The Former Prosecutor Running to Fix District 27 | Michael Arias

All right, we're back. We're in the thick of it. It's race time.

It's race time. It's election season. Election season. Congressmen, mayors, everybody.

Judges have come through here.

Yeah.

All right. And now we got a special one.

We got an ace. You see this rap sheet here?

Yeah. We have a nice ace here. Actually,

this is this is the kind of resume that I want to have. All respect. This is pretty impressive.

Well, you still have time. You still have time.

Still got plenty of time. How are you, Michael?

Candidate for US Congress, Florida's 27th district. Michael Aras, a lifelong Miamiian.

Let everybody know.

Pleasure to have you here, my friend.

Pleasure to have you here.

It's a pleasure to be here. Uh, lifetime. Well, life, you know, life, uh, lifelong life, right? Um, moved here in 1962. It was I was 6 years old. That makes me 70. You asked how old I was. I turned 70.

Did I ask that?

I think you did ask that.

What does it mean?

He has a lot of charisma.

He's good. He's good. He's good. Tell us more. [laughter]

Well, when you're 70, you can have charisma.

Yeah, that's a good point.

You don't look a day over 60.

Exactly. Thank you. So tell us my first question is why do this to yourself? Why get into politics?

That's a good question, huh?

No, it's not a good [laughter] question. It's it's a reasonable question and everybody asks it and it's the same answer. 10 years ago, I started to observe Congress kind of abdicating its authority.

You know, it's part of a a three parts of our government and it just stopped doing its job

and it's just kept getting worse and worse and worse. And now you look at it, it's got a 10% approval rating.

Yeah.

I mean, the lowest it's ever been. And it's because our Congress isn't doing their job. And I've had what, 45 years of experience doing as as an attorney.

Tell us a little bit about your background because that that is impressive. I mean, I was joking him in the beginning, but you have a lot of accomplishments and a lot of experience.

Well, my most uh I guess the best accomplishment was I graduated from Coral Gable Senior High.

Oh, right down the street. Shout out to Coral Gable.

Still here. That place is still here. That's amazing.

It's amazing school. Back then it was great. Um went to FSU. Got an undergraduate degree in finance,

law degree, and an MBA. All from FSU.

We're not going to hold that against you. I know you won't. That's okay.

We already discussed that, right?

Great school. Great school. Go ahead.

Um but then I went and worked for the state attorney's office in Orange County, Florida. Uh six years with them. I started out in in juvenile dependencies and delinquencies and worked my way up to capital crimes

uh in in front of a jury or a judge almost every day for six years. Uh then I went with the SEC, United States Securities and Exchange Commission right here in Miami doing enforcement work.

The enforcement work was basically chasing down penny stock brokers much like you see on the the uh Wolves of Wall Street. Wow.

Um, and that was that was a lot of fun because we called it the Maggot Mile, but it was really everything from say South Miami all the way up to Palm Beach.

Really? The Maggot Mile?

The Maggot Mile. Um, it was it was a an exciting uh six years that I worked for.

Really? What were those convictions like, bro?

Well, it was all civil, but basically you put them out of business, but you know, [clears throat] you know,

still hurts, bro.

It hurt them, but they just changed your name and open up another shop.

So, it was the workound, you know.

Yeah, that was the workound. So I did that for six years and then I then I went to work for uh financial institutions uh in-house at Credential Securities and I went as a branch manager, retail branch manager supervising brokers both at Credential Securities and Morgan Stanley.

Wow.

Uh and then I decided that I'd rather represent investors who have been defrauded by brokers. So I went back to private practice.

Wow. So you the whole spectrum

the whole spectrum. I've done everything that you can do in financial

which actually ties in with uh the reason and the purpose of the Congress within the constitution.

That is absolutely correct. We should have lawyers who understand the laws who can draft them, read the fine print and then appropriate monies uh for the various u funding that's needed in in uh in the United States. Uh my my my catch word is it's time to eliminate amateur hour in Congress and that's the reason I'm really running. Uh you know I've observed the incumbent

and it's time that uh we replace her.

Talking about that, what point did you say, "Okay, I'm going to jump in the race." Like what was that moment like?

Yeah, it was it it's something I thought about

like you're sitting at home.

