Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds.
Speaker 2: And jd Vance's team was told by Springfield's mayor before
Speaker 2: the debate that the allegations of dog eating were false,
Speaker 2: and of course they still went with it.
Speaker 3: We have such a great show for you today.
Speaker 2: We're going to put you an excerpt of Politics as
Speaker 2: Unusual's amazing show in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at the Bavarium this weekend,
Speaker 2: where Rick and Molly really have some fun. Then we'll
Speaker 2: talk to the New York Times Suzanne Craig about her
Speaker 2: new book Lucky Loser, how Donald Trump squadroned his father's
Speaker 2: fortune have built the illusion of success. But first we
Speaker 2: have a big announce from Molly and I Molly chuck Fest.
Speaker 2: We have a big announcement to make to the listeners.
Speaker 2: Don't we sound so stuffy?
Speaker 1: Sorry, poor sick Jesse. We are in Chicago doing our
Speaker 1: live tour, but we come to you with huge, humongous, enormous,
Speaker 1: serious Fast Politics news. Are you ready?
Speaker 3: I think they're ready?
Speaker 1: You ready? Great news from now on Fast Politics. Because
Speaker 1: you loved us at three times a week, You're gonna
Speaker 1: love us.
Speaker 2: At four.
Speaker 1: We are being picked up for another season and we
Speaker 1: are gonna bring you four one, two, three, four episodes
Speaker 1: a week Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. You'll notice that
Speaker 1: we have avoided the dreaded Friday drop day when every
Speaker 1: other podcast in the world drops, but you will have
Speaker 1: us on Saturdays.
Speaker 2: We've been told by the listeners that there's approximately nine
Speaker 2: hundred podcasts to listen to every Friday.
Speaker 1: On Friday, so we will not be on Friday, but
Speaker 1: on Saturday, when there are as I, as a podcast listener,
Speaker 1: knows no podcast, you will have a fourth episode of
Speaker 1: Fast Politics Podcast which you can listen to what you
Speaker 1: do your errands on Saturday or when you drive home
Speaker 1: from your weekend away in the cats on Sunday. Oddly specific,
Speaker 1: I think a bit oddly specific the cat skills.
Speaker 2: But Bali, we have another thing that we're going to announce,
Speaker 2: which is that you and I at the top of
Speaker 2: each show are going to go over some news before
Speaker 2: we get into the guests.
Speaker 1: Yes, so, Bali, wait, we have a format change. So
Speaker 1: when I get very very annoying, Jesse playcates me by
Speaker 1: letting me change the format. We've actually never changed the
Speaker 1: format of the show. In ten million years, in ten
Speaker 1: billion episodes, we have never changed the format. So now
Speaker 1: we will change the format. I am a person who
Speaker 1: wants as much information as possible, which is why when
Speaker 1: I listen to podcasts. I don't recommend this myself, but
Speaker 1: when I listen to podcasts, I tend to listen to
Speaker 1: them at two X, Jesse is shaking his head in
Speaker 1: a horror two baby two. But don't listen to me
Speaker 1: on two because you don't want to miss a minute
Speaker 1: or to one point five is fine, maybe one point
Speaker 1: seven anyway. So the point is we now have a
Speaker 1: new format, which is at the beginning of the show,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the headlines, then we're going
Speaker 1: to give you the great interviews you love, and then
Speaker 1: we're going to end with a little moment of fuckery.
Speaker 1: So it's going to be more news, more compact, more information,
Speaker 1: and more opportunities for hilarity to ensue.
Speaker 2: So maally, in that case, there was a massive Mike
Speaker 2: Schmidt article at the Times saying that Trump was using
Speaker 2: this justice system for a little bit of fuckery against
Speaker 2: his oabies. What'd you see here?
Speaker 1: So it's pretty interesting story from Mike Schmidt in the
Speaker 1: New York Times, very very Fulsome reported piece all about
Speaker 1: the ways in which Trump was able to bully his
Speaker 1: Justice Department into investigating his enemies, and sometimes this was
Speaker 1: slowed by the grown ups in the room. Ultimately it
Speaker 1: ended up being somewhat slowed by the grown ups in
Speaker 1: the room. But that was his first term when he
Speaker 1: wasn't prepared. He didn't have a Project twenty twenty five
Speaker 1: like plan for what he was going to do. Now
Speaker 1: you have Trump with a group that he's going to
Speaker 1: go in with that are really there are no grown
Speaker 1: ups in the room anymore, unless you consider Santa Monica Goebbels,
Speaker 1: Steven Miller to be a grown up in the room.
Speaker 1: I personally do not. So you could see this sort
Speaker 1: of Mike Schmid piece, I think showed a window of
Speaker 1: what a second Trump administration would look like. And it's
Speaker 1: filled with irs audits for anyone who dare come at him.
Speaker 1: It's filled with, you know, the kind of legal stuff
Speaker 1: that we saw in this country during the McCarthy era
Speaker 1: when my grandfather was jailed in front of the House
Speaker 1: on an American activities. So the American government has done
Speaker 1: this to citizens before, we've seen it, just like we've
Speaker 1: seen rights be taken away, like we saw that during
Speaker 1: Jim Crow and then we've seen that again in this country.
Speaker 1: But this in itself is pretty is pretty dark, and
Speaker 1: we really see the stakes. What's great about this piece
Speaker 1: in The Times is it really shows us the stakes
Speaker 1: of the election. We talk a lot about how really
Speaker 1: good election coverage explains the stakes and not the odds. Right,
Speaker 1: they don't do it as a horse race, but instead
Speaker 1: they do it as a real you know what it
Speaker 1: will mean for us, and so this article is really
Speaker 1: important in that and you should definitely read it. Very interesting.
Speaker 2: So and I thought, thought, what was interesting is it's
Speaker 2: this week we got the leaked speech of trumb talking
Speaker 2: about how Heritage would be planning how to staff his
Speaker 2: next urb. This is exactly the reaction to that. They
Speaker 2: were up to his standards of going after people this
Speaker 2: first turb and they're trying to fix that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, also, we you know, we did do this. We
Speaker 1: did this project twenty twenty five documentary on YouTube. You
Speaker 1: want to check it out. It continues to live on
Speaker 1: and what.
Speaker 2: It's just crossed one point five million views as a series.
Speaker 1: Right, and what you see when you watch it, and
Speaker 1: what you see even when you just peek around the
Speaker 1: Heritage website, which they somehow continue to leave up despite
Speaker 1: the fact that it Project twenty ray five has like
Speaker 1: a five percent approval rating or something akin to that.
Speaker 1: Is that this was actually a project really to get
Speaker 1: staffers who shared an ideological view with Donald Trump, and
Speaker 1: that was ultimately the goal. So when you look around there,
Speaker 1: you can see there's actual recruiting packets, there's recruit you know,
Speaker 1: there's a place to sort of enter your information. So
Speaker 1: this really was you know that we talk about there
Speaker 1: were pillars to this plan, and one of the pillars
Speaker 1: was staffing, and then the other pillar was firing everyone
Speaker 1: who worked in the federal government who was a nonpartisan
Speaker 1: government employee and really making the entire federal government arms
Speaker 1: of the Trump campaign, which is something that if you
Speaker 1: think about it, like your weather will be trumpified, every
Speaker 1: aspect of federal service will be trumpified, you will And
Speaker 1: it's both, I mean, disturbing, but it's also just so
Speaker 1: beyond the pale, So we definitely need to talk about that.
