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

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Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich Says He’s Still Not Guilty: Exclusive! · 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: you so much. And welcome back to misunderstood with Rachel.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: You could tell, I want to say, I really appreciate
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  Speaker 1: that I do appreciate all of you guys for coming
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  Speaker 1: back so consistently. All right, this episode today is.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Really amazing. I mean, I'm at a loss for words
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  Speaker 1: because I don't even know how to categorize it. Let
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: me give you a little background on who this guest is,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: if you don't remember. Rod Blagojevich is a former American
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: politician who served as the 40th governor of Illinois from
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  Speaker 1: 2003 to 2009. as a member of the Democratic Party.
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  Speaker 1: Blagojevich's political career was marked by controversy and scandal, if
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: you don't remember. He was arrested in December 2008 and
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  Speaker 1: subsequently convicted on multiple counts of corruption, including wire fraud
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  Speaker 1: and extortion. One of the most notable incidents in his
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  Speaker 1: political career was his attempt to sell the U.S. Senate
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  Speaker 1: seat left vacant by Barack Obama, who had been elected
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: president of the United States. After two trials, he was
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: then sentenced to 14 years in federal prison in 2011.
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  Speaker 1: Blagojevich's case received significant media attention on its own, but
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  Speaker 1: then he went on a year-long media tour doing everything
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: to tell his side of the story, including being cast
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  Speaker 1: on Celebrity Apprentice. This is all, of course, before he
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: went to prison. After serving nearly eight years of his sentence,
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  Speaker 1: his sentence was commuted by then-President Donald Trump in February
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  Speaker 1: of 2020, and he was released from prison. Blagojevich's case
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: remains a subject of controversy and debate, with some arguing
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  Speaker 1: that his sentence was too severe, while others maintain that
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  Speaker 1: it was justified given the corruption charges against him. He
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  Speaker 1: is still a topic of some debate. Is he a
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  Speaker 1: symbol of political corruption and the abuse of power, or
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  Speaker 1: is he someone who was failed by a corrupt system?
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: We have one of the most in-depth interviews ever done
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: on Misunderstood today. It's two hours long. You really have
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: to listen to it all. If you have to pause
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: in the middle, please come back to it because you
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: don't want to not hear where he goes with this.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: What he says is so important. We cover all the
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: latest issues, the mass shooting and his views on gun laws,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: the new Speaker of the House. the issues Trump may
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: be facing with recent people taking plea deals. He discusses
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: his thoughts on the Democratic Party now, his thoughts on
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  Speaker 1: Trump and his chances for reelection. We talk about his
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: life before politics, how he got into it, and where
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: it took a wrong turn. He candidly discusses what it
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: was like in jail and what it was like to
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: finally have a chance at freedom again and what he's
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: doing to reverse the narrative on him. Like him or
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: hate him, this is worth listening to. And I want
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: to remind you of the premise of my show. This
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  Speaker 1: podcast delves into the lives of those who have been
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  Speaker 1: reduced to a single headline. Each episode will take a
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: closer look at the stories of those who are on
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  Speaker 1: a mission to change their narrative. Through raw and honest conversations,
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  Speaker 1: we will reveal the human behind the headline. We uncover
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  Speaker 1: the truth behind these misconceptions, shed light on the stories
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  Speaker 1: of those who have perhaps been wrongly portrayed, explore the
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  Speaker 1: complexities of the human experience, and celebrate the power of
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  Speaker 1: second chances. I'm very interested to hear what your thoughts
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  Speaker 1: are on today's guest, Rod Blagojevich. Governor Blagojevich, thank you
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: so much for joining me at Misunderstood. I'm so happy
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: to be here in person with you.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you for having me, Rachel. Hello.
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  Speaker 1: Absolutely. OK, so it's been a huge week in the
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: news and I have an expert here to go over it.
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  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.
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  Speaker 2: Is that OK? Sure, of course.
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  Speaker 1: OK, so finally, we have the next speaker of the House,
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  Speaker 1: the little little known lawmaker from Louisiana, Mike Johnson. He
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: prevailed after a chaotic process that saw three other nominees
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: fail to get the votes. Did they get it right
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  Speaker 1: this time?
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  Speaker 2: Well, they've got a speaker. The question on whether or
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  Speaker 2: not they got it right remains to be seen. Let's
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  Speaker 2: see what they do and how they approach it. But,
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  Speaker 2: you know, I spent six years in the U.S. Congress,
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  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
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  Speaker 2: a supporter of President Trump, and President Trump supported him.
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  Speaker 2: And so if he's good enough for President Trump, then
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  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?
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  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
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  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
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  Speaker 2: have been before and to resist that. However, in a
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  Speaker 2: not very long period of time, they're going to have
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  Speaker 2: to come up with some sort of a budget where
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  Speaker 2: the government's going to shut down. So there will be
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  Speaker 2: an opportunity to try to find some common ground and
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  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
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  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
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  Speaker 2: seen him on television, and I do know that he's
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  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
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  Speaker 2: party that Donald Trump is making it into, a party
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  Speaker 2: that's about a lot of different things, including concern for
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  Speaker 2: working people. And so Congressman Johnson, now Speaker Johnson, the
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  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.
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  Speaker 3: Right. Okay.
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  Speaker 1: I can appreciate that. Something else that happened this week.
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  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
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  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
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  Speaker 2: for political purposes. They did that to me. They're doing
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  Speaker 2: it to President Trump. They've been doing it to President
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  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,
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  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
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  Speaker 2: things they want them to say. And if they say
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  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 know that reality. I'm sure
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  Speaker 2: their lawyers were advising them along the way. And becomes
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: unfortunately a real test of loyalty when you find yourself
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  Speaker 2: in that position. And very few people have the backbone
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  Speaker 2: and the wherewithal to stand up to that kind of
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  Speaker 2: pressure and do what's right. Uh, so if you're asking me,
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  Speaker 2: am I surprised by those four particular people? I'm not, uh,
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  Speaker 2: Sidney Powell really had, she was a wild card from
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  Speaker 2: the very beginning. She was sort of out there on
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  Speaker 2: her own, making crazy allegations that were not part of
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: what the Trump people were doing. Um, Jenna Alice was
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  Speaker 2: like in over her head, very young. And, uh, and
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  Speaker 2: very fearful and afraid.
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  Speaker 1: Scared, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, she told certain things, and then as soon
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  Speaker 2: as the pressure was on, she immediately caved in Colorado
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  Speaker 2: to save her law license and admitted that she lied.
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  Speaker 2: And then when this happened, it didn't take her long
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  Speaker 2: to fold. So those don't surprise me. Mark Meadows, don't
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  Speaker 2: know enough about the details of that, but I'm not
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  Speaker 2: really surprised about that either. But I do believe that
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  Speaker 2: really none of them can really say anything, if they're
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  Speaker 2: being honest, that would be Harmful from a legal point
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: of view to President Trump. The things that Mark Meadows
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: is going to say are basically very much similar to
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  Speaker 2: the stuff I've experienced. So what? It's legal. The President
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  Speaker 2: of the United States and any citizen of our country
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: has a right to question whether or not an election
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: was properly run or not. There's nothing criminal about that.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: And when the President goes to Washington and exercises his
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: right as a citizen to redress his grievances and tens
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: of thousands of people go there to do the same thing,
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: in other words, march on City Hall, This is supposed
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: to be what we're supposed to do as citizens. Now,
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: when some crazy people go off and do what they
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: do and break laws, well, they're accountable and they should
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: be held responsible for that. But there's no evidence that
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: President Trump's incited anybody to do that, nor can Mark
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: Meadows say that. So I'm not really that afraid of that.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: What I'm fearful of is just this constant assault against
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: one man and his family and his livelihood and his
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: business because he's an agent of change who wants to
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: make things better change things in America, and frankly, reorder
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: the priorities of a place in Washington that's broken, that's
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: really all about serving itself on the backs of the people.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: And this is why the establishment in both parties, the
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: Democrat establishment, of course, but also that country club Romney,
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: Liz Cheney, Dick Cheney, Bush, Republican Party want to destroy him.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: And this is probably, I think, the most serious constitutional
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: crisis our country's facing since the Civil War. The idea
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: that you can use weaponized prosecutors to bring fake charges
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: on things that aren't crimes and eject it into the
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: political process at the highest level. We've never seen anything
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: like this before. And I would argue it's among the
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: many reasons why we have to pray and hope and
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: vote that President Trump wins so 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, We all, our hearts go out to
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: all the people who were killed by this maniac who
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: did that, and their families, and their loved ones, and
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: we hope and pray that this guy is apprehended as
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: soon as possible. I don't know if the latest news
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: is on whether 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 them, wherever he
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: may be. And, of course, it's obvious that he needs
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: to be brought to justice. You know, when I was
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: a congressman representing a city district, where crime is rampant
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: in Chicago, the issue of gun control is very real
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: to us here. And I have to say that the
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: NRA was never a big fan of mine. In fact,
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: one year they gave me an F- rating. I think
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: I deserved a D, frankly, but they gave me an F-. Okay.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: You had a thing? F-. Wow.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, an F-. And so my politics was different back
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: then because my priorities were different because of the district
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: that I represented. I've learned a lot through the many
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: years since i've been in politics about a lot of
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: things about life in different ways but certainly the way
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: i view politics today is a little bit different than
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: it was back then and the cynical aspect of it
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: the fake part of it is a lot more profound
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: to me it's a lot more obvious to me that
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: it was back then uh... because what's unfortunate about the
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: democrat party my party and you have to include me
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: in this because i was doing it back then although
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: i really believe my heart was right i felt like
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: and i still do that You know, as much as
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: you're asking law-abiding citizens to make sacrifices, they really need
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: an AK-47. I think there's some guns that are just
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: so inherently dangerous that should not be legal. And I
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: haven't changed my position on that. But I do think
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: that when you live in a place like Chicago where
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: crime is rampant now, we have a mayor and we
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: have a governor, Governor Pritzker and Mayor Johnson, who have
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: pushed through. Pritzker did it. Democrat Governor Pritzker. These no-bail laws.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: They're sending signals to the criminal element. It's very real
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: and organized, the gangbangers, that there are little or no consequences.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: And they also know that the police are on the
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: run 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
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: example that i always opposed i look at a very
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: differently today and the other thing i would say to
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: your listeners is there's so much baloney in politics it's
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: really maddening on both sides but the democrat side is
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: every time there's a terrible shooting that they start calling
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: for gun control laws and all the rest and yet
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: they don't do what is necessary in the process actually
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: pass those things happen and they don't want to pass
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: those things because they'd much rather have that issue that
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: actually make the communities and streets safer. And the biggest
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: loser in that kind of fake politics by the Democratic
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: Party is the black community, because it's in the black
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: communities where crime and violent crime continues to be higher
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: than any place else. And it's in the black communities
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: where there's a real need for law enforcement, for police
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: to protect them. And it's really upside down in so
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: many ways. The Democrats claim to be the friend of
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: the African-American community, when in so many ways, they're the
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: reason that conditions in too many of those neighborhoods continue
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: to be difficult and 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 protection,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: for shooting, for whatever it is. But why would anyone
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: need a gun like that? Really explain that. I just
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: don't get that.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: No, no. And I haven't changed my position on that.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: I agree. I think those should be banned. There's a
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: gun called a. 50 caliber sniper rifle that can shoot
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: as a range of up to four miles.
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: And it can knock through brick walls. That's available. That's
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: actually legal.
• 19:27
  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 happen
• 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?
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: 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 5: Mm-hmm.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: Well i had to loving parents my mother father i'd
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: my father was an immigrant from yugoslavia and uh... we
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: came to america he didn't have a penny's pocket speaking
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: english who is a prisoner of war during the world
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: war two a nazi nazis took him and he was uh...
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: in a german prisoner of war camp for four years
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: and then after that he was in a refugee camp
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: for three years until united states congress that one day
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: his youngest son me would become a member of past
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: a law called the displaced persons act which allowed my
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: father and millions of others like us From Eastern Europe
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: with these long and hard to pronounce last names, a
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: chance to come here. He was a factory worker, my dad,
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: and worked real hard. He loved America. Really, truly believed.
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: The car is beautiful. Where did you end up going
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: for it?
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: This exclusive place that Dad has connections with. They have
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: more cars for more dealerships than like anywhere else.
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: You have to put me in touch. What's it called?
• 22:19
  Speaker 5: It's Dune ADL.
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: Where? Dune ADL.
• 22:24
  Speaker 5: There's an accent on the E.
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: Do you mean.
• 22:27
  Speaker 5: Yes, I got it on Dune Deal cars.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Lyft? Lyft? Please.
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: You going past Kimmage?
• 22:32
  Speaker 5: Oh, Kimmage.
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: No.
• 22:34
  Speaker 5: Done deal cars. You couldn't possibly go anywhere else.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: The gift of freedom felt that there was no place
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: like this place when it came to opportunity. And even
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: though his ship never came in and he was always
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: a working man, he believed that his sacrifice and hard
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: work would one day pay off. And that what he
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: couldn't have for himself could happen for his two boys,
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: his sons, my older brother and me. And before calamity
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: came into my life, he was right. I mean, he
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: became the governor of the fifth largest state at a
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: very young age, second youngest governor in modern political history
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: in Illinois. So his dream in so many ways for
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: this country was very real. Now, my mom was a
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: working mom. She worked for the public transportation system here,
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: the CTA, taking fares and transfers, taking fares and passing
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: out transfers at the subway stations. We lived in a
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: little five-room apartment. They never owned a home. It was
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: all about working hard for their children to give us
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: opportunities they didn't have. So I had loving parents and
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: good parents and great parents. And, you know, I've lost
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: them a long time ago, both of them. But, I mean,
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: they're always with me. I always feel their spirit with me.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: So I went to public school in Chicago, kind of
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: a rough neighborhood. You know, I wasn't exactly setting the
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: world on fire in school. Here I go again, but
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: that D in algebra I got was a common case
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: of grade inflation. There I deserved an F.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Okay. But.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: Still, you know, I was able to learn things and
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: went on to college. I always worked. My first job
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: was when I was nine years old as a shoe
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: sign boy. And I had that job until I was 13.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: So when you were that age, what would you say
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: you wanted to do? Were you charismatic? Were you good
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: with people? Did you know you wanted to do something
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: with people, for people?
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: Well, I wanted to be a professional athlete. I wanted
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: to be a baseball player, but I sucked.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Okay, I was going to say, could you play?
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: No, I wasn't that good. My brother was good. My
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: older brother was really good. And then I changed my
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: dream to try to be an NBA basketball player because
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: there you can develop your skills by yourself and play
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: in the schoolyard, which was about a block and a
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: half from where we lived. I was there all the time,
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: perfecting my jump shot and my dribbling. I could spin
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: a basketball on all five fingers of my right hand.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: I'm the only governor in Illinois history who can do that. Oh, wow.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: If you see this governor that we have today, he
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: can't do that, nor can he run a mile. I've
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: run three marathons. Oh, wow. Okay. But my high school
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: basketball coach didn't share it, the confidence I had in
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: my jump shot. And so I spent most of that
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: time on the bench. And so then I was shifting
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: my dreams to something else. And I liked history. I
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: always liked to read history books, even though I wasn't exactly,
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: you know, a scholar in high school. I did read
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: a lot of history books. And so I had dreams
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: that maybe one day I could get, you know, I
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: could maybe get into the political arena and do something.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Be part of history. Yes.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: And I have made history in a very negative way.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: I have to live long so I could change my
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: obituary because I don't like my place in history because
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: it's so wrong.
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: Well, we'll get to that. Yeah. Keep filling me in here.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: I love it. Wait, you like history. By the way,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: have you seen, um, Hamilton?
