Transcript of #BecauseMiami: Who the F-ck is Rob Piper?

Now to an exclusive surrounding how millions of taxpayer dollars were diverted into the Hope Florida Foundation. Money that was supposed to help poor, sick children instead found its way into a political campaign.

CBS News Miami has obtained a copy of the sealed grand jury report that found the DeSantis administration misappropriated $10 million of taxpayer money into a political action committee controlled by his then chief of staff.

For more than a year, both Governor Ron DeSantis and Attorney General James Uthmeyer have dismissed questions regarding the diversion of $10 million of taxpayer money from a Medicaid settlement into the Hope Florida Foundation. A state grand jury says that it found significant wrongdoing. In a stunning 19-page summary of the grand jury's investigation, jurors concluded taxpayer money was misappropriated and was part of a sophisticated scheme to fund political activities. Despite our finding that the money was misappropriated, we find insufficient evidence to charge anyone criminally, the report concluded. Nobody will take responsibility for deciding that $10 million of taxpayer money would go to Hope Florida or had any memory of who made it. While we can't prove who is responsible, we can plainly see that taxpayer money was misused for political purposes. The grand jury report could have been made public in February under Florida law, but a source familiar with the proceedings told CBS Miami that several individuals named in the report, including Uthmeyer, have been delaying its release through closed court proceedings.

Today on the Because Miami podcast, we've got the North Miami Mafia, the Miami Mafia, and the Florida Mafia in kind of like reverse order there.

A lot of mafias.

A lot of mafias. And what just happened here, Roy, is they tried to cover up this grand jury report, but they found that there was effectively a conspiracy of the highest officials in the state government out of the governor's office, including his chief of staff turned attorney general, the attorney general turned U.S. senator, to effectively misappropriate $10 million in taxpayer money that was meant to provide restitution to sick children in the state and instead was improperly funneled into political campaigns specifically to defeat a measure. You remember a couple of years ago there was a statewide constitutional amendment to legalize recreational marijuana, also to ensure that there would not be a statewide abortion ban. Both of those were defeated by a very narrow margin because you need over 60% of voters for that. And it turns out out our money was misused for that purpose. That sounds illegal, Billy. And yet the headline at Seeking Rents is Conflicting Testimony and Foggy Memories: How the Hope, Florida Grand Jury Found Wrongdoing but No Wrongdoers. Jason Garcia of Seeking Rents is here now. You can find him on Substack at jasongarcia.substack.com. Seeking Rents is a must-read not only in Florida, but if you want to know how government goes wrong, Government Gone Wild.

You need to read this because it will provide you a roadmap to find fuckery in your community and state as well. Jason, this is wild, and the mob elements of this are everywhere, including the fact that there are no whistleblowers here in this case because there's all these, like you said, foggy memories, and, and there's no whistleblowers. You know why, Roy?

Why is that, Billy?

What do snitches get? Normally they get stitches, Billy. They get— and sometimes wind up in Jail. Ditches. Okay.

So that was right there.

So that was— thanks. Thanks, Streeter. Yeah, you're a poet and you weren't even aware of it. And so everybody who did participate, enable, either facilitate this apparent theft or even cover it up after the fact, they all got rewarded for it, which is exactly what happens in organized crime. The people who are, who are in on it and who, hey, I can't remember, I don't know, he might have said it, I'm not sure, I can't remember, they all advance in the racket. So talk to me, Jason, what the hell happened here? How did $10 million get basically stolen and nobody is responsible?

Yeah, it's really interesting. You read this grand jury report and you've got a bunch of, a whole lot of like, I don't really remember what happened, I just know that nobody did anything wrong. And my memory's very clear on that specific detail, but everything else is a little bit hazy. And to the point you just made, like the most outrageous part of all of this, in addition to just no actual individual accountability, I mean, you have a grand jury proclaim— declaring that this money was misappropriated, this money was stolen, $10 million of public money was stolen. But we can't, we can't charge anyone specific with a crime because nobody will take responsibility for everything. But in addition to no accountability, all these people got promotions, right? You had Ashley Moody promoted from attorney general to the U.S. Senate, essentially potentially a lifetime appointment in one of the most powerful bodies in all of American government. You had James Uthmeyer, the chief of staff, the guy that more than anybody, the grand jury kind of lays blame at the feet of him because he's a guy that shows up at the beginning, middle, and end of this scandal, of the daisy chain going on here.