Speaker 2: So also good news, it hopes that none of this
Speaker 2: will matter. Seems KABBLA is pretty popular. What do you
Speaker 2: seek here?
Speaker 1: So just we got the August fundraising numbers because it's September.
Speaker 1: It's September. Now, Jesse's really sick. If he gets me sick,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna kill him. We got the August fundraising numbers
Speaker 1: and they show that Harris raised about four times as
Speaker 1: much money as Trump. Now, remember the Trump is supported
Speaker 1: by dark money groups. You know you may if you
Speaker 1: live in in certain areas, you're going to be getting
Speaker 1: mailers that are from dark money groups, like one, there's
Speaker 1: one that Elon Musk is backing America Pack American Pack
Speaker 1: America BacT. But she wears four times as much, she's
Speaker 1: spending three She spent three times more money in August,
Speaker 1: and she still has one hundred million more in the bank.
Speaker 1: So that's good. Look, money doesn't win this campaign. What
Speaker 1: wins this campaign is people getting out there and voting
Speaker 1: and getting their friends and family to vote.
Speaker 2: So, since this is the third Pennsylvania or Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, we are looking at
Speaker 1: you to save American democracy. Because it turns out all
Speaker 1: those fucking guys in the Federal government. You know, the
Speaker 1: people in the DOJ did not save American democracy. Interesting
Speaker 1: fact about Donald Trump, Jesse, you want to know an interesting.
Speaker 3: Fact of much?
Speaker 2: I mean, in all honesty, I'd love to never hear
Speaker 2: another one, but I'm gonna ask you anyway.
Speaker 1: Toby, since this man has been running for president from
Speaker 1: nearly a decade, that all of all the presidents since FDR,
Speaker 1: guess which one has spent the shortest number of hours
Speaker 1: each day on the job? Can you, guys?
Speaker 2: I could never ever guess that it's the guy that
Speaker 2: golfs every day at DIGGD.
Speaker 1: Why that's right, my man. He golfs, he watches television,
Speaker 1: he tweets, but executive time, he spends a lot of
Speaker 1: time executiving.
Speaker 2: Throwing ketchup at the walls while watching Fox.
Speaker 1: It's right, speaking of throwing ketchup at the wall, you
Speaker 1: know who wants to throw Fox News is. Problems with
Speaker 1: lying about the twenty twenty election are not over, Nor
Speaker 1: are the news station that makes Fox News look like PBS.
Speaker 1: Can you guess which one it is?
Speaker 2: Is it right Side Broadcasting? Is it America's Voice?
Speaker 1: Isn't news Newsmax? It's got so much news it's called Newsmax,
Speaker 1: but it really has no news. Smart Mattock Suit says
Speaker 1: that Newsmax provide a platform for its host, Donald Trump
Speaker 1: and the former president's attorneys and allies to falsely claim
Speaker 1: that the company software was manipulated to claim the election
Speaker 1: for Present and Biden. Smartmatic is suing them for a
Speaker 1: lot of money. They really would like to make Newsmax.
Speaker 1: They are, you know, the Smartmatic Max, and they're also
Speaker 1: suing Fox. I think they're not going to settle. I
Speaker 1: think it's going to be really really bad for Fox,
Speaker 1: in which I say good.
Speaker 2: So the thing is is, if it's really bad for them, though,
Speaker 2: do we see anything more aside for just their board
Speaker 2: holders not getting as many rdigs.
Speaker 1: Making less money?
Speaker 2: Yet?
Speaker 1: Possibly, look the Fox family. You'll remember the Murdoch family
Speaker 1: is right now in court fighting over the future of
Speaker 1: Fox and the New York Post and all of the
Speaker 1: sort of Murdoch media empires. So I see there's a
Speaker 1: possible world where this ends up being bad for the Murdochs,
Speaker 1: the bad Murdox Lachlan, there are some good Murdochs who
Speaker 1: are not in fact worth remembering that the good Murdoch
Speaker 1: indoors not Lachlan and not Elizabeth but James endorsed Vice
Speaker 1: President Harris.
Speaker 3: I saw that.
Speaker 4: We have even more tour dates for you. Did you
Speaker 4: know the Lincoln projects, Rick Willson of Fast Politics MALEI
Speaker 4: jug Fast are heading out on tour to bring you
Speaker 4: a night of laughs for our dark political landscape. Join
Speaker 4: us on August twenty sixth at San Francisco at the
Speaker 4: Swedish American Hall, or in la on August twenty seventh
Speaker 4: at the Region Theater. Then we're headed to the Midwest.
Speaker 4: We'll be at the Vivarium in Milwaukee on the twenty
Speaker 4: first of September, and on the twenty second we'll be
Speaker 4: in Chicago at City Winery. Then we're going to hit
Speaker 4: the East coast. On September thirtieth, We'll be in Boston
Speaker 4: at Arts at the Armory. On the first of October,
Speaker 4: we'll be Infilliate City Winery, and then DC on the
Speaker 4: second at the Miracle Theater. And today we just announced
Speaker 4: that we'll be in New York on the fourteenth of
Speaker 4: October at City Winery. If you need to laugh as
Speaker 4: we get through this election, and hopefully never hear from
Speaker 4: a guy who lives in a golf club again. We
Speaker 4: got you join us in our surprise guests to help
Speaker 4: you laugh instead of cry your way through this election
Speaker 4: season and give you the inside analysis of what's really
Speaker 4: going on right now. Buy your tickets now by heading
Speaker 4: to Politics as Unusual dot bio. That's Politics as Unusual
Speaker 4: dot bio.
Speaker 2: Rick Wilson is the founder of the Lincoln Project and
Speaker 2: the host of the Enemy's List.
Speaker 3: Our first topic.
Speaker 1: Is gift to the Democratic Party.
Speaker 3: Mister sixteen Electoral College votes.
Speaker 1: He is the Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina.
Speaker 3: A dedicated pornography officionado. He likes to call himself the
Speaker 3: black Nazi.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, the black hill marks black him.
Speaker 3: I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to be offensive by
Speaker 3: calling him just a Knazen. He's elevated it right up
Speaker 3: to the dail.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Mark Robinson, you may know him from Naked Africa
Speaker 1: dot com.
Speaker 3: Nude Africa, Momie, there's a difference. Naked Africa it's pornography.
Speaker 1: Nud Africa is art, Yes, neud Africa dot com. So
Speaker 1: I think the question here is when you nominate when
Speaker 1: your only qualification for a Republican elected is fealty to
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. Yeah, this is what you get right, this is.
Speaker 3: The inevitable end state of a process.
Speaker 5: Look, when Trump was elected in sixteen, there was this
Speaker 5: period of time where Republicans, even in the House, they
Speaker 5: would I still talk to a lot of them.
Speaker 3: Back then they would be like, well, I'm gonna find
Speaker 3: my own way. I'll be nice to in, but I
Speaker 3: won't kiss his ass.
