Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: Thank you. As you can see, I'm moving very gingerly
Speaker 1: because I I'm an orthopedic disaster here. Literally tomorrow morning,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go to n y U and have
Speaker 1: hip replacement surgery tomorrow morning. No, no, no, I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that for sympathy, but I wanted to say that.
Speaker 1: I wanted to say. It occurred to me that if
Speaker 1: I don't for any reason, if I don't survive the surgery,
Speaker 1: if I don't make it out of this surgery, then
Speaker 1: this interview tonight will be my last interview for Here's
Speaker 1: the Thing. And I kind of thought about the night, thought,
Speaker 1: if this is gonna be my last interview, who do
Speaker 1: I want it to be with? Who would be the last?
Speaker 1: Is it Michelle Obama? Or is it to Taylor Swift?
Speaker 1: Is it? Uh? You know? Who is it in the
Speaker 1: firmament there that I want to interview? And there was
Speaker 1: only one name I could come up with. If I
Speaker 1: had to do my last interview, it would be with
Speaker 1: our guests, and I please welcome author Michael Wolfe. So um,
Speaker 1: I want to begin by saying that those are some
Speaker 1: very nice shoes you have on. They look like new
Speaker 1: shoes to me. Have you been doing a lot of
Speaker 1: shopping lately. I've always done a lot of shopping. So
Speaker 1: before we get into the obvious subject, which you are
Speaker 1: certainly have talked to death, I'm very grateful to you
Speaker 1: being here. But I'm always interested in people's origins in
Speaker 1: terms of their career, and I was wondering if you
Speaker 1: could talk first about where you grew up. And you
Speaker 1: grew up in Patterson. I was born in Patterson and
Speaker 1: grew up on a on a somewhat whiter hill as
Speaker 1: rising out of Patterson, um and um um, and then
Speaker 1: came to New York. He was in the advertising business.
Speaker 1: My mother was a newspaper reporter, so there was some
Speaker 1: journalistic DNA in that household. Oh totally. Who did your
Speaker 1: mother write for Paterson Evening News daily newspaper. The political
Speaker 1: bent in the household was what, if anything, we were Democrats.
Speaker 1: My father was sort of a back room New Jersey politico.
Speaker 1: He was never indicted. Though. That's a short list. It's
Speaker 1: uh and and uh. When you finished school, you went
Speaker 1: to college at started at vaster Llege um and then
Speaker 1: I came and then I got a job at the
Speaker 1: New York Times and moved to New York and went
Speaker 1: to Columbia to the journalism school. No, it's an unfinished
Speaker 1: I get. I was a junior when I transferred to
Speaker 1: Columbia History. And you were at the New York Times
Speaker 1: for how long? And what was that experience like for you?
Speaker 1: It was a horrible experience. Um, it was one of
Speaker 1: those things. You know, this is the only thing I
Speaker 1: ever wanted to do was was to go to the
Speaker 1: New York Times. And um, so I got a job.
Speaker 1: I was twenty. I think it was a copy boy
Speaker 1: and I walked in and I think literally in ten minutes,
Speaker 1: I knew that if this was life, I was not
Speaker 1: going to make it. Why it just everyone seems so depressed,
Speaker 1: seemed there and and and there was something about the
Speaker 1: New York Times that it's on these copy desks was
Speaker 1: very gray and in an era it was filled with smoke.
Speaker 1: And also everybody had a tick a literally yea. Um,
Speaker 1: so it explains a lot. Actually I've been so that
Speaker 1: was so I was there for about about a year. Um.
Speaker 1: And then basically when there had a job since well,
Speaker 1: did you did you sense early on you were what
Speaker 1: age when you were at the Times? How long we
Speaker 1: got the Times? Twenty? About a year? She were just
Speaker 1: there for a year. And did you sense early on
Speaker 1: that the a that you wanted to be a writer?
Speaker 1: Did you know you wanted to be a writer. Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean there was no sort of no question of,
Speaker 1: no questions, and you knew what you wanted to write
Speaker 1: or you weren't sure fiction nonfiction? You wanted to write
Speaker 1: non fiction. I know I wanted to write fiction, but
Speaker 1: you wanted to write fiction. Yes, some people would say
Speaker 1: that you have written fiction. The truth is I can't
Speaker 1: write fiction, so it must not be. But but but
Speaker 1: you wanted to write fiction. What happened? No one was
Speaker 1: buying your no no stories. No worse than that they
Speaker 1: bought So I wrote it. I wrote a first book. Um. Um,
Speaker 1: when I was twenty five, I wrote I wrote a
Speaker 1: book and it was non fiction, but it felt like fiction.
Speaker 1: I mean I sort of come out of what used
Speaker 1: to be called the new journalism and um, and it
Speaker 1: was really right in writing using fictional techniques to write
Speaker 1: about real things. Um. But that was a moment and
Speaker 1: say in the in the in which they sort of said, okay,
Speaker 1: you did that. That's good. But now you can do
Speaker 1: what real writers do. You'll write a novel. They gave
Speaker 1: me a big advance to do this, and and I
Speaker 1: moved for your first book. This was my second book.
Speaker 1: So my first book was this was a new journalism
Speaker 1: book called White Kids, um um, which I I think
Speaker 1: it was years. Why were they giving out big advances
Speaker 1: then for you if you weren't you weren't an established writer,
Speaker 1: Hall I did. I mean, I wrote this book and
Speaker 1: it was quite success. I mean I got a little
Speaker 1: little notoriety in anyway. Um. And then so they gave
Speaker 1: me an advance to write this novel. I thought, great,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be a novelist. I moved to Europe.
Speaker 1: I moved to Rome. Um. I thought, I saw the
Speaker 1: whole thing, um, the whole life in front of me.
Speaker 1: Um and and I sat down at a at a
Speaker 1: typewriter then and um um and I began to write
Speaker 1: the first page of this book over and over and
Speaker 1: over and over again. I mean, this was bad. This
Speaker 1: went on for six years of um. It's like the
Speaker 1: shining But in Rome, my very promising career just seeped
Speaker 1: away every day until there was no career left. At
Speaker 1: some point, I would I would mention, I guess you
Speaker 1: realized you didn't want to work for somebody else when
Speaker 1: you decided to write books. By this point, no one,
Speaker 1: no one would hire me, so I was it was
Speaker 1: not really a question yes on your own. I had
Speaker 1: a friend from college. This was the eighties so, and
Speaker 1: he had made a lot of money on Wall Street
Speaker 1: and started his own firm. And as I'm still trying
Speaker 1: to write this book, he said to me, listen, you've
Speaker 1: become an embarrassment to everyone who has ever known you.
