February 9, 2026 • 33 mins
On Sunday, Rich hosted a half-hour Halftime Special on Roku's Festiva TV and Rumble, as well as iHeartRadio and all audio platforms, to react to Bad Bunny's performance, the response from America, plus an interview with Curtis Sliwa.
Happy President's Day! Our daily show schedule continues on February 16, 2026, on all platforms.
Subscribe to "This Is America with Rich Valdés" and follow @RichValdes on social media and Rumble.
For branding partnerships, contact Barbara.Gibson.pr@gmail.com.
RichValdes.com
Happy President's Day! Our daily show schedule continues on February 16, 2026, on all platforms.
Subscribe to "This Is America with Rich Valdés" and follow @RichValdes on social media and Rumble.
For branding partnerships, contact Barbara.Gibson.pr@gmail.com.
RichValdes.com
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
This is America with Rich Valdez powered by politicweek dot
com and.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Rich Valdees is with us.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Former Christian Administration official.
Speaker 4 (00:12):
You work for Chris Christie.
Speaker 5 (00:13):
You've been follow us each on a lot of public
service stuff.
Speaker 4 (00:15):
Rich Valdez calumnist now with the Washington Times.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
This is America, Richiev.
Speaker 5 (00:20):
You're on the air with a Nation Nation with America.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
With your host, Rich Valdez.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
What's up, America. I am Rich Valdez Valdez with an
s at Rich Valdez on all of the social media.
Welcome to our program. I want to get into a
bunch of things that are going on. Of course, if
you want to join us, you're always welcome to do
that on the phones. Eight seven seven Valdez one is
the phone number, eight seven seven Valdez one. As we
kick off our late night national Townhole Conversation, and I
(00:57):
wanted to let you know we've got Curtis Lee with
joining us in studio right here in Times Square. Don't
miss that. Plus we're going to talk about Bad Bunny,
the super Bowl, all of that and so much more.
But I want to start with heikodej model Bad Bunny. Right.
He seems to be the man of the hour. Everybody's
talking about Bad Bunny. They're talking about their either how
much Dave loved the halftime show or how much they
(01:20):
hated the halftime show. I want to get into all
of it because I've seen a lot of things. And
we'll put a couple of graphics up so you could
see these things. And I got to tell you, I
might be the only person in America who watched both
Kid Rock and Bad Bunny, right. I mean, I was
watching the game with my friends. We put on the
Bad Bunny. I was very pleasantly surprised. I know some
of you, to your sugarn, you're thinking, how could your
(01:41):
rich he's a what it was? And I'm hearing Jake
Paul says he is a fake American citizen. What's that
all about? Jake Paul lives in Puerto Rico with a
bunch of other fake American citizens. I don't know how
he gets to pull that off and the Puerto Ricans
don't flip out on him. I got to tell you,
as far as I know, Puerto Ricans are not fake
American citizens. And if you want to talk about it,
Jake Paul, come on the show. I'd love that, but
(02:02):
I want to get it. We'll get into that a
little bit. I really want to talk about the bad
money stuff, because why, for some reason, somehow, somewhere, people
have made it seem as if we go to the NFL,
we go to Hollywood, we go to a halftime show
for our portion right, for our source of all things
good and holy. That's not the case. That's never been
(02:24):
the case. So why why are we doing that? Listen?
I have no idea why, but I've never turned to
whether it was Lady Gaga, Madonna, Janet Jackson and the
Nip Slip and whatever. Listen. The NFL has always brought
on provocative halftime shows. This is what they do. This
is their playbook. So why is everybody freaking out about this?
I'll tell you why. Because it's in Spanish.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
Now.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
Years ago, Julio Iglesias used to sing in Spanish. All
sorts of people sing in Spanish. Ricky Martin, right, Vin Levello. God, Now,
there was an English version of that song too. But
everybody loved Ricky Martin, everybody, But for some reason, we
don't want to like Bunny.
Speaker 5 (03:00):
Now.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
Listen, Ricky Martin's as gay as all get out. Yet
he's beloved by so many. Right, there's so many people
that are And this is not an infomercial. Right, I'm
not promoting the LGBTQ community. It's personally as a matter
of faith. For me, it's not something I subscribe to.
But I have to say to each his own right,
(03:21):
this is what people do. I'm not going to hate
somebody because they sin differently than me. That's not the
business that I'm in, and it's not, as far as
I know, it's not the business of conservatism to sit
here and we can try to hold on to tradition,
to tradition, excuse me. We want to do the right
thing at the end of the day. The last thing
I think we need to be doing is hating on people.
(03:43):
What's the harm in saying I don't know bad Bunny,
I don't like him. I mean, I don't know him.
I've never heard of him, or I'm not sure I'm
not familiar with the music to this is an affront
on America? How did we get there? How did we
get to this as an affront on America? I don't
see it happening to me. It seems like we're demonizing
that which we do not know, and we in the
(04:04):
past we haven't done that. Right. How many people do
you know that aren't Mexican and love some Taco Tuesday? Right?
They love it, they love carnitas. Right, come on, I've
been to La I know how this goes, and so
do you. This to me is beyond the pale people
talking about. But he sings about what. Listen every time
I turn on some of my favorite movies, Scarface, The Godfather, Casino, Goodfellas. Right,
(04:31):
are we supposed to say that Joe Peshi was promoting
womanizing because he was fooling around with de Niro's isn't
that film? Or Or that they're condoning or promoting murder
because they kill people left and right in these films,
or that they're condoning or promoting organized crime. No, nobody
was complaining when Good Fellas came around. But yet when
(04:52):
it comes to music, all of a sudden, we've got
a double standard. So I just want to call it
out for what it is. Bad. Bunny is an artist.
He does what he does, whether he likes men, doesn't
like men. Honestly, I pray that he likes women. I
pray that he marries a woman, and I pray that
all goes well for him. But at the end of
the day, that's not my issue. And my issue is
(05:13):
do I want to listen to the song or not
listen to the song. I don't go to the movies
and say, oh, I don't watch horror films, or I
don't watch action films, or I don't know, because I
don't want to promote violence. Nobody does that why we
choose to do it in particular with hispanics and blackses.
And I'm not pulling the race card. I'm just saying
it just happens to be. I've never seen anybody call
out anybody else, and I think that there might be
(05:36):
elements of that involved in that. I don't know, but
it's fascinating to me how there's so many people jumping
on this vandwagon saying that this is that, and how
could they when it's the NFL. I thought we were
done with the NFL in twenty thirteen. I didn't know
that we were still doing NFL, and it's news to me.
So I think we really got to check ourselves and
(05:57):
really say, hold on a second, what is it that
we actually believe? What do we really stand for as conservatives.
Are we trying to hold on to tradition. Great, let's
hold on to all the tradition we can. But if
the tradition goes back to the last seven years with
jay Z and years prior, right, we go back to
early two thousands. If you're in your fifties and maybe
in your sixties, then you might be able to say,
(06:19):
I remember back in seventy nine. But every halftime show
I can think of was either very boring or it
was edgy. Right. Last year it was Kendrick Lamar with
his He had a very political message in there. Right.
