Dirty Money (2018–…): Season 1, Episode 6 - The Confidence Man - full transcript

[Zack Arnson-Serotta] Here begins tape one

in the videotape deposition
of Donald J. Trump

in the Superior Court
of the District of Columbia.

Case number...

[Fisher Stevens] Do you think Donald Trump
is really a good businessman?

Donald Trump, in the scope
of American business life,

really shouldn't be understood
as someone in the tradition

of John Rockefeller,
Steve Jobs, or Henry Ford.

He's P.T. Barnum.

[Rebecca Woods] How would you describe
the Trump brand?

[clicks tongue] A luxury brand.



I think it's a brand
where people know we get things done.

It's a very successful brand.

And it does well.

He's someone who is a showman,

and a self-promoter,
and an adept marketer.

[Woods] Is it fair to say
you are the person

largely responsible
for building that brand?

Yeah.

[Woods] And is it fair to say
that you are the individual

mostly associated with that brand?

[Alan Garten] Objection.

One of the great magic tricks
he's pulled on the American public

is that he's become fixated in their mind
as a great deal maker

and a great business operator.



That's certainly, I think, the person

the American electorate thought
they were voting into power.

I obviously have credibility

because I now, as it turns out,
became the Republican nominee.

People have said there's never been
anything like this.

And I think the question
looming over his presidency is:

at what point do the American people
utterly lose confidence in him?

[theme music playing]

[indistinct chatter]

[Stevens] Did you think Trump
would be president?

No.

Well, we did it.

[chuckling] It's unfathomable
that he's elected president.

[chanting] USA! USA!

I fucking loved it.

My wife took the kids out.
She knew I'd be an animal.

And I was. I cried.

President Trump! President Trump!

[Barbara Res] I said, "This is ridiculous.
He doesn't want to be president."

He never had to answer to anyone
in his life, except maybe his father.

Know what I'm saying?

I've spent my entire life in business.

That is now what I wanna do
for our country.

[crowd cheers]

Honestly, I feel like we are all now
living in a Simpsons episode.

I didn't dislike him at all. In fact,
I like Donald very much. We had fun.

They said, "He's running for president."
I said, [scoffs]

"Kim Kardashian
would be a better president."

Fourteen years ago,
we shot The Apprentice,

and now we're in that same war room,

watching results come back
from a presidential election.

I think a lot of people
who watched the show

believed in Donald Trump
that we were presenting, this character.

He's managed businesses,
and I think he can manage this country.

I think we all sort of rose up and said,
"Now, wait a minute.

People, that was a scam.
That was in entertainment."

He's somebody who has run
a multi-billion dollar empire

that he's built from the ground up.

No matter whether you love Donald Trump
or hate him,

the brand is powerful.

This country is hurt financially
and needs some really good help,

and Donald's the one to do it.

[sighs] I tried to warn the people.

I lost money, so, hey,
he's not gonna do it to me.

He pays his own bills.
He makes his own money.

And everything he puts his hands on
turns great.

He profits off his name
to the detriment of the public.

I think he'll create some jobs,
I really do, you know.

I was very scared
when he became president.

Everything I knew about his business past
told me this is an impulsive person,

historically bad
at judging risk and reward.

From this day forward,

a new vision will govern our land.

[Jack O'Donnell] It was shocking to me
that there were so many people

that bought into this shtick, so to speak.

The constant con.

We will make America strong again.

I liked the word "confidence."

I hate that it's shortened down to "con."

He didn't con you.

We will make America wealthy again.

-[Stevens] But he lies all the time.
-Sure, we all do.

It's not my dog. [laughing]

And, yes,
we will make America great again.

[crowd cheering and applauding]

[Rona Barrett] You are a mover.
You are a doer.

If you could make America perfect,
how would you do it?

I think that, much like the mind,

I think that America is using
very, very little of its potential.

I feel that this country,
with the proper leadership,

can go on to become what it once was.

And I hope, and certainly hope,
that it does go on to be

what it should be.

If you'd lost your fortune today,
what would you do tomorrow?

Maybe I'd run for president.

I don't know. [chuckles]

[Res] My name is Barbara Res.

I worked with or for Donald
for many years.

Probably 18, on and off.

I was vice president
in charge of construction of Trump Tower.

I was in charge of construction
on the Plaza Hotel.

I started on the Commodore Hotel project,

which is now the Grand Hyatt, in 1978.

It was a broken-down brick building,
empty and in decay.

The neighborhood was kind of sketchy.
Not very safe, even.

A lot of people had the opportunity

to take this property
and do something with it,

and they didn't.

And Trump came along, and he did.

He negotiated an incredible tax deal.

He got Hyatt to sign on.

[Stevens] Was Trump's father
involved at all in this?

He may have been,
but I never saw him on the project.

He is a chip off the old block.

-My father, Fred.
-Right.

[O'Brien] I think Trump likes to say

that every venture he did in New York
was outside of Fred Trump's influence,

but that's not the case.

Will you tell people in the film
that this is my living room?

My name is Tim O'Brien. I'm a journalist
and an author of three different books.

So, I was at the New York Times in 2005,

when I wrote and published
a book about Trump,

TrumpNation: The Art Of Being The Donald.

I wasn't sure
whether or not he'd cooperate,

but he actually cooperated

enthusiastically and lavishly
with the book.

I think Donald has always
promoted himself publicly

as a self-made entrepreneur,

when, in fact, that's who his father was.

And I think that hangs over Donald.

The Trump family built the foundation
of their riches

on middle-class housing
in Brooklyn and Queens.

Donald definitely learned from Fred
that emblazoning the Trump family name

on a piece of property
was good for business.

Fred Trump knew how to stage events
to get attention on his properties.

He would have young women in bikinis
at some of the openings.

He would court the press
and invite them to the openings.

But Fred Trump
was authentically self-made.

And Fred ultimately passed
all that along to Donald.

Trump has claimed over the years

that he only borrowed a million dollars
from his father.

It has not been easy for me,
and I started off in Brooklyn.

My father gave me a small loan
of a million dollars.

I came into Manhattan.

And that's one of the biggest myths
he's put out there.

He inherited, conservatively, tens
of millions of dollars from his father.

[Donald Trump] I don't need
anybody's money.

I'm really rich.
I'll show you that in a second.

♪ How rich can you get? ♪

[Russell Simmons] Look, my brother
Rev Run and I, we called him Richie Rich.

♪ This young boy, Richie Rich... ♪

We'd say, "I'm going
with Richie Rich to Mar-a-Lago."

The reason we called him Richie Rich
was 'cause he was the only person we knew

that actually appeared
to be enjoying his stuff.

How did I meet Donald?
It's so many years ago. I have no idea.

Probably over 25 years ago.

He wrote the forewords
to my first two books.

As time goes by, and I'm pretty good
at judging things like this,

Russell will get bigger and bigger.

Donald Trump's always been
on a reality show.

Like, you watch him bigger than life,
playing the role.

I felt like he went to sleep
playing the role.

Donald was the image of the gold,
over-the-top stuff.

So, I get why people aspire to be
like him.

They want to own shit, too.

♪Young Hova the God
Nigga blast for me ♪

♪ I'm at the Trump International
Ask for me ♪

Rappers rapped about success.
"How do we get that?"

♪ Let me in now
Bill Gates, Donald Trump ♪

♪ Let me in now
Spin now ♪

[Simmons] Donald was,
for the hip-hop community,

and for really all Americans
and under-served community members

that he had achieved what they thought
was the American dream.

♪ Up like Donald Trump
Chain swings like nunchucks ♪

[Stevens] But he came from wealth,
unlike most of the people--

Yeah, it's kinda crazy, right?
He's just like the character.

