“Miami has an incredible opportunity to be the knowledge capital and monetary capital of the world and that’s something that’s happening because of a confluence of factors that’s turning this from Miami moment to a Miami movement.”
Francis Suarez serves as the mayor of Miami and also vice chair of the Miami-Dade Transportation Planning Organization. His father, Xavier Suarez, was also mayor of Miami, making them the city’s first father and son to hold the office.
The meteoric rise of Miami is based on a three-pronged approach: low taxes, safety and quality of life. This approach has seen a massive migration of people and capital into the south Florida metropolis. The increase in remote-work has meant more people can work from anywhere, and many of them are choosing Miami. Leading on the integration and development of Bitcoin-friendly business ecosystems has Miami poised to be a leader in innovation. “I’ve been following Bitcoin and the blockchain for a while… If we want to be an innovative city, we have to be on the cutting edge of technology.”
The COVID pandemic presented many challenges to leaders, especially because the issues around handling the deadly disease became hyper-partisan. Mayors have seen their profiles rise because they are required to deliver practical real-world solutions. “Mayors see the world differently… We don’t care much about where [a problem] originated or how it originated or who’s to blame. I don’t have the luxury of making things partisan.”
LISTEN AND SUBSCRIBE
SPEAKER
Francis Suarez
43rd Mayor of Miami
MODERATOR
Anthony Scaramucci
Founder & Managing Partner
SkyBridge
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
John Darcie: (00:07)
Hello everyone. And welcome back to salt talks. My name is John Darcie. I'm the managing director of salt, which is a global thought leadership forum and networking platform at the intersection of finance technology and public policy. Saul talks are a digital interview series with leading investors, creators, and thinkers. And our goal on these salts talks the same as our goal at our salt conference series, which is to provide a window into the mind of subject matter experts, as well as provide a platform for what we think are big ideas that are shaping the future. And we're very excited today to welcome a guest that covers all those three pillars of salt finance technology, and public policy, maybe more so than anybody in the country right now. And that's the mayor of the city of Miami Francis X Suarez, uh, mayor Suarez serves as the mayor of the city of Miami.
John Darcie: (00:55)
He also currently serves as the vice chair of the Miami Dade transportation planning organization tasked with approving federally required plans and transportation policies. And as president of the Miami Dade county league of cities, he's the oldest of four siblings. Mayor Suarez was born into a family where, as he describes it, being socially conscious was sort of a requirement. Uh, mayor Suarez is focusing on transportation and connectivity issues within the city and beyond nurturing the growth of tech based economies in the area and by extension job creation and international opportunities within Latin America. And if you've been on Twitter or follow the news recently, you can, uh, you know, about all the migration that's taking place from places like Silicon valley in New York and elsewhere, uh, into Miami right now, Miami is absolutely on fire, but his priorities also still include affordable housing, tackling the poverty pandemic and reducing crime locally.
John Darcie: (01:46)
Uh he's he graduated from Florida international university where he majored in finance and graduated in the top 10% of his class. He graduated loudly from the university of Florida, Frederick G 11 college of law. And prior to running for public office, mayor Suarez founded a successful real estate firm. He's also a practicing attorney with the law firm of Carlton fields, specializing in real estate and corporate transactions and hosting today's talk is Anthony Scaramucci, the founder and managing partner of SkyBridge capital, a global alternative investment firm. Anthony is also the chairman of salt. We don't have an office in Miami yet mayor, but I don't know that that's very far away. We have an office up in Palm beach gardens. We love spending our time down in Florida, but with, without any further
Anthony Scaramucci: (02:27)
Miami, yet that's not properly. We're going to have an office in Miami and we're looking and
Francis Suarez: (02:31)
I kind of break it to you. But Palm beach gardens is Miami because when you go to Europe, you don't say I live in Palm beach gardens. You say, I live in Miami. So everything is my aunt. There
Anthony Scaramucci: (02:40)
You go. That's like my kids. I tell them, even though the mother was a Irish, they're 100% Italian mayor Suarez. So just saying, that's how it works. So well, first of all, God bless you on everything. And I definitely wanted John to read that introduction because it is incredibly impressive and you building an amazing career in public service, but also you're a great American, but what ignited this public service passion in you?
