Speaker 1: And I think people look at certain people and maybe
Speaker 1: me if that if I were in a position this
Speaker 1: country believed me would not be ripped off like it is,
Speaker 1: and it is just being ripped off so badly by
Speaker 1: our so called allies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's a pretty strong statement. So now are you.
Speaker 1: Saying it's strong? I think it's fair. The country is
Speaker 1: losing billions and billions of dollars to Japan and we
Speaker 1: can't afford to lose and it's a shame.
Speaker 2: But so now are you saying this by way of
Speaker 2: indicating that you could do it better? And you do
Speaker 2: intend to run for president or something.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to run for president, but I think somebody.
Speaker 2: Now in eight years if you came back, would you
Speaker 2: have a different answer in four years.
Speaker 1: I tend to doubt it. I really tend to doubt it.
Speaker 3: I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry o'she I served in
Speaker 3: the CIA's Clandestine Service for twenty eight years, living undercover
Speaker 3: all around the world.
Speaker 4: And in my thirty three years with the CIA, I
Speaker 4: served in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.
Speaker 3: Although we don't usually look at it this way, we
Speaker 3: created conspiracies.
Speaker 4: In our operations we got people to believe things that
Speaker 4: weren't true.
Speaker 3: Now we're investigating the conspiracy theories we see in the
Speaker 3: news almost every day.
Speaker 4: Will break them down for you to determine whether they
Speaker 4: could be real or whether we're being manipulated.
Speaker 3: Welcome to mission implausible. I guess we can't avoid it
Speaker 3: as members of the deep state. At some point we
Speaker 3: have to talk about the view out there that Donald
Speaker 3: Trump has a special relationship with Russia. And in fact,
Speaker 3: he's exercised a real degree of self control with respect
Speaker 3: to Russia that he doesn't show with anything else. And
Speaker 3: so there's always been a concern out there that he
Speaker 3: must have some sort of special relationships. Some people say
Speaker 3: that he's a Russian agent. I've actually written about that.
Speaker 3: Adam's actually written about that. So we're going to talk
Speaker 3: to some folks today get a little bit better sense.
Speaker 5: Of that idea.
Speaker 6: Yeah, is this a suspicion or is this a conspiracy theory?
Speaker 6: His National security advisor JR. McMasters famously wrote in his
Speaker 6: book recently that, like he said, they've got something on Trump,
Speaker 6: the Russians. I just don't know what it is.
Speaker 7: We talk all the time about ow erratic Trump can
Speaker 7: be how crazy he can seem, but then there are
Speaker 7: these moments of control where clearly he knows what the
Speaker 7: lines are and he can't deviate from them. And it's
Speaker 7: not any of the lines we see in art. Don't
Speaker 7: send a mob to attack the Capitol. I mean, even
Speaker 7: just read the teleprompter, do the messaging that won't alienate
Speaker 7: every woman in America, and he can't do it. He
Speaker 7: literally seems incapable. But it is fascinating how there is
Speaker 7: this one area where he has shown incredible message discipline.
Speaker 7: And it's hard not to notice that we're not wild
Speaker 7: conspiracy theorists. Professionally, that's not our thing, So we're not
Speaker 7: going to come to any conclusions we don't have evidence for.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I try to be really careful about this because
Speaker 3: having served in Russia and worked against Russian intelligence for
Speaker 3: the better part of my career, I never talked to
Speaker 3: journalists at all, and I never was public at all.
Speaker 3: But it was when this popped up that's so called
Speaker 3: Steele Dusty in twenty sixteen is the first time I
Speaker 3: ever went on TV and then I started to write
Speaker 3: about it, and so I try to be really careful
Speaker 3: about it. If there's people who would know better than
Speaker 3: I do. For example, when FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe
Speaker 3: was asked if President Trump might be an asset of
Speaker 3: Russian intelligence, he actually answered, I think it's possible, which
Speaker 3: is crazy.
Speaker 6: There's no smoking gun, we have no proof, But I
Speaker 6: think we can explore what the suspicions are or what
Speaker 6: the concerns are, and as counterintelligence officers, I think we
Speaker 6: can take a hard look at this from a counter
Speaker 6: intelligence point of view as opposed to a law enforcement
Speaker 6: you know, beyond a reasonable doubt optic.
Speaker 7: The thing that I think a lot of people don't
Speaker 7: realize is generally, especially Department of Defense, a Department of Justice,
Speaker 7: but also almost any prosecutor, they really want a case
Speaker 7: with close to one hundred percent chance of successful prosecution.
Speaker 7: They are not taking an eighty percent chance of prosecution case.
Speaker 7: Certainly not a sixty percent chance of prosecution case. But
Speaker 7: in our day to day life, if there's an eighty
Speaker 7: percent chance your spouse is cheating on you, or a
Speaker 7: sixty percent chance that your business partner just embezzled all
Speaker 7: the money, you're not going to be like, well, I'm
Speaker 7: not doing anything about it until I get one hundred percent.
Speaker 7: And that's what I understand is you guys in the
Speaker 7: spy game, you live in a world of sixty percent
Speaker 7: or sometimes thirty percent or twenty percent, and.