Donald would be like,
"Look at my limo, Russ.

Look at my Trump water.

That's my helicopter.
Look, my name's on the side."

He'd be excited if it was
on TV or in a movie.

Like, "This guy is insane, right?"
It was like watching a movie.

The other interesting thing about Trump
is when he graduated from college,

he actually considered going to Hollywood,

before he inevitably joined
his father's real estate empire.

But I think he saw real estate
in a very similar vein as show business.

He saw himself
as the great producer of dreams,

the spinner of tales.

The man who lived large,

with beautiful women in big houses,
and told people what to do.

And he has always seen New York,
and Manhattan, in particular,

as a piggy bank and as a stage.

[Res] I started working on Trump Tower
in September of 1980.

Donald gave me
a tremendous amount of authority.

Of course,
I used to fight with him all the time

about him holding me responsible
for things that I had no control over.

[Stevens] Are you proud?

Am I proud of this building?
This is my building.

Anything that had to do
with any part of this building

had to do with me.

But in terms of Donald's standing
in the community,

this was the defining moment.

Trump Tower put Donald on the map,

and it was, without question,
his most successful project.

[Trump] Probably,
it's the greatest thing the city ever did,

and I think the city
is the first to acknowledge it.

It now, from a real estate standpoint,

has probably become the hottest city
in the world.

And I guess a lot of things
had to do with it.

Mostly, I feel, it was the psychology

of making New York a winner,
as opposed to a loser.

[O'Brien] What happens with Trump Tower

is Donald gets his first taste
of real independent fame.

He had become the subject
of national stories.

He was in Time and Newsweek.
He was on television news shows.

Take a look at my next guest.
This is Donald Trump, 33 years old.

He now has an apartment for sale

in a new Trump building
called the Trump Tower.

You'll walk down the street,

and people will touch you,
just for the good luck!

It's a strange phenomenon
that's been taking place.

And he loved it. He reveled in it.

Please welcome Donald Trump.

[O'Brien] Trump has this
reptilian, knowing,

street-smart awareness
of the powers of media.

[Res] He was out there doing his own PR

for Trump Tower, and he used pseudonyms.

He called himself John Baron, I think,

and he would talk to magazines
and newspapers

as the representative of Trump.

Meanwhile, there really weren't
any representatives of Trump.

In one case, famously,
he called in to a People reporter,

and the reporter had the sense
to record it, the call.

[recording playing]

She likes to spin before she shits.
I don't know why.

What people have to understand is,

long before the Internet,
especially the '80s and '90s,

the way people's images were built

was how they were treated
in the newspapers, the tabloids.

Anything floating around
that became a big story,

usually started in the gossip columns.

O.J. Simpson
started in the gossip columns.

Listen, the word "brand" wasn't even
tossed around like it is now.

Brand was a cereal brand, Levi...

People didn't have brands, primarily.

And having done gossip in the '90s,

I find that I am responsible for building
a lot of people's brand, so to speak,

particularly Donald Trump.

I met him as a gossip columnist
at Newsday.

The column was Inside New York,

and Donald was a great source for us
for inside information.

He also needed favors from us.

He provided tips,
and that's the way that business works.

It's very quid pro quo,
and he's the best at that.

When I'm at the New York Daily News
and I'm running the column,

you get phone calls.
You make phone calls in the morning.

You shake the trees
and see what's there.

When you tend to talk to Donald,

it'd be an engaging 20, 30-minute
phone call.

He'd love to talk about last night, clubs,

who said what, where was the pussy.

You know, "Was anybody talking about me?"

But he always wanted to be paid back
in a particular way.

Regardless of what you mentioned,

he never really cared, as long
as you said the word "billionaire."

So we didn't-- I didn't give a shit.

Let the man have his wealth in the paper.

Since you've made your
Manhattan Trump millions,

you're up to a billion,
more than a billion now.

I hope so.

-Right.
-[Trump] What are you asking?

A billion! You're worth a billion dollars?

Perhaps.

-Perhaps?
-Perhaps.

Are we the low side of perhaps
or the high side of perhaps?

[O'Brien] He used the media

to keep this, sort of,
financial ping-pong game going

about, "How rich is he?"

During the course of my reporting,

he'd given me a range of figures
for his net worth

from, you know, one-plus billion,
up to nine billion.

Total is eight billion
seven hundred and thirty-seven million

five hundred and forty-thousand dollars.

And now, with the increase,
it'll be well over ten billion dollars.

I'm not doing that to brag
'cause I don't have to brag.

I really didn't care
how much he was worth.

No one cares as much
about how much Donald Trump is worth

as Donald Trump himself.

In the same day, he would tell me
he was worth one thing in the morning,

in the afternoon,
he was worth another thing.

I had sources very close to him
who thought, at the time,

that he had a net worth anywhere
from 150 to 250 million dollars.

Which, by most standards,
is comfortably wealthy.

But it didn't give him entree
into the billionaires club,

and this is in the book.

Trump sued the reporter
for over two billion dollars,

but the lawsuit exposed him
to a close scrutiny of his finances.

[O'Brien] He sued me for libel.
During litigation,

that opened him to discovery
on his bank records

and his business records.

I think I'm probably the only journalist
who's ever seen his raw tax returns.

[Brian Stelter] "You said the net worth

goes up and down
based on your own feelings?"

Trump says, "Yes, even my own feelings,
as to where the world is,

where the world is going, and that
can change rapidly from day to day."

He was forced to acknowledge
that he had lied

or misrepresented the facts
on more than 30 occasions.

And we ended up crushing Trump
and his attorneys in court.

And I think it was largely due to the fact

that Donald Trump
doesn't know when to stop.

You see, I think I'm right,

and when I think I'm right,
nothing bothers me.

He believes that little voice
that exists in his mind

that your own judgment is superior,

that you cannot fail,

and that anyone who tells you otherwise
doesn't know what they're talking about.

[Stevens] When Donald called you
to work on the Plaza,

what was your feeling about the Plaza?

It was great for me. It was exciting
because the Plaza's an icon.

I loved it.

I think it was like the ultimate trophy,
and it was the ultimate New York thing.

It's an incredible building,
and I love it.

[O'Brien] After Trump Tower,
when he bought the Plaza Hotel,

Trump was at an interesting point
in his life at that time,

because he had everything to gain
from using the notoriety,

and banks were willing to throw

humongous loans at him,
as if they were snowballs.

He ended up using that money

to go on this shopping spree
for anything he wanted to do.

He buys an airline.

[Trump] I never thought I'd be doing this.

So just, everybody, have a good time,

and for many years
enjoy the Trump Shuttle.

A football team.

This is really a very big day for myself,

and for the United States Football League.

[O’Brien] He went down into Atlantic City,

and he got into businesses
he didn't understand.

Are you smarter than everybody else?

No, I just have
a certain amount of confidence,

that if I want to do something,
I can do it.

[O'Brien] Atlantic City
is probably the largest

bureaucratic enterprise he ever ran,
prior to becoming president.

[slot machine chimes]

My name's Jack O'Donnell.

I worked for Donald Trump
in the late '80s and the '90s.

Donald viewed Atlantic City
as a great opportunity,

a logical stepping stone for him to leave
New York City for the first time.

But I was very surprised, quite frankly,
at his lack of understanding

the moving pieces in operating a casino.

He had two properties that he owned
by the time I came to work for him,

the Trump Plaza and the Trump Castle.

I had been hired by a gentleman
by the name of Stephen Hyde.

Steve Hyde was to run
all of Donald Trump's casinos,

with Mark Etess and myself.

The three of us were kind of married,

you know,
in terms of operating the business.

Despite Donald Trump,
we were exceptionally successful.

We were generating close
to $100 million in cash.

Annually.

