Transcripts For CSPAN3 John 20240704

Brought my own, actually, but no, i think yeah, i think theyre for sale. I saw some when i was walking and took notes. All right. But if you take out of the package, theyre no longer worth as much on ebay, right . Yeah, thats right. Thats right. And if you prefer i saw they also had a trump behind bars bobbleheads all over there, too. So that might be more to your taste or to your you should get stripe ties. Trump stripe. Yeah, theyre all black and white anyway, so copies of joshuas book are available to check out does hell be over here at the table signing. Thanks again for coming everybody. When john this book you know i it was going to be a business book i thought it was going to be a book of how to be successful in business. So really what the book is about, the book is about a journey the life, a storied life of of a man who came here from from greece, a Little Island in, greece. The series nice. Lisa rose. Lisa rose when he was a six month old and moved to harlem and and never knew that he was poor in harlem because. He had two of the two great, incredible parents. I mean, his mother peeled his grapes for him in the i mean, thats how protective beautiful of a human being that that that she was rest in peace and and just a storied life and then and then you know when you think of john as the family man you his beautiful wife margot who really i. That for me for me that was i really reading the section about you and john and i actually had a tear coming out of my eye when i was reading that because i really looked at i really read this book from a from a different lens because. I know a lot of the players and that but then i didnt know how a lot of the players got to where they are. So for me it was about connecting dots of this incredible world. And when youre part of when youre blessed be part of the catsimatidis world, its like its like a different universe, right . Its like, you know, they have this cast of characters. They have all these people that theyre involved with and its just beautiful. You dont know who youre going to meet. You walk into johns, oh, theres the governor of pennsylvania theres the speaker of the house. Theres oh, theres president clinton. You know, you have no idea. You have no idea. You could go to the most innocuous event with the catsimatidis family and you just dont know who youre going to run into. So its an honor and privilege to call friends and if you dont mind like to read one page because i think the one page sums it up and i know youre not going to read from the book, so let me do a little reading from the book. Okay. Success is wonderful. It opens lot of doors, but its still my to decide which those doors do i want to walk through. And that question never goes away. Here i am half a century adulthood and im still looking. New opportunities, new Companies Invest in new political causes, get behind new forms for sharing my insights, new ways of making myself and my loved ones. Happy new projects for helping the world become a better place after all these years, i am still trying figure out what i want to do with rest of my life. Every time. I climb a mountain i see one i want to climb. That really is the man that i know. I know that something young people are often asked what do you want to be when you grow up after these years. Im still asking exactly the same question. And the truth is, i dont always know. Ive tried a lot of things. Its important to try a lot of the things. Some of them i loved some of not so much in business, politics and culture, travel and philanthropy. And i will keep opening new to walk through. Id like to think ive contributed something in every venture and every new relationship i know have been enriched by them all. And i dont just mean monetary. Life truly is a journey. It going if were lucky, i see no reason to stop living it prematurely. I have never forgotten what my plainspoken mother used to say. To me, when youre in the middle of the dance, keep dancing. Thanks, mom. The music still playing and im still on my feet. And with that, id like to introduce to you the great john catsimatidis. Okay, well, i dont know where to begin with and thank you, david. Thank you. Water and and im 75 years im getting old. Arthur says, why dont you for mayor again . I said, if i was ten years younger, i would consider it. But is an adventure im. Was born on the island of nyssa which is greece has two volcanic islands, one is santorini and the other one is lisa rose. And it must be that volcanic water. We drink and and why did i write the book . Well, like i said, you know, i was approaching 70 years old. 71 years old. I didnt want to get all timers and forget. And i that was important. I wanted my my grandkids to know where they came. And i and im telling everybody out there thats in his sixties start thinking about writing a book because. We all go through journeys and we all have kids and grandkids and and you want them to know where you came from. And, you know, my two my two grandfathers came the old country. In 1913 and they came the old country looking for the streets paved gold. Well, took me over a hundred years to find its. You know, and they all came and we all worked 100 hours a week make. Two uncles came in 1925 1930. They left my in the old country to take care of his Three Sisters and his mother and my father for 17 