>> Tonight, your first billion with John Catsimatidis.

The secret lessons of his rise and who he might back next.

Then, preserving the legacy of Bruce Springsteen.

How fans created the Bruce Springsteen archives.

"MetroFocus" starts now.

>> This is "MetroFocus," with Rafael Pi Roman, Jack Ford, and Jenna Flanagan.

"MetroFocus" is made possible by Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III, Filomen M. D'Agostino Foundation, The Peter G. Peterson and Joan Ganz Cooney Fund, Bernard and Denise Schwartz, Barbara Hope Zuckerberg, and by Jody and John Arnhold, Dr. Robert C. and Tina Sohn Foundation, The Ambrose Monell Foundation, Estate of Roland Karlen.

Jack: Good evening and welcome to "MetroFocus."

New York City is full of rags to riches stories but if you have a story like John Catsimatidis.

Morning Grace, went to Harvard, dropped out of college to work full-time in the grocery business.

That business has transformed into the Red Apple Group, a conglomerate with interests in everything, including a new ABC radio where he host a roundtable program.

He is also a player for mayor and is donated to everyone from President Clinton to President Trump in his new book, "How Far Do You Want To Go?

Lessons from a Common-Sense Billionaire," He reflects on the secrets of his success.

Lessons which he is sharing with us.

I want to start with the book, then politics.

Over the years, your story is so fascinating.

So much has been written about you.

Why did you cite that now is the time for you -- why did you decide that now time for you to write about you?

John: I surgery think about it when I hit 70 years old.

-- I started to think about it when I hit 70 years old.

Is it before I get Alzheimer's, let me write it down so my kids and grandkids will know who is paying their tuition.

That was important to me.

I wanted to write a bit about our history.

That was one good reason.

Then COVID hit.

200 on the shelf for -- we put it on the shelf for two years.

I did consider running for mayor in 2020 -- or 2021, for the wave a politics is going, right now, I was saying, what the heck is going on?

Jack: I do want to talk about your thoughts on politics because you do talk about it in the book.

John: The second reason I wrote it is I am chairman of the police athletic region in New York.

He is claiming to help kids of our inner-city.

You know what I tell my friends and people buying my book?

Make sure you buy some extra bucks so you can give them -- extra books so you can give them to your kids and grandkids, maybe to make a difference in their life.

When I go and see the kids in Harlem, I am dedicated to having those kids.

That is where I came from.

I say, I am from him.

I made it.

You can make it, too.

What these kids need is mentors, people to give them advice.

I read in my book that I had a lot of gray hairs.

Whether is the real estate industry, the food industry, I always went to my friends -- the guys with the gray hairs -- and asked them for advice.

It was tremendously helpful.

Hoping the kids of tomorrow -- helping the kids of tomorrow, I am concerned about our education system.

We are number 56 in the world in education -- and we spend the most.

We probably spend more than all 56 nations together.

Kids are not getting educated problem.

What is going to happen?

I had the U.S.

Senator in my office two weeks ago.

I said, Senator, I am concerned about the way kids are being educated, attacked Wisconsin fentanyl, that in 2076, the 300th year of our country, we make not make it.

Jack: It is concerning.

I want to come back to political things in a moment, but you right in your book that the American dream does not come with an instruction manual or a page that says, OK, you can stop now.

You have arrived.

A good portion of your advice has to do with that notion is there an end point?

A point where you say, I am done?

What do you say to young people?

John: It is your choice.

Success comes with sacrifice.

You know why I am not a big football fan?

I work seven days a week.

When everybody was watching football games, I was working.

I am not the next stand in New York because I was not a Knicks fan in New York because I was working.

I was always a Yankee fan.

I remember my grandfather taking the games.

There are certain things you not forget.

Those are things I did not want to put in the book -- great memories of growing up, of teaching the kids.

That is what it is all about.

New York is the greatest city in the world.

I leave in New York -- I believe in New York.

I believe New York will make a comeback, but in the last two years, thousands of people have left New York.

You know what I tell politicians on both sides in Albany and New York?

Who will pay the taxes?

Those people who left were the ones paying the taxes.

You guys want to raise the budget?

Great.

Give yourselves races and more money, but who is going to pay?

Some year, what is the expression?

It will hit the crapper.

Jack: This ties into your advice in the book.

You mentioned New York City.

I am curious if you think New York City itself was an essential ingredient in our success?

You were a handful of credits away from graduating from NYU and said, "I am starting my professional business in the grocery store."

You had opportunities.

What role did New York City play?

John: I did not drop out.

I was 8 credits short.

I already had a business, worked seven days a week, worked until 1:00 in the morning.

Somehow, that calculus class, I never finished.

Jack: [LAUGHTER] I can understand that.

I was a history major.

I had a problem with calculus.