Yeah, I'm sitting at home. I'm watching TV. I'm watching her being interviewed by a journalist

and he he asks, "Well, she's bragging about bringing all this money to Dade County, Miami date county,

and he points out that she voted against all the bills." And her response was, "I forgot. I forget if I if I voted for that. I I'll get back to you." And to me, that's if you're going to brag about bringing money and then you voted against the bills, you either remember it or you're not telling the truth. And that's that was the light switch. Yeah. That kind of like what got you like infuriated?

It really did at that point.

And my career as a lawyer, I mean, it's I I've had a long career as a lawyer. Now, I needed to do something different. I needed to pay back something to the community that I love cuz I grew up here,

you know. Um background,

military background. My father was actually an immigrant. came over in the 19 in 1948, entered the United States Air Force, became a fighter pilot, and he was actually

stationed in Homestead in 1962 for the missile Cuban missile crisis.

He was Cuban.

He was Filipino.

Filipino. Oh my [laughter] god.

Came from the west coast of the United States.

That's great. I We just did an event at the Homestead Air Force Base. We do a lot of military events and feed a lot of uh those guys out there.

For those of people who don't know, uh what does the Florida's 27th district cover? It's

district 27.

District 27 is most of Miami date county. It covers everything south of 195 all the way down to Cutler Bay uh and out to the turnpike.

That's my district.

Then east it goes all the way to Kea's Kane. It excludes Miami Beach, but everything south of that basically all the way down to Cutler Bay. and explain to people the importance of having somebody represent that area for them because I don't think usually a lot of the people and a lot of the public, you know, they know that they have their mayors, their commissioners, their county commissioners, but I don't think a lot of people think about, you know, the state rep or Congress and and and the importance of what they could bring in order to give them better quality of life or in many cases help with affordability,

right? Well, the US Congress is really two two entities. One is the House of Representatives, which is what I'm running for. And that last word, representative, means I'm representing the people within District 27. That's my primary concern to try and get federal funding, uh to uh help with the affordability issues, uh to help with the law enforcement issues, you know, the the whole gamut of what the federal government does for our country and specifically for the various counties or districts.

Yeah. I know one of your things that you're strong about is it's more of a duty and not somewhere you build, right?

Absolutely. Explain that.

Well, I don't need a career.

You know, I'm an attorney. I I could I could be an attorney until I drop dead in my office,

but I've had this this inner sense that I need to do something for this community. And I I'm looking I'm saying it's not being done correct uh currently. uh our current uh incumbent um is more concerned about Venezuela and Cuba. Be more than happy to talk about that shortly. Uh

but much less concerned about what's happening locally in District 27. Um a lot of the things that she says she's done, she hasn't done or it's been part of a larger bill. Uh

she has missed over 270 substant substantive votes in Congress. over the last five and a half years. And and that doesn't sound like a lot until you understand that the average

uh vote that people in Congress miss is about 2%. She's missed over 8%. Every vote that she and these are substantive votes. These aren't, you know, procedural. These are substantive votes that really mean something to

Yeah. Why are you there?

So, exactly. And if you're going to represent people, you have to show up and you have to vote. That's the first thing. The second thing is when you do vote, you have to understand the bills that you're voting on. It can't be just, hey, I'm in the Republican party, therefore I'm going to vote Republican right down the line. You have an obligation to your constituents because quite frankly, there are a lot of Democrats in District 27. And when you get elected, you're not representing just Republicans. You're representing the entire population.

And uh so you need to know what you're signing

when you do sign it. and you have to be there to to sign it to vote for it. So So these are these are the reasons I'm looking at, you know, this whole situation. I'm saying we need somebody who doesn't have a need to be there monetarily. You know, that's a good point and I think I see it a lot across the board and I had a good friend of mine, uh, Jose Felix Diaz, uh, Pepe from from Ballard and we discussed why better people are not running for office and it's because it's turned into like this mudslinging approach, you know, where, you know, people don't want to be put in a position, good people don't want to be put in a position where your lives could get destroyed, you know, or you're in there for the wrong reasons, for monetary reasons, etc. And I feel like with you, you know, at your point in your life, you know, you've already done everything you needed to do. So, I think u I I, you know, I I don't see you going in for that type of reason. You know, I think I could tell you you really want to help the community out. Um, what would you say are are your main priorities? Like, hey, listen, if you put me to represent you guys out there, this is going to be my main focus,

right?

Two things. Affordability. And everybody says that 100%.

And affordability, what does it mean? Well, affordability on insurance, whether it is housing insurance or health insurance. Um, affordability. Can you afford your house? Um, what is your mortgage rate going to be? Currently in Miami Date County, we are more expensive than New York City.

