Bob Cordaro on Prison Life, the Midterms, and What Cognetti Did to His Street

I went to high school with Bobby Cordaro. And he was all those things and a bag of chips. Class president, football star, and hot as hell – if you liked that type, and I did, and in the late ‘70s, who didn’t? He went off to the University of Rochester (more football, more honors), then to Penn Law. Impressive for a kid from Dunmore. There was a brief dalliance in Los Angeles, at Mayor Richard Riordan’s law firm. Then he came home, as Scranton boys tend to do. Married his high school sweetheart, began his career in politics by getting trounced in a 1988 congressional race as a Democrat against Republican legend Joe McDade. Over the next decade, he kept practicing law, bought five radio stations, had five kids. Then, in the late ‘90s, back in the game. In a tangled race in which he switched back to Republican (for good) and had his running mate get snuffed out for using cocaine, he became the minority commissioner for Lackawanna County to Joseph Corcoran. Then, in 2003, he seized the majority with running mate A.J. Munchak. It was a glittering time.

The last time I saw Bobby, who I still call Bobby, it was at his dazzling Inauguration gala at the Scranton Radisson in 2004. Damn, he still looked good. From a distance, over the years to come, us Scranton expats watched Bobby do some neat things for our hometown. He cleaned up the county courthouse (aesthetically, that is), privatized Montage ski resort, and most important, brought the Yankees farm team to town! He also reformed the county prison, which in the irony of ironies would lead to his downfall, when the FBI discovered that one of Bobby’s cronies was stealing from the workers’ compensation fund. The FBI kept digging, along with the IRS. And in 2011, he was convicted on 18 felony counts, including racketeering, extortion, bribery, money laundering, and tax evasion. Oh, Bobby. Say it wasn’t so.

Well, he did try to say it wasn’t so, belligerently.  But he lost every appeal and his not-sorry ass stayed in jail for 8-1/2 years. When he got out, he had to move in with his mother. And then … the resurrection!

This has been edited and condensed from one conversation.

BC: I was gonna shave but my cutie likes the beard.

LDP: Your “cutie”? You mean, your girlfriend?

BC: Yeah.

LDP: You’re still handsome, Bobby. You still have it going on.

BC: (laughs) Yeah, well, 8-1/2 years in a monastery, that’ll do it.

LDP: And you guys work out all the time in prison, right?

BC: Yeah. No drinking, no smoking, no chasing women.

LDP: Wait, you can’t smoke in prison? I thought everyone smoked in prison.

BC: I didn’t, though. It was illegal, but everybody did. If I could have had a cigar, I would have, but yeah, I'm not gonna do anything illegal that I don't love.

LDP: (Laughs) Since when is it illegal to smoke in prison?

BC: That went – early 2000s, I guess.

LDP: But nobody pays attention to it?

BC: Well, if you get caught, you get thrown in the hole.

LDP: So where do they sneak them?

BC: Bathrooms, they sneak them in certain spots where there’s no cameras outside.

LDP: Jesus. That’s cruel. What else did you do in prison? Like, did you have a job?

BC: You always had a job. And I kept getting fired. For example, I was a teacher. I was a teacher. And so most of the people, they’re just trying to get their GEDs. So I’m teaching them and I’m telling them – the example that got me fired – I said, Mayor Bloomberg of New York – because a lot of them were from New York – says now that 64-ounce sodas are illegal. I said, so don't let these people tell you that you’re evil because you sold drugs. I said, now, if you behaved like an evil person when you sold drugs, that’s another story. But these are man-made laws, but you’ve got to live with them. And decide a better product to sell because you’re underestimating your skills you developed. You dealt with people, you dealt with distribution, you dealt with marketing, all of those things. So give yourselves some credit, find a better product to sell!

LDP: Why would you get fired for that?

BC: They interpreted it as though I was saying, selling drugs is okay, which is not what I was saying.

LDP: Did you have any menial jobs?

BC: Oh yeah. I cleaned the grease from the fryers. I had that job for a while. Um, mopping floors, I did all that. You name it. I worked in the kitchen.

LDP: I think the hardest part for me if I were in prison would be the food.

BC: Um, well, we made our own. They stole stuff from the warehouses.

LDP: What warehouses?

BC: Like, the food warehouses at the prison. And they were pretty inventive with their microwaves.

LDP: All in the microwave?

BC: Yeah, but then in the cafeteria itself, it was low quality. For example, when I worked in the kitchen, I tried to make sure that we gave him the best we could.