Speaker 1: Come downtown. I'll give you an office and we'll do deals.
Speaker 1: I had never even heard. I didn't even know there
Speaker 1: was such a thing. Um, but I was so grateful.
Speaker 1: I just immediately put it down and bought a suit,
Speaker 1: went downtown, and suddenly we were sort of doing deals.
Speaker 1: This was give us an example of one deal you did.
Speaker 1: I'm intrigued. What was the deal that was done? Well,
Speaker 1: we started to invest in He said, you know about media,
Speaker 1: and well, let's we'll we'll put money into media companies. UM. Now,
Speaker 1: I had no idea anything about media, and never even
Speaker 1: you know, other than the fact that I had written
Speaker 1: a book. UM worked at a newspaper. That's what I
Speaker 1: knew about the media. But it was like, whatever interests
Speaker 1: you will do it. I looked around and I said
Speaker 1: the National Lampoon magazine. Um, it had peaked and then
Speaker 1: it had gone down. And I thought, but it was
Speaker 1: a public company. We could potentially take over this thing,
Speaker 1: and UM, you know, I could buy myself a job.
Speaker 1: Did he listen to you, Yes, yes, we brought the magazine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we we UM invested in this, made you know, and
Speaker 1: then somebody else came along. This was the eighties, So
Speaker 1: you invest in this, and somebody else came along, UM
Speaker 1: and invested more, bought it, UM, and we made a
Speaker 1: ton of money. He said, to see, it's easy. We're
Speaker 1: doing deals and and then so you're a novelist and
Speaker 1: you're in Rome, and then you come back and you're
Speaker 1: doing deals with this gentleman. And after that is that
Speaker 1: when you get into the magazine business. And when I
Speaker 1: got into the internet business. So that it was UM
Speaker 1: there was a series of steps here and and UM,
Speaker 1: so I I found myself running this UM this a
Speaker 1: small publishing company which started to publish books about the Internet.
Speaker 1: And I get this, we're publishing books about the Internet,
Speaker 1: UM and UM and they were they were like they
Speaker 1: they flew off the shelf. This was like, I'm one
Speaker 1: of those those moments in which um um, in which
Speaker 1: people had heard about the internet, but they had no
Speaker 1: idea where the internet was. Um UM. So we had
Speaker 1: this office and we put them sort of put a
Speaker 1: phone number in the book and then people would call
Speaker 1: up and they would say, is this the internet? Um?
Speaker 1: And so this this went on, and then this went
Speaker 1: on for for um. This kind of rolled into you know,
Speaker 1: somebody then came along and gave me an enormous amount
Speaker 1: of money um um to actually be in the be
Speaker 1: in the technology business, something I knew absolutely nothing about. Um.
Speaker 1: And this seems to be a pattern with you that
Speaker 1: there seems to be a pattern with you that fools
Speaker 1: just come spilling into your life and throw themselves in
Speaker 1: your arms, whether it's with their personal uh, insights and
Speaker 1: confessions and what have you, or bags of money. They
Speaker 1: just give you bags of money and and actually and
Speaker 1: then I write a book about them. So so I
Speaker 1: wrote a book called burn Rate. This was in you know,
Speaker 1: one of the sort of first books about about the
Speaker 1: about the internet and um and it was a sort
Speaker 1: of act of very conscious revenge against all of the
Speaker 1: people who had given any money. And then I had
Speaker 1: lost their money and they had yelled at me. So
Speaker 1: is that how you revenge? I thought, yes, I thought,
Speaker 1: what can I do? I have to get even with
Speaker 1: these people? What can I do? I can write? But
Speaker 1: they made you feel bad. They yes, it was more
Speaker 1: um in those moments when you're when you're when you
Speaker 1: take you you have this money, you've taken money, and
Speaker 1: and against a against what nobody knows why why you've
Speaker 1: gotten this money, but everybody is hoping that it will
Speaker 1: it will. You know you're gonna that this is gonna work. Um,
Speaker 1: And then you reach a point where you sort of
Speaker 1: sort of clear that it's not gonna work. And so
Speaker 1: I had this big office in New York, hundreds of people.
Speaker 1: You couldn't stop the people from being hired. You would
Speaker 1: peek out your door and you would see somebody bringing
Speaker 1: in new desks, and people would follow. The investor began
Speaker 1: to get worried, and he kind of moved in or
Speaker 1: had his people move into this office. Then he was there,
Speaker 1: and you would come in in the morning and everybody
Speaker 1: would try to be civil to each other. Um. And
Speaker 1: that would last, you know, that would last about twenty minutes.
Speaker 1: And then you then you could see the faces distort
Speaker 1: and then somebody would say blah blah, and then and
Speaker 1: then that would immediately become become fuck you, and then
Speaker 1: it would become no fuck you. Um and you would
Speaker 1: do this thing and it was just this anger built until,
Speaker 1: of course then you ran out of money. At least
Speaker 1: they let it out, unlike the times where they kept
Speaker 1: it into They had these ticks all the time come
Speaker 1: holding it in. You know, they wouldn't. They wanted to
Speaker 1: say funk you to each other probably every twenty minutes too,
Speaker 1: but they can't do that at the time, so they
Speaker 1: you know. But then I was I was, I was
Speaker 1: thrown out of this this company and um um. There
Speaker 1: there was actually one point in this because this was
Speaker 1: a remarkable time that I had gone out. We were
Speaker 1: going to do a deal, um and we had flown
Speaker 1: out to too, to the West coast to buy the
Speaker 1: to buy this other company, or they are going to
Speaker 1: buy us, or I can't even remember, but I do
Speaker 1: know that all coming back the entire first class, I
Speaker 1: was paying for every seat in first class, and it
Speaker 1: was filled with I wasn't paying, but the money that
Speaker 1: somehow was flowing through me um um. It was filled
Speaker 1: with my bankers and lawyers, and my lead bankers were
Speaker 1: coming back on the red eye. UM leaned over and said,
Speaker 1: you you know you're um um, You're worth You're worth
Speaker 1: a hundred million dollars. Um and um um. And he
Speaker 1: had we had gone to college together, and he said,
Speaker 1: I want you to buy a UM fund building at
Speaker 1: the at the school. Um and uh. And then we
Speaker 1: talked about what the what the name of the building
Speaker 1: was going to be the Wolf Center for this and
Speaker 1: and the doing deals and I got I got home
Speaker 1: and um um and then for um forever after My
Speaker 1: children now will remember Remember Remember you were standing there
Speaker 1: when we were worth a hundred million dollars. Remember how
Speaker 1: you acted? Remember this? And then a brief yes that
Speaker 1: lasted about two weeks. Now to say that, because eventually
Speaker 1: you when you do the New York magazine meeting a column,
Speaker 1: I want to get to you know, your your terminology
Speaker 1: for that. But as you're arriving at the place, the
Speaker 1: conversation about the Wolf Center, your moment in the sun
Speaker 1: where you're worth a hundred million dollars is around what
Speaker 1: year would you say, uh, nineteen uh nineties seven? That way,
Speaker 1: right around when you started. Soon after you got to
Speaker 1: work with New York correct. Yeah, so I got it.