Speaker 3: The chance of knowing the one hundred percent is almost
Speaker 3: impossible because it's locked up in a safe in Lublanca somewhere,
Speaker 3: And so the chance you're ever going to get that thing,
Speaker 3: you have to make informed guesses, look at patterns, because,
Speaker 3: like you said, if some things could be potentially more
Speaker 3: damaging than finding one hundred percent answer, And.
Speaker 6: It's about consequences. So if there's only a five percent
Speaker 6: chance that someone is a counterintelligence threat, so five percent
Speaker 6: chance that this person is or could be working with
Speaker 6: a foreign power, you still wouldn't put them in like
Speaker 6: the CIA's Secret of Secrets. So you know, you talk
Speaker 6: about sixty percent or eighty percent when it comes to
Speaker 6: counter intelligence issues, it's more than just a preponderance of evidence.
Speaker 7: Are we giving this guy a security clearance?
Speaker 6: Which that for me would be the bottom line.
Speaker 7: Yeah, because when you're giving someone a security clearance, if
Speaker 7: there's a four percent chance or certainly a twenty percent
Speaker 7: chance that person is a Russian agent, you're not going
Speaker 7: to say, ah, it's fine, right, if.
Speaker 6: You needed a quart of milk, the store is a
Speaker 6: mile away. And I tell you there's a one in
Speaker 6: one hundred chance your car is going to blow up.
Speaker 6: Are you going to take a bicycle or your car?
Speaker 6: What if it's one in a thousand, What if it's
Speaker 6: one in a million?
Speaker 3: To turn it away to a little bit differently, some
Speaker 3: people have looked at Donald Trump's business practices, in fact Adam's,
Speaker 3: and it's interesting because Russia really is you could argue
Speaker 3: call it a blackmail state. It's a corrupt place, it's
Speaker 3: a gangster's way of governance, and Russians call it the systema.
Speaker 3: There's very few real legal systems in Russia that can't
Speaker 3: be overthrown by the leadership. And instead, it's like this
Speaker 3: power network where everyone's looking for leverage it via in
Speaker 3: committing information on everyone else, and your goal is to
Speaker 3: collect material so you can destroy your rivals, but you
Speaker 3: never actually know what anybody else has, and so it's
Speaker 3: sort of like this mutual assured destruction. And that's how
Speaker 3: the system works over there, and frankly, that's how Donald
Speaker 3: Trump has done business for his career. So there's an
Speaker 3: interesting parallel between sort of the Russian system and his system,
Speaker 3: and that plays into this too.
Speaker 7: So this was exactly what I was trying to figure out.
Speaker 7: Here's what I wrote in The New Yorker a few
Speaker 7: years ago in SYSTEMA, the former Soviet Union system of compromot.
Speaker 7: When faced with uncertainty, every member knows that the best
Speaker 7: move is to maintain whatever alliances you have and to
Speaker 7: avoid grand steps that could antagonize powerful figures. Trump has
Speaker 7: made a lot of money doing deals with business people
Speaker 7: from the former Soviet Union, and at least some of
Speaker 7: these deals bear many of the warning signs of money
Speaker 7: laundering and other financial crimes. Deals in Toronto, Panama, New York,
Speaker 7: and Miami involved money from sources in the former Soviet
Speaker 7: Union who hid their identities through shell companies and exhibited
Speaker 7: other indications of money laundering. The scenario that to my mind,
Speaker 7: makes the most sense of the given facts and requires
Speaker 7: the fewest fantastical leaps, is that fifteen years or so ago, Trump, naive,
Speaker 7: covetous and struggling for cash, may have laundered money for
Speaker 7: a business partner from the former Soviet Union or engaged
Speaker 7: in some other financial crime. This placed him unawares squarely
Speaker 7: within the compromont system of the former Soviet Union, where
Speaker 7: he remained conducting business with other members of a handful
Speaker 7: of overlapping Central Asian networks. Had he never sought the presidency,
Speaker 7: he may never have had to come to terms with
Speaker 7: these decisions. But now he is much like everyone else
Speaker 7: in the former Soviet Union system. He fears there is
Speaker 7: compromant out there, maybe a lot of it, but he
Speaker 7: doesn't know precisely what it is, who has it, or
Speaker 7: what might set them off.
Speaker 8: It's really degrees and you know, we would mule you
Speaker 8: out for counterintelligence reasons if people have leverage over you,
Speaker 8: to include like family things right that you have no
Speaker 8: control over. If your wife's family lives in a country
Speaker 8: that might try to blackmail her cousin, we probably wouldn't
Speaker 8: take you where. And even though you're just firing.
Speaker 3: Or if you had convictions, you wouldn't get work to
Speaker 3: have convictions.
Speaker 8: So it's about leverage and not is he a spy
Speaker 8: or is any It's not a binary black and white sink, which.
Speaker 5: Brings us to our first guest.
Speaker 3: So today we have Philip Arswald. He's an economist, author
Speaker 3: and professor at George Mason shar School of Policy and Government.
Speaker 3: We wish to speak with him about his article published
Speaker 3: in The Hill entitled Trump's NATO hostility and Russia Relations
Speaker 3: trace back to nineteen eighty seven, Philip, since so many
Speaker 3: people believe Trump's ties to Russia are a hoax or
Speaker 3: a liberal conspiracy, can you give us a short overview
Speaker 3: of the article.