years worked on a lighthouse by himself. He we went to this lighthouse and its a piece of rock with a lighthouse on 17 years by himself, with a few goats and whatever. And it was owned those islands those times was owned by the italians government and im a member of columbus club. Why am i remember the club was club. So when i was little then i have great food. Great food when i was when i was conceived. You. The World War Two was over in 1945, 46. But when i was conceived, those islands were part of italy when i was born paris, greece closed. What happens the brits who ran everything in europe, they said, italy, you on the wrong would take you all those away from you and were giving were giving you back to greece and so that way i was conceived of greek of an italian boy and a greek. But when i do my dna it turns out because the greeks, the italians, the you know, its one it was one when people mediterranean and i was a 28 italian, 60 macedonian greek because i guess my mother was from constantinople, northern its called eastern bull now. And theres a lot of up here because all the that came from spain and they moved over when they were out of spain and im 6 jewish. Why 6 . When you read books, you find out that if its 6 , either your great grandmother or one of your great grandfathers was jewish. So i tell all my jewish friends, you know what i told my oh, my jewish. One of my great grandfathers screwed by a. But, you know, i, you know, mostly i you most of my friends are jewish. Most of my friends are italian. So you when youre one of them, we were of us, one of all of us, you feel good and you you know, in the old days, we all joked around with each other how i up in western harlem all 135th street between broadway. And west end avenue and louis and stadium was up there. College was there. I went to p. S. 192 that was just built up there and we all one big happy fam we had irish we , we had spanish, we had we everybody and we all all lived together. I remember so many times i had friends in astoria. We would walk up amsterdam avenue the way down amsterdam all the way across 125th street and there was no problems. You know, people said to me, well, what did the problems happen in harlem . Im going to tell you a sad thing, because im older than a lot of you guys. And ill tell you when it happened. Vietnam, when the kids came back from vietnam and a lot of them were drug addicts, thats when harlem turned. And it was very sad that we couldnt save some of those kids and some of those people i got involved. Dont hundred fifth street, william fitts, ryan was my congressman. He gave me the congressional to go to west point because. I always wanted to go to the air force academy or west point. Well i came home, my mother cried. My father yelled. I was an only child. Okay . I didnt go. We ended up going to nyu uptown, campus when there was an Uptown Campus and. Its it was a great school and my friend Jonathan Farkas was from Alexanders Department stores, went to School Together up there and we i remember his mother donated like 7 million to and you at that time and to build New Buildings and everything great until years later and while you ended up going broken and they had to sell Uptown Campus i dont know where to begin and i get im so involved so many charities, so involved with a lot of businesses. I started in the supermarket business and all my vendors like me, all my vendors like me, all my i ended up. How did we grow . I had a firm stein rosen, einstein, all greeks, all greeks, somebody me. You have to have a jewish lawyer and and sam stein, who and his brother. It was louis stein who was chairman of food fair. And that goes on and on and on. Sam stein owned, a wholesale Grocery Company in new jersey. Well, filigree foods. And he got a liking to me. I opened up store and its a long that one store that sams stein there was no i had no banking experiences i was in i was going to school for engineering. Well every time i needed money sam stein would call up the filigree foods was a wholesale grocer and said john more money and i with one Grocery Store when i was a senior in nyu i didnt graduate well you know i tell at all my friends i was a credit short. You know i would look at a calculus equation and i would say, how do how am i going to make any money solving a calculus equation . I no way, there was no way. So i was eight credits short mostly to my calculus and and we ended up i started with one store when i was still nyu. And in those days nyu five days a week. What do you what is this . What am i daughter. What nyu and my son went to nyu, you know schedule their courses three days a week and youre off the rest the week. I mean thats a thats a lot. I mean nobody works right, you know, and. We ended up with sam steins help and another guy from a company who a rural dairy lou we allow he kept giving me money building another store building a store where i built more stores they were doing more business you know bank that. And we built like ten stores by the of 2324 and i started michael youre talking i making them i was making 1,000,000 a year which was a lot of money in 19 7073. Yeah that was in 1,000,000 was really worth 1,000,000 and i just kept going going and i didnt care about money. I cared about success and i tried to talk about the book. I cared more about success that i get money i just kept. I worked, i