L: Like what?

BC: Well, it depends. There was chicken day. Chicken day was great. It was just baked. But it was good. That one was actually good. I mean, you lower your standards, obviously. And then you buy stuff off commissary.

LDP: But it's not like the mob movies where you see them making tomato sauce in prison?

BC: Oh, no, they made it all. Cause guys would steal tomatoes out of the kitchen, just for example. And they

d go around and sell them. People would buy ‘em, they’d make sauce. Some of that sauce was very good.

LDP: Did you do that? Make sauce?

BC: I didn't make anything. I just ate it.

LDP: When you got out, what was the first thing you wanted? Where’d you go in Dunmore to eat?

BC: Well, I couldn't go anywhere. I was at home. I had 13 months of home confinement.

LDP: Oh, right.

BC: But the first thing I had, it would have normally been steak, but a friend of mine made Pappardelle Bolognese. With the big thick noodles.

LDP: Somebody I know?

BC: Nah, a guy from Peckville. Johnny Ianelli. But, you know, it’s like, okay, I’ve ate at Daniel [in NYC]. It was great. And now I’m not there. So what? I mean, nothing about [prison] bothered me, but you’re separated from family. You can't reach out to them when you want to. And all that. That's the hardest part. And it would get violent, so….

LDP: Did you ever get hurt?

BC: I never got hurt. I retired undefeated.

LDP: When you were there, it seemed like they bounced you around a lot. You kept being moved to different prisons. Why?

BC: Well, the whole point behind my indictment was to get me to talk. I had people from main Justice and people from Philly saying there’s no reason you have to be indicted, and I said, ‘So why are we doing it?’ And they said, ‘Well, you know why.’

LDP: Who did they want you to squeal on?

BC: Off the record?

LDP: Ok. (And too bad. Because it’s good.) Do you ever think they’ll get (not to be named)?

BC: No.

LDP: Neither do I. So, back on the record, they moved you around a lot so you would squeal?

BC: No, no, each time they would come to me at the prison. And it was sort of, um, it was really wrong, actually. They’d call me into the visiting room. And then most visiting rooms had sort of a glass-enclosed room where you talk with your lawyer. And then they would let it be known that a U.S. attorney or somebody from justice, or somebody from FBI was there, and they talked to me. And they’d say, ‘You could come home with us now. If you agree to cooperate. Or you could go back into the prison and explain to them why you were meeting with us.’ (Laughs)

LDP: So they moved you as punishment, basically?

BC: Partly, partly.

LDP: Because moving you makes it harder for your family to come, right?

BC:  Well, the opposite happened, though, in a way. Um, the first time they moved me, I was at where everybody wants to go, which is Otisville. At their “camp.” (Club Fed.) Right over the New York border, right off 84. And that was the closest I ever was [to home]. And they moved me because the television stations and the newspaper came up to find me on the first day that I was there, and then there was a lot of people from this area that worked as staff or guards there. And they just slapped me in the hole and didn’t tell me why, and I found, you know, later, it was because staff people knew who I was. And so they said,

‘He’s got to get out of here.’

LDP: So what was the farthest prison they put you in?

BC: Fort Dix. Mid New Jersey. It was about 3 to 3.5 hours away from home.

LDP: Not bad. Who visited you?

BC: Lots. I was very fortunate. Lots of friends, family all the time.

LDP: How old were your five kids when you went to prison?

BC: One had just graduated college. My youngest was a senior in high school.

LDP: And you and Joanne (nice Irish girl from Dunmore) had them in rapid succession, as I recall.

BC: Well, we had twins. And we had children every other year. It was great.

LDP: When you got out and were on home confinement at your mother’s house—

BC: Mother and father.

LDP: For how long?

BC: 13 months.

LDP: What was that like? You really could not leave the house?

BC: Well, you had certain things you could do. Like, you could go shopping once a week, food shopping and that kind of thing. You could go to the drugstore. If you got a job, which I eventually did doing the radio show, you could go to work and then go home. And you’re calling every time you leave, calling every time you come home, that kind of thing.

L: Like a parole officer almost?

BC: Yes, and you could go to medical.

LDP: I would imagine doctors appointments.

BC: Yeah,  Yeah, but I didn't have any, so... The only place I really was able to go regularly that was other than shopping was Lake Scranton for exercise.

LDP: Really? Why?

