WEBVTT - No Matter How Much You Hate Paul Manafort, You Should Hate Him More (And Here’s Why) 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:08.840 Mmm, Hello friends, I am Robert Evans and this is 0:00:08.840 --> 0:00:11.039 again Behind the Bastards to show where we tell you 0:00:11.080 --> 0:00:13.680 everything you don't know about the very worst people in 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:17.360 all of history. Today with me is my guest who 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:19.560 I will be reading a story about a terrible person 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:21.880 to My guest is coming in cold. His name is 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:24.599 Dave Ross. He is the host of the Suicide Buddies 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:28.000 podcast and a comedian. Dave, Welcome to the show. Thanks 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:31.600 for having me man. Thank you. Um, I'd already thank 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:33.440 you before, but you deserve to thank you? Isn't at 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:35.320 least one more? But that one's going to be a 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:39.280 secret thank you? Man, thank you? You know what I mean? No, no, 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:41.280 because now I have to give you my third thank 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:43.320 you now, but that thank you was planning for later. 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:45.879 You can also say you're welcome if you want to 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:49.880 save your thank you. I've never heard those words before. Right, Well, 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:53.760 no one really is, all right, So today we're gonna 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:57.040 be talking about a guy, Paul Manafort. What do you 0:00:57.080 --> 0:00:59.200 What do you know about Paul Manafort? I know very 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:01.640 little about Paul and Afford he was, wasn't he Trump's 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:05.880 campaign manager for a half a minute? Yeah? Yeah, A 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:07.720 couple of months. He was one of the guys that 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:11.520 got fired, and UM, yeah, I really don't know any 0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:14.720 more than that, you know, alone, he's in jail. I 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:17.319 did not know. Wow, Okay, yeah he's he's fucking in jail. 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:19.800 Mueller caught him on a bunch of getting into that. 0:01:19.880 --> 0:01:23.399 I am viciously not plugged in to current events or 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:27.200 pop culture always my entire life. That's the sane thing 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:29.840 to be. Yeah, it's more so now because I'm forced 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:33.759 to be. But yeah, well all right, yeah, I'm gonna 0:01:33.760 --> 0:01:36.399 guess what most people listening know about Paul Manifford's Yeah, 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:39.400 he was Donald Trump's campaign manager for a while. Uh, 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:41.800 Mueller caught him doing some shady stuff and he's in 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:45.679 jail now. And uh maybe he did something shady in 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:48.400 the Ukraine, but they probably don't have fun the details, 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:50.279 good stuff. We're gonna be getting into all that today. 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:54.680 But um, you know, Maniford is definitely most well known 0:01:54.720 --> 0:01:56.400 and most hated for the role he played in getting 0:01:56.400 --> 0:02:00.240 Donald Trump elected president. Um, and I the big point 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:01.920 of this podcast to day is to let people know 0:02:01.960 --> 0:02:04.720 that Paul Manifford's work with the Trump campaign is probably 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:07.240 the least objectionable thing he did in his entire life. 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:10.959 Um yeah, he is a major bad guy and so far, 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:13.239 I would I would venture to say he's done more 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:15.880 damage to the world than Donald Trump so far. I 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:19.480 mean we're only two years into this presidency, so Trump 0:02:19.520 --> 0:02:24.760 can grow. But Paul Manaford is a world class historical 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:28.640 great asshole. And that's what today's story is about. Oh 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:32.520 my god, um wait yeah, yeah, So join me, won't 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:34.760 you on a journey that I like to call Paul 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:37.520 Manafort is just as bad, if worse than Donald Trump. 