[clapping]

[newscaster] Trump's next frontier
is the biggest.

The resort's Taj Mahal,
still under construction.

We think the Taj Mahal is beyond belief,
from any standpoint,

and we think it's gonna be
a tremendous success.

[O'Donnell] The Taj Mahal

was gonna be
the largest casino in the world.

Money was gonna be spent

that had never been spent
in Atlantic City. A billion-dollar casino.

[Marty Rosenberg] This is the Taj.

That's the second tower of the Taj Mahal.

My name is Martin Rosenberg,

and I've lived in Atlantic City
for 75 years.

We've done about seven or eight buildings
in Atlantic City

This is our work.

The glass in the towers, glass over here,

mirrors, doors, bathroom enclosures,
things of that nature.

I started doing the Taj Mahal,

and Donald Trump took over,
and he said to me,

"How much is it gonna cost
to finish it?"

I gave him a number.

He said, "That's way too much.

Are you gonna do a good job?"

I said, "We always do a good job.

That's why we do a lot of the work
in Atlantic City."

He said, "Okay, you got the job."

[O'Brien] What they didn't reckon on,
in Atlantic City,

is that he would want to essentially try
to consume the whole market.

Trump was already strapped financially

when he decided to go after the Taj Mahal.

And it was a project so expensive and big
that it was beyond both his managerial

and financial abilities to run properly.

[O'Donnell] When it came to
financing the Taj Mahal,

Donald, under oath,
in front of the Casino Control Commission,

claimed that he would have no problem.

Banks were dying to give him the money,

and that it was gonna be
low-interest money,

and swore up and down

that he didn't have to rely on junk bonds.

[Bill Griffeth] A junk bond,
that's a bond

rated BB+ or lower.

And with the insider
trading scandal growing,

many investors question just how safe
those junk bonds are.

[O'Donnell] Based on those statements,

the Casino Control Commission
approved the license for the Taj Mahal.

And, of course,
it wasn't shortly after that

that Trump had actually secured financing
through junk bonds.

[O'Brien] When it came to the Taj,

it wasn't just big banks
who owned those bonds.

A lot of the bonds
were owned by individuals

who weren't necessarily wealthy,
who had a stake in that property.

[newscaster] For the Taj Mahal
to cover its interest payments,

gamblers will have to lose
more than a million dollars a day.

Steve Hyde and Mark Etess and myself,
we had a big task ahead of us.

Quite frankly,
we were all worried about it.

And then,
I was notified of the accident.

On the way back from the press conference
for a big boxing match,

the helicopter crashed.

Steve Hyde, Mark Etess,
and John Benanav were killed.

You were supposed to go
on that plane, true?

I was going to go,

from the standpoint that they said,
"Do you wanna come with us?"

And I said, "I think so,
but maybe I'm just too busy."

I was that close, so it would
have been, like, a 50-50 deal.

I had an immediate sense of outrage

because I knew it just wasn't true.

So, it doesn't matter what happens.
He's gonna take an event,

and he's gonna turn it into something
about Donald Trump.

[announcer] One step beyond
your wildest imagination,

a billion-dollar dream come true.

Donald J. Trump's Taj Mahal.

The eighth wonder of the world.

The Taj Mahal was the worst casino opening
in the history of gambling.

[crowd clamoring]

A monumental disaster.
I had never seen anything like it.

[Trump] For the opening of the Taj Mahal,
we had 2,400 press credentials.

Nobody's seen anything like it.

[O'Donnell] The problems were so bad
with the slot operation,

and the lack of training and preparation.

They could only open a portion
of the slot machines.

What about the slot machine thing
where they were down?

The slots were so hot.

We had people playing
so hard and so fast--

-They blew out the slots?
-They blew apart.

We had machines...

-Was it too much?
-...that were virtually on fire.

[O'Donnell] One of the fundamental things

that you always have to know
about the operation of a casino,

because it's money...

It's money going in, money coming out.

You have to know how much money
do you have in the house.

They could not even answer that question.

[newscaster] The announcement that Trump
was looking for a buyer for his Shuttle

was an early indication that Trump
was running into a cash-flow problem.

One report has that Shuttle losing
$85 million a year.

You owe a tremendous amount of money.

-Are you gonna sell the Plaza?
-Know why?

-Because I have great assets.
-Sell the Shuttle?

It's unlikely the Shuttle gets sold.

The Shuttle is doing very well.

-We started with 12% of--
-Not enough to pay back your debts.

Barbara, other people owe money
far in excess of what their assets are.

They have lousy assets.

I have great assets.

He didn't pay attention
to the bottom line. He didn't care.

That's always a dangerous place to be
for a real estate developer,

because if the economy turns down,

or any of your projects you control
aren't throwing enough money off,

you can't pay your debts back.

[O'Donnell] The Taj Mahal
was a financial disaster,

and it was the first of Trump's casinos
to go into bankruptcy.

When Donald was having issues,

Fred Trump showed up at the casino
with $3 million

and converted the cash into chips.

Now, normally, you might say,
"That happens every day."

But because he put $3 million in,
took the chips and left with the chips,

it winds up, in effect,
being a $3 million loan to the casino.

So, time and again, he's reached
into the Fred Trump security vault

to get money to paper over
his own financial mistakes.

[Res] I do remember

at the point of time when Donald
was having his financial problems,

that he sort of turned on the people
in Atlantic City that worked for him

and it was a change that I saw in him.

I mean, I saw him develop
into a kind of mean-spirited person,

but I had
this very special relationship with him.

And it's hard to pull away from that

even though, you know, a lot of people
that worked with him when I was there,

really hated him.

[O'Donnell] Donald had pushed
the button with me

too many times on Steve and Mark,

where I'd seen him blame them
for problems that he created.

I saw it in the newspaper.

We wound up speaking on the phone.

I said, "Please, don't do this.

Nobody's gonna understand
you blaming somebody that's dead."

I said, "These guys' wives
are reading the newspaper.

Their children are reading the newspaper.
Why would you do this?"

The amazing part about it,
as passionate as I could be...

"They're dead.
What does it matter, really?"

That was his answer.

"They're dead."

And before I could even think,
I just said,

"Go fuck yourself,"
and I hung the phone up.

[Rosenberg] At the end of the job,
I was owed about one and a half million.

I called up his construction manager,
I said, "What's going on?"

He said, "Marty, you'll have a check
in two weeks."

Two weeks go by and no check.

[newscaster] Donald Trump
disappointed his many creditors today.

He announced he could not make payments

of more than $30 million.

The banks have come calling

and he doesn't have the money
to pay them back.

[Allan Frank]
Having borrowed three billion dollars,

Trump now owes interest
of nearly one million dollars a day.

We're not gonna get the money.

So you're talking about at least 200
or 300 contractors.

And some of them
from all over the country.

[O'Donnell] Trump's story in Atlantic City

should have been the most successful story
in the history of gambling,

had he not screwed it up.

[newscaster 2] Sources point out

the bankers do not want Trump
to file for bankruptcy.

It would freeze all of his assets
and payments on some very big loans.

[O'Brien] Trump basically recognized
that he was too big to fail

and the billions of dollars
he owed to the banks

made him continuously necessary
to the banks.

The bankers are also reported
to put Mr. Trump on an allowance.

$450,000 a month.

[Frank] Perhaps Trump is proving
that the very rich

are different from most of us.

Even when they just have more debts
than we do.

A lot of people were hurt
in Atlantic City.

There were a lot of expectations that
just never materialized with Trump.

[Rosenberg] He used to run round
saying, "Atlantic City is my cash cow."

He ate the cash
and didn't take much for anybody else.

[O'Brien] It's in the hundreds
of millions of dollars

that the bond holders took a bath.