Yeah, I just saw that.

How can you be more expensive than New York City? And yet, here we are in paradise.

Yeah. M

um and our kids, you guys are too young, but you have a son in Columbus.

Yeah.

So, what is your son going to do when he graduates from college? Where is he going to live?

Um

it's true.

They can't live here outsourced.

That the housing's too expensive. And then once you get into housing, to buy a house is expensive, but then to maintain it. So, I need the federal government to step up, help with the interest rates, uh help with the insurance premiums, uh all of these things that go toward affordability.

But that's a good point. How is it? I mean, I'm and I'm maybe speaking from outside the frey, but how can uh a position like yours and you being elected actually help with affordability like? What would what would that process look like? You know,

the Well, the first thing is is we have a

Sorry, not affordability with specifically with insurance because everyone complains to me about that, you know.

Yeah. What would your day one be like?

Well, day one is the first thing I'm going to do is day one is look at our debt. And what I mean by that is we have almost $40 trillion in debt today and next week it'll be 41 trillion and then the week after it be 43%. The interest on that debt alone almost equals what our social security payments are

and it's only going to go up because right now interest rates are high. Some of these bonds are maturing and they're being, you know, they're they're being replaced by higher interest bonds. So that that debt it's uh the interest on that debt alone is over 1.04 04 trillion a year.

I heard this from Elon Musk because he was a big proponent to reduce our and it was as just as much as our military budget. Something ridiculous about that.

It's it's it's almost 25 30% higher. Our military budget 750 billion. Our debt on interest is over $1 trillion. That's the first thing we need to look at. The second thing quite frankly is is the insurance. We need to bring more insurance companies into this into into the uh the state. We also I think the federal government can do a lot of things such as backs stop insurance companies, reinsurance. Right now reinsurance goes through like Lloyds of London and it's a tremendous cost. The United States can do something like that uh to try and bring down the the insurance rates. FEMA, the FEMA insurance rates in South Florida have gone through the roof because we're mostly in a flood zone.

Yeah. Hurricane season.

And when the hurricane season's around the corner, actually, we're in it now. And we haven't had any bad hurricanes for a while now, too.

Which why we're which is why we're due for one.

Yeah.

Yeah. Don't say that. Don't say that.

I have to say that because, you know, eventually there's going to be a catastrophe, but it's not just us. How about Pensacola? They get hit almost every year now. uh we're due for one and I just don't want to see us in the same boat as say the people in North Carolina where FEMA is basically and FEMA's been absent.

We need to make sure the United States government is going to protect us through FEMA uh and not charge us so much that we can't afford it. A lot of my friends have paid off their mortgages for one reason and one reason only. So they don't have to pay insurance on their houses.

So that is so dangerous. That's very dangerous.

And of course, the other insurance that is is extremely important to us all is is health insurance.

We need to, you know,

we had Obamacare or ACA

um for many many years and the Republican party, my party has constantly said we have to get rid of it.

But I've always said if it if you've got something that's broken, don't just throw it away before you have a solution to it. Yeah.

And I don't think we've ever had a solution to it. And the problem we have is in district 27,

probably a third of the people that live here

actually uh needed the subsidies. So a lot of them now are now going without health insurance.

Um and that is something that we need to work on day one. Uh we need our people in in district 27 to be healthy and happy and have their kids be able to live with them or live in their uh county with them.

So So your top your your your top like like like goal is affordability in your campaign.

It is.

Yeah, it has to be everybody feels it. Listen, everybody usually votes with their pocket, you know. You know, you have things that sway you left and right, you know, but

uh one of the things you're feeling it

Yeah. One of the things that uh that that I found out about you is when it comes to the term limits,

right?

And uh you said that uh you would not take a paycheck during a shutdown, government shutdown.

Absolutely. Look,

I don't think I don't think any anybody in

If I was in private practice and I went on strike or I left and I said, "I'm not coming back until you, you know, do whatever." They're not going to pay me.

Yeah. You know, I believe if you pay, if you don't pay them, Congress is going to get something settled in a week

because they're not going to be able to afford to pay their mortgage payments like everybody else.

So, I I really think it's important to have, you know, to to not take pay. But you also mentioned term limits.

It's the House of Representatives. And when you are a congressperson for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, you lose touch with your constituents. You lose, you know, you get overcome by the power or whatever it is, you know, of of Washington DC. I truly believe in term limits. It's a constitutional thing. So, we can't change it unless we do a constitutional amendment,

which would be more very difficult. But that doesn't mean that we can't pledge before we get elected to limit the number of terms we're going to serve. And I've signed a pledge saying I'm not going to sign us do more than three terms at most.