Speaker 9: I really look at it as just starting back at
Speaker 9: the really the beginning of the story of Donald Trump's
Speaker 9: relationships with at that time Soviets, but also just the
Speaker 9: beginning of his political career. And it's a fair question
Speaker 9: to ask when did his political career start? So it
Speaker 9: turns out that question has a very clear answer. And
Speaker 9: the date that Donald Trump's political career begins is September second,
Speaker 9: nineteen eighty seven. What happens on that date two things. One,
Speaker 9: Donald Trump takes out full page ads in the New
Speaker 9: York Times, the Washington Post, and the Boston Globe at
Speaker 9: a cost of roughly one hundred thousand dollars then two
Speaker 9: hundred and fifty thousand dollars in today's terms, at a
Speaker 9: time when his business mentors are starting to lose money.
Speaker 9: What does the ad say? The ad says literally the
Speaker 9: headline there's nothing wrong with America's foreign defense policy that
Speaker 9: a little backbone can cure, and the subtitle is an
Speaker 9: open letter from Donald Trump on why America should stop
Speaker 9: paying to defend countries that can afford to defend themselves.
Speaker 9: So what's the theme? We're being taken for suckers. Our
Speaker 9: allies are the problem, not our enemies. They're not paying
Speaker 9: for are their own defents, and if they're not going
Speaker 9: to do that, we shouldn't pay for them. Obviously, this
Speaker 9: is a familiar theme. The other thing that happens is
Speaker 9: that Donald Trump appears on Larry King Live. And the
Speaker 9: very first question that Larry King asked him is Donald,
Speaker 9: are you a Republican?
Speaker 10: Are you a Republican?
Speaker 1: Donald, I'm a Republican.
Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 10: So if there were politics, it would be as a Republican.
Speaker 1: It would be I guess as a Republican. But I
Speaker 1: don't see that there will be pro politics.
Speaker 10: Why they add then, why now?
Speaker 1: Well, it was very easy. I was tired, and I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people are tired of watching other
Speaker 1: countries ripping off the United States. This is a great country.
Speaker 1: They laugh at us behind our backs, they laugh at
Speaker 1: us because of our own stupidity and the leaders.
Speaker 6: I mean, what we have.
Speaker 1: We have a Persian golf situation. You saw what happened today.
Speaker 1: Billions and billions of dollars of being spent when getting
Speaker 1: oil for Japan, and they're not paying anything for it. Essentially,
Speaker 1: they're paying nothing for it. We have tankers going back
Speaker 1: and forth that our men are protecting, losing their lives.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're losing their lives, Larry. We're spending billions
Speaker 1: and billions of protection and those tankers are going over
Speaker 1: to Japan. It's just preposterous. I watched the Kuwaiti oil
Speaker 1: minister the other day laughing as he was explaining how
Speaker 1: much money they intend to make with the Bridgeton, which
Speaker 1: has been a total disaster the Bridgeton, and I said
Speaker 1: to myself, isn't that a shame? He's talking about how
Speaker 1: much money they're going to make and here we are,
Speaker 1: he's smiling and laughing. Why don't we get some of it?
Speaker 1: Why is it that we're protecting? We have frogmen, we
Speaker 1: have helicopters, we have aircraft carriers and all sorts of
Speaker 1: ships all over the Persian Gulf, so that this man
Speaker 1: and his little group can make a lot of money.
Speaker 1: I think it's ridiculous. Japan is one of the wealthiest
Speaker 1: machines ever created. They're laughing to themselves, Larry, as to
Speaker 1: what's happening in this country.
Speaker 10: Are we going to be hearing more from mister Trump
Speaker 10: on issues like this as we go along?
Speaker 1: I really don't know, Larry. This is an issue that's
Speaker 1: been bothering me. It's been bothering a lot of people
Speaker 1: that I know, the concept of America financing and paying
Speaker 1: and losing lives for countries that won't even allow us
Speaker 1: to use their ships. And these are the countries that
Speaker 1: in twenty four hours they'd be wiped off the face
Speaker 1: of the earth if it weren't for America. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 9: And then they talk about an invitation that he has
Speaker 9: received to speak in New Hampshire in October at the
Speaker 9: start of primary season.
Speaker 10: Is it true that you're going to go to New
Speaker 10: Hampshire in October at the invitation of Mike Dunbar, who's
Speaker 10: heading a group called Draft Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Well, I was asked about three or four weeks ago
Speaker 1: whether or not by a very good friend of mine,
Speaker 1: whether or not I'd go to New Hampshire. That's turned
Speaker 1: out to be now a much bigger deal than I
Speaker 1: had ever anticipated. And perhaps I don't know I am going.
Speaker 1: I've made the commitment to go. I made the commitment
Speaker 1: about three weeks ago, and I will go.
Speaker 10: Yes, you will go, even though you realize now in
Speaker 10: just setting foot in that state, people are going to
Speaker 10: presume things.
Speaker 1: Well, they can presume whatever they want. I have no
Speaker 1: intention of running for president, but I'd like the point
Speaker 1: to get across that we have a great country, but
Speaker 1: it's not going to be great for long. If we're
Speaker 1: going to continue to lose two hundred billion dollars a year,
Speaker 1: you're going to get into the early nineties, nineteen ninety,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one, and the whole thing's gonna blow because
Speaker 1: this country cannot continue to support Japan and Saudi Arabia
Speaker 1: and Kuwait and many other countries that are much wealthier
Speaker 1: than we are. We're not a wealthy country. You can't
Speaker 1: be a wealthy country when you're losing the kind of
Speaker 1: money that we'll lose. It's going to be so bad
Speaker 1: that people will never I really believe this could be
Speaker 1: much much worse, unfortunately than recession. This could be the
Speaker 1: step beyond. I hate to use the word depression, but
Speaker 1: if we don't solve the two hundred billion a year loss,
Speaker 1: which is exactly what we have, this country is going
Speaker 1: to have some very very serious problem in the early
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties.