And quite frankly,

I have no idea what he did
with the hundred million dollars a year

that we sent up to New York.

So whether he paid debts with it or not,
or he kept the money for himself,

I'll never know.

I think Donald Trump
believed that the Taj Mahal

would change Atlantic City forever.

And that's ultimately what happened.

I was 15-0.

And then I had one very bad year.

I had a bad year. Maybe it was my fault--
a lot of people's fault.

It was also the government's fault.

A lot of smart people are
in deep trouble right now and I'm not.

Remember the '80s,

the yuppies, the buyouts, junk bonds
and, especially, the Donald.

So when people ask about
what Trump was doing

from the early '90s to about 2004,

from a business perspective,
he really wasn't doing very much.

-[Letterman] Didn't know we were coming?
-[Trump] Absolutely.

You said, "Come on up."
How busy can you be?

I'm not busy. I have nothing to do.

You know my truth, I have nothing to do.
I wish I had more to do.

He'd become this punchline of jokes

about the excesses of the 1980s.

And our guest tonight,
the next president, Donald Trump.

Once caught a sexually transmitted disease
from himself.

[audience laughing]

And he kept himself in the public eye,

by being a ubiquitous and easy-to-get
presence on talk shows.

How do I go about creating the capital
that I need to start my business

when all I have is my knowledge
and my training?

-Meet a wealthy guy.
-[crowd laughing]

He was mostly doing things like
talking about J. Lo's backside.

[recording playing]

-[Stern] Of course
- [woman] It's true.

And talking about foreign policy.

If you go to Japan and try
to sell something, forget about it.

They are beating
the hell out of this country.

Hey, look, I know politicians.

I know politicians
perhaps better than you know politicians,

and you interview them.

And he ran, quote, unquote,
"for president" in the early 2000s.

[Tim Russert] People
who have been watching you,

who know you, who like you, say this
is all just a public relations stunt.

He sees it as a help to his business

because he's also Trump, the brand.

And he has his name on everything.

[newscaster]
The man who was the darling of the '80s

is seen in the '90s as a man in trouble,
and he knows it.

[Trump] When people say something false,
I attack those people.

More people should have that attitude

and I think you'd find a lot more
accurate reporting, including yours.

[Charles Feldman]
What was inaccurate so far?

I thought your demeanor was inaccurate.

I thought that questions that you
were posing to people in my organization

were inaccurate and false and unfair.

[Feldman] Questions can't be inaccurate.

Let's talk about what we talked
about yesterday. I--

You know what?
Do this interview with somebody else--

We talked about this yesterday
on the phone.

This is what you--

Do the interview
with somebody else, really.

You don't need this.
Do it with somebody else.

[O'Brien] I think Donald Trump
is walking through the world

as the director and producer,
and star of his own movie.

Who knows better about hard times than me?

And he will tell himself
any narrative he needs to

about why he's successful
and why he's such a survivor.

I had a company, it was doing well.

I had tremendous debt, like this country.

And in 1990, the whole country,
it just went very, very bad.

[O'Brien] We've screened
a lot of movies together

with a humongous feed bag
of potato chips at his side

every time we watched a movie.

Let's see.

Hold it right there.

Let's do one more.

And I remember when we were watching
Sunset Boulevard together,

and there's this moment in the film

where Gloria Swanson and William Holden
are together on the couch

and they're screening an old Norma Desmond
film, a silent movie film.

And as they're watching it,
Gloria Swanson's character, Norma,

becomes more and more agitated

about the fact that
Hollywood has forgotten her.

And she stands up

and turns to William Holden
in the spotlight and says...

Those imbeciles!
Haven't they got any eyes?

Have they forgotten
what a star looks like?

I'll show them! I'll be up there again,
so help me!

And at the moment she says that dialogue,
Trump stopped it,

and looked at me and he goes,
"Isn't that dialogue great?"

You really think this is the right thing
for us to be doing, Ivana?

What will people think?

Let 'em talk.

[O'Brien] This was the guy
who had fallen from the mountaintop.

-Then it's a deal?
-Yes, we eat our pizza the wrong way.

[O'Brien] He was essentially reduced
to being a huckster.

A Big N' Tasty for just a dollar?

How do you do it? What's your secret?

[O'Brien] And he was trying
to figure a way out of that problem.

But he still retained celebrity traction.

This is what was originally called
the West Side Rail Yards.

Trump bought it in the 1970s.

When he got into trouble with the banks,
they wanted to take that away from him.

But they decided
he was worth more alive than dead.

And his name
had a tremendous amount of value,

and he ended up licensing his name
on these projects

and got a lot of money for that.

After this was over, he was finished being
a developer of any stripe.

He wasn't a major developer before that.

He had only done a handful of projects,

compared to some of the families
that have developed in the city

and the dynasties of developers.

Who was Trump? He was nobody.

[O'Brien] Well, Donald Trump's name
is on a lot of the buildings

but that doesn't mean
he owns those buildings.

His name is on the Trump International
building in Columbus Circle,

but General Electric owns that building.

His name is on Trump Tower,

but most of the space in Trump Tower
is now owned by the condominium owners.

And the property beneath the building
is owned by someone else.

I'm the biggest developer
in New York by far

and I'm doing more than any...

I'm building 90-story buildings all over.

[O'Brien] But he was never
the biggest real estate developer

in New York by any measure.

By either the value of the property
that he had sold

or the square footage he owned.

But I believe it was the West Side Yards

that launched him in his new role
as a licensing and development operation.

I'm Adam Davidson.
I'm a staff writer at The New Yorker.

A friend of mine and I
founded NPR's Planet Money.

[announcer]
Adam Davidson, of Planet Money...

[Davidson] And we spent years
covering business and economics

and I can't remember Donald Trump's name
ever being mentioned.

The Trump Organization,
even the most generous readings

are it's a $10 billion or so,
maybe $20 billion business.

That's a lot of money, and certainly
a lot more money than I have,

but there are families
who have much bigger businesses.

And you will never ever hear of them.

In business terms,
his business didn't really turn a profit.

Because he could have,
at many points in his life,

just put all his money in the stock market
and made more money than he did.

A key change in the Trump Organization's
business model

starts sort of accidentally
in the late 1990s.

The business starts turning international.

One of the people who worked for Trump
was visiting South Korea.

He's meeting
with some Korean businesspeople.

They mention they're building buildings.

He says,
"What are you calling those buildings?"

They said, "They don't have a name."

He said, "How about
you call them the Trump Buildings?"

The businesspeople liked that idea.

Trump was a famous name
in Korea. "Yeah, sure."

[announcer speaking Korean]

That turned out to solve a lot of problems

for Donald Trump
and the Trump Organization.

Certainly by the 2000s,

no major bank
is gonna lend him any money.

He defaulted so many times,
declared bankruptcy so many times.

And you can't be a real estate developer
if you can't borrow money.

And this licensing deal
solved that problem "bigly."

Trump's business was already
in financial trouble at that time.

And he starts to look abroad.
He starts to get lots of deals overseas.

He didn't have to borrow any money,
and he didn't have to do any work.

[O'Brien]
As much as he's put out in the world

that he is the Energizer Bunny

of the American business community
and real estate,

he's always been a little bit lazy.

He can get animated from time to time
when there's a deal in front of him,

but for a good chunk of his career,
up until The Apprentice,

he was waiting for the phone to ring.

♪ Money, money, money, money ♪

♪ Money ♪

[O'Brien] Trump is back.

♪ Money ♪

♪ Money ♪

[O'Brien] The Apprentice really,
overnight,

repositioned him
in the American imagination

as the embodiment of deal-making
savvy, capable entrepreneur

and business success.