He gets promoted from attorney— from chief— Ron DeSantis' chief of staff to attorney general. He is now unbelievably the top law enforcement officer in Florida.

Yeah.

The guy kind of at the heart of this scandal. Who may be a criminal. If there's not a more, right, if there's not a more sort of Florida in a nutshell example of things, then I don't know what is. But even beyond that, so like a key guy in this report too is a guy by the name of Jason Weida, who at the time was the secretary of the Agency for Healthcare Administration, which was like the main state agency negotiating the settlement that kicks off this sort of $10 million daisy chain, right? And you've got in this report, there's a number of people that say, I think the idea to sort of take this $10 million, It all came from Jason Weida. There's like a couple of different people that say that. Then they get to him and he's like, I don't remember where it came from. Yeah, sorry, man. I, I'm like racking my brain, but I got nothing back there. Right. You know what he's doing now? He's now Ron DeSantis' chief of staff. He got promoted too.

Yeah.

But still, it keeps going on. You've got like a key person from the attorney general's office, the person who signed up, the person who signed the document on behalf of Ashley Moody, and who, by the way, testifies that he got explicit approval from Ashley Moody to sign the document, even though he raised concerns to her. She was like, sign it anyway. He got promoted. He's now an appellate court judge in Florida.

Jesus.

And yet another guy, like the lawyer for AHCA, the Agency for Healthcare Administration, the guy who is like, from all these emails that we have from public records requests, that was kind of like just the point person negotiating this, not, not like the ringleader or anything, but like a point person on the ground. He's now a trial court judge. So like all the way up and down the chain, people not only did not face any actual accountability. They have been all promoted by the governor.

They say the cream rises to the top. They also say shit floats. But Florida is like the number one state in the union for failing up. But this isn't even failing up. This is straight mafioso shit. I mean, this sounds like— it almost sounds like a RICO. I mean, the way the grand jury kind of walks you through this, people like to say, oh, this was leaked. But it kind of wasn't. It's kind of a public record. It could have been made public.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

It should have been made public in January. The grand jury wanted it public. They've got public policy recommendations in this document, and yet everybody was trying to keep as much of it confidential forever, or at least until after the election.

And that's so funny, too, because Outhmire, you know, he referred to this as a nothing burger. You know, Ron DeSantis saying, you know, there's nothing here. There's not really anything here, if you can hear him over his rattle. then why didn't they release it, Jason? If this, you know, because I think in April there was a press conference that Jim Defeitie of CBS— shout out to Jim, by the way, amazing, amazing journalism here. I mean, award-winning legendary work. Ron DeSantis has already said the only thing that happened that's illegal here is the leak of this report, which means that Jim Defeitie could wind up being the only person indicted.

Right.

It would be— it would, by the way, it would be unconstitutional political retribution, but he might wind up the only person indicted in this entire Hope Florida scam. So, Jason, like in April when Uthmeyer says nothing, he repeats the nothing burger thing. He would have already had access to this document and probably read it. So he knew that that was a lie. This wasn't a nothing burger. They had in fact found wrongdoing, despite, in your words, not having identified a wrongdoer.

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And like, and to be clear, it's— this is all through the report. It's not like we're just like cherry picking one line. They talk about this taxpayer money was misappropriated. They talk about how it was misused for political purposes. But they also talk about how people involved in this were mischaracterizing the use of funds on like key documents and stuff like this. They talk about repeatedly that key people in this were intentionally trying to circumvent a bunch of state laws that would've required them to give this money back to the taxpayers it belonged to rather than dumping it into the governor and James Uthmeyer's campaign against the marijuana and abortion amendments.

Right.