Speaker 10: One other thing, could the next presidency be a one
Speaker 10: term presidency? Because of that?
Speaker 1: I think the next president of the United States could
Speaker 1: have some very, very very serious problems. It's going to
Speaker 1: be I think a very difficult It's going to be
Speaker 1: a very difficult presidency because of the problems that we're
Speaker 1: talking about right now.
Speaker 10: And you don't want it to be Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: I do not want it to be Donald Trump, but
Speaker 1: I do want the problem to be solve.
Speaker 9: Larry So before that in the eighties, I would say
Speaker 9: eighty four eighty five, he's interviewed. People say you should
Speaker 9: be a politician. He says, yeah, no, that does really
Speaker 9: interest me. September second, nineteen eighty seven is his coming
Speaker 9: out day. It's an orchestrated coming out day and he
Speaker 9: uses exactly the same language now that he did that.
Speaker 3: We'll be back in just a moment.
Speaker 5: Let's get back into it.
Speaker 3: But also I think you mentioned that it's tied to Russia.
Speaker 3: He had just this is just following a number of
Speaker 3: trips to Russia, among other things.
Speaker 9: So go back two months, A couple of other things happen.
Speaker 9: One is that he travels to Moscow at the invitation
Speaker 9: of in tourists. It is the official Soviet travel agency,
Speaker 9: and it's in an operational arm of the KGB, and
Speaker 9: that's not in dispute. That's just what it was. So essentially,
Speaker 9: at the invitation of de facto the KGB, he traveled
Speaker 9: to Moscow. But in nineteen ninety, when he's interviewed by Playboy,
Speaker 9: he actually describes this trip.
Speaker 3: Here's our friend comedian Rob Cordory reading some excerpts from
Speaker 3: Donald Trump's interview with Playboy magazine in nineteen ninety.
Speaker 11: There, I am up in my plane when my pilot
Speaker 11: announces we are now flying over the Soviet Union, and
Speaker 11: I'm thinking to myself, what the hell am I doing here?
Speaker 11: Then I look out the window I see two Russian
Speaker 11: fighter planes. I later found out guiding us in. I
Speaker 11: had insisted on having two Russian colonels flying with me.
Speaker 11: I felt safer. I told them, guys, we have a
Speaker 11: basic problem far as real estate is concerned. It's impossible
Speaker 11: to get title to Russian land since the government owns
Speaker 11: it all. What kind of financing are you going to
Speaker 11: get on a building with a land is owned by
Speaker 11: the goddamn motherland. They said, no problem, mister Trump, we
Speaker 11: will work out Lise agreements. I said, I want ownership,
Speaker 11: not Lesa's. They came up with a solution, mister Trump.
Speaker 11: We form a committee with ten people, of which seven
Speaker 11: are Russian and three are your representatives, and all disputes
Speaker 11: will be resolved in this manner. I thought to myself, shit,
Speaker 11: seven to three are we dealing in the world of
Speaker 11: the make believe?
Speaker 12: Here?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 9: Surprisingly, because there has been quite a bit written about
Speaker 9: this trip. Zero people have reported that he registered as
Speaker 9: a Republican three days before taking the trip, And so
Speaker 9: when you look at the content of that ad, it
Speaker 9: is an ad whose message is that US allies and
Speaker 9: alliances are not to be trusted. The intention is to
Speaker 9: undermine the confidence of the American people in our allies
Speaker 9: and alliances, and that becomes the focal point because comes NATO.
Speaker 3: So I think it's fair to say, because there's some
Speaker 3: other authors have looked into this a little bit. Craig
Speaker 3: Unger is one. There's a number They've written number of
Speaker 3: books about Donald Trump's interest in Russia and how his
Speaker 3: talking points seem to change around this time, but they
Speaker 3: do seem to be Russian talking points. You talked about
Speaker 3: the nineteen ninety interview and Playboy. One of the things
Speaker 3: he's doing in that interview is he's suggesting that the
Speaker 3: hardliners and Soviet Union. You know, Gorbachev is not being
Speaker 3: tough enough. Trump is supporting the hardliners. The fact that
Speaker 3: these ideas are really out of the mainstream of American policy.
Speaker 3: That the odd notion that Gorbachev's not being tough enough
Speaker 3: and he should keep country together. From a real estate builder,
Speaker 3: it just seemed very odd.
Speaker 11: Russia is out of control and the leadership knows it.
Speaker 11: That's my problem with Gorbachev not a firm enough hand.
Speaker 11: When the students poured into Tianamen Square, the Chinese government
Speaker 11: almost blew it. Then they were vicious, they were horrible.