♪ Money can drive some people
Out of their mind ♪

-[Bill Pruitt] My coffee maker broke.
-[Jonathon Braun] Okay.

[Pruitt] But I can still make it.

[coffee grinder whirring loudly]

[Braun] The first season was a shock,
a complete surprise to everybody.

[Pruitt] Yeah, yeah.

-It's really strong.
-No, I like strong.

[Braun] What did he think
of that first season?

Did he treat it seriously?
Did he treat it as a joke?

No, no, no. It was one of his many things
to do that day to save his empire.

There's nothing better in my book
than a comeback.

[Braun] We went a little further on
the tongue-in-cheek aspect of Donald,

thinking how funny is it to have
this washed-up five-time bankruptcy guy,

who lives in a golden palace
that other people are paying for,

how funny is it that

he is now the "executive" in charge
of this big corporation?

-Georgette, I'm going over to Sony.
-Okay, sir.

-So just hold my calls.
-[Georgette] Yes, sir.

So, 2004, NBC "Must See TV"
consisted of one big, huge show

called Friends.

[ Friends theme song playing]

[Pruitt] Butted-up against it,
chasing it in the ratings

was an hour-long reality show
called The Apprentice.

It was a Thursday night
"Must See TV" program.

It's a construct
almost from the very beginning.

If you were to walk around Donald Trump's
actual office in Trump Tower,

-you'd see the wood's kind of chipped.
-It's a mess.

"Is that from the '70s? Wow.
And what's that smell?"

Hi, good morning.
It's Rhona in Mr. Trump's office.

[Pruitt] It's still Midtown Manhattan,
it's still Trump Tower,

but it wasn't the empire that we were
going to have to sell to people.

We needed to gussy it up a bit,
and we did.

[man] Let 'em come in.

Everyone, please go in to see Mr. Trump.

[Braun] The boardroom was created.

There wasn't a room like that
in Trump Tower.

No.

[Braun] So it was created like on a set.

[Pruitt] The chair was selected
very specifically.

But this is the thing,
everything that we could create,

we did so with an extra added edge
of patina.

It was a mood. It was absolutely a mood.

[Braun] We were trying to recreate
that scene in Network

-when Ned Beatty is confronting--
-[Pruitt] Mr. Beale.

You have meddled with
the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale.

[Braun] That same sort of intimidation...

The world is a business, Mr. Beale.

Come on, Kwame. Time is money.

-We worked hard on this thing.
-Yeah.

Giving it a look, giving it a style.

You know that shot of Donald when
he comes down to announce his candidacy?

We used that shot many times.

Good morning.

[Braun] We put on this
Funkadelic kind of music,

and we'd sit back and go,
"This is ridiculous."

But we thought it was funny.

Just didn't know how many people
would actually look at that and go...

-"That's cool. That's wild."
-"That's real. This guy's amazing."

[people whooping]

[man] He's entertaining, fun to watch.

You talk to most people about
watching a rally, they're like, "Yeah."

But you hear Trump's coming to Clemson,
and everybody goes nuts.

[cheering]

We grew up with The Apprentice.

I remember watching that TV show.
That's when he had me,

'cause I'm trying to be CEO one day.

I think most of the Republican Party
and a good portion of Democrats

failed to recognize
how much The Apprentice...

solidified his image

in the minds of the very voters
who ended up supporting him.

Let me ask you a question.

-Meat Loaf, should I run for president?
-Absolutely.

Who would not vote for me?

My name is Randal Pinkett.

I was the winner of Season 4
of The Apprentice.

When you become the winner,

you get a one-year contract
working for the Trump Organization.

One of the rules of thumb that I developed
over the course of my apprenticeship

was I will not take anything to Donald
unless I can articulate it and frame it

in the language of
what's in it for Donald.

If I can't do that,

there's really no point
in bringing it to him. None.

Overall, it was a good experience.
Think about it.

The Apprentice opened a door of
opportunity for me, which I seized.

But the realities of the job, again,
was working for Donald.

I got the job done, but I learned
the culture of the Trump Organization.

That culture was not one
that reflected my values.

What a group of killers.

It was an unnecessarily combative culture.

Even for simple things that I would
get into disagreements with people,

they would threaten me.

Knock the crap out of them,
would you? Seriously.

Okay? Just knock the hell...

I promise you, I will pay
for the legal fees. I promise.

[Pinkett] I really got to see

how those public behaviors
translated into his private business.

People who had done business
with Donald would say to me,

"I tried to do business with Donald,
he took advantage of me."

"Donald got the best of the deal."
"He raked me over the coals."

"I'll never work with Donald again."

I heard that regularly from people
I didn't even know,

just came to me out of the blue
at airports, restaurants, on the street.

You really have to watch the people
that you're doing business with.

Donald will align himself
with other businesspeople

who may be dubious or suspect.

They will license, borrow, impute his name
to their efforts.

The Trump Organization was always
what people call "open for business,"

meaning he'd hear any offer
that came his way.

Just look at Trump Towers SoHo.

[Trump] Located in the center of
Manhattan's chic artist enclave,

the Trump International Hotel
and Tower in SoHo

is the site of my latest development.

Trump SoHo was his only recent development
on the island of Manhattan.

[Trump] This 50-story building will be
the first condominium hotel in the city

with world-class accommodation.

And he presented it on The Apprentice
as a Trump project.

As if Trump himself dreamed of it,
paid for it, built it.

[Trump] This brilliant
$370 million work of art

will be an awe-inspiring masterpiece.

[Davidson] But it was not funded
by Trump himself.

It was funded by a group of guys,

some of them happened to be
from the former Soviet Union

with some pretty sketchy ties.

In the late 1990s, a guy named Tevfik Arif
shows up in America.

Tevfik Arif was from Kazakhstan.

He was associated with some of
Kazakhstan's more notorious oligarchs

who are known as being
unbelievably corrupt.

[reporter in Kazakh] A prostitution ring

has been rounded up on the Savarona.

The leader is said to be
a Kazakh billionaire, Tevfik Arif.

He’s the business partner of Donald Trump.

[Davidson] He moved
to a Russian neighborhood on Long Island,

and one day met one of his neighbors
who also spoke Russian, Felix Sater.

He was born in the Soviet Union,
grew up in Brooklyn.

He had a few months as a successful trader
on Wall Street.

But one night, he gets in a bar fight.

And in the midst of the fight,

the stem of his margarita glass
goes in the guy's face.

Felix ends up going to jail.

When he gets out,
there's no more Wall Street career.

So he starts doing one of
these pump-and-dump schemes,

almost exactly the same scheme
as the movie The Wolf of Wall Street.

Sound fair enough?

[mouthing] Fuck you!

He gets arrested for that,
and he turns State's witness.

So this Kazakh refugee,
basically with a sketchy past,

meets this hustler
from the streets of Brooklyn,

and they create this company Bayrock.

Tevfik Arif happened to have an office
in Trump Tower.

Felix Sater shows up one day
at Trump's door and says,

"Hey, I can get you some business.
I can make some deals for you."

And so for Trump SoHo,
what Felix Sater arranged was

for the main money to come from a man
named Tamir Sapir.

He was a cab driver
in New York City in the '70s.

Suddenly this cab driver from Brooklyn
is doing these massive deals

in the former Soviet Union,

where he becomes a multi-billionaire
very quickly.

I know from sources
that many people told Trump,

"Don't do business with these guys."

[John Sweeney]
Why didn't you go to Felix Sater and say,

"You're connected with the mafia.
You're fired."

Well, first of all,
we were not the developer there.

That was a licensing deal.

-But your name was on it.
-A very simple licensing deal--

But your name is on it, Mr. Trump.

Excuse me, but you're telling me things
that I don't even know about.