worked at work and. Dont forget, i wanted to a pilot. I wanted to be this wanted to do that. And eventually and i ended up going into the real estate business. Why the real estate . When my came up on one of my stores, the landlord wanted triple rent, i said, oh. I said, if you dont own the real estate, tell that all real estate or all store owners, if you dont own the real estate, guess what . Someday youre going to get screwed. And its i started buying real estate and i took the excess cash at his supermarket business, bought real estate. So by three, four years later, we were in a real estate business. We were in the supermarket business. And and we kept buying. In 1977, the end of the world was coming to new york, the end of the world. I remember 1977. Oh, my god. And honest to 30 inches a snow. And i and it was. I wanted to learn how to fly airplanes so i went out and started to learn how to an airplane. And i wanted you start with a single engine airplane. And by the age of 28, 29, i was in real estate. I was successful in in supermarkets. I said, im going to go and buy a jet. And we ended up being in the Aviation Business. We went we built that Aviation Business, the corporate company, to form eight corporate jets. And i to fly them all and we were supplying Atlantic City how do supply Atlantic City you when you live in new york city or philadelphia they used to send a limousine to pick you up i convinced the Atlantic City that you can bring in more customer if you do it within a 500 mile radius rent my jets 500 mile radius. You bring in the suckers. I mean customers. Yeah. The you know, you pay us 5,000 for the jet for a round trip. Theyll lose 20,000. And everybodys happy. So we went into Aviation Business week. I, i was a dreamer. We ended up buying an airline. We ended up buying an oil company. We ended up i kept buying in 1986. I did a lot of you, ron pearlman bought pantry pride supermarkets. He ended up selling me the in florida and i gave him the money to help buy revlon. I was there. It happened and marga. Yes im sorry shes giving the back story the back and its no reason and and so i ended up with all over florida i ended up with supermarkets all over the virgin islands. I ended up with in new york. And i and we had what do we have and i was stationed in nashville, smyrna, tennessee running the airline. It goes on and on and on charities. I didnt i couldnt make up my mind what to get involved in. So you know what we did got involved in all of them got involved in a kitchen charities people boy scouts margot got involved in diseases disease, alzheimers i got involved in diabetes which was diabetes in my family. So my advice to everybody when you dont know what you get involved, get involved in everything. Why not . You know and and have fun at the same. Work hard, have fun, help people. One of my or i had many that helped get where im getting and tell you lets say if i had ten mentors is probably eight of the ten were probably jewish they help me in the Food Industry they help me in charities. One of them was Bob Morgenthau day and i worked very closely with bob walker and he ran the Police Athletic league and 40 years i worked with him until he passed he passed away at 99 years old, like ten months, which was very sad. We were planning his 100th birthday, but now chairman of the Police Athletic League Following Bob Morgenthau, trying to help the kids of, the inner city and, you know, i was a democrat. I, i ran bill clintons campaigns in the nineties. And then my my daughter married a republican. So have peace. And to actually table at the thanksgiving day i converted to being a republican but i ran i ran for mayor in 2013 as a republican liberal so i go to Staten Island says youre a liberal. What are you going to do to the. I said, look, you know what a liberal is . A liberal is a people person who cares about a in the inner city. And, you know, after i talked to them, they said, yeah yeah, youre right, you look, you cant the whole world. And thats my argument. Were president by. You cant help the whole lets help our kids the inner city. Lets help our poor in the inner city. Lets help vets. Now in the streets in new york before, we worry about helping the people from south america or africa. I we worry about united of America First look they they need helping in africa. They need help in central america. Send them money, send them food. You know, and thats, you know important. I got involved with the Greek Orthodox. Im now the head of the Greek Orthodox church, the highest ranks. Layperson reporting to the archbishop and to this to do a pay patriarch in constantine opal. I work with the ecumenical patriarch with our communications, the Jewish Community in communications, work with the pope. And in new york. I love cardinal dolan. Hes a wonderful man. Rabbi schneier, my rabbi in new york. And rabbi potash state and rabbi butman every year for years ive been lighting that menorah and this year i was looking around very carefully when i was lighting a lot on and on and on. Were in the like i supermodel business, Aviation Business. I was a banker at time. I was chairman and ceo of the First New York Bank and so many stories i cant tell more. So i read a i rather give the opportunity to ask some and tell what you want to hear. I mean, where we begin. David, tell me. Tell me first was where well get it all