Speaker 11: If they put it down with strength, that shows you
Speaker 11: the power of strength. Our country is right now perceived
Speaker 11: as weak as being spit on by the rest of
Speaker 11: the world. Generally, these guys are much tougher and smarter
Speaker 11: than our representatives. We have people in this country just
Speaker 11: as smart, but unfortunately they're not elected officials. We're still
Speaker 11: suffering from a loss of respect that goes back to
Speaker 11: the Carter administration when helicopters were crashing into one another
Speaker 11: and Iran. Some of our presidents have been incredible jerk offs.
Speaker 11: We need to be tough. I don't want the presidency.
Speaker 11: I'm going to help a lot of people with my foundation,
Speaker 11: and for me, the grass isn't always greener.
Speaker 9: Okay, So first of all, where's the conspiracy. What's implausible?
Speaker 9: You guys are Mission Applausbus.
Speaker 5: What's impossible.
Speaker 9: What's going to be implausible is the hotel deal. That's implausible.
Speaker 9: It's a pretext. That's my assertion that the hotel deal
Speaker 9: was a pretext, and furthermore that it was there was
Speaker 9: a pretext agreed upon prior to his trip. I don't
Speaker 9: believe this story about the hotel. I don't believe it.
Speaker 9: There are three intervals of Trump talking about Soviets in
Speaker 9: the nineteen eighties. In the first interval, nineteen eighty four
Speaker 9: eighty five, Trump is obsessed with negotiating a nuclear arms
Speaker 9: deal with the Soviets. Where does he get this idea?
Speaker 9: He gets this idea apparently from his uncle, really based
Speaker 9: from his childhood. After November nineteen eighty five, he never
Speaker 9: talks about that again. Never he's on Letterman.
Speaker 2: You know, at the beginning of the show, I said
Speaker 2: you either love him or you hate him. Now do
Speaker 2: you find that that's true? Or does everybody love you
Speaker 2: or does everybody hate you?
Speaker 1: Now? Most people love me and a few really have
Speaker 1: great dis stays to him.
Speaker 5: Huh.
Speaker 2: And why is it those people that few would not
Speaker 2: care for you because you're so successful to.
Speaker 1: No, Oh, I don't think so. It's just I sort
Speaker 1: of speak my mind a little bit a little bit
Speaker 1: like you in that respect, a little bit like.
Speaker 2: A little bit like me, not too much, hopefully. And
Speaker 2: what about the are people trying to draft you to
Speaker 2: run for a president up in New Hampshire?
Speaker 1: Well, I guess a lot of people want to see
Speaker 1: this country. Yeah, it's it's a shame what's happening. Japan,
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, They're all everybody's taken advantage of the
Speaker 1: United States. People know that if certain people are running
Speaker 1: a country, that it won't happen. I mean when you
Speaker 1: look at Japan not paying for the defense. We're defending Japan.
Speaker 1: We're losing billions and billions of dollars and it's a shame.
Speaker 1: And the Japanese folks, who I respect greatly, but they're
Speaker 1: they're not treating us fairly. They're really not treating us
Speaker 1: fairly Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, They're not paying us anything for
Speaker 1: the services we're rendering it. I think it's a disgrace.
Speaker 1: And I think people look at certain people and maybe
Speaker 1: me if that if I were in a position this
Speaker 1: country believed me would not be ripped off like it is,
Speaker 1: and it is just being ripped off so badly by
Speaker 1: our so called allies.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, so that that's a pretty strong statement.
Speaker 1: So now are you say it gets strong? I think
Speaker 1: it's fair. And by the way, I have tremendous respect
Speaker 1: for the Japanese I have. I do a lot of
Speaker 1: business with the Japanese, and they smile about it too.
Speaker 1: They know it. The country is losing billions and billions
Speaker 1: of dollars to Japan and we can't afford to lose
Speaker 1: and it's a shame.
Speaker 2: But so now are you saying this by way of
Speaker 2: indicating that you could do it better? And you do
Speaker 2: intend to run for president.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to run for president, but I think somebody.
Speaker 2: In eight years, if you came back, would you have
Speaker 2: a different answer in four years.
Speaker 1: I tend to doubt it. I really tend to doubt it.
Speaker 9: You ask when did Donald Trump's national political career begin.
Speaker 9: There's a single answer, September second, nineteen eighty seven. What
Speaker 9: made him do the things he did on that day?
Speaker 9: We have to think what happened before and after it.
Speaker 5: So this makes him vulnerable.
Speaker 9: It makes in vulnerable because he demands to be taken seriously.
Speaker 9: He is in a weak psychological position, because he is
Speaker 9: a fundamentally needy person from the Russian Soviet side. It's
Speaker 9: obvious that they take him seriously. They fly him in
Speaker 9: a private jet or escort his own private jet through
Speaker 9: Soviet airspace, accompanied in the cabin by two Russian colonels
Speaker 9: and actually winged by Soviet Air Force. He spends a
Speaker 9: quarter million dollars of his own money publishing an ad
Speaker 9: in Then Airtimes, Washington Post, Boston Globe that is very
Speaker 9: clearly aligned and in the service of KGB talking points.
Speaker 9: At that time, he keeps going Oprah.
Speaker 13: You took out a full page ad in major US
Speaker 13: newspapers last year criticizing US foreign policy. What would you
Speaker 13: do differently.
Speaker 1: Down I'd make our allies forgetting about the enemies, the
Speaker 1: enemies you can't talk to so easily.
Speaker 5: I'd make our allies pay their fair share.