Speaker 5: And by the end of the twenty twenty cycle, they
Speaker 5: were all there like an industrial vacuum cleaner, like limpets
Speaker 5: attack us guy, And it became the one qualifying factor
Speaker 5: in every primary. It wasn't could the person get elected.
Speaker 5: It wasn't could the person raise the money. It wasn't
Speaker 5: could the person do the work. It wasn't whether or
Speaker 5: not they were they were smart or not criminals, or
Speaker 5: or if they could survive even the most rudimentary Google.
Speaker 3: Search, not to mention a research vetting. And so Mark Robinson, guys,
Speaker 3: none of this was a secret in North Carolina. Yeah,
Speaker 3: none of this was a secret.
Speaker 5: All this crap came out when he was running for
Speaker 5: lieutenant governor.
Speaker 3: It was everybody was talking about.
Speaker 5: It, and they all shut up because Donald Trump liked
Speaker 5: the guy. They were like, well, maybe nobody will notice
Speaker 5: he's got a long history of a crippling pornography addiction,
Speaker 5: and then he ripped off the Girl Scouts for three
Speaker 5: thousand dollars worth of cookies.
Speaker 3: I mean, look, the porn thing is is just porn,
Speaker 3: dirty dirty cookies.
Speaker 1: Fit Jesse. You're supposed to stop him from doing that. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. There is no We all know there
Speaker 1: is no stopping that's right, yes, But let Rick Wilson
Speaker 1: be Rick Wilson.
Speaker 5: You know, I think this philosophical position is management theory
Speaker 5: really does work.
Speaker 3: Just let me be, Let me do it, Let me
Speaker 3: do my thing. What's gonna go wrong? What could go on?
Speaker 3: We already got hit her into.
Speaker 1: The conversation in the first possibly go wrong? North Carolina
Speaker 1: does have a history of scandal politicians in North Carolina.
Speaker 5: So two years ago, uh, guy running for governor named Cunningham,
Speaker 5: great candidate squared away guy, it was revealed he was
Speaker 5: having Sennon I'm sorry, revealed he was having an affair.
Speaker 5: The text messages from the affair were so scandalous, and
Speaker 5: they were things like I can't wait to kiss you,
Speaker 5: I can't wait to kiss you back.
Speaker 3: You, I love you more?
Speaker 5: Okay, Pooky instead of instead of Mark Mark Robinson saying,
Speaker 5: I don't even.
Speaker 1: Know what he's going to say now, but I said,
Speaker 1: don't mostly prepare myself that he's going to say something
Speaker 1: really bad. Okay, go saying.
Speaker 5: It can in the chat room of a porn site, you.
Speaker 3: Know, notoriously privacy secure, saying.
Speaker 5: That he thought slavery was a good idea and he
Speaker 5: would own slaves if he had.
Speaker 3: The opportunity to, and of course.
Speaker 5: Talking about his wife's sister having sex with her and
Speaker 5: referring to her dookie.
Speaker 3: Shoot. And so at that point you're just like, all right,
Speaker 3: we're gonna.
Speaker 1: Show.
Speaker 5: But in the in the big picture, this is a
Speaker 5: guy who his inadequacies as a candidate. Yeah, we're unbelievably clear.
Speaker 3: Ahead of time, his campaign was already twelve points behind.
Speaker 5: Yes, in this in North Carolina, and you know the
Speaker 5: top of the ticket in every state is the presidential race,
Speaker 5: where it was a tie ball game and now it's
Speaker 5: starting to slip.
Speaker 3: Why because Mark Robinson.
Speaker 5: Is a gigantic boat anchor around Donald Trump's campaign.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which I love to see it.
Speaker 5: I am, I am really okay, I more Mark Robinson's
Speaker 5: in the future. I really encourage them to stay pure
Speaker 5: to Trump pick guys like Mark, who really do.
Speaker 1: He's the Doctor Oz of North Carolina.
Speaker 5: He's kind of the Doctor Oz of Hannibal Lecters of
Speaker 5: North Carolina.
Speaker 1: Yes, the Doctor Oz and Hannibal Lecters of North Carolina.
Speaker 1: And and he's yeah, I think it's I think it's
Speaker 1: honestly a good thing.
Speaker 5: But again, it does go back to the fact that
Speaker 5: the party that I represented for thirty five years of
Speaker 5: my career.
Speaker 3: Is not a party anymore.
Speaker 5: It is this cult where nothing else, nothing else matters
Speaker 5: except are they loyal to Trump?
Speaker 3: Do they love Trump? Do they kiss Trump's ass in public?
Speaker 5: Are they willing to do and say anything to make
Speaker 5: Trump happy? You know what the upside of that is,
Speaker 5: Wilson's law always applies. In the end, everything Trump touches dies.
Speaker 5: These people that do this and run and get and
Speaker 5: get get just wrecked.
Speaker 3: It's because there are low quality candidates.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Look Carrie.
Speaker 1: Lake in Arizona, he's running again.
Speaker 3: She's running again.
Speaker 5: And how she has the time to run for office
Speaker 5: while serving as governor, it just it's a mystery to me.
Speaker 3: But you know, she's going to get wrecked. Yeah, she's
Speaker 3: gonna get hurt.
Speaker 1: Her she'll Walker of Mark just check in. The cash
Speaker 1: grab for the Trump family goes on.
Speaker 3: I want to show of hands today.
Speaker 5: If I say the words trumpy trout, does anyone know
Speaker 5: what I'm talking about?
Speaker 1: Oh? All right, see we have okay, explain what trump
Speaker 1: Trout is.
Speaker 5: Once upon a time in the nineteen nineties, there was
Speaker 5: a creation that came from some fiendish mind called big
Speaker 5: Mouth Billy Bass. Oh yeah, and big Mouth Billy Bass
Speaker 5: sang the song take Me to the River, famous by
Speaker 5: the Talking Heads, of course, but prior to that it
Speaker 5: was Jesse probably has a better musical knowledge of who
Speaker 5: wrote and produced it.
Speaker 3: Initially, I actually don't know this is it? Okay, there
Speaker 3: you go.
Speaker 5: But now there's a product called Trumpy Trout. It is
Speaker 5: an animated fish mathon plaque on the wall that speaks
Speaker 5: in Donald Trump's voice. Now, first off, this struck me
Speaker 5: as like the greatest pitch for an indie horror film.
Speaker 1: Ever, great crowd.
Speaker 5: But thinking of a fish yelling at you from across
Speaker 5: the house in Trump's voice, It's just like it is
Speaker 5: nightmare fuel of the first order.
Speaker 1: But I want to fish. I want a trumpy fish
Speaker 1: that tells me I'm a bad jew That's.
Speaker 5: What I if I'm not re elected, is the fault
Speaker 5: of the Jews.
Speaker 3: Now, I don't know if you guys heard that before,
Speaker 3: but it was better. As they say, the original.
Speaker 1: Germany not great.
Speaker 5: But look they're selling Trump bitcoin, bitcoin, Trump NFT.
Speaker 3: Cards, Trump silver dollars, silver dollars.
Speaker 5: From sneakers, those TAMU knockoff Trump's gold.
Speaker 1: Sneakers, Trump NFTs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they also have another sneaker to their two sneakers
Speaker 3: you sell.
