. I always worked. My first job was
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: when I was nine years old as a shoe sign boy.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: And I had that job until I was 13.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: So when you were that age, what would you say
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: you wanted to do? Were you charismatic? Were you good
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: with people? Did you know you wanted to do something
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: with people, for people?
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: Well, I wanted to be a professional athlete. I wanted
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: to be a baseball player, but I sucked.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Okay, I was going to say, could you play?
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: No, I wasn't that good. My brother was good. My
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: older brother was really good. And then I changed my
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: dream to try to be an NBA basketball player. Because
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: there you can develop your skills by yourself and play
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: in the schoolyard, which was about a block and a
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: half from where we lived. I was there all the time,
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: perfecting my jump shot and my dribbling. I could spin
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: a basketball on all five fingers of my right hand.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: I'm the only governor in Illinois history who can do that.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: If you see this governor that we have today, he
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: can't do that, nor can he run a mile. I've
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: run three marathons.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: Okay. But my high school basketball coach didn't share the
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: confidence I had in my jump shot. And so I
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: spent most of that time on the bench. And so
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: then I was shifting my dreams to something else. And
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: I liked history. I always liked to read history books,
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: even though I wasn't exactly, you know, a scholar in
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: high school. I did read a lot of history books.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: And so I had dreams that maybe one day I
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: could get, you know, I could maybe get into the
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: political arena and do something.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: Be part of history. Yes.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: And I have made history in a very negative way.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: And I have to live long so I could change
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: my obituary because I don't like my place in history
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: because it's so wrong.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Okay. Well, we'll get to that.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: Keep going.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Filling me in here. I love it. Wait, you like history.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: By the way, have you seen, um, Hamilton?
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: I haven't, but I was, uh, I had a man
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: crush on Alexander Hamilton in the seventies.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: I was in Hamilton before it was cool. It was
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: truly one of the great Americans, one of the greatest Americans.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: It would have to play. Hamilton doesn't, it was based
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: upon a book, um, that I had read when I
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: was in prison. The, the biographer also wrote a, wrote
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: a biography on George Washington. Um, his name is Ron Chernow. And,
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: Lin Miranda, I read an article in a magazine when
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: I was sheltering in place that he had got the
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: idea to write this book from the book that he'd
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: purchased at an airport when he was taking a flight somewhere.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: And I'd read that book before that, Lin Miranda did,
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: because I love Hamilton, always have. But what he doesn't do,
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: and here's where they kind of tell you a little
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: bit of the history, a lot of the history, and
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: I'm sure a lot of it's accurate, but I'm sure
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: what they didn't do in that play, I haven't seen this,
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: I could be wrong, but I bet you they didn't
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: say that before Hamilton was killed in that duel at
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: Weehawken Heights... On the 11th of July in 1804, early
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: in the morning with Aaron Burr, and among his last
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: words were, my vision is indistinct. I fear this wound
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: is fatal. Later on in his deathbed, before his loving wife, Eliza,
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: he says, Eliza remembered his children weeping and crying. He said, Eliza, remember,
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: we are Christians. What they don't say, the sort of
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: liberal interpretation of Hamilton was that when his political fortunes
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: had and he was isolated politically towards the end of
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: his life. And his son had lost a duel defending
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: his father's honor two years before. His oldest boy is firstborn.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: What they don't say is that he had visions of
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: establishing a third political party called the Christian Constitutional Party.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: And I would suggest to your listeners and your viewers
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: that they should take a look and check my facts,
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: but you'll see that it's right. But I bet you,
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: as well as this Lin Miranda did in that play,
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: I bet you he didn't put that in there.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Well, there probably wasn't enough time. It was quite long,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: and you probably can't make a rap about that.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: Anyway, I'd like to see it, but I was.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: It's very good.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: You should see it.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: I bet.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: Especially since you know so much about it. He's fantastic.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: That was a great history lesson you just gave.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: Well, thank you.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Something that he and you share is their love for
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: their wife. So talk to me about how you met Patty.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: So I met Patty on March the 8th, 1988. It
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: was a Sunday evening, probably around 7, 7.15, 7.30. It
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: was at a fundraiser for her father, who is a
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: local Chicago ward political boss and an alderman. And I
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: was a young prosecutor at the time, and I was
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: leaving the Cook County State's Attorney's Office to go into
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: private practice. And I had made friends with some judges,
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: and one judge in particular had been a friend of
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: mine and had grown up, had been part of the
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: Young Democrat Party in the 60s and knew my future father-in-law.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: Long story short was that the judge said that the alderman,
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: Alderman Miller, was having a fundraiser. He was running for,
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: to be elected to a larger position as judge in
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Cook County that we elect our judges, which frankly is
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: not the best system. These judges are all political at
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: the highest levels, but okay, that's a different conversation. But
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: he was a nice guy. His name was Judge, great
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: guy actually, Judge Saul Anthony Perdomo. But he said that
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: Patty's dad, my wife Patty's dad, had said that she
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: had just, my future wife had just broken up with
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: her boyfriend, who she was in love with in Florence, Italy.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: He was an Italian from Florence. He was a Florentine
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: and she met him in school there and they were
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: at an impasse on which one was going to leave
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: and move to the other. And, uh, in Patty had
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: brought him to Chicago. She made a tactical mistake because
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: she brought him in December. It's really cold here.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: This guy's name is Massimo. I met him later on
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: years later. Very nice guy. Excellent guy. Very Italian. And, uh,
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: in fact, he was scolding me and I was drinking
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: my cappuccino and he said, uh, cappuccino is for breakfast,
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: not after dinner. But anyway.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: So he couldn't hack the weather.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: And he wouldn't move here. And she didn't want to
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: leave her parents. And anyway, there were an impasse in
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: that relationship.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: And it all worked out for you.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: And I was the guy on the rebound because I
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: met her like four days later. Her father asked the judge.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: The judge said, I got this young state's attorney. He's
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: a good guy. He said, bring him along. I'd like
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: him to meet my daughter. And so sort of quasi arranged.
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: And she was wearing a red dress. And I remember.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: I was single then and I was, you know, I've
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: lived a pretty, I'm not here to say you know,
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: my life's been eventful. Let me put it that way,
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: various ways. And, and so I remember saying to her,
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: you know, I'd like to call you and like to
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: take you out. And I remember saying, I'll show you
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: the time of your life.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: That's an understatement.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: Boy, I'd say I never envisioned it. I didn't think
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: it was like that. Right. But she was really, it
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: was special when I first met her, when I got
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: to know her a little bit after that first meeting.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: And she was so good to my mother who had
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: just lost my father. And it didn't take long. And
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: I was in love with her very soon. And it
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: was like my first winning campaign. I had to persuade
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: her that, you know, I was the right guy. And,
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: you know, I think I did, but I don't know
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: that she to this day thinks that maybe that was
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: the right decision.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: So before then, were you into politics at all? What
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: were you doing specifically when you met him?
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: Well, I was a young lawyer, and I was prosecuting cases.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: Oh, you were?
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: Okay. Mayor Daley, Richard M. Daley, at the time was
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: the elected Cook County State's Attorney, and I was one
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: of about 800 prosecutors in his office. I never met
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: my boss when I worked for him. He was way
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: up high, and I was like a traffic court. And
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: then in the misdemeanor branch courts, way low. I would
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: only meet him later on when I got into politics.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: And then years later, it didn't take long. Actually, 12
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: years later, I'm now the governor. And he thinks I
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: still work for him. Right.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: But I was interested in politics and I helped a
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: few candidates, one in particular, the local level. But there
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: was no there was no really path for me to
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: get into it. I didn't. It was not realistic. I
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: was just trying to make a living. In fact, I
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: learned how to be a lawyer. And so there was
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: no real time to try to pursue that. And then
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: I just happened to meet Patty and fall in love
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: with Patty. And then her dad had a huge influence.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: And then he found himself in a political position that
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: was difficult for him. And he was scrambling at the
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: last minute to look for a candidate. And he just
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: happened to have a lawyer in the family who, you know,
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: he felt, and I think he was right, you know,
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: had an ability to go out and, you know, make
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: a lot of promises.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: Right, right.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: And so then I got involved. But anyway, go ahead. Right.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: And no, and then before we move too far forward,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: I just want to say before all this, what were
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: some of the other jobs you had in your life
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: before that?
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: Well, I had a lot of different jobs. So, you know,
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: my first job, full-time job was, every day after school,
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: shining shoes. I started when I was in the third
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: grade and finished, uh, uh, when I was finished grade school,
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: eighth grade. So I had every year. And then, uh,
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: then I had jobs, um, delivering pizzas in the neighborhood.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: You know, I had jumped a couple of times, mugged.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: Did you?
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah, it was kind of a rough neighborhood, you know,
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: in the Southern part of it.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: Did you ever get hurt?
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, but I, sure, but I, I mean, you know,
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: I bought us the golden glove. So, I mean, it
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: was like, I was fighting back, but, uh, Yeah. I
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: got jumped at, I always remember that it was at
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: Augusta Boulevard in Central, the West side of Chicago. And
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: these two guys are waiting at the stoop and I've
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: got the pizza. And I knew the woman that was
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: ordering the dinner, the food, because you got to know
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: who the customers were. And she's, I'm sure she was
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: a nice woman, but she never tipped. And you're kind
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: of going in a rough area and you're not going
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: to get a tip. And here's these two guys sitting
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: on the stoop, you know, hiring the doorbell. It was
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: the disco era, you know, the late seventies and the
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: jeans were really tight and I had my money, you know,
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: my pockets and, uh, These guys were standing there. You
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: had the pizza inside the box to keep it warm.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: And there was a bag with like fried chicken in
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: it that was ordered. And the bill was like $ 13
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: and some change. And she gave me a $ 20 bill,
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: which was hopeful to me because I'd have to give
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: her change. And a lot of times the customer would say,
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: I just keep a dollar, which was a good tip
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: back then. But I would have been lucky for a quarter, frankly. Well,
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: she wanted every bit of it. And I gave her
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: all back. And I remember saying to myself, no tip.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: Turned around. Next thing I know, this guy gives me
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: a right cross across the face. And I was, like, stunned.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: And the two of them, you know, give us your mother.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: Can I swear? Yeah. Give us your money, motherfucker. Right?
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: And then when I came to my senses, because I
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: boxed all the gloves, I had a decent right hand.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: I was able to hit one of them. And then
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: I was able to extricate myself from the other guy
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: dragging me. I got to my car where I had
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: a pipe. You always kept a little weapon in there.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: But I should have had it with me when I
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: walked up. And then I was able to ward him off.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: As I'm driving back, I'm spitting part of my back
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: tooth out.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Oh, right.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: My mouth was closed when I got hit. And then
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: I got into the pizza place. And my boss, an
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: immigrant from Sicily, great guy. His name was Joe DeVita.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: And his wife, she was great. She was really nice.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: She really liked me. They both had strong. She had
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: a real strong Italian accent. She recently had moved to America.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: He had come here at a young age, but he
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: still had a slight accent. And, you know, I was
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: bleeding a little bit. And I was a little bit angry.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: You know, Jesus Christ, Joe, you sent us to a
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: place where they never tip. He goes, ah, did they
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: get the money? No, they didn't get the money. And
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: I gave them the money. And she's over there nursing me.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: She was so sweet.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: So did he tip you for keeping the money? Did
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: he give you a little bonus?
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: No, he didn't.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: Oh, gosh.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: He had a business to run. He had other drivers
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: he had to take care of. So I had that job.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: And I worked at a meatpacking plant in Philadelphia the
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: summer of 1977. It was actually in Chester, Pennsylvania, a
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: place called Medford Meats. Back then they did the Franks
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: for the Phillies games, the hot dogs for the Phillies games.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: I don't know if they do it now. Well, then
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: I had a couple of jobs on the Alaskan Pipeline.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: When I was right out of high school, I was
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: able to get a job up there because my father
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: left us at the age of 63 to take a
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: job at the Alaskan Pipeline as a janitor because the
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: pay was so good. So I spent two summers working
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: on the Alaskan Pipeline, washing pots and pans 10 hours
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: a day, seven days a week, double time on Sundays,
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: time and a half over 40.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: Great place to learn some good values.
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: And surprisingly, as you know, you being from Anchorage, but
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: up in Fairbanks that I was at a place called
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: pump station six. So it was about 90 miles North
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: of Fairbanks. But in the summertime, much to my real surprise,
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: there were all these mosquitoes. I don't think people realize,
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: but in Alaska in the summer, there's a lot of
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: mosquitoes out there and they're really big. Right.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: When I met Sarah Palin, by the way, I remember
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: telling her about that. And then we talked a little
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: bit about that. And I mentioned that I had a
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: law school roommate that was from, um, Palmer, Alaska. And
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: she asked me what his name was. And I said, really?
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: Alaska is so small. You might know this guy. And
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: it turned out not only did she know him, she
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: appointed him attorney general of the state of Alaska. Oh, wow.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: His name is Talis Kohlberg. Excellent guy, by the way.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: It's a small place.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: Isn't that something?