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:39.200 And I hope a hype a fire ants sets up 0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:42.200 shop in his colon. That's a working title. Is that 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:44.360 the whole story? Because we can't talk about that for 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:47.400 a while. I mean, how would you get fire ants 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:53.679 inside of a man's colon? Horn surgery is involved horn surgery, 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:56.880 so either at knife or either a knife or a horn, yeah, 0:02:57.080 --> 0:02:59.679 or I don't know, somehow some sort of funnel co 0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:01.960 were simm into sitting on a pile of fire ants 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:04.000 for long enough, and you have to course the ants 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:09.120 up into his rectum like it's a two part until 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:11.120 they get up there, or he has to be held down. 0:03:11.320 --> 0:03:14.239 Either way, it's workable. I think we can there's a 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:19.240 there's a road to this destination? Um okay anyway. Paul 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:22.560 Manafort Jr. Was born on April one, nineteen forty nine, 0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:25.079 making his entire life and career essentially one very dark 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:27.959 April fool's joke on all of us. Uh. He was 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:30.799 raised in New Britain, Connecticut. His grandfather immigrated there from 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:33.880 Italy in nineteen oh seven and started a construction company. 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:36.840 But Paul's father, Paul Manafort Senor, wanted more than just 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:40.440 the lucrative corpse burying mafia contracts an Italian contractor could 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:43.840 expect to earn in the nineteen sixties. He wanted political power, 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:47.640 so in nineteen sixty five, Manafort Senior ran for and 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:50.440 one election to become the mayor of New Britain. He 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:53.000 was a Republican and his easy charm made him popular 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:55.880 with voters. Manafort Jr. Worked on his dad's campaigns as 0:03:55.880 --> 0:03:58.520 a teenager. He has happy memories of going to bars 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:00.720 with his dad, who buy rounds and drinks for and 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:04.720 schmooze with potential voters. Manaport Senior was mayor until nineteen 0:04:04.800 --> 0:04:07.400 seventy one, and, as you might expect from the Manafort name, 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:12.080 he was outrageously corrupt. Uh In nineteen eighty one, he 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:14.160 was charged with perjury for lying in court about a 0:04:14.200 --> 0:04:17.400 municipal corruption investigation. A major source for this episode is 0:04:17.400 --> 0:04:20.880 the Atlantic article Paul Manafort American Hustler, and it brings 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:23.360 up a report from a lawyer, Palmer McGhee, which is 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:26.359 a fun name for a lawyer cute, who was hired 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:28.880 by New Britain to report on the hilarious corruption in 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:31.920 their town. Quote in his findings, he pointed a finger 0:04:31.960 --> 0:04:34.960 straight at Manafort senor, calling him the person most at fault. 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:38.040 According to the testimony of a whistleblower, Manafort had flatly 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:41.320 announced that he wanted to hire someone flexible to manage 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:44.400 his personal office, a place that would quote not be 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:47.599 by the rules, which is a very nice way of 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:49.919 saying he was going to commit major crimes while the 0:04:49.920 --> 0:04:52.960 mayor of a town. Years later, in an interview, Paul 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:55.359 Manafort Jr. Would say, some of the skills I learned 0:04:55.360 --> 0:04:58.040 there I still used today. That's where I cut my teeth. 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:06.159 What criminal mayor dad wow man. And so this isn't 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:09.680 even his career yet, he hasn't even this is not 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:12.159 even his final form. He was just starting on the 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:15.080 road to being shitty and looking at his dad and going, 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:19.320 but what if I was worse? Yeah, and I imagine 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:21.799 his dad as the mayor from Jaws. I know that's 0:05:22.720 --> 0:05:26.000 I cannot recall Jaws well enough. Oh well, it's got 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:27.960 a great shitty mayor, one of the great shitty mayor's 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:31.560 and shitty mayor movies. Great. Yeah, yeah, I love a 0:05:31.560 --> 0:05:33.840 shitty mayor. Oh man, it's one of my favorite. I 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:35.720 love it when he become a shitty governor, you know 0:05:35.760 --> 0:05:38.680 what I mean? Yes, several y Rob Ford, that's what 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:42.279 I'm talking about. Wow, I guess he's not a You know, 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:44.760 I expected a Reagan reference there, and we didn't. You 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:47.039 didn't give me one. That's nice. Yeah, I mean we 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:50.400 could do that. We could do Chris Christie if you 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:57.400 want um more. George Bush. George Bush for a while. Yeah, 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:00.000 he was a shitty baseball team owner for a while. 