Beyonce when she did her thing where they were doing
the whole Black Lives Matter, it was almost like a
Black Panther type of tribute because of what she called
(06:43):
police brutality. Right. There was a little bit of pushback
on that, but for the most part, everybody ate it up.
So my point is bad Bunny, who's performed back in
twenty twenty. He was off stage with Jalo and Shakira,
who also I think had a couple of songs in Spanish,
or at least a couple of verses in Spanish. Lauria
as Stefan the Miami Sound Machine. She almost exclusively sang
(07:04):
in Spanish for most of her career, but had a
big hit that was in English. Got it all good.
I'm with all of it. I'm not here to begrudge
anybody for the language that they speak. Come on, for years,
I've been on the radio saying to all my friends
in the what I call the it's America speak English crowd.
I say, it's America, speak whatever language you want. The
(07:26):
reason I say that is why could I speak a
couple of languages? And I think, if you want to survive, right,
if I want to get into broadcasting, I want to
be in talk radio. Guess what language talk radio dominates
in English? So I need to learn how to speak English,
and I need to learn how to do it pretty
well in order to get a broadcasting job. That's how
that works. You can't really be involved in commerce if
(07:48):
you don't speak the language. So it's kind of like
a given it. It's a requirement, not something I need
to sit here and tell you about. Now, listen, I
don't have my head in the sand. We've had a
problem with truckers who were in the country illegally. Don't
learn the language by themselves the CDL license, and they're
getting into accidents. That's a far cry from hiring or
(08:12):
bringing on board a Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny to
do the halftime show. Two totally different things. I didn't
see Bad Bunny promoting any of the things that people
are saying that he promotes. I honestly didn't see it.
One thing I know I missed. I saw the video
afterwards was to these two guys dancing, And I'm not
trying to minimize that, but I'm just saying, have you
(08:34):
ever turned on Glee? Right? I know I have kids
that are in their twenties. I've seen them watch Glee.
I've turned on the seat passed by the TV and
I said, oh my gosh, what is this? What's going on?
What you would see in Glee and the stuff they
talk about in Glee far outweighs anything that I saw
in the Bad Money concert, including the two guys for
(08:55):
the zero point five milliseconds that was there. I'm not
saying it's good. I'm just look, there's a populist movement
in this country, which I don't necessarily count myself a
part of, but the leader of that movement is President Trump.
President Trump is extremely gay friendly, he's extremely pro gay.
He's always been that guy. That is truly a big
(09:18):
part of I think the gravitas for him and a
lot of the populists. So how is it that Ed
Trompito don all this magnus to forty fifth and forty
seventh president of these United States? He gets to tout
Rick Grennell and always talk about how he's supportive of
this inclusive stuff. But if somehow the Puerto Rican rapper
(09:40):
does it, it's a big deal. Now, I keep saying
that because I don't see the difference in bad money
being an ally of the LGBT community. That's what he
wants to do. That's what he wants to do. I
could sit here and say I don't like the guy,
or I don't like his position, But wouldn't it be
weird if I said I don't like his position, but
I love Trump's. I'm doing what the great one Mark
Levin taught me to do, to take an argument, to
(10:01):
argue it to its most logical extreme. And that's where
I end up with this. I think you let bad
Bunny do whatever he wants to do. The guy is
selling records left and right. He's streaming more than anybody.
He beats Taylor Swift. He's the most streamed artist on
the planet. Why people like what he has Listen? I pray,
I read my Bible. I realize that the things that
he's talking about are not congruent with my faith all
(10:24):
the time. They're not congruent with the way I live
my life. But I also realize I have a past
life and I enjoy the entertainment. It's funny, right, Maybe
you should come with a warning label on it, explicit
lyrics eighteen and over whatever. I also like The Jersey Shore,
both the place and the TV show right again, raunchy show,
Call me crazy, forgive me Father, for I have sinned.
(10:46):
People like all sorts of different things. I don't think
you're necessarily a bad person or a bad Christian, even
because you want to watch or binge watch The Jersey Shore,
or if you want to listen to a couple of
bad bunny songs. Now, if you notice the Rabbit Man
did not come with address on, if you notice he
was in dressed as a transvestite, If you notice it
(11:08):
was a relatively toned down version of who you thought
he was because as an artist, the guy was in
his twenties and he was being provocative when he came out.
He's been at this for nine years or so, and
I think he's had a remarkable trajectory. I'm not mad
at the guy. I understand about the Venezuelan connection. But this,
here's another thing, jay Z. Why are we not begrudging
(11:32):
jay Z? Jay Z raps about how he sold drugs
to start his record company. Now nobody's beating him up
about that, But because Bad Bunny signed a contract with
a company that was started by some communists, crazy people
from Venezuela, all of a sudden, he's Satan incarnate. I'm
not here to defend Bad Bunny. I'm here to just say,
(11:52):
let's be fair about things, right, Let's call a spade
a spade, not when we feel like it, but all
the time. Anyway, more on that straight ahead. Plus, I
want to get into a little bit on my buddy
Sean Farish. He's a great trumpetpersonator. He does a better
trump than me by a mile, believe me and believe me.
(12:13):
And Sean Farish has an amazing video that I saw
where he's calling out Bad Bunny. I think you're gonna
love it, don't go anywhere. I'm Rich Faldaz.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
This is America. This is America, all right.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
This one is terrific. This is my buddy Sean Farrish.
He's a New Yorker, but he's out in Tennessee right now.
He does an amazing job. You've seen this video, but
check this out.
Speaker 5 (13:12):
This is your favorite president. And this message is for
Bad Bunny, or as I call him, the nasty Rabbit,
El Conejo Desagra Dable. He's a nasty rabbit and a
stupid rabbit. Anytime you see a guy in a dress,
that's a very stupid person. So he's a nasty guy,
a horrible guy. They call him bad Bunny. I call
(13:33):
him the worst bunny. Think about it, and nobody knows
Bunny's quite like I do. I get along very well
with many of the highly respected bunnies all around the world.
I have a tremendous relationship with Bugs Bunny. He said
to me, what's up, duc? He said, Sarah, what's.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
Up, Duck?
Speaker 5 (13:50):
Sir? I said, you don't have to call me duck.
You could call me Donald. But Bugs Bunny is a
tremendous bunny. He does a fantastic job on the baseball field.
He plays every position you look at him, but he
does a fantastic job. I get along very well with
Roger Rabbit, and what happened to him was horrible. You know,
(14:10):
they say, sir, who framed Roger Rabbit? Sir, I said,
it was probably the fake news of the Democrats. They
frame everybody. But he got a row deal, and so
we gave him a parton because what happened to Roger
Rabbit was horrible. It was a complete and total witch hut,
so we gave him a parton. I got along very
well with the Easter Bunny, who used to lead Crooked
(14:34):
Joe biting around like he lost puppy. But the Easter
Bunny said to me, sir, you have the biggest Easter
eggs the world has ever seen. They're much bigger than
cried Chuck Schumer or Pesosto Obama. You look at Hakim Jefferies,
they have very small Easter eggs. But I have the
biggest eggs the world has ever seen. Nobody's ever seen
anything like it. I also got along well with little
(14:55):
Bunny fou Fu, and I ended the war between Little
Bunny fool fou and the field. He was bopping him
on the head. I said, you can't do that. You
have to stop doing that. Well, we're going to hit
you with tariff. So we ended that war. You know,
you look at it the peace president. So we get
along will with a lot of bunnies, but not the
nasty rabbit known as bad Bunny. He's a horrible person
(15:17):
and a stupid person. El Canejo desa gradable bad bunny,
nasty rabbit the hr country, and he has no talent.