A long-time deputy of Donald,
a guy named Abe Wallach, said to me,

"Trump doesn't do due diligence.
He goes with his gut.

And if he has a gut feeling
that he likes you

and that you pass a test which
he thinks you've got good genes..."

that's how Abe put it,
"then he'd do business with you."

[woman] Do you solemnly swear...

[O'Brien] Trump later, during litigations,
including my own, was asked under oath...

I do.

...by attorneys whether or not
he knew Felix Sater.

If he were sitting in the room right now,

I really wouldn't know
what he looked like.

Trump knows Sater.
He knows him very well.

They've spent a lot of time together.

Trump asked Felix Sater to show
his two children around Moscow.

Felix Sater had an office two doors down
on the same hallway as Donald Trump.

We're standing in Trump SoHo.
It's the tallest building in SoHo.

One of the tallest buildings in downtown.
Doesn't get any better.

So, while Trump is on The Apprentice
pitching Trump SoHo as his project

that is wildly successful,
it is the exact opposite.

They've only sold a fraction of the units,

and he's using The Apprentice
to desperately gin up business

for this collapsing enterprise.

And the building does eventually fail
and then sold on to other owners,

although it maintains the name Trump SoHo.

The way the Trump Organization worked

was just literally a handful
of high-ranking executives.

His kids Donald Jr. and Ivanka,

his lawyer, Michael Cohen,

few other occasional deal makers.

In 2010, Felix Sater goes into
the Trump Organization

and becomes
sort of an official deal maker.

So they start doing business

with some of the sketchiest people
in some of the sketchiest countries.

One of the deals I'm most familiar with
is his deal in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan is a very corrupt country.

It's nestled between
Russia, Iran and Georgia.

But even for Azerbaijan,

Trump did business with people
who are unbelievably corrupt.

Trump Organization does this deal
with the Mammadov family

for Trump Tower, Baku.

The Trump Tower was
in a pretty lousy neighborhood in Baku

to have a luxury tower,

so the building
made no sense economically.

That's a huge red flag.

The project was
with two different sitting members

of the Azerbaijan government.

A huge red flag.

A very long flight, but I'm here
in Baku, Azerbaijan. Check it out.

[Davidson] Ivanka oversaw this project.

She met with Anar Mammadov,

the son of the transportation minister,
Ziya Mammadov.

And then, about as big a red flag
as it gets,

the US officials considered Ziya Mammadov
to likely be laundering money

for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

[newscaster]
This is the single biggest state sponsor

for terrorism in the world.

We think Trump made
around $5 million for the deal. And...

Forget morality,
let's say you don't care,

it's just bad business.

Just from a simple
risk-reward calculation,

what should be the basic skill
of a businessperson,

the deal was insane.

You're taking $5 million today,

but the risk to doing business
with people like this,

if the Department of Justice
got a hold of it,

is hundreds of millions of dollars
of exposure.

And a great example of this
is the Trump Tower, Moscow.

Trump has expressed many times
he wants a Trump Tower, Moscow.

So Sater starts talking to a guy
he grew up with, named Michael Cohen,

who became a high-ranking executive
at the Trump Organization

and is now Trump's personal attorney.

Pretty soon,
they signed a letter of intent,

which is the first phase
before a development.

But then, they're not getting the right
permissions from the Russian government,

and Michael Cohen sends an e-mail
to the PR department at the Kremlin,

saying, "Hey, can we get this moving?

I represent Donald Trump
and we wanna make this a deal."

The thing is, this all happens
in January 2016,

in the middle of
the presidential campaign.

Trump knew, because Michael Cohen says
he spoke to Trump about it three times,

that his own high-ranking executive
was reaching out to the Kremlin

to try and get political favors
to get a Trump Moscow built.

I don't know this for sure,
but there's certainly a theory

that he never imagined
he would become president.

I may make money running for president.

It's very interesting.

And the very fact that he authorized this
supports that idea.

[O'Brien] Donald Trump is notoriously
short-term in his thinking

and making cash quickly
without being discerning

is one of the great Achilles' heels
of Donald Trump.

It's what's gotten him into bed
at times with questionable people.

It's what's made him plaster his name
on so many different products,

he's essentially become a human shingle.

♪ When I'm thinking Arby's ♪

♪ I'm thinking Chicken Naturals
When I'm thinking tasty ♪

♪ I'm thinking Chicken Naturals ♪

Trump has scores of ventures
that are affiliated.

That either are licensing his name...

When it comes to great steaks,
I've just raised the stakes.

Or have cut Donald into an equity stake
to the venture. I'm talking scores.

You seize opportunity.

You get a hit TV show,
and the show isn't even on that long,

and you're thinking, fragrance,
board game, books, suits.

And you get all that out there.

I've been on the air for 11,
coming up on 12 years, not one product.

I saw the rise of his multiple ventures
in 2005 when I won.

People come to him wanting to do deals.

Donald did such a great job
of marketing himself as successful,

and the most successful,
that you would never know

that there are so many failed ventures.

So many people
who were left with their hand out.

So many people
who never got what they expected,

'cause that's not the story he tells.

My name is Jenna Knudsen.

My name is Doug Tumen.

This is a rags to riches
to rags kinda story.

You know, because when I first met you,
you were living in a little--

In a single-wide trailer.

-I'll put that out to America.
-Right.

[Knudsen] Eight years ago, I became
a single mom with two young children.

And I needed to find a way
to have an income.

I was introduced to Ideal Health.

It was a health and wellness company

with customized vitamins
in a profession called network marketing.

It's word-of-mouth marketing.

It's like seeing a movie
and recommending it,

except you get paid.

I had all of these people
on the products, loving it,

and then one day I went out to my mailbox
and I took out my paycheck,

and the check was for over $10,000
for one month.

So I went from single mom and struggling
to really successful in this company.

[Tumen] So the company was doing well,
in the multi-millions

and it really took off.

I remember being in Santa Monica,
California, with Lou DiCaprio,

one of the founders and he said,

"We're partnering with somebody who's
gonna change the face of our company."

He made me play a guessing game
and I was able to say,

"Is it Donald Trump?"

And as soon as I said that, he smiled.

It was a moment of excitement
because everybody felt

now we are going to be
a billion-dollar company, guaranteed.

And it just seemed like it was
only gonna get better and better.

At Trump University, we teach success.
That's what it's all about. Success.

[announcer] Donald Trump is
the world's most famous businessman.

I'm Ron Schnackenberg.

I started at Trump University
in October of 2006.

When I started at the organization,

we were selling a 12-month long
portfolio of products.

It started with the real estate investment
training program.

We called it the "Reit."
And this is all online.

It was a really solid program.

I went through it, I enjoyed it.

So I felt like I was getting
super early in at a start-up

with the CEO being Donald Trump
who was, in my eyes, a huge success.

The sales team was, like,
in this little closet.

As we grew, 'cause we grew pretty quick.

Set up, like, kinda like this.

And this would be the, like,
the sales pit is what we called it.

It was kind of Boiler Room -esque.

For the first several months,
it was all over the phone.

I was making more money
than I'd ever made before.

We had more leads
than the three of us could phone.

That's a good problem to have if you're
making your money on commissions.

Life was really good. It was fun.
That lasted for four to six months.

But the business drastically
changed into something

that I just wasn't necessarily
comfortable with.

But it became kind of fly-by-night-ish
type of seminar program.

And we were now selling
$1,500 to $35,000 seminars.

[announcer] Mr. Donald J. Trump.

[crowd cheering]

[Tumen] The launch of
the Trump Network was an event.

And it's exciting
and Donald Trump gets up on stage

and he starts talking
about the Trump Network.

You know, it's funny. I just came
from the final shooting of The Apprentice.

Has everyone heard of The Apprentice?