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: That is something. Um, all right. So were there any
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: other jobs before this? Then you obviously got your law degree. Yeah.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: Well, there were sure there were jobs. I was at
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: a place called Concrete Products, uh, when I was in
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: high school. And, um, I had a job at Hilton
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: Head Island, South Carolina, working this resort, which was a
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: pretty cool job. I worked every day there, but it
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: was cool. It's like an upper-class area, so I was
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: able to learn some things about life. Leon Spinks was
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: the heavyweight champion of the world at that time. He
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: had beat Muhammad Ali, and he was training for his rematch,
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: which was going to be held in the fall of
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: 78 in New Orleans. And I could tell, I'd see
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: him at this place called the Ribbit Room, which was
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: the disco place on the island. And disco was big
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: back then. And I had that kind of look, that
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: disco look. So, not that I danced disco, but I
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: had the look.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: Oh, you had the hair, you had everything.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, and, you know, maybe some of the mannerisms,
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: because the Travolta character, Tony Monero, in that movie was
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: from Brooklyn.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: And I came from Chicago, you know, city stuff. Anyway,
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: I went out, because I had Bosco on the gloves,
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: I got to know him a little bit. And I
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: went out, some mornings running with him to train for
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: the fight. But I could tell he wasn't training like
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: he should. And it was likely mom and Ali was
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: going to reclaim the title. And sure enough, he did.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: Should have bet on that one.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: Should have bet on that one.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: Well, it seems to me you're very well-rounded, that you've
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: lived a life, you know, up until you got into
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: politics where you got to try a bunch of things,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: do a bunch of things, be a commoner, so to speak,
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: be one of the people and see what it was
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: really like to start at the bottom.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: Right? Yeah, I did. I think that's right. I started
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: at the bottom in the economic. I mean, there were
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: people poorer than us. We weren't poor. I mean, my
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: mother and father were both working, but it was a
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: little five-room apartment. My brother and I, for a while,
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: shared the same bed. And so I was, in that sense,
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: not a lot of advantages. But I'll tell you what
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: I think is most important for any person, and I
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: hope this is the case. I know it's the case
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: with my daughters, with their mother, because I missed most
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: of bringing up my children when I was gone those years. Yeah.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: But I was rich in love with my parents. We
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: had just such good parents. And they raised you with values.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: And I could never give in to these corrupt prosecutors,
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: these motherfuckers, because I knew how corrupt they were and
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: how dishonest that was. And my parents didn't raise me
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: to be that way. Better to go down fighting. And
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: I would think about my parents through all the years,
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: the good years and the hard years. And among the
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: reasons why I could never give in, I would think
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: about them. I could never shame them or dishonor them.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: I'd rather go to prison. if I have to. But
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: I was lucky that way. And so I would say that, yeah,
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: I was disadvantaged economically. You know, we didn't know any
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: lawyers growing up. There were no doctors or lawyers in
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: our neighborhood. The dads worked. A lot of the moms
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: didn't work back then. A lot of moms did. My
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: mother was a working mom. And there was little in
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: terms of, I mean, you didn't go to restaurants. It
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: was like so rare because they had to scrimp and save.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: But on those rare occasions where you go to like
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: a family restaurant in the neighborhood, you know, my mother,
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: I always remember her. She was always insistent on, you
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: eat everything on your plate, son. We're paying for this, right?
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: So you learn certain realities that I think served me well.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: And I think shining shoes as a kid, hustling from
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: 9 years old to 13 years old, and you're going
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: to make your money on tips. You know, you got
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: a quarter for a shine and whatever you got was
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: in tips. I think, I think in a weird way,
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: it actually prepared me for politics because you just got
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: a sense of how, you know, how people think and
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: what they're interested in and human nature.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: Right. And customer service, so to speak, how to interact
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: with people, how to get a reaction from people.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: Sure. I think so. Right.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: I can understand that.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: They didn't teach me that in the math class in
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: high school. Right.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: Well, that's true. Okay, so now let's talk about how
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: you really got into politics. Obviously, it sounds like your
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: father-in-law believed that you might be the right one to
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: sort of move forward to get you guys in this arena.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: So talk a little bit about that.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: So Patty and I were happily married the first couple
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: of years. And I was in the private practice of
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: law at that time. I left the state attorney's office.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: And I was actually very good about, I was good
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: at getting clients. And I didn't miss a beat. I
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: was just off and running. And I had a lot
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: of clients. It was a working class practice. I represented
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: a lot of people accused of crimes. When I had
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: to explain that to the voters later on, that they
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: should not think I wasn't tough on crime or anything,
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: I would point out, well, I was tough on crime.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: You should have seen the sentences my clients got. But
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: that was half true. But I had a lot of
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: criminal defendants. I had them in the felony state courts,
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: the misdemeanor courts, traffic court. I represented a lot of
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: head of practice work. I had several clients who were
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: gypsies and they were recurring business. I would have the grandparents,
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: I'd have the parents, I'd have the children in juvenile
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: court because a lot of the livelihoods of the gypsy
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: community here in Chicago was frankly criminal activity. I had
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: a lot of, but I pursued a general practice with
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: an emphasis eventually on personal injury cases and workers' comp cases.
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: So it was a working class background and a working
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: class practice. And I had a lot of clients who,
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: And business was good. And as that was happening, my
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: father-in-law's local politics got complicated. And in Chicago politics back then,
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: being a ward boss like he was, the alderman, one
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: of 50 wards in the city of Chicago, and being
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: one of the more powerful ones because he was able
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: to have a political organization with a lot of job holders, city, state,
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: and county jobs. And they would go and knock on doors.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: They're called precinct captains. And the Daley family came up
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: this way, and all the leading political families in Chicago
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: came up that way in the old days. And it
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: turned out that the ward committeemen in the area around
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: him had made decisions on who the state lawmaker was
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: going to be, and he felt emasculated because the guy
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: that was his guy had made a deal with the
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: other bosses, and they had cut him out. And so
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: he was outmaneuvered, and at the last minute he was
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: scrambling to find candidates to challenge that, and he just
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: happened to have a lawyer in the, family kind of
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: grew up in the neighborhood might be you know might
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: have might be all right at this now we've both
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: expected to lose and uh... because all the political leaders
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: work with the other guy was a twelve-year incumbent and uh...
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: i remember him calling us on a sunday afternoon it
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: was cold was january i just got done running and
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: he had called my wife patty and said what do
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: you guys do want to come over to the house
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: i want to talk to you about something so we
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: came over he's got these maps these legislative maps he's
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: on the floor and he's he's uh... He says to me,
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: he says to both of us, Ronan left me last night.
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: That was his state rep. I'm looking for a candidate.
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: I got this guy who wants to run over here.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: I got this other guy that would run for state senator.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: And I'm thinking about you over here, Blagojevich. That's what
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: my father-in-law calls me to this day, Blagojevich. And I
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: looked at that map and I said, oh, yeah. And
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: he said, look, they're all against this. You're probably going
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: to lose, but you have any interest in running. And
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: I didn't hesitate because I read all those history books
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: growing up as a little boy, which I did a
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: lot of. And this was my one chance to actually
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: get in to that. So I didn't hesitate. And I said, yeah,
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: I just got one question. If somehow I win, am
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: I free to make my own decisions on policy? And
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: I'll always remember his answer. It was not basically, it
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: really was. It was, I don't give a fuck about that.
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: And so we were off and running. And, you know,
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: my name was always ethnically.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: Itching, burning, soreness.
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: When you know it's thrush, you want it gone. Treat
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: the cause, not just the symptoms, with Caniston Combi, Ireland's
• 43:49
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• 43:52
  Speaker 3: contain cotrimazole.
• 43:53
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• 43:56
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• 43:59
  Speaker 2: Challenged. You know, it's Serbian. But the Serbian community in
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: the neighborhood I grew up in, I was running in,
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: was not at all of any consequence. Polish community. was
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: the largest ethnic group in the congressional district I would
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: run in. And in the state rep district, Polish, Irish, German, Italian, Latino,
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: about a third of the district was Latino, which was
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: always a very good vote for me because I could say,
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: mi nombre es difícil de pronunciar, pero espero que pase
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: de recordar. Por favor, vote por mi. Democrata. I just
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: said my name is hard to pronounce, easy to remember.
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: Please vote for me. Democrat.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: So is this where people started to call you Blago?
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: No, that happened after I was elected governor. The Chicago
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: Sun-Times came up with that nickname. Anyway, I went out
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: and I didn't really know a lot about the issues.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: I'll always remember the first speech I ever gave in
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: politics was at St. John Birchman's in the basement during
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: a bingo. And my wife Patty was with me. And
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: it was this Catholic school that she went to and
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: her sister and her brother went to. And that was
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: their church. And I was in the basement. I was
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: telling the seniors there that, you know, my wife went
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: to this school and went to this church. And I
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: just want you to know this is the church church.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: the school I love most in the world, please vote
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: for me. That was pretty much it. And I went around, oh,
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: and I got a hundred bucks for you for your
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: bingo game.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: I donated a hundred bucks for the bingo game. And, and,
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: and then I just worked real hard, knocked down doors,
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: went to all the train stations and the bus stops
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: and introduced myself to people. And, um.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: And did the issues matter? Were you studying up on
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: why you might take one side versus the other, or
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: that kind of wasn't part of your shtick back then?
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. After a while I had to figure that out. Yeah. Right.
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: Cause this was basically a frenetic, Maybe it was a
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: frenetic two-month campaign in the cold, and I was at
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: it every day, and I didn't hesitate to figure out
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: the issues. I just started running. And we would put
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: out these leaflets about my humble origins and that I
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: grew up in the neighborhood real close to this area.
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: And eventually some people would ask me when I'd be
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: at the train stations, yeah, but it doesn't say anything
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: about where you stand on a woman's right to choose
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: or where you stand on funding for the police and
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: all these other issues. And I said, well, we're going
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: to come out with something like that soon, which we did.
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: We had to. But I pretty much knew what I
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: kind of believed in. And so I would pretty much
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: be able to answer it. What I found knocking on
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: those doors every day, 14 hours a day, was really
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: what people want is just to feel like their elected
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: representatives like are close enough to them where they listen
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: to them and care about them. And maybe they can't
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: agree with you on everything. But is your heart right?
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: Can they discern a sense that your heart might be
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: right for them? And I feel like when political candidates
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: get closer to people like that, not only does it
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: help you win votes, but even more importantly, once you
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: get the office and you win, you remember those people
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: who you met along the way. And when you have
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: to make the decisions, because governing really is about decision making.
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: It's about setting priorities and making choices. And when you
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: have to choose, sometimes even between two things you agree with,
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: but you can't get both of them, but you can
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: get one and you might have to sacrifice the other.
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: It's always good to think back about those people you
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: met along the way. And for me, I can think
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: about my late parents. I can think about aunts and uncles,
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: people from the neighborhood, everyday working people. And I can
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: then take that and use that as a guide on
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: what might be the right thing to do. So when
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: I was governor and I was able to give free
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: public transportation to every senior citizen and disabled person, that
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: was rooted in my life experience. When I gave health
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: care to all the kids in Illinois, when I had
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: the power as governor, it was rooted in my own
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: life experience and what I saw growing up. Yeah.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: So when you first heard that you won, I mean,
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: how did you react?
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll tell you, and I think your listeners might
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: find this interesting. My mother was a widow by then.
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: She was a senior citizen. She was home. And I
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: felt good because I was out there all the time,
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: and I was getting really good vibes from the voters.
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: And even though the guy I was running against was
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: a 12-year incumbent, people didn't know who he was. Most
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: people don't know who their state lawmakers are, which is
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: a problem because this is— why they can go down
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: to the state government and be basically, they could be
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: unknown and they don't have to do the will of
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: the people, but they do their own stuff. But nobody
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: really knew who this guy was. And so I felt
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: good about him. My father was very afraid because the
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: ward bosses in the areas had a lot more of
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: the area than the state rep district than he had.
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: He only had one third of it. They had the
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: rest of it. And Mayor Daley at that time was
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: for the other guy. And so his organization was helping
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: the other guy But I was out there and I
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: could just feel the voters. So I was cautiously optimistic.
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: Were you in the press? Were they talking a lot
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: about you or were you kind of somebody they weren't listening?
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: No. Chicago, that's too small for the Chicago media.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: Got it.
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: Governor, they cover a lot. When I started running for Congress,
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: they'd cover that. But this is too small. It's one-sixth
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: of a congressional district. Got it. But more than an
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: aldermanic district. It's about three or four aldermanic, maybe three
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: aldermanic wards. said but other parts of words are in
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: a different words and long and short of it is
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: i felt cautiously optimistic he thought we were going to
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: lose based upon the turnout in the areas where the
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: other war bosses were but i thought there was gentrification
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: i knew that there was gentrification going on and they
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: were younger voters and i was far younger than the
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: other guy you know the yuppie vote right and i
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: felt like i was doing well with them and sure enough,
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: the first precinct came in and it was in the
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: base of former Congressman Dan Rostenkowski's area. And they were
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: with their incumbent was their guy. So he was against
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: me and they were powerful, but I only lost that
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: precinct by maybe 20 votes. And right then, My father-in-law said,
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: you won because if we're only losing like that there,
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: imagine what you're doing everywhere else. And sure enough, I
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: won with 61% of the vote. It was really, really big.
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: And I called my mother and I said, mama, I won.
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: And she said, oh, son, she said, here's what she
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: said to me. It's almost prophetic. She said to me, oh, son,
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of you.
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: And only if your father was alive, he would be
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: so proud of you. Now remember, son, Always be for
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: the people. Remember where you came from and be for
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: the people. I said, I will, mama. I will. And
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: then she said to me, one more thing, son. I said,
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: what's that, mama? She said, be honest, son. Don't ever
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: take bribes. Right? And I said, don't you worry, mama.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: I won't.
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: I won't do anything to dishonor you or the memory
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: of my father. And then she said, do you think
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: you can get Aunt Violet's son-in-law a job? Which is
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: typical Chicago politics. Right. Well, he didn't get a job.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: I was just going to ask.
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: And I went to prison for alleged bribery, but I
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: didn't do it. And one day the truth will come out.
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: Well, okay. So let's skip to that part now then,
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: if you would. So you're a governor. How's it going?
