The Megyn Kelly Show - Santos Expelled and DeSantis vs. Newsom, with Newt Gingrich, and Mike ＂The Situation＂ Sorrentino's Journey Through Jersey, Drugs, and Prison

00:00:00.620 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:11.880 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Friday.

00:00:16.180 Yay, we made it. Don't you sometimes wonder whether you're going to make it?

00:00:20.080 This has been kind of one of those weeks for me.

00:00:23.340 Today, this is a first for The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:25.880 We've got two guests for you that they've spent time, both of them, with Snooki.

00:00:31.740 Remember Snooki from Jersey Shore?

00:00:34.760 We've got quite a pairing for you to end out the week.

00:00:37.340 Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, did you not know about his hanging out with Snooki?

00:00:42.420 We'll get you up to speed.

00:00:43.680 Followed by Mike the Situation Sorrentino.

00:00:47.040 He was one of the stars of MTV's Jersey Shore fame.

00:00:50.220 And you may be wondering, why on earth did she book Mike the Situation Sorrentino?

00:00:54.820 And when my team first said, do you want to talk to Mike the Situation?

00:00:58.220 I said, no.

00:00:59.800 Why would I?

00:01:00.800 Who?

00:01:01.120 Why?

00:01:01.540 What?

00:01:02.160 And then they started giving me the pitch.

00:01:05.320 And the more I learned about this guy, the more I was like, I actually can't wait to talk to him.

00:01:09.720 So we'll do it together in just a little bit.

00:01:12.000 And I think you're going to wind up as fascinated by this guy as I became.

00:01:15.580 He's going to talk about his new book.

00:01:17.460 Boy, oh boy.

00:01:17.980 His life took some big pitfalls after he rose to the top of reality TV royalty.

00:01:23.300 He's turned things around.

00:01:25.040 We'll talk to him all about it.

00:01:26.640 But we start today with former Speaker Newt Gingrich with a preview of next week's critical

00:01:31.640 GOP debate and what each candidate needs to do as they look to make their final statements

00:01:36.620 before Iowa.

00:01:37.900 Plus, Representative George Santos has just been expelled from the House.

00:01:44.340 Newt is also the author of the recently released book, March to the Majority, the real story

00:01:49.280 of the Republican Revolution.

00:01:51.060 Mr. Speaker, welcome back to the show.

00:01:54.980 How are you doing?

00:01:55.780 If you can see this or not, this is my screensaver.

00:02:01.080 No, it is not.

00:02:02.260 It is Snooki, Calista and me.

00:02:05.740 And it was taken by Jay Leno.

00:02:08.380 So you can see why I keep it.

00:02:10.140 We actually, my crack team, went back and found something about you all on The Tonight Show

00:02:19.020 together back in 2012.

00:02:20.580 Here it is.

00:02:21.020 Thought one.

00:02:22.560 Snooki and Jay Wow.

00:02:24.080 It's, you know, it's pretty much about us as best friends.

00:02:27.180 It's not the aspect of like drinking, like Jersey Shore going crazy, but more like our relationships,

00:02:31.280 my pregnancy, and just us as best friends.

00:02:34.200 Mm-hmm.

00:02:34.740 And you're getting good reviews.

00:02:36.180 Yeah.

00:02:36.660 Maybe Newt could guest star on the show.

00:02:38.440 That'd be great.

00:02:39.340 Drop in.

00:02:40.000 That'd be awesome.

00:02:40.900 That'd be great.

00:02:41.680 You could like drink Ron Ron juice and stuff.

00:02:44.460 Just hang out.

00:02:45.380 Yeah.

00:02:45.560 Do you drink, Newt, by the way?

00:02:47.400 Sometimes.

00:02:48.040 Yeah, yeah.

00:02:48.400 Good for you.

00:02:49.000 When was the last time you just, when was the last time you just got wasted?

00:02:53.200 Was there a time you just.

00:02:55.000 Thinking about coming on the show.

00:02:56.280 Thinking about coming on the show.

00:02:57.400 Well done.

00:03:04.940 All your worlds are coming together.

00:03:06.160 I have to tell you, Calista sent Snooki copies of Calista's Ellis the Elephant books for children.

00:03:14.240 And Snooki actually read them on Jersey Shore.

00:03:17.060 So it was a fun moment.

00:03:19.040 And as I said, I still have as a screensaver, Snooki's right there with me all the time.

00:03:24.540 I'll bet you didn't expect that.

00:03:29.300 No, I really didn't.

00:03:30.500 In fact, I was like, tell him no offense that we booked him the same day as the situation.

00:03:34.820 And they're like, no, he said no offense taken.

00:03:37.320 With all due respect to Mike.

00:03:39.180 Okay, so let's get into it.

00:03:40.180 There's so much to go over.

00:03:41.240 It's a great day to have you.

00:03:42.800 What does it mean that George Santos has been expelled?

00:03:45.240 Because my information was nobody in the history of the house has ever been expelled until they've been convicted of a crime.

00:03:51.860 And he hasn't been convicted of one.

00:03:53.520 But they've been doing all sorts of internal investigations into him.

00:03:57.240 Well, I actually think there have been one or two cases where they were expelled where the evidence was overwhelming.

00:04:02.340 Look, from everything that any normal person could get, this guy is a liar, a crook, totally arrogant, totally untrustworthy.

00:04:12.260 And I think, frankly, he just eventually offended so many of his colleagues.

00:04:17.540 Now, if you're a partisan Democrat, then you have a chance to throw out a Republican.

00:04:21.400 That's an easy vote.

00:04:22.560 But, you know, he had basically a majority of the House Republicans voted to expel him.

00:04:27.260 And the Speaker had made it in an open vote and said, look, vote your conscience.

00:04:31.800 And I think it's always dangerous to do because under our system, you are elected by the people of your district.

00:04:40.700 And unless you've done something extraordinary, it's really inappropriate for the other members to render judgment.

00:04:48.660 But I think in Santos' case, and he kind of said that himself.

00:04:51.800 I mean, I was amazed.

00:04:53.380 He was on Fox and Friends this morning, basically saying, yeah, I know they're going to kick me out.

00:04:57.560 But I'm really a lot nicer guy than that.

00:05:00.080 And I thought, well, this guy doesn't get it.

00:05:03.320 And I think we once expelled a member from the conference, not from the House, Judge Kelly of Florida, who had been involved in the Abscam scandal where the FBI had a bunch of guys pretending to be Arabs bribing congressmen.

00:05:18.800 But Kelly's defense was they did have $20,000 in cash in the glove compartment of his pickup truck.

00:05:26.400 But that's because he was eventually going to take it to the FBI.

00:05:29.500 And none of us found that believable.

00:05:31.860 And so, you know, so he's gone.

00:05:33.680 So what happens now?

00:05:34.360 What happens now to Santos, to his seat?

00:05:36.900 Like, what do we do about that seat now?

00:05:38.380 Because the Republicans can't afford any room.

00:05:39.920 Well, there'll be a special election.

00:05:41.840 The difference between the Senate and the House is all House seats represent the people of the district, and you can only fill them by special election.

00:05:51.200 In the Senate, because it represents a state, the governor can appoint an interim senator until the next election.

00:05:58.640 But in the House, you have to have a special.

00:06:01.320 And so I suspect, I think probably in April, there'll be a special election for him.

00:06:05.960 And given the size of the recent Republican majorities in Long Island, there's a very real likelihood we'll elect another Republican, one who is more conservative and more honest than Santos.

00:06:19.880 Okay.

00:06:20.880 All right.

00:06:21.420 So the other big news of the day so far is this debate between Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsom on Hannity's show last night.

00:06:29.360 I confess to you, I watched a little bit of this and then found it unstomachable.

00:06:34.320 I just, I, Gavin Newsom is so annoying to me.

00:06:38.200 He's just, he kept interrupting.

00:06:40.720 He was dying to show that he was a tough guy, which is, of course, like a note to all men.

00:06:45.600 If your instincts are show how tough I am, don't do it.

00:06:49.680 Don't do it.

00:06:50.380 You're about to do something that will communicate the exact opposite of toughness.

00:06:55.160 That's how he seemed to me.

00:06:56.620 DeSantis was measured.

00:06:57.920 He was scoring a lot of points.

00:06:59.140 But I wound up thinking like anybody would win against this guy, Newsom, because he's so annoying and unlikable.

00:07:04.600 What did you think?

00:07:06.180 Well, first of all, Chris and I watched almost all of it until Hannity talked him into adding an extra 20 minutes.

00:07:12.760 And then we couldn't do any more.

00:07:15.000 But it was interesting to me at a couple of levels, partially because it was actually held in my old district, Nalpharetta, and I'm very, very close to Sean.

00:07:24.860 But also, I thought the contrast of the two states, when you look at the record of Florida, the record of California, and then I want to pick up a second on what you said about toughness.

00:07:35.020 The truth is, Ron DeSantis was the captain of the Yale baseball team, was served in the U.S. Navy, and I have no doubt that in terms of pure toughness, he is tougher than Newsom.

00:07:47.640 He's probably not as mean as Newsom, but he's tougher.

00:07:50.440 But it was clear as the evening went on, Newsom and his consultants had decided that he would basically audition to be Joe Biden's best friend, and that his job was to attack DeSantis personally.

00:08:06.400 And frankly, he lied so often.

00:08:10.300 I mean, I watched Newsom, and I thought, you know, he wants us to believe, I'm talking to you from Florida, he wants us to believe that Florida, with no income tax, is somehow a higher tax state than California, and that the California price of gasoline, which is $3 a gallon more than Florida, somehow is really good for working people.

00:08:31.040 And you go down the list, and you just think to yourself, this is a guy who can say anything with a straight face and count on you to not be prepared to take him head on.

00:08:41.640 But I found, I thought that DeSantis was better than he had been in the presidential campaign, and I thought that, like you, I found Newsom sort of so off-putting, just as a personality, that it was hard to actually take his argument seriously.

00:08:57.940 Yeah, he had no dignity. That's what I was missing. There was no dignity. It just looked like a man desperate for attention, and whenever DeSantis was scoring points on him, he would interrupt over and over to try to talk over the points as just a, you know, that's like a middle school debate tactic, which is pathetic and not effective.

00:09:17.200 Here's a little bit of how he sounded with the personal attacks. Rather than really going after Florida or Ron DeSantis' leadership, he tried to get to him being down in the polls, which he is. That's a whole other thing.

00:09:28.940 But here's how Newsom sounded in SOT 8.

00:09:33.840 I'm the one, I'm the only guy here that's a border state governor. You're trolling folks and trying to find migrants to play political games, try to get some news and attention so you can out-Trump Trump.

00:09:42.720 And by the way, how's that going for you, Ron? You're down 41 points in your own home state.

00:09:49.120 So that's how he sounded most of the night, whereas DeSantis was, he had clearly done his homework on the many, many problems in California, the moment that, there are a couple of them, but two of the moments that people are talking about more than any other are this one.

00:10:06.420 I'll just let it speak for itself in SOT 4.

00:10:08.240 So I was talking to a fella who had made the move from California to Florida, and he was telling me that Florida is much better governed, safer, better budget, lower taxes, all this stuff.

00:10:19.700 And he's really happy with the quality of life. And then he paused and he said, you know, by the way, I'm Gavin Newsom's father-in-law.

00:10:27.640 I mean, that was pretty good.

00:10:30.680 I thought that was close to a home run.

00:10:33.760 Right? You're the king of debating. That was a good one.

00:10:36.720 That was very good.

00:10:39.940 So, yeah, there was no real answer for that. And actually, Newsom wasn't able to answer it.

00:10:43.660 Then DeSantis brought up the disgusting, filthy streets of San Francisco, which we've been covering in the news now for a year, unless you're President Xi from China, in which case they'll clean it right up for you.

00:10:54.040 But this was quite a moment with what people are now referring to as the poop map in SOT 3.

00:10:58.960 It's an app where they plot the human feces that are found on the streets of San Francisco.

00:11:06.120 And you see how almost the whole thing is covered, because that is what has happened in one of the previous greatest cities this country's ever had.

00:11:14.300 Human feces is now a fact of life, except when a communist dictator comes to town.

00:11:19.780 Then they cleaned up the streets. They lined the streets with Chinese flags.

00:11:23.860 They didn't put American flags there. They cleaned everything up.

00:11:26.740 So they're willing to do it for a communist dictator, but they're not willing to do it for their own.

00:11:30.940 I want to get in with the limited time we have left. I want to get there too.

00:11:35.980 So that's the defense. It's such nonsense, is it?

00:11:39.480 Well, look, I mean, I think that at a fact basis, and this is what really puzzles me about California.

00:11:47.580 At a fact basis, politicians like Newsom and the California Assembly have crippled what's arguably the greatest state we have.

00:11:57.200 And it's a beautiful state.

00:11:59.180 And Ron DeSantis was able to say things he liked about California when it was Newsom's turn.

00:12:07.000 He didn't even try. Just to clarify, they were asked to say something nice about each other's state.

00:12:13.960 And Ron DeSantis did it and Newsom didn't.

00:12:17.300 That's right. It was amazing.

00:12:18.900 And then DeSantis was actually very generous in his comments about California as a community, as a beautiful place, etc.

00:12:26.520 And I thought in that sense that DeSantis clearly was better than Newsom in terms of the whole evening and the effect he had.