There's wrongdoing all throughout this report. So the idea that this guy, who by the way, Like the guy at the center of it could look at this and say, there's nothing— there's— this is a nothing burger. There's nothing in here. Well, he was actively telling— trying to suppress it. And oh, by the way, we should also say, if this was all so perfect, if this was all just legit and above board, how is it that nobody will take responsibility for like the core decision at this? Yeah, right.

Like if you did nothing wrong, then.

Right, right.

And why not just say, I did it?

If this was such a great idea, it seems like you'd want to take credit for it.

Also, Uthmeyer was not called before the grand jury. What do legal experts say about people who appear to be very involved, in fact, maybe even the tip of the spear here, but were not called by the grand jury?

Yeah, this is really interesting. It is a significant, heavy indication that he was probably the target here because you get into a situation where if he's the target of the investigation, you bring him in, he pleads the Fifth. there's not really anything you can do to force his testimony short of offering him immunity, which you wouldn't do if he's the target of the investigation. Now, I will stress that James Uthmeyer said, I've never been a target of anything. But of course, this is the same guy that says there was nothing in this report to begin with. So that says a little bit about his credibility, I'd suggest.

And so there's a lot of publicity early on, and Ron DeSantis took real exception to it then, and he takes real exception to it now, that Hope Florida was a nonprofit, I guess, started by his wife, the first lady of the state, Casey DeSantis. Tacky. Oh, but this thing with Hope Florida, though. This thing—

You—

I said what I said.

Okay.

This thing, though, with Hope Florida is the money didn't even go to this charity to do the work that this charity claims to do. Let's set aside for a moment, this charity is all kinds of shady and sketchy where the donations come from, where the money goes to. But this was just a shady flow-through, like it just kind of came in one door and out the other anyway.

Right.

And to that point, Billy, there— one of the— this hasn't gotten much attention because there's literally so much in this report that is damning. But like, there's one detail where one of the guys they called to testify was the, was the chairman of the board for the Hope Florida Foundation. And he told the grand jury that like he got a phone call from, from an outside attorney, a guy who's very close to James Uthmer, by the way, who told him, A, you're about to get $10 million, and B, you're about to get a request for $5 million of that $10 million. So The same time he learned he was getting $10 million, he also learned he was sending it out the door.

So before we go, why is there not a RICO here? Why did Leon County not find a way to— now, listen, if we had a real DOJ, you know, these were real times. If this were— if public corruption prosecutions were a priority of the Department of Justice in this country, as opposed to pardoning people responsible for public corruption or using it as, you know, weaponizing lawfare, dare I say, weaponizing those types of prosecutions. This would probably be easily prosecutable. So why hasn't there been some kind of action here? I mean, really?

Yeah, that's a great question. It is one that the state attorney in Leon County probably needs to be pushed on. I would argue that another guy that needs to be pushed is the judge that has been presiding over this case for why on earth this report was kept under wraps for as long as it was. Why on earth it took like a leak to an investigative journalist to bring this to light when the— again, the grand jury clearly wanted people to see this. Judges need to answer that question. I will suggest to you just that, you know, I am sympathetic to the idea that it may be hard to bring a RICO case in a state where the potential target of that case is also, again, the chief law enforcement officer of Florida right now.

I love this town. Last thing before we go, latest headline in Seeking Rents. Attorney General James Uthmeyer is raising hundreds of thousands from firms he hired. Records show, by the way, hired with our money. Roy didn't hire like out of the, you know, like with his, like his money. Records show that Uthmeyer has raised at least $300,000. This is for his— well, I say reelection campaign. He was never elected to attorney general. He was appointed as a thank you, as a hush compensation for his involvement. Who knows? We don't know. But he's raised at least $300 grand from law firms and other vendors who have received contracts from the attorney general's office since he took over in February of 2025. I don't want to say they're kickbacks, but when I Google the definition of the word kickback, I mean, at least you could say they're paying taxes maybe on that money directly to this campaign. What the hell's going on here, Jason?