going. So in the book i was fascinated fascinated with sunshine. Okay. And and, and, you know you were you were married. You got divorced and you had this woman who was your assistant working in your office next to you. In fact, in the first office, the way you describe it, she was you couldnt even if someone came in, you described frank perdue came into your office trying to sell you some chickens and and and there was someone consulting with you, but frank couldnt even see the person next to you. So youve always had this void. Thats why its so apropos. You know, the comments, because shes been always in your head making comments direct you and from from the book. Margo had such a huge part of this whole thing that was built absolute so so i just want you to comment on you saw father alex that day and you were telling him you were telling him about your life and what were you going do personally and then out of your mouth came, i want sunshine. Can you just that and what sunshine means to you you know, no matter how tough of a day, you know, its very to marry. Well, no matter how tough of a day i had when i came home, margo was my sunshine. And i would always laugh and smile along with her. Thank you, margo, because. I. One more question. Go ahead. Okay. First of all, i want to acknowledge my sunshine heather and heather, which have a and courtney is here or what . Or lets hear. Oh, this is okay. Yeah. All right. So are my sunshine. But next one, i want you to talk. Your mom and dad again fascinate. Did in fact, your mom i mean, your mom almost married someone else. Lawyer, right. And your mom worked to help that lawyer get through law school. Shes at the shes about to get married and he doesnt she doesnt come off the boat in in greece. Ill give you a quickie on that one and but but and thats just part of the story but then of course she meets dad, whos working all on at a lighthouse on on an island. And it was an arranged marriage. And it sounds like it worked out incredible giving you an incredible childhood. And what role did all of that play your success . Well, i would tell. My mother, we we published a book in europe about my mom, and were going to republish it in english, but theyre rewriting it because it was published with european language type stuff and my mother came from an educated in constantinople. I say constantinople, its istanbul now. Since the and and. I. In 1911 they were saying it was you there was constant conflict between the ottoman empire, the turkish and the greeks. At one time there was 3 million greeks in constantine. Now i think theres maybe thousand and they considered, my grandfather, a terrorist and he had to take his family and leave at midnight one time in 1911 and moved down to that island. And he said, oh, stop now, going by the big island of kos, chaos along the turkish coast. And they escaped constantinople. And my mother was at an educated lady. She they had made a deal that they sent guy to athens to educate them and make him a lawyer lawyer. And he was supposed to come back. You know, theres no cell phones. Theres no hes supposed to come and marry my mom. So here comes the ferry boat, athens and the boat to the dock in the initiatives. And the captain says, is there a desperate katsumata or not . Catsimatidis at that time thats benign. Minorities says, yes. I mean, his future was supposed to be on that and he gives her a letter. The is from the guy that was supposed to be there to marry her, says i fell in love with somebody else. Im not. Im married. Im married. Somebody else. She went into deep depression and going into deep depression at the same time, the brits took over those islands gave them back to the greeks. And my father lost. His job with the Italian Government moved back to new shadows. He wanted to have a family. My mother was all by herself. She was depressed. And because my mother tradition, tradition tradition wasnt married, her two brothers that were engaged to to two other women could not get married. The two women. They couldnt get married had Four Brothers because sisters one worked married. They couldnt marry either. So the original name of the book was seven weddings and one sacrifice. Its the sacrifice was my mom. My mom was an educated lady. My father was was a lighthouse keeper. Tugboats remember the song if i were a cop and doing you were a lady, would you marry me anyway . Well, you have my baby. Well, im the baby. My mother sacrificed herself and married the carpenter. My father and. Then it goes on and on. If you love and so there were eight weddings, but they only had one suit on the whole island and so every weekend it was one wedding and the tailor would take in a suit. So it fit the next. So it took eight weeks every where he got married. Everybody became and six months later, his two brothers were in america america. They got him to come over to america. Him i was six months old. Me my mother, my father then went athens, london, london, montreal, montreal egypt. What was it . Idlewild airport and. It says so he got to america and his two brothers had to sign on the dotted line that if you cant pay the rent, they have to pay it. So my father worked seven days a week, five days at law champs and 42nd street in lexington avenue as a busboy because he couldnt be a waiter because he didnt speak english. But he spoke fluent italian. So saturdays and