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: How do we get to this part where you fall
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: into some trouble? Explain that to the viewers who might
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: not remember, might not have been interested. Just explain in
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: layman's terms what happened.
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm writing a book about it. And it's I
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: have over 50,000 words already written. And the story starts
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: with Obama and finishes with Trump. And in between, it's
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: me in prison. And so I write about those experiences
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: because they put me in the higher security prison where
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: no governor's been. I was in there with Crips and
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: Bloods and Suleños and Orteños and Tejanos and Aryan Nation,
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: Nazi white guys. I mean, different gangs. And there were
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: murders in there. My home was a six foot by
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: eight foot prison cell. I mean, I got real street
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: cred when it comes to prison because I was in
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: real prison for almost three years before I went to
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: the camp after that. So I'm writing about that. I
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: write about the different stories. You know, one day I'm
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: teaching a civil war history class with socks, a bank
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: robber from central California. It was a real nice guy.
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: He did it, but he doesn't mean he's not a
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: good guy. I should say he's actually a good guy,
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: but he just, he shouldn't have brought that bank. Right. Um,
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: But then I tell stories about Obama and I coming
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: up together in politics and how I was the first
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: governor in America to endorse him against Hillary Clinton and
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: get him started. So I'd been governor for six years.
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: I was the first Democrat governor elected in Illinois in
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: 2002 in 26 years. And I won by a substantial amount.
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: And I was very young, the second youngest when I
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: was about 44, 45 then. And at that time, believe
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: it or not, people were talking about me as a
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: potential presidential candidate. And I was being invited to places
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: like Hollywood to go raise money and New York where
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: I would run into Donald Trump, by the way, in
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: December of 2003, when I was out there on a
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: fundraising trip with Chuck Schumer, one of Chuck Schumer's top fundraisers. Anyway,
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: I was, my political fortunes were really high and I,
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: it was really unbelievable to me that, you know, that I,
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: I'm the governor, fifth largest state. I got all this power.
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: On the other hand, um, it was good because you
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: can really do things with that power. Sure. I feel
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: like I was a great governor and I feel like I'm,
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: I know this sounds, you know, not humble, but I
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: truly believe I was the best governor in modern Illinois
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: political history for the things I did for people. You
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: ask yourself, and maybe your viewers or listeners ask themselves,
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: what did your governor ever do for you that you
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: can actually identify? But I would get letters from moms
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: when I was in prison, thanking me for the all
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: kids program, thanking me for the ability for a working
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: mom to be able to, address her child's cancer and
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: save that child's life. I got a lot of letters
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: like that. I would get letters from parents about the
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: stuff that we did for kids who had autism. I
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: would get letters from elderly people thanking me for the
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: free public transportation that I was able to give them
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: and disabled people who did that. Three and four-year-olds got
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: to go to preschool, every one of them, when I
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: was governor. We did open-road tolling, which allowed commuters to
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: move to and from where they're going around the suburban
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: areas with less traffic, less pollution. and saving about thirty
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: minutes a day on commuter time a lot of stuff
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: that we did without raising taxes on people not to
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: get it done i had to fight had to fight
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: against the establishment course republicans oppose me but my bigger
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: problem was the democratic establishment that had been in place
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: for forty three-year years led by this guy named mike
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: madigan created a political empire where he got rich his
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: family get rich his friends got rich and so it
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: was a fight every step of the way and when
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: you do that you remember where you came from you
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: try to be true to your values and the people
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: that elected you, and I know this sounds like bullshit,
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: but I'm telling you it's true in my case, because
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: I think I'm the only guy in Illinois politics who
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: didn't get rich in the business, but I would fight
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: and make enemies to push this stuff and get it through.
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: And eventually when I rewrote a bill that they did
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: that raised the sales tax in February of 2008, and
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: I put free public transportation in there to give it
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: to the seniors by using my executive authority, Democratic lawmakers
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: were pissed off at me for using that authority to
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: go around them. And that's when Madigan and the Democrats
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: began talking about impeaching me eight months before it actually,
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: eight months before I got arrested, 10 months before I
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: got arrested. And I believe that they had a hand
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: in some of that. I'm so cynical about the corruption
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: in the federal prosecutor's office and the weaponization when I
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: see what they're doing to President Trump. I think it
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: started with me. And I think at the AAA level,
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: they did it to a Democrat governor. I think these prosecutors,
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: you know, it's a playbook that they follow then took
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: it and are now doing it to a Republican candidate
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: at the major league level. And so I, what they
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: had targeted me for five years and I knew it.
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: And so we were super careful to try to make
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: sure we didn't do anything wrong. And I frankly felt like,
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: go ahead, investigate, because if there is something going on,
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: that's not right. We should make sure we correct it.
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: But I never in my wildest dreams thought that they
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: would actually, you know, make up things to get me
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: after they had invested five years chasing me and came
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: up with nothing. And then they, criminalize these conversations that
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: were taped where they're all legal, but they only played
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: 2% of them. And to this day, 98%, 98% of
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: those tapes are covered up by those prosecutors. Right.
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: So, okay, let's get into that though. And like what,
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: actually happened. So I think the worst thing, and you
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: went on a media tour, and people sort of said
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: this in your face the whole time, that you were
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: caught saying, we got this thing, it's fucking golden, I'm
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: not giving it up for nothing, right? Something along those lines.
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: That sounded a little criminal to people, right?
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: Sure, yeah. It's inflammatory.
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: So what happened? I mean, what went wrong, do you think?
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: Well, you know what they don't do? By itself, is
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: that a crime? I got this thing and this is
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: fucking gold. I'm not giving it up for nothing.
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: No.
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: Is that a crime by itself?
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: No, of course not.
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: It is not. What do I say next?
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: They don't talk about it. And they know, but it's
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: covered up on the tapes.
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: Okay. So you tell me then.
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: They're lying scumbags. Pardon me?
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: So you tell me what was next.
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: I think I joked and said something like, you know,
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: my too bad my nephew Alex is, he's turning 29 today.
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: Too bad he's not turning 30. I can make him
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: a senator for his birthday. Right. It was something along
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: those lines. Right. Those were all legal conversations. And let
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: me say this to your viewers and your listeners. When
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: you come out of Chicago politics, and there is a
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: lot of corruption in Chicago politics and in Illinois politics,
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: the guys who are making money in the business and
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: taking cash and things like that, no one has ever
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: accused me of taking a single penny in any of
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: this stuff, nor did I. And that's one of the
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: great ironies here. In fact, nothing happened. There were requests
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: for campaign contributions, and the people that were asked, I
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: didn't even make the asks, but the The aides that
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: did this for me never promised anything, never threatened anybody
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: because that's the standard. So, well, I was trying to
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: make a point about these, I guess about the tapes
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: or something, but my point is, They won't play those
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: tapes because they're covering up what they did. And they
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: criminalized things that were legal. Everything that they have me saying,
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: I said. Did I say fucking golden? Yes, I did.
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: Not a crime. If you got me saying, I want J.B.
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: Pritzker to give me $ 100 million because he wanted to
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: be a senator. He had called me asking me on
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: tape to make him a senator. That's the guy you
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: sell it to. He just spent $ 400 million making himself
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: governor twice. Pritzker's a billionaire. He inherited it from the
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: Hyatt Hotel fortune. I could have said, hey, yeah, J.B.,
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: I'll make you a senator. Give me $ 50 million.
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: That would have been clearly criminal, and I should have
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: been thrown in prison for a hundred years. But there
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: was nothing like that. We were discussing what kind of
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: political deal we can make because Obama sent an emissary
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: to me on election night, the night before that infamous
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: phone call, fucking golden, the very night before. Balanoff, the
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: union boss. Brock called me last night. He'd like me
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: to talk to you about a senator he wants. See
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: what you want. Routine political horse trading. Obama did nothing wrong.
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: We didn't either. And I started talking about what can
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: we get for this? Somebody suggested, well, maybe you just
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: want to kiss his ass and just give him a senator.
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: And the two of us on the phone said we
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: shouldn't do that. And I said, this is fucking gold
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: and I'm not giving enough for nothing. We're going to
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: make a political deal.
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: And they criminalized it.
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: So explain that to people, because I think that people
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: think there's a lot of things that are criminal about politics.
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: And that's just the way it's done. So I think
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: a lot of people think that what you were doing
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: was criminal and you justified it because everyone else is
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: doing something criminal. What would you say to that?
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: I would say they're half right. Everybody else is doing it,
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: but it's not criminal. It's legal. It's the routine practices
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: of the business. Now, do I think the fundraising system
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: as it is, Is the best system? I do not.
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: You could argue it's legalized bribery. You could say that,
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: for example, when the big pharmaceutical industry goes to a
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: United States senator and they hold a fundraiser for him
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: or a congressman or a congresswoman and they hold fundraisers
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: for him in the morning at these breakfast fundraisers they
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: do in Washington all the time because I was a congressman,
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: they did them for me. And then later in the afternoon,
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: you vote on the legislation that impacts them. You can
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: say that that's bribery. And you can make a valid
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: argument that it's bad government. And I think there's a
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: lot of truth to that. Having said that, the United
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: States Supreme Court has expressly said that is not the
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: standard to make it illegal. And if it was, and
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: that's the standard, what I just described, they used against me.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: If it was, then I'd have been in prison with
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: Obama and with Biden and with every congressman and senator
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: and our prisons would have been even more overcrowded.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: But why do you think it was only targeted at
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: you then?
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: Well, I think I have a certain suspicion that my
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: political enemies that I suggested earlier ten months before it
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: talked about impeaching me. This guy Madigan, the boss, had
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: a lot of connections. His law partner's wife was a
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: former federal judge. Now, I can't prove this. These are
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: my theories. But I see certain fingerprints on some of this.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: I think the political establishment really resented the fact that
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: I wasn't going to raise taxes. So it's possible that
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: they may have worked in conjunction with these federal prosecutors.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: I do know that after I was arrested, they were
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: doing that. So I think that was part of it.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: I think, too, that... The bigger problem in the corruption
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: of the Justice Department with these weaponized prosecutors is that
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: it makes their careers. See, they're big game hunters, and
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: if you can bag a big elephant like a governor
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: and now a president, then you're going to go on
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: and be on CNN, and you're going to have a
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: big spot on CNN, or you'll be a big law
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: firm partner and make millions of dollars, which is exactly
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: what happened to all of them. You'll move up in
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: the world. I think it's more about career advancement, and
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: I think they made a decision to focus on me
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: I think partly because of my roots, you know, coming
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: out of the Chicago Democratic Party organization with a ward
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: boss in the family. And then I had a terrible issue,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: family issue, with my father-in-law, where he basically created the
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: dynamic that put a target on my back. He was
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: involved in a landfill that was operating illegally. I learned
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: about it when I was governor, and I shut it down.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: And when I did that, he came out and made
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: these accusations that my top fundraiser was... trading board and
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: commission appointments for $ 50, 000 campaign contributions. Now, that accusation against
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: that fundraiser, if true, would have been a crime, but
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: it was a lie. And he unleashed the furies. He
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: knowingly did it because he's a sophisticated, smart guy. At
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: that point, he was so pissed off at me because
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: I wasn't doing a lot of stuff he wanted me
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: to do that I think he wanted knowingly to put
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: the FBI on me. And then at that point, I
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: had a bullseye on my back, and that was 2005, January.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: And I knew it. And for the next several years,
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: I was being super careful that we did everything right,
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: including all those phone calls. That was the great irony.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: Never in my wildest dreams did I think that they
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: would then cherry pick stuff to do what they did
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: and then not allow me to play those tapes in
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: court to defend myself or even publicly so that people
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: can see actually what was going on. Right.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: So those tapes became very important in your second trial.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: But in the first trial, you were found guilty only
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: of making false statements. There was a hung jury on
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: all the other counts after 14 days of deliberation. Did
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: you think you were fine after that? I mean, how
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: did you feel?
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: No, I felt bad. I didn't like the fact that
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: they convicted me on that one count, the lie. Now,
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: everybody else said, you know, you got scratched and there
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: was a freight train coming your way. But I didn't lie.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: They lied. They lie. Anyway. The 23 corruption charges, I
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: think there were 23 of them, were all hung. So
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: not guilty is another fake corruption charges. They got the
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: one on the lie. And part of it was my
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: defense lawyer. And I remember telling him before, don't forget
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: that false statement. He got up there on his closing
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: statement and he forgot to mention it. The other problem
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: was the judge was working with the prosecutors and they
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: limited my lawyer's time to be able to make a
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: defense fully on every one of the allegations. Because what
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: they do when they want to get you is they
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: throw everything at you. Mm-hmm. And they figure at some point.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: You'll... Something will stick, yeah.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it'll stick or you'll agree to cut a
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: deal and make it easier on yourself. So I felt
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: bad after the first trial because I didn't lie. And
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: immediately they said they were going to try me again.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: And so I felt like this was only going to
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: continue and these people... Look, I knew I had to
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: fight back. And I felt like if I get a
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: fair trial, there was no way I could lose. And
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: notwithstanding not getting a fair trial the first trial, they
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: still couldn't convict me because their case was so flimsy.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: At the second trial, it was a kangaroo court. But
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: deep down along that whole process, as I was fighting back,
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: I just knew deep down that I was a dead man.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: I just knew they had so much power. And unless
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: I give in and try to make some sort of
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: a deal, I'm dead. And yet I was determined that
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: I'm going to go down fighting.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: And I was aware— Had they offered you deals that
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: you were— They.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: Did after the first trial, after they failed to convict
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: me at the first trial. Wow. They sent my brother
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: to me to ask my brother to plead guilty, and
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: they would cut him loose because my poor brother, completely innocent,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: was brought into this to use as a pawn against me.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: And I told my brother that I just couldn't do it,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: but they still dropped the charges against him, and they
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: got him to agree to not testify on my behalf
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: at a second trial, which is very disappointing, but he
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: had to protect himself. But no, they dangled 18 months.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: My lead lawyer, He was afraid they were bugging his office.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: We had to sit in a car. And he was
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: telling me, you know, 18 months and that his office
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: is in Hyde Park, the neighborhood where Obama's. Itching.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: Burning. Soreness. When you know it's thrush, you want it gone.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: Treat the cause, not just the symptoms, with Caniston Combi.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: Ireland's number one thrush treatment brand. Caniston Combi, pastry and
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: cream contain cotrimazole.
