Good evening and welcome to the Commonwealth Club of California you can find us online at Commonwealth Club org on Facebook and Twitter and on our YouTube channel, I'm Robert Rosenthal board member of the Center for Investigative Reporting and your moderator for the program I'm now pleased to introduce our special guest David Kay Johnson Pulitzer Prize winning journalist founder of DC report org and author of the new book It's even worse than you think what the Trump administration Is doing to America and some of you may have read the book that he did last summer in summer of? 2016 the making of Donald Trump tonight we're meeting where constitutional crisis actually may be brewing in Washington over the publication or the release tomorrow of the secret report from the Nunez committee So while there's tweets distract us and dysfunction acrimony? Investigations and attempts to undermine investigations are dominating the news headlines President Trump's administration is radically changing the policies removing regulations and recreating programs that have defined American politics and effect, you know and its effect on all of us for many years In his first year the Trump administration's efforts to defund Obamacare repeal LGBT protections in the workplace imposed tax cuts and deport undocumented immigrants Have significantly impacted millions of Americans all while the the media and the mainstream media has struggled to keep up Beyond the tweets firing scandals and indictments how will Trump's policy agenda continue to affect our lives David Kay Johnson has many of the answers to that David's career in journalism goes back to when he was 18 years old and was recruited by the San Jose Mercury News Because it was reporting for two small weekly papers in Santa Cruz at age 19 the mercury hired him as a steep staff writer Over the next four decades David's award-winning investigations appeared in that paper the Detroit Free Press the Los Angeles Times The Philadelphia Enquirer where I first met David where we worked 30 years ago And the New York Times, so I just say one thing between the two of us We just were talking we probably have a hundred years of experience in Journalism and you still have black hair yeah It's just genetics His coverage of tax issues in the New York Times from 1995 to 2008 exposed so many tax dodges and tax cheats That one law professor called David the quote de facto chief tax enforcement officer of the United States David first met Donald Trump 30 years ago when he was a reporter at the Philadelphia Inquirer and covering Atlantic City and the Casinos he was working in the business department I was city editor then And he made a name for himself even then but since that time he has been chronicling Donald Trump's personal life business dealings From his casinos to his marriages and beyond which leads to our discussion today So David You're not shy I can tell you that Which is one of the air marks of a great reporter take us back to when you first met Donald Trump And your impressions of him from 1988 and what were you covering? Well I had left the LA Times where? I had spent several years exposing Daryl gates in the LAPD it was the first person to do that in various other folks that made me a pariah to some of the editors and the Philadelphia Inquirer was willing to take on my idea that casino gambling was going to spread all across America because of a US Supreme Court decision which it did so I arrived in Atlantic City and right after Memorial Memorial Day and a couple days later I meet Donald Trump And we just have a very brief meeting and I get to observe him for about a half an hour And as I'm standing there I go That's PT Barnum Come see the Fiji mermaid And Donald was the big story in length city had two casinos And he was the only colorful character among the owners there were lots of wonderful rogue characters I wrote about in my first book temples of chance About the casino industry, but Donald was the dominant figure and so I went to prepare for my first interview with him And one of the owner of one of the other casinos says Donald. I'm not think I'm not there's Mariners. Oh Come on. He owns two casinos running me doesn't know a thing about that business And then I go to the government regulators from the state of New Jersey, and they go Donald is not what we call an operator Now I talk to his own guys who it turns out They're real. Happy to talk they don't like Donald and they say yeah, Donald Not only doesn't know how to run the business doesn't anything about it But he's messing up the business because he's always just give me money. Give me money. Give me money, so I gotta meet Donald for the first long interview and I gave him four questions all of which had false statements in them and in each case Donald Accepted my falsehood and build it into the answer you know and I was suddenly thinking because I'd been in LA just weeks before He's your boyfriend leaving you does your husband really love you. We're California psychics He it was just like that. He's a con artist who's feeding you what he thinks you want to hear and that from then on Okay, that's what you got to do. You got to treat him as a con artist? So I tonight usually in these format is David There's a talk but I'm gonna read from the book on and off because I There's things in this book which I recommend everyone to read it's not always fun to read I