00:12:34.620 And I thought it was good for him. I don't think it particularly helps him in the presidential race, which is a different kind of problem.

00:12:41.380 But I did think that he did well.

00:12:43.480 And I can tell you from the view down here, he's a very, very good governor.

00:12:50.240 And he's a much better governor than he has been as a presidential candidate.

00:12:54.140 Well, the thing is, what was interesting to me is there are real questions about whether Joe Biden can see this through.

00:13:02.600 And, you know, whether it's his age, his health, or he just gets pushed out as the nominee.

00:13:08.680 And who do they have in waiting?

00:13:10.540 There's an article out today saying there's no plan B.

00:13:14.040 Democrats are in a panic, according to Reuters, because there is no plan B.

00:13:18.620 That's a quote from a senior Democrat.

00:13:21.760 If Biden were, quote, suddenly not to run, however that happens, everyone you know would run, says this person.

00:13:28.880 The vice president scares no one.

00:13:31.220 And he said he believes that Newsom is all over the place, partially to remind Democratic voters that he is out there as an option.

00:13:40.300 And that's what other Dems want to do.

00:13:42.500 Like, we're still here.

00:13:43.580 We're good backups.

00:13:44.660 But let me ask you, Newt, are they?

00:13:46.220 Are they good backups?

00:13:46.980 I look at things like, I'll play this in SOT 5, and I think, this is not good for Gavin Newsom, for us to be reminded of his policies in that crazy state that he's ruining.

00:13:58.300 SOT 5, take a listen.

00:14:00.480 Let me just say something about parents' rights, because he says California respects parents' rights.

00:14:04.440 This is rich.

00:14:05.160 He's been telling a lot of whoppers tonight, this may be the biggest.

00:14:08.120 In California, if you're a parent in Iowa or New Hampshire or South Carolina, your minor child can go to California without your knowledge or without your consent and get hormone therapy, puberty blockers, and a sex change operation, all without you knowing or consenting.

00:14:27.120 How in the heck is that honoring parents' rights when you're bringing people from out of state to go around their parents' backs and getting life-altering surgeries?

00:14:37.380 That is radical.

00:14:38.660 That is extreme.

00:14:39.400 You know, Ron, these kids just want to live.

00:14:39.980 That is an assault on parents' rights.

00:14:42.220 You know what, Ron?

00:14:43.240 It's not for you to decide.

00:14:44.680 It's for the parents to decide.

00:14:46.160 I mean, you tell me, because that's as clear as it comes when it comes to policy and distinction.

00:14:55.020 Sure.

00:14:55.180 And if you remember, over and over again, Newsom would fall back into, if you question this, you're homophobic.

00:15:05.860 You know, so you weren't allowed to question the books that they have for elementary school in California, many of which are overtly sexual and overtly in favor.

00:15:16.440 Of either transgenderism or certainly gay and lesbian behavior.

00:15:21.900 And this is in first, second, third, fourth grade.

00:15:25.320 And you have, I thought it was fascinating.

00:15:27.500 And I would give DeSantis and his team credit.

00:15:30.660 They were very well prepared.

00:15:32.600 They had props, as you pointed out, on the poop map, as an example.

00:15:36.620 But they had a series of these props that were real and that Newsom had to attack DeSantis personally because he couldn't defend California policies.

00:15:47.780 And I think in a national campaign, if the choice was the radicalism of California, which people are physically fleeing, or the alternative, I think that Newsom would get beaten very badly.

00:16:02.120 So here's another example of Newsom just trying to hurl dirt in an effort to score a point, as opposed to defending his state and showing what is it that's wrong with Florida again?

00:16:13.420 And the way Ron DeSantis governs it, SOT 6.

00:16:16.180 That's why the kids were locked out of school for so long.

00:16:19.960 Joe Biden is in the pocket of the teachers' union, and so is Kamala Harris.

00:16:24.280 That's why they fought school openings when he came in there.

00:16:27.840 It's Kamala Harris, Ron.

00:16:29.640 It's Kamala Harris, Madam Vice President, to be able to do all these different things.

00:16:35.640 What did you make of that?

00:16:38.300 I mean, truly, you're the expert of debate performances, so what do you make of that moment?

00:16:42.080 Well, I mean, first of all, my general principle was to be quiet until there was an opening and then to be very decisive and very explicit.

00:16:53.360 And I think that Newsom lowers himself.

00:16:57.720 I think my only advice to DeSantis would have been that he would have been better off at times to have stopped and said, OK, I'm going to yield to you to finish your statement, and then I expect you to allow me to finish mine.

00:17:10.420 I think had he done that two or three times, he would have psychologically taken control of the stage because Newsom just couldn't, you know, Newsom's entire goal, it's a little bit reminds me of a squid,

00:17:21.860 which uses black ink to hide from predators as it goes away.

00:17:27.960 He was throwing up the black ink of personality attacks.

00:17:31.160 And, you know, I mean, I don't know how you pronounce Kamala Harris's name, and frankly, she's such a bad vice president, I'm not sure I'm willing to spend a lot of time learning.

00:17:40.280 She's, I think, by the way, the most likely Democratic nominee if Biden steps down.

00:17:45.380 I mean, people shouldn't kid themselves.

00:17:46.680 The idea inside the Democratic Party that you are going to reject a black female vice president without having a total rebellion in the black women is the ultimate base of the Democratic Party right now.

00:18:02.200 And I think it'll be very hard for them to push her to one side.

00:18:06.620 And she represents the same San Francisco mafia that Gavin Newsom does.

00:18:12.640 They're both from San Francisco.

00:18:14.540 They both represent the same power structure.

00:18:17.520 That's a very good point.

00:18:19.040 You know, you're right about the way DeSantis should have handled that.

00:18:22.800 He did do that at one of the debates when he said, we're all adults here.

00:18:27.000 We're not going to raise our hands.

00:18:28.300 If you want us to answer a question, we'll do it.

00:18:30.240 And he kind of put the Fox News moderators in their place.

00:18:33.360 And it was a strong moment for him.

00:18:35.200 You know, and you're right.

00:18:36.400 I hadn't even considered that.

00:18:38.100 The candidates watching this right now, Mr. Speaker, and I've been told that they're all watching in advance of the Wednesday debate to figure out if they can glean any clues on the questions.

00:18:47.300 You should do that.

00:18:48.280 Don't make me be the traffic cop.

00:18:50.020 You be your own traffic cop.

00:18:51.460 Tell the other person to shut up until you're done or seed the floor so that they look like the rude interrupter they are.

00:18:57.940 And then you can have the floor back.

00:18:59.340 But you're right.

00:18:59.880 Why leave it all up to the moderator?

00:19:01.680 Why not you take control?

00:19:02.640 Well, and frankly, you reduce your stature.

00:19:07.220 I mean, you're talking here about the presidency of the United States.

00:19:10.660 People, and this is a weakness both for Trump because at times he, I think, shoots himself in the foot.

00:19:17.500 And it's a weakness for Biden because there are periods where he looks like he doesn't know what he's doing.

00:19:21.600 And both of those are less than what we want in a president.

00:19:25.540 We want confidence, calmness, a sense of domination.

00:19:30.440 You want a president to be strong because the world is dangerous and the problems are hard.

00:19:36.000 And when you get sucked into seventh, and I thought you had it exactly right earlier.

00:19:40.380 You get sucked into seventh grade debates yelling at each other.

00:19:43.940 You just shrink.

00:19:45.980 You don't look like an alternative president.

00:19:48.460 You look like some person out here who doesn't know what they're doing.

00:19:52.860 So what did it all amount to?

00:19:55.540 It was interesting, you know, mildly in terms of the differences between the way you govern California versus the way DeSantis is governing Florida.

00:20:04.520 But DeSantis, I mean, there's a latest poll out today.

00:20:07.420 It's the messenger, which is a new news service slash Harris poll and conducted online.

00:20:13.920 Four thousand registered voters.

00:20:16.160 Trump is at 68.

00:20:18.420 DeSantis is at nine.

00:20:20.500 Sixty eight to nine.

00:20:22.760 Haley's at seven.

00:20:23.560 Ramaswamy's at four.

00:20:25.540 That's I mean, like, how does somebody overcome that kind of a deficit?

00:20:31.700 I don't know if it's debating Gavin Newsom on Hannity.

00:20:34.580 I think I think it was a clever thing to do.

00:20:38.980 And in the long run evolution of Ron DeSantis, not this presidential race, but just in the long run, that was a good thing to do.

00:20:46.900 I personally think the more we can draw a contrast between the blue states that are losing population and the red states that are gaining and recognize that it's actually policy differences.

00:20:58.280 And that between taxes and crime and bad education system, these these huge states that were historically dominant are all just hemorrhaging people who are leaving.

00:21:11.440 I mean, they're voting with their feet.

00:21:12.900 But I think also my my personal view is when you talk, if you're only talking about the nomination, that barring some enormous health problem, Trump is the nominee, period.

00:21:25.980 It's over.

00:21:26.420 And that the poll today is a little stronger than he was a week ago, partly, I suspect, because DeSantis is weaker, but also because.

00:21:35.260 On the Republican side and with at least half of the independents, there's a belief that Trump is not actually a candidate.

00:21:45.060 Trump is the leader of a movement and the emotional bond between the leader of a movement and their supporters is very different than the bond of a candidate.

00:21:56.360 And with each passing month, I think Trump has gained confidence.

00:22:01.460 Yeah, I think he's gotten better, frankly.

00:22:03.320 And I think that when you watch, you know, the other day, I mean, Nikki Haley's having a nice little boomlet, which in the end won't amount to much, but it will increase her market value after the campaign.

00:22:15.420 But Trump goes to South Carolina, goes out on the field at the Clemson University of South Carolina game.

00:22:23.940 And people are standing, cheering, screaming Trump and 81 Republican leaders in South Carolina endorse him, most of whom have been for Tim Scott.

00:22:34.020 And now they're for Donald Trump.

00:22:37.660 Well, he's already ahead of her, I think, by 43 points in South Carolina.

00:22:44.240 He's as Newsom pointed out, he's ahead of DeSantis in Florida by 41 points.

00:22:51.320 From the people I talk to in Iowa, Trump's almost certainly going to win the caucus by a huge margin.

00:23:00.980 There'll be some effort to stop him in New Hampshire, but I doubt if it'll work.

00:23:06.020 And in a sense, what you're seeing as a debate next week is who gets to be the alternative to Trump.

00:23:12.840 And unfortunately for Ron DeSantis, who, as I said, is a very, very good governor, his campaign was so badly put together early on.

00:23:20.560 And the Trump people were so smart at just taking him apart that the major money class that had been backing him have all given up now.

00:23:30.640 And so they're all shifting over to Haley.

00:23:33.300 Nikki will have a surge of resources.

00:23:35.180 And so she'll look very, very good.

00:23:39.060 Remember, there are two races here.

00:23:42.500 There's the race for the Donald Trump 55 to 70 percent.

00:23:47.320 And then there's the race among the whoever's left.

00:23:50.300 And if you're at six percent or eight percent or nine percent, and we're not talking about, as you know, very well, we're not talking about very far away.

00:23:59.120 I think it's about six weeks to the Iowa caucus.

00:24:03.740 And I don't see any evidence right now that anybody is going to break through in Iowa.

00:24:08.560 And if Trump wins Iowa by the kind of margin he's capable of and then pivots and wins New Hampshire, basically the nomination is over and that will still be in January.

00:24:19.460 And now you'll be in a general election and Trump will focus entirely on beating Biden.

00:24:25.460 So, I mean, do you obviously these candidates are showing up next week because they think they still have a chance.

00:24:31.980 Do you think they're thinking they still have a chance the traditional way?

00:24:36.420 You know, I've been calling it the inside straight way where something happens.

00:24:40.180 You know, Bob Vander Plaats, the family leader, he's just he's endorsed DeSantis.

00:24:45.420 He said Iowa is going to rise up against Trump.

00:24:48.400 It's he thinks he's always backed the winner since 2008 in Iowa.

00:24:53.000 He's always been able to pick the one who nobody nobody else saw coming.

00:24:56.320 So what if he's right and somehow let's say DeSantis wins Iowa and then I don't know what happens.

00:25:04.240 The money people in New Hampshire, maybe they still stick with Nikki.

00:25:07.200 But then you get down to South Carolina.

00:25:09.060 Trump has some sort of health issue.

00:25:10.940 And before you know it, DeSantis is winning the old fashioned way.

00:25:14.600 Do you think they're thinking about that or do you think they're all just thinking Trump's probably going to jail?

00:25:20.800 Something devastating is going to happen to Trump.

00:25:23.140 And I need to be the shiny, beautiful alternative over here.

00:25:26.800 And I'm I got to fight the rest of these people to make sure I'm that person.

00:25:29.540 Well, I think two things happen to you.

00:25:34.160 I mean, first of all, you're in the campaign.

00:25:37.920 You have to believe you have a chance.

00:25:40.660 Otherwise, how do you get up in the morning and go stand at the factory gate or go stand, you know, at the local coffee shop?

00:25:48.840 So at some level, they all they all have this mythical sense.

00:25:52.500 And the only two that it makes any sense for are Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis.

00:25:59.180 The others clearly have no chance of any kind.

00:26:02.280 Second, you you kind of think, well, maybe lightning will strike.

00:26:07.320 So, you know, as you said, a major health problem for Trump or something.