• 1:05:23
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• 1:05:26
  Speaker 4: To verify, contact info.ireland at bayer.com.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: It's from it. And he said that Obama wants this
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: to go away. You should really strongly consider the 18 months.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: But I could never do it.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: You felt you had truth on your side.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: I know I had truth on my side. And more
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: than that, I felt the people that were doing it
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: needed to be held accountable because they're corrupt. The people
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: of Illinois elected me twice in elections. Who are these
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: people to undo the will of the people? And so
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: I felt like I could never give in for a
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: variety of reasons, not the least of which is they
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: should be brought to account. And who knows, maybe one
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: day the truth crushed to earth will one day rise
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: again because no lie can live forever. Martin Luther King
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: said that.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: Now, incidentally, up to this point, I think people might
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: have thought that you took this a little bit as
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: a joke or not very seriously because you did go
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: on a big media blitz and you were on everything,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: including Celebrity Apprentice. Why did you do that? Did you
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: think the court of public opinion would somehow help you
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: in that? Or what was your thought process?
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: So the lawyers would argue that that was the strategy
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: behind it, but it wasn't never for me. No, they
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: came out and made these outlandish, outrageous allegations against me. Look,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: you've got to be the biggest fucking idiot. If you
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: think that as a governor you could sell Barack Obama's
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: Senate seat in two thousand eight december after he was
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: the first black american president to be but african-american elected
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: president united states a historic figure and what he represented
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: and international demigod at that time how you gonna get
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: away with something like that and so they arrest me
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: at six o'clock in the morning with swat teams around
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: my house i'm a sitting governor they got me handcuffed
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: i don't know what it's about they tell me it's
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: about that at some point and i i i think
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: it's ridiculous and i think the media's gonna laugh them
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: out of court Because who'd be so stupid to think
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: they could do something like that? The shocking thing was
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: the media doesn't care about the truth. They care about
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: the story. And so rather than go out and actually
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: challenge them, show it, prove it, play the tapes, it
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: was all dumping on me. And I didn't do it.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: And I'm thinking, you know, you're innocent. You didn't do it.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: You have this tremendous desire and need to tell everybody
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: I didn't do it. And so because I was such
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: a notorious figure at the time, I had opportunities where
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: most people who have been accused falsely don't. I had
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: opportunities to go on television and, and proclaim my innocence
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: and to challenge them, which I did. Now, having said that,
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 2: some of the lawyers that I had were telling me,
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: you do this at your own peril because you're really
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: fucking with them. And if they get you, you're gonna
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: have to answer for this. And I was like, it's
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: okay to swear. Yeah. Okay.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: I'm not running for anything anymore, so I'm just playing
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: it around.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: Um, but any event, uh, I, uh, I had that
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: need to try to tell everybody that I didn't do it.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: I had little girls, and they were in school, and
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: this was international news. I mean, we had the Japanese
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: television trucks in front of my house, as well as
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: all the other ones. Israeli news was at my home.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: And my little girls are growing up, and I want
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: my daughters to know, don't feel like your daddy did that.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: So there was a lot of reasons why. And it's interesting,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: because having done that, I think I was discovered by
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump because I think he saw that. And that's
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: how I got invited on Celebrity Apprentice. And Rachel, I've
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: got to tell you, it's the hand of God for sure.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: It was a miracle. Because had I not been on
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: Celebrity Apprentice, I'm still in prison until May of 2020.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: The 14 year sentence they gave me.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: That's right. May, that may have been your saving grace.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: Celebrity Apprentice. So I'm curious of your opinion of him
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: or your perception of him in that way when he
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: was not this political figure and had, you know, and
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: could have an effect on where you ended up in life.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: What was he like?
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: He was great. And, you know, I want to say
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: that I never in my wildest dreams when I was
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: on Celebrity Apprentice. And we filmed it in October of 2009.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: So he doesn't get elected president until 2016. He doesn't
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 2: announce until the spring of 2015. So years before I'm
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: on Celebrity Apprentice, never in my wildest dreams do I
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: imagine he's ever going to run for president, much less
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: get in the politics. This is Donald Trump, superstar, Celebrity Apprentice,
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: TV personality, billionaire real estate developer, successful. businessman, larger than life,
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: you know, a guy who, you know, had a tremendous
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: following author, bestselling author. I mean, he had golf courses
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: around the world at the time that I knew him
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: from the show. It never crossed my mind. Um, and
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: he was a larger than life figure then as he
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: is now. So did you.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: Guys chum around at all? I mean, did you spend
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: any time together?
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: We spent a little, well, we didn't chum around. I mean,
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: you work every day. He's a hard worker. And you're
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: up at 5 in the morning every day to do
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: those shows and to do the makeup and all the
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: things you have to do before your casting call, I
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: think they call it. It was a new world for me,
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: by the way.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: And I had the, I call it the good fortune
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: of being chastised by Joan Rivers on national television for
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: serving her a hamburger that was cold.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: Oh, my goodness. Right.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: But he was off camera. He was really nice to
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: me and good to me. And he did something that
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: I'd like to share with your audience. After it was over,
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: Because when you get fired from that show, which I was, correctly, incidentally,
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump is the only president in American history to
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: have fired and freed the same guy. Even Lincoln didn't
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: do that, right?
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: Good point.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: But when I was fired, like everybody else's except the
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: final two, in October of 2009, your contract says you
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: can't say anything to the media that you've been fired
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: because they're going to air the show. I think it
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: was like in, I never saw it, by the way,
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: but they aired it in, I think, March of 2010.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: And they had all of the contestants who'd been fired
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: come back for one final episode at NYU University in
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 2: front of a live audience. There must have been 750
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: people there. Every seat was taken. And Cyndi Lauper, what
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: a nice person, was singing. She performed a song. The
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 2: two finalists was a rock star by the name of
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 2: Bret Michaels, who apparently is very well known. I'm an
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: Elvis fan. He is too, by the way. A real
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 2: nice guy, but I'd never heard of him. And so
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: he was on the show, and he was in the
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 2: finals with Holly Robinson, Pete, she was a TV star,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: she was very nice, and others. And Darryl Strawberry played
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: for the Mets and the Yankees, great guy. We all
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: had been terminated, but we were back there on stage.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 2: And Trump was throwing me questions, and some of us questions,
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: and he threw me a few more, because I think
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: he wanted to give me a chance to have air time.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: And I kept insisting on my innocence, like I still do.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: And I guess I'm on message maybe too much. And
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 2: so the audience really laughed at me and it was
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: probably a derisive laugh. They were not laughing with me,
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: but probably laughing at me. And it was noticeable. It
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 2: didn't bother me. You know, I was in the business
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 2: and pretty thick skinned, but the show was over. And
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: one of the things they generously allowed you to do
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 2: was I could bring my wife and two little girls
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: with me for the filming. And so they, we spent
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 2: a couple of days together, all of us in New York,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: even though I was going to trial very soon and
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: the future was filled with a lot of, Dark storms
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: ahead for us. But after the show, my wife and
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: my daughters came up to me on the stage. And
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 2: then as we were leaving, we got in an elevator.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: And lo and behold, entering that elevator with us was
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump. We took the ride down and introduced him
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: to my wife and my kids. My little Annie Bonanni
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: at the time was four years old. And my daughter
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: Amy was 11. So they were little girls. And He
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: was attuned to what that audience had done about an
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: hour before, laughing at their father. And he was sensitive
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 2: to that. And so after we got done with the
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 2: ride down and we got to street level, and he's tall.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: He's like 6'3, 6'4. He actually got down to the
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: level of my little girls and said nice things about
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: their father to them and how you should be proud
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: of your father. I really admire your father, how he's
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: fighting back. He was beautiful, very kind, no TV cameras.
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: He didn't put out a press release saying he did
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 2: something nice like that. He was just very naturally kind.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 2: and generous-hearted. And I know a lot of people in politics.
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 2: I know a lot of them, including Obama. And they
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: would never even think about something like that, much less
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 2: do something like that. They're just too caught up in themselves.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: Right. That's a great story. Something I did notice about
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: what you're talking about, you did not live or at
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: least outwardly show a sense of shame. You know, you
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: were very good, I would say, about either holding that in. But,
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: you know, you as an outward front, you were, you
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: were pretty good about, you know, saying this is the
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: life I'm going to live. I'm proud of what I did.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: I'm proud of the voice I have right now. And, um,
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: I don't think that you walked around with any sense
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: of shame for right or wrong in some people's mind. Um,
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: some people may have seen that as egotistical and some
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: people may have said, well, maybe he's telling the truth
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: and he's not really guilty. So, um, Looking back, do
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: you think you would still do the same kind of
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: media blitz, and do you think the court of public
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: opinion is that important nowadays?
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 2: Well, as I said, I didn't do it for the
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 2: court of public opinion. I did it because I had
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: this personal need just to tell the world I didn't
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: do it.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 2: The answer is yes, I would. Of course, yes, I
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 2: would do it again. Okay. And I asked myself that
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: moments after the judge gave me 14 years. You know,
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 2: because he said I treated it like a duel and
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 2: like a boxing match. And he was right, and I did.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 2: And I asked myself, and this is the hard part
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 2: of it, because you have two little girls and you
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 2: say to yourself, are you putting your pride above them?
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: Because this is now, it isn't just you going away.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 2: When you leave, you're leaving your little girl's essentially without
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 2: a father.
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: Right, it's affecting.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 2: For potentially 14 years or 12 years had I had
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 2: good behavior, which I had good behavior. So your pride
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: was more important to you than actually cutting your losses
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: and just letting these guys kick your ass and stomp
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 2: all over you, which is in the minds of a
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: lot of people, like probably Jen Ellis and these others
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 2: and their families who decide to just surrender. But again,
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 2: as I said before, I was the governor, and I
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: had this higher duty because I chose to be a leader, right?
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 2: And I know what they were doing was so corrupt.
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: And so I had 2,896 days in prison to think
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 2: through these things. And I would sometimes, late at night,
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 2: on my bunk in that six-foot-by-eight-foot prison cell that I
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 2: lived in for quite some time, late at night, the
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: demons would come in, you know, and despair might start
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 2: creeping in. So would fear. And I would think about
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 2: my little girls and that I let pride get in
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 2: the way of that because now their dad could have
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: been home maybe in a year or 18 months. And
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: look what I've done. Now they don't have me for
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 2: all those years. But I reconciled my mind that sometimes
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 2: there are moments where there's something that's just higher and
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 2: you just have to be willing to sacrifice. And as
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 2: bad as it is for the people that you love,
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 2: You have to sacrifice. And in my own mind, I
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: felt like by me going through all of this as
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: I was and now enduring all those years in prison
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: alone by myself with them alone without me, that at
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: least they'll have always, my two little girls, the ability
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 2: to say, my daddy didn't do it.
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 2: And I think that's meaningful. Absolutely. So no regrets. Okay.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: Your second trial, June 27th in 2011, you were found
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: guilty on 17 counts. not guilty on one and deadlocked
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: on the remaining two. So then you go in on
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: December 7th and you are sentenced. What were your feelings
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: going into sentencing day? Well, I was, what were you
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: up for by the way? What was the most you
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: could get to be sentenced?
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 2: Um, at that point it was, um, at that point,
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 2: a life sentence. They, um, I was out jogging one
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 2: day after the convictions and before the sentencing hearing, and
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 2: I consider myself pretty fit as governors go. It was
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 2: about a six, seven mile, about a seven mile run,
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 2: and it was the usual run I did. In fact,
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 2: they did it this morning, not far from where we
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 2: are right now. But any event, halfway through the run,
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 2: back then they had newspapers, right? And they had those
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 2: newspaper boxes. And the Chicago Sun-Times, which is the second
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 2: largest paper in Illinois and second in Chicago, but has
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 2: a big readership back then. They had these boxes, and
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 2: as I'm running past this intersection, I see the newspaper
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 2: box out of the corner of my eye, and I say,
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 2: was that me? And I came back, and I'm running
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 2: a place. It was me. It was a colored photo
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 2: of me on the whole front page, and the headline
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 2: bowled across the paper was, 30 years to life is
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 2: what the prosecutors were asking for. They had filed their
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 2: paperwork asking for 30 years to life.
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: How did that feel?
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 2: I never took a penny, right? And I did good works,
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 2: and I had a good driving record. I didn't have
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 2: a single ticket. Of course, I wasn't driving. I had
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 2: the police driving me, at security detail. But still, no
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 2: tickets and no criminal record. Now, 30 years to life.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 2: How did it make me feel? I finished that run
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 2: faster than I ordinarily did. It just gave me a
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 2: lot of energy to run. I always felt like I
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 2: keep running north and don't turn the other way. So
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 2: by the day that we went to the sentencing, that
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 2: was what they were still on record asking for. During
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 2: the process, the judge had determined that I was in
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 2: the range of 15 years to 30. So the life
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 2: thing was taken away. The whole thing was just, in
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 2: so many ways, such a corrupt joke, the system. And
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: they play these games with these statutory guidelines that the
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 2: Congress passed, and I might have been guilty of having
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 2: voted for some of that myself without even realizing it,
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 2: and frankly would have would have been trusting of the system.