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:03.599 A lot of shittiness out there. Yeah, the artist. Now, 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:07.719 it's amazing the news today. James Gunn just just lost 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:10.839 a movie for things a decade ago. But if you're 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:13.480 a terrible governor, you can do anything. It doesn't matter 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:17.120 how corrupt you've been. Oh. Absolutely, Yeah, it's amazing. You 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:23.800 can become fucking president like several times. Yeah, what a 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:28.200 great what a great system we've developed. Alright. Uh so 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:31.560 Paul Manafort Jr. Hereafter the only Paul Manafort will be 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:34.440 talking about. So just forget, forget to set that, senior dude, 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:37.320 got it. Uh he first, Paul Manafort first got into 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:40.360 national politics in nineteen seventy six. That was the year 0:06:40.400 --> 0:06:43.800 President Gerald Ford ran for reelection. Manafort was his delegate 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:46.760 coordinator and basically helped him fight off a primary challenge 0:06:46.839 --> 0:06:53.760 from Ronald Reagan. So always a Reagan connection. Lost that Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:56.799 yeah against Gerald Ford was the president at the time. 0:06:56.839 --> 0:06:59.960 You know, it's pretty hard to unseat. Yeah, I didn't 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:03.200 realized we were talking about president for Yeah. No, I 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:04.920 don't know why I would have thought that Gerald Ford 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:07.839 would have beat Ronald Reagan in like a comptroller seat 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:10.920 when they were one or whatever. He definitely would have 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:13.840 beat Reagan in a fist fight, because if oh, man, 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:16.880 if I think you're put I think of our modern presidents, 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:20.080 Gerald Ford is probably close to the top of half presidence. 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:22.080 I think could win in a fist fight. He's built 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:25.960 like a boxer. Yeah, yeah, face, white face. He could 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:29.440 definitely take a punch. Yeah, yeah, for sure, Gerald Ford 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:32.960 could take a punch. But in he did not succeed 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:35.360 in winning the presidential election that year, which is won 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:39.400 by Carter, which led to four years of Carter is 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:42.960 um um in. Manafort took a job as the Southern 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:46.040 coordinator for Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign because Reagan decided he 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:49.520 was going to try and unseat Carter, gave it another shot. 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:52.720 Uh Manaford held this position for two years and used 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:55.560 it to begin his first experiment with dirty tricks. There 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:57.720 was this guy, Neil Acker, who had helped Manafort and 0:07:57.800 --> 0:08:00.560 his partner Roger Stone a couple of years earlier, during 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:03.920 the mid terms. Manafort, Yeah, that's the only proper reaction 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:08.800 to Roger Stone's name. He's he's he's history. He's a monster. 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:13.480 He is a monster, admittedly a monster. He says. Yeah, 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:15.240 I like to piss people off. I like it when 0:08:15.280 --> 0:08:20.960 people hate me. Yeah. Well, uh so, Manafort and Stone 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:23.640 had worked at this guy, Neil Acker during the mid terms, 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:25.480 and he'd been a big help to them. So manaforted 0:08:25.600 --> 0:08:28.360 Stone had promised to support Acker as a replacement for 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:31.320 Roger Stone at the head of the influential Young Republicans group. 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:33.800 But in nineteen seventy nine, when it kind of came 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:36.160 time to put up her shut up, Manafort backed out 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:38.280 of the deal and told Acker that now he wouldn't 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:41.720 help unless Ackers swore loyalty to Ronald Reagan. Acker wanted 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:44.160 to stay neutral, and so Paul Manafort burned him to 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:47.680 the ground. One week before the Young Republican convention, Manafort 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:49.640 went to the delegates who had already promised to support 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:51.920 Acker and told them to leave. Then he took over 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:55.760 managing Acker's opponents campaign. Acker lost the election and what 0:08:55.760 --> 0:08:58.240 one of Manafort's whips called one of the great funk 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:03.400 jobs and party politics. Yeah, politics, people always have fun 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:06.880 ways of talking about how they funk with the government 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:09.120 and the planet. Man. This is why I love VEEP 