RadixJournal - The Florida Reptile

00:00:00.000 And DeSantis clearly cannot punch back. And that is one of the things about Trump. He was a counterpuncher, but then he's also a preemptive puncher. He'll kind of sense which way the wind's blowing and then start punching in that direction to mix a metaphor here.

00:00:18.220 But DeSantis has just failed to do it. His only response is, I'm just focusing on Florida and we're trying to bring people together here and so on. But that strikes me as someone who's going to have a difficult time counterpunching to anyone.

00:00:35.260 And, you know, in terms of the 2028 thing, I get that that, you know, makes sense in theory. But I don't think that quite makes sense in practice. Because you've got to, you know, like with a football team or any sports team, you kind of need to peak at the right time.

00:00:59.520 And there's all these teams that peak almost in the preseason. And they and then they kind of fall apart or they peak in October and then they kind of hit the skids going into the playoffs and then they lose out.

00:01:15.360 And it's a it's a it's a it's those teams that are kind of just like getting, you know, firing on all cylinders as they're going into the playoffs that are the ones that make these runs.

00:01:27.640 And I think it's the same thing with politics. I mean, I don't if I were advising him.

00:01:33.760 Of course, if I were advising him, I would advise him to go jump off a bridge. But if I were advising him in a way to win, I mean, the assumption that he's going to still be this hot in four years is a big if.

00:01:52.920 It's a big assumption. And I'm not sure I definitely I necessarily buy it. I mean, we have these people who kind of peaked in the 2008 2010 era, maybe 2012, like Chris Christie, I remember Marco Rubio was really hot.

00:02:10.580 I don't think that. I don't think that Ted Cruz will be able to run for president again after barely beating Beto or work and just, you know, the Cancun adventure and so on.

00:02:26.660 You've got to strike while the iron's hot. I also I think I'm getting a little bit closer to understanding DeSantis as a person.

00:02:36.040 And I do think he's an incredibly ambitious person, an insanely ambitious person. And I don't think he's going to leave that. I don't think he's going to sit this one out.

00:02:50.460 The other thing is that there's so much being projected upon DeSantis.

00:02:56.580 So the whole Claremont Institute fellows, all those people are all behind him. They're they're much like in 2015. They're meaning him into existence, talking big.

00:03:09.980 The Jeb Bush establishment Republican side has effectively endorsed him. I mean, Jeb said, I mean, it was the kiss of death, in my opinion. But Jeb said, you know, this is this is this time.

00:03:22.580 And so and everyone's doing it for different reasons. I think he's a screen that people project their fantasies upon.

00:03:32.380 But, you know, that doesn't mean that it's not the time to do this.

00:03:38.060 And I do think it is. And I do think it will run. And I don't think he'll be able to pull out the Republican nomination, barring Trump being sent to jail because of this factor.

00:03:51.620 He just doesn't have that pugnacious ability to target an enemy and slam him.

00:04:00.220 And Trump obviously does. I mean, DeSantis has been thinking in the polls of late.

00:04:05.520 I mean, these are very early polls about, you know, where are you in New Hampshire and Iowa and straw polls or something like that.

00:04:13.180 So we should we shouldn't put too much stock in them. But, you know, there's a decided trend in that direction.

00:04:19.520 Because of this fact. But I did want to talk about the psychology of DeSantis, because it's I actually I'm running a bit on empty right now.

00:04:33.960 I think I'll be fine for this conversation. But I got about two hours of sleep total last night because I got called out to L.A. to do this crazy thing, which I can talk about.

00:04:44.000 But one of the reasons why I was able to stay up is that I hopped on this kind of crazy all night Twitter space and that Charles is hosting.

00:05:01.840 And I, you know, it kept me awake there in the LAX airport to get on a 5 a.m.

00:05:08.880 So I was happy to do it for you, Richard. Happy to do it.

00:05:12.600 Yes. Kept me going. I was about to turn into a zombie length state, which will sometimes be done when you when you stay up all night and you're in an airport, which is this synthetic environment.

00:05:25.060 You kind of forget if it's morning or night and or if it's day or what day it is or who you are.

00:05:31.940 It was it was quite a time.

00:05:36.680 I this is the way that I would look at this issue.

00:05:40.600 So it's not too much to say that. 0.99

00:05:45.380 Donald Trump is a malignant narcissist type of person. 0.99

00:05:53.840 He is. And I think I used this metaphor before on maybe a space or maybe on on one of these podcasts or members only when I said, you know, 0.96

00:06:04.720 Mitt Romney is the type of football player that if he threw three interceptions in the game.