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 2: And I would have probably knowingly voted for those things,
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 2: but they put these guidelines in place where it's a
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 2: one size fits all approach. And they don't take into
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 2: account the individual case, the nature of the facts that,
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 2: you know, the family circumstances, the person's record and all
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 2: those other things are sort of locked in. And anyway, uh,
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 2: you know, if you ask me how I was feeling
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 2: going into court, you know, I have a tendency to
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 2: almost always see the glasses half full and half empty
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 2: and And I kept saying that this judge is a
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 2: political guy. He was appointed by President Reagan. He was
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 2: a big Republican honcho in the 80s in Illinois. He
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 2: was the director of Illinois State Police. He was the
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 2: chief of staff for an attorney general who was actually
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 2: corrupt and took money. This guy knows politics and he
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 2: knows this is all bullshit. And he had to go
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 2: out of his way to help the cops so they
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 2: don't get embarrassed. Because I saw this when I was
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 2: a criminal defense lawyer. Sometimes the cops would play games
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 2: with some of the stuff they did to some of
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 2: those guys. and the judge would protect him at trial,
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 2: but then he would generally go easy on the guy
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 2: because he screwed him at trial. I felt like that
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 2: was going to happen. And, and, uh, Patty, God bless her.
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 2: She didn't think so. And then I said, I would
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 2: say to her, I think he likes me. And she said,
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 2: I don't think he does. Yeah. I don't think he does.
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 2: And so, uh, Once he said it was like 190
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 2: months or 181 months, I turned to one of my
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 2: lawyers and said, how long is that? And she said,
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 2: 14 years. She knew it right away. My first thought was,
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 2: Patty was right. He doesn't like me. So, you know,
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 2: it was a difficult thing. But, you know, it was
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 2: interesting because, like you say, I was always out there,
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 2: you know, fighting. And now I just totally got my
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 2: ass kicked, right?
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: Right, right.
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 2: And one of my lawyers, well-meaning, had suggested afterwards, I
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 2: arranged it with the marshals, the U.S. marshals. They can
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 2: get you on a side door, go through the basement,
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 2: and you can drive out of here and avoid the media. Now,
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 2: I've been talking to the media every step of the way, right?
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 2: Now that I get my ass kicked, the last thing
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 2: I'm doing is to be some chicken shit guy that
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 2: walks out some back door. So, oh, no. I said, no, no,
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 2: I'm talking to him. So now we're wargaming in this
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 2: holding room. What do you say? Right. Now Patty's with
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 2: me and she's cheered up and, but she's stoic and
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 2: she's so strong and she really is. She's really remarkable.
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 2: My wife. But, um, so he says that we're thinking
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 2: there's a group of lawyers and, and he, he's a
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 2: real good guy. This is my lawyer, Sheldon Swarovski, but
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 2: there's a silliness to him. And for whatever reason, he
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 2: thought that I might want to borrow from what Richard
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 2: Nixon had said. It was considered at the time, his
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 2: last press conference in 1962, uh, after he'd run for
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 2: governor of California and got his ass kicked, he got
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 2: beat bad. Nixon was angry at the way the press
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 2: treated him, and he gave what was called his last
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 2: press conference, where he said, you won't have Nixon to
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 2: kick around anymore. Nixon would come back six years later
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 2: and be president, one of the great political comebacks in
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 2: American history, but at that time, Nixon was politically dead.
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 2: So my lawyer suggested, why don't you do that? You
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 2: won't have Blagojevich to kick around anymore. And I said,
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 2: I'm not quoting Nixon, okay, or making light of this, okay?
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 2: So what I ended up doing was I just went
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 2: down there and I quoted a couple of lines from
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 2: my favorite poem called If by Roger Kipling. And I
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 2: just said, you know, there's a line in there. If
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 2: you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 2: two imposters just the same. So I said that and
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: I said there was nothing more really for us to
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 2: say other than that we needed to get home, Patty
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 2: and I, and be with our daughters and explain to
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 2: them what happened, what this means, and where we're going
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 2: from here as a family. And that's pretty much it.
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 2: But I certainly, you know, I met the media, I
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 2: didn't run from them. And I never will, really.
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: Right. So let's talk about prison for a little bit.
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: What was the first night like there?
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 2: I write about that, of course, in the book that
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 2: I'm writing. It's a night I'll always remember. And it
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 2: was a long, long day. And helicopters followed me from
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 2: my house. The moment I left at 5.30 in the morning,
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 2: all the way to O'Hare Airport, and then a gaggle
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 2: of the media was all over the place. And then
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 2: when I landed in Denver, the media flashed. It was
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 2: there too. And then the helicopter followed me all the
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 2: way into, into me walking into prison. So it was
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 2: like portal to portal. I was OJ Simpson in the
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 2: white Bronco. Right. But I actually love my wife. And, um,
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 2: but in any event, uh, I was, uh, you know,
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 2: it was interesting because people ask me, well, you know,
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 2: how did the inmates treat you? And again, I wasn't in,
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 2: you know, the camp I was in, I was behind
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 2: with the inmates called the razor wire and there's murderers
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 2: in there.
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: And for the first three years.
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah. For the first, uh, two and three quarters. Yeah.
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 2: 32 months. Cause you're not eligible. If they give you
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 2: more than 10 years, you gotta be in that higher prison.
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 2: And they were doing this.
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: The first night. Did you have a roommate then? How
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: does that?
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Okay. Well, you actually, you move your way. If you,
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 2: if you, you well behaved and you do well, you
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 2: can earn, you can work your way into the suburbs
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 2: out of the inner city.
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 2: Suburbs is the six foot by eight foot cell. Okay. Okay. Okay?
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 2: That's the other side of the area that we're in.
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 2: This is really prison. I mean, if you watch those
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 2: prison movies and you see what it's like with all
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 2: the bars and the gates and the iron and all
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 2: of that and those stark walls, that's where I was.
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 2: And those little cells and those aisles, you know, the
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 2: hallway and darkness and all the gloom. I was in that.
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 2: And so when I first got there, they had watched
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 2: me walk into prison, you see. So people asked me, well,
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 2: how'd they treat you? And I said, well, I had
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 2: two things going for me. You know, I was treated
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 2: pretty well. I had two things going for me. Number one,
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 2: I was a so-called celebrity inmate. They literally watched me
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 2: walk into prison live on television, on Fox News and CNN.
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 2: They were all covering it live. And so they see me,
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 2: and now suddenly there I am in their little world.
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 2: I leave our world, the real world, and I'm in
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 2: this little world now.
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: That's very interesting, yeah. Yeah.
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 2: But the bigger thing that gave me real street cred
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 2: was how they would recall in the vernacular my 14th piece.
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 2: If you get a long sentence, it tells them, you
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 2: didn't snitch on anybody. This motherfucker's a badass. He didn't snitch.
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 2: And there's a saying in prison, okay? Snitches are bitches
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 2: who get stitches.
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: They say that in prison too, not just as a joke?
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 2: Wow. No, no, they say that. They mean it. And
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 2: if you got a light sentence, you got to prove
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 2: to the rest of these guys you didn't tell on anybody. Okay,
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 2: so that's that culture that I'm walking into. Now, I'm
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 2: also asked by people, well, were you afraid? Not in
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 2: the least. I was so heartsick, so heartbroken, so disillusioned
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 2: by the system, so longing for my little girls and
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 2: my wife and worrying for them that I feared nothing.
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 2: And if somebody wanted to hurt me or even kill me,
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 2: they would have taken me out of my misery. I
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 2: didn't fear it in the least bit. But I walked
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 2: into that place and.
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 3: Itching, burning, soreness. When you know it's thrush, you want
• 1:26:44
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• 1:27:00
  Speaker 2: You know, it was ugly. It was painted a stark
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 2: antiseptic white. The bar, this part of it, when you
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 2: go to the cells, it's darker. But this part was
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 2: this big, like, big dormitory area that's got these... divides
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 2: where there's five two-man bunks within each little divide. It's
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 2: all wide open because they have to keep an eye
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 2: on everybody. So it's like a quasi-dormitory. And there were
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 2: probably 90 guys in there. And then at the end
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 2: of the hall, there's the bathroom. And then adjacent to
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 2: that is the big gate that locks you in from
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 2: the more common areas that you have access to within
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 2: certain times of the day, but after 10 o'clock, everything
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 2: shuts down at night. And then, but there's that bathroom.
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 2: And on the other side of the hall is the
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 2: big iron door that shuts you in. And then there's
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 2: 90 guys in there. And there's a cacophony of a
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 2: symphony of sounds that are very unappealing with a whole
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 2: bunch of men, right? No air conditioning. And so this
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 2: was March 15th, 2012. And I was greeted by a
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 2: group of the guys that were there, some drug dealers,
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 2: with a care package. And they were very polite and
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 2: they were respectful and they were calling me governor. And
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 2: they just said, Governor, we wanted to, you know, welcome
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 2: you to prison. And we thought you won't be able
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 2: to have commissary for a week so you can't get
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 2: the things that you need because they don't let you
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 2: bring anything in except your Bible. My wife gave me
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 2: a Bible I was able to bring in. Couldn't bring
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 2: my running watch in. Couldn't bring the running shoes in.
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 2: So they knew that, and so they bought me like
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 2: a toothbrush and a toothpaste and shower shoes, which is
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 2: a whole unique experience when you take a shower with
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 2: those guys because they're super sensitive about anybody looking at anybody.
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 2: Okay, and there's a whole culture of that. Mm-hmm. which,
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 2: you know, I was fine with that too, but no complaints.
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 2: But in any way, it's a very different world, right?
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 2: So they had this care package. It was so nice.
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 2: And I was able to make a phone call home.
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 2: I had my first dinner there. I'll always remember that dinner.
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 2: It was, I walked into the, they called it the
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 2: child hall. You know, all the heads turned when I
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 2: walked in because they just seen me on TV a
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 2: few hours before. And they served us these, like, green
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 2: scrambled eggs, very small portions. It was cold and ugly
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 2: looking with these biscuits with this white gravy on it
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 2: that looked real bad, like somebody threw up on it
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 2: or something. And then they had cranberry sauce from a can.
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 2: That was the only thing I felt I could eat.
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 2: It was just bad. But who cares? It's so bad.
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 2: I called home. I talked to my family that night.
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 2: I was able to make a phone call home. And
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 2: I remember telling Patty, boy, I'll never ever complain about
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 2: anything you make again after eating what I just ate.
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: Okay. So you were still able to keep your humor,
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: I guess.
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 2: A little bit. But that night, uh, after they shut
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 2: us in and we were locked in and all the
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 2: lights went off. Oh, and they give you earplugs. The
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 2: guys got me earplugs because that was a common thing
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 2: that you put earplugs in your ears. Cause there's so
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 2: much noise, snoring and all this stuff. But I was
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 2: on the top bunk real near the bathroom. And, uh,
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 2: I would say probably, certainly the loneliest moment I've ever
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 2: experienced in my life because ahead of me was 14
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 2: years of this and heartbroken and missing my little girls
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 2: and my wife and worrying for them. And you can't
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 2: even see the flicker of a light at the end
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 2: of the tunnel and you think, will I ever get
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 2: out of here? Could I die here? And I remember
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 2: reaching for the Bible that my wife gave me and
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 2: actually hugging it like it was a teddy bear Wow.
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: That's really powerful. Um, so were you thinking this is
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: never going to last for 14 years? I'm going to
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: get out. There's going to be appeals. This is, this was,
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: you know, not the right side of history. And I mean,
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: did you think you would be there for less than
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: a year? Were you convinced this is it? I better
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: fall in line.
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 2: Right. It's a great question. Um, you know, they call
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 2: that hope time by the way in prison. So if
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 2: you could have hope, you know, your appeal gives you
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 2: hope time and some of the other stuff gives you
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 2: hope time, which helps you break your time up. Right. Um, Look,
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 2: deep down, I was scared shitless that I would never
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 2: get justice because the stakes were too high. If I'm
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 2: right and they're wrong, they're corrupt, and they're going to
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 2: have to answer. If I'm right and they're wrong, something's
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 2: seriously wrong with the criminal justice system. And so will
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 2: the appellate court do the right thing, or will they
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 2: whitewash it and protect them? Still, we had hopes because
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 2: we just knew the law was so much on our
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 2: side on a variety of different things. And my lawyer
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 2: said the only way we lose is if they're corrupt.
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 2: are stupid and they're not stupid. And I believe that.
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 2: So I had to still embrace the belief that these
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 2: people are still honest at the appellate court level and
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 2: eventually I'll get out of here in a couple of
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 2: years because my lawyer was very clear about it. It's
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 2: probably going to take two, three years, maybe three years
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 2: to get this appeal done. For him to do it
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 2: the right way, all the work, and for them to
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 2: make the decision. As it turned out, it took four
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 2: and a half years. And then they reversed the sale
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 2: of the Senate seat, vindicating me. It was never a crime.
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 2: The appellate court could never uphold that standard because it
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 2: would have shut down government everywhere because all the political
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 2: deals that are done to make government work, they couldn't
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 2: do because it's now criminal. So they reversed that, but
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 2: they upheld three fundraising requests where I never got a
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 2: penny and there was no quid pro quo. And then
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 2: they vacated my sentence and then the judge put me
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 2: back at the 14 years. But anyway, but that first night,
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 2: I had hopes for maybe three years I can, two,
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 2: three years I can go home. Two and a half
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 2: years maybe. But I was afraid that I, that that
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 2: would happen. Yeah. So it was a mixture, right?