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:12.800 so much. It's the only show that's really accurately portrayed 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:15.480 how much they say fucking funk job and make fun 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:17.520 of each other in our assholes, you know. In my 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:20.040 private career as a journalist, I interviewed a number of 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:23.840 congressional aids and like gubernatorial assistants and stuff like that, 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:26.160 people who had worked in like national and high level 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:28.439 state politics, and every single one of them said VEEP 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:32.479 was the only TV show about politics that was accurate 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:35.720 to how people talk in politics. Yeah, yeah, none of them. 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:39.079 None of them chose the West Wing. Well, of course, 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:42.560 not west wing is liberal porn, which makes it the 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:45.400 greatest TV show of all time in my opinion. But wow, 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:48.200 it's soothing to watch the totally it's like a backrupt 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:53.320 Nobody with that much like backbone and moral certainty has 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:56.720 ever been presidents. There are no people that are that altruistic. 0:09:56.960 --> 0:09:59.560 They're just are not. And we all wish there were. 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:03.680 We all flip out like they could be, but they're not. No, No, 0:10:03.720 --> 0:10:05.920 they just they just don't get that far in politics. 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:10.160 So President Reagan won the election nineteen eighty with Paul 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:12.120 Manafort's help. It was the name of the guy that 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:17.480 they buried, Neil Acker. Neil Acker. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Neil Acker. Um. 0:10:17.520 --> 0:10:20.480 So in nineteen eighty Reagan wins with Paul Maniffort's help. Uh. 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:23.640 And this gives Manafort the access and cloud he'd always needed. Uh. 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:27.000 He was appointed Associate director of the Presidential Personnel Office. 0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:28.679 This meant he got to help pick the people who 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:31.240 would work in Reagan's White House, which would be a 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:33.720 huge benefit to someone who happened to also own a 0:10:33.800 --> 0:10:36.800 lobbying firm. And on an unrelated note, in nineteen eighty, 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:39.360 Paul Manafort started his very own lobbying firm with his 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:42.040 good buddy Roger Stone and a man named Charles Black. 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:45.599 Their company, Black, Manafort and Stone would soon become a 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:49.360 DC legend. Now when you hear the phrase DC lobbyist today, 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:52.240 it probably has a pretty strong negative connotation because now 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:54.360 we just assumed that corrupt asked lobbyists from the n 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:56.160 r A and the tobacco company is in the oil 0:10:56.200 --> 0:10:59.240 and gas industry or constantly deep dicking our democracy. But 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:01.720 it didn't always used to be this way. In nineteen 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:04.840 sixty seven, there were just sixty four registered lobbyists in 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:08.439 the entire United States. WHOA, yeah, this has not been 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:11.400 a thing we've always done. In nineteen sixty three, several 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:14.679 political scientists studied the few lobbyists in d C and concluded, 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:17.200 and I found this quote in that Atlantic article, when 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:19.679 we look at the typical lobby we find its opportunities 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:23.080 to maneuver are sharply limited. It's staff mediocre, it's typical 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:25.880 problem not the influencing of congressional votes, but finding the 0:11:25.880 --> 0:11:28.439 clients and contributors to enable it to survive at all. 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:32.560 So lobbying is like not a thing for a long time. Yeah, 0:11:32.880 --> 0:11:36.000 and in nineteen eighty lobbying was still a very small field. 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:38.800 Foreign lobbying, like lobbying on behalf of a foreign country, 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:41.880 was even rarer, thanks in part to our special bonus 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:45.160 bastard of the week, Ivy Lee. I should have called 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:47.760 for an air horn there. I don't know, we can 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:51.679 do it. Nailed it. Who is Ivy Lee? I've never 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:54.439 heard this name. Most people have not. Ivy Lee was 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:57.559 a PR man and one of the trailblazers of that profession. 