Speaker 6: We're a debtor nation.
Speaker 1: Something's going to happen over the next number of years
Speaker 1: with this country because you can't keep going on losing
Speaker 1: two hundred billion, and yet we let Japan come in
Speaker 1: and dump everything right into our markets and everything. It's
Speaker 1: not free trade. If you ever go to Japan right
Speaker 1: now and try to sell something, forget about it. Open,
Speaker 1: just forget about it. It's almost impossible.
Speaker 9: She speaks at Lehigh University in June nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 9: a year and a half after the trip, and to
Speaker 9: these poor graduates captive there, he says, forget about our
Speaker 9: enemies Russia. We don't deal with them that much.
Speaker 1: This is a tremendous honor for me. I guess in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways. My wife is sitting right over here.
Speaker 1: She just became an American citizen. And that's Savannah. The
Speaker 1: other night of Honna and I had dinner with Abe Rosenthal,
Speaker 1: who headed and did such an incredible job at the
Speaker 1: New York Times and gay Talise the writer, and they
Speaker 1: used an expression which I thought was fantastic. It was
Speaker 1: the feeling of supremacy that this country had in the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties. It was a feeling of supremacy. It really was.
Speaker 1: I've known that since the Vietnam War and even a
Speaker 1: little bit before, this country hasn't had the feeling of supremacy.
Speaker 1: And what's happening is Japan and Saudi Arabia and Kuwait
Speaker 1: and so many countries are just ripping off American left
Speaker 1: and right and down the middle like nobody. I mean,
Speaker 1: not our enemies. Forget about our enemies Russia. We don't
Speaker 1: deal with them that much, et cetera, et cetera. These countries,
Speaker 1: our friends, are making billions and billions of dollars and
Speaker 1: stripping us of our dignity, our economic dignity. We're a
Speaker 1: deator nation, we're a poor nation. And it's ridiculous what's happening.
Speaker 3: And we'll be right back, and we're back.
Speaker 4: But what we haven't discussed here is a whole nother
Speaker 4: big part of this is the character of the Russian
Speaker 4: security services.
Speaker 5: So there's a.
Speaker 4: Guy by the name of Armond Hammer. If people older
Speaker 4: people might remember Armand Hammer. He was an industrialist in
Speaker 4: the nineteen sixties occidental oil. He was the Donald Trump
Speaker 4: of the nineteen fifties and sixties, and he was the
Speaker 4: one guy who could deal with the Soviet Union right.
Speaker 4: And he was a philanthropist and loved by many administrations.
Speaker 4: And it didn't come out until twenty or thirty years
Speaker 4: afterwards that he was very likely, almost certainly a spy
Speaker 4: for the Russians. Spy meaning he was an agent of
Speaker 4: Russian of Soviet interests, and he was dealing with the
Speaker 4: Russians in a way that he was keeping secret from
Speaker 4: the US and that was benefiting the Russians. There was
Speaker 4: a quid pro quo there, and so the Russians that's
Speaker 4: the way they operate.
Speaker 3: And Philip said it, well, is the fact that they're
Speaker 3: going to pay attention to them and they're going to
Speaker 3: give them what he thinks he needs to try to
Speaker 3: develop relationship with him. And we've all learned about Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: It's attention and saying nice things about him. In one
Speaker 3: of the books, Uri Schwetz is a KGB officer who
Speaker 3: defected to the United States. He's head of Trump quote.
Speaker 3: This guy is not a complicated cookie as most important
Speaker 3: characteristics being low intellect coupled with hyperinflated vanity. This combination
Speaker 3: makes him a dream for an experienced recruiter.
Speaker 9: Now, since you brought up Armenhammer, I will note one
Speaker 9: thing because fit in the timeline, Trump serves on a
Speaker 9: Reagan appointed panel with Armenhammer eighty forty five, and he
Speaker 9: goes to a gala event hosted by Armenhammer in November
Speaker 9: nineteen eighty five, exactly the time that I'm talking about.
Speaker 9: Armenhammer builds a one hundred and fifty million dollar luxury
Speaker 9: hotel and conference center in Moscow that opens, I believe
Speaker 9: in nineteen eighty Philip.
Speaker 4: Let's go forward to twenty fifteen, just for a second.
Speaker 4: Donald Trump is now running for president. Yeah, he says
Speaker 4: I have no business interests, and he says this over
Speaker 4: and over in different ways. I have no business interests
Speaker 4: in Russia. And so back to the hotel. It turns
Speaker 4: out afterwards that on twenty eight October twenty fifteen, he
Speaker 4: signed a non binding letter of intent to build Trump
Speaker 4: Tower Moscow. The Russians know he's lying to the American people.
Speaker 5: Trump knows.
Speaker 4: The only people who don't is the American people. That's compromat, right,
Speaker 4: So his relationship with the Russians is fairly deep.
Speaker 3: If you are lying to the American people about something
Speaker 3: and the Russians know you're a lying to the American
Speaker 3: people about that gives them not copra, but some sort
Speaker 3: of leverage. And also you have this long history behind him. Yes,
Speaker 3: he can feel like he's totally one of the boys.
Speaker 3: We're intelligence officers. We try to recruit people. We use
Speaker 3: whatever it takes. It might be, you know, finding out
Speaker 3: whether you're upset with your boss. It might be that
Speaker 3: you need something for your kid. It might need that
Speaker 3: you need medical help, but it might be you just
Speaker 3: want ego boost.