00:06:13.720 He would go up to the coach himself and say, you've got to take me out and give someone else a shot.

00:06:20.260 I ultimately want to win and I'm going to put my ego aside for this one.

00:06:25.240 Donald Trump would never say that he would poison the Gatorade of his backup quarterback if that happened.

00:06:34.720 If the team decided to go without him, he would slash the tires of the team bus so they could not make the game.

00:06:43.320 He would rather the whole thing to go down than for him to be left behind and to be absent of that fuel that people like him thrive on.

00:06:58.720 The cheers, the jeers from his enemies, the dynamic of it all, the fight, the endless fight that is basically a political campaign at this point.

00:07:13.640 Two years of just people obsessing about you.

00:07:17.440 It's very hard to like leave the public's imagination.

00:07:21.680 So I think there might even be a little bit of that Norma Desmond thing going on. 0.67

00:07:29.000 Another grand pathological narcissist who is almost metaphorical in her qualities. 0.97

00:07:37.340 And so that's who Trump is. 0.79

00:07:40.320 It's all about him.

00:07:42.480 And, but, you know, to be fair, I have a little bit of nostalgia about Trump.

00:07:49.400 Trump can be fun.

00:07:51.380 Trump can weirdly be endearing in this narcissist way in the sense that he'll go on stage and start talking about himself.

00:08:00.000 And he'll talk about all of these things that are completely unrelatable to 99% of the people in his audience.

00:08:07.420 Yet it just kind of works.

00:08:09.680 They want to hear him bash CNN.

00:08:12.980 They want to hear him bash Rosie O'Donnell or Nancy Pelosi.

00:08:16.640 They like the greatest hits of how we're going to make America great again.

00:08:22.920 They like him just off the cuff.

00:08:24.680 They really like it when he curses.

00:08:28.120 And he loves that too.

00:08:29.740 And I just, I can't see him giving it up.

00:08:32.140 And so there's a kind of benign quality to his narcissism on some level.

00:08:38.660 I mean, he doesn't want to actually govern or he couldn't govern if he wanted to.

00:08:45.020 And he wants to stare at his television, yell at it and tweet out mean things about people and brag and do a little victimization now and again and all that kind of stuff that we're used to with Trump.

00:08:59.740 And I think DeSantis is an entirely different human being altogether.

00:09:08.240 All together.

00:09:09.040 And I presume that you guys have seen this photo.

00:09:14.540 Now, obviously, a photo is kind of inherently anecdotal.

00:09:18.080 It could be staged, et cetera.

00:09:20.200 But it also is worth a thousand words.

00:09:23.600 As the saying goes, of Joe Biden, the photo was almost so perfect, I can't imagine it wasn't staged.

00:09:32.520 It was just like a snapshot of our time.

00:09:34.600 So it was after the hurricane last September, I guess, or thereabouts.

00:09:42.240 And Joe Biden is hanging out.

00:09:46.000 He's wearing a blazer with like a striped dress shirt, no tie. 0.96

00:09:51.480 And he's putting his arm around a woman who's just this kind of crazy Florida lady, basically. 0.84

00:10:01.920 You know, there's Florida man, there's Florida lady. 1.00

00:10:03.760 And her husband, apparently, who, again, he has his arm around the woman, which is kind of funny.

00:10:11.760 But her husband is wearing a T-shirt that says cracker endangered species. 0.83

00:10:16.840 And he is just a, you know, out of central casting for a redneck, a Woody Harrelson type character.

00:10:24.340 And there's this kind of understanding and love and family about the whole thing.

00:10:32.520 If anyone wants to post that in the chat, you're more than welcome to.

00:10:36.960 I think I have posted it multiple times.

00:10:40.540 So I imagine that if you're on the suspect, you've probably seen it on Twitter or something like that.

00:10:45.520 But Ron is daring with seeming anger or frustration or maybe indifference, I don't know, walking the other direction.

00:10:58.500 And he has no real connection with these people.

00:11:01.780 There was something on Fox News that just came up today that I saw where they were doing a kind of town hall in a diner in Florida.

00:11:10.840 One of these typical kind of types of setups that the networks still love.

00:11:17.020 They've been going to diners for, you know, ages now.

00:11:20.100 And Ron, they're in Florida.