John: I looked at those equations and asked how is that going to help me make a dollar?

I was 8 credits short.

John Sexton, president of NYU -- Jack: Who I know well.

Wonderful man.

John: He said to me, "why don't you come back and finish those credits?"

I said, why don't I come back and teach?

Jack: Let's get back to politics.

The book is marvelous, gives great life stories that are inspirational.

Let's talk today.

As you have mentioned, you have supported Democrats and Republicans in the past.

Let's talk about current situations.

Do you see yourself supporting President Trump again?

John: I can -- I have known Donald Trump for 40 years.

He is more of an acquaintance, because the print is a person that a friend is a person you call.

He is an acquaintance.

He did a great job in many things.

Our country was well respected internationally.

The joke at used to town the radio is President Trump terrorized the terrorists.

Can we have Bill Clinton.

-- then we have Bill Clinton.

I adored him.

I think he was the smartest president we ever had.

I used to run those dinners at the hotel in Washington.

Democrats and Republicans, 20 people in the room with the president for two hours.

Not a single Democrat or Republican ever walked out saying I am disappointed.

Jack: People always talk about the good old days but they were not always so great in terms of bipartisanship, we hear people say we are no longer talking about partisanship but tribalism.

You probably would not have the ability to put 20 people from both parties in a room today.

You think?

Why not?

John: That is very hard.

I know and respect both sides.

I know common sense Democrats.

I have had Andrew Cuomo on my show in the last few weeks.

And Governor Parson was a -- Patterson was irregular.

Common sense Democrats.

The problem we have today is that common sense Democrats are not standing up against the Looney Tunes, the people who want to change our way of life.

That is the problem.

Anchors common sense Democrats to stand against the people who want to change our city, our country.

Stand up against them.

Jack: Do you see common sense Republicans that you need to enter find are encouraged to do the same?

John: I am a person in the middle.

I dislike extreme left-wingers and extreme right-wingers.

I believe in common sense.

We all should sit down.

Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton, they did not like each other.

The deficit was 5.5 current dollars.

-- $5.5 trillion.

They sat down and brought the deficit down to $5 trillion.

Jack: Was Ronald Reagan -- they would get together and have a year.

When did common sense come so in common?

We can talk forever.

I want to get you back here, but the book is "How Far Do You Want To Go?

Lessons from a Common-Sense Billionaire."

There is an awful lot of common sense in there.

Thank you.

I look forward to having you back.

John: There is so much for me and you could put together and bring common sense Democrats and common sense Republicans together and save our city, our state, and our country.

Jack: I look forward to the conversation.

John: buy my book and you will make a billion dollars, too.

♪ Jack: If you know anything about Bruce Springsteen, you know he is a Jersey guy, mostly the Jersey shore.

It may not be a surprise to learn that the Bruce Springsteen archive is at... Monmouth University.

You may be surprised at their extent, how they arrived at Monmouth and how the project has expanded.

The archives and the Center for American Music providing fascinating collection of artifacts coming on and for fans, scholars, historians, and be curious.

Joining us to talk about the creation of the archives and what they have to offer is Bob Santelli, the director and a Grammy award winner and a friend of mine for many years back from our days in tasteful.

How and why did the idea of gathering at the Bruce Springsteen archives and placing them at a particular location come about?

Bob: The Bruce Springsteen archives has its origins in Asbury Park.

An organization of fans began to assemble photographs, newspaper articles, magazines, etc.

and put them in the Asbury Park library.

The Asbury Park library cannot handle it in terms of its size.

Myself and my colleague Annie Chapman, we got involved and realized this was too valuable to have it disappear or not have it at the disposal of people.

So we moved it to Monmouth University.

Monmouth University was receptive to the idea.

The give us space to serve materials.

From that point on, the collection has grown significantly.

We are up to 37,000 pieces.

Jack: Monmouth University is the repository, why did that work?

Bob: Two or three reasons.

One, Bruce Springsteen's earliest fan base, when Monmouth University was Monmouth College, that is where the fans came from a few blocks away from the University, Bruce wrote his most famous song.

When I was a student there, I must've seen Bruce play a couple dozen times at the college.

His roots are strong.

Plus, we wanted a tie to an academic institution.

Jack: You mentioned you went there and have taught there.

I have taught there in the past.

I was on the board many years back.

It has become a nationally recognized doctoral institutions with so many facilities.

This is part of that.

I mentioned in the introduction that we have the Bruce Springsteen archives but also the Center for American music.

How did that component come about?

Bob: When we begin to be ambitious about what the Bruce Springsteen archives could be, I said, Bruce, in addition to this collection that we have here, I have more ambitious ideas.

I explained to Bruce what we wanted to do.

He was silent.

I was talking and I cannot tell whether he was receptive to the idea or not.

The end, he said, it is a great thing you're doing.