Speaker 1: How does that happen? Well, I was thrown out of
Speaker 1: this company and then I wrote this book. I didn't
Speaker 1: know what to what. And then it was so I
Speaker 1: had not been writing for a certain rate the past
Speaker 1: ten years. I had thought, I can't do this anymore.
Speaker 1: Gone not a possibility, um, that I can be a writer.
Speaker 1: But I was thrown out of this company, and um,
Speaker 1: I was what am I gonna do? But I thought revenge?
Speaker 1: Um um. And you know how revenge is best served
Speaker 1: in a book, it turns out, and I wrote this.
Speaker 1: I wrote this book. I wrote it very quickly and um,
Speaker 1: and it was incredibly satisfying and it worked, and I thought, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty good at this, um and um. And then
Speaker 1: not long after the book came out in New York
Speaker 1: magazine called me up and said, you want to write
Speaker 1: a column about the media? Um? And again I was
Speaker 1: like media, What do I know about media? But but
Speaker 1: I guess in terms of it, you as a writer,
Speaker 1: the person who started out wanting to write uh fiction
Speaker 1: and so forth, And when you arrived on the doorstep
Speaker 1: of the New York magazine to write the media column,
Speaker 1: who would you become by them? Like? What was your
Speaker 1: I don't want to say agenda, but what was your appetite? Then?
Speaker 1: What did you want to write about? What? I just
Speaker 1: wanted to You wanted revenge, as you had kind of
Speaker 1: a scorched earth mentality tour anyone you didn't care for.
Speaker 1: I found that I had a distinct ability to write
Speaker 1: about people's weaknesses. I think that's probably it would you
Speaker 1: what would you call? I found it incredibly interesting? Oh
Speaker 1: there is you know that person is flawed in the
Speaker 1: following way? Powerful people? Yeah, powerful people or or totally
Speaker 1: ordinary people. Was it more satisfying for you to powerful
Speaker 1: as the hatchet job of the common man? I could
Speaker 1: do that too, Um, But which was more satisfied? Well? Um,
Speaker 1: it didn't make any difference to whoever was whatever, the
Speaker 1: mighty and the lowly. You're like, boom boom, you didn't care. Yes,
Speaker 1: you're just giving them the curb, you know. I think,
Speaker 1: I mean ultimately was somewhat more commercial to to do
Speaker 1: this for a powerful people. Now when you so, what
Speaker 1: was would you say? I don't want to put any
Speaker 1: words anybody's map. What term would you use? I was
Speaker 1: going to say, by the way, if Trump wanted to
Speaker 1: really increase his chances for this water, you would I
Speaker 1: have is probably poisoned right now. So but here's looking
Speaker 1: at you. Um the uh what would you say? Was
Speaker 1: the gim? Is it a gossip column? You're writing a
Speaker 1: gossip column for you know? Um? Would you know? I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think a gossip column is one thing.
Speaker 1: This was a what is a gossip column? Um? What's
Speaker 1: the difference what you wrote for the New York and
Speaker 1: what Richard Johnson does for paid six? What's the difference?
Speaker 1: I'm mine are literate and his are illiterate. I can't
Speaker 1: argue with you there. I mean that's what I was interested.
Speaker 1: I was actually really interested in just writing. Just give me.
Speaker 1: I'm not interested. I was not even My subjects were
Speaker 1: were secondary to the to the fact that I could
Speaker 1: I could hang a story on these subjects I could.
Speaker 1: I'm I was interested in human nature, in success, failure, drama. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: And did you see you other than you're talking about
Speaker 1: the revenge factor in the burn rate experience? You come
Speaker 1: into this and suddenly you mean for people who don't
Speaker 1: know the media or pieces that he wrote for the
Speaker 1: New York magazine were very important. I mean it was
Speaker 1: like people were just writhing and and convulsing and you know,
Speaker 1: breaking into a cold sweat and vomiting in their office
Speaker 1: bathroom for fear of being written about by you. And
Speaker 1: am I getting that wrong? You pressed a lot of
Speaker 1: buttons in this town for a while. How many years
Speaker 1: did you do the piece? Six years? And then I
Speaker 1: went to Vanity Fair and carried on with something similar.
Speaker 1: And how long was it a Vanity Fair? Four or
Speaker 1: five years? I think it's over a decade. It's a
Speaker 1: decade if you covery this beat, if you will. And
Speaker 1: I'm wondering you go in that one end of that
Speaker 1: and uh, I mean, I'm not gonna say it's a
Speaker 1: gossip column, but other people will certainly. Have you come
Speaker 1: in one end of that and you came out the
Speaker 1: other end, how did that change you? I mean other
Speaker 1: than probably you had somebody make sure nobody was gonna
Speaker 1: punch you in the face when you walked out of
Speaker 1: walked into the Four Seasons restaurant. Did anybody ever try
Speaker 1: to get you in any way threaten you sault show.
Speaker 1: But they but they intended to move tables and restaurants.