sundays he would go to astoria worked in one of the italian restaurants as a waiter and made extra money. He worked seven days a week so he doesnt have to put his head down and ask his brothers for money. So you get his in. You know, a lot of people had a lot of tears in their eyes because it shows you what america was all about. And another reason i talk about it and i wrote the book, i would i go to a Police Athletic freak and i see these kids, know what i tell them. Im from harlem. I made it. You can it, too. And we cant save all of. But if we could save, 20 of them, 30 of them, then wed do our duty to god in our country. Because that answer got questions. Judge weinberg book judge one john, why did you buy deputy abc . Oh god, i went to Brooklyn Tech High School and i remember we used to listen to cousin bruce all the time and im my transistor radio three transistors and the whole and when a friend tony kobe that came to my Office One Day he says they want to sell. Wabe say, i said, how much do you want . He says, 12 and a half million. I said, heres the letter of intent. Heres a check for 12 and a half million. Wow. And i bought it. Sight unseen. We took it number 28 in the new york can number two or three in row in the whole country just about and now were streaming it and were in 173 countries and states. And you you know what i do . I have republicans working for us. I have democrats for us. You know, its all about especially my 5 00 show. We all became the number one show. We we beat. Hannity you ready for this nielsen ratings . Certified . Nielsen two and a half to one. And you know what is my only requirement from our people just the truth. We had one of my you know, i was a democrat, but we had one of our democratic guys that works for us that he started to read me to talking points from the democratic national. I said, stop reading that. Just tell how you feel in your heart. All i want is the truth you how you feel about it and. Thats the only requirement. Tell me how you feel and what the truth is. Well never shut you off, by the way you back on instagram. Well, you didnt tell the story. They you didnt tell the story all. By the way, the Woman Holding the mic was relentless relentless emails all day long, getting you back on instagram. Thank you. Thank you. Thats jack. Well, what happened is . I got involved in a conversation about the the santos in nassau county. Its suozzi versus. Massey. Massey or massey versus suozzi instagram doesnt like the way we talked about. So you know what i did . They threw us off derby abc, one of the most powerful radio stations in the country they just threw us off so i gave who helped my daughter get her facebook back knew the people there and and makes the calls and said oh its not our fault youre sitting guys artificial im sorry know artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence automatically threw you off. What a bunch of. David, thank you for getting us back on. My pleasure. I think dennis ellis had a question. Danny danny said a record he had over hundred meetings for gotham relations last year. And this year in 2024, youre up to 80, 87. So far meetings with elected officials. Wow yeah, we do our work. But first, thank john for being here tonight. Were appreciate it. And we love to honor you and also your words throughout your life seemingly, your personal philosophy has been philip demeo for the many that may not know what that means is a love of honor. Has there ever been an instance in your professional or personal life that has ever questioned that question that way that you approach a situation . Let me understand it of how we approach a situation thats conflicted thats conflicted with that philosophy. You would being honorable. Yeah holy calm let me think. I mean i dont you know, i wish in life was easy but id be lying to you if i tell you everything is not everything. Its not easy. But ive been very, very lucky that a lot of the, i would say 99. 9 of the people i dealt with have common sense. And, you know, you what you want, you want to deal with people that are smart and intelligent because no matter what the problem is. If you deal smart, intelligent people, youre going to come up with a solution, you know, and and ive been lucky that we found most solutions that way. But ive dealt with almost everybody, a lot of people and in our city, a lot of people our country and. When you deal with the, you know, when i was in the Airline Business, we deal with international. Not the rest of the world is honorable. We cant assume that, you know, when i was especially in the Airline Business, you never trusted certain countries. I remember one time we chartered a flight from a greek to go from from miami to, athens. And it was friday, it was 4 00. And didnt get the Wire Transfer yet. You know, everything the Airline Business was Wire Transfer. So i was the cfo of capital airlines. I call the captain but i was on the runway ready to take a left. I say, captain, go back to the go back to the hangar. Go back to the i get a phone call. 3 minutes later, i was my office in nashville, smyrna, tennessee. This is why is the goodbyes the plane coming back to the terminal . I said, you send me my Wire Transfer. Well 10 minutes later, we had and the plane took off a lot of adventures like that. And people should not take you for fools. And if i didnt do that, we would have