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:00.480 He is sometimes called the father of public relation. So 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:04.640 he's like the George Washington of PR. Yeah. He worked 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:07.800 for John D. Rockefeller. In the early nineteen hundreds. Mr. 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:11.320 Rockefeller owned a number of coal mines in Colorado. His 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:14.160 company came into conflict with the United Mine Workers of America, 0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:16.640 a union who wanted better pay and conditions in exchange 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:19.520 for dying and mining disasters. The union went on strike 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:21.599 and set up a gigantic tent colony outside of the 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:24.640 town of Ludlow, Colorado for themselves and their families. Things 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:26.839 got heated and the National Guard was brought in to 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:29.360 break up the strike. This quickly turned into a battle, 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:31.520 and twelve children were burnt to death inside a tent. 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:34.439 A total of nineteen strikers and their family members, mostly 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:37.880 their family members, and one National guardsman died. This became 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:40.200 known as the Ludlow massacre, and it was very bad 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:43.640 pr for Rockefeller and his company. Ivy Lee jumped to 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:46.280 his aid and wrote a publicity leaflet blaming the child 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:49.680 deaths on quote agitators paid for by the union. He 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:52.000 didn't quite call the dead kids crisis actors, but the 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:55.280 implication was there. This inflamed tensions between the strikers and 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:57.720 the National Guard that led to ten more days of violence. 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:00.400 Another fifty people were killed in The actual Army had 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:02.640 to be called in to calm things down via bullets. 0:13:03.040 --> 0:13:05.440 Ivy Lee was called in before a US Commission on 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:09.000 Industrial Relations and asked, in essence what the fuck? He 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:11.520 explained that he and Rockefeller had been lied to by 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:14.440 mine managers. They hadn't meant to massacre anyone, They just 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:17.280 trusted those conniving managers who told them the strikers were 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:20.360 super dangerous. So it wasn't Rockefeller's fault or his fault 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:23.439 that all those kids got burned to death. Right. It's 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:27.400 also such a funny argument, like, yeah, no, we killed 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:30.960 them because we thought that they were mad, and when 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:35.320 we found out that they weren't mad or whatever, not 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:38.400 that they weren't mad, but weren't they weren't monsters. Yeah, totally, 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:41.280 And then we felt bad after we murdered them. Our 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:44.960 first hour go to is murdering, but in this case 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:47.840 it was the wrong thing. We apologize. Yeah, in the 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:50.120 future we might murder people, but so you know, every 0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:52.720 time we murder people from now on, it's gonna be 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:56.800 because someone told us that they're mean. Yeah. So the 0:13:56.840 --> 0:13:59.880 miners started calling ivy Lee poison ivy Lee, which is 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:02.679 you know, it's the ninth early nine hundreds. Nicknames are 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:07.520 a new science. They were doing their best, I don't know, bad, Yeah, 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:11.640 poison ivy you know you get it's itches, it itches, Yeah, 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:16.840 it's it's causes good, real real problems. Uh So, ivy 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:19.520 Lee Poison Ivy Lee spent the next twenty years representing 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:22.520 a variety of corporations. He eventually landed a contract with 0:14:22.560 --> 0:14:25.160 the I g Farban Chemical Company and traveled to Berlin 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:28.320 in nineteen thirty four to give them advice. During this trip, 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:30.280 he also had a meeting with a guy named Adolf 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:33.360 Hitler and another guy named Joseph Gebbels. He did free 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:35.760 work on their behalf, speaking to a number of American 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:38.080 journalists in Berlin to try and put a positive spin 0:14:38.120 --> 0:14:41.040 on their coverage of the Nazis. So I started my 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:43.520 research on Mr Lee on a website called pr Place, 0:14:43.560 --> 0:14:47.400 which describes itself as quote where public relations and communications 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:50.400 practice meets scholarship, where insight is derived from evidence, and 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:54.720 where questions of career development and professionalism are explored. Since 0:14:54.720 --> 0:14:56.880 this guy is the founder of PR in a lot 0:14:56.920 --> 0:15:01.680 of ways, PR Place at a largely positive description of it. Really, 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:04.360 they talk about the controversy and he did some bad 0:15:04.400 --> 0:15:06.920 things with the Nazis, but he was just giving them advice. 