I've always thought that was kind of common sense. I feel like that should be, you know, common sense. I also feel like the same situation goes for trading, you know. I mean, situation with Nancy Pelosi is kind of, you know, crazy, too. You know, I I would I would think that people who are in that position shouldn't be able to trade just considering the fact that you have information from ahead of time. But there's something here that's very interesting and that I like a lot and we see it all over the place and we know it happens and it's the fraud. You know, the Medicare fraud, social security fraud. I know JD Vance is kind of, you know, uh taking a lead on that right now. Um I we know that there's a lot of fraud out there,

especially off Yeah. I grew up in Miami and saw a lot I saw a lot of insurance fraud going on. Um

you know, I I'd heard stories in when Hurricane Andrew hit. Luckily, my my roof stayed, but I've heard of

my my dad's it was a pine and it was gone.

Yeah. Well, we're in the in the Grove, but I heard of people getting up on their roofs with a hatchet, putting holes so that their insurance company would come out and pay them for a new roof. You know, that's fraud, and we need to put a stop to that kind of fraud. The same thing with insurance fraud, uh medical insurance fraud. You know, you hear about these uh clinics picking up the old people and driving them, you know, once or twice a week to the clinic where they get a blood test, they get, you know, all sorts of tests.

And that is costing the taxpayers money. That's cost that's Medicare usually. And if we can cut down on that kind of fraud,

we're going to we're going to save a lot of money. Yeah. Um, you know, I I always thought Doge was a pretty good idea, except that it was really implemented in a manner that was totally wild and and was never going to work,

but we need a Doge type system to go in and and really look at every single department

and decide where the fraud's coming from and get rid of it. Yeah.

And and it's not that difficult. And by the way, it will save billions of dollars, maybe even trillions. And I think now we have the technology in order for us to be able to do it much more effectively. Whereas before a lot of the systems didn't communicate with each other, you know, across the government arms. So, you know, you couldn't tell, you know, if something was happening over here or over there. Similar to I mean, I know that the Pentagon has uh they fail their audit every year and they have hundreds of billions of dollars that just like disappear and nobody knows. That's crazy to me, you know, like

well, they know where it's going. It's just that there's not a backbone to do something about it. And that's why Congress needs to step in and say, "Look, you either fix the problem or we we quit funding you."

Now, I'm not in favor of defunding the military. I would never suggest that. But I do think that we have outside auditors that need to go in and find the fraud and put a stop to it.

Yeah.

Coming from a military family, how do you feel about law enforcement? I know you stand firmly behind

our boys in blue and boys in red.

Absolutely. I mean, you know, um, Veterans Administration is wholly underfunded right now. If we send our people to to combat,

we need to take care of them. We need to have the best doctors, the best services, uh, course and we don't right now. And that's a shame. And it's not a shame. It's it's it's aborant.

You think it's by design?

No, I think it's just that, you know, it's it's what funding gets priority.

Got you. And that's where Congress comes in because they they prioritize the funding. And I think that they have failed to do that because most of them are amateurs. Most of them are there because they can't get a job. Their only job is Congress. It's a stepping stone to the Senate, stepping stone to the presidency, and they've got to we've got to stop it. And that's why I say we've got to end the amateur hour in Congress because it's killing us.

It's backing the law enforcement. uh how important is for our immigration officers now protecting our borders? I mean, that's something that we deal with here in Miami. You [clears throat] know, everybody wants to come, but we need to get things done the legal way, the right way. What's your stance on on backing up the the border?

I think absolutely. We got to secure the border. Uh and we have to enforce our immigration laws. Enforce them. We're not enforcing them. We are enforcing them to an extent right now, but I think we've done it in the wrong way. The optics is horrible. Um, and we need to change that.

Yeah.

I I don't suggest we eliminate

ICE like, you know, some of the Democratic uh candidates are saying. I mean, that's crazy. Um,

but I think we do have to vet our applicants for ICE more carefully.

Yes.

And I think we then have to train them adequately. Um, not only, you know, to detain people, but also to deescalate situations. Um, and I hate to say this, Obama Obama deported over three million illegal immigrants and you didn't see any type of uh major uh demonstrations that we see today. There's a way to do it

humanely.

