WEBVTT - Part Two: Roy Cohn: The Man Who Made Donald Trump 0:00:02.840 --> 0:00:06.960 Welcome back. We're talking about Roy Cone. I don't know 0:00:07.120 --> 0:00:09.640 owl's to lead it to this. I'm Robert Evans Podcast, 0:00:09.720 --> 0:00:12.240 Bad People talk about Him. This is part two, Roy Cone, 0:00:12.920 --> 0:00:18.919 He suck. My guest today is Joel Monique. Joel Hi. Yes, 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:23.640 I'm good. I'm eager to more learn more about Roy 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:27.520 Cone and the terribleness that he inflicted on our country. Yeah, 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:31.960 he is. He He inflicted nothing but pain. Um, and 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:35.200 that's good for him, I guess. So when we last 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:38.080 left our dear friend Roy he had promised to wreck 0:00:38.200 --> 0:00:40.080 the army. Now, I don't know if you're aware of this, 0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:44.080 but Americans today are broadly fond of the army, and 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:46.199 since the President of the United States was in the 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:50.000 nineteen fifties, a retired general declaring a desire to destroy 0:00:50.040 --> 0:00:52.080 the branch he served with was not a great long 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:58.320 term career move. Like, broadly speaking, Americans are positively inclined 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:01.680 towards the army. UH. In the nineteen fifties, it was 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:06.559 like a universal thing, right, like pretty pretty close to it. UM. 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:09.600 So yeah, McCarthy and Cohn had made a tactical error 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:11.839 in deciding that they were going to destroy the army. 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:16.039 UM because the Army was for the Bridges. They were like, 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:21.280 we could do anything. Yeah, it's like the Beatles declaring 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:24.120 they're bigger than Jesus, except for the Beatles. Actually, we're 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:32.320 bigger than Jesus. Um statistical thing, yeah, statistical facts. Yeah. 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:35.679 So Americans had actually been pretty mixed on McCarthy and 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:37.759 his tactics In the years leading up to the Army trial. 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:40.960 Journalists and intellectuals had sharply criticized what seemed to be 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:44.479 and was a thoroughly undemocratic thing. Eisenhower himself had called 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:48.440 McCarthy ms predecessor the House Unamerican Activities Community, the most 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:51.120 Unamerican thing in the country. Many in the nation were 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:53.760 thus baffled when Ike let Senator McCarthy go on for 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:57.240 years without serious opposition, even by the low standards of 0:01:57.360 --> 0:02:01.440 US presidents, Eisenhower is proba probably in like like the 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:04.480 upper quarter or so of of of our presidents. And 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:07.200 again he did a lot of horrible things, because presidents 0:02:07.200 --> 0:02:09.880 are a bad thing to have. UM. One of the 0:02:09.960 --> 0:02:12.680 number of great black marks against his name, maybe even 0:02:13.040 --> 0:02:16.080 the greatest, although you know we also have Korea. UM, 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:19.080 is that through his silence he allowed McCarthyism to fester 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:22.840 and continue. Some scholars claim his neglect was intentional and 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:26.600 indirect approach. He used to subtly stymy the Senator ike, 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:31.080 they claim secretly leveraged his influence to modestly obstruct the 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:34.960 Red and Lavender scare. C. D. Jackson, and Eisenhower's speechwriter, 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:37.880 tried to convince his boss to take action. He later 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:41.360 claimed the President read my text with great irritation, slammed 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:42.880 it back at me, and said he would not refer 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:45.600 to McCarthy personally. I will not get into the gutter 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:48.720 with that guy, And I think the defenses of Eisenhower 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:51.040 here are bullshit. The only way to defeat a cancer 0:02:51.080 --> 0:02:53.280 like McCarthy ism, which is based on bigotry and fear, 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:54.880 would have been for the most admired man in the 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:57.400 country to stand up and call it what it was. 