have to admit it. It was quite disquieting in a lot of ways and David's written. I don't know how many stories and books about Donald Trump But he's also have you ever been sued by him were threatened Oh, he's been threatened to sue me for about 29 to 30 years. I've known him and Why don't well I'll just read this paragraph and Trump is this is Trump Has also lived a life of thumbing his nose at conventions and law enforcement learning lessons as a boy from his father Fred Whose business partner was an associate of the Gambino and Genovese crime families? He has long been in deep with mobsters domestic and foreign along with corrupt union bosses and assorted, swindlers Trump even spent years deeply entangled with it with a major international drug trafficker who like many of the others enjoyed their Mutually lucrative arrangements now I know you've written in great detail but you know if you hear that I mean there's a lot of allegations in there and but Like that every fact in there comes from public documents. It's not opinion Public documents and in this book in the prior book. There's a total of about 65 or 70 pages of source notes and For example the cocaine trafficker Joseph wexel mom he was a twice convicted felon. He was a mob associate when Donald got his first casino in the summer of 1984 he needed helicopters to bring high rollers in and There were a number of casino companies providing helicopters to the casinos companies with long experience in aviation Donald goes to this firm run by wexel Bob and his brother, which has almost no finances, and what it does came from subsidies from the city from the state of New Jersey He enters into a strange contract with em and rinsed them in apartment in New York City under strange circumstances They go bankrupt they go bankrupt again They're on the third version of the company Donald's still using them and then one day Joe excellent is arrested by the DEA and He confesses in October of 1985 so a little over a year after first casino open to bringing cocaine and marijuana from Colombia to Florida to Cincinnati and it's a little unusual to see this in his confession He confessed to personally handing the drunk handling the drugs. He would take Keys of cocaine and he would load them into cars and mules would drive them north Donald Trump is told about this as a casino owner. He should have cut his ties right there you're not allowed to concern with people like this I Don't keeps doing business with him He writes a letter Jo Wexler mom is a credit to the community. He's a stand-up guy who shouldn't serve any time in prison and then the case to sentence him gets transferred from federal court in Cincinnati, Ohio not to Florida where Wexler Baum had a home not to New York City where he had a home But to the New Jersey federal court room of a newly appointed relatively newly appointed federal judge Mary Ann Trump Barry Now imagine for Mobile you're the chief judge in New Jersey And a judge comes down the hall and says listen I have to recuse myself from this case because my husband works for none'll he flies this man's Helicopters all the time and by the way he not has even been the pilot for me when I'm flying in Donald's personal helicopter the Ivana then the terror that would strike in your heart about what if reporters find out we've got a federal judge flying around in a drug confessed drug traffickers helicopter If any of you heard this story, I told it as often as I could during the campaign PBS edited all of it out New York Times called up editors couldn't get it in the paper. I got it in foreign newspapers I have foreign TV crews come to my house in Rochester, New York But couldn't get it out even though It's public record Donald wrote the letter Donald wrote LeMay Kane when he was asked by the casino authorities about it He denied writing the letter Then they came back with the letter, and he goes. Oh, well. That's my signature, but I don't remember writing the letter This is the man with the world's greatest memory and The official record of their report on it doesn't ask the AI doesn't say anymore. He just acknowledged. He signed the letter What is the obvious next question you would ask about why would you sign a letter like that that could cost you your very lucrative? licenses for at that point two casinos and They didn't ask the question and I think the obvious Question is are you in business with this guy? Is he your partner? Are you sending him a signal? Don't worry? I'll never rat you out to law enforcement Be cool Because that's what exactly what I believe who's doing so one of the things with David and you're hearing this tremendous Encyclopedic knowledge around this and the reason I asked he's never been sued because most of his It's fact-based and on the record oh no my hat my two houses if if I didn't have that done solid And I mean talk about I mean one of the things you all should just glancing here. I think in your other books You've talked about more, but and I will say in this trail, but the bet cement and in New York concrete concrete Trump Tower 58 stories not the 68 Donald claims he sort of has an issue about how long things are Was one of the first high-rise buildings built with country most of the New York high-rises are steel girder construction that's become common now, but it was not then and The key to building a 58 storey concrete building is the reliability of the