Speaker 4: The conspiracy theory version of this is that he is
Speaker 4: an agent, a source, a paid source of the of
Speaker 4: the Russians, right, that they're the puppet master.
Speaker 3: It doesn't never be paid.
Speaker 4: But what I think is it's clear to me as
Speaker 4: an intelligence officer, is that he has a relationship with
Speaker 4: the Russians that he's not sharing with the American people.
Speaker 9: So I agree with you, he lies, but I don't
Speaker 9: care that he lies. In twenty fifteen, because he's been
Speaker 9: lying for until twenty eight years by then.
Speaker 3: Right with what you're saying, is this stuff happened a
Speaker 3: long time ago. It wasn't like we need to look
Speaker 3: at twenty fifteen or what happened then to think that
Speaker 3: he could be compromised. He was compromised thirty years before.
Speaker 5: I think we're on board with that. Yeah, as a possibility.
Speaker 9: Sure, let me let's read a line from the Playboy interview.
Speaker 14: Here's Rob Kudry again, reading from the Playboy interview with
Speaker 14: Donald Trump from March first, nineteen ninety.
Speaker 11: Playboy, Why is Gorbachev not firm enough? I predict he'll
Speaker 11: be overthrown because he's shown extraordinary weakness suddenly for the
Speaker 11: first time ever. There are coal miner strikes and brush
Speaker 11: fires everywhere, which will ultimately lead to.
Speaker 5: A violent revolution.
Speaker 11: Yet Gorbachev is getting credit for being a wonderful leader,
Speaker 11: and we should continue to give him credit because he's
Speaker 11: destroying the Soviet Union. But his giving an inch is
Speaker 11: going to end up costing him and all his friends
Speaker 11: what they.
Speaker 1: Most cherish their jobs.
Speaker 9: At that time, Gorbachev's position was still fairly strong. This
Speaker 9: was extremely ahead of the curve assertion by Trump that
Speaker 9: Gorbachev was going to be overthrown, and sure enough VLADIMIRU Kushkoff,
Speaker 9: who's the head of the KGB. Khrushkoff is one of
Speaker 9: the organizers of the coup that happens eighteen months after
Speaker 9: this interview, the failed coup. And this is not the
Speaker 9: only time he does this. He also predicts that Yeltsin
Speaker 9: will be ousted, and he does this during his Reform
Speaker 9: Party run also on Larry King Live, and the same
Speaker 9: thing happens in twenty ten, twenty eleven, except then his
Speaker 9: coming out as a SEAPAC conference, and every single time
Speaker 9: when you'd listen to this Larry King Live interview in
Speaker 9: nineteen ninety nine, every single time he returns to the
Speaker 9: same themes. Our allies are ripping us off, We're being
Speaker 9: played for suckers. The world is laughing at us. We
Speaker 9: can't trust NATO. Every single time he reappears as a
Speaker 9: political figure.
Speaker 1: But there are many the countries and taking tremendous advantage
Speaker 1: of this, including NATO. If you look at the payments
Speaker 1: that we're making to NATO, they're totally disproportioned with everybody
Speaker 1: else's and it's ridiculous. We don't have any money. We're
Speaker 1: going this country is busted, and it's busted because we're
Speaker 1: doing things that we shouldn't be doing.
Speaker 9: There's only one thing that Donald Trump has done consistently
Speaker 9: for the last thirty seven years. He's had different wives,
Speaker 9: he's had different business interests. He was on TV really
Speaker 9: after Trump Tower. He never builds anything of significant. The
Speaker 9: only thing that is consistent is his viewpoint on United
Speaker 9: States allies and alliances and the fact that this is
Speaker 9: a failing country. American Carnage, Central Park five. There's two
Speaker 9: things that KGB active measures were intended to do in
Speaker 9: the United States and Western Europe. Undermine confidence in the
Speaker 9: institutions of Western democracy, undermine support for our defensive alliances,
Speaker 9: in particular NATO.
Speaker 3: You're saying that the relationship with the Russians, and it
Speaker 3: started as the Soviets, has been consistent, and he's been
Speaker 3: in some fashion aligned with them, whether he's fed talking
Speaker 3: points or whatever it is. And the things we've seen
Speaker 3: lately that are troubling and people have called compromund and
Speaker 3: other things are simply a means of deflecting and trying
Speaker 3: to and denying and trying to protect that relationship.
Speaker 4: There's also that the relationship that the Muller Report touches on,
Speaker 4: it doesn't touch on. It goes like over two hundred
Speaker 4: pages into is not just a relationship between Donald Trump,
Speaker 4: but also the relationship between Trump World. Right, let me
Speaker 4: cite the Mola report says it does not establish a conspiracy,
Speaker 4: but that does not mean there is no evidence of
Speaker 4: this fact.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 4: It makes it very clear that Jared Kushner don junior
Speaker 4: man of Fort all met with Russians, not just Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: And the reason this wasn't criminal, at least as far
Speaker 4: as the Muller Report goes, was they couldn't prove that
Speaker 4: they were witting, that they understood that they were involved
Speaker 4: in a criminal conspiracy. They couldn't stablish motive.
Speaker 9: The only thing that's consistent in Donald Trump's life is
Speaker 9: his articulation of almost the same talking points verbatim about NATO.
