Kwame Kilpatrick on Detroit Talk City (Full)

Hi, 21st. I'm your host, Charlie Langton. Welcome to Detroit Talk City. So let's get right into today's topics. We've got a big guest, our first hour, half hour of the show. Anyway, you may recognize this guy. He's the former mayor of the city of Detroit. Kwame Kilpatrick is here live in the studio. We'll talk to him in just a moment. Also later on in the hour, the Oakland County prosecutor will join us. Karen McDonald. She'll be talking about the state of the Democratic Party in Michigan, this year's crop of political ads, and a whole lot more. So we want this show to start off with a poll. That brings us to this question. Do ads influence how you vote? Just scan. See that QR code right down there? Scan the QR code at the bottom of the screen to vote. We're going to show you the results later in the show. And this show really, it's all about hearing from you, the viewer. We want to make it a conversation. So here's how to weigh in. A lot of ways to do it. Text us. Text us right now. There's the number 313-764-8844. Or you can jump into our Zoom room live. Meeting ID number 892-49090290. And of course, social media. You can hashtag us right here, Detroit Talk City. All right, let's get to our very first guest right here. Doesn't really need a whole lot of introduction over here. Kwame Kilpatrick. How you doing, Charlie? You all right? I'm doing all right. How are you doing? Man, I'm doing good. I'm doing amazing. God has been good to me, my family. So I'm all right. You look like you could go play for the Lions or something. Absolutely not. Please don't touch me. Are you working out these days? Well, I just stopped eating so much. And when I stopped eating so much, it uncovered about two or three muscles that were still there. And so now I'm about to get in the gym. My guy, Deron Dotson, told me I got to get in the gym. So I'm in there. You're happy though, aren't you? I am. I couldn't be happier. Great wife, great kids. My 30-year-old twins, Jelani, Jaleel, and then Jonas is 24. And then I have Latham, King, and Kinsley. But my youngest are four and two. I think you're ready for another kid. No, no, no. It's over. Oh, no. Shot closed. I want to see a man, Charlie. Too much involved. I've been trying to talk to you, Kwame. OK, that's OK. That's all right. So you want to get to good stuff or bad stuff? What do you want to talk about? Whatever you want to talk about. Did you pay your taxes? Do you pay the rest of the house? What's the deal? Well, what's the deal is on December 15th, the federal authorities froze all of our accounts. They were frozen all the way to June. Why'd they do that? Because they wanted to and they can. It had nothing to do with investigation. It had nothing to do with anything that was done wrong. I've read all your stuff. You made a deal with the feds. There was an issue about restitution. How much you owe the city of Detroit. It's still an issue. It's still an issue. Because when I got home, what they wrote me, several letters while I was in prison, several letters while I was on supervisor's release. My supervisor's release person, when I left supervisor's release, both he and the feds, these same people that signed it, sent me a letter that says you owe $164,000. I found out on Fox 2 that I owe $800,000 with no explanation. I think that was my story. I think it was, actually. You know, I'm trying to figure out where did this come from. When I asked the feds, I went down there. When I got that letter, I went straight to the U.S. attorney's office. Said, hey, how's everybody doing? And I wanted to talk to them about how serious this was, and what is this? There's been no explanation. I had five meetings with them. They still don't know what they're talking about. Feds say it's about $800,000 restitution. You say it's about $160,000. Well, they said it was $164,000. In the letter, then they upped it to $800,000. About two, three years later, they said it was $800,000, a recalculation. Are you still disputing the amount? Yeah, I think the amount is crazy. The reason why I went along with the process is because I didn't do anything wrong. But I thought there was, you made an agreement earlier this year to $800,000. The agreement I made was to pay on what they said it is. All right. And so now I pay. I pay on it. We're doing great. But they froze my accounts for six months. They froze all my wife's accounts, my accounts. They've never done this in the history of this thing. Do you not make restitution payments? You're supposed to make a monthly or so? I make them monthly. Oh, you do make. How much do you make? How much I pay? $560. And that's the agreement that you made with the feds? Yes. Why'd they freeze your accounts then? Well, before that, I was paying $150 because that's what the supervisory lease people said I should pay. Yeah. And so the last payment I made, if I had more, I paid more. I paid $1,500 in September. Do you think you owe any restitution to the city of Detroit? Absolutely not. It's a ridiculous- Zero? It's a ridiculous number. Listen, Charlie, in my case, you know the case. There was no misuse of public funds, no charges or no convictions. There was no stealing of any money ever in that case. There's no missed money. And there was no loss to the city. So what happens is, let me tell you, they said it was 9.6 million. I filed an appeal. They came back with 4.7. I filed an appeal. They came back with 1.5. I filed an appeal and then stopped right there. And so what I'm trying to tell people in the city of