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: I haven't, but I was, uh, I had a man
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: crush on Alexander Hamilton in the seventies. Okay. I was
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: in Hamilton before it was cool. It was truly one
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: of the great Americans, one of the greatest Americans. It
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: would have to play. Hamilton doesn't, it was based upon
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: a book, um, that I had read when I was
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: in prison. The, the biographer also wrote a, wrote a
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: biography on George Washington. Um, his name is Ron Chernow
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: and Lynn Miranda. I read an article in a magazine
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: when I was sheltering in place that he had got
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: the idea to write this book from the book that
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: he'd purchased at an airport when he was taking a
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: flight somewhere. And, uh, I'd written that, read that book
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: before that Lynn Miranda did. Cause I love Hamilton always have,
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: but what he doesn't do. And here's, here's what they
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: kind of tell you a little bit of the history,
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: a lot of the history, and I'm sure a lot
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: of it's accurate, but I'm sure what they didn't do
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: in that play. I haven't seen this. I could be wrong,
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: but I bet you they didn't say that before Hamilton
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: was killed in that duel, at Weehawken Heights on the
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: 11th of July in 1804, early in the morning with
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: Aaron Burr. And among his last words were, my vision
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: is indistinct. I fear this wound is fatal. Later on
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: in his deathbed, before his loving wife, Eliza, he says,
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: Eliza remembered his children weeping and crying. He said, Eliza, remember,
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: we are Christians. What they don't say, the sort of
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: liberal interpretation of Hamilton was that when his political fortunes
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: had declined, soured and had gone, and he was isolated
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: politically towards the end of his life. And his son
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: had lost a duel defending his father's honor two years before,
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: his oldest boy, his firstborn. What they don't say is
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: that he had visions of establishing a third political party
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: called the Christian Constitutional Party. And I would suggest to
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: your listeners and your viewers that they should take a
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: look and check my facts, but you'll see that it's right.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: But I bet you, as well as this Lin Miranda
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: did in that play, I bet you he didn't put
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: that in there.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: Well, there probably wasn't enough time. It was quite long,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: and you probably can't make a rap about that.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: Anyway, I'd like to see it.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: It's very good. You should see it, especially since you
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: know so much about it. That was a great history
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: lesson you just gave.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: Well, thank you.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: Something that he and you share is their love for
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: their wife. So talk to me about how you met Patty.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: So I met Patty on March the 8th, 1988. It
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: was a Sunday evening, probably around 7, 7.15, 7.30. It
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: was at a fundraiser for her father, who was a
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: local Chicago ward political boss and an alderman. And I
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: was a young prosecutor at the time, and I was
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: leaving the Cook County State's Attorney's Office to go into
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: private practice. And I had made friends with some judges,
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: and one judge in particular had been a friend of
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: mine and had grown up, had been part of the
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: Young Democrat Party in the 60s and knew my future father-in-law.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: Long story short was that the judge said that the alderman,
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: Alderman Miller, was having a fundraiser. He was running for,
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: to be elected to a larger position as judge in
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: Cook County that we elect our judges, which frankly is
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: not the best system. These judges are all political at
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: the highest levels, but okay, that's a different conversation. But
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: he was a nice guy. His name was Judge, great
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: guy actually, Judge Saul Anthony Perdomo. But he said that
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: Patty's dad, my wife Patty's dad, had said that she
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: had just, my future wife had just broken up with
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: her boyfriend, who she was in love with, in Florence, Italy.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: He was an Italian from Florence. He was a Florentine.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: And she met him in school there. And they were
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: at an impasse on which one was going to leave
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: and move to the other. And Patty had brought him
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: to Chicago. She made a tactical mistake because she brought
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: him in December. It's really cold here. This guy's name
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: is Massimo. I met him later on, years later. Very
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: nice guy. Excellent guy. Very Italian. And in fact, he
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: was scolding me. I was drinking my cappuccino and he said, uh,
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: cappuccinos it's for breakfast right not after dinner like that
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: but anyway uh.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: So he couldn't hack the cold weather.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: And he wouldn't move it here and she didn't want
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: to leave her parents and anyway they were an impasse
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: and that all worked out for you and i was
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: the guy on the rebound because i met her like
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: four days later her father asked the judge the judge
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: said i got this young state's attorneys, good guy. And
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: he said, bring him along. I'd like him to meet
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: my daughter. And so sort of quasi arranged. Right. And
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: she was wearing a red dress. And I remember I
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: was single then. And I was, you know, I've lived
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: a pretty, I'm not here to say, you know, my
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: life's been eventful. Let me put it that way, various ways. And,
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: and so I remember saying to her, you know, I'd
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: like to call you. I'd like to take you out.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: And I remember saying, I'll show you the time of
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: your life.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: That's an understatement.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: Boy, I'd say. I never envisioned anything like that.
• 30:09
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: But she was really, it was special when I first
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: met her, when I got to know her a little
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: bit after that first meeting. And she was so good
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: to my mother who had just lost my father. And
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: it didn't take long. And I was in love with
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: her very soon. And it was like my first winning campaign.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: I had to persuade her that, you know, I was
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: the right guy. And You know, I think I did,
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: but I don't know that she to this day thinks
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: that maybe that was the right decision.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: So before then, were you into politics at all? What
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: were you doing specifically when you met her?
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: Well, I was a young lawyer, and I was prosecuting cases.
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: Oh, you were?
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: Okay. Mayor Daley, Richard M. Daley at the time was
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: the elected Cook County State's Attorney, and I was one
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: of about 800 prosecutors in his office. I never met
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: my boss when I worked for him. He was way
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: up high, and I was like a traffic court. And
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: then in the misdemeanor branch courts were a low. I
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: would only meet him later on when I got into politics.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: And then many years later, it didn't take long. Actually,
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: 12 years later, I'm now the governor. And he thinks
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: I still work for him, right?
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: But I was interested in politics, and I helped a
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: few candidates, one in particular at the local level. But
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: there was no really path for me to get into it.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: It was not realistic. I was just trying to make
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: a living. In fact, I learned how to be a lawyer.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: And so there was no real time to try to
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: pursue that. And then I just happened to meet Patty
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: and fall in love with Patty. And then her dad
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: had a huge influence. And then he found himself in
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: a political position that was difficult for him. And he
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: was scrambling at the last minute to look for a candidate.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: And he just happened to have a lawyer in the
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: family who, you know, he felt, and I think he
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: was right, you know, had an ability to go out
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: and you know, make a lot of promises. Right. Right. Um,
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: and so then I got involved, but anyway, go ahead.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: And no, and then before we move too far forward,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: I just want to say before all this, what were
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: some of the other jobs you had in your life
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: before that?
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: Well, I've had a lot of different jobs. Uh, so,
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: you know, my first job, full-time job was every day
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: after school, shining shoes. I started when I was in
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: the third grade and finished, uh, uh, when I was
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: finished grade school, eighth grade. So I had every year.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: And then, uh, then I had jobs, um, delivering pizzas
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: in the neighborhood. You know, I had jumped a couple times, mugged.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: Did you?
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was kind of a rough neighborhood, you know,
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: in the southern part of it.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: Did you ever get hurt?
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, sure, but I mean, you know, I bossed
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: the Golden Glove, so I mean, it was like I
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: was fighting back. But, yeah, I got jumped at, I
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: always remember that, it was at Augusta Boulevard in Central,
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: the west side of Chicago, and these two guys are
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: waiting at the stoop, and I've got the pizza, and
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: I knew the woman that was ordering the dinner, the food,
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: because you got to know who the customers were. And, she's,
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: I'm sure she was a nice woman, but she never tipped.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: And you kind of go into a rough area and
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: you're not going to get a tip. And here's these
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: two guys sitting on the stoop, you know, hiring the doorbell.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: It was the disco era, you know, the late seventies
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: and the jeans were really tight. And I had my money,
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: you know, my pockets and, uh, these guys were standing there.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: You had the pizza inside the box to keep it warm.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: And there was a bag with like, like fried chicken
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: in it that was ordered. And the bill was like
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: $ 13 and some change. And she gave me a $ 20 bill,
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: which was hopeful to me because I'd have to give
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: her change. And a lot of times the customer would say,
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: I just keep, keep a dollar, which was a good
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: tip back then. Okay. But I would have been lucky
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: for a quarter, frankly. Well, she wanted every bit of
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: it and I gave her all back. And I remember
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: saying to myself, no tip turned around. Next thing I know,
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: this guy gives me a bright cross across the face.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: And I was like stunned. And the two of them,
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: you know, give us your mother. Can I swear? Yeah.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: Give us your money, motherfucker. Right. Um, and then when
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: I came to my senses, because I bought Skola gloves, I,
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: I had a decent right hand. I was able to
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: hit one of them. And then I was able to
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: extricate myself from the other guy dragging me. I got
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: to my car where I had a pipe. I always
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: kept a little weapon in there, but I should have
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: had it with me when I walked up. And then
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: I was able to ward him off. As I'm driving back,
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: I'm spitting part of my back tooth out because my
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: mouth was closed when I got hit. And then I
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: got into the pizza place, and my boss, an immigrant
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: from Sicily, great guy. His name was Joe DeVita. And
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: his wife, she was great. She was really nice and
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: she really liked me. They both had strong, she had
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: a real strong Italian accent. She recently had moved to America.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: He had come here at a young age, but he
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: still had a slight accent. And, you know, I was
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: bleeding a little bit and I was a little bit angry.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: You know, Jesus Christ, Joe, you sent us to a
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: place where they never tip. He goes, ah, did they
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: get the money? No, they didn't get the money and
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: I gave them the money. And she's over there nursing me.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: She was so sweet.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: So did he tip you for keeping the money? Did
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: he give you a little bonus?
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: No, he didn't.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, gosh.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: He had a business to run. He had other drivers
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: he had to take care of. So I had that job,
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: and I worked at a meatpacking plant in Philadelphia the
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: summer of 1977. It was actually in Chester, Pennsylvania, a
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: place called Medford Meats. Back then, they did the Franks
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: for the Phillies games, the hot dogs for the Phillies games.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: I don't know if they do it now. Well, then
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: I had a couple of jobs on the Alaskan Pipeline.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: Right out of high school, I was able to get
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: a job up there because my father left us at
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: the age of 63. to take a job at the
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: Alaskan Pipeline as a janitor because the pay was so good.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: So I spent two summers working on the Alaskan Pipeline,
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: washing pots and pans 10 hours a day, seven days
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: a week, double time on Sundays, time and a half
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: over 40.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: Great place to learn some good values.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And surprisingly, as you know, you being from Anchorage,
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: but up in Fairbanks, I was at a place called
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: Pump Station 6, so it was about 90 miles north
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: of Fairbanks. But in the summertime, much to my real surprise,
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: there were all these mosquitoes everywhere. I don't think people realize,
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: but in Alaska in the summer, there's a lot of
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: mosquitoes up there.
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: And they're really big, right? Yeah. When I met Sarah Palin,
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: by the way, I remember telling her about that. And
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: then we talked a little bit about that. And I
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: mentioned that I had a law school roommate that was
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: from Palmer, Alaska. And she asked me what his name was.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: And I said, really? Alaska is so small, you might
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: know this guy. And it turned out Not only did
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: she know him, she appointed him attorney general of the
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: state of Alaska. Oh, wow. His name is Talis Kohlberg.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: Excellent guy, by the way.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: It's a small place.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: Isn't that something?
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: That is something.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: So were there any other jobs before this? Then you
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: obviously got your law degree.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, sure, there were jobs. I worked at a
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: place called Concrete Products when I was in high school.
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: And I had a job at Hilton Head Island, South Carolina,
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: working this resort, which was a pretty cool job. I mean,
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: I worked every day there, but it was cool, and
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: it was, you know, it was a, you know, it's
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: like an upper-class area, so I was able to learn
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: some things about life, in fact. Leon Spinks was the
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: heavyweight champion of the world at that time. He had
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: beat Muhammad Ali, and he was training for his rematch,
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: which was gonna be held in the fall of 78
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: in New Orleans, and I could tell, I'd see him
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: at this place called the Ribbit Room, which was the
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: disco place on the island, and disco was big back then,
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: and I had that kind of look, that disco look,
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: So not that I danced disco, but I had the look.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: No, you had the hair. You had everything.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, my hair, you know. And, you know, maybe some
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: of the mannerisms because the Travolta character, Tony Manero, in
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: that movie was from Brooklyn.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: And I came from Chicago, you know, city stuff. Anyway,
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: I went out because I had Bosco on the gloves.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: I got to know him a little bit. And I
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: went out some mornings running with him to train for
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: the fight. But I could tell he wasn't training like
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: he should. And it was likely Muhammad Ali was going
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: to reclaim the title. And sure enough, he did.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: Should have bet on that one.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: Should have bet on that one.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: Well, it seems to me you're very well-rounded, that you've
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: lived a life up until you got into politics where
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: you got to try a bunch of things, do a
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: bunch of things, be a commoner, so to speak, be
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: one of the people, and see what it was really
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: like to start at the bottom.
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I did. I think that's right. I started at
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: the bottom in the economic. I mean, there were people
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: poorer than us. We weren't poor. I mean, my mother
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: and father were both working, but it was a little
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: five-room apartment. My brother and I, for a while, shared
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: the same bed. And so I was, in that sense,
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: not a lot of advantages. But I'll tell you what
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: I think is most important for any person, and I
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: hope this is the case. I know it's the case
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: with my daughters, with their mother, because I missed most
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: of bringing up my children when I was gone those years. Yeah.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: But I was rich in love with my parents. We
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: had just such good parents. And they raised you with values.
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: And I could never give in to these corrupt prosecutors,
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: these motherfuckers, because I knew how corrupt they were and
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: how dishonest that was. And my parents didn't raise me
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: to be that way. Better to go down fighting. And
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: I would think about my parents through all the years,
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: the good years and the hard years. And among the
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: reasons why I could never give in, I would think
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: about them. I could never shame them or dishonor them.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: I'd rather go to prison. If I have to. But
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: I was lucky that way. And so I would say that, yeah,
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: I was disadvantaged economically. You know, we didn't know any
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: lawyers growing up. There were no doctors or lawyers in
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: our neighborhood. Everybody, the dads worked. A lot of the
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: moms didn't work back then. A lot of moms did.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: My mother was a working mom. And there was little
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: in terms of, I mean, you didn't go to restaurants.
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: It was like so rare because they had to scrimp
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: and save.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: But on those rare occasions where you go to like
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: a family restaurant in the neighborhood, you know, my mother,
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: I always remember her. She was always insistent on, you
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: eat everything on your plate, son. We're paying for this, right?
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: So you learn certain realities that I think served me well.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: And I i think shine in shoes as a kid
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: you know hustling from nine years old to 13 years
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: old and you're gonna make your money on tips you
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: know you got a quarter for shine and whatever you
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: got was in tips i think i think in a
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: weird way it actually prepared me for politics because you
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: just got a sense of how you know how people
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: think and what they're interested in and human nature.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: Right and customer service, so to speak, how to interact
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: with people, um, how to get a reaction from people.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: Sure. I think so.
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: I can understand that.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: They didn't teach me that in the math class in
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: high school.
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: Well, that's true.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: Um, okay.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: So now let's talk about how you really got into politics.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: Obviously it sounds like your father-in-law believed that you might
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: be the right one to sort of move forward to
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: get you guys in this arena. So talk a little
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: bit about that.