Man, and I will tell you that story we pulled together that comes just a couple of weeks ago, or maybe it was a month ago. The Tampa Bay Times did a story where James Euthmire keeps like intervening in all these civil lawsuits, like where developers are trying to get something done or car dealers are trying to get something done. And the Tampa Bay Times kept finding examples of where he gets a $25,000 check from, from one of these, like, civil litigants and then, like, uses the attorney general's office to intervene on their behalf. So I don't know, there's— there seems to be something of a pattern here.

Pay for play, baby. I love this town. Jason Garcia, must read. I say it every time you're on here and I can't encourage it enough. jasongarcia.substack.com. Seeking rents. Thanks so much for being here.

Yeah, always a pleasure, Billy. Thank you for having me. Prior to you bringing the motion to terminate a rush, did you, did you discuss this motion with the city attorney?

I don't recall.

North Miami City Council member Cassandra Timothy testifying before a judge on day 3 of a trial to determine if she, along with 2 other sitting council members, violated the Florida Sunshine Law and a city charter in a coordinated effort to remove former city manager from her position. The lawsuit filed in June of 2024 by resident Eileen Bikaba alleges council members Timothy, Mary Estime Irvin, and Pierre-France Charles privately coordinated city business outside of public meetings, which led to the termination of former city manager Rasha Camus. A judge finding the city council members did violate the city charter by conveying in some way a threat to the city manager That she would be terminated.

You see, Roy, even North Miami, which is a totally different city, by the way, has its own North Miami Mafia. And in this case, it was revealed— this civil case brought by North Miami resident and community advocate Eileen Bikaba. That these 3 council members basically got together to threaten to proverbially whack the city manager, as mafioso would, in the event that she was going to discipline some employee at the city. So they conveyed through like third-party enforcers that, you know, you best not do your job as the city manager to discipline city employees or you're going to lose your job. And guess what happened to her?

What happened, Billy?

She lost her job.

Oh my gosh.

They shitcanned her. It was really something. I mean, this is, you know, these 34 municipalities, they're— the spirit of them was to have more localized, accountable, transparent government. And instead it's just 34 new ways for them to steal from us. And it's these 34 kind of fiefdoms. It's Game of Thrones in paradise with iguanas and alligators instead of dragons. And North Miami is no different. It's a little town. But a lot of crazy shit goes down there, as in this case. And Eileen is joining us now. Eileen, this trial, I understand, was a little bit crazy. It was a 3-day trial here in downtown Miami, and there was like some people that almost came to blows. Like, there was almost a fistfight in the lobby. You had a lawyer claiming that one of the star witnesses, who was one of the enforcers, was like having an affair or had an affair with a relationship with the city manager. It was like a novella. What happened in this trial?

Well, this trial was something else from the very beginning. Throughout the entire case, even before we got to the courthouse, before we got to the point of having a trial, they fought us for 2 years for public records. They did not— I just wanted to make sure you know that while we brought a Sunshine violation as one of the claims in the case, the judge ended up finding that we did not have admitted evidence for the Sunshine. We had huge problems with getting evidence that is admissible for the Sunshine portion of the case, but they were found guilty of violating the Charter, which is getting— sending that third parties in order to interfere with Rasha Khemore's ability to reprimand her staff for not being capable of doing their job. So at the courthouse, in terms of what you were referring to, Yeah, there were issues between that witness and the defense lawyer in the hallway in the break. So the trial started, we started the entire case with 3 claims. And the first one was breaking the Citizens' Bill of Rights. The second one was breaking the Charter. And the third one was breaking Sunshine.

Those were the 3 alleged accusations we had against them. They never really fought this case based on the merits of the evidence. What they tried to do is just pick away and get them all removed instead of having to be tried for them.

But it does sound to me, though, that there was a Sunshine violation. Maybe whether it was committed by them or not is a different story. But in just turning over the, the inability of you to obtain public records over the course of years, some sort of onerous or unreasonable demand for money, right, in exchange for public records, any of that kind of craziness?

Yes, there were. North Miami pretty much judge have a history of not giving public records.

Yeah.