BC: Yeah, there was no liquor license or anything up there, so they let you go.

LDP: Do you have any rules now?

BC: No, I’m off supervised. I was off supervised release as of 2023.

LDP: So you can do whatever the hell you want.

BC: Yes. (Laughs) Within reason.

LDP: What was the first thing you did that you couldn’t do before?

BC: I went to a bar!

L: Which one?

BC: Jack’s Draft House up here. On Prescott [in Scranton]. The Harrisons – did you know the Harrisons? Tommy Harrison, my running mate? His brother’s son owned it, so I said, Let’s go there.

(We talk about his former classmates, including one who I always had a crush on and almost hunted down years later to have a fling with but he was just so stupid.)

BC: Yes, he is. But all men are.

L: No, they aren’t. You’re not stupid.

BC: Lisa, you know this. Men don’t know how to handle when a woman is engaging them. They don’t know what to do. They don’t even know what's happening!

L: So tell me about your girlfriend.

BC: Rosie has two beauty salons. Really, really nice ones. One downtown. She used to have three. But she closed the one in Westside, opened up in Clarks Summit. And one in downtown Scranton.  

LDP: How did you meet?

BC:  Through a girlfriend at one at one point, before I went to prison.

LDP: Really? She was girlfriends with your (pre-prison) girlfriend?

BC: Yeah.

LDP: Oh, that’s fun. So, I want to talk about your radio show. But first, did you ever get anywhere with your idea to start a magazine in Scranton?

BC: I got very close, and then the funding didn’t come through. I'm not done with that yet. I wanted to do an internet-based magazine and then roll it out as a print version every quarter and see where that took us.

LDP: That’s smart.

BC:  So, I'm working on a project to do podcasts. Video podcasts, even though the show is podcast every day on YouTube. But we’re going to do a separate podcast programming. And we actually have a place to build a studio and all that. And we’re waiting to get it done. And then from there, I’d like to launch that magazine. We’ll see, though.

LDP: So you have become a very successful radio person, Bobby. Tell me about the ratings of your show.

BC: Well, they're, I mean, I wouldn't categorize it as very successful. I would just say that we do very well in this market. I think we can do better in a lot of markets, by the way, but we do very well. It's very popular, I think, somewhat influential.

LDP: What is your market? You reach markets beyond Northeast PA?

BC: Well, we do because of the YouTube, and because of the internet WILK news radio. I’ve got regular listeners in Florida, a lot of them. I got listeners in California, Texas, Alabama. New York, New Jersey.

LDP: Is it the top-rated talk radio show in Northeast PA?

BC: Yes.

LDP: That’s fantastic.

BC: And the nice thing about that is, it shouldn't be, because I chose the 9 to noon time frame, which is when less people are listening.

LDP: That’s for sure. Hold on. I’m just checking on Joey, my 18-year-old.

BC: Oh, your dog! In his Eagles shirt. (Laughs)

LDP: So that’s pretty amazing. The first career path you chose out of prison was radio, and you did it.

BC: I wanted to do media. And I felt that that, in my analysis, I said, the only thing that they cannot duplicate is content. And I said, okay, I'll make myself the content.

LDP:  Do you make a living this way?

BC: Yeah. Not a great living. I mean, you know, I'm 65 now. And what I would do back in my 20s, which is probably when I started doing this, and I mean, like full-time. But, you know, you send tapes out, you’re always promoting yourself and trying to get yourself interviews and all that kind of thing. And, I mean, I got 5 grandkids. I had a tentative offer to do a weekend show in New York. And I said, so, I’m going to go there basically for free, because they don’t pay you. [It’s just] here’s your shot, you know? And I’m going to go to New York and I'm going stay in a hotel or somewhere. And, you know, those kinds of things I’m not interested in, you know? I came home, everybody put up with me being away for 8 and a half years, and now I’m going to move out of town?

LDP: Yeah, you don’t want to move out of town at this point, do you?

BC: I love it here. I couldn't wait to get back. I chose to live here. after living in D.C. and Philly in New York and LA. But, I mean, I would take an opportunity because radio, you could do the show from this beautiful little study. But I’m not pursuing opportunities.

LDP: So, let’s talk about the midterms. First, the big picture. What do you see happening nationally?