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: So Patty and I were, um, happily married the first
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: couple of years. And, uh, um, I was in the
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: private practice of law at that time. I left the
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: state attorney's office and I was actually very good about,
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: I was good at getting clients and it didn't, I
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: didn't miss a beat. I was just off and running
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: and I had a lot of clients. It was a
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: working class practice. I, I represented, uh, a lot of
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: people accused of crimes, you know, um, when I had
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: to explain that to the voters later on, you know,
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: that they should not think I wasn't tough on crime
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: or anything. I would point out, well, I was tough
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: on crime. You should have seen the sentences my clients got,
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: but that was half true. Um, But I had a
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: lot of criminal defendants. I had them in the felony
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: state courts, the misdemeanor courts, traffic court. I represented a
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: lot of, I had a practice where I had several
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: clients who were gypsies and they were recurring business. I
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: would have the grandparents, I'd have the parents, I'd have
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: the children in juvenile court because a lot of the
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: livelihoods of the gypsy community here in Chicago was frankly
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: criminal activity. I had a lot of, but I pursued a,
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: a general practice with an emphasis eventually on personal injury
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: cases and workers' comp cases. So it was a working
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: class background and a working class practice. And I had
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: a lot of clients. And business was good. And as
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: that was happening, my father-in-law's local politics got complicated. And
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: in Chicago politics back then, being a ward boss like
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: he was, the alderman, one of 50 wards in the
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: city of Chicago, and being one of the more powerful
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: ones because he was able to have a political organization
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: with a lot of job holders, city, state, and county jobs.
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: And they would go and knock on doors. They're called
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: precinct captains. And the Daley family came up this way,
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: and all the leading political families in Chicago came up
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: that way in the old days. And it turned out
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: that the ward committeemen in the area around him had
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: made decisions on who the state lawmaker was going to be,
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: and he felt emasculated because the guy that was his
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: guy had made a deal with the other bosses, and
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: they had cut him out. And so he was outmaneuvered,
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: and at the last minute he was scrambling to find
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: candidates to challenge that, and he just happened to have
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: a lawyer in the family who kind of grew up
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: in the neighborhood who might be all right at this. Now,
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: we've both expected to lose, because all the political leaders
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: were with the other guy who was a 12-year incumbent.
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: And I remember him calling us on a Sunday afternoon.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: It was cold. It was January. I just got done running,
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: and he had called my wife Patty and said, what
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: do you guys do? Why don't you come over to
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: the house? I want to talk to you about something.
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: So we came over. He's got these maps, these legislative maps.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: He's on the floor, and he says to me, he
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: says to both of us, Ronan left me last night.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: That was his state rep. I'm looking for a candidate.
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: I got this guy who wants to run over here.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: I got this other guy that would run for state senator,
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: and I'm thinking about you over here, Blagojevich. That's what
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: my father-in-law calls me to this day, Blagojevich. And I
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: And I looked at that map and I said, oh, yeah.
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: And he said, look, they're all against us. You're probably
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: going to lose, but you have an interest in running.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: And I didn't hesitate because I read all those history
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: books growing up as a little boy, which I did
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: a lot of. And this was my one chance to
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: actually get in. So I didn't hesitate. And I said, yeah,
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: I just got one question. If somehow I win, am
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: I free to make my own decisions? on policy and
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: I'll always remember his answer it was basically it was
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: it was not basically it really was it was I
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: don't give a fuck about that and uh so we
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: were off and running and you know my name was
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: always ethnically.
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: The car is beautiful where did you end up going
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: for it.
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: This exclusive place that data's connections with they've more cars
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: for more dealerships than like anywhere else.
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: You have to put me in touch what's it called it's.
• 44:00
  Speaker 5: Dune adl where dune adl there's an accent on the e.
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: Do you mean.
• 44:08
  Speaker 5: Yes, I got it on done deal cars.
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: Lift, please. You're going past Kimmage? Oh, Kimmage.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: No.
• 44:15
  Speaker 5: Done deal cars. You couldn't possibly go anywhere else.
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: Challenged. You know, it's Serbian. But the Serbian community in
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: the neighborhood I grew up in, I was running in,
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: was not at all of any consequence. Polish was the
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: largest ethnic group in the congressional district I would run in.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: And in the state rep district... Polish, Irish, German, Italian, Latino.
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: About a third of the district was Latino, which was
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: always a very good vote for me because I could
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: say mi nombre es difícil de pronunciar, pero espero que
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: fácil de recordar. Por favor, vote por mi. Democrata. I
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: just said my name is hard to pronounce, easy to remember.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: Please vote for me.
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: Democrat.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: So is this where people started to call you Blago?
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: No, that happened after I was elected governor. The Chicago
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: Sun-Times came up with that nickname. Anyway, I went out
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: and I didn't really know a lot about the issues.
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: I'll always remember the first speech I ever gave in
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: politics was at St. John Birchman's in the basement during
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: a bingo. And my wife Patty was with me. And
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: it was this Catholic school that she went to and
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: her sister and her brother went to. And that was
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: their church. And I was in the basement. I was
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: telling the seniors there that, you know, my wife went
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: to this school and went to this church. And I
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: just want you to know this is the church church.
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: the school I love most in the world. Please vote
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: for me. That was pretty much it. Then I went around, oh,
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: and I got a hundred bucks for you for your
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: bingo game.
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: Oh my goodness.
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: I donated a hundred bucks for the bingo game. And
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: then I just worked real hard, knocked down doors, went
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: to all the train stations and the bus stops and
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: introduced myself to people.
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: And did the issues matter? Were you studying up on
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: why you might take one side versus the other? Or
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: that kind of wasn't part of your shtick back then?
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, after a while I had to figure that out. Yeah. Right?
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: Because this was basically a phonetic... Maybe it was a
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: frenetic two-month campaign in the cold, and I was at
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: it every day, and I didn't hesitate to figure out
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: the issues. I just started running. And we would put
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: out these leaflets about my humble origins and that I
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: grew up in the neighborhood real close to this area.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: And eventually some people would ask me when I'd be
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: at the train stations, yeah, but it doesn't say anything
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: about where you stand on a woman's right to choose
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: or where you stand on funding for the police and
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: all these other issues. And I said, well, we're going
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: to come out with something like that soon, which we did.
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: We had to. But I pretty much knew what I
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: kind of believed in, and so I would pretty much
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: be able to answer it. What I found knocking on
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: those doors every day, 14 hours a day, was really
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: what people want is just to feel like their elected
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: representatives are close enough to them, where they listen to
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: them and care about them. And maybe they can't agree
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: with you on everything, but is your heart right? Can
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: they discern and sense that your heart might be right
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: for them? And I feel like when political candidates get
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: closer to people like that, not only does it help
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: you win votes, but even more importantly, once you get
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: the office and you win, you remember those people who
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: you met along the way. And when you have to
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: make the decisions, because governing really is about decision making.
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: It's about setting priorities and making choices. And when you
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: have to choose, sometimes even between two things you agree with,
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: but you can't get both of them, but you can
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: get one and you might have to sacrifice the other.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: It's always good to think back about those people you
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: met along the way. And for me, I could think
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: about my late parents. I could think about aunts and uncles,
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: people from the neighborhood, everyday working people. And I could
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: then take that and use that as a guide on
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: what might be the right thing to do. So when
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: I was governor and I was able to give free
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: public transportation to every senior citizen and disabled person, that
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: was rooted in my life experience. When I gave health
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: care to all the kids in Illinois, when I had
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: the power as governor, it was rooted in my own
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: life experience and what I saw growing up. Yeah.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: So when you first heard that you won, I mean,
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: how did you react?
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll tell you, and I think your listeners might
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: find this interesting. My mother was a widow by then.
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: She was a senior citizen. She was home. And I
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: felt good because I was out there all the time,
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: and I was getting really good vibes from the voters.
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: And even though the guy I was running against was
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: a 12-year incumbent, people didn't know who he was. Most
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: people don't know who their state lawmakers are, which is
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: a problem because this is— why they can go down
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: to the state government and be basically, they could be
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: unknown and they don't have to do the will of
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: the people, but they do their own stuff. But nobody
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: really knew who this guy was. And so I felt
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: good about him. My father was very afraid because the
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: ward bosses in the areas had a lot more of
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: the area than the state rep district than he had.
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: He only had one third of it. They had the
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: rest of it. And Mayor Daley at that time was
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: for the other guy. And so his organization was helping
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: the other guy But I was out there and I
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: could just feel the voters. So I was cautiously optimistic.
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: Were you in the press? Were they talking a lot
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: about you or were you kind of somebody they weren't listening?
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: No. Chicago, that's too small for the Chicago media. Governor
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: they cover a lot. When I started running for Congress,
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: they'd cover that. But this is too small. It's one-sixth
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: of a congressional district. But more than an aldermanic district.
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: It's about three or four aldermanic, maybe three aldermanic wards.
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: But other parts of wards are in it, different wards.
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: Long and short of it is, I felt cautiously optimistic.
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: He thought we were going to lose based upon the
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: turnout in the areas where the other war bosses were.
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: But I felt there was gentrification. I knew there was
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: gentrification going on and they were younger voters and I
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: was far younger than the other guy, you know, the
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: yuppie vote, right? And I felt like I was doing
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: well with them. And Sure enough, the first precinct came in,
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: and it was in the base of former Congressman Dan
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: Rostenkowski's area. Their incumbent was their guy, so he was
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: against me, and they were powerful. But I only lost
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: that precinct by maybe 20 votes. And right then, my
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: father-in-law said, you won, because if we're only losing like
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: that there, imagine what you're doing everywhere else. And sure enough,
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: I won with 61% of the vote. It was really,
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: really big. And I called my mother, and I said, Mama,
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: I won. And she said, oh, son, she said, here's
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: what she said to me. It's almost prophetic. She said
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: to me, oh, son, I'm so proud of you. I'm
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: so proud of you. And only if your father was alive,
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: he would be so proud of you. Now, remember, son,
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: always be for the people. Remember where you came from
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: and be for the people. I said, I will, Mama,
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: I will. And then she said to me, one more thing, son.
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: I said, what's that, Mama? She said, be honest, son.
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: Don't ever take bribes.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: And I said, don't you worry, Mama, I won't. I
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: won't do anything to dishonor you or the memory of
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: my father. And then she said, do you think you
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: can get Ann Violet's son-in-law a job? Which is typical
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: Chicago politics. Right. Well, he didn't get a job.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: I was just going to ask.
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: And I went to prison for alleged bribery, but I
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: didn't do it. And one day the truth will come out. Well, okay.
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: So let's skip to that part now then, if you would.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: So you're a governor. How's it going? How do we
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: get to this part where you fall into some trouble?
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: Explain that to the viewers who might not remember, might
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: not have been interested. Just explain in layman's terms what happened.
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm writing a book about it. I have over 50,000
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: words already written. And the story starts with Obama and
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: finishes with Trump. And in between, it's me in prison.
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: And so I write about those experiences because they put
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: me in the higher security prison where no governor's been.
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: I was in there with Crips and Bloods and Suleños
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: and Norteños and Tejanos and Aryan Nation, Nazi white guys.
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, different gangs. There were murderers in there. My
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: home was a six-foot by eight-foot prison cell. I mean,
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: I got real street cred when it comes to prison
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: because I was in real prison for almost three years
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: before I went to the camp after that. So I'm
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: writing about that. I write about the different stories. You know,
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: one day I'm teaching— civil war history class with socks
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: a bank robber from central california's real nice guy he
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: did it but he's doesn't mean he's not a good
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: guy i should say he's actually a good guy but
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: he just he shouldn't have brought that bank right um
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: but then i tell stories about you know obama and
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: i coming up together in politics and and uh you
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: know how i was the first governor in in america
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: to endorse him against hillary clinton to get him started
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: um so I'd been governor for six years. I was
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: the first Democrat governor elected in Illinois in 2002 in
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: 26 years. And I won by a substantial amount. And
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: I was very young. The second youngest when I was
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: about 44, 45 then. And at that time, believe it
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: or not, people were talking about me as a potential
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: presidential candidate. And I was being invited to places like
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: Hollywood to go raise money and New York, where I
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: would run into Donald Trump, by the way, in December
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: of 2003 when I was out there on a fundraising
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: trip with Chuck Schumer, one of Chuck Schumer's top fundraisers. Anyway,
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: I was, my political fortunes were really high and I,
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: it was really unbelievable to me that, you know, that I,
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: I'm the governor, fifth largest state and I got all
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: this power. On the other hand, um, it was good
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: because you can really do things with that power. Sure.
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: I feel like I was a great governor and I
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: feel like I'm the, I know this sounds, you know,
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: not humble, but, I truly believe I was the best
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: governor in modern Illinois political history for the things I
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: did for people. You ask yourself, and maybe your viewers
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: or listeners ask themselves, what did your governor ever do
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: for you that you can actually identify? But I would
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: get letters from moms when I was in prison, thanking
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: me for the all kids program, thanking me for the
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: ability for a working mom to be able to address
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: her child's cancer and save that child's life. I got
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: a lot of letters like that. I would get letters
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: from parents about the stuff that we did for kids
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: who had autism. I would get letters from, uh, Elderly
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: people thanking me for the free public transportation that I
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: was able to give them and disabled people who did that.
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: Three and four-year-olds got to go to preschool, every one
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: of them, when I was governor. We did open-road tolling,
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: which allowed commuters to move to and from where they're
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: going around the suburban areas with less traffic, less pollution,
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: and saving about 30 minutes a day on commuter time.
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: A lot of stuff that we did without raising taxes
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: on people. Now, to get it done, I had to fight.
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: I had to fight against the establishment. Of course, the
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: Republicans opposed me, but my bigger problem was the Democratic
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: establishment that had been in place for 43 years, led
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: by this guy named Mike Madigan, who created a political
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: empire where he got rich, his family got rich, his
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: friends got rich. And so it was a fight every
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: step of the way. And when you do that, and
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: you remember where you came from, and you're trying to
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: be true to your values and the people that elected you,
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: and I know this sounds like bullshit, but I'm telling
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: you it's true in my case, because I think I'm
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: the only guy in Illinois politics who didn't get rich
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: in the business. But I would fight and make enemies
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: to push this stuff and get it through. And eventually
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: when I rewrote a bill that they did that raised
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: the sales tax in February of 2008, and I put
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: free public transportation in there to give it to the
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: seniors by using my executive authority, Democratic lawmakers were pissed
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: off at me for using that authority to go around them.
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: And that's when Madigan and the Democrats began talking about
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: impeaching me eight months before it actually– eight months before
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: I got arrested, 10 months before I got arrested. And
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: I believe that they had a hand in some of that.
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: I'm so cynical about the corruption in the federal prosecutor's
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: office and the weaponization. When I see what they're doing,
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: the president Trump, I think it started with me. And
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: I think at the AAA level, they did it to
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: a Democrat governor. I think these prosecutors, you know, it's
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: a playbook that they follow then took it and are
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: now doing it to a Republican candidate at the major
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: league level. And, uh, so I, what they had, targeted
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: me for five years and I knew it. And so
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: we were super careful to try to make sure we
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: didn't do anything wrong. And I frankly felt like, go ahead, investigate.
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: Because if there is something going on that's not right,
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: we should make sure we correct it. But I never
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: in my wildest dreams thought that they would actually, you know,
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: make up things to get me after they had invested
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: five years chasing me and came up with nothing. And
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: then they criminalized these conversations that were taped and where
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: they're all legal, but they only play 2% of them.
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: And to this day, 98%, 98% of those tapes are
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: covered up by those prosecutors. Right.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: So, okay, let's get into that though. And like what
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: actually happened? Um, so I think the worst thing, and
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: you went on a media tour and people sort of
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: said this in your face the whole time that you
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: were caught saying, um, we caught, we, we got this thing.