Francis Suarez: (03:08)
Well, I mean, in my case, uh, my dad who, uh, was the first Cuban born mayor of Miami, who was, uh, elected mayor in 1985, but he's, uh, an immigrant to this country as is my mom both exiles from a communist Cuba in the 1960s. My dad was a ninth of 14 kids. He came to this country with nothing. Um, God was blessed to get scholarships, went to the best schools in the country and then ran for office multiple times before he was elected. He had to build up his name recognition for zero. Um, and I was fortunate enough to see him, uh, be mayor from 1985 to 1993 for three years. Um, and he was a very dynamic mayor. Uh, ironically, he was actually 36 when he became mayor. I was 40 when I became mayor. So we're the first father and son mayor. He was the second youngest mayor in the history of Miami. I was a third youngest, but often tell him that, uh, when you were 36, you look like you're 40 and I'm 40. And it looked like I was 36. So, um, you know, that's, that's the difference there, but, uh,
Anthony Scaramucci: (04:09)
Mayor I'm 75. So I guess if you need my dermatologist, I can tell you, but you don't right now, you look great. So I wouldn't do a thing, but someday you're going to need my dermatologist. I'm going to refer it out. So let let's talk a little bit about what is happening to your amazing city. You have the introduction of further introduction of venture capitalists, hedge fund managers, financial professionals are migrating out of places like San Francisco and New York. It's not just pandemic related. It was happening before the pandemic. Sure. Talk to us about your, the vision that you have for the city, because it's an interesting one. You want it to be a home for entrepreneurs, but you also want it to be a place where there's affordable housing and there's aspirational living standards for a middle and lower income people. Tell us about that vision.
Francis Suarez: (04:57)
No doubt. And for me, I think that's really the American dream. I mean, that's what we all grew up with, right? Everybody having the dream of owning a house with a picket white, you know, white picket fence. And obviously that that narrative has changed in terms of urban America. But the truth is that our formula for success is very simple. The first thing is we've kept taxes low. We don't have an income tax. We don't have a state income tax. We've reduced property taxes. The only tax that we charge to the second lowest level in the last six years. Um, so one of the things is we want our residents to keep the maximum amount of their money so that they can invest in the things that are going to create high paying jobs in our community. Secondly, we want to create the safest city in America.
Francis Suarez: (05:36)
Um, at least the safest big city in America and for us, while other cities have defunded police, we've actually increased funding and police. We have the most police officers who've ever had in our history. We reduce crime by 25% last year, we had the lowest homicide rate since 1954, the year before. So we're excited about delivering on that promise because we're seeing that other cities are not getting a right and, and other countries frankly, are not getting it right. We get a lot of people from Brazil and other parts of the world, uh, that are fleeing, uh, places where they don't feel safe. And so for us, that's important. The third thing is we're focusing on quality of life. We realize the fundamental truth that you don't get to live yesterday again. Um, once yesterday happens, it's over. So, you know, everybody now in today's modern day economy wants to live in the best place possible.
Francis Suarez: (06:22)
This is not a virtual background. That is not a virtual crane. That is a legitimate crane. Those are legitimate Palm trees is a beautiful place. Uh, but we also focus on having the buffet of, of, of offerings, right? Whether it be sports or culture, we're not negotiating with an MLS team to bring MLS to Miami. We're also going to be one of two cities in America was formula one racing. We have obviously all the major sports teams. Um, we have a performing arts center. We have a science museum. Uh, we have, uh, uh, an art museum. Uh, we have, uh, one of the large largest art festivals in the world, in our Basel and some of the best private collections in the world as well in terms of private galleries. So, you know, Miami has really matured over the last 10 years. And now I think we have an incredible opportunity that we've really been working on for 10 years, uh, to be the knowledge capital and the monetary capital of the world. And that's something that is happening because of a confluence of factors that are making this a Miami moment into a Miami movement.
