9-1-1, where is the emergency? It's the middle of the night in a small town on the Jersey Shore. Someone reports an abandoned car on a bridge. A search gets underway for the missing driver, 19-year-old Sarah Stern. Is it a missing person? Is it a suicide? At this point nobody knows. Old friendships, buried cash, and a sinister plot that was once pitched as a movie plays out in real life. I'm Juju Chang from 2020 and ABC Audio. Listen now to Bridge of Lies, wherever you get your podcasts. Alright, it is Thursday, February 12th. I want to make people get very upset when we don't address this. We have Anna Navarro, we have no chat chat. I know. People are really upset. Even on the podcast, they like to watch a chat chat. I am terribly sad that she's not here. I'm missing her greatly. It's just too cold and it's... You know what the problem is. It's not even the cold because she's got a collection of coats that could rival any movie stars. It's the fact that there's nowhere for her to pee. Yes, I understand. The dogs here in New York do their business on pavement, on snow, on anything. I mean, they will climb a mountain of uranium and do it there. Chacha is a very bougie dog. If there's no green grass, she's not doing it. Alright, well, bear with us folks. She will return at some point. Chacha will return in Avengers Doomsday. Alright, it's been just four days since the bad bunny bowl. Was it everything you wanted it to be? I don't even know that it's been four days because I have been in such a cloud of joy since that halftime show. And I have watched it. You know, it's one of the most watched halftime shows in history. On social media consumption, it has broken all sorts of records between the social media platforms, the influencers, people posting about it. It's reached over four billion hits and views. And I assure you I account for at least a hundred thousand of them. I have listened to it so many times. And it's now, you know, I described it on Monday's show as micro-joys to listen to deal with the macro sadness. And I hear it. And every time I hear it again and I see it again, I see new things that I hadn't seen. I bring me more and more joy. And I just, you know, I'm able to take up in more of the little details. I have to tell you. And I mean this from the bottom of my heart. And I've told you this again. I've told you that I have told you many times what has been happening in this country, particularly against the Latino community and the immigrant community, hits us all. And I appreciate the the the allyship. But when you are Latino, when you are an immigrant, when you do have a name with vowels, when you have an accent, when you look like me, it is so heartbreaking. What we have lived through the last year of seeing our children detained. There's over 3,800 children still in detention. Just seeing that the humiliation of our people, the racial profiling, the discrimination, just it's been so horrible. And bad bunny was the hug that the Latino community needed so badly. Bad bunny was the affirmation that we needed. We needed to see him on that huge stage representing us proudly, not shying away from his roots, not shying away from his heritage and saying, we are all Americans, we all belong. And we will get through this. Don't stop believing in yourself and love Trump's hate. I was listening to an interview that Mark Anthony gave to Telemundo, because a lot of the Latin stars, a lot of the stars are asking to react to how they felt about the half-time show. And Mark Anthony in this interview said something that I thought was so meaningful and pointy. He said, you know, most half-time shows is all about the star, is all about the singer. It's all about, you know, see me flying through the stadium, lifted up on cable. See me on this pole. Look at what I'm wearing. Look at me. Look at me. I'm the star. Bad bunny's half-time show was not about bad bunny. Bad bunny's half-time show was about history, was about culture, was about pride and identity, was about diversity, was about unity, it was about everything. And the bad bunny of it was actually, you know, he was dressed in simple white clothes, designed by Sarah, which is, you know, fairly affordable brand. And so it was marvelous what he did. And, you know, I, because of my timeline, because I, you know, I consumed so much Latino content for lack of a better word on my timeline, the happiness that people have felt, the, the, just the, the exuberance, the joy, I can't tell you the amount of people that were on social media in tears and talking about how they have been brought to tears, because at a time when we have done nothing but get beaten up by the Trump administration, here comes bad bunny to lift us and to remind us that, that, that, that we are great and that we belong and that we are part of this society and that we contribute and that we bring things to the table. You know, so it was, it was just spectacular. I'm sorry, I don't remember his name, but you had shown me the ESPN to support the, the Porta's anchor that was kind of tearing up, talking about it too. It was really beautiful. This was a, this is a, a sports anchor for ESPN and Espanol, who has covered dozens of super balls and he was on the half