BC: Well, the Democrat Party, the only reason the Republicans have a chance to maintain the Senate, and possibly the House, is that the Democrat Party has gone completely insane. In choice of candidates and in their policy platforms. That gives the Republicans a chance to maintain. And energy prices, even though people should recognize what they should recognize, which is they were higher for no reason under Biden than the Democrat policies. But voters are very fickle. And they don’t pay close attention except to their direct lives. Now, I would wish that those voters wouldn’t vote if you’re not paying attention. But they do.

LDP: Wow. I’ve never heard someone say they wish voters wouldn’t vote.

BC: Uninformed voters should not vote. We should have less people voting – not more. I mean, if some guy could come around with a ballot, and have you sign it and fill it out, you shouldn't be voting. I mean, you let somebody harvest your mailing ballot – that’s insanity. I mean, we shouldn’t have mail-in ballots. That’s another complete issue. But yeah, there should be less people voting because there are too many people that are uninformed that do.

LDP: So, Republicans still have a chance because Democrats have so fucked it up?

BC: Well, they’re insane! I go through their positions every day on my show. And it’s just a jumble of contradictions. What is a woman? But we want women’s rights. But you can’t define a woman. Everything they do is contradictory. And by the way, every policy they have has been proven by history and application to have failed. And that’s what they’re pursuing, vigorously, as though this time it’s gonna work. It’s just craziness. But that's the chance, the opportunity the Republicans have to survive the midterms. I mean, you got people like El-Sayed in Michigan. He’s a Marxist Islamist. You couldn't have a worse combination of beliefs encompassed in one person. Except for Mamdani.

LDP: Yeah, let's talk about Mamdani.

BC: A lightweight posing as a thinker. He’s an opportunist. He’s a phony. Nothing that he prescribes will work. He’s probably the worst person we could have, maybe even worse than AOC, as a national leader for a major party. And a supposed thought leader who’s incapable of thinking, just like AOC. It just frightening.

LDP: But he has started a wave in this country. Lots of people like him.

BC: People have to remember how he how he became. I think I have the statistics right. 7% of registered voters in New York City voted for him. That’s how you get this kind of insanity, people not participating.

LDP: So now people should have been voting? (Laughs)

BC: There’s people who naively believe the things they’re doing will work. But they want to destroy the city. I mean, that is their goal.

LDP: No, it’s not. Nobody wants to destroy New York City.

BC: Ah, no, no, no. This clown wants to destroy the city. You couldn’t be proposing the policies he’s proposing. without wanting to destroy it, because nobody’s that dumb.

LDP: You sure you can’t come up with one Democrat you like?

BC: I like Fetterman.

LDP: Yeah, now you do.

BC: Well, cause I think he’s a guy it’d be fun to hang around with. And he’s had courage to make common sense statements. He hasn’t voted that way, which is why I would never vote for him. Um, unless he did a remake on his agenda. And I don't think he's, by any means, a brilliant guy.

LDP: But did you like him at all before—

BC: No. No. His positions were Marxist. I like him. I don'’ admire him. I don’t support him. He is arrested development. He dresses like a teenager, and that’s probably where his mental and emotional development is. And he looks okay with a suit on, too, you know?

LDP: You must like Smerconish.

BC:  Oh, I like Mike a lot.  I’m friends with him from law school.

LDP: I never knew you went to Penn with him.

BC: Yeah, he was a year behind me. He’s a good guy. I like him. But I mean, look, he’s gotta talk for his master. I mean, I know who he works for.

LDP: See, to me, Michael is a pure centrist.

BC: He's as close as you'd get. But I don't believe in centrists.

LDP: Have you ever engaged with Trump?

BC: No. Once I met him way before at the Plaza, that was it.

BC: Honestly, Bobby, how do you feel about him?

BC: Uh, I think he’s the indispensable man right now.

LDP: Ugh.

BC:  And I wish he would stop talking.

LDP: That we can agree on.

BC: If he would stop talking, things would go a little smoother. As they described Teddy Roosevelt once, he needs to be the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral. But, at the same time, he is the indispensable man.

LDP: Why?

BC: Attacking this sick, entrenched crust of government bureaucracy and self-service. Between the bureaucracy, government unions, the NGOs, the nonprofits, I mean, they waste a trillion dollars a year on just them. Standing in the world. You know, people say, well ... No. He's the only one they fear. And the only one they have feared since maybe Reagan. And he’s reordering the world.

LDP: How can you say that? But a lot of the world just thinks he’s a total buffoon.