Anthony Scaramucci: (07:21)
Suarez. I want to ask you a philosophical question that is weighing on my mind, uh, places like New York and San Francisco, the executive management teams of those governments, those administrations have been combative with business have been obstructionist to business, but have also decided that it's okay to have a proliferation of homeless people and human excrement, frankly, right there on the street. What are, why are they like that? I mean, you, you must be studying this as a public servant. Why are they like that? Why do they think that that's good? And what would the message be? What they're getting wrong and what's your philosophy. So start out with what they're getting wrong and then what you're getting. Right. So,
Francis Suarez: (08:03)
So part of my narrative, right, is that my parents were Cuban exiles, right? And so my parents came from a place, a country where a charismatic leader, um, sold them, probably the biggest prod in the history of humanity, which is that we, as a government can just take over everybody's property, right? And we can deny everybody that, you know, fundamental human rights and we'll just divide the property equally and everybody will be equal, right? And that doesn't work. It's never worked in the history of humanity. All it does is create equal misery. And I think unfortunately there is this false notion that, um, wealth or what creation, uh, is, will cause us societal problems. And I think in so many cities, there is an antagonism towards people being successful towards working hard, instead of embracing the fact that you want to, or lift people out of poverty, you want to give people right.
Francis Suarez: (08:55)
And that happens through creating high paying jobs in the creating the educational pipeline that allows people, whether they're in high school, college, or, or out of college, uh, to be able to occupy those jobs, that's our philosophy. Um, and, and, and what we're seeing in terms of results is, you know, while so many cities have, you know, 30,000, 40,000 homeless, how many homeless, the city of Miami have, according to the last sentence, 555, okay. 555. And we're actually coming out with a plan hopefully soon, which we call functional zero, which is we want to end up being the first city in America, the first major urban city in America that has zero homeless. Um, and that's something that we're focusing on. Um, like I said, we've reduced crime by 25%. Um, we've invested in our police department, they've gone in the opposite direction. And I think, um, they really need to understand that, um, people can, I mean, in today's day and age, they're not even tethered.
Francis Suarez: (09:46)
People are not tethered to their city with remote work, with all the stuff that we're doing right now. I mean, right now we're on zoom and doing this interview. Um, there are more offerings and options than people have ever had in the history of humanity. And all they have to do is meet and that's it. And now places like Miami that'd before were kind of seen as a fun and fun place and place where you can retire are now seen as a, as a real player in the knowledge based economy and the innovation economy. And, and my role is not just to attract those people and to juxtapose the F Elon Musk. And let's push Amazon out of, out of New York with a, how can I help? Which is, which was my viral tweet in response to, uh, DeLeon from founders fund saying, Hey, what if we move a Silicon valley to Miami? Right. I just said, you know, uh, how can I help? That's it, it was that simple, uh, government as a facilitator, uh, versus like you said, government as an obstructor.
Anthony Scaramucci: (10:39)
Well, I think the tagline, how can I help is going to be a, it's going to be with us a long time mayor Suarez, because of you want to talk about the decisions being made around, COVID-19 get your reaction to those decisions. Uh, uh, governor DeSantis has had a different philosophy say than, uh, uh, the governors of California and New York. How do you feel about the COVID-19 situation? I know that you went through COVID and your family did as well. Thank God that you're well, you look, you look well, thank God. Um, what, what, what do you, what do you say about the philosophy and about the intersection of an open economy and the restoration of the economy, but also being worried about the health and safety of your citizens?
Francis Suarez: (11:24)
Look, it's there. There's no doubt that, um, you know, COVID presented it and tremendous challenge for leaders across the country. I think the problem was that it became hyper-partisan number one, I think number two, there was a false narrative and the false narrative was that you either cared about people's lives, or you cared about the economy and that's not true. I mean, all public officials should care about both things, right? You should care about doing the maximum amount that you can to protect people while at the same time, preserving people's ability to, to, uh, to provide for their families. Because let me tell you something, getting sick and passing away is a tragedy, but not being able to feed your family, not being able to pay your rent, not being able to pay your mortgage is a tremendous tragedy as well. You know, these are, these are, you know, the degrees of suffering that we should never, as leaders have to confront in terms of a juxtaposition.