on the sideline and he was tearing up as he responded to that, but that was everybody. Yeah. I mean, listen, how many times do you tell me I'm dead inside? Yes. And I was brought almost to tears by this because, because I know what it meant for my people. And, um, no, she said almost tears because she's dead inside. But yes, it was, listen, that little scene, that scene with a little boy, that was really great. When he gave that boy his, his Grammy and what he said to him in Spanish, he helped touched his head and he said, never stop believing in yourself. And also, you know, the spectacular, the spectacular significance of having Ricky Martin there, Ricky has been a star for almost 50 years since he was a child. And to have Ricky, who meant, who means so much to my generation of Latinos come out. And so to like recognize that what Ricky has done and how Ricky has opened doors so that there can be a bonito going through those doors was, was extraordinary. And he has done that throughout his residency, bad money and his concerts. Yeah. He's brought so many of the greats and exposed people of the generation that follow him to people like Ruim Blad, he's an Iwi Queen and Mark Anthony. I mean, it's just been, I think it's him showing respect for those who came before him and did the hard things before him. And it was just beautiful, not to mention God. But what are they good to look at? Ricky Martin looks so fine. I enjoyed many of the dancers, but the, I want to throw this out there because people want to know this. I know the answer. This because of the weekend we had together. But did you know that Ricky Martin was going to be there? So I had my suspicions. Okay. So are we going to tell people that we bet on this? All right. So here's the thing. As listeners of this podcast, no, I enjoy a little recreation. No, you have a gambling problem. I enjoy gambling recreation. You are addicted to recreational gambling. I am responsible. It is like a full time job. I am responsible. For the first time you dipped your toe into this world with me because we went into the prediction markets. Yes. And the idea on these things is you can basically place a wager of sorts on anything that's going to happen, including who was going to show up at the big game in the halftime show. Given that it was Latino culture on display, I saw people hypothesizing online that Anna Navarro would make an appearance at the halftime show, but you were too short. But what happened was I thought I'd hit up my friend, Anna Navarro and see what she knew. So yeah, it was glory. Estefan got to be there. Ricky Martin got to be there. Mark Anthony got to be there. Let's place some bets. You came along with me on this journey, but you didn't have any actual answers. We had guesses and hopes and thoughts. Okay. Well, so I saw Ricky post from LA the day before. He like posted a picture of his feet. It was a trick. He was getting and I said and I sent it to you and I said, I think this is a distraction. Yes. I'm getting Ricky Martin vibes. I think Ricky is going to be there. And then I sent Ricky a text and I said, I, baby, I don't know, I don't even know what I said to him, but he had earlier in the week after the Grammy win that bad bunny had a week before the Sunday before Ricky had written bad bunny a beautiful letter. Hermano Benito, Benito, my brother, thank you for never compromising on your heritage. Thank you for never changing your voice. Thank you for, you know, it was a beautiful, really heartfelt letter. So I wrote Ricky a text talking to him about how beautiful that letter was radio silence. And Ricky always responds. So when Ricky was radio silent, I was like, oh my god, I didn't have the guts to go with my sense, to go with my feeling. If I had had the guts, we could have chartered in the summer in Greece. But we did win because I was also like looking at Mark Anthony and Mark flew to Las Vegas the day before where he has a residency that starts this weekend. But I thought, okay, Las Vegas is right next to California. You could get there. Yeah. You could get there easily. He could hop over. So I was very nervous, but I thought, okay, if Marcus and Las Vegas, he's probably not going to be there. But then we bet on Mark Anthony's not being there and we won. We won. I also, however, and this is bothering me, I bet on Cardi B being there. And she was there, but she didn't sing. She danced. She was on camera and she didn't sing. So they wouldn't give me my full win. I actually lost half my money on that and I'm a little annoyed about it. You know what I, what I, I was thinking about this week though is imagine all the hate that bad money has been receiving since it was announced that he was going to do the halftime. Yes. And the hate that bad money is receiving is all about politics and races. The fact that he sings in Spanish, the fact that he's Puerto Rican, the fact that, you know, that's his heritage. And also the fact that he has been a political activist. In his native Puerto Rico, he was out there in the streets protesting against, you know, one of the government's comments at the Grammys. His decision not to do his, his tour here in the mainland, US, all of those things. So the hate towards bad