delivery of the cement it's got to leave the factory It's got to be ready It's got have only been mixed for a certain number of minutes And it's got to be poured which means that the Teamsters Union which controls the gate at the construction site has Enormous economic power over you They can really mess up your building so Donald had very good relationships because he bought his cement from a company called ans concrete Ans concrete was owned by Fat Tony Salerno and Paul Castellano the heads of the two biggest and most vicious mob families in New York So and if you got the Jena vases and the Gambino's with you, you know you're okay later there was the one of the big racketeering cases where Giuliani brought and It's the one that resulted in Salerno and a bunch of others going to prison for life or Salerno died the prosecutor when the convictions came in said that they had successfully stopped the most single the most vicious criminal organization in the history of the United States and One of the charges was the concrete provided to another Donald Trump building Trump Plaza on East 61st Street One that there's a series of questions here about taxes, and you you were leaked I think last March Something that came in the mail But what y'all wrecked my postman didn't even know it sold, and you know one of the things David I won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001 when he worked for the New York Times first look at the US tax code He's an expert as I alluded to in the introduction so why has it been Impossible or up to this point getting his taxes Well Donald has guarded his taxes with extraordinary Care and secrecy the only things that have come out were, New Jersey Casino Rican troll report from the 70s it covered five years two years three years that he paid What would be basically normal taxes for a rising young? person whose income is growing and Then two years or his income went negative the last year four point three million dollars of negative income and he paid no income taxes There were three summary pages of his 1995 New Jersey, Connecticut and New York State income taxes that came out, and then I got in the mail my mailman Rick The 2005 tax return just the form 1040 the first two pages, but there's a great deal of revelatory material in there if you understood taxes and The reason Donal that works to hide these it comes out of two tax trials he was taught tried twice for tax fraud civilly not criminally and lost both cases and In these trials over his 1984 tax return remember. He just opened Trump Tower and his casino, so his income had just exploded He filed what's called a Schedule C. It's what I file as a freelance writer That's what many independent consultants and businesses file He showed this much income zero and over six hundred thousand dollars of expenses So auditors from the state of New York in the city of New York said excuse me well We'd like to see the books and records Please show us receipts evidence that these this money was spent them that it was reasonable and necessary to earn it the income Donal doesn't have any but he tells jack Mitnick his tax lawyer had done this his and his father's taxes for years And he's also a CPA to take it to trial well at trial Jack Mitnick is shown by Judge Gregory telling of the city of New York the only Tax return the city has the one that was stamped is received. It's a photocopy and Mitnick looks at the return and says that's my under oath that's my signature, but neither I nor my firm prepared that tax return I Don't know how much better evidence of fraud you need them that But judge Tillman said in view of the fact that they couldn't find the original. He would waive the penalties the state court judge slapped him with the maximum penalties for the same set of facts and Donald's tax returns, I have no doubt it will show tax fraud, and they'll show dubious expenses of all kinds I I'm the shadow IRS commissioner if you follow a shadowing Trump on Twitter and like the British have a shadow cabinet or the shadow cabinet and I tweeted about Gee did did Donald take a reasonable and necessary business seduction for the hundred and thirty thousand dollars of hush money storming the annuals So do you think I'm we're in Calhoun, San Francisco, so the questions are not they're coming from one direction but Excuse me. I was born here. Yeah, that's true Christmas Eve Do you think Muller is I mean the question of not only The business dealings and Russian investments in Trump's real estate in the you know the last ten years before he bran right? which Muller have access to the tax returns and what do you think he's looking at I Muller has the tax returns and you know that because it's simply the way a Competent prosecutor operates and Muller is as good as it gets so there's no privacy issues with that No, not at all. No here. This is a law enforcement investigation There's a procedure you have to go through and there's paperwork and Pat things you have to do to get the tax returns But absolutely he has the tax returns, but tax returns are just the starting point It's the books and records behind them that matter That Donald has a habit first of all when he was in business at the end of each month He would tear up and throw away his calendar So you could always say, I don't know there was a meeting. I don't remember secondly the city of New York went to audit his first big project