Francis Suarez: (12:16)
And, you know, the governor took a lot of heat, uh, for some of the decisions that he made. But at the end of the day, there's two things that I think are true. Number one, it's inevitable that it helped Miami that's for sure, in terms of, you know, the fact that we were open with a lot of these cities were closed. We became an option, right. Where people came and they realized, Hey, wait a second. Things are not that bad here. Right. Um, you know, we had, I think, less per capita deaths than some of the states that you site. Um, and, and then, and then the second part is that, uh, you know, now with remote work, uh, you realize that you could come to a different place and you wouldn't even lose your job. You could be physically anywhere you want it to be without even losing your job. And when they, when people came to Miami, they realized that the density of talent, the density of capital was significantly greater than what they thought. And they also realized that Miami had changed. I mean, Miami has, is a radically different city than it was 10 years ago. It's a radically different city than it was 10 years before that. Um, and we're one of those cities that's just on like the, like the crane behind us. We're on one of those, uh, exponential growth curves.
Anthony Scaramucci: (13:17)
Yeah. W we want the crane to be going the other way for purposes of our zoom call. We've got to go on up in this direction. And I, but I hear what you're saying. If I looked at your Wikipedia page, it says you're a Republican. Um, my Republican party seems like it's, uh, re identifying itself. And so are you a Republican, uh, in terms of the way the Republican party is now reidentifying itself. Um, and then the secondary question is you seem to be a leader that's more focused on right. Or wrong as opposed to left, or, right. So what is your recommendations? Assuming you're still a Republican, what's the recommendations to the GOP,
Francis Suarez: (13:56)
So I'm still registered Republican. Um, and I, I do think that, and I'm going to give you a quote from a friend who's a mayor, uh, was actually a Democrat, um, uh, the mayor of, of, uh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, bill Peduto. And he wants to, you know, in America, Mr. Mayor, there's three parties, there's Republicans, there's Democrats, and there's mayors, you know, and, and, you know, I think, I think there's some truth to that, you know, may or see the world differently. We're kind of like engineers, you know, we see the world as problem solution, problem solution. We don't really care that much about where it originated or how it originated or who's to blame for it, or, or what party has, you know, the, the, the, the solution, all we care about is solving the problem. So when there's flooding, I have to solve that when, you know, when there's a civil disturbances, I have to be in the forefront of that.
Francis Suarez: (14:47)
We don't, I don't have the luxury of being able to, you know, make things partisan. And so I think, you know, one of the reasons why in this presidential election and the previous one, you saw mayors, uh, starting to ascend in, in sort of the, uh, in the, in the political spectrum of potential presidential candidates is in part, because we do think we do things differently. We see things differently, we talk differently. And I think that, uh, it really appeals to people because it's not about, um, you know, it's not life lived through a, a binary prism, right? It's life lived through, through a problem solution prism. And I think that, like you said, it's more of a true false narrative. And I think that, that, that cuts through, and that's why I'm able to go on a variety of different shows and people know me as a straight talker. And sometimes I wrote people the wrong way, by the way. And, and I don't do it intentionally, just probably not
Anthony Scaramucci: (15:39)
Beyond me. I don't know. I don't, I've never rubbed anybody the wrong way. I mean, you'll find that about my person. I'm a very easy going guy, not polarizing at all. Uh, so I, I've never, I, I wouldn't understand how you could rub anybody the wrong way. Uh, let's talk about Bitcoin for a second. Mayor Suarez. Uh, you are a revolutionary when it comes to Bitcoin or an evolutionist, I should say. And obviously you probably know this, but it's worth noting SkyBridge capital. Our firm, the firm that I founded has over a half a billion dollars in Bitcoin, I have attended the Miami Bitcoin conferences in the past. I will be one of the keynote speakers in June at the upcoming Bitcoin Miami conference. Tell us about your and the city's fascination with Bitcoin. And why are you so gung ho
Francis Suarez: (16:24)
You know, I've been following Bitcoin and the blockchain for awhile. I, um, uh, was part of a team that tried to do the first tokenized transaction of real estate in Miami. Um, I'm on the block, Florida blockchain foundation, and I was on, uh, and I am on the Ford of blockchain task force appointed by the CFO of Florida. So all that work predates, uh, my latest positions on Bitcoin when I, when I, um, began talking about tech at this bogging level, right, and, and was getting national attention about it, I very quickly realized that there was a subpopulation of people in the crypto community space that were extremely positive, that were paying attention, um, that were very bullish on the technology. And it, it made me realize that if we want to be an innovative city, we have to be on the cutting edge with new technologies.