00:11:22.980 People are wearing Ron DeSantis T-shirts and things like that.

00:11:25.760 And it's all about Trump.

00:11:27.360 Because at the end of the day, those people still have a connection with Trump.

00:11:32.140 And they still love him.

00:11:34.400 And whatever Donald Trump's emotional life might be as a malignant narcissist, I can't say.

00:11:44.080 But he is capable of some kind of warmth.

00:11:49.340 It's a warmth towards him.

00:11:51.100 And it's about a loyalty towards him.

00:11:52.520 But it still is a warmth.

00:11:54.140 And I'm just going to be honest in terms of DeSantis.

00:11:59.900 And I do think this is why he's a really dangerous figure on some level.

00:12:06.180 There's just no emotional life whatsoever.

00:12:10.740 There's this flat affect.

00:12:13.040 And somewhat lifeless eyes, kind of shifty eyes, but very lifeless. 0.99

00:12:22.900 And he has this kind of resting bitch face, so to speak. 1.00

00:12:27.780 He's just, whenever I've heard him give speeches or speaking extemporaneously to the media, 0.99

00:12:35.480 I always hear how he's this great debater.

00:12:37.800 And, oh, my God, he went to Yale, blah, blah, blah.

00:12:40.160 Well, all I hear are basically, all I hear is whining, effectively.

00:12:48.420 Just this whining about how he's not getting treated correctly or they're exaggerating things.

00:12:55.320 Or, well, have you thought about this?

00:12:57.320 And what about that?

00:12:59.160 And I don't think there's much to him.

00:13:03.360 It's hard to imagine him giving a rip-roaring speech or speaking with warmth or the twinkle in his eye,

00:13:11.320 which certainly someone like Reagan was capable of.

00:13:13.760 And, look, even Nixon was capable of that kind of thing.

00:13:17.580 Jimmy Carter, I actually, when he went into hospice care,

00:13:20.500 I re-listened to the so-called malaise speech from, I guess, 1977 or 78,

00:13:29.560 that he showed a tremendous amount of empathy and relatability and self-criticism.

00:13:39.220 I mean, maybe too much.

00:13:40.320 But he is someone who is capable of that.

00:13:46.280 I don't think Ron DeSantis is capable of that.

00:13:49.180 I don't think he has any sort of normal human emotional life.

00:13:53.960 If I were to diagnose him, you know, as someone who is an armchair psychologist,

00:14:03.080 I would suggest that he is a sociopath in the sense that he is not at all capable of relatability or human empathy or anything like that.

00:14:16.180 I don't think he has an emotional life in the way that you and I have an emotional life.

00:14:22.840 And all of these photos with his family, each and every one of them is staged.

00:14:31.160 It's lighting.

00:14:32.400 It's basically like having, you know, a picture that you can hang on the wall.

00:14:39.060 It's not real.

00:14:41.580 And that's my take on him.

00:14:43.780 But I think that's, in a way, why he is successful, why he could very well be successful.

00:14:49.420 And why he also is extremely ambitious.

00:14:55.360 Because for him, dealing with people is just manipulating people.

00:15:01.340 It's just playing a little chess game.

00:15:03.580 There's no feeling of like, you know, should I do this now?

00:15:08.920 Or, you know, is this the right time?

00:15:11.900 Am I up to the task?

00:15:13.500 Am I the right person?

00:15:14.780 Can I really save this country?

00:15:16.380 None of those thoughts actually cross his mind.

00:15:19.800 And maybe they don't cross the mind of most politicians who are, you know, of a particular psychological type.

00:15:25.120 But they certainly don't cross his mind.

00:15:26.880 His mind, he would be thinking, you know, who do I have to kill to get this?

00:15:32.620 What do I need to do to get this?

00:15:36.080 Once I get it, how do I hold on to it?

00:15:38.360 And so on.

00:15:40.460 That is all he thinks about.

00:15:43.620 And so I do think he is ambitious and dangerous.

00:15:47.220 I don't think he's going to ask some of these serious questions, which a serious person would ask.

00:15:54.040 Even if you're becoming a lower school principal or something, you know, am I the right man for the job?

00:15:59.640 He's not going to ask that.

00:16:00.660 He's going to ask who needs to kill for the job.

00:16:02.760 So I think he is a, the more I think about him, the more I find him to be a dangerous person.

00:16:16.100 And the more I want to kind of think about some of these odd aspects of his career.