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:00.080 The reality of the situation is that Senator McCarthy he 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:03.360 was a Republican, and so was Dwight D. Eisenhower. Crushing 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:06.960 McCarthy's witch hunt would have cost political capital, and he 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:09.679 needed party unity to accomplish things that meant more to 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:11.920 him than the suffering of tens of thousands of citizens 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:14.880 in short, the presidents not such a good thing to 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:20.079 have kill the two party system. It's killing us mhm h, 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:25.120 literally destroying us. Yeah, it's such a problem. Not to 0:03:25.160 --> 0:03:27.040 be too selacious, but do you think they also had 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:31.720 blackmail on him on Eisenhower? I doubt it. I honestly 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:35.000 think this is perfectly explicable from Eisenhower just not wanting 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:37.360 to deal with something that would have been nasty like 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:40.400 he had politically, like he had ship he wanted to 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:43.520 do UM, and he didn't really care if gay people 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:46.840 and leftists were being harassed UM and if some innocent 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:49.600 like not innocent, because the gays and the leftist were innocent, 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:51.320 but if some people who were neither of those things 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:53.960 got mistakenly drawn into two he just didn't care because 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:55.520 it was more important for him to do the things 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:57.600 that he wanted to do with the political capital that 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:00.880 he had. UM. So he just didn't do anything. He 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:02.880 didn't He knew it was the wrong thing what I 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:06.680 McCarthy was doing, and he clearly disliked McCarthy, but he 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:09.640 didn't care to stop it because that would have meant 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:13.600 sacrificing something else he wanted, you know, because again, good 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:16.280 people don't become the president, and Eisenhower is in this 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:20.080 period of time about the best person we get as president. 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:24.320 Still not a very good man. Let's look at the lineage. 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:28.599 Not much changed. Not much has changed. We had one 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:31.680 moderately good person be president and he was not a 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:38.200 good president. Sorry carter Um. So the whole hellish circus 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:41.040 finally met its end in the spring of nineteen fifty four. 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:43.200 Is the Army Trial drew to a close with a 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:46.159 cross examination of a young lawyer for the Army. Now, 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:49.080 this man was a fresh faced, earnest young person serving 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:51.839 in uniform. He was the kind of person Americans love. Right, 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:55.480 You've got this like young educated army man, like sitting 0:04:55.720 --> 0:04:58.840 like handsome, sitting on in like the center of the trial, 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:02.279 being cross exam and by Roy Code, who is a monster. 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:05.760 Now the trial was televised and it was one of 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:09.400 the first mass TV events in world history. Twenty million 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:12.599 Americans got to watch this kid, who is basically like 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:15.880 the avatar of their beloved military and of white innocence, 0:05:16.120 --> 0:05:19.159 get torn apart by Roy Cone and Joe McCarthy. It 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:21.520 was nothing that Roy and Joe hadn't done to hundreds 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:24.240 of people before, but because the victim was a friendly, 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:28.120 young white man. The cruelty suddenly mattered to Americans, like, 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:31.839 that is exactly what happens, is they pick on a 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:35.360 nice white boy on television and that destroys their careers. 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:37.760 I mean, that's how we got all of our gay 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:42.440 legal legislation in the early offs. And uh now it's like, oh, 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:46.719 our white family members are gay. Well, changes that white 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:49.120 people are gay? Well, I guess we'll have to deal 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:53.880 with that. Yeah, I guess there are people. Yeah. So 0:05:55.760 --> 0:05:58.880 it it also mattered that a man with some sort 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:01.720 of moral character happened to be taking part in the hearings, 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:04.839 and that man was Joseph Welch, the Army special counsel 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:07.719 he had hired, the young lawyer that McCarthy and Cone 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:10.280 were badgering, and eventually he got fed up enough to 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:13.240 tell them. Until this moment, Senator, I think I never 0:06:13.320 --> 0:06:18.320 really gauged your cruelty or recklessness. Now, Cone was savvy 0:06:18.400 --> 0:06:20.800 enough to see the room's response to this, and to 0:06:20.920 --> 0:06:23.720 realize that he was on television and realize how bad 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:26.240 this looked, and he desperately You can watch again, this 0:06:26.279 --> 0:06:27.800 is all on video. You can watch him try to 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:30.359 get McCarthy to back down. You can watch him being like, no, no, 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:33.279 we gotta like, we gotta like, this isn't gonna go 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:36.359 well for us to get pushing this ship. Um but 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:39.800 tail gunner Joe would not have any of that bullshit. 