Speaker 5: There's the gold one from the Teamy ones and the
Speaker 5: Bitcoin sneakers, which, as you know, sneakers have a major
Speaker 5: role in bitcoin.
Speaker 1: And then there's Milania. I feel like we should do
Speaker 1: a whole segment on Milania.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: I have watched the Mulania video, her like trailer for
Speaker 1: the book so many times. I watched it before. I've
Speaker 1: watched it on television trying to make heads of tails
Speaker 1: of it. And she wants to honor her beautiful body,
Speaker 1: and she does not know why the mainstream media is
Speaker 1: shaming her. The mainstream media, you know.
Speaker 5: Not that not that I noticed in the actual shaming.
Speaker 5: I was more interested in the other chapters in the book,
Speaker 5: vas Poison, not hirking.
Speaker 3: Prevent tracking them. Cell phone discount shovel from Amazon.
Speaker 1: I think those are her Google service. Yes, no, Milania
Speaker 1: has a book. The book ranges in price because this
Speaker 1: is how much books cost, from two hundred and fifty dollars. Okay,
Speaker 1: I've written some books, none of them, and you've written
Speaker 1: some books and none of them have cost two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty dollars.
Speaker 3: Listen, you're just there better be something in that book.
Speaker 5: That shocks the census for two hundred and fifty dollars.
Speaker 1: So they go from two hundred and fifty to seventy
Speaker 1: five for an autographed and forty just for this straight
Speaker 1: book with no bells and whistles. Right again, we can't
Speaker 1: is there a foldout?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: We can't speak to the content of the book because
Speaker 1: no one can afford to buy it. But it's you know,
Speaker 1: but it is Melania getting it.
Speaker 5: It does the already of Milania complaining about people shaming
Speaker 5: her and not remembering she's married to Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: If you want shame, yeah, But.
Speaker 1: I also think that it does feel like a last
Speaker 1: minute cash grab because the kids are doing like bitcoin schemes.
Speaker 5: You know, they've got Baron Trump involved in a bitcoin scheme, right,
Speaker 5: And I'm just thinking, oh, yes, you know, one should
Speaker 5: turn to Baron Trump for financial financial products and services.
Speaker 3: But you know, it reminded me there was a cult
Speaker 3: in Japan called Omshin.
Speaker 5: Wikio and they did this like they poisoned the Tokyo subway. Crazy, right,
Speaker 5: But the leader of the colt for years funded the
Speaker 5: cult by selling things like his dirty bathwater and he
Speaker 5: sold it under the name Miracle Pond.
Speaker 3: And people find I had healing properties.
Speaker 5: He sold his dirty t shirts, his dirty towels, clippings
Speaker 5: of his hair and fingernails. And I think we're getting
Speaker 5: toward Don Chinrikio. Now he's gonna be selling like his
Speaker 5: used depends. Soon he's gonna be He's already cut.
Speaker 3: Up his suits and selling them.
Speaker 2: It's like.
Speaker 3: It's like the guy the guy will be selling Don
Speaker 3: Junior has two kidneys. He only needs one.
Speaker 5: You can have this commemorative kidney to remember the Trump era.
Speaker 1: But I do think it is it. I mean the
Speaker 1: fundamental thing which we never talk about. And I feel
Speaker 1: like a lot of times it'll be on a panel
Speaker 1: talking with smart people on television and I want to
Speaker 1: fake them and be like the man is running to
Speaker 1: stay out of jail. Correct, can't we take anything he
Speaker 1: says serious? Like he's running to pay lawyers.
Speaker 5: Yes, Look, the Trump campaign in the last since twenty
Speaker 5: twenty has raised about six hundred and fifty million dollars. Now,
Speaker 5: they skim off I'm not joking here. They skim off
Speaker 5: about forty percent of that for the family. And they're
Speaker 5: various companies.
Speaker 1: And people make crazy salaries like Don's girlfriend makes his salary.
Speaker 1: Eric's wife makes a salary that.
Speaker 3: Fund of them.
Speaker 5: The most conservative calculation on legal fees alone is one
Speaker 5: hundred and fifty eight million dollars. That's a conservative estimate. Now, look,
Speaker 5: if you're a guy with that much criminal overhang, you need,
Speaker 5: you need that much money. I mean, I'm involved in
Speaker 5: one lawsuit. Mike Flynn is suing me because I was
Speaker 5: mean to him on Twitter.
Speaker 1: But it don't but Mike Flinn, it turns out that
Speaker 1: guy's very persistent.
Speaker 3: He's persistent.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it has been a it has been a sub
Speaker 5: offtimately fun year of legal proceedings.
Speaker 3: I can tell you how much lawyers cost. Trump is.
Speaker 3: Trump is spending every penny he can spend.
Speaker 5: To stay out of prison because he does understand that
Speaker 5: at some point when the idea of the fantasy that
Speaker 5: Donald Trump is immune from.
Speaker 1: Pros of a plan, the concept from prosecution.
Speaker 5: The concept of the of the idea of a plan,
Speaker 5: and and things start closing in on him, there will
Speaker 5: be people who say to President Harris, They'll say.
Speaker 1: We need you guys. By the way, no pressure, but
Speaker 1: your state matter.
Speaker 3: You guys are kind of the center of the universe.
Speaker 3: Let's get on here.
Speaker 1: Okay, yes, yes, tell your friends. We need you guys,
Speaker 1: But you guys can some postcards, some mailers.
Speaker 3: Chats and messages.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but for the next fifty forty seven days,
Speaker 1: I think forty six. Yeah, you guys are like the
Speaker 1: vivips man.
Speaker 3: I haven't slept for nine years. I'm just so excited
Speaker 3: to just.
Speaker 1: Be glad you're not in Pennsylvania because those guys are
Speaker 1: going through some stuff. Yeah, everyone in the world is
Speaker 1: going to Pennsylvania every day until the election. Except Trump.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, you know, I just I think Trump has
Speaker 3: so told you what this is about. Again. He's trying
Speaker 3: to stay out of jail. I've been involved in a
Speaker 3: lot of.
Speaker 5: Presidential work over the years, a lot, you know what,
Speaker 5: No Canada, I've ever dealt with, has ever done.
Speaker 3: A single time in a real race, gone golfing. He
Speaker 3: golf's three days a week. This guy has checked out.
Speaker 3: He's gone by by already.
Speaker 5: There's nothing up there anymore except like various thirty year
Speaker 5: old beefs and weird paranoid fantasies and this. And it's
Speaker 5: like a it's like a mad Libs. I remember mad
Speaker 5: Libs when you were a kid.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like he just comes out and it's like
Speaker 3: China rights.
Speaker 1: My ignorance, poisoning the blood of our country.
Speaker 5: By the way, I think we should all just take
Speaker 5: a moment and a moment of respect for the cat
Speaker 5: that was the center of the entire bullshit Haitian story. Yeah,
Speaker 5: it was living in the basement, Sassy Baby, Sassy the cat.
Speaker 3: I have to tell you before we came out here.
Speaker 5: I'm on the I'm on my I'm on signal, I'm
Speaker 5: on the phone with my my staff. The Lincoln Project
Speaker 5: and the cat jokes, the cat jokes night are hot
Speaker 5: and heavy, and there may be a cat parody account.