And then if they don't want you investigating something, they'll try to absorb it in fees. And it was no different. And then the third thing that they do, they either tell you it's not available, it doesn't exist, the fee is high. And in the end of this case, in order to be able to admit things in court and to have it to be admissible, there are certain rules. So you could have the evidence in your hand, But if you don't meet the requirements for getting them certified, you can't really use them in court as admissible evidence. And that's one of the problems we ran into in this case.

But it doesn't sound like a huge problem because the judge did find that they violated the city charter, which to me is, I would think, arguably a more serious offense. And they did it in a way that sounds somewhat extortive, right? Like, if you don't do— or if you do this or don't do this, you're going to lose your, your job, which is a pretty outrageous thing. I guess my question is, is what happens now if they've been found by a judge in a court of law to have violated the city charter? What happens now? Did city taxpayers pay these outside lawyers to defend these people who violated the city charter? Like, what happens to all this?

Well, what we need is a written ruling by the judge. What we have now is a verbal ruling by the judge last week, Wednesday, and What happens after that verbal ruling is that there has to be a written ruling confirming pretty much what she said. And the wording of everything will be important into how we can proceed. But in terms of your question, they have been found to violate the charter, and we can now take that further to the governor once we get a written ruling. But last night, They filed for an emergency intervention against the judge, and that was part of the fireworks in this case too. On day 2 of the 3-day trial, they brought up the whole race line of questioning, tried to accuse Mrs. Camus or insinuate that Mrs. Camus was firing all the Haitians, which is what one of the intermediaries had told her. bringing the message from the council members that she was firing all the Haitians. And she's like, I want competent employees, so I'm firing people who can't do their jobs. Now, on day 2, when they were questioning Mrs. Camorra about that, they had already questioned her about that.

This is the former city manager, to be clear.

Yes, that's the former city manager. And they went into trying to even say, well, her lawyer that she hired to defend her was not Haitian either. And the judge had had enough of the whole race thing and said, what does that have to do with the Sunshine violation? You know, explain that to me.

Well, once— I'm sorry, the race. I mean, North Miami, I think, is probably one of the— has one of the largest Haitian populations of any municipality or any city perhaps in the country. I don't understand how one could even fire all the Haitian employees at the city. Like, it sounds insurmountable.

Mrs. Camore herself is a Haitian American and spent—

Discriminating against Haitian Americans.

So the judge actually, when they were doing that line of questioning, the judge stopped and says— started asking her question, uh, do you speak Creole? Are you Haitian? And she said to her, well, she's Haitian. I mean, I— she's— she has already said repeatedly that she's trying to get competent staff. And another part of the hearing, the judge was looking at video of the hearing, and in terms of there's supposed to be a procedure in which they give her a preliminary resolution, then they give her a chance to respond to that resolution, and 30 days after that, they have to Have full consideration according to Section 17 of the Charter. They must have full consideration before they do a final resolution to fire her. So the judge is listening to this and they're saying Cassandra Timothy was adamant about her being let go instantly. And the attorney for the city was explaining, well, not so fast. This is what the charter says. And she was arguing with the lawyer saying, well, no, her contract says she can be let go immediately. And Jeff Cazorla, the lawyer for the city, says, no, no, no, we still have to abide by the charter.

And so the judge is listening to all of this and they're listening to her. And it sounds like they had, from the judge's perspective and the audience also, that they had already made a decision. not unlike what the charter says, because the judge made a comment like that, they're also using that in their filing last night to say that the judge was prejudiced or against them and they didn't get a fair trial. So they're trying to have the judge dismissed and have another judge put in before the final written ruling.

Well, it's funny you should say that they didn't get a fair hearing when the judge in fact found in their favor. on one of the matters and didn't find in their favor on another matter. Eileen, we're out of time. But I think what you were getting at earlier is that assuming you can get a written order consistent with what the judge said verbally about their violating the city charter, that the next move can and should be removal from office, be it—

Yes, because Section 19 says that very clearly. Section 19 says if you violate that section of the charter, it's a misdemeanor and you will cease to be council members. So that's what they are fighting us right now on. But they are not fighting it on the case. They are fighting it on other things like trying to get a judge thrown out.