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:43.120 He continued pressing the young lawyer until Welch told him, 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:47.280 let us not assassinate this lad further. Senator, You've done enough. 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:51.160 Have you no decency sir? At long last? Have you 0:06:51.240 --> 0:06:56.280 no sense of decency? Uh? Listen, the fifties love decency, 0:06:56.480 --> 0:07:02.719 They love decent people. Oh yeah, up. Now this was 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:05.840 the death knell for McCarthy, is um yeah. The Army 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:08.320 put together a dossier and Roy Cone which listed all 0:07:08.360 --> 0:07:10.520 of the ways he had threatened and intimidated witnesses in 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:13.120 order to get his boyfriend light duty and better assignments. 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:15.680 The White House leaked this to the press into Congress, 0:07:15.720 --> 0:07:18.280 and suddenly McCarthy and Cone were being cinsured for abuse 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:20.440 of power. I'm gonna quote now from a write up 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:23.440 by the Miller Center in May nineteen fifty four. I 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:27.080 simply said that administration officials and all executive branch employees 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:30.480 would ignore any call from McCarthy to testify Eisenhower explained 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:33.160 his action, declaring that it is essential to efficient and 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:36.080 effective administration that employees of the executive branch be in 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:39.240 a position to be completely candid and advising with each 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:42.800 other on official matters without those conversations being subject to 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:46.720 congressional scrutiny. Now this was a a bold and daring move, 0:07:46.720 --> 0:07:49.800 and it worked. McCarthy his credibility in tatters and now 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:52.440 starved witnesses hit a brick wall, and his fellow senators 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:55.560 turned against him. In early December nineteen fifty four, the 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:58.320 Senate passed emotion of condemnation in a vote of sixty 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:01.200 seven to twenty two. McCarthy was ruined, and within three 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:03.840 years he was dead from alcohol abuse. The era of 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:06.200 McCarthyism was over. I could help to bring it to 0:08:06.200 --> 0:08:10.000 a better end. And again I only gets involved and 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:12.720 puts his personal credibility on the line to take out McCarthy. 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:17.480 When McCarthy makes a mistake that that pushes people against him. 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:19.560 I mean, yeah, no, it makes sense. Oh he's already dead. 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:25.000 I kill him, kill him now, crazy, I know, I yeah. 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:27.600 Cowardice is the best way to describe it. And the 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:29.880 fact and even that one senator who had to really, 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:33.199 he had the piercing line of have you no decency? Sir? 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:36.880 Look in a mirror. If of America's work population had 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:39.600 to be interrogated, and it took one white dude for 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:42.439 you to be like, oh maybe I should pay attention. 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:45.640 Uh you, I don't know how much decency there Isn't 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:53.560 that either? Yeah? Yeah, it's great. So Con left the 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:56.719 government in nineteen fifty five, never to return. Stymied from 0:08:56.720 --> 0:08:59.720 continuing to assault and abuse his political letemies, he decided 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:03.000 to go after the next best thing, acquiring the wealth 0:09:03.080 --> 0:09:06.280 necessary to keep fucking with people now. The best way 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:08.280 he could think to do this was with what was 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:12.480 effectively one of the family businesses, the Lionel Corporation. By 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:15.600 nineteen fifty three, it was the largest toy manufacturer on 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:18.760 the planet. So there there's a big old company. When 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:21.200 Roy returned to New