Speaker 3: I'm on Twitter now. I don't know.
Speaker 5: But as Molly said, she goes, it's really kind of
Speaker 5: scary when they're calling you to make sure something isn't
Speaker 5: going too far.
Speaker 1: That's what I did. They were like, is that okay,
Speaker 1: mister Wilson. And I'm like, you're asking him. No, He's
Speaker 1: going to tell you it's too much.
Speaker 3: You know, my notorious sense of restraint.
Speaker 1: That's right known for that. But I do think Look,
Speaker 1: it is this weird moment and and a lot of
Speaker 1: Republicans are checked out or Trump is checked out. You
Speaker 1: know who's not checked out? Lindsey Graham. Where did Lindsey
Speaker 1: Graham go?
Speaker 3: Right, Lindsey Graham?
Speaker 5: Who have there was such a scenario from a happier life.
Speaker 5: But instead he decided that.
Speaker 1: The North Korean propagandist would.
Speaker 5: Be yes, that he was going to become, you know,
Speaker 5: Donald Trump's biggest fanboy and shill.
Speaker 3: And so this week he's.
Speaker 5: Out in Nebraska trying to convince the state. And this
Speaker 5: should tell you how desperate the Trump people are. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 5: he's out there trying to convince the state Senate and
Speaker 5: the governor to remove the system of allocation in Nebraska
Speaker 5: from the congressional district system and making it a.
Speaker 3: Winner fotball system.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one electoral vote vote.
Speaker 3: We've got one state senator out there, I think his
Speaker 3: name is McConnell McDonald, McDonald, one.
Speaker 5: State center out there, who could probably use a couple
Speaker 5: of nice emails saying you're doing the right thing, brother, Yeah,
Speaker 5: because I.
Speaker 1: Don't break up with all the death threats.
Speaker 3: I will tell you he's getting.
Speaker 5: He's getting a tidal wave of death threats right now.
Speaker 5: That's what these people do. And we we live through it,
Speaker 5: both of us, all the time.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: And the good the good part about it is that
Speaker 5: ninety nine point of them are meal Team six gravy
Speaker 5: seals sitting behind.
Speaker 3: Their keyboards somewhere. I will I will destroy you, cock.
Speaker 3: But but you know, you always have to watch out
Speaker 3: for the one percent asshole.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and sometimes they show up by your house.
Speaker 3: They show up out my house from time to time.
Speaker 1: They've even shown up, I mean yeah, although although I.
Speaker 3: Have I have. There is a summon out front yea
Speaker 3: no trespassing private property.
Speaker 5: And there's one close to the door that says, this
Speaker 5: is a reminder Florida as a standard ground state.
Speaker 3: Good for you, but these enter down.
Speaker 1: Harris has a gun.
Speaker 3: Yeah, do what?
Speaker 1: Does everybody have a gun but me?
Speaker 3: That was what I was like I have offered you
Speaker 3: so many guns. Oh no, okay, can you imagine Molly?
Speaker 5: Can you imagine Molly strapped?
Speaker 1: You can't have guns in New York City. That's supposed
Speaker 1: to well, Donald Trump has except everyone else.
Speaker 3: Donald Trump had a gun in New York City. But
Speaker 3: he can't need more. You know why, because he's a fellow.
Speaker 1: Are you concerned about Project twenty twenty five and how
Speaker 1: awful Trump's second term could be, Well so are we,
Speaker 1: which is why we teamed up with iHeart to make
Speaker 1: a limited series with the experts on what a disaster
Speaker 1: Project twenty twenty five would be for America's future. Right now,
Speaker 1: we have just released the final episode of this five
Speaker 1: episode series. They're all available by looking up Molly Jong
Speaker 1: Fast Project twenty twenty five on YouTube, and if you
Speaker 1: are more of a podcast person and not say a YouTuber,
Speaker 1: you can hit play and put your phone in the
Speaker 1: lock screen and it will play back just like the podcast.
Speaker 1: All five episodes are online now. We need to educate
Speaker 1: Americans on what Trump's second term would or could due
Speaker 1: to this country, So please watch it and spread the word.
Speaker 2: Souzaid Craig is a journalist of the New York Times
Speaker 2: and the author of Lucky Loser, How Donald Trump Squad
Speaker 2: or does Father's fortune have built the illusion of success?
Speaker 1: Welcome to Fast Politics, Uzann Craig, Thanks for this is exciting.
Speaker 1: I'm very excited about this book. But also we are friends,
Speaker 1: so in real life we are. It's especially great to
Speaker 1: have somebody on the podcast where you really like them
Speaker 1: and you're just delighted to get to talk to them.
Speaker 1: So that is I you know, sometimes I say it
Speaker 1: because like I feel like it's a conflict, but I'm
Speaker 1: saying it here because it's like I feel like it's
Speaker 1: just a delight.
Speaker 6: Well, I want to say, you've been through some of
Speaker 6: this book journey with me and I've been talking about it,
Speaker 6: and yeah, I saw each other so much during the
Speaker 6: Trump criminal trial. You know, we were on air a lot,
Speaker 6: and you know, we've been through a lot, and you know,
Speaker 6: I people covered Trump usually get to know people better
Speaker 6: during one of his trials. So here we are. But
Speaker 6: it's I'm really glad we've become friends.
Speaker 1: So yeah, oh, me too. And the book, it is
Speaker 1: so beautiful and it's so exciting and it's called Lucky Loser.
Speaker 1: How Donald trump'squandered his family's fortune and created the illusion
Speaker 1: of success. I do want to say one of the
Speaker 1: moments of the last two weeks that it really has
Speaker 1: spoke to me is when Vice President Harris said to
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, you inherited all this money? Were you like? Oh? Wow?
Speaker 6: You know what's interesting is that story keeps coming up.
Speaker 6: We faced it a lot in twenty sixteen because he
Speaker 6: didn't have a record of being President Ryan and a
Speaker 6: lot of people were asking him about his businesses, and
Speaker 6: he would keep talking about how he got a small
Speaker 6: loan from his father, that his father was this small
Speaker 6: time builder out in the outer boroughs of New York.
Speaker 6: I sort of thought, in some ways we'd gotten beyond it.
Speaker 6: But it is something that gets under his skin, and
Speaker 6: that's why she brought it up. And again he just
Speaker 6: doubles down on this idea that he did it all himself,
Speaker 6: and he didn't. But he won't let it go. And
Speaker 6: it's almost like he has come to believe that he
Speaker 6: didn't inherit hundreds of millions of dollars from his father.
Speaker 6: It's one of those things. It just gets under his skin.
Speaker 6: And she has his number, and she asked him and again.
Speaker 6: He told the lie.
Speaker 1: Here's a really interesting thing that I'm hoping you could
Speaker 1: talk to us about. This is sort of before the book.
Speaker 1: You are the person who got a little bit of
Speaker 1: the tax returns.
Speaker 6: Right right, So this is kind of a real.
Speaker 1: This is an amazing, like cinematic moment.
Speaker 6: It's a journle with Odyssey, and I love telling it
Speaker 6: because I love reporting so much. And it was okay,
Speaker 6: good this moment where So I was covering Governor Cuomo
Speaker 6: in Albany for a few years and then I get
Speaker 6: set down to City Hall to be the bureau chief.