Detroit, I ain't never stolen nothing from nobody in my life. Do you have any regrets at all about what you did to the city or that time period? Well, I have regrets, but it's not about what I did to the city. I have regrets about the decisions that I made in office, decisions of sin, cheating on my wife, lying about it, the decisions of some of the people that I hired. But I don't have any regrets over what was done at Campus Marshes or the seven hotels or the casino hotels or the Super Bowl or the NCAA Final Four or the Riverfront. I don't have any. Or neighborhoods. Why do you think the feds came at you with guns blazing? Because I make good news, man. It's the same reason why Charlie Lankton has me as his first guest. Because if you have Kwame Kilpatrick on your front page, you sell papers. When you don't, you might sell some. But if you have him as your first guest on Fox 2, this show is going to be a hit. Because of Charlie Lankton and Kwame Kilpatrick. When did I meet you? Oh, I remember. Mackinac Island, you were a state rep. No. I'm about to mess you up. I met you before I was a state rep at DCL Law School when you were over the student body and you came in and gave us a fired up speech that we can finish law school when I just had two twins, broke, teaching school, and you said you can finish. You were the first person that looked me in the eye and said, man, I know it's hard right now, but you can finish law school. I did do that. And that was your prophetic word to me. I appreciate it. Well, we followed each other. You've done a lot of things over the years, though. So let's go back. I'm going to get the house thing. Taxes on the house. You live in Novi. You owe 50 grand, give or take, on taxes. That's what they said in the news. News article was totally wrong. Do you owe anything? Yeah, I do. I owe two years of taxes. It's hard to pay money when they freeze your accounts for six months. I don't know a family out there. But some of them was for 2024. But 2024 taxes not due to 25. So I got two years of taxes that I'm behind. I paid partial taxes on 24. Foreclosure three years. Be careful. They don't foreclose to 27. So that article is all just misguided and missed everything. It's just to get me in the news. There are so many families out here struggling with taxes right now. Why me? Why? Since there are so many fathers and husbands and children in a house. So why we put this in? Because you're Kwame Kilpatrick. That's why. All right. I said, okay. There we go. There we go. I'm not saying he's wrong. He's right. But listen, I owe the money. We're paying for the money. You made an arrangement with the state, the treasury. We're working with everybody to get this done. It's a million dollar house. I hope you're all right. I've never seen it as a million dollar house. I've never praised that high. But I'll tell you what, I'm going to take it. I'm going to take it to somebody to help get help. So what are you doing for money these days? Well, you know, I speak around the country. You know, I just I have an opportunity to share some of the tragedies, some of the sins, some of the missteps, some of the failures that I've had in my life and hopefully encourage somebody else not to do the same. What do you tell those people? What do you tell those people? I tell those people this in a nutshell, that I never had a problem with confidence. I never had a problem with boldness. I didn't have a problem walking in a room. But as a man, I had a problem with character and integrity. Let me ask you this. And that's what you need. When the first judge, you were the mayor of Detroit and we don't have to go back all the things they said. Jail, you're going to jail. What went through your mind? What? You know what? I was the only kid on Linwood and the boulevard that really thought I would never go to jail. I did my homework. I cut people's grass and breaks their leaves. I went to school. I didn't think that that would do it. And I just want to tell somebody out there it's not about the crime as much as it is about your character and integrity. You could put yourself in a bad situation, a horrible situation, a criminal situation if you don't work on those things at the same veracity and intensity you work on your back. You are a convicted felon. Do you believe you are? I am because those are my people now. I'm more akin to the people who have come out of prison and come through hell and high water than I am to politicians. The politics have changed so much since I was in. I don't even understand it. Would you run again if you could? I wouldn't. I mean, unless God said run and you got to show up in the bedroom, you got to look at me. Would you win if you ran? Oh, absolutely. I don't lose races. Now, let me tell you something. Could you be mayor of Detroit right now? I wouldn't want to be mayor of Detroit. What do you want to be? None of that. I don't have an idea to be in politics at all. I don't want to run for nothing. But you asked me if I did, would I win? You would win. I don't lose. Let me ask you something. When the federal judge said 28 years, what went through your mind? That's a real sentence. With helping your audience, when I was standing there, I was having my first, what I believe is kind of an out-of-body experience. I heard the judge talking, but I felt this kind of pouring down my head, down my back, all the way down to my feet. It was the first time I felt the absolute presence of the Holy Spirit. I can't explain it any other way. So she said it, but when I walked out the courtroom, you can