York in nineteen fifty five, he 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:23.079 decided to take it over. Now, he worked at a 0:09:23.160 --> 0:09:24.959 law firm by day, which was a job that his 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:27.680 dad got for him, and he organized like, basically put 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:29.960 while he's working in during his days at the law firm, 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:33.240 he's putting together cash from himself and his other investors 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:35.640 in his family money to buy up two hundred thousand 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:37.719 shares of Lionel bit by bit, and he does it 0:09:37.840 --> 0:09:40.560 like kind of in secret. By nineteen fifty nine, he 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:43.240 had enough to make up a controlling interest in the company. 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:46.680 Roy took charge of the Lionel Corporation, and of course 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:49.120 he proved to be absolutely terrible at the job of 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:51.960 managing a toy company. Roy Cone somehow does not get 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:56.719 what children want. Um, yeah, I know he would have. 0:09:56.720 --> 0:09:58.559 Who would have thought roy Cone would not have known 0:09:58.600 --> 0:10:01.959 what kids wanted in a toy Yeah. So basically, after 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:05.600 under several years of roy Cone's management, Loyal collapses, leading 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:07.760 to Roy's ouster and paving the way for the company 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:11.280 to be bought by Neil Young. Um. Yeah, the musician 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:14.360 Neil Young buys it. He's apparently huge into toy trains. Yeah, 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:17.880 never went a guest. Mhm. That part of it, like 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:20.120 Neil Young taking over, is actually a very suite and 0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:22.240 a very happy story. So obviously we're not going to 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:24.280 talk about it at all because this is my podcast, 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:27.760 but Neil Young is great. Throughout the nineteen sixties, Roy 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:30.000 developed his career as a lawyer for the powerful and 0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:33.319 incredibly fucking shady. He had a particular fondness for working 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:35.760 for the mob. Among his clients was a guy named 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:39.040 fat Tony Salerno, who, by the way, the Simpsons fat 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:42.520 Tony is based off of the real mobster fat Tony Salerno. Yeah, 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:45.120 that's why they that's why his name is that. Like 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:48.320 nobody watching the today knows about this mobster from like 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:52.120 the sixties and seventies, But yeah, fat Tony Salerno ran 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:55.680 the biggest numbers racket in New York City, alongside prostitution 0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:58.240 and loan sharking and all of the normal mob ship 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:01.200 you'd expect. Through a confused, using set of schemes, he 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:03.520 actually came to co own a huge number of New 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:06.240 York City parking lots with the mob. Roy Kone did so, 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:09.720 like Roy is the Mob's lawyer, and he winds up basically, 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:11.680 there's all these parking lots that are supposed to be 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:14.040 owned by the City of New York, but like one 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:17.880 of the city employees basically allows Roy and the Mob 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:20.520 to control them, and so Roy co owns a bunch 0:11:20.679 --> 0:11:24.040 of like paid parking spaces with the Mafia in New 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:30.000 York City. It's a weird gag lot or is it 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:33.199 just the parking spots. Yeah, he owns lots. Yeah, he 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:36.680 owns parking lots that that are supposed to be city property. 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:38.800 But Roy and the Mob are profiting off of them 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:42.000 and memory serves in the seventies, they use those to 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:46.959 slowly start building new developments. Although, yeah, yeah, you got 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:49.080 I think Roy was probably involved in some of that. 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:52.000 Although it's the kind of thing where like nobody's writing 0:11:52.040 --> 0:11:55.160 down Roy's exact involvement, and this is a cash business, 0:11:55.200 --> 0:11:59.839 so like he's not paying taxes on any of Yeah, 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:05.079 it's super illegal, is the core of this. Yeah. If 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:07.480 there was one thing that Roy hated more than communists, 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:10.360 it was the concept of paying taxes. Many of his 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:14.360 friends later reported that his Many of his friends later 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:16.920 reported that his greatest ambition in life was to die 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:20.480 owing the I R S millions and millions of dollars um. 