Thank you for your attention to.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
This matter, all right, So I think he does an
amazing job, right, It's very funny, it's hysterical. I play
it for comedic value. Listen. I think it's great that
he knows how to make light of these things, and
he's so good at making light of these things. That's
what we need to do, everybody, just make light of stuff. Now,
where I think things get out of control is when
people are starting to beat up kid Rock. Now why
(15:50):
beat up kid Rock? This is the part I really
don't get, and I really don't I really don't get.
It gets me a little hot under the collar, honestly,
But why why are we beating up Kid Rock because
he decided to do a halftime show for Turning Point.
Listen Kid Rock and do whatever he wants. And I
thought he did an amazing job. Right he shouted out
the Lord the Savior, my man, j C. Does it
(16:11):
get any better than that? If that's what you're looking
for during a halftime show, you got it with Kid Rock.
People want to beat him up and say about some
lyrics he had again, same thing goes for him. Talked
about art imitates life. That's how art works. Imagine if
every movie were about what you think it should be about.
I mean, come on, are we going to live our
(16:31):
lives in a Hallmark movie? I don't think so, right?
I mean, who would have made Jaws? Right? Jaws is
such a great movie. And I just bring that up
as an example there that way people dying getting eaten
by a shark? Is people going to say? Is this
what you stand for? Getting eaten by sharks? I think
the whole thing is ridiculous. I think people want to
(16:52):
make fun of people for the way they dance, for
the way that Listen. I don't want my kid doing it,
and that's what I do. I'm a parent. I say, hey,
don't I don't want you out there to working on
top of police cars. I don't watch you out there
doing whatever whatever whatever. Right, Really, you have the conversation
with your children the way you want to have that conversation.
But by no means are we here to impose anything
(17:15):
on anybody we can request, right, And I think this
is important for us to understand because I think there's
a thin line between being an autocrat and being someone
that is a traditionalist. It's not that thin of a line,
but lately it seems like there is, all of a sudden,
we're telling everybody what they can sing about, what they
should sing about, why they should sing Listen, I got
(17:37):
whiplash over here from We Love the NFL, We Hate
the NFL. NFL is the slice of Americana. Since when
the NFL themselves are going after South America or Latin America.
They've hired Daddy Yankee, another big reggaetong superstar who's recently
had a conversion to Christianity. And shout out to Daddy Yankee.
(17:58):
But guess what he's doing half time shows in Brazil
in Spain as part of their expansion into Latin America. Right,
even this show has expanded into Latin America. Why because
there is a big market in Latin America for lots
of things. American sports like the NFL basketball baseball's been
huge all over the Caribbean. Forever. Think about Robert de
(18:19):
Clemente right twenty one, Pittsburgh Pirates, one of the most
famous Puerto Ricans on the planet. Twenty one. Listen. I'm
trying to make sense of these things because I start
reading the comments and I just get so disheartened. I
saw one comment. I don't know if we're able to
bring it on screen or not here, but this woman
is arguing with this guy who made a statement he said, oh,
you people are just hating because he's Puerto Rican. And
(18:41):
I think there are a number of people, and I
know this from my own experience in life, there are
people who don't like you just because you are able
to speak another language that's likely not you. But there
are people like that that they feel like there is
a superiority in being unilingual as opposed to multi lingual.
There's people that have a horrible feeling that they think
(19:04):
multiculturalism is a bad thing. I don't think it's a
bad thing. I think you hold on to your culture.
You don't want to water down any culture. You also
don't want to ignore other cultures, right. You don't want
to end up like they have in a little Mogadishu
right where we've lost Minnesota, right, Minnesota down, right, black
Hawk down. But at the same time, you also don't
(19:28):
want to say I don't want to understand the culture.
I don't want to know. I don't want to be
ignorant to the fact, right, And why The last time
when I was in DC for what was that called
the inauguration, I went with a state assemblymen friend of mine.
We went out to a Somali restaurant right there, not
too far from Capitol Hill. Interesting, right, I had never
(19:49):
done that before. It's a very interesting experience that they
bring in this big platter you eat with your hands.
I had the beef platter because they had all different
types of things and I wasn't familiar with a lot
of it. I had the meat. The meat was really good,
no complaints for me. It was a different way of
doing things. Everything was different, the way they serve it,
the way it's made, the condiments, all of it. I
(20:10):
did it. It's not at the top of my bucket list. Right.
I'm not saying, oh my gosh, I can't wait to
go back to the Somali restaurant. No, that's not the
case at all. But I did it, and I don't
hate it, right. I also don't think that we need
to replace Minneapolis with any particular race, right, or any
particular culture. But it's important that we know it now.
(20:33):
That being said, when I was a little kid, Sunset
Park was almost exclusively Puerto Rican, Canal Street in Manhattan
almost exclusively Chinese, Mulberry Street in downtown right off of
Canal Street exclusively Italian. Nobody had an issue with those things, right.
Everybody had their little place, their area there, Chinatown, whatever
(20:54):
it was. So again, I have a problem with fraud.
I have a problem with leerings. I have a problem
with people that hate America. But when you say that
a conej model right bad Bunny, that somehow bad Bunny
is hating America, I don't think he hates America. I think,
like most communists, they have disdain for what they see. Now,
(21:18):
I don't even think I can say with certitude that
bad Bunnies are full on comedy. I think that I
listened to his rhetoric, and he sounds a lot like
cayetrese Rene, right he is if you know who I'm
talking about. He's another Puerto Rican rapper. I'm pretty sure
he calls his friend's comrade. I don't think Bad Bunny's
that deep into this. And again, not a defense of him,
(21:40):
just my observation, giving you my two cents my opinion.
I think he's very pro Puerto Rico. He loves the
island he was born on. He's a patriot. And you
know his speech at the Grammys. I played it for
you on the podcast.
Speaker 6 (21:58):
Before I say thanks to God, I'm gonna say ice out.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
I was personally offended and he said before I thank God,
I want to say ice out. I think that was
uncalled for. It was dumb. It wasn't the right way
to do things. That's what he chose to do. I'm
a free speech guy. You do you, I still think
you're wrong. I'm not gonna leave God for the end.
I'm gonna, you know, thank God up front. But this
(22:44):
was an interesting speech.
Speaker 6 (22:45):
We're not savage, we're not animals, we're not aliens. We
are humans, and we are Americans. Also, I want to
say to the people. I know it's tough to know
(23:05):
not to hate on these days, and I was thinking,
sometimes we get contaminaos. I don't have to say that
in English. The hate get more powerful with more hate.
(23:28):
The only thing that is more powerful than hate is love.
So please, we need to be different. If we fight,
we have to do it we love if Yeah, we
(23:51):
don't hate them. We love our people, we love our family,
and that's the way to do it with love, and
forget that. Please, thank you, thank you God.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
That doesn't mean now that I hate the guy and
I wish him harm. I don't doesn't mean I'm gonna
say I don't want to go to your concert either.