Speaker 6: Down at City Hall, build A. Blasio is the mayor.
Speaker 6: I was there three weeks. I get a call from
Speaker 6: the Metro editor. He says, Sue, He says, can you
Speaker 6: just take a break for a couple months. We want
Speaker 6: to just we want to do kind of one big
Speaker 6: story on what Donald Trump owns or doesn't own in
Speaker 6: New York. I worked on it with a colleague, and
Speaker 6: I was promised, you know, Donald Trump's probably going to
Speaker 6: be out of the race, you know, in six months
Speaker 6: or so. So this is really short term assignment. So
Speaker 6: I started covering him. I never went back to City Hall.
Speaker 6: I didn't even go to get the stuff that was
Speaker 6: on my desk, and we just started writing about him.
Speaker 6: So did Russ Butner, my colleague who I wrote a
Speaker 6: book with Everybody in two thousand and sixteen, was looking
Speaker 6: for Donald Trump's tax returns and he had promised he
Speaker 6: would release them, and then he didn't. And this was,
Speaker 6: you know, I think a lot of reporters across the
Speaker 6: city and in different newspapers around the country were looking
Speaker 6: for them, including us, and we did not have much luck,
Speaker 6: but we were still writing stories that we could find
Speaker 6: about his finances. And then one day in September twenty sixteen,
Speaker 6: several weeks before the twenty sixteen election, I'm just, you know,
Speaker 6: wandering around the news room one afternoon. I was actually
Speaker 6: closing a story involving Hillary Clinton, but I loved mail,
Speaker 6: and I swung by my mailbox to see if there
Speaker 6: was any mail. There was a manila envelope in my
Speaker 6: mailbox and I it was addressed to me. I opened it,
Speaker 6: and inside weird three pages of what looked like Donald
Speaker 6: Trump's nineteen ninety five tax returns. And I looked at
Speaker 6: it and I scanned it, and I saw very quickly
Speaker 6: that his losses. If this document was true in nineteen
Speaker 6: ninety five had almost a billion dollars in accumulated lots.
Speaker 6: It's for just that year. So this guy who's run
Speaker 6: on the idea of being a self made billionaire, is
Speaker 6: you know, just hemorrhaging money if this is true. But
Speaker 6: we worked round the clock on that to try and
Speaker 6: confirm it, and we did. We talked to the accountant
Speaker 6: who signed the document and he confirmed it was true.
Speaker 6: So we went to press with that. That was like
Speaker 6: a huge story at the time because it was the
Speaker 6: first tax returns that had been obtained. Even though they
Speaker 6: were older, that were we were able to get to publication.
Speaker 6: So then fast forward, we start looking at this just
Speaker 6: this idea that he came from nothing, like he ran
Speaker 6: for president on the idea that he is a self
Speaker 6: made man, he's a billionaire, and he sold this story
Speaker 6: to the country and a lot of people believe it.
Speaker 6: So we started to look at his father's wealth and
Speaker 6: we spent actually eighteen months my colleagues rescipe her in
Speaker 6: another colleague of mine, looking at what Fred Trump owned
Speaker 6: and the story that came out of that. By the way,
Speaker 6: Mary Trump, donald Trump's niece, no one knew at the time,
Speaker 6: but she was working with us and she had given us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was what I was going to ask. She
Speaker 1: was the one who'd slipped the pages to you right.
Speaker 6: Right right, and so not the first ones, but this
Speaker 6: current story. So we were working, you know, working away
Speaker 6: on Fred and you know, she had been in litigation
Speaker 6: with the family in two thousand and we went out
Speaker 6: to see her. She was very reluctant at first to
Speaker 6: talk to me. I went to the door, I wrote
Speaker 6: her letters just I was trying out to be a pastor.
Speaker 6: But I was persistent, and she eventually agreed to see me,
Speaker 6: and we talked and she said, I don't really know
Speaker 6: what's in those boxes. And I knew there was something
Speaker 6: in there because she'd gone to Discovery. She goes, I
Speaker 6: don't know. It was like, you know, almost twenty years ago.
Speaker 6: She goes, you know what, I'm going to go get them.
Speaker 6: She was really upset about what was going on about
Speaker 6: her uncle and is not a Republican and just was
Speaker 6: sort of appalled by the whole situation. So she secretly
Speaker 6: agreed to help us, and she went and got all
Speaker 6: of the boxes that were hers, that were at her
Speaker 6: lawyer's office and she gave them to us, and then
Speaker 6: for months, it went on for almost a year, we
Speaker 6: analyzed all of this information. And the information that we
Speaker 6: got mainly had to do with bred Trump's empire because
Speaker 6: this lawsuit she was involved in was in two thousand.
Speaker 6: But we were able to piece together from that and
Speaker 6: from other sources that we had that Donald Trump inherited
Speaker 6: at the time and it's more now if we adjust
Speaker 6: it for inflation, but it was more than four hundred
Speaker 6: million dollars and that fortune. We were also able to
Speaker 6: see he enhanced it through tax fraud. That was huge.
Speaker 6: That story was, you know, really significant and really just
Speaker 6: laid bare this this lie that he has been telling
Speaker 6: that he's this self made guy. And we were super fortunate.
Speaker 6: We want to Pullitzer Prize for that, which was amazing.
Speaker 6: And then like in journalism, you know, we're now like
Speaker 6: what do we do? And and you know, what's the
Speaker 6: next story? And we got at that point, somebody else
Speaker 6: reached out to us and they had more tax return
Speaker 6: information and that tax information was from the nineteen covered
Speaker 6: a lot of the nineteen eighties, and we started looking
Speaker 6: at it. We were able to first of all, verify
Speaker 6: that it was true, and we found things like the
Speaker 6: year he released The Art of the DL this book
Speaker 6: that he's the ultimate deal baker, that he lost tens
Speaker 6: of millions of dollars that year. And we also were
Speaker 6: able to because we were able to get a hold
Speaker 6: of some old IRS databases with a lot of taxpayer
Speaker 6: information in it, we were able to see that I
Speaker 6: think it was at least in one year he lost
Speaker 6: more than any other individual taxpayer in America. It was crazy.
Speaker 6: And then, you know, we kept poking around for more stories,
Speaker 6: and we had found another source who gave us twenty
Speaker 6: some years of Donald Trump's personal and corporate tax return
Speaker 6: information and that was just sort of the you know,
Speaker 6: opened up the whole world for us where we were
Speaker 6: able to seek year in and year out what all
Speaker 6: of his businesses were making. And we found out, I
Speaker 6: think it's what he made from The Apprentice, which was
Speaker 6: important because he'd made so much money from this product,
Speaker 6: placement on the shows, from licensing deals. But we also
Speaker 6: saw that for the most part, all of his businesses
Speaker 6: they lose money. And so you see he's inherited, you know,
Speaker 6: this huge amount of money from his father. He made
Speaker 6: almost the same amount from Mark Burnett. It was in
Speaker 6: The Apprentice. It was sort of a second inheritance, and
Speaker 6: then he lost it investing in all these kind of
Speaker 6: crazy businesses that he's keeping. You know, they lose money.