money, strictly political and racist and sometimes both. But despite the pressure that he's got to have been receiving the threats, the trolling, just, you know, being in the middle of this category, five hurricane of division and discrimination, that guy was able to focus and deliver. And I thought the same thing about the Olympic athletes. I think you're going to say you thought the same thing about me with my bets. I was very excited. I'm not bad again. I found that very, I, I, I, you were very stressed. I know it's very stressful. And, and you don't get to enjoy the thing. I enjoy it more. Because you don't get to enjoy whatever you bet on because you're so focused on whether your bet is going to pay off. I was waking up at like six in the morning to Instagram post that Anna Navarro sent me of sound checks of people outside the stadium, videotaping the sound check to try to figure out what was going to happen and who was going to be there. I was, I was impressed by how much you came along with me. It was good. You see, I also wanted to bet that Shakira wasn't going to be there because because I knew she was in El Salvador doing a concert. Yeah, we should have bet on that too. Yeah, I'm not doing this again. I find it too stressful. I don't have the, yeah, that's what I said the first time I lost to, but I came back. You'll see. Well, we didn't lose. No, we didn't. Well, you didn't lose. I lost a little money. I do. I'm going to get you your money. Fine. You won't Venmo. I don't have cash. I will get you ready. Yeah. I don't, I'm old fashioned. I know, I know. I'm like those old, those old Latin guys who go around with like a lot of cash and like Italians all right. A lot of cash with like a rubber band around it. That's me. I don't, you know, I know, I know. You're very, you're very, it's funny because you're, you're tech savvy in other ways, but you will not. No, I will. I don't, yeah, I don't want to be like, what's his name? Matt Gaetz. Matt Gaetz. Have people know, you know, what you're spending your money on. I'm not going to be able to set, put the settings on correctly. It's going to be the disaster. I don't want to do that. All right. Today, I want to tell you about one of our partners, Reathlete. 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Abcsecretsavings.com slash BTT. From the best-selling author of It Ends With Us and Regretting You, comes reminders of him. That night I made a mistake. No, no one's letting me see my daughter. Go right now. A story of love, loss, and hope. You've taken the worst moment of my life and made it into who I am. Based on calling Hoover's highest rated book. Do you hate me? I've got from A&U to one of the whole world for you. Reminders of him in cinemas March 13, book tickets now. From 30 for 30 podcasts. Ryan Patta, senior defensive lineman for Miami. Gunned down. The key to this case, it's Brian. Oh, he's a scrapman. A hour before he died, he was on a phone arguing what's about. This might be a hit. You want the truth. They just want a conviction in place. We're asked. We had a killer amongst us. Murder at the U. Listen now. We started the show today talking about this explosive hearing with Attorney General Pam Bondi, who I will never let you forget that you started this podcast with me this year saying, I think she's going to be okay. But you've known her a long time and today you called her a high school version of Lady McBeth, which is a deep burn. And what do you make of yesterday's hearing? Oh my God. I mean, I had, I was like vicariously embarrassed for her because the levels that she's stooping to in order to stay within the circle of power in order to stay in Trump's good graces and Maga's good graces, there's just no bottom to that barrel. And yeah, listen, I have known Pam Bondi. I socialized with her. We went out together. She was a nice person. She was a normal person. And so to see her turn into this poisonous snake, just spewing out venom from her fangs and these rehearsed lines that were just so dramatic, over dramatic, you don't get to tell me. I mean, literally she wouldn't even be cast in a Mexican tellin' novella, okay? And that's like the high bar for drama. It was awful to see the way Pam Bondi, a woman, a woman from Florida, a woman who is very aware of what's happened to those young girls in Florida, most of them, to see her not even turn around to acknowledge the presence of the survivors and the family of the dead survivors who were in the room. It just showed a level of disdain, of disrespect, of contempt that I think was a unacceptable and she could have done herself so much good and done the country so much good. If she had turned around and she had said, you know, not only my DOJ has failed you, but three other DOJs have failed you. Listen, these women have been failed by four different administrations. It was Alex Acosta under Bush that gave Epstein the sweetheart deal. The Obama DOJ did nothing about it. The Biden DOJ did nothing about it. And the Trump DOJ did nothing about it. If anything, I give credit to the MAGA world because they made the Epstein files an issue during the 2024 campaign. They kept it at the top of the deal. And they never let go of it. It cost Marjorie Taylor Greene