Speaker 1: Literally you had your table table five at Michael's and
Speaker 1: so forth. And did you feel that people were uh
Speaker 1: concerned about you? I I felt that there are people
Speaker 1: who intensely disliked me. You didn't care. No, you thought
Speaker 1: the benefits of writing the calm outweigh the I mean,
Speaker 1: I can't tell the pleasures of writing this column were. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've never been I mean, it is the
Speaker 1: happiest job I can possibly in a fine Did you
Speaker 1: ever write any I forgot I totally blank out. I mean,
Speaker 1: I have a good memory. Did you ever have write
Speaker 1: anything really shitty about me? Do you remember? It's? Okay?
Speaker 1: Go ahead? Well now that's the other other other thing
Speaker 1: is that I can never remember who I wrote this
Speaker 1: stuff about. You are going to It's like an edge
Speaker 1: of sketch and you just shake it when you're done. Right, God,
Speaker 1: your memory, You're like, okay, God. You would meet Today's Wednesday.
Speaker 1: You would meet people at at at parties and um,
Speaker 1: and you would saying, oh god, him, you're really glad
Speaker 1: to meet you, really admired you, and they would look
Speaker 1: at you like me like I'm a crazy person, because
Speaker 1: it turned out it was, and I had written then
Speaker 1: some horrible thing about them, which I had literally no memory.
Speaker 1: I love that. There'll be a great scene in a
Speaker 1: movie where you're there and you're this powerful columnist and
Speaker 1: you need an assistant behind you going. You called him
Speaker 1: a douche last month, he said he was a ginormous douche,
Speaker 1: and you're like, did I, Oh god, him, I don't
Speaker 1: remember that at all. No. Now, now I get you know,
Speaker 1: when people have been sort of cold to me and this,
Speaker 1: I go and I search it Michael Wolfe, the following person,
Speaker 1: and and then I you often find ever written ah yes,
Speaker 1: and then when you come out of that, I got
Speaker 1: um a kind of thrown out of New York Magazine
Speaker 1: because I tried to buy it. Um doing deals again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so New York Magazine, it's it's it's owners put it
Speaker 1: up for sale, and I thought, why not? Um um
Speaker 1: so I um, you know, I I pulled together a
Speaker 1: bunch of more billionaires. Yeah, this New York part. I mean,
Speaker 1: these are these guys that was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: um um and um don't you love New York? I
Speaker 1: pulled together a bunch of billionaires, so you just had
Speaker 1: to call them up another toy for them to play
Speaker 1: um and um in matter of fact. And they were
Speaker 1: so so um um, kind of kind of enthralled with
Speaker 1: knowing each other that they missed the fact that another billionaire,
Speaker 1: Um Wasserstein, came along and and bought it out from
Speaker 1: under us. So I had to leave. Then it turned
Speaker 1: out it was like oh oh oh um, So I
Speaker 1: left and then went to Vanity Fair. What was the
Speaker 1: difference between the two other than the weekly? That that
Speaker 1: was a fundamental difference. Yeah, yeah, and and you were
Speaker 1: just you know, so Vanity Fair you essentially had to
Speaker 1: write two months in advance, so it was very hard
Speaker 1: to be that. I mean, Vanity Fair was was um.
Speaker 1: Did you enjoy the difference? I preferred the weekly? Yeah?
Speaker 1: What was the piece that you were particularly proud of
Speaker 1: for Vanity Fair? Profile you did that you were pleased with? Name?
Speaker 1: You know, name one that you enjoyed writing, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, because it candle would be about two months
Speaker 1: of disinventing your spleed right and began to be revenge.
Speaker 1: And did you write one about somebody you admired and liked? Well, well, here,
Speaker 1: you know, I had written. I had written many pieces
Speaker 1: about the head of Disney, Michael Eisener. Um. This was
Speaker 1: a man who really no one liked ever, apparently in
Speaker 1: his entire life. UM. And I had written these these
Speaker 1: pieces and then and then he UM. He got to
Speaker 1: a particularly perilous point in his um, in his tenure
Speaker 1: as the CEO of of Disney, and he was on
Speaker 1: the verge of being thrown out. And Barry Diller called
Speaker 1: me up and said, I would like you to go
Speaker 1: and see um, see Michael Eisner and and do a
Speaker 1: piece about him. Everyone is now writing terrible things, so
Speaker 1: I know that you'll have to write the opposite of that. UM.
Speaker 1: And I thought, I wonder if that's that's true. So anyway,
Speaker 1: so I went to see Michael Eisner, which was embarrassing
Speaker 1: because I had written these these things. UM, I thought
Speaker 1: this guy is great, so I wrote it. I wrote
Speaker 1: a very you pretend that he was great. Because Barry
Speaker 1: Dealer asked you too, I found you found the greatness
Speaker 1: in this. This went in and I thought, it is true.
Speaker 1: Everyone is saying you're terrible, So therefore I have to
Speaker 1: look at this in another way. And it turns out
Speaker 1: when I look at it through that lens. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I love this guy. Did that launch a del uge
Speaker 1: of positive pieces on you. Did you have a complete
Speaker 1: change of heart? No, are you like Ebenezer Scrooge? After
Speaker 1: the visitations and you're like, God, I love this guy,
Speaker 1: that guy and that guy. It was a one time experience.
Speaker 1: My conversation continues after the break out of the New
Speaker 1: York for many years, and I've been posting events and
Speaker 1: cutting ribbons amazing money for charities and the auctioneer for
Speaker 1: this and I've been, you know, meandering around my quadrant
Speaker 1: of New York society, if you will, most to the
Speaker 1: arts related. And as I've mentioned that, people you know
Speaker 1: Trump is someone who was as an absentee. He's a
Speaker 1: drive by figure in New York society. He had come
Speaker 1: tuxedo on the wife, who's lovely, by the way, is
Speaker 1: in the gown, it's red carpet, it's photo photo photo.
Speaker 1: But he's never a tablemate. You're never sitting down and
Speaker 1: shooting the fat with Trump and getting to know him
Speaker 1: or learn about him. He never goes to the event.
Speaker 1: He's in photo up gone. It's a drive by reality.