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 2: In the meantime, it was, uh, it was, look, it
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 2: was horrible. And for years I would walk around with
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 2: a hole in my heart. Sure. Always. Um, and it was, uh,
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 2: but I had purpose and, and the purpose was to do,
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 2: to handle the time as best I can to set
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 2: the best example I could for my children and to
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 2: be strong as possible for them. My life, as far
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 2: as I was concerned, was basically over for me, but
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 2: it was always about them. And that if I could
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 2: live in that shithole prison, like I had to, in
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 2: a way that could be, show them that I can
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 2: not only endure, but I could actually thrive. Physical fitness,
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 2: reading a lot, learning, drawing closer to God by reading
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 2: the Bible in ways I never did before, because I
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 2: was always so busy trying to get ahead in life.
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 2: If I could do that and show them that, and
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 2: if I never even get out of this place, that
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 2: I've done something that's meaningful. And that gave me strength
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 2: and helped to motivate me every day to go out
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 2: and be productive and work on constructive things.
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: So what was a day in the life?
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 2: In that higher prison? Yeah. Okay, so they lock you
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 2: in at 10 o'clock at night, and then things open
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 2: up around 6, and now you can move around a
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 2: little bit. They restrict your movement every hour. They have
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 2: to check and see, know where people are, and then
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 2: four or five times a day they count you. And
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 2: they call that counting. They take that very seriously. But
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 2: let's say, for me, in the very beginning, the first
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 2: three months, I had to work in the kitchen, which
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 2: is a requirement.
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: You have a job?
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 2: You have to get that particular job. You have to
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 2: have a job, but you have to have that particular
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 2: job in the kitchen for every inmate. That's in the
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 2: prison manual from the Bureau of Prisons. As a matter
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 2: of practice, the warden and the powers that be don't
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 2: really care. If you can get another job, And there's
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 2: enough people in the kitchen. You don't have to go there.
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 3: Got it.
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 2: And I was told that by some of my new
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 2: friends moments after I got in. You know, Gov, you
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 2: want to avoid that kitchen unless you want to go
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 2: down there and steal food and have a hustle up
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 2: here because you can do good on a commissary and
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 2: get a lot of stamps.
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 2: Okay? I said, I'm not interested in that. I'd like
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 2: to avoid the kitchen. Right. And so I got a
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 2: job as a tutor, which is perfect. I teach one
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 2: day a week. And the cops there were mostly extremely good,
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 2: the guards. Mm-hmm. And they were more than happy to
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 2: hire me. So I got that job. And then I
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 2: was told by my case manager, now you've got to
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 2: go to the kitchen. The warden nixed it. So then
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 2: I got another job. I went to the rec area
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 2: where they have a great weight room because I was
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 2: determined to work out and exercise a lot, which I did.
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 2: That'd be a great job. I can sweep floors and
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 2: make sure the weights are in their proper places and
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 2: work out while you're working. I got that job right away.
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 2: The warden nixed it. Then I got another job. Okay. Library.
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 2: Nixed it. I got five jobs. All posted. That means
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 2: you got the job. Nixed by the warden. My case
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 2: manager says, stop doing this. He's determined to put you
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 2: in the kitchen because unlike the rule where if you
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 2: get another job, it doesn't matter. You, however, are high
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 2: profile and he doesn't want a story saying you got
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 2: special treatment even though everybody else got it, but you're
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 2: getting a job that's in violation of the manual, right?
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 2: So I had to work in the kitchen for three
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 2: months and I got up. Real early, like at 5
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 2: in the morning, start working there, maybe 5.30, 6. I
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 2: get about 5.30, you work at 6 in the kitchen warehouse.
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 2: My boss was a guy by the name of Mr. Moore,
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 2: excellent guy from Chicago. His mother lives on the south
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 2: side of Chicago. And he told me she voted for
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 2: me every time. God bless her, but he was really
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 2: good to me. And you have to work the kitchen
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 2: warehouse from like 6 in the morning until about noon. And,
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 2: you know, he was good because they were going to
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 2: put me on pots and pans, which is a horseshit job. Yep.
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 2: And he felt like they were embarrassing me to do that.
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 2: And he was from Chicago, and he looked after me.
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 2: And so he got me that warehouse spot. And the
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 2: word among the inmates was, and by the way, that paid,
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 2: I was mostly making $ 5 a month in all my
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 2: prison jobs. So for most of my time, it was
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 2: $ 63 a year was my income. I went to college
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 2: for that and law school for that. Right. But that
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 2: job was a great paying job. It paid just $ 65
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 2: a month. And if you did a good job, you
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 2: get a $ 35 bonus. You can get as much as
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 2: $ 35 in bonus, a hundred bucks a month, which he
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 2: did for me. He, I did, I worked hard and
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 2: I was good. I was lifting up a hundred pounds,
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 2: bags of rice and beans and stuff and all the
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 2: different stuff you got to do in the warehouse. But
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 2: the word in the prison was, oh, the gov, he's
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 2: getting special treatment because of his connections. And some of
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 2: those guys were spreading the word. And they truly believed
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 2: that Obama himself had called to get me out of
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 2: pots and pans and put me in the warehouse where
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 2: I had to pick up rice bags.
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: Oh, my goodness.
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 2: Let me make it clear. Obama never called on my behalf.
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 2: And the guy ran and is still running to this day.
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: Um, so I'm curious, did you have a best friend
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: at this time?
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 2: Yes, I did.
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: And who was he? What did he do to get
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: in there?
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 2: One or several.
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: Whoever you want to talk about.
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 2: Friends that I got to know over the years. Many
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 2: of them. And I'm in contact with several of them
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 2: to this day.
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: Are all of them out or are some of them
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: still in there?
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 2: I think most of my, my, my good friends have
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 2: made it out finally. You know, my friend, uh, uh,
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 2: my friend um his nickname is spade but uh he's
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 2: in denver he got out he got a 25 year
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 2: sentence drug dealer he got out uh about a year
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 2: ago so he's back and he's a rep he does
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 2: rap okay Uh-huh. And he's got rap aspirations, and I
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 2: think he's really good, and I hope people take a
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 2: look at him. His last name is Moore. Okay. But
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 2: one of the guys that became one of my best
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 2: friends early on was a guy by the name of
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 2: Walter Hill. I don't think you'd mind me saying this
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 2: because he liked attention. And, you know, a black guy
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 2: from East St. Louis, Illinois, who had met me years
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 2: before when I was governor, he was apparently some liquor
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 2: license commissioner down there. and i guess get jammed up
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 2: in some of the stuff he was doing in that
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 2: position so he preceded me to that prison but he
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 2: had a you know relative to my sense of heat
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 2: the game at a three-and-a-half years or something at fourteen
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 2: buddy i was his government soon as i walked in
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 2: there he welcomed me with open arms and he helped
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 2: guide me through the process and and he he's a
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 2: real colorful personality and uh... kind of controversial figure but
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 2: he was a friend and he's still in touch and
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 2: And then I made a friend of a guy that
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 2: was in there. He was a real estate developer in
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 2: Beverly Hills and got in serious trouble and had a
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 2: 17-year sentence. And he and I became friends. But, no,
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 2: I had a lot of friends. I made friends. And,
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 2: you know, look, you're going to inevitably have conflict with
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 2: some people because you're with a bunch of guys for
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 2: a long period of time and there are going to
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 2: be some things that you want and they want. And
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 2: there are just some people that just don't like you, right?
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 2: So it wasn't eight years without conflict, but I would
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 2: say for the most part, I was treated very well
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 2: by the other inmates.
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: So how does it begin the process that you realize
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: there might be a chance that you can get out early?
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: From what I've read, it seems like your wife took
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: matters into her own hands and started doing her own
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: media tour, so to speak, to get the word out,
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: to get the attention of President Trump. Tell me in
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: your words, though, what really happened.
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 2: So in my book, I have a whole chapter on,
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 2: I have two chapters, there's several chapters, but I have
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 2: two chapters with Donald Trump in it. fired by Donald Trump,
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 2: and then freed by Donald Trump. And freed by Donald
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 2: Trump took two years. And the leading actors in that
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 2: drama are my wife, Patty. Well, it's Donald Trump, Patty,
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 2: and this fellow here with us now, Mark Vargas, who
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 2: was very helpful to us in guiding us through the
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 2: process and helping me get home and doing great things
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 2: on my behalf.
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: But all sorts of appeals had been, they were done
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: and you were just kind of sitting around and this
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: became an option. I mean, how did it come to play?
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 2: You know, Martin Luther King used to say a lot
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 2: of great things, and among them was, God could find
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 2: a way out of no way, right? After all of
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 2: my legal options were taken away, and after the Supreme
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 2: Court failed to take my case, which we thought on
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 2: the weekend before they decided it, we had a very
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 2: good chance, even though they only take 2% of the cases,
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 2: but the Supreme Court reporter that covers the Supreme Court
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 2: had said on the Friday before they made their decision
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 2: that there was a good chance they were taking my case,
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 2: because the standards the unlawful standard used to convict me
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 2: is different from every other circuit in the United States.
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 2: It's an outlier. And therefore the laws have to be uniform.
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 2: So there was a real important reason for them to
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 2: take the case. But I would always find out the
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 2: bad news from my inmates who'd see it on the
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 2: news before I would ever get the information from an
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 2: email that comes. It took like two hours to get
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 2: to me from my family or my lawyers. So I'd
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 2: always hear from them because they'd see it on the
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 2: news that I, Another appeal was lost. And on the
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 2: morning that it came out that the Supreme Court rejected
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 2: my case, it was on the news. And so later
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 2: that day, Patty was invited to do the Tucker Carlson show.
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 2: So this would have been springtime of 2018. Now, Obama
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 2: left office on the 20th of January, 2021. and we
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 2: had asked him and i was lucky in the sense
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 2: that i was like unlike every other inmate in the
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 2: bureau of prisons hundred fifty one thousand federal inmates on
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 2: the only one in the vernacular the prisoners in the
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 2: inmates who can get his paperwork on the president's desk
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 2: two presidents david aster i used to work for me
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 2: and work for obama very instrumental helping get my case
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 2: before obama and get his attention so were some democratic
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 2: congressman from illinois who were friends of mine they were
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 2: advocating pushing and opax ride david was able to get
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 2: two letters handwritten letters written by my two daughters to
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 2: the president who has two beautiful daughters the same age
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 2: as mine making the case i understood his politics too
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 2: he was involved in my case he started that's the
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 2: great irony right he sent the guy to me i
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 2: would have never said fucking golden had he not sent
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 2: the guy to me the night before but that's legal
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 2: but he didn't me too but anyway um So we've
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 2: got a serious chance to get him to help me.
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 2: I understand his politics and he's media savvy and he's
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 2: also very super sensitive to any bad press. Don't send
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 2: me home the day you leave because then he's probably
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 2: afraid of the juxtaposition. You know, there he is leaving
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 2: the White House and there's me leaving the big house.
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 2: Just cut my sentence in half from 14 years to seven.
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 2: I will have done more time than any governor. Never
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 2: took a penny. And I can limp out of prison
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 2: eight months, nine months after you leave the White House
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 2: in October of 2021. So there'll be no media issue
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 2: for you. And then he had commuted the sentence of
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 2: a guy that was convicted of treason who got 34,
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 2: five years against the United States. He was Bradley Manning
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 2: before he went to prison. He came out as Chelsea Manning.
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 2: He had commuted that sentence days before he was leaving.
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 2: So that was hopeful to me that he would, wow,
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 2: he did that. treason, I think there's a great chance
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 2: I'm going to go home. And then he let out
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 2: an FALN terrorist who Bill Clinton refused to let out
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 2: in 1999 because this guy refused to renounce that he
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 2: would do terrorism again against the United States. Obama let
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 2: him out. Holy cow. I never blew anything up. I
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 2: think I'm going home. Well, he passes me by. He
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 2: didn't do it. One month later, maybe three weeks later,
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 2: I get called into the case manager's office and they
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 2: say to me, she says to me, we just got
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 2: a request from the White House pardon office. They want
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 2: your records in prison because we can't send it without
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 2: your signature. And immediately I'm thinking, Trump himself is looking
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 2: after me. This is remarkable. And the second thought was
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 2: that fake Obama never even bothered to even look at
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 2: my record. He was never going to do it. He
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 2: was just leading my family on. So right away, Donald
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 2: Trump had his eyes on me. It was remarkable. And
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 2: I'll always be forever grateful to him. And it was
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 2: because of that experience I had with him on the show.
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 2: And I think because, well, it was that. But still,
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 2: there was political considerations that he had. So it took
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 2: a while for him politically to be in a place
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 2: where he could do it. And there were a lot
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 2: of ups and downs. And then one year later, when
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 2: the Supreme Court didn't take the case, Mark Vargas came
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 2: into our lives and helped guide us through the process,
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 2: particularly Patty, and was very good at getting her on
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 2: shows like Laura Ingraham's show on Fox News and Judge
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 2: Jeanine Pirro's show. And we would watch those shows from prison,
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 2: me and the other guys. And, you know, it was
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 2: nice because they were really rooting for us, you know,
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 2: and it was very unusual.
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: And again, I mean, I get back to the question
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: of court of public opinion. Do you think this was
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: helpful in getting Donald Trump to see how, you know,
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: the temperature of of you know, America and what they
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: thought about, you know, if you would be let out
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: or what her words looked like to people and how
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 1: people were responding. I mean, do you think that had
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 1: anything to do with it? I mean, obviously he put
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: it on his radar more than just papers on his desk.