BC: A lot of the elite in the world. But they react as though he’s not. Which is all that matters. Just for example, the supposed trade wars. Free trade, because it was unfair, destroyed our working and middle class. You know when we grew up? One parent worked in the household. And everybody was okay. And now, because everything is relative in the world economy, and we have unfair trade agreements across the planet, Canada being the perfect example, our jobs are being devalued and lost.  Because of 50 years of unfair free trade. And he’s taking it on. Iran is the Nazi Germany of this generation, this time. And he’s taking it on. And head on. I could go through a number – the government bureaucracy and the non-profits and the NGOs, all this crust that works together. The destruction of our education, which has become nothing more than an indoctrination platform.

LDP: What does Trump do that you don't like?

BC: Talks.

LDP: Besides that.

(Long pause.)

LDP: How about the bullshit with the media? You know, the first amendment.

BC: It’s a tempest in a teapot.

LDP: Not my teapot.

BC: I mean, nobody cares that Joe Biden and his administration eliminated 422 journalists from the White House pool. Nobody cares.

LDP: Hold on. Don't do whataboutism.

BC: No, no! I’m just saying, it is de rigueur, it’s part of what administrations do. Obama investigated journalists. This is what happens. So do I care about it? I don’t care about it enough that it matters. And by the way, has any president talked more to the media than Donald Trump?

LDP: Bobby, are you like a full blown Trumper?

BC: No.

LDP: Okay, how are you not? Tell me how you’re not a Trumper.

BC: Well, if he says something stupid, or he does something wrong. I don’t agree with how he's conducting the Iranian war.

LDP: Well, there’s a really good example.

BC: But he’s the only one that had the balls to conduct it.

LDP: But you don’t like how he’s conducting it. How so?

BC: These pauses. And these efforts to negotiate with evil are ridiculous. But, and I say this on the show, when I say that, I have to also give the caveat. It’s not on me to kill Iranian civilians who are by and large innocent of what their evil leadership is doing. And it’s not on me that American soldiers, sailors, and airmen are going to die with the full out kind of attacks that have to be waged. It’s on him. And so I think he's looking for a way to avoid that. I’ll give you just an example of why I support Trump despite my disagreements on how he’s proceeded.

LDP: Okay.

BC: He could have waited until after the midterms. And gasoline could have been under 3 bucks very easily. And the economy could be humming and all of that. But the people who know, told him, Mr. President, in eight months, in 10 months, they’ll have 10,000 more drones. And 1000s more ballistic missiles. And we will lose more lives and have more difficulty, not only our military, but the people around the Middle East when Iran strikes back, and they may develop a nuclear weapon in that time. And it will be too late. And he took it on. So I have nothing but praise for what he’s doing. And they are the Nazi Germany of today. Lisa, I don't know how much you've looked at it. Their proclamation, openly, outwardly, is that they’re getting a nuclear weapon to use it. Not to have it just for defense purposes.

LDP: Bobby, when you're out there talking to people, people who voted for Trump in the eighth district, what do they complain about most? Their gas prices, their food prices?

BC: Gas and food prices. But then, most of them recognize that it’s 3% inflation because of the Iran War on top of Biden's 20% plus inflation. And he doesn’t take all the blame, which is unfair. But they may not vote! That’s what I’m worried about. They voted for Trump. That’s why I’m not a Trumper. I’m a conservative. I’m not a Republican. I’m a conservative.

LDP: Interesting. I gotta tell you, I miss the old Republicans. Like, Republicans the way they used to be pre-Trump.

BC: But they helped get us here. So I’ve had enough of them, too.

LDP: Interesting.

BC: They allowed this bureaucracy. I’ll give you an example. Can we compromise with the Democrat Party?  All right, instead of 20 million illegals coming into the country, we’ll only have 10. Instead of a 3 trillion dollar deficit, we’ll only have one and a half. And you can go through these... Well, instead of mutilating children who have gender dysphoria, let’s only do half of them.

LDP: Ok, got it, got it.

BC: It’s insane. They’re insane, and there's no compromise with them. But the Republicans of the last 50 years, they also helped bring this unfair free trade process with the rest of the world. So they were part of a lot of the things Trump has to clean up.

LDP: Jesus. Okay, Bobby. Who is going to be the Republican nominee for president in '28?

BC: I’d take Rubio or Vance. I love for them to run together.

LDP: And who would be on top, so to speak?