her job in Congress. People like Nancy Mays, who go with along with Trump on everything, stood up to him on this Epstein file issue. And there were Republicans who voted and made it possible for the release of these files. That's true. So I give them the credit of that. And I think they're right. I myself, I am pissed as hell with Merrick Garland because it would have been a very different story if Merrick Garland had released these files under the Biden administration. But I think Merrick Garland, who moved at the pace of a wounded sloth, was afraid of being viewed as political, as politicized. And because he was viewed as that, he did things like prosecute Hunter Biden. He did things like appoint a special counsel on the Joe Biden and documents case. And he did things like not release the Epstein files. We could have seen and should have seen these files long time ago. But you know what? That is not an excuse for Pam Bondy to act the way she has, she is acting. Because Merrick Garland, bad on him, shame on him. But right now, she is the attorney general of the United States. This is her Department of Justice. This is her Bureau of Federal Prisons that transferred Gillane Maxwell from a maximum security prison in Florida to a minimum security prison with all sorts of perks in Texas. It is her DOJ that has dragged its feet on releasing these files and had to been forced to release them by Congress kicking and screaming. It is her DOJ that has refused the offer of survivors to meet with federal agents and tell them their stories. I mean, she could have turned around yesterday and she could have said to those survivors, I am sorry that we haven't met with you. We will do so today immediately. She could have turned around to those survivors and said Gillane Maxwell should have never been transferred to a lesser security prison. She will be transferred back to where she was today. It is her jurisdiction and she chose not to do it. She chose to be hotty and petty and petulant with her nose lifted up and just used the time for the atrix and performance of cruelty and disdain. It was one of the most out of all of the disgusting things, performances I have seen in congressional hearings. This took the cake as by far the worst I have ever seen because those Epstein survivors were there feeling the trauma of knowing that the attorney general of their government refuses to even look at them. You mentioned this before but the Olympics are happening right now and some Olympic athletes have said that they feel conflicted about representing the country on the world stage because of what is happening here right now and Trump's gone after them. JD Vance has told them to stop talking. What did you think about this? I will say not, I don't disagree with their right to say these things but there is a feeling like when you are not in your own country and you are overseas you need to represent America but it is hard to do that when some of the things like this are going on. Well first they got asked the questions right. They were being asked the question. Second of all when else are they going to have this kind of platform to speak and get coverage. And third of all I think they are representative of a lot of Americans including me who feel conflicted emotions and mixed emotions because nothing, not Donald Trump, not Pam Bondy, none of his minions are going to take away the love I feel towards the United States, the gratitude I feel towards the United States for having opened its doors to me and giving me refuge when I was fleeing Nicaragua in a communist dictatorship. That doesn't mean that I cannot denounce and oppose the things that are happening in this country. In fact I would tell you that denouncing and opposing the abuses of powers and the cruelty that the Trump administration is perpetrating on American soil is done out of love for your country. If you didn't give a damn you wouldn't say anything but because people give a damn because they care about their democracy because they care about how their country is viewed throughout the world because they care about civil rights and human rights is because is that the reason that they are speaking out. And so but again the same way I told you that you know here is think about this month, this month, this is the year began Donald Trump tweeting against bad money. Yes. Donald Trump tweeting against Olympic athletes. Do you know the hatred that's got to come the way of those Olympic athletes once Donald Trump makes you an issue and tweets against you? I know that I've lived it in my own skin. It's like the gates of hell open up and every little demon goes through them and you get hate online and on social media for months and months and months. So at the time when they are supposed to be focused on winning medals for our countries and on performing at the Olympics they have to be dealing with the hatred and the trolling and the backlash that comes from speaking their minds and exercising their freedom of speech. It's just you know it's insane. It's insane. I don't disagree. All right. Before we go are you and I doing anything for Valentine's Day? Yeah. We go I hate going out for Valentine's Day to dinner because I think it's a bad day to be