Francis Suarez: (17:13)
And so what I did was I presented to the city commission, a resolution, which did three things. One, it allow for employees to get PR to get paid a percentage of their salary in Bitcoin, if they so choose it, it allowed for our residents to get paid, uh, to I'm sorry to pay, uh, fees and taxes potentially in Bitcoin, if they so choose. And it allowed us to study the possibility of investing a portion of our treasury as a hedge in Bitcoin. Um, so, you know, for me, I think that creates a narrative about the city of Miami, that we are innovative, and we want to push the envelope that we believe that, um, you know what I mean, that we don't always have to be playing by the, the normal set of rules. And I think that's, that's getting us out of Godness. A lot of attention.
Anthony Scaramucci: (18:00)
I've got one last question for him here. Then I have to turn it over to our resident millennial with the good blonde hair, and we're trying to get the ratings up here. So, you know, my last question is about public school education in Miami, in your jurisdiction, you, you have, uh, no state income tax property taxes in Miami are, I would qualify them as reasonable. You tell me if I'm wrong, but they look reasonable on a per capita per resident basis. Sure. So tell me about what you're doing in the public school area. That's yielding such high quality public schools, uh, given that dynamic. Sure.
Francis Suarez: (18:40)
Well, first of all, we have a great superintendent, our superintendent, one superintendent of the year, uh, he was actually tried to be hired by, uh, the city of New York. Um, and that didn't quite work out for New York.
Anthony Scaramucci: (18:51)
There's no, there's no Palm trees up here in New York, kind
Francis Suarez: (18:54)
Of, he kind of left them at the alter, but, uh, but, but it's all good. And, uh, and so, and we also won the Brode prize for the best school system in the nation as well. Um, we have the fourth largest public school system in America. And, you know, we were just, uh, a community of entrepreneurial people of, of, of, of people who put a premium on education of parents who put a premium on our children being educated, because that's how we were all successful. So we're still working by the way, with the public school system on making sure that our K through 12 curriculum is the best curriculum from modern day economy for an innovation economy, a knowledge based economy. And so we want to make sure that coding robotics, uh, you know, all the things, uh, data analysis and science are all being taught at our, at our schools. And it's something we're very intentional about because as I said, as we create this ecosystem, we want to make sure that, uh, the children of our, every single child in our community has an opportunity to be successful. And to occupy one of those jobs,
Anthony Scaramucci: (19:50)
John Dorsey, mayor Suarez,
John Darcie: (19:52)
All right, I've been chomping at the bit, get right into it. Uh, mayor you're also, as I read in the bio, the vice chair of the Miami Dade transportation planning organization, uh, you've led several initiatives to improve mobility in Miami. It's a city that's grown very quickly, but also, uh, you know, maintain the ability to get around without being stuck in traffic for, uh, five hours the way it is in some cities and Austin being another destination that I think people are leaving Silicon valley and moving there that that's suffering from rapid growth. How have you been able to do that, uh, from a transportation mobility perspective, you recently toured Elon Musk's tunnels, uh, for the boarding company. What innovative ways are you thinking about in Miami, uh, to, to improve quality of life by maintaining that level of mobility?
Francis Suarez: (20:37)
Every single one, uh, you know, we start with, uh, we're building in our transit nodes. So instead of trying to figure out how to make transit, go to the people we bring to the transit that already exists. And it's shockingly simple idea, right? As you actually build buildings where there's transit station, which is called transit oriented development, we've been doing that very successfully in the city for the last five years. Um, we're creating, uh, neighborhoods that are self-contained. So we're doing it sort of around the concept of a 15 minute walkable city where every neighborhood has every, all the amenities that you would want to have that you could walk to. Also, you don't need to use a car. Obviously there are macro innovations like micro mobility, which is we have a scooter, a scooter program. We have a free trolley system, um, in the city.