So last question, though. Yes or no? If you get this written order consistent with, like you said, the wording is important, but do you go to the state attorney's office? Should they be filing criminal misdemeanor charges against them?

Yes, we will.

Which would result, I think, in their immediate suspension by the governor. I would think, if charges were filed.

We are going to go to the governor and attorney general after this.

Eileen Bikaba, good luck to you, North Miami resident and community advocate. Thanks for being here. And we'll keep following the case.

Thank you so much. And I want to just encourage North Miami residents, you have power. Get out there, vote. And when you see things that are wrong, fight it. Everybody says they can't beat City Hall. I've just proven you can.

And Miami-Dade Commissioner Vicky Lopez is looking to keep her seat in District 6, which includes the cities of Miami and Miami Beach, as well as Brickell, Little Havana, and West Flagler. Lopez was being challenged by 2 other candidates, including former state legislative aide Rob Piper. And based on the results, the race will go into a runoff between Vicky Lopez and Rob Piper. Vicky Lopez, 42%. Rob's, 29%.

So Commissioner Vicky Lopez is kind of a known quantity in Miami politics. Well, really Florida politics, because she was previously convicted of honest services mail fraud and sentenced to 27 months in federal prison. Her sentence was ultimately commuted by then-President Bill Clinton in November of 2000 after serving more than 15 months. This all stemmed out of a scandal when she was a Lee County This is in the Fort Myers area on the West Coast, a Lee County commissioner. And she was apparently had a relationship with a lobbyist and was trying to— it was a corruption story. And now, thanks to Bill Clinton, she is not a convicted felon anymore, but has been implicated in a variety of improprieties as a state legislator, including helping pass legislation for sweetheart deals to some of these school bus stoplight camera companies that wound up employing like her son and stepson. There's alleged malfeasance related to money at some nonprofit. There is, of course, her involvement in the Live Local Act, which is destroying local communities. So we know who Vicki Lopez is. She also stole this seat last year in the least democratic way you could possibly do it by getting appointed to it rather than being elected to it.

And now she's running for reelection from a powerful position of incumbency because, I mean, the city commission hijacked the seat for her. Here's the thing, though. Roy, who the fuck is Rob Piper?

So, question.

Vicky Lopez was involved in a 3-way race. But enough about Andrew Gillum. Oh, come on. Involved in a 3-way race with another known quantity, by the way, Joe Sanchez, who is a former city of Miami commissioner, retired Florida Highway Patrol trooper, like a well-known guy in Miami. And Rob got more votes than he did. And is now, because Vicki Lopez failed to get over 50% of the vote, which you need to avoid a runoff, she is now in a runoff with this guy joining us now, Rob Piper. Who the fuck are you? Where did you come from? We kind of know each other. We're what I call City Hall buddies. You know, we see each other at Miami City Hall. We're like public comment friends. You know, Rob's always around. He's always participating.

Podium pals.

Podium pals. That's right. But dude, talk to me. Like, this was a remarkable feat. There was a lot of talk about surprises and upsets on primary night in August here in Miami-Dade, but you were one of the sort of unsung heroes and unknown stories about it. Who are you? Where did you come from? How did you pull this off?

Deus Daddies. Okay, well, I think, yeah, that's, that's a, that's a great question. And I think it's— thank you, Thank you for having me. No, I mean, it's a great question because people need to know who I am. And thank you for having me and have this opportunity to share that with, with your audience as well as, uh, Miami-Dade County District 5. But like you said, Billy, uh, I have been— what you said was indicative of what I've been doing for the past 10 or so years. Uh, I came to Miami-Dade County via the United States Marine Corps. I was stationed here in 2012 after previous around 20 years of being stationed all over the world. I got my commission in the Marine Corps in 1994, and then since then I've been a Marine Corps ground supply/logistics officer. I did 3 tours to Iraq, and I got stationed here again in 2012. And then I spent 4 years up at U.S. US SOUTHCOM and US Marine Corps Forces South as their ground supply officer.

