Joey Merlino: Mafia Boss of the Philadelphia Crime Family? | PBD Podcast #762

**Patrick Bet-David** (0:00)
Who was Joey Merlino?

**Joey Merlino** (0:01)
I'm a cheesesteak guy.

**Patrick Bet-David** (0:02)
You're a cheesesteak? The media says you're part of the mob, you've never been part of the mob.

**Joey Merlino** (0:05)
No, there's no mob.

**Patrick Bet-David** (0:06)
Why do they make documentaries and talk about you?

**Joey Merlino** (0:08)
That's what the media does. Like Trump says, fake news.

**Patrick Bet-David** (0:11)
So rumor has it, he was going to be the face, and behind closed doors, you were the puppet master kind of making the decisions.

**Joey Merlino** (0:17)
What's the what? The guys are not. He was a salesman. He was a good bulls**t.

**Patrick Bet-David** (0:20)
Ralph.

**Joey Merlino** (0:21)
Yeah, he's a b****** liar. If I know what guys are at and I hang with them, I'm a rat. They all change their lives when they go to jail. These people are sick.

**Patrick Bet-David** (0:28)
Again, Joey, somebody may say you took out seven people.

**Joey Merlino** (0:31)
No, I didn't. I never killed nobody.

**Patrick Bet-David** (0:32)
You never killed nobody?

**Joey Merlino** (0:33)
No, never.

**Patrick Bet-David** (0:36)
You've never killed nobody?

**Joey Merlino** (0:37)
No. I was never down-gively or nothing.

**Patrick Bet-David** (0:39)
You beat three Rico cases.

**Joey Merlino** (0:40)
I still don't know where Rico is. They named me the Tang guy. Who the f**ks Rico?

**Patrick Bet-David** (0:46)
They killed your friend, and you guys don't retaliate? Nope. How do you become that noble?

**Joey Merlino** (0:53)
It's just the way I am.

**Patrick Bet-David** (0:54)
What is it with you not liking Pat's cheesesteak?

**Joey Merlino** (0:56)
He's the one who started it with us. What happened? We buried it.

**Patrick Bet-David** (0:59)
Is this a real war? Because the people outside of Philly don't know how important this is. This is political.

**Joey Merlino** (1:02)
We didn't go away from none of them. They f**ked with us. They invented the cheesesteak.

**Patrick Bet-David** (1:05)
That's what I hear.

**Joey Merlino** (1:06)
No, he did. I said, yeah, you invented it. We perfected it. And we hurt his business. He used to have lines to block long. We got the lines. We buried it.

**Patrick Bet-David** (1:20)
To those of you that have enjoyed the interviews I've done with John Gotti Jr., Samir Abou-Gravano, Michael Francis, Frank Collada, Phil Leonetti, any of these names, you're gonna love today's interview. You've been asking for this for a very long time, and it's finally happened, and that's with Joey Merlino, the FBI calls him the current boss of the Philadelphia crime family. You have to hear how he responds to it when I say that, and we addressed everything. Nothing was off the table. I brought up everything that he was tied to right after his good friend, Mikey Changs, was shot and killed, and he was shot as well. Joey was shot a couple of times. He'll explain to where he was shot. There was stories about seeking vengeance, and I think there's seven murders tied to him, and I brought it up. You have to hear how he responds to that. He brought up the recall cases, the two death sentences he had, the 22 years that he was in prison with, what that was like, and part of it is like, I don't fear going to prison. I actually have a good time. So he says, I'm 64 years old, I'm 42 I'm young, I'm healthy. The mindset of no matter how many times he was pushed to be asked on certain things, you have to see how he answered those questions. He definitely wanted to talk about rats. He called a lot of people rats, so that part of it, he was not holding back on anything. His opinions on how he felt. Now he's building a cheesesteak business in South Philly that's competing with Pats, and he had a lot of stuff to say. I had no idea there was a massive cheesesteak war. We got wars going on in the Middle East. To South Philly, this war is more delicate and important than any of the wars going on around the world because they're talking about cheesesteak. So I'll let him explain to you. And by the way, I want to make you an offer you cannot refuse. And here's what it is. 51% of you don't subscribe to this show. You watch it on a weekly basis, but you haven't subscribed. To the 51% that hasn't subscribed, here's the offer. Subscribe to the channel. This allows us to get bigger interviews like this and many others. So if you like what we do here with our show, take a second, pause the video, click on that subscribe button, press the notification and enjoy this sit down with Joey Merlino.