And every time Donald Trump
would talk about the Trump Network,

he would use the same words.
Which we now call Trump speak.

We want to be the biggest
in the industry. I believe we can.

We will have so much winning
if I get elected

that you may get bored with winning.

"It's gonna be great. It's gonna be huge."

And you are going to be successful.
We're all gonna be successful together.

"This is gonna be so big.

You guys aren't gonna believe how big."

I'm really a good businessman.
I'm so good at business. Oh!

You people are gonna be so rich so fast,
you don't even...

When he was on stage, every bit of
confidence that he projected was about us.

He made you feel like, through him,
you could have the life that you wanted

and when people are looking for a way,
it's easy to believe him.

And let's make this the number one
network marketing company anywhere.

We are going to make America great again.
Thank you.

-Thank you.
-[crowd cheering]

My name is Sherri Simpson.

I'm an attorney
in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

I handle foreclosure defense
and bankruptcy cases primarily.

In 2010, the real estate prices
in South Florida

had just dropped so incredibly low.

It really was an opportune time to buy
and I have a 17-year-old daughter

so I was looking for something
to help my daughter.

Trump University
sent a mailer to my office

and said we're offering this free seminar.
Come and learn from the master,

come and learn from Trump himself.

He'll teach you all of his secrets.
Come, come, come.

Come. Come. Get all the knowledge that
you need to be successful in real estate.

Come to the Sheraton Hotel. It's free.

[Simpson] When you first walked in,
there was a huge cutout of Donald Trump.

[Schnackenberg] And the guy gets up.

Pulls out his American Express black card,
and puts it under the little projector

and asks everyone
if they know what it is...

Starts going on to say, "Don't you wish
you had one of these, you know?

This means that you are successful.
You made it.

This is what you guys should want."

"But in order to really, really do this,
you need to sign up for our mentorship."

The Gold Elite Mentorship was $35,000.

And I didn't even have that kind of money.

[newscaster]
" You must be very aggressive,"

one passage from the playbook reads.

"If they complain about the price,
remind them that Trump is the best!"

One of the front-end pitch guys

told everyone to go home
and increase their credit limits.

Sure enough, Sunday afternoon,
when it comes time to wrap up the seminar

and he's saying, "Now it's time
to use that newly available credit

to fund that $35,000 program.

To sweeten the deal,
I'll tell you what we can do.

We can let you partner with somebody
and so it's half-off."

I don't know.
Maybe I'm susceptible to sales pitches.

But there was a lot of excitement.

A lot of buzz that it was him
and we would learn from him.

And these are all people
that are handpicked by me.

I really believed in him.

Because at that time,
this is 2010, all I knew about him

was that he was
a successful real estate investor.

What everyone later came to find out

was that this was the licensing deal
that he had done other places.

I've become a very rich guy.

A billionaire many times over
by taking action.

We had to pay him for everything.
For every conference call,

for every time he showed up...

And once the original buzz was over,
there was no follow-through on his end.

So the money left the company
to go to Donald Trump,

and eventually,
when it wasn't being promoted,

people stopped rushing
to join the company.

[Schnackenberg] After the seminar,
a couple came and talked to me

and they wanted to buy it.

I started talking to them
about their current situation.

I learned that the person
didn't have a job,

and this was their fallback.

So I asked how he was gonna
pay for the program,

and he was gonna take out
some equity from his apartment.

I wasn't comfortable with it
and an hour or so later,

he tracked me down with his
new business partner that he had just met.

And so I was really disappointed to know
that one of the other salespeople

had gotten hold of him
and they ended up buying it.

[reporter] Playbooks for the sales team
coach them on how to market the courses,

even to single mothers with three children
who, quote, "may need money for food."

I was reprimanded
for not selling the program to this guy.

They brought me into the office and said,
"This isn't right.

Who are you to say that this person
can't afford this program?"

And it was very clear that,
ethically, we were not in line.

I went back to my desk

and drafted a resignation letter
and resigned,

and they showed me the door
15 minutes later.

[Knudsen] Then one day, I go to my mailbox
and there is no paycheck.

So I called up the founders
and I just said, "What's going on?"

And they told me,
"Little cash-flow problem.

You're going to get paid.
It's just tough."

[Tumen] I did call the Trump Tower

and I spoke
to his executive assistant, Cathy.

And basically, it was,

"I'm sorry. We're not affiliated
with the company anymore," and that's it.

And we never got paid again. Ever.

We were devastated.
We were in a state of crisis.

This was our life.
This was little kids saying,

"Mom, is everything gonna be okay?"
It was tough. It was really hard.

The mentor was supposed to be
handpicked by Trump.

It was supposed to be somebody
that he had taught.

[man] Did you spend time with people
that go into the Elite program?

[Trump] I was very much involved
with the school

from the standpoint of, I see instructors.

I talk to instructors. I talk to people.

I check resumes.
It was very important to me.

And the mentor dropped off
the face of the Earth.

He had never met Donald Trump.
Didn't know Trump from Adam.

Do you remember when you said this?
"I'm a former license agent broker.

At 29, I became the top 1% broker
in the country.

I build homes in Atlanta, Georgia.
And I used to live in Beverly Hills."

Yes. If I said those things, they're true.
I did live in Beverly Hills and I--

We have no record of you ever living
in Beverly Hills.

Okay, well...

We can't find
your broker's license anywhere.

Okay.

And I have no idea what homes
you built in Atlanta, Georgia.

-You build homes in Georgia?
-I'm not prepared to answer today.

[Simpson] I'm trying to reach them.
I'm e-mailing, calling...

I'm getting no response.
And then it just shut down.

And I had no idea
until it ended up on the news.

Students of Trump University
who are suing him

are calling the real estate courses
a fraud.

This is thousands of people who were taken
for millions of dollars.

[newscaster] They claim the university
used high-pressure sales tactics

and never taught real estate success.

-[reporter] You didn't learn anything?
-No.

He took my self-respect
and he embarrassed me.

[Eric Schneiderman] This was a lie.

The only person who was
guilty of a cheap publicity stunt

is America's leading expert on cheap
publicity stunts, Donald Trump.

A law firm reached out and said,
"Hey, would you be willing to testify

and give your story of your experience?"

When something hits my ethics, I'm gonna
share my truthful feedback on it,

and so, that's what happened.

[Simpson] Once I found out
that litigation had started,

I said, "I will join in with you."

I think I'd be more comfortable
with my attorney talking to you

about all of the legal ramifications
of everything.

What happened in this case
is that the defendant in the lawsuit

was elected
president of the United States.

That doesn't happen every day.

I don't settle cases.

I don't do it
because that's why I don't get sued often.

Because I don't settle
unlike a lot of other people.

We just learned that Donald Trump
has agreed to settle the lawsuits

related to Trump University.
It's for $25 million dollars.

I think Trump was absolutely correct
when he tweeted that

that's a small fraction of the exposure
he could have faced had he lost at trial.

Trump University took in
close to $50 million in tuition.

Under the RICO statute,
the damages are tripled.

So if the case goes to trial, he's pushing
$200 million in exposure.

I think he owes us
everything that we paid.

He needs to be stopped.

[Friedman]
I had been looking at this settlement.

It struck me as really odd based on
my knowledge as a class-action lawyer,

that the class members
did not have the opportunity

to opt out of the settlement.

When I drilled into it,
I saw that they had been promised

that if there was a settlement,
they'd have the opportunity to opt out.

The only way to stop it
is a real judgment in a court of law.

[newscaster] She's filed a motion
with the San Diego federal court.

[Friedman] I believe that the president
is gonna go to trial for fraud.

And I am very confident
that we're gonna win.

The world doesn't change without people
standing up to people like Trump.