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: It's fucking golden. I'm not giving it up for nothing.
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: Something along those lines that sounded a little, criminal to people, right?
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: Sure, yeah. It's inflammatory. Yeah, right.
• 56:51
  Speaker 5: So what happened?
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, what went wrong, do you think?
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: Well, you know what they don't do? By itself, is
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: that a crime? I got this thing and this is
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: fucking gold. I'm not giving it up for nothing.
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: No.
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: Is that a crime by itself?
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: No, of course not.
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: It is not. What do I say next?
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: They don't talk about it. And they know, but it's
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: covered up on the tapes. Okay, so you tell me then.
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: They're lying scumbags, pardon me.
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: So you tell me what was next.
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: I think I joked and said something like, you know,
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: my too bad my nephew Alex is turning 29 today.
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: Too bad he's not turning 30. I can make him
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: a senator for his birthday.
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: It was something along those lines. Those were all legal conversations.
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: And let me say this to your viewers and your listeners.
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: When you come out of Chicago politics, and there is
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: a lot of corruption in Chicago politics and in Illinois politics,
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: the guys who are making money in the business and
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: taking cash and things like that, no one. has ever
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: accused me of taking a single penny in any of
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: this stuff, nor did I. And that's one of the
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: great ironies here. In fact, nothing happened. There were requests
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: for campaign contributions, and the people that were asked, I
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: didn't even make the asks, but the aides that did
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: this for me never promised anything, never threatened anybody, because
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: that's the standard. So, well, I was trying to make
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: a point about these, I guess about the tapes or something,
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: but my point is, They won't play those tapes because
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: they're covering up what they did. And they criminalized things
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: that were legal. Everything that they have me saying, I said.
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: Did I say fucking golden? Yes, I did. Not a crime.
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: If you got me saying, I want J.B. Pritzker to
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: give me $ 100 million because he wanted to be a senator.
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: He had called me asking me on tape to make
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: him a senator. That's the guy you sell it to.
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: He just spent $ 400 million making himself governor twice. Pritzker's
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: a billionaire. He inherited it from the Hyatt Hotel fortune.
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: I could have said, hey, yeah, J.B., I'll make you
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: a senator. Give me $ 50 million. Right. That would have
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: been clearly criminal, and I should have been thrown in
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: prison for 100 years. But there was nothing like that.
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: We were discussing what kind of political deal we can
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: make because Obama sent an emissary to me on election night,
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: the night before that infamous phone call, fucking golden, the
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: very night before. Balanoff, the union boss. Barack called me
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: last night. He'd like me to talk to you about
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: a senator he wants. He wants to see what you want.
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: Routine political horse trading. Obama did nothing wrong. We didn't either.
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: And I started talking about what can we get for this.
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: Somebody suggested, well, maybe you just want to kiss his
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: ass and just give him a Senator. And the two
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: of us on the phone said, we shouldn't do that.
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: And I said, this is fucking gold and I'm not
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: giving enough for nothing. We're going to make a political deal.
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: And they criminalize this.
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: So explain that to people, because I think that, you know,
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: people think there's a lot of, things that are criminal
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: about politics. And that's just the way it's done. So
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of people think that what you
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: were doing was criminal and you justified it because everyone
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: else is doing something criminal. What would you say to that?
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: I would say they're half right. Everybody else is doing it,
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: but it's not criminal. It's legal. It's the routine practices
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: of the business. Now, do I think the fundraising system
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: as it is, is the best system? I do not.
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: You could argue it's legalized bribery. You can say that,
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: for example, when the big pharmaceutical industry goes to a
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: United States Senator and they hold a fundraiser for them,
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: or a congressman or a congresswoman, and they hold fundraisers
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: for them in the morning at these breakfast fundraisers they
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: do in Washington all the time, because I was a congressman,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: they did them for me. And then later in the afternoon,
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: you vote on the legislation that impacts them. You can
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: say that that's bribery, and you can make a valid
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: argument that it's bad government. And I think there's a
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: lot of truth to that. Having said that, the United
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: States Supreme Court has expressly said that is not the
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: standard to make it illegal. And if it was, and
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: that's the standard What I just described, they used against me.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: If it was, then I'd have been in prison with
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: Obama and with Biden and with every congressman and senator
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: and our prisons would have been even more overcrowded.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: But why do you think it was only targeted at
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: you then?
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: Well, I think I have a certain suspicion that my
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: political enemies that I suggested earlier, 10 months before, talked
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: about impeaching me. This guy Madigan, the boss, had a
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: lot of connections. His law partner's wife was a former
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: federal judge. Now, I can't prove this These are my theories.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: But I see certain fingerprints on some of this. I
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: think the political establishment really resented the fact that I
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: wasn't going to raise taxes. So it's possible that they
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: may have worked in conjunction with these federal prosecutors. I
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: do know that after I was arrested, they were doing that.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: So I think that was part of it. I think, too,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: that the bigger problem in the corruption of the Justice
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: Department with these weaponized prosecutors... is that it's a creepy
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: it makes their careers see their big game hunters and
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: if you can bag a big elephant like a governor
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: now president you gonna go on to be at cnn
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: you gonna have a big spot cnn or you'll be
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: a big law firm partner millions of dollars which is
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: exactly what happened all of them you'll move up in
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: the world i think it's more about career advancement and
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: i think they made a decision uh... to focus on
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: me i think partly because of my roots you know
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: coming out of the chicago democratic party organization with a
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: ward boss in the family. And then I had a
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: terrible issue, family issue, with my father-in-law, where he basically
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: created the dynamic that put a target on my back.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: He was involved in a landfill that was operating illegally.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: I learned about it when I was governor, and I
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: shut it down. And when I did that, he came
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: out and made these accusations that my top fundraiser was
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: trading board and commission appointments for $ 50, 000 campaign contributions. Now
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: that accusation against that fundraiser If true, it would have
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: been a crime, but it was a lie. And he
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: unleashed the furies. He knowingly did it because he's a sophisticated,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: smart guy. At that point, he was so pissed off
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: at me because I wasn't doing a lot of stuff
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: he wanted me to do that I think he wanted
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: knowingly to put the FBI on me. And then at
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: that point, I had a bullseye on my back. And
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: that was 2005, January. And I knew it. And for
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: the next several years, I was being super careful. that
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: we did everything right, including all those phone calls. That
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: was the great irony. Never in my wildest dreams did
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: I think that they would then cherry pick stuff to
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: do what they did and then not allow me to
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: play those tapes in court to defend myself or even
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: publicly so that people can see actually what was going on. Right.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: So those tapes became very important in your second trial,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: but in the first trial you were found guilty only
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: of making false statements. There was a hung jury on
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: all the other counts after 14 days of deliberation. Did
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: you think you were fine after that? Did you, I mean,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: how did you feel?
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: No, I felt bad. I didn't like the fact that
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: they convicted me on that one count, the lie. Now,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: everybody else said, you know, you got scratched and there
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: was a freight train coming your way. But I didn't lie.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: They lied. They lie. Anyway, the 23 corruption charges, I
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: think there were 23 of them, were all hung. So
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: not guilty is on another fake corruption charges. They got
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: the one on the lie. And part of it was
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: my defense lawyer. And I remember telling him before, don't
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: forget that false statement. He got up there on his
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: closing statement and he forgot to mention it. The other
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: problem was the judge was working with the prosecutors and
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: they'd limited my lawyer's time to be able to make
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: a defense fully on every one of the allegations. Because
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: what they do when they want to get you is
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: they throw everything at you. And they figure at some point.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: You'll... Something will stick, yeah.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it'll stick or you'll agree to cut a
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: deal and make it easier on yourself. So I felt
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: bad after the first trial because I didn't lie. And
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: immediately they said they were going to try me again.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: And so I felt like this was only going to
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: continue and these people... Look, I knew I had to
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: fight back. And I felt like if I get a
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: fair trial, there was no way I could lose. And
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: notwithstanding not getting a fair trial, the first trial, they
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: still couldn't convict me because their case was so flimsy.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: At the second trial, it was a kangaroo court. But
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: deep down along that whole process, as I was fighting back,
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: I just knew deep down that I was a dead man.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: I just knew they had so much power. And unless
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: I give in and try to make some sort of
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: a deal, I'm dead. And yet I was determined that
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: I'm going to go down fighting. And I was aware.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: Had they offered you deals that you refused to take?
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: They did after the first trial, after they failed to
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: convict me at the first trial. They sent my brother
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: to me to ask my brother to plead guilty and
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: they would cut the charge, they would cut him loose
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: because my poor brother, completely innocent, was brought into this
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: to use as a pawn against me. And I told
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: my brother that I just couldn't do it. But they
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: still dropped the charges against him and they got him
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: to agree to not testify on my behalf at a
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: second trial. Which is very disappointing, but He had to
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: protect himself. But no, they dangled 18 months. My lead lawyer,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: he was afraid they were bugging his office. We had
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: to sit in a car. And he was telling me,
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: you know, 18 months and that his office is in
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: Hyde Park, the neighborhood where Obama's.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 4: The car is beautiful. Where did you end up going
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 4: for it?
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: This exclusive place that Dad has connections with. They have
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: more cars for more dealerships than like anywhere else.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 4: You have to put me in touch. What's it called?
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 5: It's Dune ADL.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: Where?
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 5: Dune-A-D-L? There's an accent on the E.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 4: Do you mean.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 5: Yes, I got it on Done Deal Cars.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: Lyft? Please.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: You're going past Kimmage?
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 5: Oh, Kimmage!
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: No.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 5: Done Deal Cars. You couldn't possibly go anywhere else.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: It's ramen. And he said that Obama wants this to
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: go away. You should really strongly consider the 18 months.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: But I could never do it.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: You felt you had truth on your side.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: I know I had truth on my side and more
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: than that, I felt the people that were doing it
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: needed to be held accountable because they're corrupt. The people
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: of Illinois elected me twice in elections. Who are these
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: people to undo the will of the people? And so
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: I felt like I could never give in for a
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: variety of reasons, not the least of which is they
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: should be brought to account. And who knows, maybe one
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: day the truth crushed to earth will one day rise
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: again because no lie can live forever. Martin Luther King
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: said that.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: Now, incidentally, up to this point, I think people might
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: have thought that you took this a little bit as
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: a joke or not very seriously because you did go
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: on a big media blitz and you were on everything,
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: including Celebrity Apprentice. Why did you do that? Did you
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: think the court of public opinion would somehow help you
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: in that? Or what was your thought process?
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: So the lawyers would argue that that was the strategy
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: behind it, but it wasn't never for me. No, that
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: they came out and made these outlandish, outrageous allegations against me. Look,
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: you got to be the biggest fucking idiot. If you
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: think that as a governor, you could sell Barack Obama's
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: Senate seat in two thousand eight december after he was
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: the first black american president to be but african-american elected
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: president united states a historic figure and what he represented
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: and international demigod at that time how you gonna get
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: away with something like that and so they arrest me
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: at six o'clock in the morning with swat teams around
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: my house i'm a sitting governor they got me handcuffed
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: i don't know what it's about they tell me it's
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: about that at some point and i i i think
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: it's ridiculous and i think the media's gonna laugh them
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: out of court Because who'd be so stupid to think
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: they could do something like that? The shocking thing was
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: the media doesn't care about the truth. They care about
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: the story. And so rather than go out and actually
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: challenge them, show it, prove it, play the tapes, it
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: was all dumping on me. And I didn't do it.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: And I'm thinking, you know, you're innocent. You didn't do it.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: You have this tremendous desire and need to tell everybody
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: I didn't do it. And so because I was such
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: a notorious figure at the time, I had opportunities where
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: most people who have been accused falsely don't. I had
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: opportunities to go on television and, and proclaim my innocence
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: and to challenge them, which I did. Now, having said that,
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: some of the lawyers that I had were telling me,
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: you do this at your own peril because you're really
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: fucking with them. And if they get you, you're going
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: to have to answer for this.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: And I was like, it's okay to swear.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Okay.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: I'm not running for anything anymore, so I'm just playing
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: it around.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: Um, but any event, uh, I, uh, I had that
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: need to try to tell everybody that I didn't do it.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: I had little girls, and they were in school, and
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: this was international. news. I mean, we had the Japanese
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: television trucks in front of my house, as well as
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: all the other ones. Israeli news was at my home.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: And my little girls are growing up, and, you know,
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: I want my daughters to know, don't feel like your
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: daddy did that. So there was a lot of reasons why. And,
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: you know, it's interesting because having done that, I think,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: I was discovered by Donald Trump because I think he
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: saw that. And that's how I got invited on Celebrity Apprentice.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: And Rachel, I've got to tell you, it's the hand
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: of God for sure. It was a miracle. Because had
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: I not been on Celebrity Apprentice, I'm still in prison
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: until May of 2024. Right. The 14-year sentence they gave me.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: That's right. That may have been your saving grace.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: Absolutely was.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: Celebrity Apprentice. So I'm curious of your opinion of him
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: or your perception of him in that way when he
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: was not this political figure and had, you know, and
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: could have an effect on where you ended up in life?
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: What was he like?
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: He was great. And, you know, I want to say
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: that I never in my wildest dreams when I was
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: on Celebrity Apprentice and we filmed it in October of 2009.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 2: So he doesn't get elected president until 2016. He doesn't
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: announce until the spring of 2015. So years before I'm
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: on Celebrity Apprentice, never in my wildest dreams do I
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: imagine he's ever going to run for president, much less
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: get into politics.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: This is Donald Trump, superstar, celebrity, TV personality, billionaire, real
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: estate developer, successful businessman, larger than life. You know, a
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: guy who, you know, had a tremendous following, author, bestselling author.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, he had golf courses around the world at
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: the time that I knew him from the show. It
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: never crossed my mind. And he was a larger than
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 2: life figure then as he is now.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: So, Did you guys chum around at all? I mean,
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: did you spend any time together?
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: We spent a little, well, we didn't chum around. I mean,
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: you work every day. He's a hard worker. Right. And
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: you're up at five in the morning every day to
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: do those shows and to be, you know, to do
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: the makeup and all the things you have to do
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: before your casting call, I think they call it. It
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: was a new world for me, by the way. Right.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: And I had the, I call it the good fortune
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: of being chastised by Joan Rivers on national television for
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: serving her a hamburger that was cold.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: Um, but, um, he was off camera. He was really
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: nice to me and good to me. And he did
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: something that I'd like to share with your audience after
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 2: it was over. Because when you get fired from that show,
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: which I was correctly, incidentally, Donald Trump is the only
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: president in American history to have fired and freed the
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: same guy. Even Lincoln didn't do that. Right. Good point. But, um,
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: when I was fired, like everybody else's except the final
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 2: two in October of 2009, your contract says you can't
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: say anything to the media that you've been fired because
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 2: they're going to air the show. I think it was
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 2: like in, I never saw it, by the way, but
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: they aired it in, I think, March of 2010. And
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 2: they had all of the contestants who'd been fired come
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: back for one final episode at NYU University in front
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: of a live audience. There must have been 750 people there.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 2: Every seat was taken. And Cindy Lauper, what a nice person,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: was singing. She performed a song. The two finalists was
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 2: a Rockstar by the name of Bret Michaels, who apparently
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: is very well known. I'm an Elvis fan. He is too,
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 2: by the way. And a real nice guy, but I'd
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: never heard of him. And so he was on the show.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: He was in the finals with Holly Robinson. Pete, she
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: was a TV star. She was very nice. And others.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: And Daryl Strawberry played for the Mets and the Yankees.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 2: Great guy. We all had been terminated, but we were
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: back there on stage. And Trump was throwing me questions
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 2: and some of us questions. It's And he threw me
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: a few more because I think he wanted to give
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 2: me a chance to, you know, have air time. And
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: I kept insisting on my innocence like I still do.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: And I guess I'm on message maybe too much. And
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: so the audience really laughed at me. And it was
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 2: probably a derisive laugh. They were not laughing with me
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: but probably laughing at me. And it was noticeable. It
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 2: didn't bother me. You know, I was in the business
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: and pretty thick-skinned. But the show was over. And one
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: of the things they generously allowed you to do was
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 2: I could bring my wife and two little girls with me.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 2: for the filming and so that we spent a couple
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: days together all of us new york even though i
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: was going to trial very soon in the future was
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: filled with a lot of dark storms ahead for us
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: but after the show my wife my daughters came up
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 2: to me on the stage and then as we were
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: leaving we got an elevator and lo and behold entering
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: that elevator with us was donald trump took the ride
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 2: down into some to my wife my kids a little
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 2: any banana at the time was uh... was four years old,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: and my daughter Amy was 11. So they were little girls.