00:16:22.660 And I would, you know, I'm glad Charles is here because he can go into some of these things as well.

00:16:28.840 But let me just, let me not delve into any kind of speculation or conspiracy theory or something.

00:16:36.500 Let me just talk about what we know about him and then think about what that says about him as a psyche, as a, what it says about his inner life.

00:16:47.880 So he, after law school and after being a teacher for a year, it was actually the same track.

00:16:59.100 We're the same age, interestingly, and I also was a teacher for a year after college.

00:17:04.140 Anyway, at a prep school, boarding school, actually, kind of weird to some degree.

00:17:09.160 Maybe not too surprising though.

00:17:10.340 But he was a lawyer overseeing Guantanamo Bay in the war on terror.

00:17:19.940 I mean, he was quite literally overseeing all of this sadistic stuff that became a shame to the nation, you know, in the tail end of George W. Bush's first term.

00:17:37.940 This is a guy who's involved in that kind of stuff, not just about finding the terrorist or stopping whatever. 0.95

00:17:47.380 It's about forcing them into degrading sexual acts, building a little, you know, human pyramid, who knows, pissing on them, flushing the Quran down the toilet, whatever. 0.97

00:18:00.100 And I think there's, you know, maybe you could kind of dismiss that and say it was just a job, but I think it kind of defines how he views politics, which is in an extremely personal and petty and sadistic, but also from our standpoint, or from the standpoint of any serious person, a useless manner. 0.96

00:18:27.100 So, let's look at just a few things that he's doing.

00:18:33.320 He, the shipment of migrants to Martha's Vineyard. 0.71

00:18:37.720 I mean, I actually did a bit of a talk on this, and we discussed this when it happened back over the summer.

00:18:44.920 He picks up, he picks up on something going on in the base.

00:18:49.660 He knows that they're obsessed with immigration, that Trump ran on immigration in 2016.

00:18:53.880 So, what am I going to do?

00:18:55.660 So, he picks up on that.

00:18:57.420 He sees that that's a way to elicit a response from the herd.

00:19:03.680 And he does this extremely personal and sadistic on all levels act of taking migrants who are probably here to mow lawns, to be honest, but who knows, might actually be dangerous.

00:19:19.540 At the very least, they're undocumented, they're poor, you know, it's the type of person who would probably engage in crime. 1.00

00:19:26.680 And he ships them to his political enemies, he ships them to WASP-y areas, the not-in-my-backyard type areas in Martha's Vineyard, just out of pure sadism. 0.90

00:19:38.500 I mean, there's nothing, there's no possible way that that leads to, like, policy or changes anyone's mind.

00:19:47.900 It's just viewed as an inhumane and disgusting act.

00:19:52.780 And that's how he makes his fortune, or his fortune in politics, that is.

00:19:59.840 And he deals with some fairly unsavory figures, and he goes out of his way to find these people, many of whom were not coming from Florida.

00:20:09.020 Similar situation when he perceived, as someone, again, who doesn't have an emotional life or, you know, what some people might call a soul, he perceives that he can elicit a response from the crowd when he does something about voter integrity, so-called.

00:20:34.080 And obviously, I mean, I've made myself abundantly clear here, all of that Stop the Steal stuff was a complete con job.

00:20:42.940 And, you know, whatever kernels of truth might have been there, it was a bizarre, it was a big lie.

00:20:50.140 It's a big, you know, with the MSNBC tagline, I don't care, it's true.

00:20:54.540 It is a big lie.

00:20:55.980 And it's massively self-serving for Trump.

00:20:58.760 It psychologically damaged a lot of people who were getting fed this stuff.

00:21:04.080 It's just terrible, toxic stuff for the country.

00:21:07.760 Now, he is smart enough and kind of cagey enough where he doesn't want to fully jump on board the big lie like Marjorie Taylor Greene.

00:21:17.500 And who knows, MTG might genuinely believe it.

00:21:20.400 He doesn't.

00:21:21.800 But he wants to do something for those people because he realizes it elicits a response.

00:21:27.200 And so he goes after a bunch of average Floridians who might have had felony records and voted illegally, even after he kind of entrapped them into doing it, but voted illegally, but voted in good faith.

00:21:47.660 Now, I would suggest that a prosecutor might not prosecute this kind of thing, might just throw the votes out, might give them a warning, might give them a little education pamphlet.

00:22:01.060 No, Ron DeSantis throws them into prison and gets the whole thing on videotape so everyone can see this.