00:26:10.780 Some of their consultants may think that getting convicted would matter.

00:26:16.880 I personally don't think it would matter in the primaries.

00:26:19.320 It might matter in the general.

00:26:21.060 But a majority of Republicans have said to the pollsters over and over again, they will vote for Trump, even if he's convicted, because they don't believe in the process.

00:26:31.420 They all think it's a lie.

00:26:32.980 They all think it's political.

00:26:34.880 So and they know the juries are all far left.

00:26:37.480 For the most part, they're going to be all far left.

00:26:39.060 Yeah, that's right.

00:26:39.900 I mean, you have a hard left judge in Washington, D.C., in a constituency where Trump got five percent.

00:26:47.740 Now, does anybody seriously believe you can get justice before your peers in that environment?

00:26:53.500 So but there's another thing that's this human.

00:26:56.580 How do they get out?

00:26:58.740 You know, I mean, it's one thing if you're down to zero and you have no money.

00:27:01.840 But if you're Ron DeSantis, do you really want to just quit?

00:27:06.180 I mean, isn't it isn't it almost better to get beaten than to just step out?

00:27:11.340 And so they also get caught up.

00:27:13.120 I mean, I thought Tim Smith or rather Tim Scott was was very smart and showed great maturity and saying, you know, I'm not moving the needle.

00:27:22.280 And there's no point in my doing this.

00:27:25.460 And so he dropped out with dignity.

00:27:27.060 But I think the amount of ego and intensity that both Haley and DeSantis have in this thing, it'd be very hard for them to drop out before they lose.

00:27:38.680 Yeah.

00:27:39.260 Yeah.

00:27:39.620 And you know what?

00:27:40.180 Their voters have the right to pull the lever for them and say, I don't care if Trump's the favorite.

00:27:45.960 You know, I this is a moral issue for me, whatever it is.

00:27:48.560 So it's not over till it's over.

00:27:50.240 But what do you think?

00:27:52.160 You know, if you're in their position, I agree with you.

00:27:54.200 Vivek, I don't know.

00:27:55.220 He's in it at this point for other reasons.

00:27:56.860 He has zero chance, according to these polls, at least.

00:28:00.180 It's same for Burgum.

00:28:01.580 Same for I mean, what's his name is still in it.

00:28:04.060 Asa Hutchinson has not yet dropped out that they have zero percent.

00:28:07.580 But OK, there's they're not ready to go.

00:28:10.340 That's up to them.

00:28:11.080 But I think they have their different patterns here.

00:28:14.680 Burgum is a billionaire.

00:28:17.000 He's been governor and doesn't cost him much.

00:28:20.980 And frankly, if he drops out, he's going to be back in North Dakota.

00:28:25.920 I think Ramos Twami is very clever.

00:28:29.080 I've done three podcasts that Newt's World with him.

00:28:33.100 And he's he's created two companies that are worth over a billion dollars each.

00:28:36.920 I think he's very, very intelligent.

00:28:38.720 But I think he really underestimated sort of having a second act.

00:28:45.080 And so he was he was interesting, the first debate.

00:28:48.100 And then he became boring and then he became irritating.

00:28:50.940 And I think he actually hurts himself now by staying in.

00:28:54.780 I think he'd be much better off.

00:28:56.900 You know, he's gotten his name out there.

00:28:58.700 People sort of know who he is.

00:29:00.660 And he ought to start thinking about what's his next dance.

00:29:03.300 Not hanging on to this dance, because not only is it not going to work for him,

00:29:07.480 but the more he is irritating and the more he is too much of a sort of it reminds me of

00:29:14.000 the seventh grade chemistry major who's a know-it-all and everybody else in the class

00:29:20.140 can't stand him.

00:29:22.300 And he comes across that way.

00:29:24.860 And so what was interesting the first couple of times becomes increasingly irritating.

00:29:29.060 And I think actually weakens him.

00:29:32.520 I think he's running to be the Trump alternative that's the most Trumpy.

00:29:37.360 That's where he's landed.

00:29:38.500 That's not who he was two years ago, but that's what he's decided to do, thinking, I think,

00:29:43.880 this is my guess, and I don't know, that he's not going to do the inside straight.

00:29:48.120 But if something happens to Trump, you want to be just just the most like Trump, you know,

00:29:52.600 just the closest thing we could have to Trump.

00:29:54.360 And Trump's thrown enough baggage at DeSantis and Haley that the MAGA base doesn't love

00:30:00.500 them anymore.

00:30:01.120 So there's Vivek as like a wannabe.

00:30:03.420 Does that make any sense?

00:30:05.740 Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.

00:30:06.960 I don't think it works for him because, you know, and you know this because you've been

00:30:12.040 in this business a long time and you know it's easy to think of something and hard to

00:30:16.980 do it.

00:30:17.380 So in theory, he could fit that box.

00:30:22.220 But in practice, frankly, if Trump were to disappear, I think DeSantis would come closer

00:30:28.560 to picking up the Trump base than anybody else.

00:30:32.200 And I think DeSantis' policies fit that.

00:30:35.340 But you also at that point would have chaos.

00:30:37.240 I mean, who knows how many candidates would emerge, except for a point I always read Mark

00:30:42.360 Halperin every day and his wide world of news and find it extraordinarily educational.

00:30:47.500 And Halperin keeps making the point there is an objective calendar and you can't get

00:30:52.820 on the ballot.

00:30:54.020 So somebody decided, you know, he was talking about this in terms of Yunkin, governor of

00:30:58.180 Virginia.

00:30:58.900 Somebody who tried right now to get into the game, they wouldn't be able to get in the

00:31:03.720 first half of all the primaries because they're already closed.

00:31:07.060 And so, you know, if something did happen, it may well be that the only two realistic

00:31:13.460 alternatives would be Nikki and DeSantis.

00:31:17.660 And that would kind of, I mean, that would be kind of an interesting fight to see the

00:31:20.360 two of them go down the stretch arguing over the future of the country.

00:31:25.140 But I forgot about Christie too.

00:31:27.480 We forgot about Christie.

00:31:28.840 He's also running still.

00:31:30.140 I think Christie is, okay, I'm biased.

00:31:32.300 I think he is so dislikable that his ceiling is six or 7% just because you watch him on

00:31:41.740 stage and you just think, you know, he has all the worst characteristics of Newsom and

00:31:46.760 none of his charm.

00:31:48.660 Well, you can't, you know, he's very much opposed to Trump and the party belongs to Trump

00:31:53.260 right now.

00:31:53.900 For better or for worse, it's Trump's party.

00:31:55.860 So it's a very hard position to be in.

00:31:57.880 All right, I've got to ask you this before I let you go.

00:31:59.440 So if you're DeSantis and or Haley and Vivek, those are the three we know are going to make

00:32:04.300 the debate.

00:32:05.140 Christie, we don't think so, but he could.

00:32:07.420 They're tracking a couple of polls where that might make the door or might open the door.

00:32:12.240 What do you do?

00:32:13.560 I mean, I believe you must do something different.

00:32:17.700 You must do something else because whatever they've been doing, I realized Nikki Haley's

00:32:22.740 in the middle of a boomlet, as you said, her poll numbers have gone up a little.

00:32:26.180 She's gotten more money backing very late in the contest.

00:32:30.740 So I'm going to guess she's probably not going to do too much.

00:32:33.500 You know, she's not going to exchange her old behavior for new.

00:32:37.180 But what about DeSantis?

00:32:38.560 What about Vivek?

00:32:39.400 What would you advise them to do?

00:32:42.540 Well, I think they have three different challenges.

00:32:44.680 I mean, my advice to Vivek would be discipline yourself to speak at half your current speed.

00:32:49.840 Say fewer words and actually make sense because he talks way too fast and he babbles.

00:32:58.720 So my advice, he's got to come across as much more mature than he currently is.

00:33:02.120 My advice to Nikki would be emphasize national security and foreign policy right now.

00:33:09.820 You've got a war in Gaza.

00:33:11.100 You've got Iran.

00:33:11.980 You've got and by the way, you may have noticed that the U.S. House voted in a veto override

00:33:18.180 majority to freeze all of the six billion dollars in Iranian money so that even if Biden vetoes

00:33:24.140 it, which he probably will, they'll override the veto.

00:33:26.340 I thought that was a significant bipartisan shift.

00:33:30.760 So she's in a good position to say, look, I've been at the United Nations.

00:33:34.780 I've been in the middle of all this.

00:33:36.640 This is how seriously we have to take the world and to be sort of the if you're worried about

00:33:41.900 being safe, she's the right person.

00:33:43.860 I think in DeSantis' case, he was on to something last night and he ought to go back to it.

00:33:49.220 We've proven in Florida that we can have the best education program in the country through

00:33:54.720 choice, that we can have a great environment, a great economy, that parents can have the right

00:34:01.020 to know what's going on with their children, that we can control crime, and that we actually

00:34:06.280 can have streets with no feces.

00:34:08.960 Now, if you would like America to resemble Florida, then I'm your candidate.

00:34:13.880 And I think he would be better off.

00:34:16.100 He has to do just well enough to come in second in Iowa.

00:34:20.460 So what will be the end for him is if Nikki comes in second in Iowa.

00:34:25.180 And at that point, DeSantis will be gone as a candidate.

00:34:28.500 Yeah.

00:34:29.000 And she is.

00:34:29.860 She's surging.

00:34:30.660 She's at least tied in a couple of the polls.

00:34:33.060 It wasn't much of a race between them in Iowa.

00:34:35.180 And now it is at just the wrong time, though there's still about five weeks to go, five

00:34:39.860 or six, until the caucuses begin.

00:34:41.860 What a pleasure.

00:34:42.840 Speaker Newt Gingrich, it's always great talking to you.

00:34:45.400 Thank you so much for coming on.

00:34:46.540 Well, that's great.

00:34:48.060 And thank you for letting me show you my screen.

00:34:51.760 I've never shown it to anybody else.

00:34:53.220 I love this screensaver.

00:34:55.240 And I just want to share it one last time.

00:34:58.600 There's Calista right in the middle, straight from Jersey Shore.

00:35:05.160 And then, of course, it was taken by Jay Leno, which is why I have to keep it.

00:35:10.240 Snooki, Calista, and Jay Leno is about all I can get in one screensaver.

00:35:14.360 He was such a gem.

00:35:15.200 Thank you for letting me do that.

00:35:16.200 Yeah, the pleasure is all mine.

00:35:18.480 It was a scoop I never expected to get.

00:35:20.780 All the best.

00:35:21.500 Let's talk soon.

00:35:22.120 All right.

00:35:23.080 Take care.

00:35:23.800 All right.

00:35:24.400 We will be right back with Mike, the situation, Sorrentino.

00:35:29.380 Just stick around.

00:35:30.600 Trust me.

00:35:32.420 Jim Tannen Laundry.

00:35:33.820 You're welcome to come with us.

00:35:35.220 Jim Tannen Laundry?

00:35:36.500 No.

00:35:37.100 You drive me, driver.

00:35:38.540 Let's go.

00:35:39.300 These kids are robots.

00:35:40.480 Jim Tannen Laundry.

00:35:41.680 Every day since I got here.

00:35:43.480 That's what they do every morning.

00:35:44.980 Jim Tannen Laundry.

00:35:46.440 You know, that's how they, like, make the guidos.

00:35:51.080 You know, I like to look very fresh and mint when I go out.

00:35:54.040 So, you know, everything goes into it.

00:35:55.860 You know, you got to go to the gym the whole week, you know.

00:35:58.380 You have to have a little color if you didn't go to the beach.

00:36:00.260 And then the last thing that you need to take care of is the outfit, okay?

00:36:04.020 Now, if the outfit is not looking good, then the whole package is off.

00:36:07.760 And if you feel off, you're not going to have a good night.

00:36:09.680 So, how do you get the best results?

00:36:12.160 GTL, baby.

00:36:13.180 Jim Tannen Laundry.

00:36:14.100 Because if everything's put together and you feel great, you look great, awesome night.

00:36:18.320 It's amazing.

00:36:20.700 Welcome back to the Megyn Kelly Show.

00:36:22.300 It's almost the weekend, and that means it's time to get our fist pump on.

00:36:26.340 Mike, the Situation Sorrentino joins me now.

00:36:28.880 Cannot wait to talk to him.

00:36:29.920 You may know him as the hit star of the show Jersey Shore, which just completely dominated

00:36:38.000 our culture for like three, four years.

00:36:40.720 He's got quite a life story, which he recounts in his new memoir out later this month.

00:36:46.220 It's called Reality Check, Making the Best of the Situation, Nicely Done, How I Overcame

00:36:51.680 Addiction, Loss, and Prison.

00:36:54.280 It's available for pre-order right now.

00:36:57.020 What a fun Christmas gift this would be.

00:36:59.500 Consider this right now.

00:37:00.620 Reality Check.

00:37:01.720 It's fascinating.

00:37:02.460 We're going to get into it all.

00:37:03.500 Mike, welcome to the show.

00:37:05.780 Thanks for having me, guys.

00:37:06.900 Definitely feels like the first time every time on air, for sure.

00:37:12.820 That was an amazing little mashup of GTL, which is one of the things you're known for.

00:37:18.840 Jim Tannen Laundry.

00:37:19.660 This was your thing long before Jersey Shore.