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:09.160 He was an unpaid consultant. You know. It was it 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:11.240 was and it was a real you know, it was 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:13.080 a bad error of judgment. But you know, he has 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:15.240 a mixed legacy and we have to consider all the 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:17.480 parts of it. So that's their take on this guy. 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:21.240 I am. We are fifteen minutes in I and I 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:25.920 am tired. I am fucking tired. We are four out 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:29.440 of twenty four pages in. This was a long week 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:35.600 of research, my friend. Yeah, okay, so I might get coffee, 0:15:35.760 --> 0:15:38.840 you know, And I feel like I could leave, go 0:15:38.920 --> 0:15:43.560 get coffee and come back and not miss anything. Miss 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:45.440 a lot of things, but not miss anything. Because the 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:48.560 general theme here is all these people are huge pieces 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:52.080 of ship, and you should probably you should feel validated 0:15:52.120 --> 0:15:56.440 in being a nihilist. H I think it's fascinating that 0:15:56.440 --> 0:15:59.120 they're all pieces of ship in the same way the 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:01.480 pieces of ship that still are dealing with their piece, right, Well, 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:04.080 that's exactly what I mean. Yeah, And it's also even 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:06.720 the term piece of ship is reductive. It's like evil 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:10.400 if you believe that evil exists in a lot of ways. 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:14.120 Drunk with power, these guys and Paul Manifort are kind 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:16.240 of the truest form of evil, because it's like, it's 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:18.680 one thing to believe a crazy thing about the world, 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:21.760 like that this race is superior, and to do terrible 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:23.960 things based on that. It's another thing to support that 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:27.680 guy just for cash. Absolutely. Yeah. It's also I mean, 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:30.120 I think a lot of our conception of evil comes 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:33.920 from people getting like I just said, drunk with power. 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:36.720 You get power and you end up doing awful things. 0:16:36.760 --> 0:16:39.960 You mad, right, exactly. But these people aren't even really 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:45.520 that powerful before. They just want power, and so they're like, Oh, 0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:49.840 if I help this person by doing this manipulative thing, 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:53.160 because I'm super good at manipulating people. I've learned over 0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:56.920 who knows where he learned how to be manipulative, you 0:16:56.920 --> 0:16:58.360 know what I mean. Like in comedy, you have to 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:00.360 go to open mics to get good. Oh, but mikes 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:03.560 for these assholes are just like the people they date. Well, 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:06.080 that and mining disaster and then yeah, and then the 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:08.560 next level of mining disasters. Then eventually you get to 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:11.480 destroy an entire country. Yeah. Uh. So here's how that 0:17:11.520 --> 0:17:14.879 wonderful website pr Place summarized the meeting between Hitler and 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:17.960 Ivy League, The founder of pr I Can't Even Lee, 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:21.399 reportedly advised Girbels to see propaganda efforts in the United 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:24.240 States and urged him to meet personally with foreign diplomats 0:17:24.480 --> 0:17:27.320 and press in an effort to establish better relations with them. 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:29.120 So that doesn't sound too bad. He was asking them 0:17:29.119 --> 0:17:32.400 to stop propagandizing two Americans. Maybe this guy is a hero. 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:35.520 Only I dug a little bit deeper. It's a little 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:37.879 bit deeper, and I found a Time article about Mr Lee. 0:17:38.119 --> 0:17:40.680 Now Time is much harser on his work with the Nazis. 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:43.280 It also mentioned some facts pr Place decided not to 0:17:43.320 --> 0:17:46.120 include for some inexplicable reason, like the fact that Lee's 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:48.240 salary with I. G. Farman went from three thousand a 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:50.080 year to twenty five thousand a year as soon as 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:52.639 Hitler came to power, which is probably just a coincidence. 