Trump Takes His Talents to Miami—with Will Smith and Lionel Messi

From Miami, where we’re getting jiggy with it, Patrick Gutfield covers Trump’s upcming tour stop—a star-studded business summit featuring Will Smith, Lionel Messi, and more billionaires than sense. Plus, Chicago Marathon runners prepare for a new kind of race-day stress—ICE raids—and Trump “reinterprets” the back-pay law he signed himself. Portions of today’s program were made with the help of A.I.  We don’t pay them either.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Callaroga Shark Media from Miami, where we're getting jiggy with it.
This is ballot, that's right, DK, and why all up
in my eye? Let's hit this. President Trump is heading
to Miami next month to speak at the America Business Forum,
and the guest list reads like someone through a dart

(00:23):
at Forbes magazine and then called whoever it landed on.
The event is set for November fifth at the Cassea
Center and speakers include Lionel Messi, Will Smith, Rafael Nadal,
and a collection of billionaire CEOs who've apparently decided Miami
is the only city that exists. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez
called Trump one of the most consequential political and business

(00:46):
leaders of our time, which is quite the introduction considering
the event is happening across the street from Trump's potential
future presidential library. This lineup really slaps Will Smith will
be there. I guess they needed someone who knows how
to make an entrance, though based on his recent track record,
let's hope he keeps his hands to himself during the
networking sessions. The last thing this conference needs is someone

(01:09):
getting fresh with the Prince of bel Air jokes welcome
to Miami. Indeed, the Chicago Marathon is happening this Sunday,
and runners are dealing with a brand new pre race
concern that has nothing to do with carbloating or breaking
in new shoes. They're worried about immigration enforcement. More than
fifty thousand runners are expected to participate in one of
the world's largest marathons, weaving through twenty nine Chicago neighborhoods,

(01:33):
while over one point seven million spectators watch. It should
be straightforward. You train for months, you show up, you
run twenty six point two miles, you question all your
life choices around mile to eighteen, and then you collect
your metal. Simple. Except this year. The Trump administration's push
to increase immigration enforcement and send National Guard troops to

(01:54):
Chicago has created what organizers are calling a new kind
of race day anxiety. And when marathon runners start worrying
about something other than their IT band, you know things
have gotten complicated. Mayor Brandon Johnson addressed the situation on Tuesday,
noting that roughly three thousand runners from Mexico have signed
up for the marathon. I want all of them to come,

(02:16):
Johnson said, I believe the best way in which we
can demonstrate resistance is not bending the need to tyranny,
which is lovely sentiment, but probably not the reassuring everything
will be fine message runners we're hoping for. The marathon
route passes through several neighborhoods with high immigrant populations, including
Pilsen on the lower west Side and Little Village on

(02:36):
the southwest Side, both home to sizable Mexican American communities.
These areas have reportedly grown quieter in recent weeks as
threats of immigration rates have created an atmosphere of fear
about forty percent of the marathon field. Roughly twenty thousand
people are traveling internationally to Chicago for the race, and
many of them have taken to social media with questions

(02:58):
that marathon training programs don't tip cover. Should they run
with their passports, should they drop out entirely? What should
runners do if they see someone being detained along the course.
Some runners have expressed concern that the race day tracking
app you know, the thing that lets your family see
when you're approaching so they can stop scrolling Instagram and

(03:19):
actually cheer for you, might be weaponized by federal agents.
People are advising each other to make their status in
the app private, which is quite the shift from the
usual marathon worry of will my phone die before I
can post my finished time. The anxiety ramped up when
a social media post claiming there would be federal immigration

(03:40):
enforcement activity along the marathon route went viral. The Chicago
Parks District pushed back, saying they hadn't received any information
or guidance about such plans, but that denial hasn't exactly
calmed everyone's nerves. Marathon runners have dealt with heightened security
at major races ever since the Boston Marathon bombing in
twenty thirteen. Airport level security checks have become standard, but

(04:05):
race day nerves are typically focused on whether you'll get
a cramp at mile twenty or if that pre race
banana was a mistake, not whether you might be pulled
off the course by immigration agents. The response in online
forums has been heartening, though. In Reddit threads, runners have
been offering to stand in solidarity with those who feel vulnerable.
One post said, tell your friend to run sub three

(04:28):
with me. If anyone even looks at him crossing that
finish line, I'll protect him and don't care what it takes.
Another simply stated runners will support runners. So this Sunday,
as fifty thousand people line up to run through Chicago's neighborhoods,
they'll be carrying the usual gear, energy gels, water bottles,
race bibs, but they'll also be carrying an entirely new

(04:51):
kind of pre race tension, one that has nothing to
do with their training plan and everything to do with
the wondering whether the biggest challenge of the day will
be the horse itself or what's happening around it. President
Trump indicated on Tuesday that hundreds of thousands of furloughed

(05:12):
federal workers may not automatically receive back pay once the
government reopens, which would be a problem except there's a
law guarantee they get that back pay, a law that
Trump himself signed in twenty nineteen. Let me walk you
through this one, because it's a journey. After the longest
government shut down in history, of five week closure that

(05:32):
started at the end of twenty eighteen, Congress passed the
Government Employee Fair Treatment Act. This law guaranteed back pay
for federal workers furloughed during shutdowns, not just for that
specific closure, but for all future ones too. The whole
point was to remove the uncertainty for federal employees who
keep getting caught in the middle of political standoffs. Trump

(05:54):
signed it into law in twenty nineteen. Fast forward to Tuesday,
and a draft White House memo started circulating that interprets
this law, let's say creatively. According to the memo, only
workers deemed essential military members, air traffic controllers, people required
to work during the shutdown would automatically get back pay.

(06:15):
For everyone else who's been furloughed, Congress would still need
to explicitly approve funding for those payments. When reporters asked
Trump if furloughed workers would lose their back pay, he said,
it depends on who you're talking about, adding that there
were some people that really don't deserve to be taken
care of, and will take care of them in a
different way, which is definitely the kind of reassuring answer

(06:38):
you want from the president about whether you'll get paid
for the work you did. When pressed on the legality
of this, you know, given that he signed a law
saying the opposite, Trump insisted he would follow the law,
and what the law says is correct, so he'll follow
the law. He just has a very different interpretation of
what the law he signed actually says. So let's recap.

(07:03):
Trump signed a law guaranteeing furloughed federal workers would get
back pay. Six years later, his administration is now arguing
that law doesn't actually mean what it clearly says it means. Meanwhile,
the government's own website says those workers will get back pay,
and when asked about it, Trump says some people don't
deserve to be taken care of, and he'll handle them
in a different way. Portions of today's program were made

(07:26):
with the help of AI. We don't pay them either.