00:37:22.680 Yes, it was definitely my lifestyle before Jersey Shore, and I'm sure it's probably the

00:37:27.640 reason why they casted me in 2008.

00:37:32.700 Okay.

00:37:33.320 And we got to get into, first of all, that's a lot of gym.

00:37:37.120 That explains all those muscles.

00:37:38.260 Because it's not just your abs that you're favored for, the APAC that you're famous for.

00:37:43.000 It's the muscles are everywhere, Mike.

00:37:44.600 They're all over.

00:37:45.940 And as I understand it, you can only get those at the gym.

00:37:49.000 But the tanning, sir, what about in today's day and age with skin cancer?

00:37:52.220 Yeah, I'll be honest with you, I've just hit 41, and I do still go tanning, but I do

00:38:00.220 not tan the face.

00:38:02.600 Okay?

00:38:03.240 So I don't know if that, I mean, it still puts me at risk probably for some skin cancer,

00:38:08.740 but I do not tan the face.

00:38:10.660 I spray tan most of the time, yeah.

00:38:12.440 You know what?

00:38:13.000 When you're Italian like you are, it's less of a risk.

00:38:16.120 I'm part Italian, but I'm mostly Irish, and that's, so I got to be different about it

00:38:21.340 than you are.

00:38:22.220 Yeah, my wife says I don't even have to tan.

00:38:24.140 She said you normally have, you know, olive skin, but, you know, sometimes I just like

00:38:28.720 to go for, you know, the routine of it all.

00:38:31.640 So I can't believe your life.

00:38:33.120 As I was saying when I was teasing the fact that you were coming on, I was like, I don't

00:38:36.560 know anything about the situation.

00:38:38.180 I wasn't a huge Jersey Shore watcher, but the show got so big, it bled out into contemporary

00:38:44.720 society in a way you could not avoid.

00:38:46.180 Everybody's heard of Jersey Shore, of the situation, of Snooki, Speaker Gingrich included.

00:38:52.660 Yeah, I saw that.

00:38:54.400 But then I heard about your life.

00:38:56.080 It's like the drugs and the prison and the possible mob and like a lot of stuff in there.

00:39:02.600 Your life has been very colorful, my friend, by any average standard.

00:39:06.840 Would you agree?

00:39:08.260 Yes.

00:39:08.640 I feel like I have lived a hundred lives.

00:39:11.500 I'm very grateful to be here today telling you my story.

00:39:15.360 And I feel that anybody that is watching this show right now is definitely going to be in

00:39:21.080 for a treat.

00:39:21.960 So now you didn't start off your life in Jersey.

00:39:27.100 You wound up there even before Jersey Shore.

00:39:29.700 Didn't you come, you were originally in Staten Island?

00:39:32.580 Yeah, I was born in Staten Island and I moved to New Jersey when I was seven years old.

00:39:38.100 Okay.

00:39:38.600 And did you notice any difference whatsoever?

00:39:40.160 Because in my mind, those are exactly the same place.

00:39:43.260 They're definitely very similar places.

00:39:45.440 It's usually people that are, you know, born in Staten Island, they eventually migrate to

00:39:51.220 the Garden State and naturally what me and my family did as well.

00:39:55.660 Okay.

00:39:56.200 So you write in the book that there may or may not, you can't confirm or deny, have been

00:40:01.420 a mob connection at the parental level.

00:40:05.200 Like your dad, what business was he officially in?

00:40:09.240 He was an electrical engineer and he had his own business.

00:40:12.200 But if you lived in Staten Island in the 80s, I mean, there was really no way of escaping

00:40:18.080 it.

00:40:18.560 I mean, it was a part of the culture.

00:40:21.180 It was all over the news.

00:40:23.800 Like I said, I'd have to say that directly or indirectly, there definitely was a tie there.

00:40:29.920 And, you know, in our home, there definitely was a love affair at all times with the mafia.

00:40:34.880 And I'm sure that shaped the way that I grew up.

00:40:37.140 Hmm.

00:40:38.720 And maybe the way you thought about prison, where you would do your own research later.

00:40:43.840 A hundred percent.

00:40:45.000 That's definitely how I handled prison, how I handled some of the deals that were presented

00:40:50.860 to me by the government.

00:40:53.120 You know, if you read the book, early on, I was presented with ratting out my brother

00:40:59.160 for a lighter sentence, which was just blasphemy to me.

00:41:02.500 And, um, we eventually, uh, knew that it was going to have to take this to the end of the

00:41:07.300 line.

00:41:08.360 Hmm.

00:41:08.880 All right.

00:41:09.100 We're going to get to all that later.

00:41:10.040 And you're one of your best friends in prison who that was, because that's a fun part of

00:41:13.880 your story too.

00:41:14.520 All right.

00:41:15.000 Um, but before all that, you're the, you're a young guy, you're grown up now in Jersey,

00:41:19.160 you've left Staten Island, the fam's in Jersey.

00:41:20.820 And I, this is important to me personally, because when I married my husband, Doug, he

00:41:26.840 was in, he lived in Philly.

00:41:28.280 He grew up in Philly and the Jersey shore is a big enclave for Philadelphia people.

00:41:35.060 So, you know, Mike, I grew up running through my parents' sprinkler in the backyard.

00:41:39.100 I had no shore place.

00:41:40.640 Once a year though, we'd go to Jersey shore and we'd go to Seaside Heights.

00:41:46.480 That's the place.

00:41:47.540 That's where you guys were.

00:41:48.700 It was the highlight of my life.

00:41:51.220 I mean, the Wildwood or the Seaside Heights fringe shirt in the eighties, that was like

00:41:57.400 considered the peak of style.

00:42:00.440 You, you went to Seaside, um, if you were in junior prom or, or your senior prom.

00:42:06.860 So, um, that was the norm, you know, um, until we came along and we brought a little

00:42:13.380 bit of the older crowd, the college kids.

00:42:15.820 Um, but it's a thing around here.

00:42:17.380 If you're from the garden state or anywhere in the area, uh, when the, when the seasons

00:42:21.460 change and it becomes summertime, you go down to the shore.

00:42:25.840 Right.

00:42:26.240 You go down the shore.

00:42:26.880 So that's what Doug's family did all his life.

00:42:29.160 And the next thing I knew he was taking me down the shore.

00:42:32.080 And now we spend our summers down the shore and we always talk about the show Jersey shore

00:42:37.220 because people are like, Oh, Jersey.

00:42:38.620 I mean, like everyone in New York goes to the Hamptons, all Jersey, which is fine by me

00:42:42.620 because we don't want them coming.

00:42:43.580 But you would be the first to say most of the Jersey shore is not what was represented on the

00:42:50.840 show Jersey shore.

00:42:52.640 Um, I mean, listen, it's definitely a subculture of Italians that was displayed on TV.

00:43:00.580 I mean, it's obviously we don't represent everyone, but it was definitely, um, a, a, a really,

00:43:07.160 a microscope look at, um, the subculture that was, you know, in your twenties going out,

00:43:14.640 um, and MTV aired it and it, and it became a juggernaut.

00:43:18.900 Uh, you know, it has the ratings for the biggest show ever on MTV.

00:43:23.000 It transcends generations.

00:43:24.760 The kids dress up as us for Halloween, uh, still to this day.

00:43:29.440 Um, and we turned 15 minutes of fame into 15 years as the show is still on and still

00:43:35.040 number one on MTV on Thursdays, eight, seven central on MTV.

00:43:39.440 Is that right to this day?

00:43:42.360 To this day, it is still number one on Thursdays.

00:43:46.300 We call it Jersey days, uh, 8 PM.

00:43:48.680 It's the number one for MTV and sometimes on cable on Thursday night at 8 PM.

00:43:53.280 That's amazing.

00:43:54.120 All right.

00:43:54.720 So you love Seaside Heights.

00:43:57.420 You're in Jersey.

00:43:58.380 You're getting a little older and you, before you were on cast to be on the show, you had

00:44:05.740 some other forays into what professional life might look like.

00:44:09.740 One in particular was kind of controversial and, uh, you try to keep it a secret from your

00:44:15.380 parents or at least your mother and tell us what that was.

00:44:19.420 Uh, are we talking about the, uh, stripping endeavor?

00:44:22.780 That's the one.

00:44:24.960 Yes.

00:44:25.740 Um, you know what?

00:44:26.820 I was, uh, in college at the time and I also was a waiter.

00:44:31.620 I was trying to be a fitness model.

00:44:33.280 And my first, uh, introduction to going in that direction was stripping.

00:44:38.940 Um, and I was just an amazing shape.

00:44:41.660 Um, women loved me.

00:44:43.940 Um, and I thought that it would be a good idea to, uh, make some spare cash and, um, and

00:44:50.680 also get out for the night.

00:44:51.880 Eventually my mom, she found out that I was stripping because one of her girlfriends was

00:44:59.380 at the venue that I was stripping.

00:45:01.120 And she actually was the birthday girl.

00:45:04.400 So I was the, uh, new young stripper coming out, uh, and you put the birthday chair out,

00:45:10.340 uh, for the birthday girl.

00:45:12.300 And, you know, you're sort of grinding up on, on this, uh, lucky woman.

00:45:17.760 And then next thing you know what?

00:45:18.780 I come home and my mom has an umbrella in her hands.

00:45:23.300 Um, and back when I, when you're in the eighties, you know, mom could have had an umbrella,

00:45:26.760 maybe a wooden spoon or something.

00:45:29.420 And, uh, she asked me where I was, where I was.

00:45:32.140 And I told her, Oh, I was just, uh, picked up an extra shift at the restaurant.

00:45:36.740 And, but she knew because she got the call from her girlfriend and, um, she, uh, was quite

00:45:42.580 upset.

00:45:43.820 Uh, and, uh, my father was in the corner smirking because, um, you know, usually he was the enforcer.

00:45:50.760 He was the, um, the, the person, uh, doing the, um, the enforcing, whatever.

00:45:57.640 Yeah.

00:45:58.380 Mm-hmm.

00:45:59.360 So was that hard for you?

00:46:01.060 Like, I mean, most guys aren't confident enough in their dancing at a minimum to accept a job

00:46:08.000 as a stripper, forget the confidence in the bod.

00:46:10.600 So had you taken dancing?

00:46:12.360 Like how, how does one become a stripper?

00:46:13.780 I mean, when you are an introduction to a stripper, they usually give the new guys,

00:46:19.340 the jobs of the birthdays and the birthdays are really easy because you're really just

00:46:25.660 sort of grinding on stage on a chair.

00:46:27.660 So that's kind of your introduction to gaining experience and gaining comfort on stage in

00:46:33.880 front of a stage of ladies, pretty much.

00:46:36.860 Then there were easy to please.

00:46:38.460 It's like, honestly, we, we don't, we know most guys don't have those moves.

00:46:42.240 Uh, you know what?

00:46:43.480 It was easy as a stripper.

00:46:45.140 I was unbelievably shredded.

00:46:47.020 I mean, you looked at my abs and you thought they were implants, uh, partly the reason

00:46:51.020 why I got, you know, casted and I was world famous.

00:46:54.240 But, um, even before I was famous, women were definitely throwing themselves at me.

00:46:59.280 All right.

00:46:59.820 We're going to need to know how exactly they got so shredded because they really were

00:47:03.380 shredded.

00:47:03.860 It was a true eight pack.

00:47:05.560 Was there an unusual routine?

00:47:07.760 Like what, what does it take to have that?

00:47:09.860 I think it was just genetics, but also, uh, I love to be in the gym.

00:47:15.300 Um, so, you know, um, I would go to the gym for, um, probably 90 minutes to two hours,

00:47:22.500 uh, at least five times a week, sometimes two a days, I would eat good.

00:47:27.240 I would eat meals every two hours.

00:47:28.660 And I was just, um, I was young.

00:47:31.460 I was unbelievably shredded.

00:47:33.420 Um, and people always used to come up to me and they used to be like, listen, man, you

00:47:37.500 should have done something with those abs.

00:47:39.000 And I was like 25 years old.

00:47:40.320 And like, I was over the hill or something.

00:47:42.400 I'm like, what do you mean?

00:47:42.840 I should have done something.

00:47:44.200 And that eventually pushed me to, to send photos in for modeling and try to go for TV.

00:47:50.120 All right.

00:47:50.560 That's a good place to leave it.

00:47:51.640 Quick break back with the situation right after this.

00:47:58.660 Was that the end of the stripping after mom found out and got you with the umbrella or

00:48:02.880 did it continue?

00:48:04.020 Yeah, no, no.

00:48:04.740 Once, once mom, uh, came at me with the umbrella, I was like, ah, you know what?

00:48:10.360 Uh, that was the, uh, end of my stripping days.

00:48:12.800 And I retired.

00:48:15.480 My producers want me to ask, how did the mother who clearly recognized you of, or the, you know,

00:48:21.720 the friend of your mother who clearly recognized you, how does she allow you to give her a lap

00:48:25.940 dance for God's sake?

00:48:27.000 I was really good looking.

00:48:32.000 She couldn't resist.

00:48:33.200 She was only human.

00:48:34.280 Yeah, no.

00:48:35.240 Um, I mean, I mean, I don't know if you've ever went to a male review before, but, um,

00:48:39.760 the, the women in there, they really, uh, let loose.

00:48:43.180 Okay.

00:48:43.680 They're raucous.

00:48:44.860 Um, believe it or not, I've never seen male strippers.