Francis Suarez: (21:21)
And we also have a variety of different, uh, you know, we have a bus system, we have a Metro rail system. I mean, those are the things that all major cities, uh, presumably have, but I think the last thing is we are getting a foothold because we want to be a technological enforcement city in transportation technology. So like you talked about it, we're touring, uh, um, you know, the boring company, actually, their representatives are coming tomorrow, uh, to Miami, uh, to, to, to look at some of the engineering specs on some of our potential projects, uh, where I'm actually going. Uh, it was actually the poor Lauderdale mayor that I sent up, uh, to, uh, to, to Las Vegas I'm actually going on the 18th. So I'm going up to see their, their tunnels up there. Um, we're also looking at, um, you know, urban air mobility, which is another big, uh, uh, potential technological way of getting people across the city.
John Darcie: (22:09)
What about climate change for a second? Obviously, a lot of people are moving down to Miami, first of all, they haven't experienced maybe a Miami summer. So we'll see how they deal with that. Although I think it's perfectly manageable. Um, but also climate change is something that's top of mind for people we've seen increasing, uh, prevalence of hurricanes that have devastated different areas of the country. And in Puerto Rico, we haven't seen any, you know, real direct hits on Miami that have, that have incurred massive damage. But how are you thinking about adapting the city to a world where we're going to have a rising sea level, uh, and increasing preponderance of hurricane,
Francis Suarez: (22:43)
Uh, in a few different ways, first of all, um, you know, most people don't know some of the facts, which is that New York has actually suffered more damage from hurricanes in Miami, has in the last 10 years. That's just something that people don't often know. Um, but the second thing is Miami is the most wind resilience. Again, the planet, this building that I'm in right now is a Pan-Am seaplane hangar from the 1950s. And this building has hurricane windows that ain't coming down. No, sir, that's, that's retrofitted. So we're, we're the most, we're already the most wind resilient city on the planet. There is no doubt that we are hardened for, uh, 200 mile per hour or teens plus, which by the way, are far less dangerous than of course wildfires and earthquakes that you can't predict. Right? But in the case of, uh, of us, we have invested in resiliency.
Francis Suarez: (23:30)
We have a program called Miami forever, and it is what it, what it says, right? Which is we have a 200 million residential package, uh, rising seawalls, urban reservoirs, uh, pump systems, uh, you know, backflow preventers, a variety of, uh, engineering techniques that we have implemented to adapt to climate change. We're also getting in the mitigation game, we have a, a carbon neutrality plan that we're going to unveil on earth day. This year, I'm on a global council and adaptation, the only mayor in the United States, only one of two mayors in the world. That's on that council. I'm the vice chair of our council. And, uh, and I was the chair of the environment committee for the us conference of mayors. And I'm going to be now in January, the president of us conference of mayors. So I'm gonna be the president of all the mayors in United States. So that's a huge honor for me. It gives me a tremendous platform to talk about these important issues.
John Darcie: (24:20)
So SoftBank, I saw a tweet recently from Marcello Claure. He said they, they invested a hundred million dollars or pledged to invest a hundred million dollars into the Miami tech ecosystem. There's a lot more, uh, ammunition coming behind that what's the impact of large asset allocators like a SoftBank coming in. I know a group out of Dubai also pledged a several hundred thousand Bitcoins or tens of thousands of Bitcoins also to cultivate Miami as a, as a digital assets hub as Anthony referred to. But what is that doing to the local tech ecosystem? What type of founders and people are you seeing gravitate to Miami as a result of, you know, greater capital,
Francis Suarez: (24:59)
Every everybody, I mean, there's something anybody isn't coming. I mean, you know, like you said, Marcello, uh, uh, SoftBank already had a presence here, but they, they initiated this a hundred million dollar Miami initiative, uh, to, uh, sponsor companies that are coming here and, or already, uh, that are founded here already. We're coming here. Um, you have Blackstone, you have Starwood Connie capital. Um, you know, you have, uh, Microsoft, uh, the list really goes on and on, uh, Keith we're, blah, Peter teal. Um, I mean, it's just, it's just a non-stop flow of people that are coming here. Uh, Orlando Bravo from Thoma Bravo, it's a $70 billion fund. Um, the amount of capital that is coming to Miami from both different places, um, is unprecedented. And what's interesting about it is that nowhere in the world, in the history of the world, right, has the confluence of investment banks, banking, hedge funds, private equity, come to combine with VCs, you know, and founders that's never happened. So their business models are completely different and they don't interact because they're in different parts of the U S they're both coming here, which is going to create a pool of capital that has never been deployed in the way that it's going to be deployed in Miami in the future.