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: And he was attuned to what that audience had done
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 2: about an hour before, laughing at their father. And he
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: was sensitive to that. And so after we got done
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 2: with the ride down and we got to street level,
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: and he's tall, he's like six foot three, six foot four.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 2: He actually got down to the level of my little
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 2: girls and said nice things about their father to them.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 2: And how you should be proud of your father. I
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 2: really admire your father, how he's fighting back. It was beautiful.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 2: Very kind. No TV cameras. He didn't put out a
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 2: press release saying he did something nice like that. He
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: was just very naturally kind and generous-hearted. And I know
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 2: a lot of people in politics. I know a lot
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 2: of them, including Obama. And they would never even think
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 2: about something like that, much less do something like that.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: They're just too caught up in themselves.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: That's a great story. Something I did notice about what
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: you're talking about, you did not live or at least
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: outwardly show a sense of shame. you know, you were
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: very good, I would say about either holding that in,
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: but you know, you, as an outward front, you were,
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: you were pretty good about, you know, saying this is
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: the life I'm going to live. I'm proud of what
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: I did. I'm proud of the voice I have right now. And, um,
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: I don't think that you walked around with any sense
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: of shame for right or wrong in some people's mind. Um,
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: some people may have seen that as egotistical and some
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: people may have said, well, maybe he's telling the truth
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: and he's not really guilty. So, um, Looking back, do
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: you think you would still do the same kind of
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: media blitz? And do you think the court of public
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: opinion is that important nowadays?
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 2: Well, as I said, I didn't do it for the
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 2: court of public opinion. I did it because I had
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: this personal need just to tell the world I didn't
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 2: do it.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 4: I know.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 2: The answer is yes, I would. Of course. Yes, I
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 2: would do it again. And I asked myself that moments
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 2: after the judge gave me 14 years. You know, because
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 2: he said I treated it like a duel and like
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 2: a boxing match. And he was right. And I did.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: And I asked myself, and this is the hard part
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: of it, because you have two little girls and you
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: say to yourself, are you putting your pride above them?
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: Because this is now, it isn't just you going away.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 2: When you leave, you're leaving your little girl's essentially without
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: a father.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: Right, it's affecting.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 2: For potentially 14 years or 12 years had I had
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 2: good behavior, which I had good behavior. So your pride
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 2: was more important to you than actually cutting your losses
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 2: and just letting these guys kick your ass and stomp
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 2: all over you, which is in the minds of a
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: lot of people, like probably Jen Ellis and these others
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 2: and their families who decide to just surrender. But again,
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 2: as I said before, I was the governor, and I
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: had this higher duty because I chose to be a leader, right?
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 2: And I know what they were doing was so corrupt.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 2: And so I had 2,896 days in prison to think
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 2: through these things. And I would sometimes, late at night,
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 2: on my bunk in that six-foot-by-eight-foot prison cell that I
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 2: lived in for quite some time, late at night, the
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 2: demons would come in, you know, and despair might start
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 2: creeping in. So would fear. And I would think about
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 2: my little girls and that I let pride get in
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: the way of that because now their dad could have
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: been home maybe in a year or 18 months. And
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: look what I've done. Now they don't have me for
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: all those years. But I reconciled my mind that sometimes
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 2: there are moments where there's something that's just higher and
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 2: you just have to be willing to sacrifice. And as
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: bad as it is for the people that you love,
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 2: You have to sacrifice. And in my own mind, I
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 2: felt like by me going through all of this as
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 2: I was and now enduring all those years in prison
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: alone by myself with them alone without me, that at
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 2: least they'll have always, my two little girls, the ability
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: to say, my daddy didn't do it. Yeah. And I
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 2: think that's meaningful.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 2: So no regrets. Okay.
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: Your second trial, June 27th in 2011, you were found
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: guilty on 17 counts. not guilty on one and deadlocked
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: on the remaining two. So then you go in on
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: December 7th and you are sentenced. What were your feelings
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: going into sentencing day? Well, what were you up for,
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: by the way? What was the most you could get
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: to be sentenced?
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 2: Um, at that point it was, um, at that point,
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 2: a life sentence. They, um, I was out jogging one
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 2: day after the convictions and before the sentencing hearing. And
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 2: I consider myself pretty fit as governors go. It was
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 2: about a six, seven mile, about a seven mile run.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 2: And it was the usual run I did. In fact,
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 2: they did it this morning, not far from where we
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 2: are right now. But any event, halfway through the run,
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 2: back then they had newspapers, right? And they had those
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 2: newspaper boxes. And the Chicago Sun-Times, which is the second
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 2: largest paper in Illinois and second in Chicago, but as
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 2: a big readership back then they had these boxes and
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 2: as i'm running past this intersection i see the newspaper
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 2: box out of the corner of my eye and i
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 2: say was that me and I came back and I'm
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 2: running a place it was me it was a colored
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 2: photo of me and the whole front page and the
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 2: headline bold across this the paper was 30 years to
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: life is what the prosecutors were asking for they had
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 2: filed their paperwork asking for 30 years to life how
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 2: did that feel I never took a penny right And
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 2: I did good works, and I had a good driving record.
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 2: I didn't have a single ticket. Of course, I wasn't driving.
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 2: I had the police driving me at security detail. But still,
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 2: no tickets and no criminal record. Now, 30 years to life.
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 2: How did it make me feel? I finished that run
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 2: fast that I ordinarily did. It just gave me a
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 2: lot of energy to run. I always felt like I
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 2: keep running north and don't turn the other way. So
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 2: by the day that we went to the sentencing, that
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 2: was what they were still on record asking for. During
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 2: the process, the judge had determined that I was in
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 2: the range of 15 years to 30. So the life
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 2: thing was taken away. The whole thing was just, in
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 2: so many ways, such a corrupt joke, the system. And
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 2: they play these games with these statutory guidelines that the
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 2: Congress passed, and I might have been guilty of having
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 2: voted for some of that myself without even realizing it,
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 2: and frankly would have would have been trusting of the system.
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 2: And I would have probably knowingly voted for those things,
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 2: but they put these guidelines in place where it's a
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 2: one size fits all approach. And they don't take into
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 2: account the individual case, the nature of the facts that,
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 2: you know, the family circumstances, the person's record and all
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 2: those other things are sort of locked in. And anyway, uh,
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 2: you know, if you ask me how I was feeling
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 2: going into court, you know, I have a tendency to
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 2: almost always see the glasses half full and half empty
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 2: and And I kept saying that this judge is a
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 2: political guy. He was appointed by President Reagan. He was
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 2: a big Republican honcho in the 80s in Illinois. He
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 2: was the director of Illinois State Police. He was the
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 2: chief of staff for an attorney general who was actually
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 2: corrupt and took money. This guy knows politics. And he
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 2: knows this is all bullshit. And he had to go
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 2: out of his way to help the cops so they
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 2: don't get embarrassed. Because I saw this when I was
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 2: a criminal defense lawyer. Sometimes the cops would play games
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 2: with some of the stuff they did to some of
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 2: those guys. and the judge would protect him at trial,
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 2: but then he would generally go easy on the guy
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 2: because he screwed him at trial. I felt like that
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 2: was going to happen. And, and, uh, Patty, God bless her.
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 2: She didn't think so. And then I said, I would
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 2: say to her, I think he likes me. And she said,
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 2: I don't think he does. Yeah. I don't think he does.
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 2: And so, uh, Once he said it was like 190
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 2: months or 181 months, I turned to one of my
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 2: lawyers and said, how long is that? And she said,
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 2: 14 years. She knew it right away. My first thought was,
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 2: Patty was right. He doesn't like me. So, you know,
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 2: it was a difficult thing. But, you know, it was
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 2: interesting because, like you say, I was always out there,
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 2: you know, fighting. And now I just totally got my
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 2: ass kicked, right?
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 4: Right, right.
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 2: And one of my lawyers, well-meaning, had suggested afterwards, I
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 2: arranged it with the marshals, the U.S. marshals. They can
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 2: get you on a side door, go through the basement,
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 2: and you can drive out of here and avoid the media. Now,
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 2: I've been talking to the media every step of the way, right?
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 2: Now that I get my ass kicked, the last thing
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 2: I'm doing is to be some chicken shit guy that
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 2: walks out some back door. So, oh, no. I said, no, no,
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 2: I'm talking to him. So now we're wargaming in this
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 2: holding room. What do you say? Right. Now Patty's with
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 2: me and she's cheered up and, but she's stoic and
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 2: she's so strong and she really is. She's really remarkable.
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 2: My wife. But, um, so he says, uh, we're thinking
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 2: there's a group of lawyers and, and he, he's a
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 2: real good guy. This is my lawyer, Sheldon Swarovski, but
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 2: there's a silliness to him. And for whatever reason, he
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 2: thought that I might want to borrow from what Richard
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 2: Nixon had said. It was considered at the time, his
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 2: last press conference in 1962, uh, after he'd run for
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 2: governor of California and got his ass kicked, he got
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 2: beat bad. Nixon was angry at the way the press
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 2: treated him, and he gave what was called his last
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 2: press conference, where he said, you won't have Nixon to
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 2: kick around anymore. Nixon would come back six years later
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 2: and be president, one of the great political comebacks in
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: American history, but at that time, Nixon was politically dead.
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 2: So my lawyer suggested, why don't you do that? You
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 2: won't have Blagojevich to kick around anymore. And I said,
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 2: I'm not quoting Nixon, okay, or making light of this, okay?
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 2: So what I ended up doing was I just went
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 2: down there and I quoted a couple of lines from
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 2: my favorite poem called If by Roger Kipling. And I
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 2: just said, you know, there's a line in there. If
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 2: you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 2: two imposters just the same. So I said that and
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 2: I said there was nothing more really for us to
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 2: say other than that we needed to get home, Patty
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 2: and I, and be with our daughters and explain to
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 2: them what happened, what this means, and where we're going
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 2: from here as a family. And that's pretty much it.
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 2: But I certainly, you know, met the media, I didn't
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 2: run from them. And I never will, really.
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about prison for a little bit. What
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: was the first night like there?
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 2: I write about that, of course, in the book that
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 2: I'm writing. And it's a night I'll always remember. And
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 2: it was a long, long day. And helicopters followed me
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 2: from my house the moment I left at 5.30 in
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 2: the morning, all the way to O'Hare Airport. And then,
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 2: in a gaggle, the media was all over the place.
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 2: And then when I landed in Denver, the media... It
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 2: was there too. And then the helicopter followed me all
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 2: the way into, into me walking into prison. So it
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 2: was like portal to portal. I was OJ Simpson in
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 2: the white Bronco.
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 2: But I actually love my wife. And, um, but in
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 2: any event, uh, I was, uh, you know, it was
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 2: interesting because people ask me, well, you know, how did
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 2: the inmates treat you? And again, I wasn't in, you know,
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 2: the camp I was in, I was behind with the
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 2: inmates called the razor wire and there's murderers in there.
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: And for the first three years.
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 2: For the first, uh, two and three quarters. Yeah. Okay.
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 2: 32 months. Cause you're not eligible. If they give you
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 2: more than 10 years, you gotta be in that higher prison.
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 2: And they were doing this.
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: The first night. Did you have a roommate then? How
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: does that?
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 2: Well, you actually, you move your way. If you, if you,
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 2: you well behaved and you do well, you can earn,
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 2: you can work your way into the suburbs out of
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 2: the inner city.
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 2: Suburbs is the six foot by eight foot cell. Okay. Okay. Okay,
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 2: that's the other side of the area that we're in.
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 2: This is really prison. I mean, if you watch those
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 2: prison movies and you see what it's like with all
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 2: the bars and the gates and the iron and all
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 2: of that and those stark walls, that's where I was.
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 2: And those little cells and those aisles, you know, the hallway,
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 2: the darkness and all the gloom. I was in that.
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 2: And so when I first got there, they had watched
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 2: me walk into prison, you see. So people asked me, well,
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 2: how'd they treat you? And I said, well, I had
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 2: two things going for me. You know, I was treated
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 2: pretty well. I had two things going for me. Number one,
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 2: I was a so-called celebrity inmate. They literally watched me
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 2: walk into prison live on television, on Fox News and CNN.
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 2: They were all covering it live. And so they see me,
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 2: and now suddenly there I am in their little world.
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 2: I leave our world, the real world, and I'm in
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 2: this little world now.
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: That's very interesting, yeah.
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah. But the bigger thing that gave me real street
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 2: cred was how they would recall in the vernacular my
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 2: 14th piece. If you get a long sentence, it tells them,
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 2: you didn't snitch on anybody. This motherfucker's a badass. He
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 2: didn't snitch. And there's a saying in prison, okay? Snitches
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 2: are bitches who get stitches.
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: They say that in prison too, not just as a joke?
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 2: Wow. No, no, they say that. They mean it. And
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 2: if you got a light sentence, you got to prove
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 2: to the rest of these guys you didn't tell on anybody. Okay,
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 2: so that's that culture that I'm walking into. Now, I'm
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 2: also asked by people, well, were you afraid? Not in
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 2: the least. I was so heartsick, so heartbroken, so disillusioned
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 2: by the system, so longing for my little girls and
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 2: my wife and worrying for them that I feared nothing.
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 2: And if somebody wanted to hurt me or even kill me,
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 2: they would have taken me out of my misery. I
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 2: didn't fear it in the least bit. But I walked
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 2: into that place and.
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 4: The car is beautiful. Where did you end up going
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 4: for it?
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 3: This exclusive place that Dad has connections with. they have
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 3: more cars for more dealerships than, like, anywhere else.
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 4: You have to put me in touch. What's it called?
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 5: It's Dunediel.
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 2: Where?
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 5: Dunediel. There's an accent on the E.
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 4: Do you mean.
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 5: Yes, I got it on Dunediel Cars.
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 2: Lift?
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 5: Please.
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 4: You going past Kimmage?
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 5: Oh, Kimmage!
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 2: No.
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 5: Dunediel Cars. You couldn't possibly go anywhere else.
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 2: You know, it was ugly. It was painted a stark...
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 2: antiseptic white, the bar, this part of it, when you
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 2: go to the cells, it's darker. But this part was
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 2: this big, like big dormitory area that's got these, uh,
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 2: divides where there's, there's five, two man bunks within each
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 2: little divide.