Still like the music. I know who this guy is.
It's not like I didn't know who he was. He
didn't fool me or dupe me. I know exactly who
he is. I don't need to have a personal relationship
with Robert de Niro to enjoy his films. I don't
(24:25):
need to have a personal like for al Pacino to
like him in a movie. Right, And this is the
point I'm making that this selective I don't like what
they stand for. Who says they stand for it? These
people are entertainers. Now, like I said back to bad Buddy,
I don't necessarily believe that he's a comedy. I'm not
saying I don't think he is one. I'm just saying
(24:46):
I don't believe that he can't be one, is what
I'm saying. Right, he can be one. He might be one.
I don't know. He's not an overtly political person, but
when he does get involved. And they led this a
big march, biggest march in Puerto Rico history, to oust
the previous governor, Ricardo Ro said, yo him, and we
(25:08):
sing and a few others Cayarese that these guys got
together and they did their thing. They showed up, they represented.
I was not on their side, but I see the impact.
So I realized, Okay, these guys know how to organize, right.
They're not sloppy, they're not haphazard, they're not emotional. They
(25:28):
probably are emotional, but they had a plan and they
executed the plan like most good Marxists do. So again
my point, I just want to call a spade a spade,
and I feel like pet Bunny honestly, as much as
we may not like his politics, and you may not
even like his music. Somehow the guys become like public
Enemy number one, when what he said was, we're not animals,
(25:51):
we're not savages. We are Americans. Let's do what we do.
We can disagree, but let's not do it in hate.
Let's do it in love. That's a message I can
get behind. I think that's a message you can get
behind too. Straight Ahead, Curtis Leewa wighs in on the
importance of reaching out to different communities. He's been out
(26:12):
in the streets in New York City for years, right
decades with the Guardian Angels Safety Patrol Group, and he's
going to weigh in on the importance of this program
reaching more people in the world in Latin America, as
well as his work in reaching people in different places.
Don't go anywhere.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
This is America. This is America.
Speaker 7 (26:43):
The forty fifth President Donald Trump thinks it's an honor
to speak with Rich Valdez.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Oh, very good.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
The honor is all yours.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
Conservative talk with a dash of sofrito.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
Wow, here's Rich Valdez.
Speaker 4 (27:03):
All right, and he gooes, welcome back. Now, we just
made this announcement and about syndicating my show ag Espanol.
And I got to say, there's very few people that
have seen my journey in radio like my mentors. And
I've had some great mentors, the great one Mark Levin,
Curtis Sliwa. You might have known him as the who
(27:25):
ran from mayor in New York City, right, the guardian
angel of New York himself, And he's here with me. Now,
he's here with me on my special day. Curtis Lee, Well,
thank you a for being here. You've always been a
mentor to me. You're you're a lifelong hero and a
friend and not fishing for compliments. But your reaction to
seeing one of your mentees get into streaming talk media
(27:49):
on the video side of things, streaming video and doing
it in Spanol.
Speaker 7 (27:53):
Of course, Well, look, you know what a tough journey
you had because I was out there from voting you
with so many others in a a what we'll call
a white out at a blackout, a whiteout where the
fact that you are a Latino, proud, liberty loving Latino
(28:15):
obviously has strong patriotic roots, Republican roots, conservative roots. And
now you've come into your own and by the way,
on a global level, so from a very local level.
Now I got to tell you a little story about Rich.
When I wasted four years in my life that I'll
never get back. At AM ninety seventy, the an Rich
(28:35):
was living in Jersey and he was right near the tower,
the only person ever to say that he had ever
heard me in four years on the radio. I was
doing morning Drive and afternoon Drive, and it said, how's
that Rich? I live right next to the tower. So
he started from the bottom, had a number of setbacks
like we've all had, and has always persevered. And that's
(28:56):
why I'm proud to say I'm your friend than your
radio colleague, and more importantly, a person who has seen
your trajectory now take you on a global level. I
only wish I knew a few words in Spanish other
than the bad words that people sometimes scream at me
when I'm in the subways of the streets.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
You know, Curtis Sliva, most people think that you're like
part Puerto Rican. Yes, they think you're Curtis Silva instead
of Curtis Sliwa. And I always tell people your story.
It's a funny story that in the Bronx they made
him the Grand Marshal of the Puerto Rican Festival because
they thought he was Puerto Rican.
Speaker 7 (29:33):
Yeah, I had to disappoint him. Was at that time
Al Ramon Valles, who ran the annual Puerto Rican Day Parade.
We as the Guardian Angels were ostracized by everybody back then,
and he was the only one to embrace us. He
invited us into his Board of director's meeting. Even to
this day, most people think of Puerto Rican because they
think the name is Silva, and I don't change their
(29:56):
minds by yo Silva. Yes, yeah, yes see see. And
so he said, you know, we'd like to have you
as our Grand Marshal of the annual Puerto Rican Day Parade.
This is the early eighties, and I'm looking at all
the board members. I said, I hate to disappoint you,
but my father was Polish, my mother was Italian, and
(30:16):
so they're shaking you.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
Are you sure?
Speaker 7 (30:19):
Can you find somebody in your bloodline who may have
some Puerto Rican blood? I said, now, I really can't
do that. You've got a lot of really well renowned
Puerto Ricans who deserve this honor. But I want to
thank you. And he always had us in the parade
when nobody else would have us in parades. That's why
in the debate against Roan Mondommi Andrew Como, remember after
(30:41):
that first the bear said all parades matter, Yes, absolutely,
because that's really what put us on the map. The
fact that the annual Puerto Rican Date Parade would recognize us,
allow us to march really forced open the doors to
so many others, including Hispanic media Channel forty seven, Channel
forty one at the time, the Ario La Prensa, and
(31:02):
the various Hispanic radio outlets. Lamega and some of the
others had always give it us a shout of radio
radio juado. I mean, they embraced us before anybody else
did it. I'll never forget. And this is the guy
who's going to take broadcasting right to the top with
a Hispanic emphasis.
Speaker 4 (31:23):
Curtis Lee, you're a gentleman, a scholar, and a patriot.
Thank you, sir. I appreciate you. Can we expect to
see another run from you.
Speaker 7 (31:31):
Ah well, I haven't missed the beach since I lost,
and the subways in streets every day doing what I've
always done. Stay tuned, watch the pivot in shift that
I undergo.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
There's more to come straight ahead. I'm rich Aldez.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
This is America.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
This is America.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
He's making podcasting great again. This is America with Rich Valdez.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
All right, and he goes, welcome back anyway. I just
want to thank you for checking out the new studio.
(32:39):
As you could see in the clip that we had
with Curtis Lee, it's a really nice place. I hope
you enjoy it. I'm looking forward to bringing you a
lot more on the video platform. Believe it or not,
Video it's not my first love. I love radio. I
love being on the mic. I love the ability to
use theater of the mind to get into people's psyche
and whatnot. And this is truly what I love. But
(33:02):
I realize times are moving and they're moving fast, so
we got to get out the way, jump on board,
and that's what I'm here to do and bring you
the best material that we could bring you every day.