never, ever collected money. Okay, then. And we we also had the exclusive to fly from from new york to tel aviv. Well, you know, the Airline Business was very tough in 1984. And we my controller didnt, pay the food bill and, you know, friday, 4 00 again, the city they called up from the airport, we didnt get our food from from the vendor. I said, oh. So i told my station manager at jfk airport, go to mcdonalds, buy 200 hamburgers and making an announcement that you have no food except hamburgers. Whoever whoever wants to go can go and whoever just wants a refund will give them a refund. Guess what . Okay, well, 200. What . And the flight went at successfully tel aviv and it all comes back sense and know people are ready. They have their luggage, theyre in the airplane. They want to go. John, i like i. Geller, i want to follow up on your daughter in delaware. You know, well get you out of jail anytime, right . Like twice on sunday, i think. What that he was talking about was your integrity and your principles. You know, Alan Dershowitz has his excellent book called the price of principle and the price hes paid by sticking to his guns and always make his integrity first. I know have a lot of control over that in the world business. But im curious, you ran for mayor. Were there opportunities where wanted to cut deals with you, too, you know . Oh, well, if you take this position on that, ill these Council People to vote for you etc. Where you felt that your integrity was going to be compromised, that you told them, go take a walk. Absolutely not. When i ran for mayor, i didnt have fundraisers i had friend races where i asked my friends. I have a friend. Raise it in your apartment. Ill come and talk. I collected ready zero money from any anybody and and i spent. 12 million of my own money and i ill tell you the good the good, the bad and the ugly. I had a republican nomination. I had a liberal Party Nomination nomination. I won Staten Island. I lost brooklyn, 100 votes and manhattan. I didnt win for some reason, i dont know why, but tony coleman that he supporting lhota. There was one building that had 73 to 0. I said, tony, what happened . What did you do . It. Well, i lost and everybody wanted to run on the liberal ticket, so it would have been joe lhota as a republican. He had no money. I always liked him. Bill de blasio no money. I should have ran as a liberal three way, the three way race. Who knows what would have happened and if you say that i ever have ever regrets that was maybe a regret, but i got a good family. I got two healthy kids. And were here today. Yes, good. And a great mom. Yes, yes. Hey, how you doing . My name is corey. I work with david. So you are 75, so i cant call you. So after call you mr. Katz . No im too. I have two questions. Im an ordinary working person. I came from the streets and im not ashamed of it. Im from street suits. I like that. Okay, i have two questions. One, you said she was a pilot. I want to know how many flight hours you had. Hold on. Dont answer it. Yes. Okay, katz, the second piece is i want to know what your opinion is of the current mayor of new york city, because theres lot of stuff going on in new york city. And i would love to know opinion is right. First of all, i started flying in a cessna 172 at a ramapo airport. Then i moved on up to a cessna 206 that charlie from crashed. They sold me. Then i moved up to a navajo chieftain counterrotating props and. Then in 1978, when i was 30 years old, i bought a jet citation jet. I bought it from roy disney. The tail number was november for a for r. D. Roy disney. And when i to fly that i said to my pilot this is expensive to fly this i said so then i ended up making a deal with Atlantic City to fly customers in. We had two or three and we started management company. It was my airplane. It was bill cosbys airplane because we worked together and we had a 30 airplane, bill paley from the fa or the founder of cbs. So it was me, bill cosby. Paley jim jacobs, the chief pilot who ended up running netjets. But we built that company up to 48 jets. And i used to fly them all and you know, you do stupid things sometimes days i used to love to do 300 miles an hour, 300 feet over the beach. And young and stupid and foolish. And, you know, you know you know what the expression in aviation is there a young pilots and there are old pilots, but there are no old pilots . No foolish old pilots because your. Yeah. Tell the story when the engine went out, you ended up in las vegas. We were 1984. We had a hawker 400. We just it out from grumman on high reliability jet and we were on the west coast of in california in san diego doing some business because we had companies out there and its time to go home. We were in the west for seven days, so im in the left seat. Jim jacobs is on the right see we take off from san diego airport. Were up to 31,000 feet and. Were above the Rocky Mountains and all of a sudden. My right engine instruments, ding, ding, ding, ding, the right engine goes down and and the grumman gave us a high reliability on the engines and so were at 31,000 feet lost the right engine and we call center declare an emergency and its clear sent to phenix my passengers my friends what the heck what theyre doing phenix is going to las vegas and. Well, stupidity. Oh we we ask center please clear us into las vegas. And the thing is, would one