However, all the attention on me is not right.

I have a chapter in the ongoing story of American music.

If we can enlarge in this to make the story bigger, that would work.

Honestly, that was my idea all along.

I always envisioned Bruce as the catalyst or poster boy for this institution of American music.

He represents so many aspects of it.

We have now included exhibitions not just collections, public programs, educational workshops.

They are almost a full-blown institution now, the kind we envisioned when I first went to him with the idea.

Jack: I would suspect that people will be surprised, especially at the element of somebody as big of a star is Bruce Springsteen, saying, I do not want this to be all about me.

I am part of something bigger.

You have been involved in the Grammy Museum, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

You are a music historian, an educator.

Were you surprised he wanted this to be more extensive?

Bob: No.

I have known Bruce for a long time.

He always came across as an amateur music historian.

His knowledge and love of American music are strong.

He realizes that he is a part of it.

He is a big part, especially in the 20th century.

When you look at the big icons of American music, Bruce's name is on there.

Having someone that powerful say, "It is not all about me, the story is bigger and it needs to be told.

I was up to be that part of it, but the story's bigger."

Jack: If you know Bruce, it is not surprising.

Let's talk about the process of gathering more than 30,000 items and artifacts.

How did you do that?

And how did you position it physically at Monmouth University?

Bob: All of the pieces are basically donations.

Fans who have been collectors of Bruce Springsteen memorabilia-- tapes, photographs, negatives-- age and realize that their collection has served them personally but now they are looking for a place to put it permanently...

They hear about us, contact us.

We review what they have.

We do not want to be a repository for someone's attic.

In the early days, maybe that would have worked, but not anymore.

We are bursting at the seams right now.

Plus, we have other archives.

When you added up, it is a tremendous amount of material.

In addition to the three-dimensional objects, we have a large digital collection of interviews, oral histories, tapes, performances.

It is a full-fledged institution, not just about photographs and magazines.

It is more and it is going to require one of these days for us to find a new home on the Monmouth campus.

If you were to walk into where we are right now, it is a home that we have transformed into an archival space.

We have collections in the bathtub.

Jack: [Laughter] The good news is you have so much.

The bad news is we have so much.

Let me ask about some of the other things of the other things that the archives and the center has.

It is an archival collection, but I also talked about exhibits and programs.

Tell us about some of that.

Bob: That is where the ambitious idea came from.

We did not want to be just traditional archives, which celebrated preserve a particular artist or historical aspect.

The idea we presented to Bruce is we want to be an active institution.

That would mean having concerts, seminars, symposiums, workshops, outreach with exhibition.

Right now, we have an exhibition on Bruce Springsteen in Los Angeles with celebrates him as a live performer.

Next week in Boston, there will be a Bob Dylan exhibition that we curated.

Bob Dylan was one of Bruce Springsteen's main influences.

We celebrated the 50th anniversary of "Greetings from Asbury Park."

600 people attended, including one of the original pianists.

We are very active in the educational phase as well.

Jack: We talked about this briefly.

I am curious about what drew you here.

In touch on it a bit that you touched on it a bit.

You are a Grammy award-winning music historian, producer and executive director of the Grammy Museum and you are intimately involved in the creation of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

What made you come home to this?

Bob: My wife keeps asking me that as well.

It is a clear answer.

I am a Jersey guy.

My whole life has been somehow, someway connected to New Jersey.

I am a Jersey Shore guy as you are.

It is a special place.

I went to Monmouth University.

It is where I got my start as a journalist.

I taught there.

As a music journalist, I rode Bruce Springsteen's coattails.

In the 1970's, he made himself available, I got interviews.

I wrote a book with Max Weinberg.

Bruce gave me a lot of opportunities.

My payback and sense of showing my appreciation for all of that is to use my skill set to create something that is long-lasting, beneficial to him, the state, and the university.

It might be my swansong, but it is important for me.

Jack: One quick but important question -- what is your vision for what this might become?

Bob: It is going to become a nationally recognized institution.

When I found out on Saturday the people came from Dublin, London, California, I realized the potential was incredible.

With Bruce going on tour starting next month, the attention will only elevate what we are doing at the archives.

My hope is we find a place in America's cultural landscape and contribute.

I want it to be useful to him and to future fans and scholars.

Jack: That is located at Monmouth University.

Bob, always great to talk to you.

We will keep an eye on it as it continues to grow.

♪ Thanks for turning in.

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MetroFocus is made possible by Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III, Filomen M. D'Agostino Foundation, The Peter G. Peterson and Joan Ganz Cooney Fund, Bernard and Denise Schwartz, Barbara Hope Zuckerberg, and by Jody and John Arnhold, Dr. Robert C. and Tina Sohn Foundation, The Ambrose Monell Foundation, Estate of Roland Karlen.