Speaker 6: He has to put more capital. And that's where we
Speaker 6: came up with the title. You know, he's been very
Speaker 6: fortunate in life. He was born into a rich family.
Speaker 6: He met Mark Burnett turned him into a television star
Speaker 6: where he made more money, but he's essentially a loser
Speaker 6: when it comes to business.
Speaker 1: So interesting and also just fascinating how you sort of
Speaker 1: get there now. I want you to talk to me.
Speaker 1: We're going to pivot though we're very much in the
Speaker 1: same whalehouse here to talk about the Stormy Daniels story
Speaker 1: that's in the book.
Speaker 6: I had a feeling he might zero in and that
Speaker 6: when it's a listing one. So you know, in Stormy Daniels,
Speaker 6: Donald Trump has denied that he has had a fair
Speaker 6: sexual relation with her. But it was the center of
Speaker 6: a recent trial in Manhattan that he was found guilty
Speaker 6: on thirty four felt any counts, and as part of
Speaker 6: the trial we learned and actually it's in her book,
Speaker 6: but she had a trip to Trump Tower in February
Speaker 6: of two thousand and seven, and there's been discussion about
Speaker 6: it in different places, and we just found this crazy
Speaker 6: story that we hadn't heard before. I mean, it just
Speaker 6: sort of goes to how frenatic his life was at
Speaker 6: the time. He was working on The Apprentice, he was
Speaker 6: just getting all these licensing deals in. He was in
Speaker 6: the celebrity world. And we talked to this fellow named
Speaker 6: Neil Hobday. He was working overseas for Donald Trump, mainly
Speaker 6: putting together golf courses. He was working on the Scottish
Speaker 6: golf course. That was one of his main charges, and
Speaker 6: a lot of what he would have to do, the
Speaker 6: interactions he would have with Donald would be in Scotland,
Speaker 6: but he would come to Head Office occasionally to see
Speaker 6: Donald Trump. So he's in New York in February of
Speaker 6: two thousand and seven. He comes in to meet Donald
Speaker 6: and Donald is in a meeting with a woman who
Speaker 6: is very well endowed and blonde hair, and Neil's invited
Speaker 6: into the meeting and there's a quick moment where Neil
Speaker 6: meets this woman and then she leaves, and then Donald
Speaker 6: Trump and Neil hobbed They are standing there and Donald's like,
Speaker 6: you're not going to believe this, And he shows Neil
Speaker 6: this deck of playing cards that this woman had given
Speaker 6: Donald and it was a playing cards and on the
Speaker 6: front there was various positions of the woman naked in
Speaker 6: various sexual positions and Donald just was totally delighted on this.
Speaker 6: And then he also was there. He was laughing with
Speaker 6: Neil and said, oh, yeah, and this woman has pitched
Speaker 6: me on a pornographic evangelical channel.
Speaker 1: Oh I'm smart.
Speaker 6: Neil is just like, this is nuts. And then you're
Speaker 6: he realizes that the woman that he met was Stormy Daniels.
Speaker 6: And then we've been in touch with Stormy Daniels and
Speaker 6: she remember, yeah, and she remembers giving Donald Trump the
Speaker 6: playing cards. And that's just one of many anecdotes in
Speaker 6: the book that just capture We tried at each turn
Speaker 6: to really capture just what Donald Trump's like life was
Speaker 6: like at any given moment in the year, and that
Speaker 6: one was just one that just really spoke to sort
Speaker 6: of I think some of the craziness that was going
Speaker 6: on in his life at the time.
Speaker 1: Wow, right, And also that she exists and that they
Speaker 1: had met, and that all of his lying about it is.
Speaker 1: I mean, did you have other stories like that where
Speaker 1: they were so clearly not true? But somehow Trump has
Speaker 1: refuted them again and again, even though you know you
Speaker 1: have documentation of them in the book.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 6: You know, it's interesting he did not speak to us
Speaker 6: for the book. We tried several times to engage the
Speaker 6: Trump campaign, and also we tried to engage them for
Speaker 6: the book excerpt that ran in the New York Times.
Speaker 6: You know, when we have a book coming out, excerpt
Speaker 6: sometimes run in different places. And he has declined to
Speaker 6: engage us. You know, I haven't spoken to him personally,
Speaker 6: so I can't speak for him on it, but I
Speaker 6: would imagine he's not happy that we have a lot
Speaker 6: of his financial information, but he has refused to even
Speaker 6: pick up the phone and speak to us, or his
Speaker 6: people haven't even responded to our questions.
Speaker 1: But he is suing you.
Speaker 6: Well, that's an interesting question. Let's break that down. He
Speaker 6: sued us a few years ago, and he sued The
Speaker 6: New York Times, myself, my colleague Russ Butner, and another
Speaker 6: colleague of mine, who were involved in that twenty eighteen story.
Speaker 6: In that suit, Mary Trump was also named, and he
Speaker 6: went to court. He was very upset that Mary had
Speaker 6: signed confidentiality agreement when when she came to the settlement
Speaker 6: in two thousand and according to his lawyers, you know,
Speaker 6: she had agreed not to give out any documents, and
Speaker 6: of course she gave me all these documents. So we
Speaker 6: went to court and we were in court with you know,
Speaker 6: Mary's attorneys were there, and ultimately, you know, he was
Speaker 6: accusing me of torture interference for you know, coursing Mary
Speaker 6: to give me the documents. You know, she wanted to
Speaker 6: give us the document She's been clear about that in
Speaker 6: her book. But he came after all of us, and
Speaker 6: then the judge threw us out of the case. Dal
Speaker 6: Trump's case against Mary is still going forward, but we
Speaker 6: were we were thrown out, and he was forced to
Speaker 6: pay our legal fees can do about four hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 6: Then supperately on Sunday, I got a letter in my
Speaker 6: inbox Sunday night from Donald Trump's lawyers and it was
Speaker 6: addressed to the editor of The New York Times. Rus Butner,
Speaker 6: my co author on Lucky Loser, and myself about the
Speaker 6: excerpt that ran in the New York Times. And it
Speaker 6: was a cease and desist letter. They were unhappy with
Speaker 6: some things that were set in the article, and they're
Speaker 6: sort of putting us on warning by sending that sort
Speaker 6: of letter that they may sue right now, just against
Speaker 6: the paper. I don't know if they've read the book
Speaker 6: and what else they have planned, or if they even
Speaker 6: and tend to sue. Donald Trump's pretty litigious, So I'd
Speaker 6: never like to say where it's going to head. But
Speaker 6: that's always serious stuff when it happens. You know, we
Speaker 6: feel we stand by every word in the book and
Speaker 6: every word that was in the excerpt, but you know,
Speaker 6: you never know where things could go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think it is the playbook right, This
Speaker 1: is how he does it.
Speaker 6: Right, and he you know, and having you know, lawsuits
Speaker 6: filed does you know, sometimes have a chilling effect. It
Speaker 6: can just suck up time and energy. And you know, we,
Speaker 6: you know, are just determined to continue our work and
Speaker 6: sort of just set it aside. If it's going to happen,
Speaker 6: it's going to happen. We can't control it. This work
Speaker 6: is so important and I just want to say, like
Speaker 6: the New York Times support of our work has been incredible.