I appreciate you sharing the show, recommending people to the show,
and for listening each and every day. Like I always say,
you got to stand for something, because if you stand
for nothing, you'll fall for anything. And the only thing
(33:25):
necessary for evil to triumph is for good people like
you to do nothing, do something. I start a Brokesimon
until the next time America. I'm rich Valdez and this
is America.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
This is America.
This is America with Rich Valdez powered by politicweek dot
com and.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Rich Valdees is with us.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Former Christian Administration official.
Speaker 4 (00:12):
You work for Chris Christie.
Speaker 5 (00:13):
You've been follow us each on a lot of public
service stuff.
Speaker 4 (00:15):
Rich Valdez calumnist now with the Washington Times.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
This is America, Richiev.
Speaker 5 (00:20):
You're on the air with a Nation Nation with America.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
With your host, Rich Valdez.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
What's up, America. I am Rich Valdez Valdez with an
s at Rich Valdez on all of the social media.
Welcome to our program. I want to get into a
bunch of things that are going on. Of course, if
you want to join us, you're always welcome to do
that on the phones. Eight seven seven Valdez one is
the phone number, eight seven seven Valdez one. As we
kick off our late night national Townhole Conversation, and I
(00:57):
wanted to let you know we've got Curtis Lee with
joining us in studio right here in Times Square. Don't
miss that. Plus we're going to talk about Bad Bunny,
the super Bowl, all of that and so much more.
But I want to start with heikodej model Bad Bunny. Right.
He seems to be the man of the hour. Everybody's
talking about Bad Bunny. They're talking about their either how
much Dave loved the halftime show or how much they
(01:20):
hated the halftime show. I want to get into all
of it because I've seen a lot of things. And
we'll put a couple of graphics up so you could
see these things. And I got to tell you, I
might be the only person in America who watched both
Kid Rock and Bad Bunny, right. I mean, I was
watching the game with my friends. We put on the
Bad Bunny. I was very pleasantly surprised. I know some
of you, to your sugarn, you're thinking, how could your
(01:41):
rich he's a what it was? And I'm hearing Jake
Paul says he is a fake American citizen. What's that
all about? Jake Paul lives in Puerto Rico with a
bunch of other fake American citizens. I don't know how
he gets to pull that off and the Puerto Ricans
don't flip out on him. I got to tell you,
as far as I know, Puerto Ricans are not fake
American citizens. And if you want to talk about it,
Jake Paul, come on the show. I'd love that, but
(02:02):
I want to get it. We'll get into that a
little bit. I really want to talk about the bad
money stuff, because why, for some reason, somehow, somewhere, people
have made it seem as if we go to the NFL,
we go to Hollywood, we go to a halftime show
for our portion right, for our source of all things
good and holy. That's not the case. That's never been
(02:24):
the case. So why why are we doing that? Listen?
I have no idea why, but I've never turned to
whether it was Lady Gaga, Madonna, Janet Jackson and the
Nip Slip and whatever. Listen. The NFL has always brought
on provocative halftime shows. This is what they do. This
is their playbook. So why is everybody freaking out about this?
I'll tell you why. Because it's in Spanish.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
Now.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
Years ago, Julio Iglesias used to sing in Spanish. All
sorts of people sing in Spanish. Ricky Martin, right, Vin Levello. God, Now,
there was an English version of that song too. But
everybody loved Ricky Martin, everybody, But for some reason, we
don't want to like Bunny.
Speaker 5 (03:00):
Now.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
Listen, Ricky Martin's as gay as all get out. Yet
he's beloved by so many. Right, there's so many people
that are And this is not an infomercial. Right, I'm
not promoting the LGBTQ community. It's personally as a matter
of faith. For me, it's not something I subscribe to.
But I have to say to each his own right,
(03:21):
this is what people do. I'm not going to hate
somebody because they sin differently than me. That's not the
business that I'm in, and it's not, as far as
I know, it's not the business of conservatism to sit
here and we can try to hold on to tradition,
to tradition, excuse me. We want to do the right
thing at the end of the day. The last thing
I think we need to be doing is hating on people.
(03:43):
What's the harm in saying I don't know bad Bunny,
I don't like him. I mean, I don't know him.
I've never heard of him, or I'm not sure I'm
not familiar with the music to this is an affront
on America? How did we get there? How did we
get to this as an affront on America? I don't
see it happening to me. It seems like we're demonizing
that which we do not know, and we in the
(04:04):
past we haven't done that. Right. How many people do
you know that aren't Mexican and love some Taco Tuesday? Right?
They love it, they love carnitas. Right, come on, I've
been to La I know how this goes, and so
do you. This to me is beyond the pale people
talking about. But he sings about what. Listen every time
I turn on some of my favorite movies, Scarface, The Godfather, Casino, Goodfellas. Right,
(04:31):
are we supposed to say that Joe Peshi was promoting
womanizing because he was fooling around with de Niro's isn't
that film? Or Or that they're condoning or promoting murder
because they kill people left and right in these films,
or that they're condoning or promoting organized crime. No, nobody
was complaining when Good Fellas came around. But yet when
(04:52):
it comes to music, all of a sudden, we've got
a double standard. So I just want to call it
out for what it is. Bad. Bunny is an artist.
He does what he does, whether he likes men, doesn't
like men. Honestly, I pray that he likes women. I
pray that he marries a woman, and I pray that
all goes well for him. But at the end of
the day, that's not my issue. And my issue is
(05:13):
do I want to listen to the song or not
listen to the song. I don't go to the movies
and say, oh, I don't watch horror films, or I
don't watch action films, or I don't know, because I
don't want to promote violence. Nobody does that why we
choose to do it in particular with hispanics and blackses.
And I'm not pulling the race card. I'm just saying
it just happens to be. I've never seen anybody call
out anybody else, and I think that there might be
(05:36):
elements of that involved in that. I don't know, but
it's fascinating to me how there's so many people jumping
on this vandwagon saying that this is that, and how
could they when it's the NFL. I thought we were
done with the NFL in twenty thirteen. I didn't know
that we were still doing NFL, and it's news to me.
So I think we really got to check ourselves and
(05:57):
really say, hold on a second, what is it that
we actually believe? What do we really stand for as conservatives.
Are we trying to hold on to tradition. Great, let's
hold on to all the tradition we can. But if
the tradition goes back to the last seven years with
jay Z and years prior, right, we go back to
early two thousands. If you're in your fifties and maybe
in your sixties, then you might be able to say,
(06:19):
I remember back in seventy nine. But every halftime show
I can think of was either very boring or it
was edgy. Right. Last year it was Kendrick Lamar with
his He had a very political message in there. Right.
Beyonce when she did her thing where they were doing
the whole Black Lives Matter, it was almost like a
Black Panther type of tribute because of what she called
(06:43):
police brutality. Right. There was a little bit of pushback
on that, but for the most part, everybody ate it up.
So my point is bad Bunny, who's performed back in
twenty twenty. He was off stage with Jalo and Shakira,
who also I think had a couple of songs in Spanish,
or at least a couple of verses in Spanish. Lauria
as Stefan the Miami Sound Machine. She almost exclusively sang
(07:04):
in Spanish for most of her career, but had a
big hit that was in English. Got it all good.