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 2: It's all wide open because they have to keep an
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 2: eye on everybody. So it's like a quasi dormitory. And
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 2: there were probably 90 guys in there. And then at
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 2: the end of the hall, there's the bathroom. And then
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 2: right to, Adjacent to that is the big gate that
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 2: locks you in from the more common areas that you
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 2: have access to within certain times of the day. But
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 2: after 10 o'clock, everything shuts down at night. But there's
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 2: that bathroom. And on the other side of the hall
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 2: is the big iron door that shuts you in. And
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 2: then there's 90 guys in there. And there's a cacophony
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 2: of a symphony of sounds that are very unobtrusive. but
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 2: the whole bunch of men, right? No air conditioning. And, uh,
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 2: so this was March 15th, 2012. And, uh, um, I
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 2: was greeted by a group of the guys that were there,
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 2: some drug dealers with a care package and, And they
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 2: were very polite and they were respectful and they were
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 2: calling me governor. And they just said, governor, we wanted to,
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 2: you know, welcome you to prison. And we thought you
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 2: won't be able to have commissary for a week. So
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 2: you can't get the things that you need. Cause they
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 2: don't let you bring anything in except your Bible. My
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 2: wife gave me a Bible. I could bring in, couldn't
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 2: bring my running watch and couldn't bring the running shoes in.
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 2: But so they knew that. And so they bought me
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 2: like a toothbrush and a toothpaste and shower shoes and
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 2: which is a whole unique experience when you take a
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 2: shower with those guys because they're super sensitive about anybody
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 2: looking at anybody.
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 2: And there's a whole culture of that, which, you know,
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 2: I was fine with that too, but no complaints. But
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 2: in any way, it's a very different world, right? So
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 2: they had this care package. It was so nice. And
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 2: I was able to make a phone call home. I
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 2: had my first dinner there. I'll always remember that dinner.
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 2: I walked into the, they called it the chow hall.
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 2: All the heads turned when I walked in because they'd
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 2: just seen me on TV a few hours before. And
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 2: they served us these green scrambled eggs, very small portions.
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 2: It was cold and ugly looking with these biscuits with
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 2: this white gravy on it that looked real bad, like
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 2: somebody threw up on it or something. And then they
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 2: had cranberry sauce from a can. That was the only
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 2: thing I felt I could eat. It was just bad.
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 2: But who cares? Okay, it's so bad. I called home.
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 2: I talked to my family that night. I was able
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 2: to make a phone call home. And I remember telling Patty, boy,
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 2: I'll never ever complain about anything you make again after
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 2: eating what I just ate.
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you were still able to keep your humor,
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: I guess.
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 2: A little bit. But that night, after they shut us
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 2: in and we were locked in and all the lights
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 2: went off. Oh, and they gave you earplugs. The guys
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 2: got me earplugs because that was a common thing. that
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 2: you put earplugs in your ears because there's so much noise,
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 2: snoring and all this stuff. But I was on the
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 2: top bunk, real near the bathroom. And I would say probably,
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 2: certainly the loneliest moment I've ever experienced in my life.
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 2: Because ahead of me was 14 years of this. And
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 2: heartbroken and missing my little girls and my wife and
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 2: worrying for them. And you can't even see the flicker
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 2: of a light at the end of the tunnel and
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 2: you think, will I ever get out of here? Could
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 2: I die here? And I remember reaching for the Bible
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 2: that my wife gave me and actually hugging it like
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 2: it was a teddy bear. Wow.
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: That's really powerful. So were you thinking this is never
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: going to last for 14 years? I'm going to get out.
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: There's going to be appeals. This was not the right
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: side of history. And I mean, did you think you
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: would be there for less than a year? Were you
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: convinced this is it? I better... fall in line?
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 2: It's a great question. You know, they call that hope time,
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 2: by the way, in prison. So if you could have hope,
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 2: you know, your appeal gives you hope time. And some
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 2: of the other stuff gives you hope time, which helps
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 2: you break your time up, right? Look, deep down, I
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 2: was scared shitless that I would never get justice because
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 2: the stakes were too high. If I'm right and they're wrong,
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 2: they're corrupt. They're going to have to answer. If I'm
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 2: right and they're wrong, something's seriously wrong with the criminal
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 2: justice system. And so will the appellate court do the
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 2: right thing or will they whitewash it and protect them? Still,
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 2: we had hopes because we just knew the law was
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 2: so much on our side and a variety of different things.
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 2: And my lawyer said the only way we lose is
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 2: if they're corrupt or stupid, and they're not stupid. And
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 2: I believe that. So I had to still embrace the
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 2: belief that these people are still honest at the appellate
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 2: court level, and eventually I'll get out of here in
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 2: a couple of years because my lawyer was very clear
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 2: about it. It's probably going to take two, three years,
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 2: maybe three years to get this appeal done, for him
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 2: to do it the right way, all the work, and
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 2: for them to make the decision. As it turned out,
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 2: it took four and a half years. And then they
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 2: reversed the sale of the Senate seat, vindicating me. It
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 2: was never a crime. The appellate court could never uphold
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 2: that standard because it would have shut down government everywhere
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 2: because all the political deals that are done to make
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 2: government work, they couldn't do because it's now criminal. So
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 2: they reversed that, but they upheld three fundraising requests where
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 2: I never got a penny, and there was no quid
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 2: pro quo. And then they vacated my sentence and then
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 2: the judge put me back at the 14 years. But anyway.
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 2: But that first night, I had hopes for maybe three
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 2: years I can, two, three years I can go home.
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 2: Two and a half years maybe. But I was afraid
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 2: that that would happen. So it was a mixture, right?
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 2: In the meantime, it was, look, it was horrible. And
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 2: for years I would walk around with a hole in
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 2: my heart. Always. Always. Um, and it was, uh, but
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 2: I had purpose and, and the purpose was to handle
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 2: the time as best I can to set the best
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 2: example I could for my children and to be strong
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 2: as possible for them. My life, as far as I
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 2: was concerned, was basically over for me, but it was
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 2: always about them. And that if I could live in
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 2: that shithole prison, like I had to, in a way
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 2: that could be, show them that I can not only endure,
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 2: but I could actually thrive. Mm-hmm. physical fitness, reading a lot, learning,
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 2: drawing closer to God by reading the Bible in ways
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 2: I never did before because I was always so busy
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 2: trying to get ahead in life. If I could do
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 2: that and show them that, and if I never even
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 2: get out of this place, then I've done something that's meaningful.
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 2: And that gave me strength and helped to motivate me
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 2: every day to go out and be productive and work
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 2: on constructive things.
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: So what was a day in the life?
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 2: In that higher prison? Yeah. Okay, so they lock you
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 2: in at 10 o'clock at night, and then things open
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 2: up around 6, and now you can move around a
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 2: little bit. They restrict your movement every hour. They have
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 2: to check and see, know where people are, and then
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 2: four or five times a day they count you. They
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 2: call that counting. They take that very seriously. But let's
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 2: say for me, in the very beginning, the first three months,
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 2: I had to work in the kitchen, which is a requirement.
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: You have a job?
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 2: You have to get that particular job.
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 2: You have to have a job, but you have to
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 2: have that particular job in the kitchen for every inmate.
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 2: That's in the prison manual from the Bureau of Prisons.
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 2: As a matter of practice, the warden and the powers
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 2: that be don't really care. If you can get another
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 2: job and there's enough people in the kitchen, you don't
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 2: have to go there.
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: Got it.
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 2: Right? And I was told that by some of my
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 2: new friends moments after I got in. You know, go,
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 2: if you want to avoid that kitchen, unless you want
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 2: to go down there and steal food. and have a
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 2: hustle up here. Cause you can make it, you can,
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 2: you can do good on commissary and get a lot
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 2: of stamps.
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 2: I said, I'm not interested in that. I'd like to
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 2: avoid the kitchen.
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 2: And so I got a job as a tutor, which
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 2: is perfect. I teach one day a week. I mean, and,
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 2: and the cops there were mostly extremely good, the guards,
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 2: and they were more than happy to hire me. Okay.
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 2: So I, I got that job and, and then I
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 2: was told by my case manager, now you got to
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 2: go to the kitchen, the warden next it.
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 2: Okay. So then I got another job. I went to
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 2: the rec area where they have a great weight room
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 2: because I was determined to work out and exercise a lot,
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 2: which I did. That'd be a great job. I can
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 2: sweep floors and make sure the weights are in their
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 2: proper places and work out while you're working. I got
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 2: that job right away. The warden nixed it. Then I
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 2: got another job. Okay. Library. Nixed it. I got five jobs.
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 2: All posted. That means you got the job. Nixed by
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 2: the warden. My case manager says, stop doing this. He's
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 2: determined to put you in the, In the kitchen, because
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 2: unlike the rule where if you get another job, it
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 2: doesn't matter. You, however, are high profile and he doesn't
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 2: want a story saying you got special treatment, even though
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 2: everybody else got it, but you're getting a job that's
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 2: in violation of the manual, right? So I had to
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 2: work in the kitchen for three months. And I got
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 2: up real early, like at five in the morning, start
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 2: working there, maybe 5.30, 6.00. I get up at 5.30,
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 2: you work at 6.00 in the kitchen warehouse. My boss
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 2: was a guy by the name of Mr. Moore, excellent
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 2: guy from Chicago. His mother lives in the south side
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 2: of Chicago. And he told me she voted for me
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 2: every time. God bless her. But he was really good
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 2: to me. And you have to work the kitchen warehouse
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 2: from like 6 in the morning until about noon. And
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 2: he was good because they were going to put me
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 2: on pots and pans, which is a horseshit job. And
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 2: he felt like they were embarrassing me. to do that,
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 2: and he was from Chicago, and he looked after me,
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 2: and he got me that warehouse spot. And the word
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 2: among the inmates was, and by the way, that paid,
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 2: I was mostly making $ 5 a month in all my
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 2: prison jobs, so for most of my time, it was
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 2: $ 63 a year was my income. I went to college
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 2: for that, law school for that, right? But that job
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 2: was a great paying job. It paid just $ 65 a month.
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 2: And if you did a good job, you get a
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 2: $ 35 bonus. You can get as much as $ 35 in bonus.
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 2: $ 100 a month, which he did for me. I did.
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 2: I worked hard, and it was good. I was lifting
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 2: up 100-pound bags of rice and beans and stuff and
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 2: all the different stuff you got to do in the warehouse.
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 2: But the word in the prison was, oh, the gov,
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 2: he's getting special treatment because of his connections. And some
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 2: of those guys... were spreading the word and they truly
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 2: believed that Obama himself had called to get me out
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 2: of pots and pans and put me in the warehouse
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 2: where I had to pick up rice bags.
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness.
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 2: Let me make it clear. Obama never called on my
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 2: behalf and the guy ran and is still running to
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 2: this day.
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: Um, so I'm curious, did you have a best friend
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: at this time?
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 4: Yes, I did.
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: And who was he? What did he do to get
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: in there?
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 2: One or several.
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: Whoever you want to talk about.
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 2: Friends that I got to know over the years. Many
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 2: of them. And I'm in contact with several of them
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 2: to this day.
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: Are all of them out or are some of them
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: still in there?
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 2: I think most of my, my, my good friends have
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 2: made it out finally. You know, my friend, uh, um,
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 2: my friend, um, his nickname is Spade, but, uh, he's
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 2: in Denver. He got out. He got a 25-year sentence,
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 2: drug dealer. He got out about a year ago, so
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 2: he's back. And he's a rap, he does rap.
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 3: Uh-huh.
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 2: And he's got rap aspirations, and I think he's really good,
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 2: and I hope people take a look at him. His
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 2: last name is Moore. Okay. But one of the guys
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 2: that became one of my best friends early on was
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 2: a guy by the name of Walter Hill. I don't
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 2: think you'd mind me saying this because he lacked attention. And,
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 2: you know, a black guy from East St. Louis, Illinois,
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 2: who had met me years before when I was governor,
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 2: he was apparently some liquor license commissioner down there. And
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 2: I got jammed up in some of the stuff he
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 2: was doing in that position. So he preceded me to
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 2: that prison. But he had a, you know, relative to
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 2: my sense, I think he might have had three and
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 2: a half years or something at 14. But I was
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 2: his governor. And as soon as I walked in there,
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 2: he welcomed me with open arms. And he helped guide
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 2: me through the process. And he's a real colorful personality.
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 2: And kind of a controversial figure. But he was a
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 2: friend and he's still in touch. And then I made
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 2: a friend of a guy that was in there. He
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 2: was a real estate developer in Beverly Hills and got
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 2: in serious trouble and had a 17-year sentence. And he
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 2: and I became friends. But, no, I had a lot
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 2: of friends. I made friends. And, you know, look, you're
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 2: going to inevitably have conflict with some people because you're
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 2: with a bunch of guys for a long period of
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 2: time and there are going to be some things that
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 2: you want and they want. And there's just some people
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 2: that just don't like you, right? Yeah. So it wasn't
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 2: eight years without conflict, but I would say for the
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 2: most part, I was treated very well by the other inmates.
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: So how does it begin the process that you realize
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: there might be a chance that you can get out early?
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: From what I've read, it seems like your wife took
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: matters into her own hands and started doing her own
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: media tour, so to speak, to get the word out,
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: to get the attention of President Trump. Tell me in
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: your words, though, what really happened.
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 2: So in my book, I have a whole chapter on,
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 2: I have two chapters, there's several chapters, but I have
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 2: two chapters with Donald Trump in it, fired by Donald
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 2: Trump and then freed by Donald Trump. And freed by
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump took two years. And the leading actors in
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 2: that drama are my wife, Patty. Well, it is Donald Trump, Patty,
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 2: and this fellow here with us now, Mark Vargas, who
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 2: was very helpful to us and guiding us through the
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 2: process and helping me get home and doing great things
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 2: on my behalf.
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: But all sorts of appeals had been, they were done
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: and you were- just kind of sitting around and this
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: became an option and mean how did it come to
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: play you know.
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 2: Martin luther king used to say a lot of great
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 2: things that among them was god could find a way
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 2: out of no way right after all of my legal
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 2: options were taken away and after the supreme court failed
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 2: to take my case which we thought on the weekend
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 2: before they decided it we had a very good chance
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 2: even though they only take two percent of the cases
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 2: but the supreme court um reporter that covers the Supreme
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 2: Court had said on the Friday before they made their
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 2: decision that there was a good chance they were taking
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 2: my case because the standard, the unlawful standard used to
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 2: convict me, is different from every other circuit in the
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 2: United States. It's an outlier, and therefore the laws have
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 2: to be uniform. So there was a real important reason
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 2: for them to take the case. But I would always
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 2: find out the bad news from my inmates who'd see
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 2: it on the news before I would ever get the
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 2: information from a an email that comes that took like
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 2: two hours to get to me from my family or
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 2: my lawyers. So I'd always hear from them because they'd
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 2: see it on the news that another appeal was lost.
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 2: And on the morning that it came out that the
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court rejected my case, it was on the news.
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 2: And so later that day, Patty was invited to do
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 2: the Tucker Carlson show. So this would have been springtime
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 2: of 2018. Now, Obama left office on the 20th of January, 2021.
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 2: And we had asked him, and I was lucky in
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 2: the sense that I was like, unlike every other inmate
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 2: in the Bureau of Prisons, 151,000 federal inmates, I'm the
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 2: only one in the vernacular of the prisoners and the
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 2: inmates who can get his paperwork on the president's desk,
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 2: two presidents. So David Axelrod used to work for me
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 2: and work for Obama, was very instrumental in helping get
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 2: my case before Obama and get his attention. So were
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 2: some Democratic congressmen from Illinois who were friends of mine.
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 2: They were advocating and pushing. And David was able to
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 2: get two letters, handwritten letters, written by my two daughters
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 2: to the president, who has two beautiful daughters the same
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 2: age as mine, making the case. I understood his politics, too.