00:48:47.140 I've seen female strippers.

00:48:48.500 It was one of those things that I was young.

00:48:49.640 I got kind of dragged along with the guys I worked with.

00:48:52.140 Um, and all I kept wanting to do was an intervention on all the young women, like sweetheart, you

00:48:57.480 don't have to make your money this way.

00:48:58.500 I could help you.

00:48:59.940 I was such a drag.

00:49:01.680 Okay.

00:49:02.600 So, so the other thing you were confused about, like what you did that was controversial when

00:49:07.540 you were young is you got into the sale of drugs, as I understand it, before you actually

00:49:13.880 took any, you were kind of dealing them while you weren't taking them.

00:49:17.500 Is that, do I have my facts right?

00:49:19.680 Yes.

00:49:20.140 I was, uh, ironically a really good hustler.

00:49:24.320 Um, maybe I turned to that from my upbringing and, uh, the love affair I've, you know, in the

00:49:30.900 eighties with, uh, mafia, um, but, uh, I eventually turned to drug dealing, um, probably around

00:49:38.600 19.

00:49:39.980 Um, and, uh, that's where it all started.

00:49:43.180 How does that happen?

00:49:44.840 Right?

00:49:45.220 Like how does a normal, nice kid living in Jersey wind up dealing drugs?

00:49:50.660 It's, is it hard to get the drugs?

00:49:52.800 Who do you sell the drugs to?

00:49:54.180 How do you let people know that you're a drug dealer?

00:49:56.040 Um, well, I've had various connects over my lifetime as a young man.

00:50:01.680 Um, sometimes it was cousins that lived in Brooklyn or Staten Island and I was in New

00:50:05.700 Jersey.

00:50:06.380 Um, and if you had that connect, it was very sought after.

00:50:10.360 Um, and so that would be the, you know, you would drive over to the bridge in Brooklyn because

00:50:15.420 you were family, uh, on consignment, uh, um, they would give you the drugs, let's just

00:50:21.780 say 30 pounds of marijuana, which would be valued at close to, uh, close to a hundred

00:50:28.100 thousand dollars.

00:50:28.980 Um, you would have seven days to pay back, you know, said debt.

00:50:34.920 Um, and then you would go and you would slowly come back to Jersey.

00:50:39.260 Uh, there would obviously be a process of transportation to make sure that you were successful

00:50:45.980 transporting a hundred thousand dollars worth of drugs that was given to you on consignment.

00:50:51.400 Um, so we had a little bit of a system going, um, because we know that it was a very valued

00:50:58.200 package.

00:50:59.100 So we would put, um, we would have three cars.

00:51:02.900 The first car would be the lead car.

00:51:06.160 And that would be sandwiched in between the product with the, uh, the car with the product

00:51:11.400 with the hundred thousand dollars worth of product in it.

00:51:14.800 And then you had the follow vehicle.

00:51:16.620 Um, and we did that because, um, if there was any, uh, police presence, uh, we thought

00:51:23.300 to ourselves that if the follow vehicle, uh, started to become erratic, uh, they would

00:51:29.800 swerve, they would go out of the way.

00:51:31.320 Would they would just get a parking ticket because we didn't want to get caught in a,

00:51:35.220 in a drug charge.

00:51:36.020 So that was the thought process on that.

00:51:37.840 And then we'd come back to Jersey.

00:51:39.660 We'd whack it up with the crew.

00:51:41.680 Um, maybe you would have 10 guys under you.

00:51:43.720 They all would take, you know, five pounds here, six pounds there, seven pounds.

00:51:48.620 It all would add up.

00:51:49.820 And then everybody would have seven, uh, seven days to give, get that a hundred thousand

00:51:54.240 dollars up.

00:51:55.900 Wow.

00:51:56.640 And then like, how does, how do you figure out who the buyers are?

00:52:00.940 How do you find buyers?

00:52:02.360 Um, well, that wouldn't be my responsibility.

00:52:06.940 I, um, you know, it's like a hierarchy of a tree.

00:52:11.020 Um, so if I had, let's just say 10 guys under me, uh, my job would be to, to, to find those

00:52:17.040 guys, to take the five pounds, to take the seven that would, to, to, that would take up

00:52:22.420 to the 30 or, or, or 40 pounds, whatever I was getting, if they were trustworthy enough

00:52:28.160 and they had a track record of producing and earning, um, I wouldn't question them because

00:52:33.920 underneath them would be people that were taking maybe one pound, a quarter pound to

00:52:38.440 half a pound.

00:52:39.160 And they may, might've had 10 guys underneath them.

00:52:42.440 Um, and, and we were running this business for quite some time.

00:52:46.840 These all seem like possible, possible avenues for cops to come in, you know, like someone's

00:52:52.480 going to get caught.

00:52:53.640 Someone's going to knock out the person above them.

00:52:56.220 So wasn't that scary?

00:52:58.320 You know, you'd previously been a legitimate law abiding kid and now suddenly you're dealing

00:53:02.520 drugs like this.

00:53:03.420 This is the kind of stuff that could get in jail for decades.

00:53:06.240 Yes.

00:53:06.560 It was a very tempting lifestyle, um, for a college kid.

00:53:10.560 Um, I was just a very, uh, risky, uh, carefree young man.

00:53:14.880 And I would, I, you know, if you told me not to do something, I would do it twice and take

00:53:19.680 pictures.

00:53:20.200 That was the type of kid I was.

00:53:21.580 Um, so there was a particular time period where I was doing this business, um, for months and

00:53:29.900 months, maybe a year and a half.

00:53:31.440 And I got tipped off, uh, by a family member that said, yeah, you were one of the biggest

00:53:36.980 distributors at the time, um, in central Jersey and that they were, uh, gunning to, to take

00:53:43.020 you down.

00:53:43.440 And once I heard that, um, I definitely cooled it off and, um, you know, uh, cooled it off

00:53:50.240 means, uh, you stop for a little bit.

00:53:52.280 Mm-hmm.

00:53:53.000 And was it just marijuana or was it other drugs too?

00:53:57.100 It was marijuana for a while.

00:53:58.640 Um, and, and, and I really didn't have any issues, um, you know, thank God.

00:54:03.860 But eventually once I started to move into cocaine, um, and then once I started to move

00:54:10.460 into prescription pills, that's when the problems started to happen.

00:54:14.300 Hmm.

00:54:15.180 What do, how do you resolve that morally?

00:54:16.860 Right?

00:54:17.160 Like it's, it's, if it's grown people doing it, it's their, yeah, exactly right.

00:54:23.640 Yeah.

00:54:23.980 That's how you resolve it morally.

00:54:25.820 Yes.

00:54:26.300 The first one was, uh, it's grown naturally.

00:54:28.780 It's not hurting anybody.

00:54:30.200 I'm a college kid.

00:54:31.320 I'm in, I'm in suburban America.

00:54:33.180 I have cousins that are Italian that are giving me this on consignment.

00:54:36.880 I'm doing it well.

00:54:37.880 I'm a great earner.

00:54:38.740 People, uh, they like me.

00:54:40.620 I'm not hurting anybody.

00:54:41.720 That's how you resolve it.

00:54:43.980 Do you, do you still think the same way about it?

00:54:47.160 What, if my son was to do something like that?

00:54:50.180 Yeah.

00:54:50.480 Or just even about, you know, your own, you look back at that year and a half.

00:54:54.040 I don't know.

00:54:54.540 I get back at that year and a half and I was a very risky young man.

00:54:58.640 I'm, I'm lucky to, to be standing here today talking about my story.

00:55:03.060 I think I've been spared by the almighty above to share my story and my light to others that

00:55:09.020 might be, uh, suffering from either the disease of addiction or just bad decisions.

00:55:14.040 Yeah.

00:55:15.260 You immerse yourself in that kind of culture.

00:55:17.520 It's very tempting.

00:55:19.160 It can lead to bad places.

00:55:20.560 And for you, ultimately it was prescription drugs that, that you got addicted to.

00:55:27.180 Um, yes.

00:55:28.500 Early on, um, once I started, uh, selling the weed, then it moved to cocaine.

00:55:34.320 Then it moved to prescription pills.

00:55:36.860 Once I got to the prescription pills, um, I had a little bit of a taste of it and they

00:55:42.320 say, never get high on your own supply, uh, definitely hold, held a lot of weight because

00:55:48.200 as soon as I had that first taste of an opioid, um, to be honest with you, truthfully, um, I

00:55:55.560 loved it.

00:55:56.000 And, um, and, and, and the, and the love affair with the devil had started.

00:56:01.340 It's such a slippery slope.

00:56:02.840 My God.

00:56:03.620 Can I just ask you quickly, what do you think of where things have gone today?

00:56:08.160 Because I know you, you write in the book about taking a Percocet and how you enjoyed

00:56:13.100 that today.

00:56:14.560 You could take a Percocet for, you get from a drug dealer and you could die, right?

00:56:19.020 It's laced with fentanyl.

00:56:20.360 That's my friend, Eric Bowling's charity.

00:56:22.120 One, one pill can kill.

00:56:23.280 That's what happened to his son because they're getting laced with this stuff.

00:56:27.760 Yeah.

00:56:28.140 It's really bad right now.

00:56:29.440 Um, you know, all the drugs, uh, the cocaine, the pills, um, even a pill, that's not even

00:56:35.160 an opiate.

00:56:35.980 It could be a, a benzo.

00:56:38.000 Uh, sometimes they're, they're, they're laced with, uh, fentanyl and people are just dying.

00:56:42.320 So it's a really, really bad time.

00:56:44.340 I know the, um, the rates for, um, addiction are, are through the roof right now and have

00:56:50.520 been since, since COVID.

00:56:53.520 I, one of the most powerful interviews I ever did when I was on NBC was of a mom, just so

00:56:59.520 people know.

00:57:00.280 And my son actually just recently repeated the story at a school parent, child thing on

00:57:06.000 drugs and addiction and peer pressure.

00:57:08.060 So it's sinking in.

00:57:09.240 And I want the other parents to hear this because you can tell your, your kids the same.

00:57:12.480 The mom came on her two teenage sons came home from college.

00:57:17.840 At this point, I think they were 18 and 20, uh, about, and they went out to a party.

00:57:22.920 She waited up until they got home.

00:57:24.480 Like most parents would do.

00:57:25.800 And she went to bed.

00:57:26.760 They were home.

00:57:27.180 They were safe.

00:57:28.080 And the next morning they needed to leave.

00:57:30.960 So she went down to the one son's bedroom and he was passed out.

00:57:37.220 She thought ultimately she realized he, he had died.

00:57:41.500 And she ran to the other son's bedroom to try to get his help with the first son.

00:57:46.000 And it was the same.

00:57:47.660 He also had died both of her sons.

00:57:51.360 And it was because of this, Mike, they had bought, um, I think it, it was something, you

00:57:56.920 know, ostensibly mild, like a Percocet or I forgive me.

00:58:01.080 My memory doesn't, uh, anyway, it could be pot, it could be Percocet.

00:58:04.080 I thought it was a pill, but it had been laced and both kids had a dealer come given the

00:58:09.400 pill at the house.

00:58:10.840 They took it, I mean, in their own home and they were dead by morning.

00:58:15.860 It really is true.

00:58:17.160 One pill can kill.

00:58:19.400 Yeah, it's, it's, it's so sad.

00:58:21.720 Um, and, and that's how I kind of got started to just really by experimenting.

00:58:25.620 You know, I really didn't have a bad childhood or anything like that.

00:58:28.880 I was a young kid, uh, you know, living in suburban America and I was just curious.

00:58:33.320 That's it.

00:58:34.640 It's terrifying, right?

00:58:36.440 It's terrifying because we, we tell ourselves, oh, you know, if you're, if your kid's happy,

00:58:40.420 if you're a loving parent, they won't start, they wouldn't, they wouldn't do something like

00:58:44.780 this, but you're telling us that's not true.

00:58:47.760 No, no, it was pure out of curiosity.

00:58:50.480 Uh, and, and it definitely wasn't out of, uh, peer pressure when I was, uh, in college,

00:58:55.460 I was more of a leader than, than a, than a follower.

00:58:57.940 You know, I was always a popular kid.

00:58:59.540 I wanted to always push the limits of what I couldn't do and what I could do.

00:59:06.380 Well, so you got hooked on opioids and that is a very tough addiction to beat.

00:59:12.380 So about how old are you now at this point?

00:59:16.420 Uh, the first time around, I was probably, uh, around, uh, 26, this was right before I

00:59:22.080 was discovered for a TV.

00:59:24.200 Okay.

00:59:24.640 And did you go to rehab before Jersey shore?

00:59:27.400 You, I think you had, right.

00:59:28.720 You went to rehab.

00:59:29.880 And so you go ahead.

00:59:33.480 Yeah, no, right before Jersey shore, the, uh, about a year and a half prior, um, I had

00:59:38.800 went to rehab for the first time.

00:59:40.620 And that was, uh, the same reason why, uh, me and my college sweetheart, who is now my

00:59:46.900 wife had broken up.

00:59:48.400 We were going out for four years.

00:59:50.140 Eventually that addiction had taken over my life and my life was unmanageable.

00:59:54.600 So me and my, uh, then girlfriend, uh, broke up and then I had to, uh, go to rehab.

01:00:00.400 And that, uh, is where my journey started.

01:00:03.260 Hmm.