remember, I uttered these words, no doubt, no fear. And I don't even know where that came from. So although I was in the courtroom, I was okay. When they slammed that door at Mylon that first night, it was the most depressing feeling that I'd ever had. It was the most gut-wrenching feeling, not because I was in prison, but because I was away from the duty that I had as father and husband, that I was away from Jelani Jalil and Jonas. When President Trump signed the order to get you out, what did you think? I was in a solitary confinement cell, and I've been there for 225 days. For what? See there? There you go. You all remember the news. They said I got released. You had to go to quarantine there for COVID for 21 days. That was in May. I got released twice, and they snatched it, remember? So I stayed there from May to January. Stay with me. We got a lot of people who want to talk to you. Let's do it. Let's do it. All right. We want to hear from you. We've got a tweet coming in right now. Here it is right here. Kwame Kilpatrick, has the media treated you fairly? Oh, no. We're going to get that answer when we come back. This show will continue in a minute. This is Detroit Talk City. I'm your host, Charlie Langdon. We want to hear from you. Text us, 313-765-8844, or you can join us in the Zoom room. Media ID is right there, 892-4909-0290. First guest, Kwame Kilpatrick. I understand we have so many texts over here. Everybody wants to talk to you. I get a little nervous when you talk about text messages, so let's keep it all in the atmosphere where we need to be. All right, there we go. First text right here. Has the media treated you fairly? You know, the media is the media. I was told by one of the producers and directors of one of the news stations, and he was standing with one of the managing editors of the paper, and they told me both that it's not personal, but when you're on the front page and you're our lead story, we get more viewers and more readers, and so we got to keep you there. That's what they told me. I said, wow, and so the media's been the media. Did you read the newspapers? Did you watch the television when you're going through all this stuff? I hadn't watched the Detroit news or read the Detroit newspaper in 15 years before I just came back. When I was in prison, I was sitting there watching the news one day, and I was in Oklahoma, but the Lord told me to stop because he wanted to get politics out of me. Most of the times, I was engineering what was happening. Hey, listen, this is going to be, you know, and I was, so I hadn't read in Detroit. I didn't even know Mike Duggan was mayor. I was in prison in Fort Dix, and a guy asked me. He walked by me. He said, hey, man, do you know Dugan? And I said, who? He said, Dugan, Dugan. He the new mayor of Detroit. I said, Dugan? No, I don't know him. He said, no, you know, the little white guy from the hospital, and I said, Mike Duggan, and he said, he's mayor. Blew me away. I had no idea he was getting in politics. I had no idea he was mayor. I had no idea, and that was the first kind of thing that I heard. Nobody told me that he was mayor, so. Let's get another call. We have so many people want to talk to you. All right, next question here, Mr. Kilpatrick. My understanding is that you believe your restitution fees should be reduced. After all the crimes you committed, why should you get any reduction of federal restitution to the city of Detroit? That is awesome. First of all, the restitution is not to Detroit. All these people, give us our money, give us our money. Matter of fact, 3.6 million has been paid already. Go down there and see where your money is. That's the first thing. Second thing, all of these crimes that I committed, they're two different things. They're what you found guilty of, and then there's restitution, as you know. The restitution is not for the crimes that I committed. The restitution is based on one contract in the case. It was a $50 million contract on the McComb Interceptor. The restitution is under the definition that Bobby Ferguson, who was a subcontractor on the contract, he was paid $1.5 million more than he would have been paid if we didn't use an intricate scheme to get him to be subcontractor. That's where you get the $1.5 million from. So, sir, I know you're mad and angry, and you've been saying the same thing for all those years, but that's not what it's about. Not a single mathematical equation, not a single paper was produced to produce this 1.5, which is why I continue to win at the appellate court. So whatever you got in your mind, if you want to look at law, let's look at it, because I'll beat you there, because it's not founded in any basis of fact, nor in this case, or without. President Trump could have gotten rid of the restitution. He could have. He didn't do that. He didn't do it. He didn't do it. He didn't fill out the paper all the way down. He's my man, but he didn't do that. It's okay. All right, let's look at the question right here. When you look at Detroit in 2026, what makes you most hopeful? And what do you think Detroit's biggest challenge would be over the next couple of years, five years? I think what makes us, you know, and I say us, me and my wife, most hopeful is that a lot of the dream is being fulfilled. When we started and rerouted all those streets downtown and created campus marshes, when we put those stilts in that parking lot under the Hudson building, our dream was where the tower would go up on it. A tower is up on it. And when we started the riverfront and started