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:23.560 He simply did not pay taxes. As he grew more 0:12:23.600 --> 0:12:26.079 successful as a mob lawyer and became partner at his 0:12:26.120 --> 0:12:29.400 Manhattan law firm, Cone wrangled the business into paying for 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:31.960 his two roles, Royces, paying for his food, his suits, 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:35.319 his vacations, his homes. Cone would loudly explain to anyone 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:37.840 who listened that he avoided making any more money than 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:42.440 absolutely necessary. Business expenses were tax deductible for the company 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:44.760 and not income for him, even if they went to 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:47.280 buying him whatever he wanted to happen to one. So 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:50.520 Cone had no money basically, but the company had a 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:52.520 lot of money, and the company paid for everything that 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:55.720 Cone had and then wrote off those payments his tax deductible, 0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:58.480 and so Cone didn't pay taxes. Listen, I don't have 0:12:58.480 --> 0:13:00.240 all the numbers before me, but I know a lot 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:03.360 of millionaires and billionaires were like living off of that 0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:09.120 model of lifestyle. Now, yeah, god, yeah, it's pretty cool 0:13:09.200 --> 0:13:11.200 that he that he that he works this out and 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:13.360 very telling of like the kind of guy that he is. 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:16.000 Because again, Roy doesn't think he has any responsibility to 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:19.679 like society or to like the country, to making like 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:23.080 you know, Rhodes and ship like Roy Roy Cone does 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:26.200 not give a funk about any of that. So Cone 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:29.200 broadened his practice from the mafia to other wealthy and 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:31.960 powerful men who you know, wanted to get out of 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:33.880 the law one way or the other. A big part 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:36.120 of his clientele were wealthy men who wanted to divorce 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:38.560 their wives without losing any of their money. He also 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:41.960 started representing the Archdiocese of New York, a KA the 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:46.240 Catholic Church. So in New York, the mafia and the 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:49.040 Catholic Church had the same lawyer, and it was roy Coe. 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:55.080 You gotta love New York. Yeah, it's pretty great. Wow. Well, 0:13:55.120 --> 0:13:58.000 I mean in the Catholic Church, bunch of Italian men 0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:00.559 with a lot of money who commit crimes. The Mob 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:02.360 a bunch of Italian men with a lot of money 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:04.880 who commit crimes. I guess the only difference is that 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:14.600 the Mob includes more Sicilians. It's good stuff. Yeah. As 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:18.000 the sixties turned to the seventies, Royce started defending wealthy 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:21.320 people charged with cocaine possession. He was an expert wielder 0:14:21.320 --> 0:14:24.000 of the legal cudgel. Roy was known to brag, my 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:26.880 tough front is my biggest asset. I don't write polite letters. 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:29.040 I don't like to plea bargain. I like to fight. 0:14:29.800 --> 0:14:31.600 And he was also famous for saying that all he 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:33.360 cared about in a case it didn't matter, Like he 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:35.240 didn't care about the evidence, he didn't care about the charges. 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:37.320 He just cared about who the judge was. Because his 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:40.160 job in any court case was to was to manipulate 0:14:40.200 --> 0:14:43.680 the judge. Nothing else mattered. Yeah, I think so if 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:45.480 we go back to episode one where we were talking 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:48.040 about his childhood and growing up with all of those, 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:50.240 he would know, you know, this is an a typical 0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:52.800 type of judge or this one's Yeah, and he's familiar 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:55.080 with all the cases. It makes sense lean into your strengths, 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:59.040 Roy Cone. Why not? Yeah, Yeah, it's I mean, it's 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:02.080 totally like he's he's very consistently the man he is 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:04.720 his entire life. He's like twenty something at that point, 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:07.400 he's twenty seven when he and McCarthy are like like 0:15:07.440 --> 0:15:11.480 finally when their crusade ends, so like he never changes. 