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 2: So I think the answer is very clear. Had she
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 2: not done that, I'd still be in prison. Yeah. Because
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 2: what she was able to do was able to point
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 2: out to President Trump's supporters, notwithstanding that I'm a Democrat governor,
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 2: and they probably ordinarily, left to their own devices, would
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 2: probably not like me.
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 2: Right? but she was able to point out, draw parallels
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 2: between what they were doing to him at that time,
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 2: the Democrats, Russian collusion, that baloney. Okay. And what they
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 2: did to me. And so that I think created a dynamic,
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 2: was able to explain to his voters that, uh, you know,
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 2: this is not a typical situation where you got, you know,
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 2: someone who, uh, wasn't being, who's being treated. In other words,
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 2: you got a situation where a guy, a Democrat was
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 2: being treated in a way before president Trump, the same
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 2: way they were treating president Trump. So I, that was
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 2: very helpful, of course. Um, But here again, Donald Trump
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 2: is a guy who's very loyal to people that he
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 2: has a relationship with, who he feels are decent people,
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 2: good people, and have some semblance of loyalty to him.
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 2: And in politics, that's a very rare quality. Most politicians
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 2: are like Obama. If you serve their purposes, it's fine.
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 2: But if in any way it's a problem, I am
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 2: not doing it. And therefore, with me, I'm sure he
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 2: would have been happy to see me go home as
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 2: long as he wasn't the one doing it. Right. He
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 2: just wasn't even going to get nicked because he was
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 2: caught up in my case, where Trump will stand up
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 2: and help his friends and others and take the hits
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 2: to do that. It separates him from these other politicians.
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 2: This is why Trump was such a good president the
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 2: first time around and will be such a good president
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 2: the second time around. He is fearless and determined to
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 2: do what he thinks is right. Smart, and he'll make
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 2: mistakes as we all do, but that separates him from
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 2: these other people in politics who really don't have any
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 2: testicular reality at all. Okay.
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: I want to get into some of those questions, but
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: to end with this on. this topic, what, where were
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: you when you heard your sentence was being commuted and
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: you were going to go home?
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 2: So I was just getting ready to go run on
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 2: the track. And, uh, it was 10 minutes to 11
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 2: mountain time. And one of my colleagues came up to
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 2: me and he said, gov, I just saw you on
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 2: the news. Trump's going to send you home. And there
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 2: had been false starts before, because this was two years
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 2: in the making. There were political obstacles in the way
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 2: that slowed President Trump down, including the Democrats impeaching him
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 2: in September over the call to Zelensky, the president of Ukraine,
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 2: which was a perfectly legal and necessary phone call for
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 2: him to make. But in any event, this guy came
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 2: up to me and said, you're going home. And I said, what?
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 2: And he told me, because of those false starts, I
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 2: know he was well-meaning, but some of these guys might
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 2: misunderstand what they see on the news. Yeah. And so
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 2: I remember, and you're not supposed to put your hands
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 2: on another inmate, but this guy was a friend, and
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 2: I remember grabbing him by his shirt and pushing him
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 2: against the wall and giving him the third degree. Tell
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 2: me exactly what you heard and what you saw. Where
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 2: was he when he said it? Was him saying it?
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 2: What exactly did he say?
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 2: Was it national news or local Denver news? Okay.
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 1: Does he even have all these answers or that was
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: too overwhelming?
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 2: I saw it. He was, you know, he was actually
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 2: bigger than me. He's been a good guy in the
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 2: weight room. Good, very much fit. But he, no, no,
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 2: he's telling me, I saw it. I'm telling you. So,
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 2: but it was, you know, minutes away from the top
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 2: of the hour and the TVs in prison are segregated
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 2: by race. So there's the black TV and they watch CNN,
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 2: the black guys. Okay. And there's Latino TV and it's Univision.
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 2: And then there's the white guys TV. It's Fox News.
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 2: Come on.
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 2: No, come on. That's how it is. And then there's
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 2: a sports TV that everybody watches, but they fight over that. Sure. Okay.
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: That makes sense.
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 2: Right. So I walked into the white TV room to
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 2: see what was coming out at the top of the hour.
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 2: And there he was at Andrews Air Force Base, Donald Trump.
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 2: And so I had to grab somebody's headphones because you
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 2: can't listen to the TV without your headphones. And I
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 2: didn't have mine with me. So I said, some guy,
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 2: I think I was really, hey, I need those. And
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 2: I grabbed them. I think he's talking about me. And
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 2: I popped it in and I just commuted the sentence
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 2: of Rod Blagojevich. Been away for a long time. He's
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 2: been in an orange jumpsuit. I was never in an
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 2: orange jumpsuit, but God bless him. Got a great wife.
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 1: That was his vision of you. Yeah.
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 2: Right. Of course. Got a great wife. Two little girls.
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 2: Hadn't seen in a while. He was just great. It
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 2: was real.
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 1: Finally.
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 2: Finally.
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: And was everyone jumping up and down for you?
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you something. They were really excellent about it,
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 2: those guys. And, you know, when I eventually left, as
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 2: I left and said goodbye, of course I was joyful.
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 2: This was finally over and I was finally going home.
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 2: But there was a tinge of sadness and I felt
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 2: a little guilty because they were stuck there. I'm not
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 2: saying that they're innocent because almost all of them weren't.
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 2: But a lot of those guys aren't bad guys are
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 2: just misguided and they, they had bad starts in life
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 2: and they made bad decisions and some of them are
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 2: bad guys. Right. But I felt bad for some of them. And, um,
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 2: so I had a mixture. I was almost over and
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 2: overwhelmingly happy, of course. Yeah. But there was that little
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 2: tinge of, uh, sadness for them.
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: I understand that.
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 2: Um, Okay.
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: So you said that you were going to promise to
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 1: use your experience in prison to fix the criminal justice system.
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: Do you remember saying that after that?
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I still say it.
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: Okay. So where are you at with that? What are
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 1: you doing to make changes?
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 2: Well, what's happened since I've come home is that they've
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 2: now taken this weaponization of prosecutors for political reasons to
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 2: a whole new level and what they're doing against President Trump.
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 2: So anytime anybody willing to hear me say anything about it,
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 2: I'm eager to jump on television or anywhere else to
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 2: explain that what they're doing to Trump is corrupt, that
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 2: he's done, those things are all perfectly legal and appropriate.
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 2: You may not like it, vote against them, but don't
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 2: criminalize it. So that's been the bigger focus, more so than,
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 2: let's say, the over-sentencing issue, which is very real too.
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 2: My hope is to eventually, when I get back on
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 2: my feet, hopefully, is to start a foundation that actually
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 2: does the issues that work on towards you know, fair
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 2: and just criminal justice system where these first time offenders,
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 2: like some of the friends I was in prison with
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 2: who never had any criminal background before are given these 15, 20,
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 2: 25 year sentences for the first offense. No chance at
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 2: a second chance. I very much want to be active
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 2: and involved in that. You know, when I first came
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 2: home though, what also slowed me down was COVID. And
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 2: by the way, had I not, had he not done
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 2: what he did on the 18th of February, 2020, and
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 2: waited a little longer, COVID hit, I don't know that
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 2: he would have been in a position to be able
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 2: to do for me what he did. And I have
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 2: a very strong belief in God. And in my Christian faith,
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 2: I believe deeply in, though I don't want to try
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 2: to proselytize anybody. But I have no doubt in my
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 2: mind that I've seen a miracle in my life. It
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 2: was a miracle that brought me home. the unlikely convergence
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 2: of events that led me to Donald Trump, a celebrity apprentice.
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 2: And I don't want, if he's watching this and I
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 2: don't think, maybe he is because he might.
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 1: He asked me to be on Celebrity Apprentice, by the way.
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: I turned him down.
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: He got quite mad.
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 2: No kidding.
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: It was, I was trying to think when you were
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 1: talking about if that was the season that you were on.
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 1: Because I, I don't think I ended up watching it,
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 1: but he asked me to be on. He called me.
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 1: I said yes. And then I had to renege. But
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 1: I went to lunch with Michael Cohen. We talked all
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: about it. You know, he told me how it was
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 1: going to go down kind of. And then I ended up,
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 1: oddly enough, doing celebrity rehab because I don't know if
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: you know Dr.
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 2: Drew. On television.
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, he really makes you feel like he
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: understands you. And I was having such a difficult time
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 1: in my life with, you know, the whole world coming
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: down on me and having such an opinion of me.
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: for the scandal I had been involved in.
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 2: I didn't know you were in one, I'm sorry.
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 1: Oh, I was, yeah, I was part of a scandal
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: at the time that was worldwide. It was the Tiger
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: Woods scandal. I'll just remind you of that little scandal.
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 1: So everyone took my name and created, you know, a
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 1: headline for me. And that was very difficult. But in
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's mind, he thought, oh, this is the perfect
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: person for my show. Once I had to go back
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 1: and say, I'm not going to do it. And he's like,
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 1: I would never have her on the show.
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 2: No kidding.
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: We later laughed about it. He invited me to a
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: New Year's Eve party at his estate, and we had
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: a good laugh about it. But you're right. Loyalty means
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 1: a lot to him. He gets very upset if somebody
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 1: doesn't stick by him.
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 2: Um, so Rachel, now that I know that you were
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 2: involved in a scandal, I have to tell you, I
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 2: feel so much closer to you. Oh, good.
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 1: Okay. Well, because everyone deserves a second chance.
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 2: God bless you. You're doing great by the way.
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you. Um, so incidentally, you've talked about
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 1: Trump a ton in this interview. What is your relationship
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: with what, with him now?
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 2: You know, he and I, and he says that, I mean,
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 2: he didn't really know me that well and I don't
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 2: really know him that well. Yeah. Um, so my relationship
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 2: with him is, uh, I'm trying to help him wherever
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 2: I can be helpful. And if he calls, he needs something,
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 2: I'll drop whatever I'm doing to try to be helpful
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 2: to him. So I've seen him three times since I've
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 2: come home, every time in Mar-a-Lago. And he's been really
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 2: nice to me. He has a book that came out
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 2: that I recommend to your viewers. It's called Letters to Trump.
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 2: It's a great book. It's got letters to him from
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 2: Queen Elizabeth and Princess Diana and Presidents Nixon, Reagan, Clinton
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 2: and Bush and Oprah Winfrey and Shaquille O'Neal. And he's
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 2: got a letter that he wrote to me after he
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 2: fired me on Celebrity Apprentice. So he was nice enough
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 2: to put me in his book. Right. And then invited
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 2: me to Mar-a-Lago to be at a book opening when
• 1:56:24
  Speaker 2: he launched the book. And that was the last time
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 2: I saw him, which would have been April of this
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 2: past year.
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: Got it. Do you still consider yourself a Democrat?
• 1:56:32
  Speaker 2: I'm a Trumpocrat. Okay.
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 1: What does that mean?
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 2: A Democrat for Trump.
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 1: Okay. How many do you think exist?
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 2: A lot more than people think.
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 2: Yes. Traditional working class Democrats, a lot more than people think.
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 2: Crazy liberal socialist Democrats who hate America, don't acknowledge God.
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 2: Those aren't the Democrats that we recognize or understand. And
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 2: those Democrats are ruining the Democratic Party. Okay.
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 1: Speaking of that, what are your thoughts on the state
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 1: of the Democrat Party today? Is it the same party
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 1: it was before you went away?
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 2: No, it's not remotely the same party. We used to
• 1:57:11
  Speaker 2: be the party of the little guy and the party
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 2: of working people. We were the party that believed that
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 2: government has a role to play to improve people's lives,
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 2: but we still recognize that the private sector can always
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 2: do things mostly better than the government. We're the party
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 2: that had a place for people who didn't have a
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 2: place in the old country club corporate republican party uh...
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 2: but we're also party that recognized and honored the sacrifice
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 2: in service of police officers and firefighters uh... strong faith
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 2: in god traditional values like hard work an opportunity in
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 2: america and getting ahead of things that you should celebrate
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 2: not condemned and this crazy left-wing socialist party uh... is
• 1:57:55
  Speaker 2: a party that a lot of us most of us
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 2: don't recognize it it's not the democratic party we grew
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 2: up in and even what you see now with israel
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 2: and hamas and the divides within the democratic party the
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 2: democratic party used to be the party that was all
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 2: for israel and strongly supportive of the Jewish community. And
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 2: now there's a very long, hard and very real strain
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 2: of antisemitism in today's democratic party that never existed when
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 2: I was active in it not too long ago. Yeah.
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 1: Um, is Biden still the right man for the job?
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 2: Biden was never the right man for the job. Okay. Okay.
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 2: Nice guy. Never the right man for the job.
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 1: Okay. What are your thoughts on 2024? Is he going
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 1: to make it that long?
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 2: Who, Biden? Yeah. Well, I hope so.
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 1: I don't mean death wise. I mean, you know, do
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 1: you think he, you know, is there a chance people
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 1: have said there's a chance that he's not the right
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 1: guy and he may step out?
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 2: He's not the right guy, but he's not going to
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 2: step out. Okay. That would, that when you get to
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 2: that level and you're in a position like that, Now
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 2: the game is all about your legacy. It's less about
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 2: higher office. Now it's all about what legacy you leave behind.
• 1:59:02
  Speaker 2: He's not stepping out. Barring, God forbid, something happens to
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 2: his health, he'll be the candidate. And Trump's going to
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 2: beat him. And Trump will beat him in Pennsylvania. Trump
• 1:59:11
  Speaker 2: will beat him in Michigan. He will beat him in Wisconsin.
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 2: And probably beats him in Georgia.
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 1: Okay, so I had a question about Trump, but you
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 1: answered it. Besides Trump, is there someone Trump should be
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 1: nervous about? behind him coming up from behind.
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 2: The Republican party.