And I and I would advocate that in Congress is that we we really

better trained officers better too. I think

there's been some serious situations. You know, people have passed away and the situation with with we've seen all over the news. Um, but I think when Tom Hman started getting a little bit more aggressive, kind of taking over, you know, I think it's gotten a little bit better lately. No.

Oh, definitely. When when Christy was doing it, it was for effect. You know, it was I think her philosophy was make it look so bad that if you are an illegal immigrant, you will self- deport.

Um,

but it had the opposite effect. You know, it turned a lot of people off. Uh, it scared a lot of people. Uh Holman has been much better at it, but we can do an even better job.

And he's been doing it for decades, too. He came from the Obama.

He's from the Obama. Exactly.

He got the Presidential Medal of Freedom, I believe, too. No.

I don't know if he did or not, but I wouldn't be surprised.

You go ahead.

Talk to me about the dignity act. You know, uh explain dignity.

That's Salazar's dignity act. She brings it out every election year. It comes out.

Explain to people what it is first. I don't think a lot of people know and then why you oppose it.

Right. The dignity act is is um the incumbent's I guess her permanent bill that she puts forth every two years and basically it's to legalize illegal immigrants to give them amnesty to give them a path to citizenship. Um and basically it's it's and and I won't even say it's the 1986 Reagan amnesty. This is even more more broad. Now, it only covers people that came in before Biden's 2020. Um, and we don't know what she's got in store for the people that came in after Biden. So, it's not a comprehensive bill because it leaves 8 million

undocumented illegal immigrants versus the 8 million that came in before 2020. There's 16 million in all from what we can tell. Wow.

Uh, and we don't know for sure because many of them haven't been vetted. you know, they came in, they get they gave a name, and then they were told, "Come back in a year."

How would you fix this issue? What will be some of your solutions?

Well, the something that you can I mean,

I've been walking around knocking on doors in Tate County and

in this heat.

In this heat. Oh my god. Yes.

Right there. You got my vote.

Well, thank you. [laughter]

I know it's hot out there.

It is hot. It is hot out there. But you know, it's important to go out and and and talk to the people because I have my own opinions,

but my opinions,

they they shape me. But the opinions of the people who live here, who are going to vote for me, who are going to be who I'm representing, are really the the people I need to listen to the most. And I was surprised because I'm an attorney for 40 years. I'm not I'm doing securities litigation. I don't do immigration. And I start hearing all of my friends, most of them who are naturalized citizens from another country, mostly Cuba, who are saying, "Arest every one of them and send them all back."

Yeah. My parents are Cuban. I was born here.

And what do what do your parents say? Send them all back.

Yeah. If they're not legal and do it the way we did it, they got to go.

And that's what they're saying. Why should illegal immigrants get a reward for coming in illegally? Yeah. And so but but the the flip side to that is there's 16 million of them. Uh we don't have enough judges,

okay?

Immigration judges. So the second thing I would do is try and enlarge the the judiciary

to move faster

to move faster because some of these people are waiting one, two, three years for their immigration hearing. And

look, not every person that goes before a judge on their immigration status gets to stay. In fact, the majority of them don't because they're not here for political asylum or or uh gang related asylum, that sort of stuff or or any other uh thing that they might be able eligible to come in on.

And and I go back to my father was an immigrant 1948. I go back to the fact that this country is built on immigrants

100%.

And and it's just not Latin American immigrants. We go all the way back to the 1700s as far as immigrants. So, so I am for it, but I think we need to enforce our laws. The biggest problem we have 16 million, not enough judges. How how are we going to get through 16 million people? Um, so we need to start as we mandated when we elected Trump mandated get the worst of the worst out first and that's what we need to focus on.

Yeah.

Um, and

so it's not an emotional story. It's actually a bad person getting out, right? Because all they always show you is, you know, the family is being torn apart. They don't show you the success rate of getting people that, you know, harm others and have these crazy records. Um,

yes. I mean, also too, the longer you take, let's say you don't have enough judges and you people discouraged, four or five years, they're establishing their whole life, you know.

Yeah. They don't want to wait anymore. They're going to make

more complex for people to vote, you know.

So, so Salers are dignity bill. The problem with it is is it's the first two attempts was a path to citizenship, which the Republicans aren't buying. Th this last bill is a work permit, which basically says uh if you apply and you're eligible, you can work for seven years and then you can reapply for another seven years and then you can reapply for another Oh, wait a minute. This is as long as you haven't been convicted of a crime,

you can work forever in the United States.