0:15:11.640 --> 0:15:13.360 Like That's the kind of the thing about Roy Cone 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:16.280 is he is exactly the same person his entire life, 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:19.720 which is remarkable. There's no arc like he at no 0:15:19.840 --> 0:15:22.440 point does Roy grow as a human being. Well, when 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:25.080 your mom, you know, is taking care of you into 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:27.960 your forties, you have no need to grow. Yeah, you 0:15:28.040 --> 0:15:30.240 do think that might have had something to do with it. 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:33.320 In nineteen seventy three, Roy Cone met the man who 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:37.040 would become his moral protege and almost a son to him, 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:44.040 Donald J. Trump. They first met. Yeah, they first met 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:46.240 at a nightclub when Trump was in his mid pointies, 0:15:46.320 --> 0:15:49.120 the same rough age Roy Cone and his boyfriend Shine 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:52.000 were when they started working for McCarthy. And a number 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:55.800 of people have pointed out that Donald Trump and David 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:59.680 Shine both look a lot alike. Shine was like a tall, 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:02.360 on Nordic looking young man. If you look at pictures 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:04.800 of like Donald Trump when he's in his twenties, like 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:07.680 he's a tall, blonde, Nordic looking man. They're kind of 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:13.600 similar looking dudes. Umu as. I mean, that's not how 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:15.560 Roy Cone felt about it. Like a lot of people 0:16:15.640 --> 0:16:19.240 basically will insinuate Cone had a crush on Donald Trump. 0:16:19.720 --> 0:16:22.840 Um and that may have been the case. Uh. Now, 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:26.560 when they met, Donald's dad was still alive. Shockingly, Donald 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:28.720 Trump's dad didn't dine to nine. I think it was 0:16:28.800 --> 0:16:32.680 like he was alive way longer than he should have been. Yeah, 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:35.720 so it wouldn't be at the end, Yeah, it was. 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:38.480 It was bad now. Yeah, so Donald is the heir 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:40.640 of a massive fortune when they meet, and he's already 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:43.120 in trouble in the law too, because he's his dad 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:45.600 and he owned a real estate company that had just 0:16:45.640 --> 0:16:49.600 gotten exposed for refusing to rent homes to black people. UM. 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:52.280 So that's like the first conversation Roy Cone and Donald 0:16:52.280 --> 0:16:54.680 Trump has. It's like Donald Trump's like, yeah, the law 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:56.520 is up my ask because we won't rent to black people. 0:16:56.520 --> 0:16:59.720 And Roy Cone's like, oh, I can help with that. Um. 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:02.280 And that's how their relationship starts. I'm gonna quote from 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:07.320 The Atlantic Beautiful start it is. It's gorgeous. Trump recognized 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:09.720 a man after his own self image, a ruthless player 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:11.879 who knew how to win. In the film, Cone remembers 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:15.040 Trump saying, I've spent two days with these establishment law 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:17.119 firms and they're all telling us give up, do this 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:19.479 sign a decree or and all that. I followed your 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:21.919 career and you seem you're a little bit crazy like 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:23.919 I am, and you stand up to the establishment. Can 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:26.359 I come see you. Donald asked for Roy's advice, and 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:28.879 Roy told him very simply tell them to go to 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:32.160 hell and fight the thing in court. They did exactly that. 0:17:32.280 --> 0:17:34.800 Trump and Cone held a press conference announcing a hundred 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:39.280 million dollar countersuit against the government. It was almost immediately dismissed, 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:42.000 but that was not the point. Con understood the media 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:44.240 from his childhood writing a gossip column and his time 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:46.359 leaking stories to the press on behalf of the FBI. 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:50.080 Roy knew that Americans never read below the headline when 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:52.920 they're looking at a newspaper, so nobody would find out 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:55.480 that the suit got dismissed. All they remember was the 0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:58.399 headline that Trump had countersued the government for a hundred 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:01.359 million dollars, which must mean that Trump had some reasonable 0:18:01.359 --> 0:18:03.320 reason to be angry at the government, that they wronged 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:06.639 him too. And then suddenly you've complicated something that's actually 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:10.280 very simple. Trump and his dad are racist to ship. Um. 