00:22:08.620 It is a useless act.

00:22:11.240 We're talking about dozens of people.

00:22:14.600 It is a meaningless act from the standpoint of voter integrity.

00:22:18.540 Yet he does it to elicit a response to manipulate people in the crowd. 0.99

00:22:24.980 And he does it out of his own just soulless, sadistic attitude towards the world of, wouldn't it be kind of fun to throw that black lady in jail? 0.99

00:22:41.500 Ha ha. 0.98

00:22:43.280 The kind of guy who oversaw Gitmo.

00:22:45.700 The kind of guy who did the migrant stuff.

00:22:47.860 The kind of guy who did this voting stuff.

00:22:49.500 It's useless from the standpoint of policy, but it's highly useful from the standpoint of statism.

00:22:59.220 So, I, you know, I had this long talk with Charles last night.

00:23:04.720 I've heard a lot of things.

00:23:05.720 I think there's some other things that are worth going into in terms of his record.

00:23:10.660 But to put it simply, I think he's a dangerous person.

00:23:17.500 He's the kind of person you want to isolate yourself from.

00:23:20.580 He's certainly not the person you want to put into power.

00:23:23.680 Now, I don't think he's like Trump without the baggage or Trump, but he's smart.

00:23:28.240 So, he's more competent.

00:23:29.980 I don't, I mean, there's probably some truth to that notion. 0.97

00:23:33.840 But because Trump is wildly incompetent and just shooting from his hip and all that kind of stuff. 0.72

00:23:39.920 But I don't think that's quite it. 0.94

00:23:44.060 I think it would really be like someone who picks up on some Trump memes. 0.96

00:23:50.580 And we have this just useless but absolute statist in the White House. 0.91

00:23:57.080 And I generally think that would be a bad thing. 0.87

00:24:02.660 And, you know, I don't know what to say.

00:24:06.280 It's kind of a 99% of a chance it's not going to happen.

00:24:11.780 But I don't think it would be good for someone like that to be in power when people like myself and us are criticizing him or even demeaning him.

00:24:27.280 Just today, he has proposed a bill or signed a bill.

00:24:32.920 I'll have to go check on this.

00:24:35.000 In which all bloggers that discuss an elected official in Florida have to register and report to the state what they have blogged about.

00:24:46.400 Now, that kind of seems like a, I don't know.

00:24:49.500 I don't know if it's technically a First Amendment violation.

00:24:52.260 I mean, it's obviously they're not at least ostensibly suppressing anyone's speech or things like that.

00:24:58.740 But they will fine you if you aren't registered.

00:25:02.200 And that does create a kind of chilling effect.

00:25:06.840 So there is a very strong, I mean, it's pretty unprecedented from what I can tell.

00:25:13.560 Obviously, you know, to interview the White House press secretary, you've got to, you know, have an in and be with a legit institution, etc.

00:25:22.940 But this notion of if you're going to write about politics that you have to register with the state of Florida, that is use your own name and social security number and address.

00:25:34.080 I mean, this kind of stuff, again, you can say it's fascist or whatever.

00:25:39.500 Well, fascists actually had an ideology and a vision and an aesthetic and so on.

00:25:45.160 Although, granted, they probably would do some tactics like this.

00:25:49.860 But it's almost like fascism without the fascism.

00:25:52.420 It's just pure, sadistic authoritarianism and authoritarianism for no reason outside of someone who desperately seeks power.

00:26:05.660 So anyway, these are my initial thoughts on DeSantis.

00:26:10.860 We can talk about some other things, but I think it is worth talking about DeSantis.

00:26:15.660 But, you know, just to sum up, I definitely think he's running.

00:26:21.540 I don't think he can win, but he definitely has the ruthless will to win.

00:26:27.360 And I think having someone like that in any place of authority is really horrible.

00:26:35.980 I mean, it's just kind of amazing.

00:26:38.520 Just as a little aside here, I mean, we were joking about this last night.

00:26:42.580 I mean, what in the hell has happened to us where Florida has become this model state for conservatives?

00:26:51.000 It's like free state Florida in Tucker Carlson's mind and things like that.

00:26:55.920 Florida is leaning red because there are these, you know, tens or hundreds of thousands of billions, perhaps, retirees who are going down there.

00:27:07.000 They're going to vote right wing.

00:27:09.040 No surprise.