No path to citizenship. Uh, no right to vote, no right to you have basically no rights other than the fact you have a work permit. I don't think that's dignity. I think that's second class citizenship.

Can you imagine not being able to vote?

Yeah, you're worried all the time.

And and you don't know if they're going to change the policy.

The crazy part is that no other country has favorable immigration laws as much as we try.

Nobody. Nobody No other country lets you in. A lot of other countries are extremely strict, you know, but when it comes to us, we we obviously we're a nation built on immigrants and and it's needed and and but it's needed to be done in the proper way. I actually like a lot of like the merit-based immigration, you know, prospect, you know, cuz it's like, hey, if you're doing something good out there, you know, come over here.

What about TPS?

TPS, that's a good

It's a big one right now. It's it's I think it's a horrible situation.

Haitians, Venezuelans,

I believe, and it's like a half a million Haitians. I think 350,000 Venezuelans are have now become illegal.

I disagree with it. I think the TPS should have been extended.

Yeah.

I I think the problem is it's temporary protective status and and when you're on it for 10 or 15 years, is that temporary anymore? So I think we should at least extend it long enough to to let these people who have worked here and built a community, you know, find a way to transition either to another country, maybe not Haiti, uh because I think you can't send them back to Haiti. Um the same thing with Venezuela. Um

let's get into Venezuela for a second. Uh

but before we go into

I mean maybe I'm you know not seeing things the right way but I TPS I what I would do would be something along the lines of extending it like vetting them you know seeing who has a record or who came in here and you know it's not not it's a bad actor you know and then you know put those to the side and the people who are actually working and having jobs and committing and you know providing something within the community I would you know give them a pathway you know is there there's nothing people aren't thinking like that Is there any possibility of that?

Right now, there's no pathway for TPS to be American citizens. Got

But they are being vetted. They are being followed and and and made sure that they're not criminals. If they are, they're being detained and deported just like any other uh

person who's committed crimes uh that's not not a citizen. So, so the extension

possibly. Um there's not a lot of support in the Republican party to make TPS a pathway to citizenship

uh at this point. That may change, but right now it's not it's not in there.

Yeah, because I would see something like, you know, like Haiti is tough to send people back, you know, and then Venezuela. I mean, I see now um I saw an interview today with Christy Frogga and I know that she spoke to Trump uh when when you know we captured Maduro and that whole situation happened and he she she put it was live. She said like he told me after like, "Hey, are they good to go back now?" She goes, "Well, not yet." You know, like it's still not there yet, you Well, I don't I disagree with that statement. We have removed TPS from Venezuelans, which means any day now or wait a minute. We are currently deporting Venezuelans um back to Venezuela.

From TPS

from TPS. Oh, wow.

Because it it ended it ended actually before the Haitian TPS.

I mean, it's supposed to be temporary and everybody knows that, you know. So,

but but when you come here because of of political unrest or more more recently the earthquakes that they had in Venezuela, you know, that's what it's set up to bring them in, help them get back on their feet and then get them back in their own country. And if it takes a little longer, it takes a little longer. We should we should be, you know, uh

Yeah. Come here. You live in the States, you know, you kind of like it a lot.

Yeah. Whatever. How do I go back?

What do you tell those people that don't want to?

Well, you tell them. You tell them you go back

and reapply. you reapply like everybody else did

like everybody did and that's then that's a problem we're having right now

is it's hard to send people back to say Haiti or Venezuela because as much as my incumbent crows about Venezuela being a success all we did was take this the head off the the three-headed snake there's still two or three more heads there

um the regime has not changed uh the Venezuelans I talked to say that people are still being picked up off the streets and disappeared. Um, Deli Rodriguez has been made the, you know, de facto president and she was, you know, part of the regime. So, there's been no regime change.

Um, there's the only benefit and we did get benefits out of it.

The Chinese and Russians are now gone from Russia, I mean, from Venezuela. uh the Cuban uh oil or the oil being sent from Venezuela to Cuba has now been stopped which put a it has and continues to put a tremendous pressure on regime change in Cuba.

Yeah,

they're about to burst.

But but what's your thoughts on what's the regime going to be?

I mean that's the problem, you know. I mean

shouldn't it be Marco Ruby for president?

No, you know, you'll laugh about [snorts] that. I've been saying that since day one.

He was not. No, he he can't be because

there are other people in line that that have been wanting to

I'm waiting I'm waiting for them to roll tanks in Havana.

Well, we're not going to look Rubio.