BC: It doesn't matter to me. As long as Rubio had a – if Rubio was VP, I would want to make sure he had a significant role in running the country because I think he’s outstanding. But I think Vance is too. And they’re both principled. You got to look back at the 2015 speech of Rubio against Iran and the Iranian deal. Unbelievable. The guys outstanding. And it’ll only take you a couple of minutes.

LDP: But, come on, who would you rather be on top?

BC: I don’t have a preference.

LDP: And who do you think the Democrat nominee will be?

BC: Oh, God. What a dog’s breakfast. These are insane people. I always say this about Kamala, and I say it about our congressional candidate, Paige Cognetti, and it’s true of AOC. I say, I walk out in the morning in front of my house to get to my car and there’s puddles deeper than them.

LDP: Speaking of Paige and puddles, didn’t you do a video where you drove around and showed how bad the potholes were in Scranton?

BC: Yes. I walked and drove. It was insane.

LDP: How about Shapiro?

BC: Oh, God. One of the phoniest people on the planet. I’m ashamed to say he’s a fellow alumnus of the University of Rochester. Here’s the guy, emblematic of who he is, not just the $300,000 a year we pay to do his TikToks, to have staff do TikTok videos for you, but he is the one who fast-tracked [and] deregulated the data center process. Gave them tax breaks. And now his entire campaign is killing the woman who doesn’t have any money, Garrity, to respond over data centers.

LDP: He did a complete 180.

BC: How could you do that? How could you respect yourself and do that? These people don’t care. They just want to be in power.

LDP: But in ‘22, Shapiro’s path to victory included Luzerne County, right? Which is very MAGA.

BC: Yep.

LDP: And he carried it. Will he underperform this time in Luzerne?

BC: I don’t know how this is gonna shake out because I don’t know what kind of resources Stacy Garrity's gonna put together for the end of the campaign. It’s also unknowable what the distinct issues are going to be, nationally, internationally, in the next 40 days.

LDP: Isn’t Musk planning to throw money at that race?

BC: He says he is, yes. But that’s gonna be merely an offset. All the money is on the left-wing lunatics’ side, the Communist side, the government growth side.

LDP: Isn’t Luzerne County really the epicenter of the data center fight?

BC: They actually have some data centers that are going to be approved. I had it described to me this way by a data center proponent. He said, there are a lot of data center projects that are not good projects. But my position on it is, it is necessary infrastructure for artificial intelligence, development and implementation, which we have to lead the world in. But we’ve got to pick the right projects.

LDP: But is it accurate to say that that’s one thing that Pennsylvania Democrats and Republicans are in agreement on: they hate the data centers?

BC: People who live near them hate them. And are too close to them, because those are the bad projects I talked about. They’re justified, whatever their political party is. I don't see how the Republicans would get the blame for data center projects. But that’s what the Democrats are doing with their overwhelming resources.

LDP: So it’s hard to tell how Luzerne County is going to go for Shapiro?

BC:  He’s the likely winner. Here’s what happened, though: out of town, Washington, D.C., money.

Luzerne County, as you know, has converted from commissioner to council, which is its own headache. And the Democrats have won, retaken the majority of county council. With out-of-town money. And so Luzerne County’s in flux, even though it was Trump territory. And then the question further is, do they turn out? Do the conservatives turn out to vote for congressional elections? We don’t know.

LDP: When you look at the 8^th district, it’s still predominantly white working class. But there are more and more minorities, right? How do you think the Hispanic vote will turn out this year?

BC: I think it’s very much like the national vote, and I don’t think it's as distinctive as it was in the past. They’re voting for their self-interest. Which is what people are supposed to do. And they’ve discovered that their self-interest is not in one party. But, I mean, these fleeting transitory issues, like gas prices and grocery prices because of the Iran conflict, I just hope people see through that and past it. To the cultural destruction, the economic destruction, that the Democrat Party represents right now. Paige Cognetti is in for all of it.

LDP: Tell me something good about Paige.

BC: She presents herself well. But it's all a lie. It's all phony. She’s a horrible Mayor. She does not like people. She doesn’t want to be around people. other than brief periods of time with sycophants.

LDP: Aw, come on.

BC: I’m gonna give you an example. All right, she's got $69 million [in federal funding] from Joe Biden. And it wasn’t from Joe Biden. We only got our proportion. We didn’t get any more. Not a penny more than a comparable sized city got.

LDP: Before you continue on Paige, do you think Biden did anything special for Scranton?