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 2: He was involved in my case. He started it. That's
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 2: the great irony. He sent the guy to me. I
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 2: would have never sent fucking Golden had he not sent
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 2: the guy to me the night before. But that's legal.
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 2: But he didn't. Me too. But anyway, so we've got
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 2: a serious chance to get him to help me. I
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 2: understand his politics and he's media savvy and he's also
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 2: very super sensitive to any bad press. Don't send me
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 2: home the day you leave because then he's probably afraid
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 2: of the juxtaposition. You know, there he is leaving the
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 2: White House and there's me leaving the big house. Yeah.
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 2: Just cut my sentence in half from 14 years to seven.
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 2: I will have done more time than any governor, never
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 2: took a penny, and I can limp out of prison
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 2: eight months, nine months after you leave the White House
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 2: in October of 2021. So there'll be no media issue
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 2: for you. And then he had commuted the sentence of
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 2: a guy that was convicted of treason who got 34,
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 2: five years against the United States. He was Bradley Manning
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 2: before he went to prison. He came out as Chelsea Manning.
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 2: He had commuted that sentence days before he was leaving.
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 2: So that was hopeful to me that he would, wow,
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 2: he did that treason. I think there's a great chance
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 2: I'm going to go home. And then he let out
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 2: an FALN terrorist who Bill Clinton refused to let out
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 2: in 1999 because this guy refused to renounce that he
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 2: would do terrorism against, again, against the United States. Obama
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 2: let him out. Holy cow. I never blew anything up.
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 2: I think I'm going home. Well, he passes me by.
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 2: He didn't do it. One month later, maybe three weeks later,
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 2: I get called into the case manager's office and they
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 2: say to me, she says to me, we just got
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 2: a request from the White House pardon office. They want
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 2: your records in prison because we can't send it without
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 2: your signature. And immediately I'm thinking, Trump himself is looking
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 2: after me. This is remarkable. And the second thought was
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 2: that fake Obama never even bothered to even look at
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 2: my record. He was never going to do it. He
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 2: was just leading my family on. So right away, Donald
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 2: Trump had his eyes on me. It was remarkable. And
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 2: I'll always be forever grateful to him. And it was
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 2: because of that experience I had with him on the show.
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 2: And I think because, well, it was that. But still,
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 2: there was political considerations that he had. So it took
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 2: a while for him politically to be in a place
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 2: where he could do it. And there were a lot
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 2: of ups and downs. And then one year later, when
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 2: the Supreme Court didn't take the case, Mark Vargas came
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 2: into our lives and helped guide us through the process,
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 2: particularly Patty, and was very good at getting her on
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 2: shows like Laura Ingraham's show on Fox News and Judge
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 2: Jeanine Pirro's show. And we would watch those shows from prison,
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 2: me and the other guys. And, you know, it was
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 2: nice because they were really rooting for us, you know,
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 2: and it was very unusual.
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: And again, I mean, I get back to the question
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: of court of public opinion. Do you think this was
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: helpful in getting Donald Trump to see how, you know,
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: the temperature of of you know, America and what they
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 1: thought about, you know, if you would be let out
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: or what her words looked like to people and how
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 1: people were responding. I mean, do you think that had
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: anything to do with it? I mean, obviously it put
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: it on his radar more than just papers on his desk.
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 2: So I think the answer is very clear. Had she
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 2: not done that, I'd still be in prison.
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 2: Because what she was able to do was able to
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 2: point out to President Trump's supporters, notwithstanding that I'm a
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 2: Democrat governor, they probably ordinarily, left to their own devices,
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 2: probably not like me.
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 2: Right. but she was able to point out, draw parallels
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 2: between what they were doing to him at that time,
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 2: the Democrats, Russian collusion, that baloney. Okay. And what they
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 2: did to me. And so that I think created a dynamic,
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 2: was able to explain to his voters that, uh, you know,
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 2: this is not a typical situation where you got, you know,
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 2: someone who, uh, wasn't being, who's being treated in a,
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 2: in other words, you got a situation where a guy,
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 2: a Democrat was being treated in a way before president Trump,
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 2: the same way they were treating president Trump. So I,
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 2: that was very helpful, of course. Um, But here again,
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump is a guy who's very loyal to people
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 2: that he has a relationship with, who he feels are
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 2: decent people, good people, and have some semblance of loyalty
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 2: to him. And in politics, that's a very rare quality.
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 2: Most politicians are like Obama. If you serve their purposes,
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 2: it's fine. But if in any way it's a problem,
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 2: I am not doing it. And therefore with me, I'm
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 2: sure he would have been happy to see me go
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 2: home as long as he wasn't the one doing it.
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 2: He just wasn't even going to get nicked because he
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 2: was caught up in my case. Where Trump will stand
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 2: up and help his friends and others and take the
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 2: hits to do that. It separates him from these other politicians.
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 2: This is why Trump is such a good president the
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 2: first time around and will be such a good president
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 2: the second time around. He is fearless and determined to
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 2: do what he thinks is right. Smart, and he'll make
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 2: mistakes as we all do, but that separates him from
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 2: these other people in politics who really don't have any
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 2: testicular virility at all.
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, I want to get into some of those questions,
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: but to end with this on this topic, where were
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 1: you when you heard your sentence was being commuted and
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: you were going to go home?
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 2: So I was just getting ready to go run on
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 2: the track, and... It was 10 minutes to 11 mountain time.
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 2: And one of my colleagues came up to me and
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 2: he said, Gov, I just saw you on the news.
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 2: Trump's going to send you home. And there had been
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 2: false starts before because this was two years in the making.
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 2: There were political obstacles in the way that slowed President
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 2: Trump down, including the Democrats impeaching him in September over
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 2: the call to Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, which was
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 2: a perfectly legal and necessary phone call for him to make.
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 2: But in any event, this guy came up to me
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 2: and said, you're going home. And I said, what? And
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 2: he told me, because of those false starts, I know
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 2: he was well-meaning, but some of these guys might misunderstand
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 2: what they see on the news. And so I remember,
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 2: and you're not supposed to put your hands on another inmate.
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 2: But this guy was a friend, and I remember grabbing
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 2: him by his shirt and pushing him against the wall.
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 2: and given him the third degree tell me exactly what
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 2: you heard and what you saw where was he when
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 2: he said it was him saying it what exactly did
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 2: he say okay was it national news or local denver
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 2: news okay.
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 1: Does he even have all these answers or he.
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 2: Would that was too overwhelming he was you know he
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 2: was actually bigger than me he's been good guy in
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 2: the weight room good very much fit but he uh
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 2: no no he's telling me i saw it i'm telling
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 2: you so but it was you know, minutes away from
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 2: the top of the hour. And the TVs in prison
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 2: are segregated by race. So there's the black TV and
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 2: they watch CNN, the black guys.
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 2: And there's Latino TV and it's Univision. And then there's
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 2: the white guy's TV. It's Fox News.
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 4: Come on.
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 2: Right? No, come on. That's how it is. And then
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 2: there's a sports TV that everybody watches, but they fad
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 2: over that. Sure. Okay.
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: That makes sense.
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 2: Right. So I walked into the white TV room to
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 2: see what was coming out at the top of the
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 2: hour and And there he was at Andrews Air Force Base,
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump. And so I had to grab somebody's headphones
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 2: because you can't listen to the TV without your headphones.
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 2: And I didn't have mine with me. So I said,
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 2: some guy, I think I was really, hey, I need those.
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 2: And I grabbed them. I think he's talking about me.
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 2: And I popped it in and I just commuted the
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 2: sentence of Rod Blagojevich. He's been away for a long time.
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 2: He's been in an orange jumpsuit. I was never in
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 2: an orange jumpsuit, but God bless him. Got a great wife.
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: That was his vision of you, yeah.
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 2: Right, of course. Got a great wife. Two little girls.
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 2: Hadn't seen in a while. He was just great. It
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 2: was real, finally.
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 1: And was everyone jumping up and down for you?
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you something. They were really excellent about it,
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 2: those guys. And you know, when I eventually left, as
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 2: I left and said goodbye, of course I was joyful.
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 2: This was finally over and I was finally going home.
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 2: But there was a tinge of sadness, and I felt
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 2: a little guilty because they were stuck there.
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying that they're innocent because almost all of
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 2: them weren't. Right. But a lot of those guys aren't
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 2: bad guys. They're just misguided, and they had bad starts
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 2: in life, and they made bad decisions, and some of
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 2: them are bad guys.
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 2: But I felt bad for some of them, and so
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 2: I had a mixture. I was almost overwhelmingly happy, of course. Yeah.
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 2: But there was that little tinge of sadness for them.
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: I understand that.
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 1: So you said that you were going to promise to
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 1: use your experience in prison to fix the criminal justice system.
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: Do you remember saying that after that?
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I still say it. Okay.
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 1: So where are you at with that? What are you
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 1: doing to make changes?
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 2: Well, what's happened since I've come home is that they've
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 2: now taken this weaponization of prosecutors for political reasons to
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 2: a whole new level and what they're doing against President Trump.
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 2: So anytime anybody willing to hear me say anything about it.
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 2: I'm eager to jump on television or anywhere else to
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 2: explain that what they're doing to Trump is corrupt, that
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 2: he's done. Those things are all perfectly legal and appropriate.
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 2: You may not like it, vote against them, but don't
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 2: criminalize it. So that's been the bigger focus more so
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 2: than let's say, um, the over sentencing issue, which is
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 2: very real too. Um, my hope is to eventually when
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 2: I get back on my feet, hopefully is to start
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 2: a foundation that actually does the issues that work on
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 2: towards fair and just criminal justice system, where these first-time offenders,
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 2: like some of the friends I was in prison with,
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 2: who never had any criminal background before, are given these 15, 20,
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 2: 25-year sentences for the first offense. No chance at a
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 2: second chance. I very much want to be active and
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 2: involved in that. You know, when I first came home, though,
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 2: what also slowed me down was COVID. And by the way,
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 2: had he not done what he did on the 18th
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 2: of February, 2020, and waited a little longer, COVID hit,
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 2: I don't know that he would have been in a
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 2: position to be able to do for me what he did.
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 2: And I have a very strong belief in God. And
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 2: in my Christian faith, I believe deeply in, though I
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 2: don't want to try to proselytize anybody. But I have
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 2: no doubt in my mind that I've seen a miracle
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 2: in my life. It was a miracle that brought me home.
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 2: the unlikely convergence of events that led me to Donald Trump,
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 2: a celebrity apprentice.
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 2: And I don't want, if he's watching this and I
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 2: don't think, maybe he is because he might.
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: He asked me to be on Celebrity Apprentice, by the way.
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 1: I turned him down.
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: He got quite mad.
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 2: No kidding.
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 1: It was, I was trying to think when you were
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 1: talking about if that was the season that you were on.
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: Because I, I don't think I ended up watching it,
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 1: but he asked me to be on. He called me.
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: I said yes. And then I had to renege. But,
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 1: you know, I went to lunch with Michael Cohen. We
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 1: talked all about it. You know, he told me how
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 1: it was going to go down kind of. And then
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 1: I ended up, oddly enough, doing celebrity rehab because I
• 1:54:46
  Speaker 1: don't know if you know Dr. Drew.
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 2: On television.
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he really makes you feel like he understands you.
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: And I was having such a difficult time in my
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: life with the whole world coming down on me and
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 1: having such an opinion of me. for the scandal I
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 1: had been involved in. I didn't know you were in one.
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry.
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 1: Oh, I was, yeah, I was part of a scandal
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 1: at the time that was worldwide. It was the Tiger
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 1: Woods scandal. I'll just remind you of that little scandal.
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: So everyone took my name and created, you know, a
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 1: headline for me. And that was very difficult. But in
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's mind, he thought, oh, this is the perfect
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 1: person for my show. Once I had to go back
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 1: and say, I'm not going to do it. And he's like,
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 1: I would never have her on the show.
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 2: No kidding.
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 1: We later laughed about it. He invited me to a
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 1: New Year's Eve party at his estate, and we had
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 1: a good laugh about it. But you're right. Loyalty means
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 1: a lot to him. He gets very upset if somebody
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: doesn't stick by him.
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 2: Um, so Rachel, now that I know that you were
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 2: involved in a scandal, I have to tell you, I
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 2: feel so much closer to you. Oh, good.
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: Well, because everyone deserves a second chance.
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 2: God bless you. You're doing great by the way.
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you. Um, so incidentally, you've talked about
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: Trump a ton in this interview. What is your relationship
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 1: with what, with him now?
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 2: You know, he and I, and he says that, I mean,
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 2: he didn't really know me that well and I don't
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 2: really know him that well. Yeah. Um, so my relationship
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 2: with him is, uh, I'm trying to help him wherever
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 2: I can be helpful. If he calls, he needs something,
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 2: I'll drop whatever I'm doing to try to be helpful
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 2: to him. I've seen him three times since I've come home.
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 2: Every time in Mar-a-Lago. He's been really nice to me.
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 2: He has a book that came out that I recommend
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 2: to your viewers. It's called Letters to Trump. It's a
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 2: great book. It's got letters to him from Queen Elizabeth
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 2: and Princess Diana and Presidents Nixon, Reagan, Clinton and Bush
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 2: and Oprah Winfrey and Shaquille O'Neal. And he's got a
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 2: letter that he wrote to me after he fired me
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 2: on Celebrity Apprentice. So he was nice enough to put
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 2: me in his book. Right. And then invited me to
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 2: Mar-a-Lago to be at a book opening when he launched
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 2: the book. And that was the last time I saw him,
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 2: which would have been April of this past year.
• 1:57:09
  Speaker 1: Got it. Do you still consider yourself a Democrat?
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 2: I'm a Trumpocrat.
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 1: Okay. What does that mean?
• 1:57:15
  Speaker 2: A Democrat for Trump.
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: Okay. How many do you think exist?
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 2: A lot more than people think.
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 4: Really?
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 2: Yes. Traditional working class Democrats, a lot more than people think.
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 2: Crazy liberal socialist Democrats who hate America, don't acknowledge God.
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 2: Those aren't the Democrats that we recognize or understand. And
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 2: those Democrats are ruining the Democratic Party. Okay.
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 1: Speaking of that, what are your thoughts on the state
• 1:57:41
  Speaker 1: of the Democrat Party today? Is it the same party
• 1:57:44
  Speaker 1: it was before you went away?
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 2: No, it's not remotely the same party. We used to
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 2: be the party of the little guy and the party
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 2: of working people. We were the party that believed that
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 2: government has a role to play to improve people's lives,
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 2: but we still recognize that the private sector can always
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 2: do things mostly better than the government. We're the party
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 2: that had a place for people who didn't have a
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 2: place in the old country club corporate Republican Party, but
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 2: we were also a party that recognized and honored the
• 1:58:17
  Speaker 2: sacrifice and service of police officers and firefighters, strong faith
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 2: in God, traditional values like hard work and opportunity in America.
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 2: and getting ahead of things that you should celebrate, not condemn.
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 2: And this crazy left-wing socialist party is a party that
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 2: a lot of us, most of us, don't recognize. It's
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 2: not the Democratic Party we grew up in. And even
• 1:58:42
  Speaker 2: what you see now with Israel and Hamas and the
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 2: divides within the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party used to
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 2: be the party that was all for Israel and strongly
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 2: supportive of the Jewish community. And now there's a very long, hard,
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 2: and very real strain of anti-Semitism today's democratic party that
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 2: never existed when I was active in it. Not too
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 2: long ago.
• 1:59:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Is Biden still the right man for the job?
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 2: Biden was never the right man for the job.
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 2: Nice guy. Never the right man for the job. Okay.
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on 2024? Is he going to
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 1: make it that long?
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 2: Who Biden?