single engine, this single engine reliable . It was 23,000 feet. But the mountains. Were 26,000. So we had to get a path to go into vegas and. Im on the left seat, jim jacobs on the right seat. And we cleared into las vegas airport. We had foam trucks on both sides of the runway because no go arounds on one engine. So you better plan that. You better land that airplane away and we slowly came. We landed it okay. And we pull up to the huge aircraft. I remember huge aircraft, las vegas and all the people the back thought we were going to be in phenix. They looked at me at the side says, when do we get to las vegas . Then i had to call. Margot tell her, were in las vegas. We lost an engine. Sure you did. But i made the mayor. All right. That was two questions was allowed i know eric adams since he was Brooklyn Borough president , we made a decision ten years ago to Start Building apartment buildings in brooklyn. He was always very cooperative. He was always when you look at brooklyn, eric adams started being borough president. When he finished brooklyn, a different place. Hes a smart guy. Does he make mistakes . Everybody mistakes. So i listen, you know what . Ive told eric adams and im going to tell you what i told governor hochul. I had Police Commissioners on my show and i remember whats her name, the lady sewell. Yes. She was on my show. You know, she was honest lady. And were talking about the criminals and. You know, nobody gets arrested anymore. This theres crimes, the streets. She says, if you took. Off 3330 800, i forget the number 3300. Repeat violent criminals off the streets in new york. Guess what, eight, eight and a half Million People will be safe in eight and a half Million People can go out Walking Around at night. You can go to your cvs, you go to your right, eight and go shopping. Your stuff being locked up. And i said the same thing to governor hochul. I said, you represent 21 million, 20 Million People in the state of new york. Why cant we get our city safe . People will not move. They love new york. I love new york. They would not move out if they felt safe. Our city. And thats what ive been yelling about with mayor adams and, thats what ive been yelling about. What governor hochul. And thats what its all about you know. Lets lets bring back new york the way its supposed to be. I dont want. To lose new york. Think. So to make two more questions. Two more questions. We have to sign the books. Yes, my son. Just got engaged. Oh, wow. Thats unbelievable. Congratulations. Oh, yes. Wow. A marriage. Oh, watched the marriage. I tried to guess. He wants to marry a sicilian girl of the same greek with a fortune. Rochester. So. Right. They go. Hey, all right, next question. Hey, joe, how are you . Name is jack, a friend of david want to ask you back in day, how did you choose the people you were going in business with. How was based on what . How do i choose people that go in business with you got to like be partners or, you know . No, we had no partners, but i would hire i always try to hire people that are better than me. Why . Because i dont have an ego. I want people are do a good job and we pay them made them happy and just, you know, and we wanted to run a good company. I remember i worried about success more than i worried about the money because if youre success for the money will come. One families that okay ill go ask John Esposito 64 you got write a book now johnson great. How old are you, john . 64. You better start writing books. I started already too. Its a chore. But what i wanted to say is more of a comment and a question. I actually worked as an assistant d. A. On the morgenthau for about eight years, and i knew his devotion to the. I was also very friends with fred watts, who was the executive, the nicest, nicest in the world. He died too young. Young. And i know that they were real, too. It wasnt just a title they actually were real. And i didnt know who was going to be taking over. I went to one of ought this mandatory pr luncheons and i was first introduced watching you and you know, theres a lot of people who could talk the talk, but i think that the notion that you walk the walk and are truly devoted to that is is probably saying more about you than what the wonderful other things about your wealth and success. Its easy to be wealthy and successful and just give away money. Its another thing to actually give your heart and soul to something. So i commend you for that. Thank you. And ill tell you one last story. What what what we i did 25 years ago, you know, we had all these black tie dinners in this and this dinners and raised all this money. I said, mr. Morgenthau, at Christmas Holiday time, whatever you want to call call, lets have a party for the kids and started 25 years ago. My my was there actually at our dining room table. Yeah i go, yeah. Kids and and we wanted we we have a know pal center 119th street. I remember we had like 800 900 kids and you look at these faces and you want to cry because you want help. You want to help all of them. You want to help all of them and we cant help all. But if we can help as many as we can, i feel can go home and feel good about and thank you so much for havingcan you lay out what y the colorblind principle . Yes. So theres been a lot of confusion about what the word colorblindness mean. Many people think that colorblindness means pretend you dont