the Grand Hyatt Hotel He'd been paying about 2.6 million dollars a year annually as In lieu of rent because of the profits of the hotel and all of a sudden one year. He paid less than $600,000 so the auditors say we'd like to see the books and records. No you can't see them They get a ruling yes, we can see them They show up. Well. You can't see him today. They show up. Oh it turns out that a water main broke The auditors find out that there's an electronic backup in Chicago, so they go to Chicago Oh somebody last night was saving everything and they accidentally erased the records Well ultimately they actually find the records no water damage in a storage building in New Jersey That's the kind of extent that he goes to to hide while he's lying and denied So you probably know as much as anybody about his career in life But and when we're in the book you I think you wrote he's remarkably agile at doing as he chooses and getting away with it How do you explain that I mean well? Why doesn't anything stick okay the vast majority of people who commit murders? Have never get arrested And the only time to the project some years ago only percent of homicides over 10 years in LA County were Solved the solution to a crime simply means the detectives on the case have persuaded their Supervisors that they know who did it even though they can't make the case to arrest them that person and Secondly Donald is very good at compromising people he beat for grand jury investigations One and and this goes to the Joe exil bomb questions that weren't asked He was not thoroughly Investigated for a casino license every casino owner other than Donald got up to 18 months of scrutiny New Jersey sent detectives all over the world You know they went to Lisbon Spain to look up records you had to produce every address. You'd ever lived at your entire life I mean intense expensive scrutiny and you paid for this by the way. He managed to get a five month investigation That was not thorough. They didn't even know about two of the grand jury investigations till the last moment which alone should have disqualified him but once the state of New Jersey didn't just Give him a license after a hearing once he became the only person as a casino owner Recommended for a licensed by the state of New Jersey the bureaucratic imperative took hold If they were to ask him the question I did about Joe Buck's album If they were to dig into a lot of other things that he did that would make him unqualified to hold a casino license They would have to admit that they were wrong in the beginning and they were never prepared to do that So he basically is stable and it's continuing I guess you could argue to get away with it even tonight, and we'll see what happens if these documents are released a lot of the questions are Can you imagine an impeachment process and how does that unfold if you were from your vanity? I've thought this through pretty thoroughly I was lucky when Bob and I were young but I actually got a little piece of the Watergate story from Lansing, Michigan of all places There's no good ending to this story when Donald leaves the White House the country will get beyond this I don't want you to get depressed. We'll get past this we we got through the civil war we got through Andrew Jackson You know we got through the White House screen burned We'll get through this but Donald's leaving the White House the 25th amendment only works on a voluntary basis or everybody knows the president got shot as with Reagan It's not going to happen There will be no impeachment unless the Democrats have control of the house in the Senate and the Senate remember they have to have a two-thirds majority to convict If that happens and they impeach Trump and remove him from office even if it's a charge among many If the Russians are a charge Can and he's a beneficiary therefore Vladimir Putin's interference can Mike Pence be made President of the United States because he would also be a beneficiary of Putin's interference if he is removed you're immediately going to face the problem that our former Baltimore resident and local native Nancy Pelosi becomes president of the United States And you can imagine that there will be people in the streets screaming coup d'etat and if this has happened I believe the only way to deal with it is that Nancy or whoever else is the speaker has to say I'm a caretaker president. Oh nothing to do with the election. This is going to be low-key You know much more Jerry Ford than Jerry Ford was If Donald is voted out either in a Republican primary in 2020 because clearly some Republicans aren't against him or by the general election Donald will scream bloody murder that it was rigged and how do we know that because he says that he won the popular vote and That it was rigged and that's why Hillary had the votes If he's removed from office whether by the voters or impeachment Donald I believe will spend the rest of his life traveling the country fomenting violence and Revolution because and why am I confident of that when he was trying to get people to vote for him to win people over They beat that guy up. I'll pay your legal bills beat that one up I'll pay your leak which he'd never do but if he's willing to do that when he's looking for votes after he's been Humiliated there would be no can holding him back at all on This stuff so if they're going to do this I believe if you're going