I'm with all of it. I'm not here to begrudge
anybody for the language that they speak. Come on, for years,
I've been on the radio saying to all my friends
in the what I call the it's America speak English crowd.
I say, it's America, speak whatever language you want. The
(07:26):
reason I say that is why could I speak a
couple of languages? And I think, if you want to survive, right,
if I want to get into broadcasting, I want to
be in talk radio. Guess what language talk radio dominates
in English? So I need to learn how to speak English,
and I need to learn how to do it pretty
well in order to get a broadcasting job. That's how
that works. You can't really be involved in commerce if
(07:48):
you don't speak the language. So it's kind of like
a given it. It's a requirement, not something I need
to sit here and tell you about. Now, listen, I
don't have my head in the sand. We've had a
problem with truckers who were in the country illegally. Don't
learn the language by themselves the CDL license, and they're
getting into accidents. That's a far cry from hiring or
(08:12):
bringing on board a Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny to
do the halftime show. Two totally different things. I didn't
see Bad Bunny promoting any of the things that people
are saying that he promotes. I honestly didn't see it.
One thing I know I missed. I saw the video
afterwards was to these two guys dancing, And I'm not
trying to minimize that, but I'm just saying, have you
(08:34):
ever turned on Glee? Right? I know I have kids
that are in their twenties. I've seen them watch Glee.
I've turned on the seat passed by the TV and
I said, oh my gosh, what is this? What's going on?
What you would see in Glee and the stuff they
talk about in Glee far outweighs anything that I saw
in the Bad Money concert, including the two guys for
(08:55):
the zero point five milliseconds that was there. I'm not
saying it's good. I'm just look, there's a populist movement
in this country, which I don't necessarily count myself a
part of, but the leader of that movement is President Trump.
President Trump is extremely gay friendly, he's extremely pro gay.
He's always been that guy. That is truly a big
(09:18):
part of I think the gravitas for him and a
lot of the populists. So how is it that Ed
Trompito don all this magnus to forty fifth and forty
seventh president of these United States? He gets to tout
Rick Grennell and always talk about how he's supportive of
this inclusive stuff. But if somehow the Puerto Rican rapper
(09:40):
does it, it's a big deal. Now, I keep saying
that because I don't see the difference in bad money
being an ally of the LGBT community. That's what he
wants to do. That's what he wants to do. I
could sit here and say I don't like the guy,
or I don't like his position, But wouldn't it be
weird if I said I don't like his position, but
I love Trump's. I'm doing what the great one Mark
Levin taught me to do, to take an argument, to
(10:01):
argue it to its most logical extreme. And that's where
I end up with this. I think you let bad
Bunny do whatever he wants to do. The guy is
selling records left and right. He's streaming more than anybody.
He beats Taylor Swift. He's the most streamed artist on
the planet. Why people like what he has Listen? I pray,
I read my Bible. I realize that the things that
he's talking about are not congruent with my faith all
(10:24):
the time. They're not congruent with the way I live
my life. But I also realize I have a past
life and I enjoy the entertainment. It's funny, right, Maybe
you should come with a warning label on it, explicit
lyrics eighteen and over whatever. I also like The Jersey Shore,
both the place and the TV show right again, raunchy show,
Call me crazy, forgive me Father, for I have sinned.
(10:46):
People like all sorts of different things. I don't think
you're necessarily a bad person or a bad Christian, even
because you want to watch or binge watch The Jersey Shore,
or if you want to listen to a couple of
bad bunny songs. Now, if you notice the Rabbit Man
did not come with address on, if you notice he
was in dressed as a transvestite, If you notice it
(11:08):
was a relatively toned down version of who you thought
he was because as an artist, the guy was in
his twenties and he was being provocative when he came out.
He's been at this for nine years or so, and
I think he's had a remarkable trajectory. I'm not mad
at the guy. I understand about the Venezuelan connection. But this,
here's another thing, jay Z. Why are we not begrudging
(11:32):
jay Z? Jay Z raps about how he sold drugs
to start his record company. Now nobody's beating him up
about that, But because Bad Bunny signed a contract with
a company that was started by some communists, crazy people
from Venezuela, all of a sudden, he's Satan incarnate. I'm
not here to defend Bad Bunny. I'm here to just say,
(11:52):
let's be fair about things, right, Let's call a spade
a spade, not when we feel like it, but all
the time. Anyway, more on that straight ahead. Plus, I
want to get into a little bit on my buddy
Sean Farish. He's a great trumpetpersonator. He does a better
trump than me by a mile, believe me and believe me.
(12:13):
And Sean Farish has an amazing video that I saw
where he's calling out Bad Bunny. I think you're gonna
love it, don't go anywhere. I'm Rich Faldaz.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
This is America. This is America, all right.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
This one is terrific. This is my buddy Sean Farrish.
He's a New Yorker, but he's out in Tennessee right now.
He does an amazing job. You've seen this video, but
check this out.
Speaker 5 (13:12):
This is your favorite president. And this message is for
Bad Bunny, or as I call him, the nasty Rabbit,
El Conejo Desagra Dable. He's a nasty rabbit and a
stupid rabbit. Anytime you see a guy in a dress,
that's a very stupid person. So he's a nasty guy,
a horrible guy. They call him bad Bunny. I call
(13:33):
him the worst bunny. Think about it, and nobody knows
Bunny's quite like I do. I get along very well
with many of the highly respected bunnies all around the world.
I have a tremendous relationship with Bugs Bunny. He said
to me, what's up, duc? He said, Sarah, what's.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
Up, Duck?
Speaker 5 (13:50):
Sir? I said, you don't have to call me duck.
You could call me Donald. But Bugs Bunny is a
tremendous bunny. He does a fantastic job on the baseball field.
He plays every position you look at him, but he
does a fantastic job. I get along very well with
Roger Rabbit, and what happened to him was horrible. You know,
(14:10):
they say, sir, who framed Roger Rabbit? Sir, I said,
it was probably the fake news of the Democrats. They
frame everybody. But he got a row deal, and so
we gave him a parton because what happened to Roger
Rabbit was horrible. It was a complete and total witch hut,
so we gave him a parton. I got along very
well with the Easter Bunny, who used to lead Crooked
(14:34):
Joe biting around like he lost puppy. But the Easter
Bunny said to me, sir, you have the biggest Easter
eggs the world has ever seen. They're much bigger than
cried Chuck Schumer or Pesosto Obama. You look at Hakim Jefferies,
they have very small Easter eggs. But I have the
biggest eggs the world has ever seen. Nobody's ever seen
anything like it. I also got along well with little
(14:55):
Bunny fou Fu, and I ended the war between Little
Bunny fool fou and the field. He was bopping him
on the head. I said, you can't do that. You
have to stop doing that. Well, we're going to hit
you with tariff. So we ended that war. You know,
you look at it the peace president. So we get
along will with a lot of bunnies, but not the
nasty rabbit known as bad Bunny. He's a horrible person
(15:17):
and a stupid person. El Canejo desa gradable bad bunny,
nasty rabbit the hr country, and he has no talent.