Speaker 3: And also, if it didn't come from this relationship and
Speaker 3: his travels of Russia, where did it come from? Why
Speaker 3: would a builder in New York be obsessed with NATO
Speaker 3: and what they're paying? Thank you so much, Philip, Thank
Speaker 3: you very much, Philip.
Speaker 9: Thank you guys.
Speaker 13: This sounds like political presidential talk. To me, And I
Speaker 13: know people have talked to you about whether or not
Speaker 13: you want to run.
Speaker 5: Would you ever?
Speaker 1: Probably not, But I do get tired of seeing the
Speaker 1: country report.
Speaker 13: Why would you not?
Speaker 1: I just don't think I really have the inclination to
Speaker 1: do it.
Speaker 5: I love what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: I really like it also doesn't pay as well, but
Speaker 1: you know, I just.
Speaker 6: Probably wouldn't do it.
Speaker 1: I probably wouldn't, but I do get tired of seeing
Speaker 1: what's happening with this country, and if it got so bad,
Speaker 1: I would never want to rule it out totally because
Speaker 1: I really am tired of seeing what's happening with this country,
Speaker 1: how we're really making other people live like kings.
Speaker 5: And we're not to continue our analysis. We're going to
Speaker 5: talk again with our old friend Peter Struck.
Speaker 3: He's a former deputy Assistant director of the FBI's Conrad
Speaker 3: Intelligence Division, and he led the investigation into the Russian
Speaker 3: interference in the twenty sixteen the United States elections, as
Speaker 3: well as the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a
Speaker 3: personal email server. He's now an author, writer, speaker, and
Speaker 3: podcaster who hosts the popular podcast clean Up on Aisle
Speaker 3: forty five, and he's a good friend of ours.
Speaker 12: Welcome, Peter, Hey, John, Hey, Jerry. Great to be ready, Peter.
Speaker 3: I'll get right into it. I was one of our
Speaker 3: recent guests believes there is evidence that Donald Trump engage
Speaker 3: in a relationship with Russian intelligence in the nineteen eighties
Speaker 3: and since the nineteen eighties. He bases it on the
Speaker 3: timing of his trips to Russia and Trump's subsequent actions
Speaker 3: at the time. Can you explain what this would mean
Speaker 3: to professional investigators, if anything. Are there circumstances where an
Speaker 3: individual would be investigated on these kind of issues and
Speaker 3: what would it take for that kind of investigation to start?
Speaker 12: Yeah, Well, should answer is I think that's probably a reach. Look,
Speaker 12: what's important to remember is, you know, the FBI is
Speaker 12: both it's interesting and unique in some ways, and that
Speaker 12: it's both a member of the US intelligence community. At
Speaker 12: the same time, it's a criminal law enforcement entity and
Speaker 12: conducts investigations into violations of law. But what's interesting for
Speaker 12: the FBI at least, and part of what I found
Speaker 12: so fascinating working there, is it's also an intelligence organization.
Speaker 12: Right it is the lead counterintelligence agency in the United States.
Speaker 12: And what that means for your listeners is far beyond
Speaker 12: just looking at an allegation of a violation of crime.
Speaker 12: It's also charged with responding to all these nations around
Speaker 12: the world that are doing intelligence activities within the United States.
Speaker 12: And so when it comes to Russia, it's the FBI's
Speaker 12: job to respond to that. And so when the government
Speaker 12: of Russia, when Vladimir Putin, when the presidential authority says
Speaker 12: we need or want to do these things, they will
Speaker 12: leverage and call on all their intell agencies when they
Speaker 12: come to operate in the United States. The FBI tries,
Speaker 12: working with the rest of the intelligence community, tries to
Speaker 12: understand what they're doing and prevent that make it harder
Speaker 12: for them to do that. And if we're good at it,
Speaker 12: manipulate that it is not at all surprising. Indeed, the
Speaker 12: Russians would be negligent to not go out and try
Speaker 12: and look at and understand as much as they could
Speaker 12: movers and shakers in America. And so would it surprise
Speaker 12: me at all if Donald Trump is a businessman in
Speaker 12: the seventies and the eighties travel to Moscow or had
Speaker 12: Soviet than Russian businessmen or private citizens coming in and
Speaker 12: wanting to invest in his real estate or casinos there
Speaker 12: anywhere else. Wouldn't surprise me at all. Would the Russians
Speaker 12: try and look at that information that they obtained to say, Hey,
Speaker 12: who is this person? How can we leverage him now
Speaker 12: or even ten, twenty thirty years in the future, because
Speaker 12: they as well, or if not better than the US.
Speaker 12: We'll play the long game, right because maybe in ten
Speaker 12: years that person is suddenly a prominent real estate mogul.
Speaker 12: Maybe in twenty years that person's president of the United States.
Speaker 14: We're gonna stop here for today. There's a lot to
Speaker 14: cover on this subject. So this is a two parter.
Speaker 14: We'll pick this up on the next episode of Mission Implausible.
Speaker 15: Mission Implausible is produced by Adam Davidson, Jerry O'Shea, John Cipher,
Speaker 15: and Jonathan Stern. The associate producer is Rachel Harner. Mission
Speaker 15: Implausible is a production of honorable mention and abominable pictures
Speaker 15: for iHeart Podcasts.