00:27:09.880 But, I mean, I've been to Florida a little bit.

00:27:14.360 It struck me as a, you know, it can be nice in places as a kind of soulless type place.

00:27:19.660 And in many ways, as we, I think Chuck joked last night at 2 a.m.,

00:27:25.280 Disney World is actually the most authentic, real aspect of Florida.

00:27:32.600 The rest of it is totally fake, if you get my drift.

00:27:36.360 So anyway, those are just my thoughts.

00:27:38.260 Charles, do you want to add in a little bit more on kind of the, your assessment of his background and kind of like who's funding him?

00:27:50.780 That kind of stuff?

00:27:52.320 Yeah, sure.

00:27:52.860 I mean, do you want me to talk about how I know him or what would you?

00:27:57.880 Sure.

00:27:58.420 Whatever, wherever you want to start.

00:27:59.780 How you know him, sure.

00:28:00.900 By the way, on the, on the Vertol flights, so they actually went to pick them up in San Antonio, weirdly, these Venezuelans. 1.00

00:28:12.840 They then flew.

00:28:14.520 And there's like a whole federal lawsuit about it and everything.

00:28:17.520 And it was interesting, you know, Gates and I were talking about it and Gates was like, Gates and I were chatting about it.

00:28:26.420 We were going back and forth about it. 0.97

00:28:28.280 And he's like, man, I can't believe he had the, like the balls to actually do this. 0.99

00:28:34.040 Right. 0.97

00:28:34.500 He's like, this is kind of the thing that like you and I would have talked about and laughed about, but he actually like went ahead and did it.

00:28:42.000 And I think there's a level of like audacity to him.

00:28:47.860 He human trafficked Venezuelans, basically.

00:28:52.060 Yeah.

00:28:52.920 And like, I mean, human trafficking to own the libs.

00:28:58.560 I mean, maybe.

00:28:59.540 Right.

00:29:00.800 You know, maybe.

00:29:03.880 So let me put it like a little, you know, kind of further back.

00:29:07.540 So I first met him through a guy named Mike McClellan and Mike McClellan was involved with the Republican Party politics, you know, is involved in Orange County, California.

00:29:21.820 He's a sort of attorney type and he very, very sharp, you know, guy.

00:29:27.080 He he had me over for his home for Thanksgiving one time, you know, so we were sort of we're sort of friends, if you will.

00:29:33.260 And he has he was DeSantis, his roommate at Yale.

00:29:38.660 OK.

00:29:39.540 And.

00:29:41.320 You know, first introduced to DeSantis from this kind of like, you know, Yaley, you know, he's sort of, you know, big talking lawyer type was like, oh, what was he like as a roommate?

00:29:55.960 And he's like, extremely dedicated, extremely focused, just a total grind at all times, just like he will do the work, you give him the orders, but he is not creative.

00:30:08.320 He's decisive, not creative.

00:30:10.640 Sort of the takeaway.

00:30:12.580 And I met him in Florida.

00:30:14.940 You know, he was engaged in all these like weird Jewish things. 1.00

00:30:18.120 Like he'd go to like the David Horowitz Center.

00:30:20.600 He was sort of very close with Ike Perlmutter, the Israeli intelligence officer ultimately helped, you know, take over.

00:30:29.480 He basically stole Marvel from Stan Lee and then sold it to Disney.

00:30:33.300 And one of the things that I've kind of come away with on the on the Disney kind of front is that, like, this is proper fascism, like make no mistake about it.

00:30:45.160 Like he's trying to shake down a company to get it to change.

00:30:50.340 Right.

00:30:50.900 I mean, like, you know, using the power of the state to do so.

00:30:55.340 So anyway, I met him.

00:30:57.180 He was very, very close to Sheldon Adelson.

00:30:59.420 He's very close to Miriam Adelson.

00:31:01.120 He wanted my help to get Peter Thiel to back him in the 2018 race.

00:31:06.680 I ultimately declined to support him in the 2018 race.

00:31:10.760 I thought there was something about him that disturbed me about him and which, you know, continues to disturb me to this day.

00:31:17.580 He has no old friends.

00:31:20.400 You know, the one old friend that he has.

00:31:22.560 The one and only friend that he has is, you know, was this guy, Kent Sturman, who shot himself in the head back in December after he was having an affair with his babysitter, tried to shake him down.

00:31:36.180 And Kent Sturman is, you know, he was himself kind of like somebody who moved around soldiers.