01:00:03.540 All right.

01:00:04.080 So you get out of rehab and now you need to make money legitimately, you know, you have

01:00:09.060 to, you have to pay the bills and so on.

01:00:11.200 And you saw a flyer, a casting call flyer for Jersey shore.

01:00:16.660 Is that your first?

01:00:18.260 Yeah.

01:00:18.840 You know what?

01:00:19.500 As soon as I got out of rehab, I really wanted to get back with my ex-girlfriend who we just

01:00:26.500 flashed on the screen.

01:00:27.520 She was like the love of my life and she inspired me.

01:00:30.160 Um, and I really didn't want her to be the one that got away and she started to continue

01:00:35.080 her schooling.

01:00:35.920 She went, uh, uh, to fashion school and it kind of sparked me to go for my dreams.

01:00:41.760 And so I started to, um, send photos into New York city at the top, um, uh, fitness and

01:00:49.240 underwear modeling agencies.

01:00:50.400 Cause I was just in really, really good shape.

01:00:52.820 And then eventually, um, I eventually was signed, um, to a fitness and underwear agency.

01:01:00.880 Um, and then, um, I saw that flyer that you just spoke of.

01:01:06.100 And what did the flyer say?

01:01:07.700 Like, do you remember what it was advertising that spoke to you?

01:01:11.300 It said, uh, the hottest guidos and guidettes in the tri-state area come to, uh, Harris, uh,

01:01:19.340 in Atlantic city.

01:01:20.580 Yes.

01:01:21.320 And it was, uh, I love this.

01:01:25.900 This is amazing.

01:01:26.580 So you go and was it a collection of the hottest guidos and guidettes in Jersey?

01:01:31.720 Oh, sure.

01:01:32.640 Everybody in that venue at, at Harris Atlantic city were the hottest guidos and guidettes

01:01:39.500 in the area.

01:01:40.260 Everybody had a six pack.

01:01:41.880 All the girls were good looking.

01:01:43.260 All the guys were good looking and I had just come off a high from getting signed from,

01:01:51.020 um, from a, uh, fitness and underwear agency.

01:01:53.940 And, um, I was really excited that maybe I was on the right track in life and I wasn't

01:01:58.460 drug dealing and stripping anymore.

01:02:00.800 Right.

01:02:01.460 So you, what did you, I assume you had to be interviewed.

01:02:04.740 What, uh, how did that go?

01:02:06.820 Uh, I was interviewed and they loved me at the time.

01:02:09.320 This was, uh, 2008 and, um, it was, uh, supposed to be a, uh, VH one show, um, Viacom owns MTV

01:02:18.740 and VH one, but at first, uh, VH one had it.

01:02:22.380 Um, I was definitely, um, told that I was the number one pick, uh, the first guy casted

01:02:27.960 and they wanted to shoot what's called, uh, a sizzle tape, which is almost like a, a little

01:02:33.260 preview of the idea for the show that they wanted to do.

01:02:36.960 Okay.

01:02:37.360 So you wind up getting cast and then you get together with the other cast mates, all

01:02:43.360 of whom would go on to become literally household names.

01:02:47.040 Again, Snooki is the former house speakers screensaver.

01:02:51.300 Do you know how many famous people and world leaders he has met?

01:02:54.940 And she is the screens.

01:02:57.140 I mean, that tells you everything you need to know about the success of this show.

01:02:59.940 So we have a clip from, uh, I think this is from the first episode when the cast first

01:03:03.880 arrives in Seaside Heights, New Jersey and meets for the first time.

01:03:07.700 Here's a bit of that.

01:03:08.300 I'm like, wow.

01:03:20.240 She was like a little miniature Chihuahua painted with some spray paint, black.

01:03:23.780 Yeah.

01:03:24.360 You guys drinking or what?

01:03:25.620 Yeah, we just drinking.

01:03:26.200 Yeah, it's right here.

01:03:26.880 Woo!

01:03:27.600 Give me a shot.

01:03:28.900 Honestly, bro.

01:03:30.100 It doesn't get any better than this.

01:03:31.440 How sick is that?

01:03:31.880 Unless we had a stripper pole, like right in the middle of the room.

01:03:34.460 Don't bring home any wanksters, girls.

01:03:36.480 Don't bring home any wanksters.

01:03:37.240 Let's see.

01:03:38.180 That's all there is in Jersey.

01:03:39.400 So what was that?

01:03:43.240 What did you make of your fellow castmates?

01:03:46.920 Um, I was on, you know, such a high because it had taken a year to sell that show and I

01:03:52.420 was a part of it from the conception.

01:03:53.880 So I went in thinking like, you know, I had all this confidence, but when I got there,

01:03:58.700 um, it was an amazing experience, you know, and I wanted to make the most of it.

01:04:03.760 Um, I never thought that, you know, that 15 minutes of fame would turn into 15 years.

01:04:08.440 Um, but I remember leaving, um, that show or the last day of filming.

01:04:16.120 And I was like, you know, once America sees this, I really feel that this is going to

01:04:21.120 change things.

01:04:22.100 And sure enough, once the show aired, um, it was like lightning in a bottle record ratings.

01:04:29.440 Um, a year later, they would give us like a million dollar raise the first kids to really

01:04:34.000 get that type of money.

01:04:34.920 Um, and, uh, we were like, you know, changing the culture.

01:04:39.700 How so?

01:04:40.580 How do you think you changed the culture?

01:04:42.700 I mean, it was everywhere.

01:04:43.860 I mean, you know, we were on, um, every channel, all the news is, I mean, um, I mean, every radio

01:04:51.640 station, everybody was talking about Jersey Shore.

01:04:53.900 We were getting 9 million, uh, 9 million was the ratings that we were getting, um, which is

01:04:59.660 like Game of Thrones numbers and nobody had ever done that before.

01:05:04.880 Um, I was the GQ man of the year or the sensation of the year, which is one of, they actually,

01:05:10.040 you, uh, they pick many people.

01:05:11.860 I think there's like five or six of them, but in 2010.

01:05:14.300 So, um, we were breaking the mold because in the beginning, nobody wanted to think of reality

01:05:19.460 stars as anything other than, you know, uh, something that they didn't want to watch.

01:05:26.180 What was it, do you think about Jersey Shore that people found so compelling?

01:05:31.280 So must see.

01:05:32.140 I think that it was just so raw and just so unfiltered.

01:05:36.580 Everybody, including myself was, you know, their authentic selves.

01:05:42.300 And then all of a sudden it's like hair pulling.

01:05:44.360 Oh, what'd you say?

01:05:57.980 And it was, you know, a once in a, in a generation type of show, even to this day, uh, all the

01:06:11.120 high school kids every year, they go back and they watch that, the, the first Jersey

01:06:15.320 Shore, uh, franchise, uh, and they, they all dress up as Snooki in the situation for Halloween.

01:06:20.840 It's really extremely flat, flattering.

01:06:23.620 It's, it's wild.

01:06:24.600 Now, did you get along with the other castmates?

01:06:28.840 Um, I mean, the first one I wasn't really using.

01:06:33.420 Um, so yeah, the first one to a certain extent, you know, I did get along at the end of the

01:06:38.520 day, you know, if you're in a house with, you know, eight people, um, life's going to

01:06:43.080 happen on life's terms and you're not always going to get along with everyone, but that

01:06:46.160 that's what makes good TV though.

01:06:48.420 Mm-hmm.

01:06:49.200 So then there comes a time, then you did start using again.

01:06:51.680 And there comes a time in the series where you went over to Italy for one of the seasons

01:06:59.060 and you had a problem because you were a drug addict and you couldn't exactly pack all your

01:07:05.140 drugs in a suitcase and do the carry on.

01:07:07.240 So what did you do?

01:07:08.520 Um, every season, including, uh, starting in season two, uh, to Miami, to all the way to

01:07:15.720 season five to Italy was literally like mission impossible, trying to sneak the drugs into

01:07:23.060 different States, uh, different countries, past security, past TSA.

01:07:28.240 Um, it's was, uh, insanity.

01:07:32.180 Um, and if we're speaking about Italy, um, I had to think long and hard how I was going

01:07:39.220 to get bet by that one, because, uh, you know, we're, we're traveling across the world here.

01:07:44.800 So I thought to myself, um, that some of the other ways that I had used in previous other

01:07:51.500 seasons were not going to work.

01:07:52.900 Um, so I tried a different method traveling to Italy.

01:07:59.160 I, um, I, I disassembled my shoe.

01:08:04.800 Um, and I put, uh, two Altoid cases in each shoe.

01:08:10.140 Each shoe had 200 pills.

01:08:12.520 So obviously one pair of shoe would have 400 Rokasets.

01:08:16.820 If you know what a Rokaset is, it is a 30 milligram oxycodone, which technically is

01:08:22.860 three Percocet tens.

01:08:24.120 Um, it's, it's a very powerful, um, you know, um, uh, painkiller.

01:08:31.000 And, um, and I put that, that pair of shoes along with 20 other shoes in a suitcase so that

01:08:40.920 it would be hard to distinguish that I was actually smuggling upwards of 400, um, oxycodone

01:08:48.540 pills in, uh, a pair of shoes across country lines.

01:08:53.840 And, uh, and then once I got over to Italy and I got past, I guess, maybe TSA or maybe,

01:09:01.440 um, pass immigration.

01:09:03.960 Um, then I had to get past, um, the producers and security protocols of MTV and they were gunning

01:09:11.720 for me since season two.

01:09:13.620 And rightfully so, um, uh, you know, I was rarely doing the right thing.

01:09:18.760 Um, and once MTV started to frisk and go through all of my belongings, which they, they had a

01:09:26.920 protocol.

01:09:27.820 Um, that's when they finally got to maybe my seventh suitcase, which they were already fatigued.

01:09:33.260 And then I said, Ooh, those are the, my favorite shoes right there.

01:09:36.320 Uh, the black feelers, let me grab those and put those on now.

01:09:39.540 So then I would take them out of the equation.

01:09:41.280 And that's how I, I, um, that's how that caper was.

01:09:44.900 Oh my gosh.

01:09:45.860 Was it, were you sweating it out?

01:09:50.100 I'm sure I was stressed.

01:09:51.880 Um, but you're, you're, you're, you're looking at somebody who is doing these type of risky

01:09:58.620 behaviors year after year, season after season.

01:10:01.620 And I'm getting paid millions on the number one show or the number one reality show in

01:10:06.120 the country.

01:10:07.000 Um, so it's almost like I kept getting away with it.

01:10:09.740 Obviously we, we kind of know where the story progresses.

01:10:13.280 Um, eventually uncle Sam would be the one to straighten me out, but, um, it would take

01:10:19.060 a few years before we got there.

01:10:22.400 And I'm going to get back to what happened in Italy, but in the meantime, as you point

01:10:26.060 out, you're, you're a star.

01:10:27.300 I mean, you are like the situation no longer just means the situation in America.

01:10:32.260 It conjures an individual, you.

01:10:35.540 And, uh, so that's, that's the level of fame you guys hit.

01:10:38.720 So you're doing things like, we just talked about Jay Leno with Newt Gingrich and how Snooki

01:10:43.040 was on.

01:10:43.420 You also went on Jay Leno.

01:10:45.140 And as I understand it, Jay and others pulled you aside at various courses in your public

01:10:52.020 appearances to say, Mike, what's going on?

01:10:55.660 Can you talk about that?

01:10:57.300 I mean, yeah.

01:10:57.920 I mean, listen, if, if, um, for instance, your show, you know, if we were doing it in

01:11:02.760 person, you'd see me enter your show and, you know, uh, backstage and I got the glasses

01:11:08.600 on there, you know, tipped, um, my, my pupils are pinpointed.

01:11:12.900 You can tell from a mile away when somebody is that high.

01:11:15.680 And I was always high.

01:11:17.380 And I, I went on Jay Leno's show a lot, um, probably close to a dozen times and during

01:11:24.460 my period.

01:11:27.460 Jay pulling me aside and you could just see the concern that he knew I was, I was just

01:11:33.020 going down this path and that path only led to destruction.

01:11:37.560 Everybody knows.

01:11:38.160 I mean, if I bumped into somebody like myself today, I would pull myself aside and be like,

01:11:42.720 Hey, wait a second, kid.

01:11:44.420 Are you okay?

01:11:45.800 Uh, you know, are you making the right decisions?

01:11:47.680 This may not last forever.

01:11:49.200 Are you saving your money?

01:11:50.700 Like there are certain things that, you know, people like Jay Leno, uh, will be Goldberg always

01:11:56.700 used to pull me aside on the, on, on the view.

01:11:59.220 Um, I remember, um, another person was, um, and I'm such a big fan of him.

01:12:05.540 Uh, Robert Downey Jr.

01:12:06.920 Has a similar, uh, story to mine with addiction.

01:12:10.580 I saw him on the, uh, today show and you're always rubbing elbows with these A-listers and

01:12:17.100 you saw me and you just knew I wasn't doing the right thing.

01:12:21.460 What do you think like Robert Downey Jr.

01:12:24.120 Recognized that you were drug addled?

01:12:26.480 Oh, 1 million, 1 million percent.

01:12:29.900 I mean, when I see people today, um, I, I can spot it a mile away, you know, that they're

01:12:35.840 not doing the right thing and people don't look you in the eye and they're quick and they're

01:12:39.420 shifty and they're, you know, you can just, you see all the red flags and, and I had to

01:12:44.740 put it in the book, the people that I rubbed elbows with that didn't have to pull me aside,

01:12:51.040 you know?