to impeach him Then you have to do it with the plan that you're going to indict him try them getting convicted and imprisoned Now there there's no reason we can't indict a sitting president. There is a Justice Department Regulation that says we can't do it So that's why I think that would be Impeachment and then criminal and there's lots and lots of crimes Donald who's committed lots of them And by the way tax fraud is one in which the statute of limitations as with murder doesn't run out That's cheery Let's go get a drink So Let's play out the scenario at the moment we're in and we actually may be in you know not a Historic or you know a Saturday night massacre what the FBI director a trump appointee made clear yesterday That the document they're apparently going to release tomorrow is inaccurate flawed and really totally inappropriate What if he resigns what do you see unfolding? Well, it's you need to understand. Why this document is so important and here We are journalists searching may be a document should be put in the record which is sort of contrary to where he would be But the one of the problems with it is that this doctrine was put out in the record it may well signal to Friendly governments stop giving us information, and who were the first people to alert our government that there appeared to be very inappropriate Communications going on between people around Trump and the Russians well. It was the Dutch the British the Australians and probably others Those are the ones we know about Why would the Israelis trust us to give us information after Donald Trump went and gave the information to the Russian Foreign Minister and? the Russian ambassador to Washington DC Christopher ray trump's appointee spent four years as a federal prosecutor in 13 years defending White-collar criminals. He made the year or maybe it's 14 or 15 months before I took office on very nice living representing the big banks for white-collar crimes 17 million dollars He is faced with a real serious problem FBI agents are no doubt. I don't talk to any of them I've known lots of FBI just what I'm talking about today the FBI Union but the Association former officers has complained about this and this denigration of the FBI and the FBI is not perfect I mean we all know they can tell pro. Do I need to say more but? overall it is an absolute jewel of the United States government and Christopher ray is faced with the problem of if I resign I no longer have any influence whatsoever and God knows who's going to be in there next Mccabe is now gone The organization has leadership there are very sensitive counterintelligence and other investigations That need leadership at the top to move forward And yet if he doesn't resign He's being implicit in saying it's okay to do these things and by the way the vote by the House Intelligence Committee to release this report There was a second vote to deny allowing the Democrats to issue a Critique of that document he's had every nothing like an area has ever happened. Which that'll get leaked at some point Hopefully but probably actually probably not I mean first of all as you know in criminal investigations all the leaks you see They never come from law enforcement unless they've made a mistake They come from the defense and and often its defense lawyers. We may never see in the paper You know some clerk somewhere some low-level person his lawyer may say well You know I've got this stuff, and I want to sort of up my place with some journalists and and leak something So you're out there sort of amongst the little bucks to find those things at the tip of the spear is someone who I? Guess this has a certain point of view about Donald Trump How how much information you sort of getting is coming to you now that is credible Or you get tips and leads frequently every day every ten minutes I get people who emailed me every day with all sorts of interesting theories That indicate they don't understand the law or a lot of paranoid delusion with ones You know and I always publish my home address and telephone number even when I had little children at home, and I was writing about heavyweight criminals Never caused a problem, but it did get me stories from time to time like the Trump tax return Which I suspect Donald sent, or had sent to me How do you believe it as Donald has a long history of leaking material about himself and in? 2016 on July 31st and August 1st of 2016 the New York Post on its favorite newspaper ran really sleazy pictures of Melania She and another woman Naked on a mattress pressed up against a wall. It has a sheet over it Lighting like years before yes. Oh yeah, yeah these were shot 20 years ago, and they are but I mean this is not art Okay, these are just sleazy porn and the New York Post publishes these things and then the post runs the story Saying you know they asked the Trump campaign what they thought about it was like it's okay. We're cool That tells you that Donald was the one who either directly or indirectly put the pictures out there he gets off on that It's Melania talking to you no I don't think she's talking to Donald much either. Yeah Yeah, yeah, but you raised the issue of what I think about Donald let me be clear I find Donald to be endlessly fascinating The reason I've kept files on them all this year just as they did Daryl gates the police chief in LA until he died Barron Hilton the hotelier who's still alive? And