BC: Nothing. Except embarrassing us by the association. Totally corrupt, totally incompetent. Totally owned by the left, because his sole ambition was to become president, not to do a good job, and he did anything he had to do to satisfy the people who got him there.

LDP: Bobby, is there a Democrat who you admire? Anywhere?

BC: Oh, some local people.

LDP: Who?

BC: Like county and some city people. I like them. They’re doing fine. I don’t care about political party. If the Republican party ever went off the rails like this?  I'd be off like a prom dress. I’m not interested in political parties.

LDP: Go back to the congressional race.

BC: Let me give you a quick example first. My street, which goes unnamed. She’s got all this money. Okay? And I gave her a chance, by the way. Like, okay, you're here.

LDP: For how long?

BC: Probably a couple of years. And I said, now you’ve gotten this boondoggle. Which everybody else got. We got no more than our exact proportion. But you got $69 million. Put the pools in Nay Aug, fix City Hall, and fix the streets. There’s your investment. Done. She spent it on all kinds of consulting groups who hired consulting groups who decided that they would do studies to hire consulting groups. It’s absolutely insane. And bike lanes in downtown, everything that the left idolizes. That all she did. And my street, just to show her incompetence—

LDP: Wait, wait, I just want to understand, there are bike lanes now because of Paige? I actually hate them.

BC: She’s trying to have bike lanes. Multimillion dollar bike lanes. My street, it was, like, Fallujah after it was strafed. I mean, for years. She did nothing. Before the election for mayor, her reelection was last year, she went out and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to paint all the crosswalks. Because the election was coming, they then patched my street. The patches fell apart. They then came to pave it. Okay? They ripped up the patches, put more patches in, graded the street, paved it, and then had to rip up part of the street to pave it again. This is just my block. They covered the crosswalks, that we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars painting. And we did the street four times.

LDP: Sounds like politics.

BC: It’s insanity. It’s incompetence at a level I’ve never seen.

LDP: Right now, it seems like the race is a toss-up, right?

BC: Yeah.

LDP: What do you think’s gonna happen?

BC: If I had to predict, Rob wins, because I will tell you this. And I worked on Capitol Hill, ‘82. I’ve been following before that. He is as effective a first term congressperson as I’ve ever seen. And he’s used his leverage with that slight majority.

LDP: I thought his predecessor was pretty good.

BC: Cartwright?  No. No. Matt went on the Hakeem Jeffries Express. He became ridiculous. And I like him. I’ve known him for years. No, he went out the Lunatic Express with the Democrat Party. And people had enough.

LDP: So you think Bresnahan is gonna eke it out? If that happens, what will become of Paige?

BC: I think she'll resign from mayor because she never wanted to be [mayor] in the first place. It was a stepping stone. She’ll take a job with some left wing group. Uh, make a good salary, some NGO, nonprofit, whatever. I think she’ll leave within months after the election.

LDP: Do you know her husband?

BC: No. But, God, explain this. During my show … And I did not know this, the afternoon guy discovered this. I get a call from a guy called Tom from Scranton. And he’s doing this passive aggressive thing. Like, maybe we agree on some things, and all of a sudden he goes into attack mode. I find out it’s her husband, Ryan.

LDP: Get out. How did you find out?

BC: He calls all the radio shows, all the shows on WILK, and pretends he’s Tom from Scranton.

LDP: How do you know it was him?

BC: Our guy Rob from…Well, we have Caller ID for one! But our guy, the afternoon guy, Rob O'Donnell, was a former New York City detective. And he figured it out.

LDP: And has this been reported?

BC: Who’s gonna report it?

LDP: Hey, all the Greenridge Irish, do they like Paige?

BC: Uh, they’re such Dummycrats that they just follow. Like, they have this banner. And I do it at least once or twice a week. I used to do it every day. Take the banner down. It’s a hometown hero banner for Joe Biden. So I’m like, all right, that's a disgrace to start with, but they find out after they put it up, well, these [banners] are only for veterans. Biden: he dodged service. Like, dozens of times. So he’s not a veteran. So they find that out. They have a vote. It's still 10 to 5 to keep it up. And the woman who’s the president of the organization says he risked his life every time he left the White House. (Laughs) So then, I pull out this clip of Joe Biden’s speaking to the Maryland Democrats. And all he talks about is, we play this quote from him where he says, the Bidens are from Baltimore. Anywhere we lived, anywhere we went, we’re from Baltimore. “My father said it.” I'm like, so it’s stolen valor and stolen hometown. And if you remember, and I followed it, even at the time, uh, the Obama people, I believe Axelrod, but the Obama people didn’t know how to handle Joe Biden and how to package him. And Joe Biden didn’t know how to [either], by the way. He only became Scranton Joe when they were looking for a brand.