My name's Walt Shaub.

I used to be the director
of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.

And now I'm
with the Campaign Legal Center.

I worked under three different presidents.
Bush, Obama and Trump.

There were times when things
would get heated

with folks from both the Bush
and the Obama Administrations.

But they always respected you
for standing up and doing your job,

and in the end,
we were always able to work it out.

Everything changed when
the Trump Administration came in.

The morning after the election,
I sent them a congratulations e-mail

and said, "I was looking forward
to working with you."

And then they disappeared. Just gone.

And a few weeks went by
before I managed to get Don McGahn,

who is counsel to the president,
to meet us.

And from the moment I met him,

I was struck by how little he knew
about what was going on.

In fact, at one point,
Don McGahn even raised his voice

in our very first meeting with him.

I stopped the meeting and went and got him
some cookies and coffee,

'cause I thought he was having
a low blood-sugar moment.

It didn't get better from there.

Things went downhill for the rest
of the time that we dealt with them.

One of the issues
with the Government Ethics program is

it's based on an assumption that
the president cares about ethics,

and he's gonna hold his staff accountable.

But from the start,
when the president declared

he was not going to divest
his financial interest,

he departed from an ethical norm

established by every president before him
since the 1970s.

[Trump]
You learn very little from tax returns,

but nevertheless,
I really have a very, very clean company.

One of the biggest scams
that President Trump has tried to pull

is making it sound like
he's stepped back from his businesses.

My two sons, who are right here,
are going to be running the company.

They are going to be running it
in a very professional manner.

They're not gonna discuss it with me.

[Shaub] Then you have cabinet officials
and foreign governments

moving their events
to the president's hotel.

[newscaster] A member of the ruling family
of the UAE and Turkish Airlines

were among the sponsors
of this Turkish-American conference

at Trump International Hotel,
just a few blocks from the White House.

At his New Jersey property,
there was a flyer saying,

if you rent the facility for an event,
the president might pop in on you.

And he's made good on that.

-Everyone having a good time?
-[woman] Yes, sir.

[woman 2] Looking good, Donald.

You're literally engaging in pay-for-play
by selling access to the government.

[newscaster]
The president has spent roughly one-third

of his time in office at Trump properties,

including his current working vacation
in Bedminster, New Jersey,

and 25 days at his Mar-a-Lago resort
where membership fees

have doubled to $200,000
since he took office.

But even beyond that, just using
the presidency to advertise businesses.

Trump Steaks. Where are the steaks?

Do we have the steaks?
Right. We have Trump Steaks.

Go buy Ivanka's stuff
is what I would tell him.

She developed another
unbelievably entrepreneurial,

wildly successful business
that bears her name.

The man tweeted at one point,
"Everybody should buy L.L. Bean products

because they supported me
in the campaign."

[Hayes] Dow Chemical donated $1 million
to Trump's inauguration fund.

And most recently sent letters
to three federal agencies

asking them to ignore pesticide studies.

Should I give this pen to Andrew?
Dow Chemicals.

The president misusing the presidency
to give free advertising

to his own properties whenever possible.

Hello, everybody.

[newscaster]
This was the liberal college town

of Charlottesville, Virginia, on Friday.

Jews will not replace us!

[woman] The alt-right is behind
these attacks in Charlottesville.

But you also had people,
very fine people on both sides.

[clamoring]

Does anyone know
I own a house in Charlottesville?

[woman] Where is it?

Oh, boy, it's gonna be...
It's in Charlottesville. You'll see.

[woman] Is it near the winery?

It is the winery.

I know a lot about Charlottesville.

I own one of the largest wineries
in the United States, in Charlottesville.

It's just the complete monetization
of the presidency.

The thing I'm most worried about
regarding the intersection

between the Trump brand
and Federal Government

is that we now no longer have the ability
to assess whether his decisions

are based on his policy aims
or his financial interests.

When you have Trump praising Erdoğan
in Turkey when he seizes more power...

President Erdoğan and I
are also discussing

the need to reinvigorate
our trade and commercial ties.

...or inviting a murderer like Duterte
to come stay in the White House.

[Trump] He's popular in the Philippines.

He has a very high approval rating.
I look forward to meeting him.

And then you learn that he's got

Trump-branded properties
in Turkey and in the Philippines.

You start wondering, "Does he admire
these men for their authoritarian traits,

or is he trying to make a buck?"
And whatever the answer is,

even if you wanna
give him the benefit of the doubt,

what's wrong is that
we have to even ask the question.

Back in Washington,
the Government Ethics watchdog

who raised red flags about Trump family
business dealings, resigned today.

[Shaub]
It was a difficult decision to quit,

but it was a lot more difficult to watch
the ethics program being dismantled.

I had been there
for the better part of 17 years.

And I now had been dealing with
a White House that was determined

to drive a Mack Truck
through any loopholes

they could find in the ethics program.

[Davidson] Every deal I've looked at
contains unbelievable ethical lapses

and many of the warning signs
of criminal activity.

But sometimes I wonder,
if maybe his greatest fear is,

he doesn’t know what he's done.

The way the Trump Organization worked is

that there were these people
in the world,

who knew they could make a connection

between Trump and people with money
to set up a deal.

When you have these people in the world
wandering around cutting deals,

you don't know what you've agreed to.

But that is not a legal defense.

There's a concept
called "willful blindness."

You are guilty if you knowingly
engage in an illegal action

or you're with somebody
who's performing an illegal action.

You're just as guilty
if you're willfully blind.

That doesn't mean
you just don't happen to know.

It means you have actively structured
your organization

to stop yourself from finding out.

[announcer]
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Donald Trump.

[man] Step right up, folks.

Here's the answer to your problems.
Sensational new discovery, ISM.

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to the body politic.

[Davidson] What truly scares me
and makes me think we have a problem

that will last much, much longer
than the Trump presidency,

is that this whole thing has worked.

Maybe it's just 35%,
but that a significant and crucial part

of the American people
so fundamentally misunderstand

the most basic principles of ethics,
and morality and business practices.

And that to me is really scary

'cause what choices are they gonna
keep making again and again?

The best way to think of his thought
about the presidential campaign

was it was a great con.
It was a great grift.

This was all part of the 45-year

showbiz project called
the Trump Organization.

The con man is a storied figure
in American life.

The snake oil salesman
who visits a small town

and convinces the yokels
to buy a magic potion.

Father Coughlin, in the 1930s,

who inveighed over a new medium
called radio to foster anti-Semitism.

Joe McCarthy, in the 1950s,
who used a new medium called television

to foment a scare
about Communist infiltration.

Donald Trump, in the year 2017,
who used social media

to foment the fear of the other

and to destabilize people's faith
in bipartisan public policy making.

The con man is a fixture of American life
and con man is short for confidence man.

He is someone who preys
upon people's confidence in them

to deliver on their dreams,
to deliver on their needs,

knowing full well that they have

neither the ability or the intent
to deliver on any of that.

♪ We're gonna make it, me and you ♪

♪ I know just what to do ♪

♪ We'll take the scars
And the ditches too ♪

♪ There ain't nobody rich like me ♪

♪ They say trouble should be my name ♪

♪ I get by just the same ♪

♪ When they're gone, lost again ♪

♪ Oh, there ain't nobody rich like me ♪

♪ There are winners, there are losers ♪

♪ Rivers paved with gold ♪

♪ Come here, I'll tell you ♪

♪ Oh, Lord, I've been told ♪

♪ I've seen sights you can't believe ♪

♪ Then again
Say money don't grow on trees ♪

♪ I ain't so funny
When I'm counting money ♪

♪ And there ain't nobody rich like me ♪

♪ Ain't nobody rich like me ♪

♪ There ain't nobody rich like me ♪