00:31:46.640 Right.

00:31:47.020 That was his sort of like he had like a moving job, basically, like a moving business and had terrible reports.

00:31:52.440 You know, it was sort of like grifting kind of military contractor world.

00:31:56.780 And ultimately, he was giving, renting DeSantis his home.

00:32:02.320 In Jacksonville.

00:32:04.200 And it became a sort of ethics issue.

00:32:07.220 Ultimately, it didn't come to anything.

00:32:10.000 Because DeSantis had won the governorship of Florida.

00:32:13.500 Matt Gaetz and I were heavily involved in staffing his administration.

00:32:19.100 Gaetz was the head of the, that was involved in, as the chair of that whole operation.

00:32:26.220 You know, sort of the, and I was involved as well, because we all kind of knew that DeSantis was running for president, that he has always been running for president.

00:32:33.880 And he is a sort of, the way I would describe him is he's kind of the mob son, done well.

00:32:44.040 You know, so the question is, with DeSantis, is the big question, the one I have not figured out the answer to, is, is he just the puppet of all these rich people?

00:32:56.440 Or is he so, you know, sociopathic that he basically is using them, too, to achieve his objective?

00:33:07.780 You know, that I don't know.

00:33:10.760 That's the sort of big question that I think, I think is sort of unclear at the moment.

00:33:15.040 So, yeah.

00:33:16.160 What else can I say about him?

00:33:17.520 I mean, he never looks you in the eye.

00:33:20.360 Not once.

00:33:21.180 He never, you know, he never, you know, he is, the only person he's very close to is his wife, who essentially tells him what to do on most, most occasions.

00:33:35.320 I've been, I've been around them when they're together.

00:33:39.880 And he's like, you know, he's very autistic in kind of how he behaves.

00:33:45.040 Like, she'll say, do this, Ron, and he'll do it.

00:33:47.760 Like, it's like she's talking to one of their children.

00:33:50.140 It's a very strange dynamic.

00:33:52.900 The rumor is, is that he was sexually abused while he was on the baseball team.

00:33:58.280 And I see elements of that, you know, and how I interact with him.

00:34:02.980 And indeed, that is the rumor in Florida politics.

00:34:06.600 He has an extremely interesting spat of luck that has helped him in all kinds of ways.

00:34:13.140 There was a Democrat who was polling higher than him.

00:34:16.400 This guy, who I put it up in the jumbo, Greg Evers, who was actually a friend of Matt Gaetz, even though he was Democrat.

00:34:25.320 And he was killed in a car crash in 2017.

00:34:30.160 A single, you know, sort of a single car crash.

00:34:33.620 There are conspiracy theories that he was assassinated in Florida.

00:34:38.420 I don't know what I believe about that, just being totally honest with you.

00:34:45.800 You know, DeSantis, he has all kinds of Israelis around him, has had all kinds of Israelis around him his whole career.

00:34:53.360 I think he's got no fewer than seven times to Florida.

00:34:56.540 And I know Tom has a video of him, like, talking to some Chabad rabbis, which maybe we can put up in the chat.

00:35:05.980 But he is very connected with a lot of the Chabad types.

00:35:13.140 He's very connected with a lot of the Italian mob types.

00:35:16.100 And he's very connected with a lot of just your standard, you know, neocon Republican types.

00:35:22.980 The Bush family itself is split over DeSantis.

00:35:29.260 Jeb sees it as an opportunity to kind of punish Trump.

00:35:32.440 Sure.

00:35:33.120 How it's been explained to me.

00:35:35.660 I don't know.

00:35:36.900 You know, I couldn't say.

00:35:38.220 That's obvious.

00:35:39.300 Yeah. 0.96

00:35:40.400 His butt is still hurt from 2016. 0.97

00:35:43.560 There's no question. 0.98

00:35:45.040 Yep.

00:35:45.380 There's a great photo.

00:35:46.880 I put it up in the Jumbotron of the space where he was.

00:35:51.240 Oh, yes.

00:35:52.040 I think the quote about Tom's right to mention this, when I met him, I met him through, again, I'd met him on numerous occasions, but he seems to forget very selectively.

00:36:04.320 He wanted my help with Teal, and he gave Matt, you know, had Matt Gates give him his, give me his State of the Union seat on the guise that might help him raise money from Teal.

00:36:20.480 And he told me, at one point, when I met him at the Trump Hotel, that it was, you know, better, better, basically, if the Jews run everything. 0.86

00:36:31.880 That was like a direct quote.