01:12:52.000 Um, and they, anyway, can you go on about how you recognize this?

01:12:56.820 Cause I will tell you, this is a, an Achilles heel of mine.

01:13:00.340 I never know when someone's on drugs.

01:13:03.480 I'll just be like, what a weird dude.

01:13:05.220 And my husband will be like, honey, he was, he was on drugs.

01:13:08.900 I'm like, he was, how do you know, how are the signs?

01:13:14.020 Shifty.

01:13:14.540 You said that's one they're shifty in their, in their sneakers.

01:13:17.440 He doesn't, if somebody doesn't look you in the eyes for more than a second, they're

01:13:20.840 trying to hide something.

01:13:21.720 Obviously, obviously, if you look at their eyes, um, a lot of the times if the pupil

01:13:26.700 is pinpoint, that's opiates.

01:13:29.180 And then if they are very large, that's a possibility that it could be cocaine or an upper,

01:13:34.820 or maybe, um, it could be an Adderall or some, or some sort of speed.

01:13:40.400 Um, you know, sometimes if that attitude and that dismissiveness and that it's too loud,

01:13:47.700 you know, that also can be a sign where somebody is just got a, I don't want to say douchebag

01:13:54.120 on 1000 attitude, but I'm going to say it.

01:13:57.360 Mm-hmm.

01:13:57.960 Okay.

01:13:58.280 That's helpful to know.

01:13:59.220 All right.

01:13:59.920 So back to Italy, you had packed, you thought adequately for your lengthy stint over there

01:14:07.220 to shoot this season, but it turned out your drugs ran out.

01:14:10.640 You had not packed adequately.

01:14:11.960 I guess you were going through them pretty fast.

01:14:13.860 And then a famous thing happened on the show where you had a confrontation with a fellow cast

01:14:20.680 mate.

01:14:21.480 You were, you write in the book about how you would run out of the pills.

01:14:25.380 And so you were, you know, detoxing in an unsafe way, essentially.

01:14:30.160 Um, and this is what happened.

01:14:32.560 You, you had a fight with Ronnie and here's what happened.

01:14:36.720 It's SOT 23.

01:14:38.840 You want to hit me?

01:14:39.760 You want to hit me?

01:14:40.540 You want to hit me?

01:14:41.740 You want to hit me?

01:14:42.740 You want to do it?

01:14:45.080 You want to throw my f***ing pants up?

01:14:46.700 Yeah.

01:14:47.000 You want to throw my f***ing pants up?

01:14:49.020 You want to do this?

01:14:50.580 Oh, God.

01:14:53.440 For the listening audience, he head butted the wall hard and there was absolutely no give.

01:15:02.140 Committed.

01:15:04.540 Yes.

01:15:05.520 Um, yes.

01:15:06.760 In that moment, um, I was going through withdrawals and, and I wasn't feeling good.

01:15:13.040 Um, we had just come from the club and to try to lessen those withdrawals, I had, uh, drank

01:15:19.800 copious amounts of alcohol, which really didn't work.

01:15:22.660 And then me and Ronnie, who really didn't get along over the years, he definitely probably

01:15:27.320 saw me in a vulnerable state.

01:15:28.720 I was like, today's the day it's going down.

01:15:30.320 And sure enough, that's what happened right there.

01:15:33.580 Um, I went into the wall, which wasn't sheetrock.

01:15:36.360 It was probably, uh, you know, 4,000 year old, uh, cement from the time of Caesar.

01:15:43.680 And, uh, I got a sprained neck and a sprained concussion and then eventually rushed to the

01:15:49.940 hospital in Italy where, uh, ironically they had to give me, um, a opiate against MTV's, uh,

01:15:59.100 advice because I remember MTV didn't want that, but they had to.

01:16:02.860 Oh gosh.

01:16:04.020 I mean, was that rock bottom for you?

01:16:05.900 Was that your aha moment or no?

01:16:08.320 Um, that was one of the rock bottom moments.

01:16:11.380 Um, the rock bottom moment came a few years later in 2015, but this was like the start of it.

01:16:18.220 Um, you know, I still had millions and millions of dollars.

01:16:21.980 The show was so huge.

01:16:23.780 I had endorsement after endorsement, uh, my own ab cream and, and laundry bags and

01:16:29.020 lollipops and bobble heads.

01:16:30.840 I even got my own Christmas ornament that I still have to this day.

01:16:33.520 It's probably on that tree behind me.

01:16:35.260 Would you please send me one?

01:16:36.320 I want one of those.

01:16:37.480 Yeah, it's really cool.

01:16:38.460 Yeah.

01:16:38.780 But, uh, yeah, rock bottom would come a little later, but this was definitely a sign that it

01:16:43.340 was the shooting star was definitely starting to go in the other direction.

01:16:48.240 Okay.

01:16:49.020 Let's hold it there.

01:16:50.020 Another quick break and more with rock bottom and God bless redemption coming up next.

01:16:57.200 Also, we'll get to Donald Trump.

01:16:59.020 And his role in the situation's life, believe it or not, he's got a couple connections to

01:17:02.680 him.

01:17:03.020 We'll get there.

01:17:04.320 Hey everyone.

01:17:04.880 It's me, Megan Kelly.

01:17:05.920 Mark your calendars.

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01:18:04.060 Where did the situation come from?

01:18:11.480 I got that name probably a couple months before my first casting call with VH1.

01:18:20.120 At the time, my nickname was Mikey Abs in college.

01:18:23.940 But once I got signed to a fitness and modeling agency in New York City, I went out to celebrate

01:18:32.020 down at the shore over in Seaside.

01:18:34.620 And I, you know, I was so shredded that, you know, my abs looked like they were implants.

01:18:42.000 And I was down at the shore.

01:18:43.300 I had no shirt on.

01:18:44.180 I was with the fellas.

01:18:45.020 And I was walking down the street and a couple that were holding hands, they walked by me.

01:18:51.460 And the female was like, oh, my God, honey, look at his abs.

01:18:55.600 And my boy's like, oh, my God, damn, that's the situation.

01:18:58.140 I'm like, yeah, you know what?

01:18:58.980 I'm the situation.

01:19:00.120 And then next thing you know, at a week or two later, when I had an interview with MTV,

01:19:05.460 they asked me if I had a nickname.

01:19:07.200 I told them the situation.

01:19:08.480 They said, oh, my God, that's brilliant.

01:19:10.120 Do you have a trademark?

01:19:11.480 You didn't have a trademark at the time.

01:19:13.260 But as soon as I left their office, I eventually got my first lawyer and trademarked it.

01:19:18.580 It is brilliant.

01:19:19.720 By the way, when you got the job, when you were cast, we didn't tell the audience what

01:19:25.340 happened with Lauren at the time.

01:19:27.340 She was not too pleased about you getting this role and actually gave you an ultimatum.

01:19:34.900 And you tell me whether you made the right choice.

01:19:38.020 Yeah, we definitely made the right choice at the time.

01:19:41.380 And my main priority was to get back with Lauren.

01:19:47.760 But I eventually landed the job of my life, which was I was offered the contract by MTV

01:19:54.500 to be in the first season of Jersey Shore.

01:19:57.760 I was so excited that possibly my dreams were coming true.

01:20:00.740 And I'm so proud of myself for throwing this Hail Mary and it being completed.

01:20:04.980 But then I also wanted to take that news back to my ex-girlfriend and get her back.

01:20:12.140 And I told her, I said, listen, I got to go on this reality show.

01:20:15.200 And we were about to get back together.

01:20:16.800 And she said, listen, if you're going to go on this show, I don't think it's a good idea.

01:20:21.740 I don't think we're going to last.

01:20:23.360 I don't want to be that girlfriend that is home and having her boyfriend on a reality show

01:20:27.980 cheating on her and me crying at home.

01:20:31.700 And she was 100% right.

01:20:32.780 It was the right girl at the wrong time.

01:20:35.840 Eventually, we reconnect a couple of years later in 2013, and we would never look back.

01:20:42.920 So one of the things that you were asked to do, you talked about the number of talk shows

01:20:46.720 that you went on and the magazine covers you were on.

01:20:49.680 One of the weirdest things I think that came your way was you were asked to participate

01:20:55.120 in one of the Comedy Central roasts.

01:20:59.080 You know, they had those roasts where they bring in celebs to roast another celeb.

01:21:04.220 And you were chosen to roast.

01:21:06.760 Tell them who.

01:21:08.280 Donald Trump.

01:21:10.600 This is back in what, 2009?

01:21:13.340 2011.

01:21:14.180 2011.

01:21:14.800 OK, 11.

01:21:15.820 So long before, you know, he became a presidential candidate and all that.

01:21:19.760 And how'd it go?

01:21:21.080 I mean, he paid me extremely well.

01:21:27.440 I got six figures just to show up for the day.

01:21:30.340 Probably, you know, a very amazing paycheck.

01:21:33.460 They flew me out in one of Trump's jets.

01:21:38.300 And they were extremely nice to me.

01:21:40.360 And but when I got there, I was so high that I really didn't have good tone and good delivery

01:21:49.260 on stage.

01:21:50.460 I mean, I said the lines, but it wasn't good tone and delivery for comedy.

01:21:54.880 And I eventually would get booed.

01:21:58.220 I mean, everyone still loved me.

01:22:00.180 And I took photos with everyone and I made a ton of money.

01:22:02.380 But technically, that would be definitely a learned lesson to to read the material and

01:22:08.420 know what you're doing before you do it.

01:22:11.000 Oh, here is a little bit of you in that performance.

01:22:15.220 2011, SOT 22.

01:22:17.540 People are hating on him because Trump is always firing people, but it's kind of OK because

01:22:22.780 he completely let himself go anyway.

01:22:26.520 Donald, I'll say this, though.

01:22:28.780 Your wife is hot.

01:22:29.640 The best part is she married you for love.

01:22:33.380 Yep.

01:22:34.400 She loves money.

01:22:37.700 Oh, hey, what are you going to do?

01:22:40.120 Hey.

01:22:43.580 Come on, let him do his thing.

01:22:45.300 Come on.

01:22:46.800 Yeah.

01:22:47.960 Jim Ross came on stage to try to save me, but I was so high.

01:22:53.860 I mean, I could probably look at myself right there and say that I was definitely on a good

01:22:58.620 six to eight rock sets at that particular time.

01:23:02.260 I did not look at the material that they gave it to me.

01:23:05.620 And if they would have gave me the material today, I probably would have read it and said

01:23:12.720 some of it was good.

01:23:13.720 Some of it was bad.

01:23:14.900 And I obviously would have practiced my material, my tone and my degree.

01:23:18.240 But it was a learned lesson early in my career.

01:23:20.260 Did you and Trump keep in touch at all?

01:23:23.240 Like once he became president, did you ever call him up or?

01:23:26.140 No, I was thinking about I think around the time that he was president, I was in prison

01:23:32.620 and I was thinking about contacting.

01:23:36.020 I remember telling my team that we should probably contact President Trump for a pardon.

01:23:43.240 And they sent me to prison.

01:23:44.340 And I never did.

01:23:45.660 And now the next time that he's going to probably be president, he'll he'll be the

01:23:51.500 one in prison.

01:23:51.920 So it could be like full circle and be in prison.

01:23:56.940 Those two things could happen at once.

01:23:59.220 You could give him some pointers.

01:24:01.160 And so tell us how you did wind up in prison.

01:24:03.580 That was post the end of Jersey Shore.

01:24:06.180 How what happened?

01:24:08.200 Yes.

01:24:08.600 Well, I mean, if you read the book on the first page of the book, I'm at Christmas Eve

01:24:15.220 dinner.

01:24:16.080 It's 2010.

01:24:17.820 I just made five million dollars about.

01:24:21.500 I have endorsement after endorsement.

01:24:23.600 There's a Ferrari and a Bentley outside.

01:24:25.560 Mom's making clams, oregano and linguine for the seven fishes for Christmas.

01:24:31.480 The black sheep of the family was now world famous.

01:24:34.260 And my brother came up to me and said, hey, it's time to file the taxes.

01:24:38.800 And it was sort of like, oh, man, really, because the year before I didn't make enough

01:24:42.960 money to to even file taxes.

01:24:45.620 I was a young kid.

01:24:46.480 I didn't make enough money to now fast forward to the five million dollars the next year,

01:24:50.600 pretty much.

01:24:51.720 It's a big difference.

01:24:52.840 And I remember my brother saying, or maybe you can get him next year.

01:24:55.980 As soon as he said that, I'm like, yeah, let's get him next year.

01:24:57.940 And that one decision on the first page of the book would end up haunting me for a good

01:25:04.580 10 to 15 years.

01:25:06.860 So it was tax evasion.

01:25:08.840 And how long were you sentenced to go to jail for?

01:25:11.800 I was sentenced for eight months in federal prison.

01:25:16.940 But even before that, I didn't even think that they were going to give me prison time,

01:25:21.400 to be honest with you.

01:25:22.180 Uh, the plea bargain that I accepted was in the zone for probation and community service.

01:25:28.500 And I had zero priors.

01:25:30.780 So eventually when they gave me all of the above, I had to be accountable and handled it

01:25:35.840 with grace in class.