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:12.560 You see the same tactic at play in Trump today. 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:15.320 Here's where he learns it. Roy Cone teaches him this ship. 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:19.040 So the legal battle with Cone and Trump versus the 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:21.600 government went on for almost two years, and it did 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:24.280 not end in a victory for roy Cone or Donald 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:27.080 Trump in the traditional legal sense of the word, but 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:30.800 both still considered it a win from the Atlantic. They 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:34.159 won the case by not losing, by counter attacking, raising 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:39.280 phony charges, admitting no wrong Trump paid careful attention. Roger 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:41.840 Stone was another one of roy Cone's friends and protegees, 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:44.600 and he was interviewed for the documentary Where's My Roy Cone? 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:46.880 His comments in that film can be assumed to double 0:18:46.880 --> 0:18:49.800 as Donald Trump's comments on the same matter. Roy would 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:53.359 always be for an offensive strategy. These were the rules 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:55.879 of war. You don't fight on the other guy's ground. 0:18:56.240 --> 0:18:58.679 You define what the debate is going to be about. 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:01.520 I think Trump would learn that from Roy. I learned 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:14.040 that from Roy. It's very upset that it works. It's 0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:18.840 it's disastrously successful. Now The Atlantic would go on to 0:19:18.960 --> 0:19:22.480 some up Roy's style this way Conan Trump embody the 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:26.080 mafia style and American politics. I don't mean the sopranos. 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:28.639 I mean the cold will to power that carries a 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:31.960 threat of murder without shame. And it's worth noting that 0:19:32.000 --> 0:19:34.760 the two people interviewed and Where's My Roy Cone described 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:38.399 Cone with the word evil, so like again that that's 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:40.800 just the guy he is. Everyone knew it, Trump knew it, 0:19:40.840 --> 0:19:43.440 and Trump loved it. And when we talk about evil 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:45.600 on this show on Behind the Bastards, were usually talking 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:47.920 about someone with a significant body count. And if we're 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:50.560 talking about kills that Roy ordered, he's he's stuck it 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:54.760 maybe too Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. But like most mob lawyers, 0:19:54.880 --> 0:19:57.159 Roy had a funny way of having enemies or former 0:19:57.200 --> 0:20:01.080 friends wind up dying under mysterious circumstance. This one example 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:02.760 would be the guy who sold Roy and the Mob 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:06.000 those parking lots, because again he was doing he was 0:20:06.080 --> 0:20:09.080 giving them those lots illegally, and there was an investigation 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:10.639 into him, and then he turned up dead in the 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:13.600 trunk of a car, um Like. I don't know if 0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:15.440 Roy had anything to do with that, but I don't 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:18.480 know that he didn't. Then there was a signature Mob 0:20:18.560 --> 0:20:22.040 style of at the time was just shoot him in 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:25.360 the back of their trunk and then close it walk away, yep, yep. 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:28.680 And yeah. Then there was the case of Roy's yacht. 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:30.959 I say Roy's yacht, but it was really owned by 0:20:31.040 --> 0:20:34.240 Cones law firm least from Michelle company called Pied Piper 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:36.640 Yacht Charters, which I think Roy also had some sort 0:20:36.680 --> 0:20:45.399 of interest in. Everyone hid Piper, Yeah, Pie Piper Yacht Charters. Sure. 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:48.840 I feel like Epstein is really just right about to 0:20:48.920 --> 0:20:51.879 just be like hello. A lot of people were taking 0:20:51.920 --> 0:20:56.040 notes on Roy, so everyone knew the yacht as Roy's 0:20:56.119 --> 0:20:59.920 yacht until June twenty, nineteen seventy three. On that night, 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:03.480 the ninett yacht, which was officially named Defiance, sunk off 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:06.080 the floor to coast. It was insured and Roy made 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:10.919 two thousand dollars. It shure was Defiance of the I 0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:16.359 R S. I bet yeah you can't. You can't see it, listeners, 0:21:16.400 --> 0:21:19.800