Speaker 1: So when people said to me, did you have a
Speaker 1: meet him. I said, I met him, but I never
Speaker 1: got to know him. What was your contact with him
Speaker 1: from the New York Magazine days VF days? What was
Speaker 1: that like? He used to call me up at New
Speaker 1: York Magazine. Um, and I have no idea why. I
Speaker 1: was the media columnist, and he was as interested in
Speaker 1: the media as I was, as anyone was. So I
Speaker 1: got the calls. Now, the calls were not really about
Speaker 1: the media. They were about either something that had been
Speaker 1: said about him in the magazine or more more likely,
Speaker 1: something that had not been said. But he wanted says, yes,
Speaker 1: why wasn't he in this? And why wasn't Then he
Speaker 1: would he would rail and and and and vamp and
Speaker 1: did he call and pretend to be his own publicist ever?
Speaker 1: Where you? No, No, he was very you know that story, right?
Speaker 1: Yeah he was. He was straightforward, um and um and
Speaker 1: and we we were sort of friends. I mean, why
Speaker 1: there's no reason not to be not to be friendly? Um.
Speaker 1: Because he would also heap enormous amount of flattery on
Speaker 1: on on you you're the best. He's a backslapper, and
Speaker 1: he cajoles people, and he and he says everything he
Speaker 1: needs to kind of enlist people in his cause he's
Speaker 1: very warm. Yeah, he actually says much more than he
Speaker 1: needs to say. He just piles it shovels shovel right.
Speaker 1: I mentioned this to you backstage. I'm not sand backing here.
Speaker 1: I said, the book seems in not in in terms
Speaker 1: of your writing and the thinking. But like when I
Speaker 1: first saw the book and it came to me, I
Speaker 1: was stunned because I said, this looks like a book
Speaker 1: that would be in a prop in a movie. It
Speaker 1: looks like something the prop department ran off really quickly.
Speaker 1: Like in the movie a guy named Michael Wolfe has
Speaker 1: written a book about Trump called Fire. It just looks
Speaker 1: like a really cheap Yeah, I told you her, Nry Holt.
Speaker 1: Then they whipped this thing off. They had this book.
Speaker 1: They knew you were a hot property to do this
Speaker 1: thing was just smoking. And what happened and they said,
Speaker 1: who cares what the cover is, get it out. It
Speaker 1: used to be on the first the first printing. It
Speaker 1: was actually even embossed um. And then they decided I
Speaker 1: was screw that. Let's just get him out there. I mean,
Speaker 1: I have said people will say to me, I don't
Speaker 1: want to be overly self referential here. But when I
Speaker 1: do this trump stick on TV, people say to me,
Speaker 1: what do you do? And literally the three beats of
Speaker 1: what I do are embodied in this photograph. I tell
Speaker 1: people left, eyebrow up, right, eyebrow down, and stick your
Speaker 1: mouth out, that you're trying to suck the windshield out
Speaker 1: of a car. It's just And I said, that's it.
Speaker 1: There's the photo that it this is it? This picture?
Speaker 1: I swear that's me actually. So so you know him
Speaker 1: in the way that you know a lot of the
Speaker 1: powerful and the and the movers and shakers of two
Speaker 1: one to life. And when his when his political career,
Speaker 1: uh starts to take off, does your relationship with him change?
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean I didn't really have that kind
Speaker 1: of relationship with him. It was just passing if he
Speaker 1: saw me in a crowd. You know. It's a guy
Speaker 1: you know, you know he looks when whenever he's out
Speaker 1: in at night or at a party. Um, it's it's
Speaker 1: always he's looking for someone he knows, I mean, he
Speaker 1: has to connect with, and that's what it is. He's
Speaker 1: looking for recognition, um. And he's looking for other other
Speaker 1: people who he thinks are worthy of him. So I'm
Speaker 1: I would be like a like the in between lean
Speaker 1: person that he would get onto until he saw somebody
Speaker 1: else and then it was UM. And that's so that
Speaker 1: was that was completely it. So nothing, no, no hostility
Speaker 1: in this relationship at all. And when so in two
Speaker 1: thousand in June two thousand and sixteen, I did a piece,
Speaker 1: you know, so he had essentially vanquished all of the
Speaker 1: other Republicans. He was going to be the nominee. I mean,
Speaker 1: he was not going to be president in any logic
Speaker 1: that existed anywhere, but he was going to be the nominee.
Speaker 1: And I went out to do a UM to do
Speaker 1: an interview with him for the Hollywood Reporter. UM. I
Speaker 1: went out because I went out to l a he
Speaker 1: was doing the UM I think he was doing the
Speaker 1: Fallon show UM, and so I was supposed to meet
Speaker 1: him there in the green room. And then it was like,
Speaker 1: so I come in and it and it was a
Speaker 1: perfect Trump moment of of of the kind of flattery
Speaker 1: that actually is kind of really works. I mean I
Speaker 1: walked into the door and he's like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: Michael Wolfe, UM, they really send the big guns. UM.
Speaker 1: And then one of his aids actually Hope Picks comes
Speaker 1: in and says, you, Mr Trump, you have you have
Speaker 1: forty five minutes, and he goes, forty five minutes. You
Speaker 1: don't give Michael will forty five minutes. UM. And then
Speaker 1: he says UM. And he says, Okay, I gotta do
Speaker 1: the show. Come over to my house in Beverly Hills
Speaker 1: afterwards and we'll sit around. UM. And at first I thought,
Speaker 1: my god, he is a house in Beverly Hill. So
Speaker 1: it turns out, Um, he has a house in Beverly Hills. UM,
Speaker 1: right on the corner of Sunset and Rodeo, this huge place.
Speaker 1: I meet him there and he, you know, takes me
Speaker 1: to the refrigerator and it's filled with pints of Hogandah's
Speaker 1: ice cream. It's all the whole thing. He takes out
Speaker 1: too and throws me one, and he takes on one
Speaker 1: and there we sit on the couch with the with
Speaker 1: the ice cream and and it doesn't and it's did
Speaker 1: you like ice cream or did you know lose the
Speaker 1: sacrifice you were making for your career? Um? And I
Speaker 1: sort of put it there. And then he goes UM
Speaker 1: to Jared Kushner, and Jared Kushner comes over and has
Speaker 1: to pick up the ice and my ice cream. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's all becoming clear to me now now. But what
Speaker 1: I want to ask you is, is that is that
Speaker 1: you know, there's been abundant criticisms of Trump in terms
Speaker 1: of his demeanor and his behavior and his he's an
Speaker 1: emotional mass, he's in over his head. You know, we've
Speaker 1: heard a lot of that for a while. But I
Speaker 1: had not heard the assertion that Trump was betting against
Speaker 1: himself and thought he would lose the election but nonetheless
Speaker 1: win if by losing the election he would ultimately gain
Speaker 1: some another oxygen tank for his media career. When did
Speaker 1: that first come to your knowledge? Well, it was you know,
Speaker 1: so I went into the White House shortly after January,
Speaker 1: and yeah, and I was just sort of began a
Speaker 1: series of conversations to to no real point, um with
Speaker 1: with the people around Trump, I mean, with with his
Speaker 1: senior staff. And I was kind of under the protections
Speaker 1: I suppose of Steve Bannon, um um. And did Bannon
Speaker 1: arranged and broker your admission into the basically I mean
Speaker 1: everyone Kelly and Conway, I mean everyone in Trump himself.