And I—

that was my twilight tour. I retired in 2016, in October of 2016. And from there, that's when I felt compelled to serve in a different way, as a community advocate, going in my community, empowering, engaging, and informing voters. Because I feel that When you have an engaged electorate, you have an empowered electorate. And when you have an empowered electorate, then think real things can change in Miami-Dade County. And heaven knows this county needs some changes. It needs more transparency, at least at the government. It needs less influence by special interests, and it needs to have— policies need to be put in place that make things more affordable and then make our climate more resilient, as well as ensuring that the extremely wealthy do not have so much influence on our politics. And so that said, since 2016, I've been actively involved in Miami-Dade County politics advocating. Like you said, you and I, we've gone to City Hall quite a bit. In 2020, I led the recall effort against Joe Carollo. I was the chairman. I had a lot of good people behind me. Unfortunately, we fell short. on getting that, on making that happen. But since then, I've been trying to stay as much as I can engaged in serving my community, again, as a legislative aide in the Florida House and getting a PhD in international relations.

And in addition, running for city commission just last year. And when this race rolled around, I saw this as a— this was a calling. I felt that I had to get in this race as late as I did because I was on the fence about whether or not I would run for office again. And when I saw that there were no— I'm a progressive. There were no progressive voices that I felt in this race. Vicky Lopez, her record in Tallahassee speaks for itself. Hardly progressive. Joe Sanchez, I give him kudos for getting in the race and just letting the Miami-Dade Commission know that voters deserve to have a say. and who they— who serves them on the commission. But, you know, there's a lot of things I like, Joe, but, you know, we disagree on a lot of things.

So what happened here is that this was a seat previously held by Eileen Higgins, who vacated it in order to run to become the mayor of the city of Miami. It's a law we have in Florida, resign to run, it's called. She, of course, made her resignation date effective, strategically effective, very late in the game. So she effectively disenfranchised her residents and constituents in District 5 in order to set this seat up for Vicki Lopez. This was a, in my opinion, effectively a scheme to deprive the voters of District 5 their opportunity to choose their county commissioner. And this was done in cahoots with Eileen Higgins, with her political puppeteer Christian Olvert, with the chairman and vice chairman of the county commission, now almost Congressman Oliver Gilbert. You have Anthony Rodriguez, you have Keon Hardiman, a bunch of folks who— a lot of whom were also appointed to their seats, not originally elected to their positions. We now have 4 of the 13 county commissioners who run a, what, $17 billion a year county were originally appointed and not elected to their positions. That is That is not un-American. That is anti-American and anti-democratic. And so here we are with another one of these people, Vicki Lopez.

And this is why we're here. And you've represented yourself as a lot of things just now. Are you trying to say then that Vicki Lopez is not those things? She's not for working-class people. She is out for the oligarchs and the, the millionaires or billionaires. How, how are you comparing and contrasting yourself here to the alternative candidate in this race?

Okay.

Yeah, thanks. I mean, yeah, I really don't have to say anything. I just look at her record. I mean, look at how much money that she has been given. You know, a lot of people talk about they were surprised. One of the reasons they were surprised about my campaign was because I'd only spent $2,000 total to come in second place. That factored into about $0.42 per vote. And I did the math based— and Commissioner Lopez, I did the math. She spent about $45 per vote.

Wow.

At least.

on the SOE website, she had spent over $300,000. And this is not counting what I've read in the reporting regarding the PAC money that came in, $1.5 million. So I think the proof is in, like, you can only take so much money from special interests without having people question who you're for. So I just let that be the proof. Let that be the contrast. Because again, a lot of people are— there There are rumblings that saying that people put me up to this, saying that I'm getting paid. Well, I, I'm here to say there are a lot easier ways to get paid because quite frankly, I'm not getting a dime.

Well, if you're getting paid, you're not getting paid a lot of money, that's for sure. If you're spent 58 cents, was that the final tally?

42 cents.

42 cents per vote to her.

How much?