They don't need to do that.

No, just to scare people and say, "Hey, not the people, the government."

Rubio was born in United States, so he

Yeah, I'm a big Marco fan.

He can't be he can't be president of Cuba. But Cabba, that's the CubanAmerican Bar Association. and they've already come up with a, you know, a huge document describing how the transition should take place because what we don't want to do is have I I was told there are three different armies in Cuba. There's north, middle, and south. And you know, if we get rid of the head of Cuba that these three armies may devolve into civil war, and it's the last thing we want,

another revolution. But no, I mean, you see it being played out. I mean, something's going to happen 100% for the people who think these guys aren't going to do that. And the other the other latest news that I heard was it was um Iranian drones were found in Cuba, you know. So it's like

that's that's within range of by

range of us. So we can't have that happening there. So I know that that's going to that whatever it takes to get everybody out of there. Yeah.

And and I think they're on their way now. They've they've had another islandwide blackout for the last I guess week or two.

Yeah. How much can they take?

They can't take a whole lot more. But you have to feel for the people

of course

and you know some of the things we've done a blockade but fortunately I think the United States did it right. We've also given aid through the Catholic Church rather than giving aid to the government and hopefully that aid actually makes it into the

hands the problem they don't get to the people man. Step one is always going to be humanitarian efforts.

And I believe that that

most of our CubanAmerican friends send money back to their relatives in Cuba.

And yes, some of that filters into the government hands into guy gaya.

But you know what? It's some of these people, they rely on that to live, to survive, and to it's not it's not

humane to say cut off everything and let these people starve to death until they revol. I went to Cuba uh 2018 before co and they exchange your dollars for something called se which is like their do and they take 20% of whatever you put goes straight to the government. So if you take $100, you're exchanging 80, $20 goes to the government when that was one of their biggest um you know scams, scams, finance, you know, that's all. And the other thing was when you go over there and I'm me talking to the people in the streets,

you know, if you go to the doctor and you something's wrong with you, you know, you need some type of medical assistance or help or anything, the doctor will ask you faith.

Do you have faith? And it doesn't mean faith. It's to familia and exterior.

Oh,

you have family in the exterior, then you'll be fine. If you don't have family in the exterior,

because he's got his little account set up in the Cayman Islands, and you just send the money to to the Cayman Islands and he's and it's a shame because Cuba has a lot of doctors, but mostly they're overseas and they don't get paid. They don't get paid either. The payment goes right to Gasa.

Yep.

So, you're you've always been a negotiating guy. If you're voted in, are you going to be able to negotiate that deal for us, Cubans?

Absolutely.

And help out with that.

How important is your negotiating skills for your new position if you make it?

I think it's important. That's why I'm running because I I really think what we have

I go back to amateur power. We have people who who are

I hate to say this, they're journalists, you know, they're on TV

for 40 years. They read from a teleprompter. They go out into the community and they act nice, but they're not doing anything. What they're doing is they're reporting on what everybody else is doing. And now they come to Congress and suddenly what are they supposed to do? There's no teleprompter.

There's no way for them they they need to find a way. And so what they end up doing is hiring experts and chiefs of staff

whose agenda may be completely different than what they came in on. And I think that that's what's happening.

Can you explain to me the Dreamers Act 2025? Kremer's Act of 2025 is an act that was that has been written by the Democrats and it it it's tugs at our heartstrings because it involves kids that have come here a long time ago. They've been raised as Americans. They don't really have a connection to their uh home of origin. uh they've gone to elementary and high school and they don't speak the language whether it's Spanish or German or Russian or whatever. Uh these are dreamers that we have had in our midst for years and years and years. The problem is is they're considered illegal immigrants. So they get picked up and they get sent back. So, so if you're a kid that's raised American and you get sent back to Mexico or Guatemala, you know, as a 22y old,

you know, you don't speak the language, you don't have any connections, this is horrible.

But the Dreamers Act

says it's trying to fix that. But what it really does it it it and the incumbent came out with eight Democrats on the capital two weeks ago and she basically said, "I'm one of the few Republicans that agree with sending this act to the floor to be voted on." Well, she's the only Republican. She wasn't one of few. Um, and if you read the fine print, it involves dreamers, but it also allows kids who are now adults, uh, if they've been involved in a gang to get citizenship, and we don't need gang members. And basically, it says if we can't find anything more than five years ago,

we're going to do it.