Speaker 1: You know, I had asked during the transition, I had
Speaker 1: approached I went to Trump and I said, I'd like
Speaker 1: to come in as an observer. And he thought I
Speaker 1: was asking for a job. He had no idea what
Speaker 1: the jobs were in the in the White House, and
Speaker 1: I guess deputy assistant observer was a was a potential job. Um.
Speaker 1: And I said, no, I want to write a book, Michael,
Speaker 1: you might number one observer, top observer anyway. And I said, no, no,
Speaker 1: I want to I want to write a book. And
Speaker 1: you could just see him deflated. The idea of a
Speaker 1: book was so boring to him, um um. But he said, yeah, yeah, okay, whatever,
Speaker 1: um um. And I went back to Steve Bannon and
Speaker 1: I said, and I said, he says, um, this is
Speaker 1: what he said, whatever, And he says whatever is good.
Speaker 1: And so that sort of became the fuel on or
Speaker 1: the basis on which that I was. I I became
Speaker 1: sort of part of this group in the White House,
Speaker 1: and they would talk to me, you know, you know
Speaker 1: in ways that that began to change over over the
Speaker 1: over the course of when I was there. First that
Speaker 1: was kind of raw raw um, and then it was
Speaker 1: ra rab but you know, with with their with their
Speaker 1: eyes eyebrows going up, and then it was raw rab
Speaker 1: with a gun to their head. Um. You mentioned in
Speaker 1: the book that a turning point is when he talks
Speaker 1: about Obama wire tapping them, and that that was a
Speaker 1: big turning point for the morale inside the West Wing.
Speaker 1: And then they began to and then actually these people
Speaker 1: really began to talk in you know, try to understand
Speaker 1: how it was that they got here. And then the
Speaker 1: whole anomally of this, of this situation, including the fact
Speaker 1: that they weren't supposed to be there, that all of
Speaker 1: this was that they all would have been better off
Speaker 1: in some way not winning, and they all had kind
Speaker 1: of planned not to win. And in fact, everything that's
Speaker 1: going on now, the whole Russian investigation, the money laundering,
Speaker 1: all of this is really really the f foundation here
Speaker 1: is that you know, and I compared it to the
Speaker 1: producers that you know, they go in and you know,
Speaker 1: and and the the act of winning, like the act
Speaker 1: of a hit show, means that they're comes in a
Speaker 1: disaster exposed. You know, they're crux um. And that's the
Speaker 1: sense someone without obviously violating your your confidences and everything
Speaker 1: of your sources or whatever, but someone actually said that
Speaker 1: to you, that that was it more than one person,
Speaker 1: more than one piety people. Yes, I mean I think
Speaker 1: there's there was literally nobody who expected this to happen.
Speaker 1: I mean, and I mean they felt the same way.
Speaker 1: I mean, they read the New York Times like everybody else.
Speaker 1: It's like, this is not going to happen. Um, um.
Speaker 1: And you know, at least of all, you know it
Speaker 1: was he was the one who who I mean, he
Speaker 1: was the one most of all who was surprised by
Speaker 1: this outcome. But Bannon, from what I read in your book,
Speaker 1: he believed he saw that late shifting wind the night
Speaker 1: of even even day, in days in advance, what's the
Speaker 1: call me emails things, puts the big bullet in her
Speaker 1: and blow us a big hole rather a torpedo in
Speaker 1: her side. Bannon begins to see that there, maybe, just
Speaker 1: maybe there's a slim chance. I went to Bannon took
Speaker 1: over the campaign on August fifteen, UM, two thousand and sixteen.
Speaker 1: And Um. I went up a week later to see
Speaker 1: him in Trump Tower, UM. And we sat down and
Speaker 1: he said he's gonna win. Um, We're going to do this.
Speaker 1: The path to victory is Florida, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania. Now,
Speaker 1: I mean I've spent I've been around politicians before and
Speaker 1: they always say this kind of stuff UM, and I
Speaker 1: and I thought, yeah, yeah, sure, and I didn't even
Speaker 1: write this um. But it turned out obviously to be
Speaker 1: absolutely true. And what do you credit Bannon, who we've
Speaker 1: obviously been uh compelled to study his past and his
Speaker 1: CV and everything in Hollywood and Goldman Sacks and his
Speaker 1: Navy career and stuff. Then he's got no political experience
Speaker 1: prior to this, what do you attribute him his political acumen?
Speaker 1: Because when you think about it, he was right. I mean,
Speaker 1: he he he really saw if they were going to
Speaker 1: have a shot, they had to kind of split the
Speaker 1: arrow here in those four states, and they did. In
Speaker 1: your time speaking with him, what impressions did you get
Speaker 1: about him? Well, at first, I mean would share them
Speaker 1: with us, all positive impressions. I mean, I mean, Bannon
Speaker 1: is a is a UM is smart, insightful UM. And
Speaker 1: his conversation as you, I mean, when he starts, you
Speaker 1: really don't want him to stop, and he doesn't stop,
Speaker 1: so it's um um. Yeah. But he had an insight,
Speaker 1: and the insight was about white working class people lan
Speaker 1: um jipped and screwed and and and and everything that
Speaker 1: we've sort of come to understand was under this underground anger. Um,
Speaker 1: and Bannon was on top of it. Yeah. So Bannon
Speaker 1: is if I get this correctly, he's the one person
Speaker 1: who isn't surprised. May maybe he's mild surprised or uh, intoxicated,
Speaker 1: whatever you want to say, that they won. But but
Speaker 1: he really was a believer. He believed there was a chance.