developing it out to Bella Isle, we thought it would go west riverfront, and it's gone west riverfront. And so all the things that we started from the hotel deals and the casino deals, the book Cadillac, the housing that's going on around the city of Detroit, it's coming into fruition. I think the biggest challenge is how do you sustain the retail, the new retail that's here without residential units coming downtown in a more veracity, in a more profound way, because it has to be residents that keep those shopping centers alive, not visitors. And so as long as you don't have it, I think there's a potential that the tax credits run out, that are subsidizing the rents down there, and then it'll be an issue with the stores that are there. I tell you what, yeah, it's changed so much though, since you first came back to Detroit, oh my gosh, what city is this? Stick around for one more. Can we get some more questions? Okay, gotta take a little quick break over here. Let's see if anybody is in the Zoom room when we come back. Our Zoom ID, 892-4909-0290. We'll take your Zoom questions or text or whatever when we come back. Don't go away. Welcome back to Detroit Talk City. I'm your host, Charlie Langdon. Do you have a question for our first guest here, Kwame Kilpatrick? Maybe you do. Text us 313-765-8844 or join us in the Zoom room, that meeting number 892-4909-0290. And I know that we've had a lot of calls, a lot of texts and people. We'll try to get to as many as we can in the time that we have. Let's go to the Zoom room right now. We've got Xavier from Detroit. What is your question for Kwame Kilpatrick? We're getting our Zoom room ready. It's almost like the boom, boom room. There we go. All right. Well, once we set it up, we'll get him in this because so many people here. I can't hear him. All right, there we go, Xavier. Let's see if we can get Xavier. Now, Aaron is our producer. Once we set it up, we'll get him in this because so many people here. I can't hear him. Go ahead. You're on the air. Go ahead. Let's see if we can get Xavier. Now, Aaron is our producer. Once we set it up, we'll get him in this because so many people here. Now, Aaron is our producer. Once we set it up, we'll get him in this because so many people here. Yes, we can hear you. Go ahead. What's your question? Yes, I would like to know why you think you owe money to the city of Detroit? All right. He said, why don't you think you owe money to the city of Detroit? That's good because, sir, there was nothing in my case that dealt with money. That just really became a folklore of the case. The case was about a bunch of contracts. It was about me lording over those contracts, steering contracts, but it wasn't about money. You kind of answered that. You've answered that. You answered that before. But I need to tell him this. Every single contract in the entire case, every one of them, was done on time, on budget, and done well. As a matter of fact, the Macomb County contract, the one that's about the restitution, we won awards for. I was given an award. I went out to the Macomb County Commission, made a big speech about it. Then all of a sudden, it was messed up. But it was done fast, on time, and well. That's what I want people to understand. It was still so you were convicted. I mean, I was convicted before I got to court. Did you get a fair trial? Absolutely not. Absolutely, no, no. We had jurors that were coming in there from Roseville and from Dearborn talking about, I never heard of Kewaunee Kilpatrick. Well, why haven't I heard of him? How much did race play in this trial? I won't. Race plays in the system. Buddy Cianci, who was the mayor out in Hartford, Connecticut, he was charged with the exact same charges. He got found guilty and got five years. The judge, when they sentenced Buddy, said he suffered enough. But a black guy in New Orleans, same thing. He got 10 years, and the judge said he suffered enough. The governor of Virginia, same charges. He got two years, and the judge said he suffered enough. Kewaunee Kilpatrick gets 28 years. See you later. Don't come back. And everybody in America, Charlie, thought it was unfair when they looked at the paperwork, except people in Detroit. The president said otherwise. All right, let's get one more. We've got another text here. Detroit knows your story. What's the biggest misconception that people still have about Kewaunee Kilpatrick? Good question. I think the biggest misconception is that somewhere along the way, I went crazy and stopped loving Detroit. I was born here, raised here. The job was very personal to me. The reason we did all the rec centers and the 36 parks and all this stuff downtown, it was personal. I didn't want to be the butt of jokes anymore. And that's the biggest misconception. Some kind of way, I went crazy and stopped loving Detroit, or I stopped working hard, or I was playing. We worked so darn hard on that job. And I believe what you're seeing now is the fruit of the hard work that was done during the time of Coleman Young, Dennis Archer, Kewaunee Kilpatrick that produced what you see out there right now. Will you come back? We'll do it again here? Yes, let's do it. Let's do it again. Amen. Kewaunee Kilpatrick. All right. By the way- Anytime. Listen, I was out in front of the courthouse with Lang and Langton, with Amy Light. I remember, I remember. Doing those stories there. Hey, you were the only two people on Fox2 that I liked. There we go. All right, stick around. Oakland County prosecutor Karen McDonald will join us in the second half. Don't go away.