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 2: Well, I hope so.
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 1: I don't mean death wise. I mean, you know, do
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 1: you think he, You know, is there a chance? People
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 1: have said there's a chance that he's not the right
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 1: guy and he may step out.
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 2: He's not the right guy, but he's not going to
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 2: step out. Okay. When you get to that level and
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 2: you're in a position like that, now the game is
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 2: all about your legacy. It's less about higher office. Now
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 2: it's all about what legacy you leave behind. He's not
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 2: stepping out. Barring, God forbid, something happens to his health,
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 2: he'll be the candidate. Okay. And Trump's going to beat him.
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 2: And Trump will beat him in Pennsylvania. Trump will beat
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 2: him in Michigan. He will beat him in Wisconsin and
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 2: probably beats him in Georgia.
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 1: So I had a question about Trump, but you answered it.
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 1: Besides Trump, is there someone Trump should be nervous about
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 1: behind him, coming.
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 2: Up from behind? Oh, in the Republican Party? Yeah. No,
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 2: but you don't ever want to be arrogant and you
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 2: don't want to be complacent where you don't run your race.
• 2:00:15
  Speaker 2: You know, the way the primary system works in those caucuses,
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 2: you know, there's a The politics of Iowa is a
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 2: delicate place because it's a small area, and if you
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 2: do a lot of retail politics, you could cause an upset,
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 2: which could create a whole momentum string of activities that
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 2: suddenly events unfold that are a little bit less in
• 2:00:36
  Speaker 2: your control than they otherwise would be. In 1980, for example,
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 2: an unknown guy that used to be the director of
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 2: the CIA and a former congressman by the name of
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 2: George H.W. Bush shocked the world, and he beat Ronald
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 2: Reagan there after Reagan had been had run very well
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 2: four years before against Gerald Ford. And Reagan didn't take
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 2: it seriously. That's why Bush was able to surprise him
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 2: and win. Reagan came back and won New Hampshire and
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 2: then went on to win the Republican nomination. So President
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 2: Trump's campaign, they need to be careful with Iowa and
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 2: then with New Hampshire. But in the big scheme of things,
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 2: the dynamic and the fervency of his supporters who've been
• 2:01:14
  Speaker 2: suffering with him through these years of persecution against him,
• 2:01:18
  Speaker 2: I think he's in a very, very strong position to
• 2:01:20
  Speaker 2: be the Republican nominee. And I really believe he'll beat Biden.
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 1: Do you have any political aspirations in the future? Let's
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 1: pretend Patty isn't listening.
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 2: Right, exactly. Patty's not listening. Maybe I can whisper to you.
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm like a guy that used to, and
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 2: I did, I used to box Golden Gloves. First time
• 2:01:38
  Speaker 2: I ever got my name in the newspaper, the Chicago
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 2: Tribune was Golden Gloves. And you know how fighters are
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 2: when they, you know, they've lost their title and then
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 2: they fought one fight too many, right? I have some
• 2:01:49
  Speaker 2: of that in me, I think. You still kind of
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 2: feel like you want to get back in that arena.
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 2: For whatever reason, people like us do it. And I
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 2: like the competitive part of it, and I truly believe
• 2:01:59
  Speaker 2: my heart was right for the people, and I would
• 2:02:01
  Speaker 2: get pissed off at the, you know, you have to
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 2: make compromises, and you have to understand you don't get everything.
• 2:02:06
  Speaker 2: But I liked when I had that power, when I
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 2: could actually do things. So if there was a realistic
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 2: opportunity where I might be able to do something like that,
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 2: And it was there. Could I resist the temptation of
• 2:02:19
  Speaker 2: doing it? You know, the likelihood is I would, because
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 2: then I think I'll be confronted with the choice, my
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 2: wife and my family or that, because my wife, God
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 2: bless her, defied all the odds, has made it abundantly
• 2:02:33
  Speaker 2: clear that if I do this, a political career, I'll
• 2:02:35
  Speaker 2: do that with my second wife. And I'd frankly like
• 2:02:38
  Speaker 2: to keep my first one. So I don't see it happening,
• 2:02:41
  Speaker 2: but it's okay. I have to catch up and, you know,
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 2: I have to make a living and you know, my little,
• 2:02:48
  Speaker 2: our younger daughters at the university of Chicago, smart, she's good. And, uh,
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 2: that school is not cheap. You gotta, of course, you
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 2: gotta earn a living.
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 1: What are you doing to earn a living besides, uh,
• 2:02:57
  Speaker 1: raking it in and cameo?
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I do the cameos, right? Thank you. Yeah. Are you? Yeah.
• 2:03:04
  Speaker 2: Thank you. For those of you who are buying my cameos,
• 2:03:06
  Speaker 2: cause it's helping to pay for my college, college for
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 2: my younger daughter. Um, I'm writing a book, which I'm
• 2:03:11
  Speaker 2: really excited about. And I believe that book, if, uh,
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 2: if it's given, I think it could be a bestseller,
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 2: to be honest with you, because it's an unusual story.
• 2:03:19
  Speaker 2: It starts with one president, ends with another, and in between,
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 2: a governor's in prison with murderers and bank robbers and
• 2:03:25
  Speaker 2: drug dealers and gangbangers, sex offenders, con men, and a
• 2:03:29
  Speaker 2: lot of others. And there's a lot of interesting stories
• 2:03:31
  Speaker 2: and parallels between this big 450-pound pedophile that didn't want
• 2:03:37
  Speaker 2: me to sit next to him when I first got
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 2: to prison in the child hall and how he ate
• 2:03:41
  Speaker 2: his three trays, which you're only supposed to get one tray,
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 2: and how he was breathing heavily when he was eating,
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 2: and how our current governor, Governor Pritzker, ate a pastrami
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 2: sandwich with me when I had lunch with him back
• 2:03:51
  Speaker 2: in 1995, and I was astounded at how fast he
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 2: ate his sandwich and how quick he was to dispatch
• 2:03:57
  Speaker 2: the other half of my sandwich. So I write that
• 2:04:02
  Speaker 2: in my book. Anyway, and stories like that. Right.
• 2:04:05
  Speaker 1: I cannot wait for that book.
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 2: And I'm doing some consulting work, by the way, and
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 2: some other things. It's all good, by the way. Thank you.
• 2:04:10
  Speaker 1: Good. What issues or causes are you most passionate about
• 2:04:14
  Speaker 1: right now?
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 2: Well, several that I used to be active in when
• 2:04:18
  Speaker 2: I was in politics. But the new one, of course,
• 2:04:22
  Speaker 2: is the weaponizing of prosecutions for political reasons. I don't
• 2:04:26
  Speaker 2: know that the American people understand what's at stake here
• 2:04:28
  Speaker 2: like they should. If we have it now where criminal
• 2:04:31
  Speaker 2: prosecutors are going to decide who our presidents are, say
• 2:04:35
  Speaker 2: goodbye to the republic that we've known. Now, our founders
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 2: back in the Late 1800s, they understood history. They knew
• 2:04:41
  Speaker 2: the adage that Lord Acton said this in the 17th
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 2: or 18th century. He said, power corrupts and absolute power
• 2:04:49
  Speaker 2: corrupts absolutely. They understood that. And they foresaw the possibility
• 2:04:54
  Speaker 2: of a system in the United States where over time
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 2: power would gravitate into one place and take away the
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 2: freedoms of the people. So to prevent tyranny, they created
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 2: this system with three branches of government. The executive branch,
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 2: the president. the judicial branch, the judges, the Supreme Court
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 2: and the public judges, and the legislative branch that makes
• 2:05:13
  Speaker 2: the laws and fund the government and all that. They
• 2:05:15
  Speaker 2: divided power for a reason. What they didn't foresee was
• 2:05:19
  Speaker 2: out of the executive branch, a cancer would form. It
• 2:05:21
  Speaker 2: started in the 1920s for all good reasons to go
• 2:05:24
  Speaker 2: after the Al Capones of the world who were involved
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 2: in interstate transportation of illegal alcohol. They've now become this
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 2: powerful force, separate and apart, with no check and balance
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 2: on them, these federal prosecutors. And they have uncontrolled power.
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 2: They have unlimited resources. They have no accountability. The law
• 2:05:45
  Speaker 2: cloaks them with sovereign immunity. They can do whatever they
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 2: want to do. They can be Andrew Weissman, who's on
• 2:05:50
  Speaker 2: CNN as a legal analyst, and he could abuse his
• 2:05:52
  Speaker 2: power as a prosecutor, destroy that company, Arthur Anderson, on
• 2:05:56
  Speaker 2: something that wasn't even illegal. And eventually the Supreme Court
• 2:06:00
  Speaker 2: ruled nine to nothing that what they convicted Arthur Anderson
• 2:06:03
  Speaker 2: of wasn't criminal. And yet that guy goes on to
• 2:06:06
  Speaker 2: CNN in a big spot. And Arthur Anderson goes out
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 2: of business. And hundreds of people lost their jobs because
• 2:06:12
  Speaker 2: of that guy. That's the big issue that I think
• 2:06:15
  Speaker 2: I'd like to be mostly involved in. And God willing,
• 2:06:17
  Speaker 2: President Trump wins. I think there's going to be some
• 2:06:19
  Speaker 2: reforms that are necessary to protect our democracy and our republic.
• 2:06:23
  Speaker 1: You've given me so much time. I just have three
• 2:06:25
  Speaker 1: more questions. Looking back at your time as governor of Illinois,
• 2:06:29
  Speaker 1: what do you consider to be your most significant accomplishment?
• 2:06:33
  Speaker 2: By... I don't have to hesitate. It was the all-kids
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 2: program that provided affordable health care to every child in Illinois.
• 2:06:39
  Speaker 2: We were the first state in America to do it.
• 2:06:41
  Speaker 2: We did it in 2005. That's the best thing I did.
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 2: But I feel like I did a lot of other
• 2:06:45
  Speaker 2: great things, including free public transportation for our seniors and
• 2:06:48
  Speaker 2: a lot of other stuff, and no taxes on the people.
• 2:06:51
  Speaker 1: Got it. Are there any decisions or actions you regret
• 2:06:55
  Speaker 1: from your time in office?
• 2:06:56
  Speaker 2: Yes. I didn't do enough on the clemencies. I think
• 2:06:59
  Speaker 2: I did something like 60-61 or 65 commutations or pardons.
• 2:07:03
  Speaker 2: I did pardons. I didn't do nearly enough. I trusted
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 2: the system. I believed that mostly the prosecutors get it right.
• 2:07:11
  Speaker 2: And I learned a hard lesson the hard way. I
• 2:07:14
  Speaker 2: was wrong. I had the power. I could have done
• 2:07:17
  Speaker 2: so much more. I just didn't go to the office
• 2:07:18
  Speaker 2: every day aware that that was an issue that I
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 2: should be focusing on. I was more focused on those
• 2:07:23
  Speaker 2: other things that I talked about. But when my aides
• 2:07:26
  Speaker 2: would bring those cases to me, I think I mostly
• 2:07:28
  Speaker 2: always felt that you should temper justice with mercy. And
• 2:07:32
  Speaker 2: I think I acted appropriately, but I could have done
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 2: so much more there And I'm kicking myself for missing
• 2:07:36
  Speaker 2: the opportunity to do so.
• 2:07:38
  Speaker 1: My last question, and I think from listening to you,
• 2:07:41
  Speaker 1: I know the answer to this, but do you feel misunderstood?
• 2:07:44
  Speaker 1: And if so, what would be the one reason why?
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 1: And explain why you should not be misunderstood about that.
• 2:07:52
  Speaker 2: Thank you. Well, yeah, I didn't do it. I mean,
• 2:07:55
  Speaker 2: I went to prison for eight years and I didn't
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 2: do it. It was all politics. It was political technology.
• 2:08:00
  Speaker 2: Nothing even happened. And so along the lines of being misunderstood,
• 2:08:06
  Speaker 2: another Winston Churchill quote, I think it's my second one here, right? Yeah.
• 2:08:09
  Speaker 2: There's been a couple of Dr. Kings and a couple
• 2:08:11
  Speaker 2: of Churchills. He said, a lie can travel halfway around
• 2:08:14
  Speaker 2: the world before the truth has a chance to put
• 2:08:16
  Speaker 2: its pants on. And when they told that big lie
• 2:08:18
  Speaker 2: about me, you know, trying to sell a Senate seat,
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 2: which eventually the appellate court reversed. It was never a crime.
• 2:08:23
  Speaker 2: And I was proven right. That lie, my pants are
• 2:08:26
  Speaker 2: halfway up. It still sticks to me. And it drives
• 2:08:30
  Speaker 2: me crazy. And some of the other stuff drives me crazy, too,
• 2:08:32
  Speaker 2: because they're such liars. So I'm misunderstood by that. You know,
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 2: I've been accused of combing my hair too much and
• 2:08:39
  Speaker 2: being narcissistic and egotistical and all these other things. Maybe
• 2:08:43
  Speaker 2: you might get me on some of that. Mm-hmm. but
• 2:08:45
  Speaker 2: not that other stuff. I didn't do those things. And, uh,
• 2:08:48
  Speaker 2: I would simply say, thank you very much, Rachel, for
• 2:08:51
  Speaker 2: the opportunity to be on your show. Of course.
• 2:08:53
  Speaker 1: I thank you.
• 2:08:54
  Speaker 2: Talk to your viewers.
• 2:08:55
  Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean, I just think that, uh, it's
• 2:08:58
  Speaker 1: interesting because I think people see one part of your legacy,
• 2:09:02
  Speaker 1: but I think that you would like people to see
• 2:09:05
  Speaker 1: you for something else. um, I look forward to see
• 2:09:08
  Speaker 1: what the future holds for you. And I look forward
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 1: to seeing how people react to you in the future.
• 2:09:14
  Speaker 1: So again, thank you so much for being here. It's
• 2:09:16
  Speaker 1: been an honor and a pleasure.
• 2:09:17
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow. Thank you very much.
• 2:09:29
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening to Misunderstood. I'm your host,
• 2:09:32
  Speaker 1: Rachel Yucatel. Please be sure to subscribe to the show
• 2:09:35
  Speaker 1: and give us a five-star rating and review. You can
• 2:09:38
  Speaker 1: support the show by joining our Patreon at patreon.com slash
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 1: misunderstood with Rachel Yucatel. Do you have ideas for the
• 2:09:45
  Speaker 1: show or want to reach out? Email us at infomisunderstoodpodcast
• 2:09:49
  Speaker 1: at gmail.com. That's spelled M-I-S-S understood. Thank you so much,
• 2:09:55
  Speaker 1: and I'll see you next time.
• 2:10:00
  Speaker 4: The car is beautiful. Where did you end up going
• 2:10:03
  Speaker 4: for it?
• 2:10:04
  Speaker 3: This exclusive place that Dad has connections with. They have
• 2:10:07
  Speaker 3: more cars for more dealerships than like anywhere else.
• 2:10:09
  Speaker 4: You have to put me in touch. What's it called?
• 2:10:11
  Speaker 5: It's Dunaidial.
• 2:10:14
  Speaker 4: Where?
• 2:10:15
  Speaker 5: Dunaidial. There's an accent on the E.
• 2:10:19
  Speaker 4: Do you mean.
• 2:10:20
  Speaker 5: Yes, I got it on Dundale Cars.
• 2:10:21
  Speaker 2: Lift? Please.
• 2:10:22
  Speaker 4: Are you going past Kimmage?
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 5: Oh, Kimmage.
• 2:10:26
  Speaker 1: No.
• 2:10:27
  Speaker 5: Dundale Cars. You couldn't possibly go anywhere else.