LDP: But he was there until he was 11.

BC:  Yeah. By the way, he never said it. He never used it. until they gave it to him and handed it to him. It was all phony.

LDP: Bobby, you must have met him over the years, Joe Biden. What did you think of him, beyond politics?

BC: Very, very personable guy. Very personable, fun to be with. Backslapper. Yeah, enjoyable. I didn't know when he was vice president that he was selling the country out, that I didn't know. Now I do.

LDP: Are there any Trumpers in Greenridge?

BC: Yeah. They’re mostly hidden. I'll go to a funeral or something there, or an event there, and they’ll come up and whisper, “I listen every day.”

LDP: When you look at the 8th district, how much has it changed since Trump? Trump carried it in 2016, right?

BC: The compositions have changed. Sometime after the 2010 census, they made what was then Lou Barletta’s district into an almost invulnerable Republican district. And then the 8th became a toss-up, leaning Democrat.

LDP: How have the Luzerne and Lackawanna counties changed since 2016?

BC: Well, Luzerne, as I mentioned to you with the influence of outside money, has transitioned to more of a toss-up. And I think it was mostly because of the money. There was some Republican infighting on the council, which limited their effectiveness. That was a minor part of it. Then Lackawanna County has almost doubled down on the Democrat Party, which is disgraceful.

LDP: I really think Scranton is, like, ground zero in politics now. Like the way Peoria used to be.

BC: Yeah. But it’s not available to win for a Republican. Like if you can neutralize the damage. It's like the old Philly. Remember, Philly was – if the collar counties could neutralize the city of Philadelphia. So you're trying to neutralize and limit the damage, because Scranton just votes Dummycrat. And you’ve got to overcome that with other parts of Lackawanna County. The interesting thing that I'm looking at for that congressional race – whenever a mayor or a city politician tried to go beyond the city, an exclusively city politician, not just from the city, they’ve usually gotten thumped in the rest of Lackawanna County. Like, Jimmy Connors [the late former mayor] tried to run. State Senate, Chris Doherty, like the best mayor we've had. He got thumped outside of the city. Because people realize, hey, the city is awful, or at least that’s their perception. And we’re not voting for anybody from there. Any politician from there. So that’s a factor that could limit the damage Lackawanna County could do to Rob. I don’t know if it still carries, but it was always a factor.

LDP: Is there an under the radar town or area to follow in the district?

BC: I wouldn't say so. In the Democrat cities, how you can limit the straight Democrat vote I think is the determinant now.

LDP: How about Old Forge? That's pretty Trumpian now, isn’t it?

BC: Not necessarily in statewide or national elections, but it’s a balance, Old Forge has a true balance.

LDP: It’s so small though.

BC: Yeah. Do they have an impact? Is how they vote indicative of other small towns? It’s very hard to say. So it’s an overall thing and we’ve got, you know, relatively conservative areas, even in Lackawanna County. How reliable they are. But for example, Paige Cognetti has gotten the imprimatur of the ladies who lunch. And that’s another factor. People who aren’t paying close attention, who aren’t forced to live in the city. And then you say, oh, isn’t it nice to have this attractive young woman? And they’re all for her without knowing why the hell they are.

LDP: How’s Rosemary Brown gonna do?

BC: That's interesting. The guy she's running against off the record?

(too bad) I’ll give you a statement that’s on the record. Brian Wrightson has no business being anywhere near public office or government.

LDP: Do you think Rosemary Brown will eke it out?

BC: Yes. She's been solid. She's been good. She’s been responsive, and, uh, she is the better candidate by a mile.

LDP: Hey, who's this Jim Haddock guy?

BC: He’s another Democrat complete hack.

LDP: Talk about Flynn.

BC: Marty, Unbeatable. Yep. I like him.

LDP: What do you think his relationship is with Paige?

BC: They despise each other. She fired Marty’s mother. And, I don't know if Paige tried to reproach or whatever.  I think they settled it, but she fired her for strictly political reasons. And the city got tagged with the lawsuit.

LDP: Okay, why do all the Dems hate each other up there?

BC: Because they’ve been in control forever, and there aren’t enough Republicans to hate.