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 2: No, but you don't ever want to be arrogant and
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 2: you don't want to be complacent where you don't run
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 2: your race. You know, the way the primary system works
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 2: in those caucuses, you know, there's a, the politics of
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 2: Iowa is a delicate place because it's a small area.
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 2: And if you do a lot of retail politics, you
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 2: could cause an upset, which can create a whole momentum
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 2: string of activities that, suddenly events unfold that are a
• 1:59:55
  Speaker 2: little bit less in your control than they otherwise would be.
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 2: In 1980, for example, an unknown guy that used to
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 2: be the director of the CIA and a former congressman
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 2: by the name of George H.W. Bush shocked the world
• 2:00:08
  Speaker 2: and he beat Ronald Reagan there after Reagan had run
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 2: very well four years before against Gerald Ford. And Reagan
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 2: didn't take it seriously. It's why Bush was able to
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 2: surprise him and win. Reagan came back and won New
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 2: Hampshire and then went on to win the the Republican nomination.
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 2: So President Trump's campaign, they need to be careful with
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 2: Iowa and then with New Hampshire. But in the big
• 2:00:30
  Speaker 2: scheme of things, the dynamic and the fervency of his
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 2: supporters who've been suffering with him through these years of
• 2:00:36
  Speaker 2: persecution against him, I think he's in a very, very
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 2: strong position to be the Republican nominee. And I really
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 2: believe he'll beat Biden. Okay.
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 1: Do you have any political aspirations in the future? Let's
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 1: pretend Patty isn't listening.
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 2: Right, exactly. Patty's not listening. Maybe I can whisper to you.
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm like a guy that used to, and
• 2:00:57
  Speaker 2: I did, I used to box Golden Gloves. First time
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 2: I ever got my name in the newspaper, the Chicago
• 2:01:00
  Speaker 2: Tribune was Golden Gloves. And you know how fighters are
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 2: when they, you know, they've lost their title and then
• 2:01:06
  Speaker 2: they fought one fight too many, right? I have some
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 2: of that in me, I think, you know, you still
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 2: kind of feel like you want to get back in
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 2: that arena. For whatever reason, people like us do it.
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 2: And I like the competitive part of it. And I
• 2:01:18
  Speaker 2: truly believe my heart was right for the people. And
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 2: I would get pissed off at the, you know, you
• 2:01:23
  Speaker 2: have to make compromises and you have to understand you
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 2: don't get everything, but I liked when I had that power,
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 2: when I can actually do things. So if there was
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 2: a realistic opportunity where I might be able to do
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 2: something like that, and it was there, could I resist
• 2:01:38
  Speaker 2: the temptation of doing it? You know, what, the likelihood
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 2: is I would, because then I think I'll be confronted
• 2:01:45
  Speaker 2: with the choice, my wife and my family or that,
• 2:01:49
  Speaker 2: because my wife, God bless her, defied all the odds,
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 2: has made it abundantly clear that if I do this,
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 2: a political career, I'll do that with my second wife.
• 2:01:57
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 2:01:57
  Speaker 2: And I'd frankly like to keep my first one.
• 2:01:59
  Speaker 1: Right. I understand.
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 2: So I don't see it happening, but, uh, it's okay.
• 2:02:04
  Speaker 2: I have to catch up and, you know, I have
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 2: to make a living and, you know, my little, our
• 2:02:08
  Speaker 2: younger daughters at the University of Chicago, smart, she's good, and, uh,
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 2: That school's not cheap. Of course. You've got to earn
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 2: a living.
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 1: What are you doing to earn a living besides raking
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 1: it in and cameo?
• 2:02:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I do the cameos, right?
• 2:02:22
  Speaker 1: I'm on it, too.
• 2:02:23
  Speaker 2: Are you? Yeah. Thank you for those of you who
• 2:02:25
  Speaker 2: are buying my cameos because it's helping to pay for
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 2: my college for my younger daughter. I'm writing a book,
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 2: which I'm really excited about, and I believe that book,
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 2: if it's given the right– I think it could be
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 2: a bestseller, to be honest with you, because it's an
• 2:02:39
  Speaker 2: unusual story. starts with one president ends with another and
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 2: in between governors in prison with murderers and bank robbers
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 2: and drug dealers gang bangers sex offenders con men and
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 2: a lot of others and there's a lot of interesting
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 2: stories and parallels between you know this big 450 pound
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 2: pedophile that didn't want me to sit next to him
• 2:02:58
  Speaker 2: when i first got to prison in the chow hall
• 2:03:01
  Speaker 2: and how he ate his three trays which are only
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 2: supposed to get one tray and how he was breathing
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 2: heavily when he was eating and how our current governor
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 2: governor pritzker ate a pastrami sandwich with me when I
• 2:03:11
  Speaker 2: had lunch with him back in 1995, and I was
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 2: astounded at how fast he ate his sandwich and how
• 2:03:16
  Speaker 2: quick he was to dispatch the other half of my sandwich.
• 2:03:20
  Speaker 2: So I write that in my book. Anyway, and stories
• 2:03:24
  Speaker 2: like that. Right.
• 2:03:25
  Speaker 1: I cannot wait for that book.
• 2:03:27
  Speaker 2: And I'm doing some consulting work, by the way, and
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 2: some other things. It's all good, by the way. Thank you.
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 1: Good. What issues or causes are you most passionate about
• 2:03:34
  Speaker 1: right now?
• 2:03:37
  Speaker 2: Well several that i used to be active in when
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 2: i was uh... in politics but that the new one
• 2:03:41
  Speaker 2: of course is that is the weaponizing of prosecutions political
• 2:03:45
  Speaker 2: reasons and only the american people understand what's at stake
• 2:03:48
  Speaker 2: here like they should if we have it now were
• 2:03:51
  Speaker 2: criminal prosecutors are going to decide where presidents are say
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 2: goodbye to the republic that we've known our founders back
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 2: in the late eighteen hundred say interested history they knew
• 2:04:01
  Speaker 2: the adage that lord acton said this in the 17th
• 2:04:05
  Speaker 2: or 18th century, he said, power corrupts and absolute power
• 2:04:10
  Speaker 2: corrupts absolutely. They understood that, and they foresaw the possibility
• 2:04:14
  Speaker 2: of a system in the United States where over time
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 2: power would gravitate into one place and take away the
• 2:04:20
  Speaker 2: freedoms of the people. So to prevent tyranny, they created
• 2:04:23
  Speaker 2: this system with three branches of government, the executive branch,
• 2:04:27
  Speaker 2: the president, the judicial branch, the judges, the Supreme Court
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 2: and the public judges, and the legislative branch that makes
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 2: the laws from the government all that they divided power
• 2:04:36
  Speaker 2: for a reason but they didn't foresee was out of
• 2:04:39
  Speaker 2: the executive branch of cancer would form started the nineteen
• 2:04:42
  Speaker 2: twenties for all good reasons to go after uh... that
• 2:04:47
  Speaker 2: the al capone's of the world were involved in interstate
• 2:04:50
  Speaker 2: transportation of illegal alcohol they've now become this powerful force
• 2:04:55
  Speaker 2: separate apart with no check and balance on them these
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 2: federal prosecutors and They have uncontrolled power. They have unlimited resources.
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 2: They have no accountability. The law cloaks them with sovereign immunity.
• 2:05:06
  Speaker 2: They can do whatever they want to do. They can
• 2:05:08
  Speaker 2: be Andrew Weissman, who's on CNN as a legal analyst,
• 2:05:11
  Speaker 2: and he could abuse his power as a prosecutor, destroy
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 2: that company, Arthur Anderson, on something that wasn't even illegal.
• 2:05:18
  Speaker 2: And eventually the Supreme Court ruled nine to nothing that
• 2:05:22
  Speaker 2: what they convicted Arthur Anderson of wasn't criminal. And yet
• 2:05:25
  Speaker 2: that guy goes on to CNN in a big spot,
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 2: and Arthur Anderson goes out of business, and Hundreds of
• 2:05:31
  Speaker 2: people lost their jobs because of that guy. That's the
• 2:05:34
  Speaker 2: big issue that I think I'd like to be mostly
• 2:05:36
  Speaker 2: involved in. And God willing, President Trump wins. I think
• 2:05:38
  Speaker 2: there's going to be some reforms that are necessary to
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 2: protect our democracy and our republic.
• 2:05:43
  Speaker 1: You've given me so much time. I just have three
• 2:05:45
  Speaker 1: more questions. Looking back at your time as governor of Illinois,
• 2:05:50
  Speaker 1: what do you consider to be your most significant accomplishment?
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 2: I don't have to hesitate. It was the All Kids
• 2:05:56
  Speaker 2: program that provided affordable health care to every child in Illinois.
• 2:05:59
  Speaker 2: We were the first state in America to do it.
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 2: We did it in 2005. That's the best thing I did.
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 2: But I feel like I did a lot of other
• 2:06:05
  Speaker 2: great things, including free public transportation for our seniors and
• 2:06:08
  Speaker 2: a lot of other stuff and no taxes on the people.
• 2:06:11
  Speaker 1: Got it. Are there any decisions or actions you regret
• 2:06:15
  Speaker 1: from your time in office?
• 2:06:16
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 2:06:16
  Speaker 2: I didn't do enough on the clemencies. I didn't, I
• 2:06:19
  Speaker 2: think I did something like 60, 61 or 65 commutations
• 2:06:22
  Speaker 2: or pardons. I did pardons. I didn't do nearly enough.
• 2:06:26
  Speaker 2: I trusted the system. I believe that mostly the prosecutors
• 2:06:30
  Speaker 2: get it right. And I paid a hard, I learned
• 2:06:33
  Speaker 2: a hard lesson the hard way. I was wrong. I
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 2: had the power. I could have done so much more.
• 2:06:37
  Speaker 2: I just didn't go to the office every day aware
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 2: that that was an issue that I should be focusing on.
• 2:06:42
  Speaker 2: I was more focused on those other things that I
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 2: talked about. But when my aides would bring those cases
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 2: to me, I think I mostly always felt that you
• 2:06:50
  Speaker 2: should temper justice with mercy. And I think I acted appropriately,
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 2: but I could have done so much more there. And
• 2:06:55
  Speaker 2: I'm kicking myself for missing the opportunity to do so.
• 2:06:58
  Speaker 1: My last question, and I think from listening to you,
• 2:07:01
  Speaker 1: I know the answer to this, but do you feel misunderstood?
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 1: And if so, what would be the one reason why?
• 2:07:08
  Speaker 1: And explain why you should not be misunderstood about that.
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 2: Thank you. Well, yeah, I didn't do it. I mean,
• 2:07:15
  Speaker 2: I went to prison for eight years and I didn't
• 2:07:18
  Speaker 2: do it. It was all politics. It was political talk.
• 2:07:20
  Speaker 2: Nothing even happened. And so Along the lines of being misunderstood,
• 2:07:26
  Speaker 2: another Winston Churchill quote, I think it's my second one here, right? Yeah.
• 2:07:29
  Speaker 2: There's been a couple of Dr. Kings and a couple
• 2:07:31
  Speaker 2: of Churchills. He said, a lie can travel halfway around
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 2: the world before the truth has a chance to put
• 2:07:36
  Speaker 2: its pants on. And when they told that big lie
• 2:07:38
  Speaker 2: about me, you know, trying to sell a Senate seat,
• 2:07:41
  Speaker 2: which eventually the appellate court reversed, it was never a crime,
• 2:07:43
  Speaker 2: and I was proven right. That lie, my pants are
• 2:07:47
  Speaker 2: halfway up. Yeah. It still sticks to me. And it
• 2:07:50
  Speaker 2: drives me crazy. And some of the other stuff drives
• 2:07:52
  Speaker 2: me crazy, too, because they're such liars. So I'm misunderstood
• 2:07:55
  Speaker 2: by that. You know, I've been accused of combing my
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 2: hair too much and being narcissistic and egotistical and all
• 2:08:02
  Speaker 2: these other things. Maybe you might get me on some
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 2: of that. But not that other stuff. I didn't do
• 2:08:07
  Speaker 2: those things. And I would simply say thank you very much, Rachel,
• 2:08:10
  Speaker 2: for the opportunity to be on your show. Of course.
• 2:08:13
  Speaker 1: I thank you.
• 2:08:13
  Speaker 2: And talk to your viewers.
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 1: And, yeah, I mean, I just think that it's interesting
• 2:08:18
  Speaker 1: because I think people– see one part of your legacy,
• 2:08:22
  Speaker 1: but I think that you would like people to see
• 2:08:25
  Speaker 1: you for something else. And I look forward to see
• 2:08:28
  Speaker 1: what the future holds for you. And I look forward
• 2:08:32
  Speaker 1: to seeing how people react to you in the future.
• 2:08:34
  Speaker 1: So again, thank you so much for being here. It's
• 2:08:36
  Speaker 1: been an honor and a pleasure.
• 2:08:38
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow. Thank you very much.
• 2:08:49
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening to Misunderstood. I'm your host,
• 2:08:52
  Speaker 1: Rachel Yucatel. Please be sure to subscribe to the show
• 2:08:55
  Speaker 1: and give us a five-star rating and review. You can
• 2:08:58
  Speaker 1: support the show by joining our Patreon at patreon.com slash
• 2:09:02
  Speaker 1: misunderstood with Rachel Yucatel. Do you have ideas for the
• 2:09:05
  Speaker 1: show or want to reach out? Email us at infomisunderstoodpodcast
• 2:09:09
  Speaker 1: at gmail.com. That's spelled M-I-S-S understood. Thank you so much,
• 2:09:15
  Speaker 1: and I'll see you next time.
• 2:09:20
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