Jack Welch of GE who gave up all his retirement perks after I explained their economics and some other people is I went these People were important they're gonna come back in the future And I'm gonna Keep track of them and keep files on them and pay attention to what they're doing and every one I followed his paid off well he also is a it's a subject for a journalist and I Understand exactly we're talking about because he is fascinating yeah and great story, but he's also and you allude to this in the book Not that you I don't think it's fair to say respect him, but you acknowledge. He has a certain I'll say this genius or oh yeah tapped into something and evidently That has really captured a certain audience not here. Well now you're obtaining now You're under the painful part of this. Yeah, Donald Trump's economic platform came out of a trilogy of books that I wrote Perfectly legal and what party are you registered to vote Republican, okay? registers a set up I Wrote a book. I wrote perfectly legal, which John Kerry stopped his campaign for president for three days to read this probably way lost About taxes free lunch about subsidies if you know that Walmart builds its stores with your tax dollars. That's because of my work and The fine print which was about restraint of trade monopolies and in 2012 I went around saying somebody runs for president on this platform They're gonna get elected because the bottom 90 percent of Americans are making less income this year on average than they were in 1967 and They're some of them are living in economic Terror the bottom half and all you've got to do is articulate how the government is Making the rich richer and the rest of you worse off and what does Donald say for too long? Washington has been taking care of itself and wall street and not you And I know he watched me on TV because I talked to people he told about this so in some ways There's a little irony in all of this It's my fault So yeah you may be the answer his mother's team talked to you know Now that mean that you never get leaks from the prosecution you never do I don't mean leaks I mean No, I mean no reason for me to talk to him, and they're people ask me does He come to me there isn't anything I have he a subpoena power reason leave me well You've also worked great deal of for public records they told ya yeah and and I mean they may well have you know went and check things or in books of mine or something and then said let's Go get these records. That's what Glen Glen Simpson. Who did the GPS report in the Chris? Mr.. Steel dossier, you know I talked to Glen I know him and he said yeah one of the first things he did was read my books and Took leads out of them. You know just getting back to the your cheery scenario but Basically, I think what you're also saying is that his past is never gonna catch up to him Well, I think it may now. I mean, I think that's why he wants to he wants Moeller out of there because Muller is doing a thorough job and Muller took the 17 Former prosecutors he got to come back to the government They all walk away from million-dollar up to I guess seventeen million dollar jobs to earn $190,000 or so as a federal prosecutor And they decided we're gonna go create a new law firm. You know Muller and partners They blow away every other white-collar defense firm in the country. He has a really stellar team of people One of the issues and it's alluded to it a lot of the questions But it's this sort of the Distraction or in especially around the tweets and this that was call it the if you want to call it a soap opera the ongoing drama Happening up here, and it's almost I think tactical and George Lake has written a lot about that and I cite him in the book and But what the book really goes into deeply and it's not fun to read is the dismantling Right so when we get into a little bit now and and even today This is current, but it ties into the theme of your book the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was basically going to be dismantled And I think Mulvaney announced that today and some of the language coming out, and I thought maybe we can talk about something contemporary It's actually happening, which this dis agency looks at has oversight basically protecting all of us especially Lower-income minorities against fraud and how much their they pay in their loans, and there's been many cases Where companies have overcharged them, and if you're white you're paying a lot less, but Well veiny actually said is that his view and the agency's view is To get the regulator's off the neck of the people meaning the companies and serve their views right their needs so This pattern is something you go chapter and verse and maybe you can talk about oceans the Clean Water Act I mean and what you're seeing happening well what you're seeing in the team Trump. Do it's not Donald He spends about five hours a day playing president and by the way during the campaign. He said you know well I'm not gonna be the president. I'm gonna appoint somebody to do the job. He literally said that during the campaign at the the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau which was Elizabeth Warren's baby, and I've known Elizabeth for thirty years, and I find considered her the finest public servant I have ever met in my life incredibly thoughtful and dedicated and opened the eyes up of Washington and a lot of other people to things