00:36:33.360 Like, I think he was trying to be funny, but I never forgot that.

00:36:37.460 That obviously stayed with me.

00:36:39.320 He, you know, he is a sort of like weird evangelical type, which is, I think, very strange for an Italian man, right?

00:36:50.380 I'm always kind of deeply suspicious of Italians that convert to sort of Protestantism. 1.00

00:36:55.360 Protestantism, you know, it's sort of like, not the natural habitat.

00:36:59.000 Which denomination, so he's in a non-denomination denomination.

00:37:03.840 Basically, he's an evangelical Christian.

00:37:06.580 I think that's right, yeah.

00:37:07.860 I don't know what his actual, I know he's a Protestant, because I was trying to talk to him about Catholic matters at one point.

00:37:14.480 And, you know, somebody sort of took me aside, because I just assumed that he was Catholic, given, you know, he's Italian, right?

00:37:22.240 I don't know.

00:37:23.260 I just sort of made that assumption.

00:37:25.400 And somebody took me aside and was like, no, he was raised Roman Catholic, but basically he goes to all these, you know, basically these weird evangelical churches.

00:37:35.620 And even on his Wikipedia, it says that he's Roman Catholic, you know, it's clearly, like, not true.

00:37:43.160 Like, if he's Roman Catholic, he's, like, no Roman Catholic that I've ever encountered.

00:37:50.020 You know, his, there are all kinds of rumors about how he met his wife.

00:37:55.540 It has a sort of, like, assigned wife, you know, feel to it.

00:37:59.380 He was something of a womanizer way back when, you know, which kind of is actually, I think, one of his more endearing qualities.

00:38:09.800 But the women that we sort of have, you know, that we know that he was sort of dated or whatever, they do not regard him as fondly as the ones who dated Trump.

00:38:20.060 There's a sort of, like, fear around him, which, again, fits your sociopath kind of thing.

00:38:26.720 There's the sister, the sister died under very suspicious circumstances, sort of more that could be said there, I think, at some point.

00:38:38.160 And, yeah, her, he's, basically, he joins, he becomes a JAG officer, and he marries Jill Casey Black, who's from Troy, Ohio.

00:38:49.920 And she is, you know, it's basically Miami, Ohio, you know, kind of area.

00:38:58.160 She is, you know, a newscaster.

00:39:01.860 You know, it's sort of, one gets the impression when you're around them that they are, like, auditioning for some kind of play.

00:39:08.580 There's no, like, warmth there.

00:39:10.660 I think you nailed that quite right, you know, as somebody who's seen them around each other.

00:39:15.620 I mean, even among political wives, it's a very strange dynamic, or your political marriages, it's very strange.

00:39:25.640 And then, you know, her father, I think, was an Air Force officer.

00:39:29.240 You know, he himself was in the Navy.

00:39:31.040 You know, there's sort of, like, this military aspect to them, sort of neocon in that way.

00:39:38.940 What else can I say about them?

00:39:40.040 I mean, they're a strange bunch.

00:39:42.560 And I, frankly, was very surprised that he won.

00:39:47.220 And then, you know, Joel Greenberg, the guy who got in trouble,

00:39:52.140 Joel Greenberg, who got in trouble in all kinds of interesting ways,

00:39:57.500 you know, told me about the whole situation with,

00:40:02.760 What can I say about this?

00:40:07.220 Basically, he told me that there was all these photos about,

00:40:11.980 about, with Gillum basically being a homosexual. 0.80

00:40:18.140 And I was like, oh, that's kind of crazy.

00:40:19.540 Like, so, my read, excuse me, is that the Israelis kind of knew

00:40:26.100 that Gillum had some dirt on him, and they sort of played both sides of it. 0.96

00:40:30.760 They had Gillum compromise on the sex stuff and on the homosexual white stuff and drugs. 0.94

00:40:38.600 And then on the other side of it, they had, they had DeSantis. 0.65

00:40:43.380 I mean, he's sort of their pet for all intents and purposes.

00:40:46.260 But, yeah, he, he creeps me out.

00:40:49.140 I mean, I've met a lot of people.

00:40:51.120 I will do pretty much anything I can to defeat him.

00:40:55.020 I'm that worried about him.

00:40:57.280 And I don't really get all that worried about these things.

RadixJournal - March 03, 2023

The Florida Reptile

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