And, and, and here, and here's why that matters. It is. That's, that's the proof right there that I ain't— this campaign is about the people. Okay. People that are helping me, they're volunteers. They're volunteering their skills, they're volunteering their time. They're not getting paid because they are tired of Miami-Dade County being what you described in the whole situation about her being appointed in the first place. They feel disempowered. They feel that the county government is not paying attention to them. And this was their way of saying, hey, look, we matter. We're going to put this guy, this unknown Rob Piper, and we're going to put him in the runoff and we're definitely going to try to put him— no, we will. We're going to succeed in putting him on the commission just to say, hey, look, our voices matter. And Rob Piper is the one that will speak, that can speak for us.

Yeah, I want to talk a little bit about that because these races, these local races in Florida are nonpartisan races. There is no R or D next to the candidate's name on the ballot. However, they tend to get very partisan. I think it's not unknown that you are being supported by a great many Democrats. Vicky Lopez is a Republican. She was a Republican state lawmaker when she was in partisan politics. But these nonpartisan races are interesting. She's also received endorsements from a great deal of elected Democratic officials, including Eileen Higgins, including Daniela Levine Cava, the mayor of the county, including former Miami Beach Mayor Phil Levine, who was also BFFs with Jeff Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. and appears hundreds of times in the Epstein files and was accused by Epstein's former secretary of sexual assault. So she's got a great stable of supporters, is what I'm saying, along with most, if not all, of the City of Miami Beach Commission, many of whom or most of whom are Democrats. So what say you about Vicki Lopez's bipartisan coalition of support?

I say it's not going to— I don't think it's going to help her in November because, yeah, I'm aware of all the Democratic elected officials that endorsed her. But the grassroots Democrats have endorsed me, the Miami Beach Democratic Club, the Miami-Dade Democratic Party, the Young Democrats, the Democrats of Coral Way. And I have bipartisan support endorsements as well. Florida Coalition to Advance Racial Equity, FCARE. And we're going to take that. And I don't know what goes on in the head of the elected officials, the Democratic elected officials that endorsed her. I just know that, again, grassroots Democrats supported me and they support this campaign and they support what I, what I represent and what I'm looking to do to facilitate the change. Not saying I can make the change as one person, but I could definitely put the ball rolling and lay out the groundwork for others to follow me. Younger candidates, because I will admit, I think I'm too old. for this job, but I'm willing to do it if it means that I got to be the first one. If I have to throw my body over the barbed wire, if I got to be the first one through the wall, I'll do it so others can follow me.

Rob, so last question, because I think this is what people talk about when they talk about uniparties. I would say that those endorsements are not necessarily from Democrats because there's no red or blue there. It's all green. It's all money. You know, it's a paper party. It's the pocketbook party. It's the purse party. But I look at these numbers And you say you've got grassroots Democrat support, but is that enough to put you over the top? When I look at Vicki Lopez, got 42% over 7,000 votes in the primary. You got 29%, almost just short of 5,000 votes in the primary. I know there was a third candidate in the race, but what is your path to victory?

Yeah, my path to victory is pretty much fanning. It's a number of ways. One way is to inform voters about what— who Vicki Lopez is and what she There's— you've probably seen the mailers, Billy. She was portrayed— she was portraying herself as essentially a Democrat, even though she wasn't. And there are other mailers that portray her as a Republican, which she is. So my job is to hammer the living, use a very, very, very strong ground field program fueled by volunteers and get the word out in places where they may not Know my name, and some of the precincts that don't know my name, as well as we're going to be— we are fundraising out the yin-yang to try and raise money for a well-targeted ad campaign to counteract the inordinate amount of money that she's going to be putting towards ads to get her deceptive message out there about what she is and what she isn't. So the path to victory is peeling off those voters that voted for her thinking that she was something else. And while at the same time fanning that, fanning that resentment, that, that, that hunger for transparency, that hunger for a lack of special interests and fanning that into that fire into more votes.

Go to RobPiperHereToServe.com if you want to find out who the fuck Rob Piper is. Rob, thanks so much for joining us. I hope you'll come back again before Election Day and good luck to you.

Yeah. Can I just give one more plug?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Go to my website, donate whatever you can. Any little bit helps because, as I've shown, I can make it go a long way.

Cocaine's.