Thank you for your attention to.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
This matter, all right, So I think he does an
amazing job, right, It's very funny, it's hysterical. I play
it for comedic value. Listen. I think it's great that
he knows how to make light of these things, and
he's so good at making light of these things. That's
what we need to do, everybody, just make light of stuff. Now,
where I think things get out of control is when
people are starting to beat up kid Rock. Now why
(15:50):
beat up kid Rock? This is the part I really
don't get, and I really don't I really don't get.
It gets me a little hot under the collar, honestly,
But why why are we beating up Kid Rock because
he decided to do a halftime show for Turning Point.
Listen Kid Rock and do whatever he wants. And I
thought he did an amazing job. Right he shouted out
the Lord the Savior, my man, j C. Does it
(16:11):
get any better than that? If that's what you're looking
for during a halftime show, you got it with Kid Rock.
People want to beat him up and say about some
lyrics he had again, same thing goes for him. Talked
about art imitates life. That's how art works. Imagine if
every movie were about what you think it should be about.
I mean, come on, are we going to live our
(16:31):
lives in a Hallmark movie? I don't think so, right?
I mean, who would have made Jaws? Right? Jaws is
such a great movie. And I just bring that up
as an example there that way people dying getting eaten
by a shark? Is people going to say? Is this
what you stand for? Getting eaten by sharks? I think
the whole thing is ridiculous. I think people want to
(16:52):
make fun of people for the way they dance, for
the way that Listen. I don't want my kid doing it,
and that's what I do. I'm a parent. I say, hey,
don't I don't want you out there to working on
top of police cars. I don't watch you out there
doing whatever whatever whatever. Right, Really, you have the conversation
with your children the way you want to have that conversation.
But by no means are we here to impose anything
(17:15):
on anybody we can request, right, And I think this
is important for us to understand because I think there's
a thin line between being an autocrat and being someone
that is a traditionalist. It's not that thin of a line,
but lately it seems like there is, all of a sudden,
we're telling everybody what they can sing about, what they
should sing about, why they should sing Listen, I got
(17:37):
whiplash over here from We Love the NFL, We Hate
the NFL. NFL is the slice of Americana. Since when
the NFL themselves are going after South America or Latin America.
They've hired Daddy Yankee, another big reggaetong superstar who's recently
had a conversion to Christianity. And shout out to Daddy Yankee.
(17:58):
But guess what he's doing half time shows in Brazil
in Spain as part of their expansion into Latin America. Right,
even this show has expanded into Latin America. Why because
there is a big market in Latin America for lots
of things. American sports like the NFL basketball baseball's been
huge all over the Caribbean. Forever. Think about Robert de
(18:19):
Clemente right twenty one, Pittsburgh Pirates, one of the most
famous Puerto Ricans on the planet. Twenty one. Listen. I'm
trying to make sense of these things because I start
reading the comments and I just get so disheartened. I
saw one comment. I don't know if we're able to
bring it on screen or not here, but this woman
is arguing with this guy who made a statement he said, oh,
you people are just hating because he's Puerto Rican. And
(18:41):
I think there are a number of people, and I
know this from my own experience in life, there are
people who don't like you just because you are able
to speak another language that's likely not you. But there
are people like that that they feel like there is
a superiority in being unilingual as opposed to multi lingual.
There's people that have a horrible feeling that they think
(19:04):
multiculturalism is a bad thing. I don't think it's a
bad thing. I think you hold on to your culture.
You don't want to water down any culture. You also
don't want to ignore other cultures, right. You don't want
to end up like they have in a little Mogadishu
right where we've lost Minnesota, right, Minnesota down, right, black
Hawk down. But at the same time, you also don't
(19:28):
want to say I don't want to understand the culture.
I don't want to know. I don't want to be
ignorant to the fact, right, And why The last time
when I was in DC for what was that called
the inauguration, I went with a state assemblymen friend of mine.
We went out to a Somali restaurant right there, not
too far from Capitol Hill. Interesting, right, I had never
(19:49):
done that before. It's a very interesting experience that they
bring in this big platter you eat with your hands.
I had the beef platter because they had all different
types of things and I wasn't familiar with a lot
of it. I had the meat. The meat was really good,
no complaints for me. It was a different way of
doing things. Everything was different, the way they serve it,
the way it's made, the condiments, all of it. I
(20:10):
did it. It's not at the top of my bucket list. Right.
I'm not saying, oh my gosh, I can't wait to
go back to the Somali restaurant. No, that's not the
case at all. But I did it, and I don't
hate it, right. I also don't think that we need
to replace Minneapolis with any particular race, right, or any
particular culture. But it's important that we know it now.
(20:33):
That being said, when I was a little kid, Sunset
Park was almost exclusively Puerto Rican, Canal Street in Manhattan
almost exclusively Chinese, Mulberry Street in downtown right off of
Canal Street exclusively Italian. Nobody had an issue with those things, right.
Everybody had their little place, their area there, Chinatown, whatever
(20:54):
it was. So again, I have a problem with fraud.
I have a problem with leerings. I have a problem
with people that hate America. But when you say that
a conej model right bad Bunny, that somehow bad Bunny
is hating America, I don't think he hates America. I think,
like most communists, they have disdain for what they see. Now,
(21:18):
I don't even think I can say with certitude that
bad Bunnies are full on comedy. I think that I
listened to his rhetoric, and he sounds a lot like
cayetrese Rene, right he is if you know who I'm
talking about. He's another Puerto Rican rapper. I'm pretty sure
he calls his friend's comrade. I don't think Bad Bunny's
that deep into this. And again, not a defense of him,
(21:40):
just my observation, giving you my two cents my opinion.
I think he's very pro Puerto Rico. He loves the
island he was born on. He's a patriot. And you
know his speech at the Grammys. I played it for
you on the podcast.
Speaker 6 (21:58):
Before I say thanks to God, I'm gonna say ice out.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
I was personally offended and he said before I thank God,
I want to say ice out. I think that was
uncalled for. It was dumb. It wasn't the right way
to do things. That's what he chose to do. I'm
a free speech guy. You do you, I still think
you're wrong. I'm not gonna leave God for the end.
I'm gonna, you know, thank God up front. But this
(22:44):
was an interesting speech.
Speaker 6 (22:45):
We're not savage, we're not animals, we're not aliens. We
are humans, and we are Americans. Also, I want to
say to the people. I know it's tough to know
(23:05):
not to hate on these days, and I was thinking,
sometimes we get contaminaos. I don't have to say that
in English. The hate get more powerful with more hate.
(23:28):
The only thing that is more powerful than hate is love.
So please, we need to be different. If we fight,
we have to do it we love if Yeah, we
(23:51):
don't hate them. We love our people, we love our family,
and that's the way to do it with love, and
forget that. Please, thank you, thank you God.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
That doesn't mean now that I hate the guy and
I wish him harm. I don't doesn't mean I'm gonna
say I don't want to go to your concert either.
Still like the music. I know who this guy is.