Speaker 6: We have been at this for almost a decade now,
Speaker 6: and they supported us from the beginning. I mean, we
Speaker 6: kept getting stories, but they did not waiver. They feel
Speaker 6: that it's incredibly important that readers in America understand the
Speaker 6: workings of the person who's in the oval office of
Speaker 6: their finances, and they understand the pressures that they might
Speaker 6: be under. And if we don't understand the finances, sometimes
Speaker 6: decisions could be made that could benefit that individual, and
Speaker 6: the American public will never know. And that New York
Speaker 6: Times was early and understanding how important it is that
Speaker 6: we have as much information as we can about the
Speaker 6: finances of the people running for the highest office in
Speaker 6: the land and the person then holding that office.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think it's really important as we're talking
Speaker 1: about that people on the left and on the right
Speaker 1: are often mad about editorial decisions. They're mad about sometimes
Speaker 1: they're mad about the titles of pieces or you know,
Speaker 1: a ross dose are op ed. But a lot of
Speaker 1: the nuts and bolts of how we understand the world
Speaker 1: come from these reporting, which is a completely separate animal
Speaker 1: and has nothing to do with what happens on the
Speaker 1: editorial page, and places like New York Times really do
Speaker 1: provide this reporting that otherwise we would not have no right.
Speaker 6: And it's hard and it's expensive to dedicate people to
Speaker 6: do it, and we try to get it right every day,
Speaker 6: and I think we do. And I think that the times,
Speaker 6: you know, in my small, little you know, my little
Speaker 6: life where I'm doing this, I think it's been worth it.
Speaker 6: It's important, and I think in this world, you know,
Speaker 6: one of the questions is, well, is this book really
Speaker 6: going to matter? Is your work at the times it's
Speaker 6: really going to matter?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 6: People, you know, we're sort of post back. And I
Speaker 6: still think that the majority of Americans want facts. They do.
Speaker 6: I think that sometimes the people that we hear from
Speaker 6: are just the people with the megaphones and they make
Speaker 6: the loudest noise so they're amplified. But I think when
Speaker 6: you sit back, the vast majority of Americans do want
Speaker 6: the facts. And Russ and I we wrote this book.
Speaker 6: At the end, we were very careful about footnoting it
Speaker 6: because we know people are going to want to note
Speaker 6: now where the information comes. But twenty or fifty years
Speaker 6: from now that they're going to be able to pick
Speaker 6: up this book, a lot of the people won't be alive.
Speaker 6: They won't be able to bear witness again. But we've
Speaker 6: got the footnotes so that you can see where the
Speaker 6: information came from. It's important, you know, It's I always
Speaker 6: joke I'm a reporter. If you cut me, I probably
Speaker 6: will bleed ink. And I just as this is, this
Speaker 6: is my cause, this is you know, the you know
Speaker 6: what runs through my veins.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a really good point. But I also just
Speaker 1: wonder do you think that Donald Trump is making money
Speaker 1: off running for president and that that is enough money
Speaker 1: that could get him out of the sort of financial
Speaker 1: peril that he has been in and out of.
Speaker 6: It's tough. You know, he's making money currently selling things
Speaker 6: like sneakers and bibles, and that's not enough. Not only
Speaker 6: when you think he's you know, he's shrinking his empire.
Speaker 6: He sold the lease for the old Post Office hotel
Speaker 6: in Washington. That hotel was losing money. He's facing just
Speaker 6: crushing fines in New York on various fronts. Let's just
Speaker 6: take the New York Attorney General's case of that is
Speaker 6: upheld on appeal. He'll have to write a check for
Speaker 6: you know, upwards of four hundred million dollars. I just
Speaker 6: don't think that those sort of licensing deals are enough
Speaker 6: to shore up you know, what he's facing it. We
Speaker 6: talk a bit about that in the book, and I
Speaker 6: just I just want to say, moll when people pick
Speaker 6: up the book. There's been you know, different books written.
Speaker 6: A lot of them have been about the White House.
Speaker 6: Some of them have been before. But our book really
Speaker 6: does try to step back and we tell a story
Speaker 6: of one hundred years. It's a narrative, and we start
Speaker 6: with Fred Trump, we go through his relationship with Donald
Speaker 6: and all the way up to the White House, and
Speaker 6: we tell a story and we build it with anecdotes.
Speaker 6: It's just a different sort of book. I think of
Speaker 6: it as kind of a wild ride. There's a lot
Speaker 6: of crazy stuff in it, but we try to look
Speaker 6: at Fred and Donald and sort of how Donald became
Speaker 6: who he was, not just through his father, but also
Speaker 6: that time in the seventies and the eighties when he
Speaker 6: was rising through New York and nobody was questioning his
Speaker 6: claims that he was a billionaire, and just how that happened,
Speaker 6: because it also looks a little bit at America as well,
Speaker 6: and how he was enabled in that time to get
Speaker 6: to the point where he is today.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you. I hope
Speaker 1: you'll come back.
Speaker 6: I will and thank you very much. It's great to
Speaker 6: hear your voice again. And I'll see you soon.
Speaker 3: And a moment.
Speaker 2: Jesse Cannon, Molly Jung Fast, I'm going to read you
Speaker 2: a truth from Donald Trump that you're going to be shocked.
Speaker 2: Doesn't contain much, you got it.
Speaker 1: You gotta do air quotes around truth.
Speaker 2: Yes, well that that's a little hard and podcasting.
Speaker 3: AnyWho.
Speaker 2: Women are poorer than they were four years ago, are
Speaker 2: less healthy than they were four years ago, are less
Speaker 2: safe on the streets than they were four years ago,
Speaker 2: are more depressed and unhappy than they were four years ago,
Speaker 2: and are less optimistic that and confident in the future
Speaker 2: than they were four years ago. Fix all that and fast.
Speaker 2: Women will be happy, healthy, confident, and free. You will
Speaker 2: no longer be thinking about abortion because it is now
Speaker 2: where it always has to be. With the states and
Speaker 2: a vote for the people. Powerful exceptions like those that
Speaker 2: Ronald Reagan insisted on, rape, incest, and the life of
Speaker 2: the mother. I will protect women at a level never
Speaker 2: seen before. They will be healthy, hopeful, safe and secure.
Speaker 2: Their lives will be happy, beautiful and great again.
Speaker 1: My favorite part about this post. I'm not even gonna
Speaker 1: say truth because it's not anywhere near a truth. Is
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump provided this in all caps with almost
Speaker 1: no punctuation. So look, he clearly saw a focus group
Speaker 1: that said, this fucking guy is losing women, but he's
Speaker 1: not losing women by enough. That's all I can say.
Speaker 3: If you're a.
Speaker 1: Woman and you have any sense of, you know, wanting
Speaker 1: to have any control over your body, you should not
Speaker 1: vote for this fucking guy. Heart agree and he and
Speaker 1: his hot takes about abortion, which, by the way, he
Speaker 1: is the person who took that away from the and
Speaker 1: from women in this country. His hot takes are our
Speaker 1: moment of fuckery. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
Speaker 1: Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to hear the
Speaker 1: best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos.
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to
Speaker 1: a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks
Speaker 1: for listening.