Speaker 1: He believed this movement could happen and it could elect
Speaker 1: the president he was At the same time, Um, I
Speaker 1: I think it was astounding to him that the president
Speaker 1: that that was going to be elected was Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Does Bannon come and he's ready to govern? Because I mean,
Speaker 1: there are some really really troublesome and malignant policies that
Speaker 1: are being carried forth by this administration. Who's who's in
Speaker 1: charge of that? Who's because Trump's not a policy is
Speaker 1: bat was banned in charge? Well began it was no
Speaker 1: one was in charge. I mean, I mean and and
Speaker 1: I mean the the the singular issue here is that
Speaker 1: is that you know, you brought into this into this
Speaker 1: White House people who had no no connection to to
Speaker 1: each other and establishally Washington. Actually it was even more
Speaker 1: they wanted to kill each other literally within within weeks.
Speaker 1: So you had you had Kushner and and Ivanka, who
Speaker 1: were New York Democrats. Um, you had bannoned this all
Speaker 1: right nationalist populist thing. And you had Ron's previous who
Speaker 1: was a traditional a traditional Republican, and they none of
Speaker 1: these things could ever come together. Um. They were all
Speaker 1: all inherently opposed to each other. And it soon got
Speaker 1: to the point where literally, I think if they could have,
Speaker 1: if one could have assassinated the other a hundred years before,
Speaker 1: in in in European courts, they would have assassinated each other.
Speaker 1: Um and so and so you you had a white House,
Speaker 1: certainly at least until until John Kelly comes in in August,
Speaker 1: where literally nothing could happen because one would block the
Speaker 1: other for whatever they were trying. And they and they
Speaker 1: did eventually they did not pass any major legislation until
Speaker 1: the tax bill. So is it assumed then that McConnell
Speaker 1: in the one House, and and and and Ryan and
Speaker 1: the other they seize an opportunity and they're the ones
Speaker 1: doing making the policy. Was you know the McConnell said,
Speaker 1: and I quote him as as as saying, he'll he'll
Speaker 1: sign anything we put in front of him, which I
Speaker 1: think is fundamentally true. He doesn't really care what it is.
Speaker 1: He just wants a win. And he repeats this over John,
Speaker 1: I need to win. I want to win. Why can't
Speaker 1: you bring me a win? Does didn't lose his position.
Speaker 1: There's Bannon gone because because eventually he wants to go,
Speaker 1: because he realized that Trump is an idiot as well. Totally, yeah,
Speaker 1: he does. He doesn't. He doesn't want to stay there
Speaker 1: and watch the thing crash into the complete and he thought,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's and he thought he could change things.
Speaker 1: I think he always knew Trump was an idiot, but
Speaker 1: he thought he was his idiot um. But then it
Speaker 1: became clear that Trump was also Jared and Avanca's idiot
Speaker 1: and and many other people's idiots, so that nothing could
Speaker 1: really happen here and then and and and there's an idiot,
Speaker 1: and then there's really an idiot, and so and I
Speaker 1: think that's what Bannon, you know, and I sort of
Speaker 1: saw this, this transformation of of Okay, we can we
Speaker 1: can work with this guy to this guy is really
Speaker 1: the ben and am I am? I writing assuming that
Speaker 1: Bannon felt he really needed to be in charge. He
Speaker 1: needed Trump to to sit down with him and let
Speaker 1: him guide him and focus him and do with And
Speaker 1: Trump was gonna say the answer this is a line
Speaker 1: somebody applied to a friend of mine once said what's
Speaker 1: Bob gonna do? And the answer was, who's the last
Speaker 1: person to speak to him? You know, like everybody that
Speaker 1: walked in the room was like, sure, you got to
Speaker 1: wrap it up whatever you want. And then apparently Trump
Speaker 1: has the same disease. Correct, whoever walks in the room,
Speaker 1: he just says yes to whatever they want. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: and who and the last person he he? I mean,
Speaker 1: Trump is not a bright guy. That shouldn't be released
Speaker 1: the tax returns. It should be released the transcripts. Um.
Speaker 1: It's one of the things that that drives Trump crazy,
Speaker 1: the idea that somebody might see his college transcripts. Oh,
Speaker 1: where is that Julian Assange when you need him? Someone
Speaker 1: called the Bolivian embassy? Or wheb the hell he is? Uh?
Speaker 1: The um? Everybody always said that that the one person
Speaker 1: who had his ear was his daughter. What's happened in
Speaker 1: that relationship to your knowledge? And during this year in
Speaker 1: the White House, Well, I mean, I think it's I
Speaker 1: think she still does have his his ear, and I'd
Speaker 1: say she's among the key powers in the White House.
Speaker 1: It's it's Ivonka Trump and I think they are very
Speaker 1: much alike. They are very both transactional, you know. I
Speaker 1: mean somebody, somebody, um, I know describes them both as
Speaker 1: without scruples, um um. And and I think that now,
Speaker 1: I mean, her position now is a difficult one because
Speaker 1: because I mean, I don't think she's going to be indicted,
Speaker 1: but I would place money that Jared is going to
Speaker 1: be indicted. Um. Jared is gonna be indebted because Trump
Speaker 1: is stupid, not that um no, But but but the
Speaker 1: the what do you think? Well, because I want to
Speaker 1: get to that as you step back, I mean, the
Speaker 1: book comes out, and I don't want to assume anything.
Speaker 1: The book comes out, and one might automatically think that
Speaker 1: many of the people who you were talking to and
Speaker 1: had channels to dry up and they don't want to
Speaker 1: talk to you. And something tells me that some of
Speaker 1: them might go the opposite way. I want to talk
Speaker 1: to me even more because the ship is slowly sinking
Speaker 1: now because the presumption is that if he that he's
Speaker 1: priming everybody now Rosenstein and everything that he's talking about
Speaker 1: to fire Mueller. He may actually be insane enough. Remember
Speaker 1: with Trump, things you swore were impossible in March are
Speaker 1: quote Titian realities by November. I mean, there's things that
Speaker 1: are insane to contemplate. Six months later. It's just the
Speaker 1: daily routine there. And and it's super hard to game
Speaker 1: this out because even if you invent a logic, a
Speaker 1: Trump logic, he's not only capable but likely of of
Speaker 1: defying his own logic here, right, So I couldn't tell
Speaker 1: you would. I mean, it makes no sense, literally no
Speaker 1: sense to people you talked to. Do you still speaking
Speaker 1: to some people? Yeah? And do they tell you that
Speaker 1: he's gonna fire Muller? Um the contem we know they
Speaker 1: contemplated though, well, even that, you know, you know the content.