John Darcie: (26:13)
Last question. So back into politics for a minute, but it's really not a question about politics. So again, I wouldn't have known whether you were a Republican or a Democrat, and unless I read your bio, right, I don't, I don't think you come across as being parsed in, in any way. How do we take that mentality, taking the quote that you offer from the Pittsburgh mayor about the fact that we have Republicans, Democrats and mayors, why don't we, how do we get to the point where we have Republicans, Democrats, and presidents or leaders at the federal level that think in terms of sense and pragmatism, as opposed to partisanship,
Francis Suarez: (26:46)
We've got to start electing people like me. I mean, I think, I think, I think at the end of the day, really we have to, as voters, our criteria has to change, right. Rather than having somebody who, um, speaks only to a certain audience, right? I think when you think about trends, you know, a transformational years or meters or leaders that transcend time, they're the kind of leaders that can speak to anyone. I mean, when I think of Ronald Reagan, when I was young, when Ronald Reagan spoke, everybody listened to it didn't matter whether you were public and whether you were independent, whether you were Democrat, when he spoke his command, his presence, the way he articulated things, the words he chose, obviously you had an amazing speech writer and Peggy Noonan, but, you know, I mean, you had somebody that can talk to me, anybody. It didn't matter what you wore.
Francis Suarez: (27:34)
There wasn't even a competition because it wasn't about party. It was about America. It was about American exceptionalism. It was about, you know, this being the most important, uh, freedom, loving, uh, country in the world and understanding what our values are. I think we get back to our values and we get back to debates about how to solve problems, as opposed to, you know, the Republicans feel this way about one thing, and the Democrats feel this way about another thing, or this is a Republican issue or a democratic issue, which is kind of silly. You know what I mean? Especially when you think of the important things like climate change and, and some of the things that we've talked about in this show, um, they're not partisan issue. They're really about a problem that we have to solve.
John Darcie: (28:14)
Amen brother. Well, thanks so much for joining us, Anthony. Uh, we're going to let the mayor go here, but just want to give you a chance to just want to, I just
Anthony Scaramucci: (28:20)
Want to say thank you, mayor. We're, we're, uh, we're doing these live events at some point again, we'd love to have you at one of them so that you can expose, uh, I'm afraid to invite you to New York city though, because I still live here. I'm afraid you're gonna suck the whole city out of here. You know, I don't know. You're totally capable of doing it, but anyway, congratulations on everything that you're doing, sir. Uh, we're so grateful as citizens of the United States and friends of Miami to have you in public service. And we appreciate your time here today on smalltalk. Thank you so much, likewise. Okay. Be well Francis. Thank you. Bye-bye terrific. Thank you ma'am
John Darcie: (28:59)
And thank you everybody for tuning into today's salt. Talk with mayor Francis X Suarez of the city of Miami, uh, which is going through a moment. But as, as the mayor said, they're trying to turn that into a long-term movement. And I wouldn't bet against them being successful in that endeavor. Just a reminder, if you missed any part of this salt talk or any of our previous salt talks, you can access our entire archive on salt.org, our website backslash talks, uh, and you can also sign up for all of our future talks there as well. Please subscribe to our YouTube channel. All of our episodes are there for free for you to view it's called salt too. We have a growing subscribership there, and we appreciate everybody engaging on our videos on our YouTube channel. We're also on social media. We're most on Twitter at salt conference, but we're also on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook, and are doing more and more each one of those outlets. So please follow us there and please spread the word about these salt talks, but on behalf of Anthony and the entire salt team, this is John Darcie signing off from salt talks for today. We hope to see you back here soon.