at restaurants. You know you don't get good. Yeah. I think that's right. Everybody who doesn't go out to restaurants goes out to restaurants on Valentine's Day. So it's usually. Service is good. Service is not good. Everything is crowded. Food. A lot of times it's set menus. I don't like it. So I'm going to my bougie country club where the surface is always good and there's you know it's a limited number of people. Not Marlago. No it's not Marlago. It's I think it's you know it's what we're now it's called billionaires bunker. I'm basically the poorest person that goes through through those gates. I just heard Zuckerberg just bought a house there as it was reported this week because everybody's moving from California. All the billionaires are moving from California because of some tax that they're threatening them with and they're ending up in Florida. What are your plans? So I'm being abandoned by my wife on Valentine's Day not surprisingly. No my wife and daughter are attending a Broadway workshop where my you know my daughter is a aspiring singer and very involved in theater and she auditioned for and got into basically classes and then followed up by a cabaret she's performing in. So Heather and my that's rather amazing. I'm really excited for it's yeah it's great. It's real opportunity. So if it wasn't going to stun turn and traumatize her for life I'd want her to look at Pam Bond these congressional hearing and and grade it on an acting. No there we are. Yeah I'll see what you can come up with. I'll see what you can do. So you're doing what? So I'll be with Lily my youngest and we're going to have our own little daddy daughter day and we'll figure out what we're going to do. I think we can go see a movie. We might say a movie goat the animated movie that we have had a couple people on for and go to dinner and ice cream and get all the stuff that mom won't let us get. One of the young women who works here was telling me she hosts a gallantine party every week every year. She's on her 30 year of hosting and she goes all out decorating. It's like 15 women that come over in their pajamas and drink and hang out and do karaoke. That sounds so appealing. Tell me. That sounds like fundamental. I'm not going to lie. I can't get in there. But you are with Lily. Yeah. Doing your Valentine's with Lily. Do not bet. Be present. Well, it's Saturday night. There's stuff going on. I will say I'll do the best I can. I'll play. We can do the NBA. The All Star games this weekend. The Olympics. No. We can bet on politics. We can bet on culture. We can bet on stuff like that. It's kind of crazy. Okay. You're going to have to show me. Send me. Send me things that I might be interested in. All right. You can bet on who the Republican nominee is going to be JD Vance or Marco Rubio. I think it's going to be JD Vance. Okay. That doesn't pass well. All of MAGA is lining up behind him. What do you think it's going to be? I think so too, but it doesn't pay as well. If you said Marco Rubio, I'd be interested. Let me see. I want to see how much it pays. Well, no one can watch us now. We'll do this here. We'll come back. Okay. Yeah. All right. Thank you for joining me today, Anna. Behind the table, we'll be back on Tuesday after President's Day. But on the view tomorrow, we have a new show. Comedian Zarna Garg is here and our ABC News colleague, Juju Chang. He's funny, funny, funny. Zarna is fantastic. Yeah. Zarna is fantastic. Juju also kind of funny. On Monday, we'll also have an all new President's Day over the view with legendary costume designer Ruthie Carter, who's amazing. And we're going to do like a little fashion thing with her. We're going to see the costume she did for sinners and Black Panther and some movies with whoopi and all this stuff. 911. Did you know? Wait, I have to tell you this. She dressed me one time. You're kidding. I did a cameo on being Mary Jane with Gab Union, who was here for the goat. Yeah. And she dressed me. And I'm going to tell you the story before you continue with your reading. Yeah. So they sent me an email asking for my measurements. And I'm thinking to myself, come on, you see me on TV. You know, you know, I'm choppy. You know what I am. You know what I'm doing. But I sent back a joke email with Marilyn Monroe's measurements. And so then I get there and she's got an entire. Oh my god. Like a close that are like that that won't fit my thigh. Oh my god. That's hysterical. Yes. That's what happened to me. She must have wanted to kill you. I ended up having to wear my own clothes. It's opportunity. All right. We also have 911 natural star Jessica Kapsha, who's great. We'll have hot topics. We have a performance from Ragtime, which is unbelievable on Broadway. You would love it, actually. You should really see it. And that's it. So that'll be on Monday show and have a great holiday weekend. We'll see you then. Behind the table is executive produced by Brian Tetta. Supervising producers are Nathan Getty and Summer Shea. Associate producers are Emily Darcy and Catarina Alexopoulos. And our editor is Brian Davis. And director of publicity is Laurie Hogan. From ABC Audio, Trevor Hastings serves as senior producer with director of podcast programming Josh Cohen.