Speaker 1: That's an interesting story because the New York Times went
Speaker 1: with that story. He ordered the firing of of of
Speaker 1: of Mueller. He told McGann the lawyer of fire and
Speaker 1: this became a major story and a kind of another
Speaker 1: evidence of his you know, his intent to obstruct justice, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: The truth is, and while he did order Muller fired,
Speaker 1: that's correct in the story, he did order McGan to
Speaker 1: fire Muller. That is correct in the story. The truth
Speaker 1: is this happens every day, so so it's it's a
Speaker 1: kind of thing. I mean, it just comes out of
Speaker 1: his mouth and everybody, everybody ignores him. So so you know,
Speaker 1: so everybody, Um, you know, I saw there there, um uh,
Speaker 1: I just wanted I wish I could just be in
Speaker 1: that room. He's there and he's like, I can't this
Speaker 1: guy screamed with a plastic spoon, give me a medal spoon,
Speaker 1: proper spoon, fire mother, fire Miller. It's just like barking
Speaker 1: all these disparate, unconnected lines ice cream, Mueller, fire, um spoon.
Speaker 1: You know, I needed more batteries for this remote remote
Speaker 1: that he's on an island of kind of uh dr
Speaker 1: Moreau or I don't know what it was in think.
Speaker 1: I mean he's always been I mean this is actually
Speaker 1: always throughout his whole career. Fire him, fire him. And
Speaker 1: he didn't have a whole show where that yeah you're fired.
Speaker 1: I never watched that. That was the thing. So so
Speaker 1: for the time sale he's he said, he he said
Speaker 1: Mueller should be fired. It's kind of like yeah, but um,
Speaker 1: he says everybody should be fired, including Mueller, every day
Speaker 1: and almost every second of the day. I've got a
Speaker 1: couple more questions for you because we're gonna run out
Speaker 1: of time here. But but I want to say that
Speaker 1: I do sit there sometimes I go, I don't want
Speaker 1: to be this motherfucker again. I can't do this again.
Speaker 1: And I can't do it. You know, you stick a Trump?
Speaker 1: Oh God, do you never want to hear you? You?
Speaker 1: You don't want to hear about Trump again? Is there
Speaker 1: anything left for you to say about Trump? Would there
Speaker 1: be more stuff from you about Trump or the White
Speaker 1: House or this experience or you Well, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to get back into the White House. Well let's never
Speaker 1: say never here. Um, if you bring ice cream, you might.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, I I absolutely believe I will
Speaker 1: get the call from him and he'll he'll go blah
Speaker 1: blah blah blah and rampt and rave and then he'll say,
Speaker 1: come on by. So you're not ruling out that you
Speaker 1: might do another book? You know? Sometimes one is called
Speaker 1: one is called in an art. In an article I
Speaker 1: was reading for to prepare for this, I there was
Speaker 1: a quote that the writer gives from Stephen Levitzky and
Speaker 1: Daniel said blah, and he writes one parties view one
Speaker 1: another as mortal enemies. The stakes of political competition heightened dramatically.
Speaker 1: Losing ceases to be a routine and accepted part of
Speaker 1: the political process, and instead becomes a full blown catastrophe.
Speaker 1: When the perceived cost of losing is sufficiently high, politicians
Speaker 1: will be tempted to abandon forbearance. Acts of constitutional hardball
Speaker 1: may then, in turn further undermine mutual toleration, reinforcing beliefs
Speaker 1: that our arrivals pose a dangerous threat. And of course
Speaker 1: I think what I'm piggy baging off of here is
Speaker 1: this notion of the members of conquerorce not not applauding
Speaker 1: the state of the Union. Are treason us there? Treason us?
Speaker 1: Do you ever go through this whole thing? And he
Speaker 1: gets sad, we're depressed? Where you really are worried for
Speaker 1: the country? Are you worried for the country? When you
Speaker 1: do this, you kind of become part of it? What
Speaker 1: I and so I didn't feel myself looking this from
Speaker 1: the big lens. It was it was very much up close,
Speaker 1: very much about the people who were most directly involved
Speaker 1: in this um so I'm not thinking about the country.
Speaker 1: I think what I felt most of all is that
Speaker 1: everybody there was tainted by this and felt tainted by this,
Speaker 1: and believe that they would not come out ahead, that
Speaker 1: this was a net loss all of the people around Trump.
Speaker 1: That's what that's the conclusion that they came to. Would
Speaker 1: expect people to feel. People come out of the White
Speaker 1: House and they make lots of money, and they're famous,
Speaker 1: and they have lots of influence and may be proud
Speaker 1: of their work. Exactly and literally all of these people
Speaker 1: who went in thinking this would happen to them and
Speaker 1: came out as the months rolled on, thinking this, this
Speaker 1: is all broke. Um, this is not gonna work. This
Speaker 1: is not going to end well for anybody. The Democratic
Speaker 1: Party needs opposition. I don't want the Democrats to call
Speaker 1: all the shots either. I don't want the Democrats to
Speaker 1: be unopposed either, because that's that's not good for the country.
Speaker 1: We need whether it's an independent party or we stick
Speaker 1: with the two party system that I don't see that changing.
Speaker 1: We need we need a healthy Republican Party. We need
Speaker 1: a right thinking Republican party. I hope that the Republican
Speaker 1: Party once this guy is gone, and I hope that
Speaker 1: is soon they make some effort to heal themselves, because
Speaker 1: it's really really not good for the country to see
Speaker 1: the Republican Party drive off the cliff the way they've
Speaker 1: done with this guy, you know, handcuffed to the steering room. UM.
Speaker 1: I want to say UM as we finish, Uh, this
Speaker 1: is a podcast, my radio show. I want to thank
Speaker 1: my producer's Emily Bouten, Kathy Russo and Adam tie Schultz.
Speaker 1: Michael Well, if everybody it might the WHOA, thank you
Speaker 1: so much. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's
Speaker 1: the thing. M