It's not like I didn't know who he was. He
didn't fool me or dupe me. I know exactly who
he is. I don't need to have a personal relationship
with Robert de Niro to enjoy his films. I don't
(24:25):
need to have a personal like for al Pacino to
like him in a movie. Right, And this is the
point I'm making that this selective I don't like what
they stand for. Who says they stand for it? These
people are entertainers. Now, like I said back to bad Buddy,
I don't necessarily believe that he's a comedy. I'm not
saying I don't think he is one. I'm just saying
(24:46):
I don't believe that he can't be one, is what
I'm saying. Right, he can be one. He might be one.
I don't know. He's not an overtly political person, but
when he does get involved. And they led this a
big march, biggest march in Puerto Rico history, to oust
the previous governor, Ricardo Ro said, yo him, and we
(25:08):
sing and a few others Cayarese that these guys got
together and they did their thing. They showed up, they represented.
I was not on their side, but I see the impact.
So I realized, Okay, these guys know how to organize, right.
They're not sloppy, they're not haphazard, they're not emotional. They
(25:28):
probably are emotional, but they had a plan and they
executed the plan like most good Marxists do. So again
my point, I just want to call a spade a spade,
and I feel like pet Bunny honestly, as much as
we may not like his politics, and you may not
even like his music. Somehow the guys become like public
Enemy number one, when what he said was, we're not animals,
(25:51):
we're not savages. We are Americans. Let's do what we do.
We can disagree, but let's not do it in hate.
Let's do it in love. That's a message I can
get behind. I think that's a message you can get
behind too. Straight Ahead, Curtis Leewa wighs in on the
importance of reaching out to different communities. He's been out
(26:12):
in the streets in New York City for years, right
decades with the Guardian Angels Safety Patrol Group, and he's
going to weigh in on the importance of this program
reaching more people in the world in Latin America, as
well as his work in reaching people in different places.
Don't go anywhere.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
This is America. This is America.
Speaker 7 (26:43):
The forty fifth President Donald Trump thinks it's an honor
to speak with Rich Valdez.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Oh, very good.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
The honor is all yours.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
Conservative talk with a dash of sofrito.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
Wow, here's Rich Valdez.
Speaker 4 (27:03):
All right, and he gooes, welcome back. Now, we just
made this announcement and about syndicating my show ag Espanol.
And I got to say, there's very few people that
have seen my journey in radio like my mentors. And
I've had some great mentors, the great one Mark Levin,
Curtis Sliwa. You might have known him as the who
(27:25):
ran from mayor in New York City, right, the guardian
angel of New York himself, And he's here with me. Now,
he's here with me on my special day. Curtis Lee, Well,
thank you a for being here. You've always been a
mentor to me. You're you're a lifelong hero and a
friend and not fishing for compliments. But your reaction to
seeing one of your mentees get into streaming talk media
(27:49):
on the video side of things, streaming video and doing
it in Spanol.
Speaker 7 (27:53):
Of course, Well, look, you know what a tough journey
you had because I was out there from voting you
with so many others in a a what we'll call
a white out at a blackout, a whiteout where the
fact that you are a Latino, proud, liberty loving Latino
(28:15):
obviously has strong patriotic roots, Republican roots, conservative roots. And
now you've come into your own and by the way,
on a global level, so from a very local level.
Now I got to tell you a little story about Rich.
When I wasted four years in my life that I'll
never get back. At AM ninety seventy, the an Rich
(28:35):
was living in Jersey and he was right near the tower,
the only person ever to say that he had ever
heard me in four years on the radio. I was
doing morning Drive and afternoon Drive, and it said, how's
that Rich? I live right next to the tower. So
he started from the bottom, had a number of setbacks
like we've all had, and has always persevered. And that's
(28:56):
why I'm proud to say I'm your friend than your
radio colleague, and more importantly, a person who has seen
your trajectory now take you on a global level. I
only wish I knew a few words in Spanish other
than the bad words that people sometimes scream at me
when I'm in the subways of the streets.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
You know, Curtis Sliva, most people think that you're like
part Puerto Rican. Yes, they think you're Curtis Silva instead
of Curtis Sliwa. And I always tell people your story.
It's a funny story that in the Bronx they made
him the Grand Marshal of the Puerto Rican Festival because
they thought he was Puerto Rican.
Speaker 7 (29:33):
Yeah, I had to disappoint him. Was at that time
Al Ramon Valles, who ran the annual Puerto Rican Day Parade.
We as the Guardian Angels were ostracized by everybody back then,
and he was the only one to embrace us. He
invited us into his Board of director's meeting. Even to
this day, most people think of Puerto Rican because they
think the name is Silva, and I don't change their
(29:56):
minds by yo Silva. Yes, yeah, yes see see. And
so he said, you know, we'd like to have you
as our Grand Marshal of the annual Puerto Rican Day Parade.
This is the early eighties, and I'm looking at all
the board members. I said, I hate to disappoint you,
but my father was Polish, my mother was Italian, and
(30:16):
so they're shaking you.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
Are you sure?
Speaker 7 (30:19):
Can you find somebody in your bloodline who may have
some Puerto Rican blood? I said, now, I really can't
do that. You've got a lot of really well renowned
Puerto Ricans who deserve this honor. But I want to
thank you. And he always had us in the parade
when nobody else would have us in parades. That's why
in the debate against Roan Mondommi Andrew Como, remember after
(30:41):
that first the bear said all parades matter, Yes, absolutely,
because that's really what put us on the map. The
fact that the annual Puerto Rican Date Parade would recognize us,
allow us to march really forced open the doors to
so many others, including Hispanic media Channel forty seven, Channel
forty one at the time, the Ario La Prensa, and
(31:02):
the various Hispanic radio outlets. Lamega and some of the
others had always give it us a shout of radio
radio juado. I mean, they embraced us before anybody else
did it. I'll never forget. And this is the guy
who's going to take broadcasting right to the top with
a Hispanic emphasis.
Speaker 4 (31:23):
Curtis Lee, you're a gentleman, a scholar, and a patriot.
Thank you, sir. I appreciate you. Can we expect to
see another run from you.
Speaker 7 (31:31):
Ah well, I haven't missed the beach since I lost,
and the subways in streets every day doing what I've
always done. Stay tuned, watch the pivot in shift that
I undergo.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
There's more to come straight ahead. I'm rich Aldez.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
This is America.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
This is America.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
He's making podcasting great again. This is America with Rich Valdez.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
All right, and he goes, welcome back anyway. I just
want to thank you for checking out the new studio.
(32:39):
As you could see in the clip that we had
with Curtis Lee, it's a really nice place. I hope
you enjoy it. I'm looking forward to bringing you a
lot more on the video platform. Believe it or not,
Video it's not my first love. I love radio. I
love being on the mic. I love the ability to
use theater of the mind to get into people's psyche
and whatnot. And this is truly what I love. But
(33:02):
I realize times are moving and they're moving fast, so
we got to get out the way, jump on board,
and that's what I'm here to do and bring you
the best material that we could bring you every day.
I appreciate you sharing the show, recommending people to the show,
and for listening each and every day. Like I always say,
you got to stand for something, because if you stand
for nothing, you'll fall for anything. And the only thing
(33:25):
necessary for evil to triumph is for good people like
you to do nothing, do something. I start a Brokesimon
until the next time America. I'm rich Valdez and this
is America.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
This is America.
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