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:55.440 It also fails to mention that IG Farban was nationalized, 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:57.440 so his paid work for that company was also paid 0:17:57.440 --> 0:17:59.680 work for the German government a k a. The Nazis. 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:03.159 Now Time includes a quote from Jonathan Arbach, author of 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:07.280 Weapons of Democracy, Propaganda Progressivism in American public Opinion. Our 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:09.840 box suspects the main purpose of the meeting was to 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:12.800 provide the Nazi high command with quote some insight into 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:15.959 how Americans think about Nazis. It was also to advise 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:18.040 them on how to make us quote, think more positively 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:21.520 about Nazis now. Mr Lee was called to later testify 0:18:21.560 --> 0:18:23.240 in front of a Congressional committee for all of this 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:26.280 Nazi stuff. Time reported on that testimony back in nineteen 0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:28.560 thirty four. So in the article they site themselves from 0:18:28.600 --> 0:18:31.360 the past writing about Mr. Lee. I have told them, repeatedly, 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:34.760 testified Mr Lee that the dissemination of the organization of 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:37.919 German propaganda in the US was just a mistake and feudal, 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:40.480 that it was bad business, that complete reliance should be 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:42.880 placed upon getting news to the American people through normal 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:45.359 channels of publicity. I told them that there were certain 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:48.439 policies which Germany had on Jews which were bound to 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:52.480 antagonize American public opinion. So basically he advised Hitler and 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:54.359 Gebels to x nay on the u J while they 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:56.399 were trying to court public opinion in the US. This 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:59.080 is exactly what happened in the early thirties. The first 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:01.159 couple of years after power or there was a distinct 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:04.119 drop in the anti Semitic mentions and Hitler's speeches and 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:06.639 in like their communications to foreign powers, which sort of 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:10.200 culminated in the Olympics where they removed all signs of 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:13.240 anti Semitism just long enough for the world to visit 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:15.760 for the Olympics, and then when you know, put it 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:18.159 in the high gear after that. So they took this 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:22.600 guy's advice. In other words, Now, Lee died almost immediately 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:25.119 after testifying in front of Congress. Pr Place says that 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:27.920 the stress of his testimony is what killed him. So 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:31.560 hopefully right, like fuck the guy, but his mild hitler 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:33.359 NG went on. They have ramifications that are still with 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:36.800 us today. Good ramifications. In nineteen thirty eight, the US 0:19:36.880 --> 0:19:40.640 pass the Foreign Agents Registration Act or FARA, which requires 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:43.480 Americans to register with the government before working on behalf 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:46.640 of a foreign government to say, influence public opinion towards 0:19:46.680 --> 0:19:50.719 an authoritarian regime in another country. Now we're gonna hear 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:53.040 more about Farah later. For right now, it's important to 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:56.480 understand that another aspect of Ivy Lee's little freelance Nazi 0:19:56.520 --> 0:19:58.879 career was a decade's long depression in the lobbying for 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:02.400 sketchy foreign governments industry. It just wasn't done for a while. Again, 0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:05.159 there weren't very many lobbyists anyway, and sort of the 0:20:05.200 --> 0:20:08.680 stigma attached to Lee had kind of stopped it from 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:12.679 happening for quite a while. Black Manifort, so Paul Manafort 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:15.480 is the one that brought him back here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:21.000 I wish I were dead. This is fucking crazy. That 0:20:21.080 --> 0:20:23.720 might might as well be the tagline for this pot. 0:20:23.760 --> 0:20:27.080 I wish I were dead, so I feel every time 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:29.000 I watched the news. Now, yeah, oh sho, you got 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:31.000 a tide pod sitting here. Yeah, we always have a 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:33.600 tide pot in the ok. I'm we're millennials. Half an 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:37.720