Then you can become a dreamer. And and the problem is we're not by the statute, we're not allowed to use the federal and state database to find out or prove if they were actually gang members.

Wow.

So if you find

Well, that's that's the problem. Uh you can't you can't properly make sense. It even gets worse because it says if you deny them because of that, you know, they're involved in criminal activities or whatever,

you cannot we cannot as a government then turn that information over to immigration enforcement. So basically, if I'm if I'm taking the application, I see that you know you're a Trenagwa person, you know, five years, six years ago and and there's been no report since then, I I can still deny your application or wait a minute, he was a Trenagua last year. Well, I'm denying your your petition. Oh, wait a minute. You're currently a trenagua and I'm denying your petition. I can't then turn that over to immigration and say, "Hey, we got a trenagua person that needs to be out of here." They're prevented from doing that. This is absolutely crazy. And I don't know if she didn't read the fine print or if she really agrees to that. It's crazy.

She probably Yeah,

government and politics is terrible.

27 is such a powerful district. We need to get that right. Before we ask you the last question, I want you to look into the camera and tell the people why they should vote for you.

I have nothing to gain for being a US Congress person. I'm doing it because I believe in my community and I believe in my country and I believe that as a US congressman, my duty is to you, not to some foreign entity, not to, you know, illegal immigrants. It's to you people in the United States who are citizens who work every day, pay for all your things out of your own money, and don't expect government handouts. That's why I'm running.

Amazing.

Amazing.

I believe him.

No, I like it. I like it a lot.

There's no reason not to blame.

We need We need We Listen, we need some some some serious support.

Elected here on our podcast.

Yeah. I think we're like six for six.

We are. But now, Michael, seriously. So, so

for the toughest question of your life,

give me your top three restaurants that you dine at.

Wait, wait, let me let me say that. Candidate for US Congress, Florida's 27th district. Michael Aras, you got to give us your top three restaurants.

It could be in your district. It could be in all of Miami. It could be the places you like

and why you liked them.

Starting with number three.

Oh, number three.

Number three. You got to work your way up.

You got to go backwards. Yeah.

Can I ask my wife what my three are?

Yeah, you can ask your [laughter] wife. Yeah, I mean, go for it. What's number three, honey, that we go to?

I know where you spend most of your Wednesday afternoons at.

That's Well, it's that's that's a cigar bar, though. Does that count? Yeah. Gag cigars. Well, you ordered in they

All right. It counts. Number three. What is it?

Gaganiano. Uh

oh. Here in the corner.

Cigars right here in the corner.

That's amazing. That's a good spot. Yeah, that's a good spot.

Then I have to say I I eat a lot at seasons 52.

Season 52. What do you like?

Uh

eating the steak.

Salad. No, mostly the salad. I've taken to eating you a lot of salads because I eat too much now.

Yeah.

Um

Oh, you need the energy.

Yeah.

Yeah. You're you're you're knocking doors, man. You're you're 24/7 right now, baby. So, seasons 52 then we'll put it number three. Number two.

Well, that was number two.

Okay. That was number two.

Number one is Cafe Abra.

Cafe Abra.

I've been I've been eating at Cafe Abra forable 35 years. Uh you know, I used to know the owner, Nino Pernetti, before he died. Uh I spent every uh New Year's uh at Cafe Abra. And the food, by the way, is excellent. New chef.

New chef.

Listen, they have a little spot when you walk in to the right hand side. It's like old school New York feel that has like the stained glass, you know, ceiling. It's a beautiful bar they have. If you guys have not been to Cafe, it's a must to go check it out.

Cable legends.

Yeah, it truly is. And it's it's

What are you eating?

It's a power It's a power place. I like the uh the ve

the ve. Yeah. Amazing view with the little with the little chips

with little with the little uh the little green things.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like this uh they have um shrimp alafa francessa. It's like a shrimp and they put in this like amazing sauce. I have to admit. Well, the other one is fut de mar. So good.

No, it's a great spot. It's a great family spot. They have in the back if you guys are looking for like a big dinner spot. You have 20 people. They have a private room in the back.

So much history. So much history.

And then once a month they're having like uh a a person come in and sing.

Oh no. It's mostly uh you know old songs.

Yeah, the girls took over. Dino's daughters took over.

The two girls um

they've done a good job. I see them a lot on social media now.

Okay, good.

Michael, thank you so much, brother.

My friend, good luck. Remember, District 27, vote for Michael. You got my vote, brother.

I appreciate that. Another day in Miami, guys. Thank you.