01:25:36.760 But it was definitely unexpected because I was the first person, I believe, in the state

01:25:40.460 of New Jersey to be in that zone and get prison time.

01:25:43.820 So they made an example.

01:25:45.220 I had to just accept it.

01:25:47.780 Were you terrified going off to prison?

01:25:50.040 Um, I'll be honest with you.

01:25:53.620 Um, I wasn't, I wasn't, uh, addiction was so much worse.

01:25:58.840 Addiction was staring the devil.

01:26:00.180 You were not clean.

01:26:00.980 You were not clean when you went off.

01:26:02.900 No, no, I was, I was clean.

01:26:05.020 So what I'm saying is by the time I went off, I had faced the devil.

01:26:08.940 I had faced addiction and I was, I was, I was championing addiction.

01:26:13.300 So when I finally had to go to prison, I was already doing the right thing.

01:26:17.580 I was already on the right track.

01:26:19.160 I used that fresh pain as fuel to continue to do the right thing and use this to turn

01:26:25.440 my L's into lessons.

01:26:27.500 Um, and that's exactly what I did.

01:26:29.540 Well, I like that.

01:26:31.000 So out of nowhere and weirdly, one of your closest pals in prison would be somebody connected

01:26:36.280 to Trump.

01:26:37.320 Tell us who.

01:26:38.900 Oh, uh, Michael Cohen.

01:26:40.560 Yeah, Michael Cohen, whose chicken you really wanted from what I read in the book, you wanted

01:26:48.320 his chicken.

01:26:49.720 He didn't eat chicken.

01:26:51.620 What happened there?

01:26:53.040 Yes.

01:26:53.660 Yes.

01:26:54.120 In prison, chicken Thursdays was a very coveted day.

01:26:58.500 Uh, that was the day that you really got fed.

01:27:00.660 Well, and food is king in prison.

01:27:03.080 And when Michael Cohen first came into prison, along with the helicopters and, and such, uh,

01:27:09.320 overhead, um, I heard a little story that he had a, uh, a, uh, chicken as a pet, as a

01:27:16.960 child and that he didn't even eat chicken.

01:27:18.820 So I'm like, all right, I might as well go up to him and persuade him to smuggle his

01:27:23.580 chicken to me.

01:27:24.540 So I had more protein, uh, and it could help me in my journey to being my, my best self

01:27:30.460 and losing some weight and come out looking like Rambo.

01:27:33.360 Um, so I approached him.

01:27:35.780 And did he give you the chicken?

01:27:38.360 Um, he said he was going to give me the chicken.

01:27:40.880 Uh, he's like, no problem.

01:27:42.260 Like anything for you.

01:27:43.560 Um, but then when it came time, um, to actually give me the chicken, he was actually nowhere

01:27:50.220 to be found.

01:27:50.960 And then when I found him later on, I'm like, Mike, where's my chicken?

01:27:54.440 And he's like, oh man, they're onto us, man.

01:27:56.980 They knew I was going to smuggle chicken for you.

01:27:59.260 He's like, they would have thrown me in the shoe, which is a special housing unit.

01:28:03.480 Um, if you do anything wrong.

01:28:05.180 So I'm like, all right, Mike, no problem.

01:28:07.020 It wasn't, I just thought that was a hilarious story though.

01:28:10.920 It's an amazing story.

01:28:12.340 So like Trump, you were also betrayed by Michael Cohen.

01:28:15.860 There's a long list in his path.

01:28:18.880 Um, okay.

01:28:19.560 So you get out of prison.

01:28:20.820 Good for you.

01:28:21.380 You served your time.

01:28:22.600 You get out of prison.

01:28:24.100 And then amazingly, you really turn things around.

01:28:29.660 As I understand it, you get back together with Lauren and you get back on TV too.

01:28:36.620 Yes.

01:28:37.300 Yup.

01:28:37.720 Yup.

01:28:37.920 Um, you know, we were, um, we got back on TV.

01:28:42.840 MTV was documenting, uh, my prison release, my court case.

01:28:47.820 Um, and then, uh, I got a chance to really prove myself.

01:28:51.180 I remained sober.

01:28:52.320 I lost the weight.

01:28:53.740 Uh, I became a better man in prison.

01:28:56.440 Um, and then, you know, I got to, you know, a chance to start my own family in, uh, in 2018

01:29:02.680 and continuing when I got out of prison in 2019.

01:29:06.300 Hmm.

01:29:06.900 All right.

01:29:07.240 So the show that you were on, uh, on MTV, the new show is Jersey shore family vacation.

01:29:15.560 And on this show, you're back with Lauren, the love of your life.

01:29:20.420 She's been there through the peaks and valleys and you decided you wanted to marry her and

01:29:25.980 that you would, you asked them if they would put it on TV, like the moment.

01:29:30.600 And it was one of the most emotional moments as I'm told by the cat for the cast, for the

01:29:35.740 crew, we've got a little bit of it.

01:29:37.720 Um, here it is.

01:29:40.000 You're my best friend, my college sweetheart, my better half.

01:29:45.280 Oh, come on.

01:29:46.480 Look at that.

01:29:47.740 You make me a better person.

01:29:50.660 Please make me the happiest man on earth.

01:29:53.380 Will you please marry me?

01:29:55.000 Oh my God, dude.

01:29:56.100 He's doing it.

01:29:56.740 Oh my God.

01:30:03.780 Yes.

01:30:04.600 Yes.

01:30:05.300 Yes.

01:30:06.140 Yes.

01:30:07.020 You nailed it.

01:30:08.980 Congratulations, guys.

01:30:12.360 Aw, now that woman must really love you.

01:30:15.560 She must really love you.

01:30:17.180 Yes.

01:30:19.140 So how's that going?

01:30:21.740 Um, it's good.

01:30:22.400 Me and Lauren just celebrated, uh, five years of a happy, healthy marriage.

01:30:27.180 I'm, uh, eight years clean and sober, uh, today.

01:30:30.120 I just put on social media.

01:30:31.600 We have two babies and another one on the way that's due in, uh, March.

01:30:37.140 That's amazing.

01:30:38.520 Congratulations.

01:30:39.480 Good for you.

01:30:40.080 So now is that show still on?

01:30:42.120 Like, how do you pay the bills present day?

01:30:45.540 Um, yes, uh, we are on Thursdays.

01:30:48.540 Uh, it's Jersey Shore Family Vacation.

01:30:50.740 Uh, it is the number one show on MTV on Thursday and sometimes on cable.

01:30:55.180 Um, and as of right now, we have, our, our salary has increased back up to six figures

01:31:01.260 per episode.

01:31:03.560 That's how many episodes do you do in a season?

01:31:05.680 Um, we usually do about 30 a year.

01:31:10.820 That's amazing.

01:31:13.200 Yeah.

01:31:13.860 That, I mean, talk about a comeback.

01:31:15.760 That's so great, Mike.

01:31:16.940 And is the whole cast there in, uh, in the vacation?

01:31:21.640 Yeah.

01:31:21.920 Most recently, uh, Sam came back who she was absent for 10 years.

01:31:26.160 Ron is back now.

01:31:27.800 Um, again, uh, uh, the world has grown up with us and now we're in our thirties.

01:31:32.680 I'm now 41.

01:31:33.760 We have families.

01:31:34.700 It's, it's, it's a lifestyle show.

01:31:36.800 There's babies, baptisms, weddings, who's getting divorced and, uh, different businesses.

01:31:41.620 And now what you see now I'm releasing a book and my new nickname is the publication.

01:31:46.700 The publication.

01:31:48.060 I mean, it wasn't all smooth sailing as I understand it.

01:31:50.560 I think it was when you got out of prison, but you, you considered as I, as I think you

01:31:55.440 put it in the book, breaking the emergency glass and doing something else to earn money

01:32:00.300 with respect to a sex tape.

01:32:02.940 What is that?

01:32:04.000 Yes, that was right.

01:32:05.320 That was right around the time when I, uh, obviously before I went to prison and that

01:32:09.820 was, um, probably in 2013 or 14.

01:32:14.900 Uh, this, uh, obviously there was, it was a monster court case, United States versus the

01:32:20.020 situation.

01:32:20.540 It literally said on the paperwork, on the court documents, the situation, uh, had cost

01:32:26.280 me about $1 million for lawyers to defend that case for a few years.

01:32:32.640 Um, the one that you were convicted on, is that the one we're talking about?

01:32:36.480 Yeah.

01:32:36.780 Yeah.

01:32:36.960 The one I was convicted on.

01:32:37.980 Yes.

01:32:38.400 And then eventually, um, I was bleeding money the, you know, around this time period and,

01:32:44.900 and, and more money was, was coming out than it was going in.

01:32:48.180 And I had always had this sex tape and I know it sounds so crazy.

01:32:52.420 It even kind of sounds comical that the backup plan, the emergency plan was that I had a

01:32:58.500 sex tape.

01:32:59.100 It was a very wild sex tape with at least three participants.

01:33:04.120 And, um, at the time I had to sit down my team and be like, okay, um, I have something

01:33:09.480 in my safe and I, I, it's, it was only in case of emergencies.

01:33:14.120 I'm thinking about breaking it out.

01:33:16.140 And then I told my team, I, I, uh, in the same room, um, my, my wife or my then girlfriend

01:33:22.240 was there and my mother, obviously they didn't approve of it.

01:33:25.380 Your mother.

01:33:26.600 My mother, my mother worked for my, my company at the time.

01:33:29.460 Yes.

01:33:29.920 They were in the same room, but, uh, they obviously didn't approve of it.

01:33:35.020 You know, obviously everyone has wide eyes.

01:33:37.040 Uh, and, um, and then I said, it was an option.

01:33:40.640 And as we went down the journey of selling said sex tape, you found, you find out a lot

01:33:47.140 of stuff.

01:33:47.600 You find out what you got to do, uh, what you shouldn't do.

01:33:51.600 Um, and, and then I, I, I just didn't feel that.

01:33:55.360 I mean, it sounds graphic, but the juice wasn't worth the squeeze.

01:33:58.860 Hmm.

01:33:59.480 When you say there were at least three participants, do we, do we know the number of participants?

01:34:05.000 Yes, it was at least three.

01:34:07.500 Yes.

01:34:07.640 It was three and me.

01:34:08.460 Yes.

01:34:09.460 Oh, three in addition to you.

01:34:11.420 Yes.

01:34:11.820 And me.

01:34:12.180 Yeah.

01:34:13.020 So is it still in the safe?

01:34:15.600 Um, I cannot confirm or deny.

01:34:17.820 I'd like to leave that part, uh, of my life, uh, in the past.

01:34:22.360 But, um, I, like I said, we're now, uh, reminiscing about, uh, some of the contents of this crazy

01:34:28.360 book.

01:34:29.180 Um, and it's really a page turner and I had to, you know, be full disclosures and I had to be

01:34:33.760 raw and unfiltered and say at one particular time when I was bleeding money, I had the

01:34:39.540 emergency sex tape in the safe and I actually thought about, uh, revealing it.

01:34:45.640 And it's, like I said, it's kind of makes you chuckle a little bit to think like what

01:34:49.740 person has an emergency sex tape and it's going to release it.

01:34:54.340 Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton.

01:34:56.680 Yes.

01:34:57.100 Yes.

01:34:57.220 It worked out fine for them.

01:34:58.500 I understand why your mind went there.

01:35:00.440 So in the time we have left, now that the book is done, it's about to come out.

01:35:05.960 What did you learn about yourself?

01:35:07.280 You look back at this crazy ride you've had over the past 15.

01:35:10.220 I mean, it's a crazy ride.

01:35:12.340 I mean, I think that I've lived a man of, of a hundred lives.

01:35:16.480 Uh, I'm very grateful to be here, uh, right now telling you my story.

01:35:20.860 I think this book, uh, is a, is a page turner.

01:35:23.940 It's going to entertain, uh, it's going to shock people.

01:35:27.580 And it's also going to inspire people because inside I detail how I recovered from a debilitating

01:35:34.500 addiction.

01:35:35.240 And I think it's going to save, uh, millions of lives and it's going to eventually be a

01:35:39.160 movie one day.

01:35:40.740 Yeah.

01:35:41.220 You don't seem in any way bitter, angry down.

01:35:46.540 And I realized your life is great right now, but it's just seems like you're somebody who's

01:35:50.360 got a naturally good attitude, notwithstanding the many challenges that you've kind of brought

01:35:55.000 on yourself, but you managed them and look at you, uh, back on top, um, all the best to

01:36:01.060 you with it.

01:36:01.920 Yeah.

01:36:02.280 Thank you.

01:36:02.660 I'm definitely an example of the comeback is greater than the setback.

01:36:06.340 And, um, it's not about, you know, uh, what happens to you in life.

01:36:11.520 It's, it's more about, you know, how you react to what happens to you in life.

01:36:14.800 So, um, get back up, either you get back up or you don't, Mike, thank you.

01:36:19.680 The book is reality check.

01:36:20.980 You can pre-order it now at Mike, the situation book.com.

01:36:24.440 Have a great weekend back Tuesday from Alabama.

01:36:29.340 Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show.

01:36:31.280 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - December 01, 2023

Santos Expelled and DeSantis vs. Newsom, with Newt Gingrich, and Mike ＂The Situation＂ Sorrentino's Journey Through Jersey, Drugs, and Prison ｜ Ep. 678

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