they didn't know about bankruptcy in America, and how the law works That agency has won back about four times the amount of money it costs to run it I mean, that's you would think gee we should put more money into this. This is an effort. That's really doing good things But of course it's winning back that money by taking it back from banks like Warren Buffett's Wells Fargo Bank that were out ripping people off So they want to get rid of that, and it's indicative of the pattern of what they're doing when Trump said we've eliminated all regulations Well, I used to teach regulatory law I'm not a lawyer, but for eight years they taught regulatory law at Syracuse University in the third year honors law students and They're not fixing regulations that have gotten out of time they're going in and saying oh You're the beautiful clean coal companies we're going to just remove all the Regulations that deal with that ugly nasty dirty coal that causes people to get cancer and asthma and heart disease and let you just do Whatever you want with your beautiful clean coal We're going to not enforce the Clean Water Act We're going to allow electric utilities after they have burned coal, and they have this toxic residue to continue doing the early ninth 20th century practice of you spray it with water until it flows you put it in a slurry pond and You build those ponds typically next to rivers where people get their drinking water And you may remember in the news in the last few years some of those dikes broke and there were rivers where people had to Drink bottled water for weeks or months and all the fish were killed the at the OSHA the Occupational Health and Safety Administration They stopped posting press releases designed to shame companies that through bad practices killed a worker We wrote about that a DC report they then put them back up, and I can't prove causality But that's the timeline and then they stopped doing it again, then they stopped posting death 4,800 people a year are killed on the job, and they would put up you know the person when it happened etcetera August 17th last one was up So then you go and say well, how about the statistical data? You know how many people were crushed how many were electrocuted etc etc. You can't have that They are withdrawing from the record of these things at the EPA I tell a story of the woman named Betsy Sutherland who can talk because she took retirement she was also retirement age who was deeply involved with Clean Water Act enforcement Scott Pruitt's Subordinates the people I call political termites because you don't see them there working in the background Ordered that and protoid them to write very very detailed multi hundred page report Giving every single weakness if they went to court or tried to enforce the law against polluters every detail they possibly new and being bureaucrats they followed the orders they were given they wrote these very detailed reports scott pruett who locks the Outer area the outer outer area towards his office and requires any employee who is summoned to empty their pockets including their cell phone Comes to a meeting It's a one-way conversation Occasionally Pruett or one of his people will say, I'm sorry I didn't catch that word that kind of question And then they took all the information and left Well, we don't literally know what they did with it because they won't tell us But I would guess there's a very good chance that this particular Report is at the US Chamber of Commerce and all the big coal companies So it's a huge amount of information in this book and it and again sort of stunning I think maybe depending on your political points of view But how do you imagine this sort of all being conveyed I mean if you want to talk about Scott Pruett? I mean, it's it's outrageous really what what you lay out in the book and a lot of that's been out there But you know nothing is this gonna stick you see this translated into specific Tactics that really can change the political dialogue, and you looked or the midterms Or as well, just too much for people to understand well That's part of the problem is how is the public can respond to this? I mean one of the things a lot of people have is Trump fatigue And I've had many people in the radio shows and things I've been doing who call in who go I know more than I want to know about Trump, and I try to say to them yeah but you know about the fall drawl and the tweets and the racism and the palace intrigues you don't know what he's doing to you and I think people in specific interest groups and areas have to arouse people's interest about what's happening here You know we have a lot fewer deaths from asthma Cancer and heart disease than we would otherwise have because Richard Nixon signed the clean air and the clean water acts and we had enforced them and We have fewer worker deaths We have been doing a not as good as we could but a reasonably good job of over time Dealing with worker deaths and injuries on the job Underfunded OSHA, but got better clearly if you're a marginal employer, you know well Maybe I'll follow the best safety practices, and maybe I'd like to buy about this summer And the cost of killing a workers minimal to a significant corporation Well what the Clean Water Act is being undone yes about that do you want to talk about? What's happening with that and what you think might that should be a bipartisan issue? I mean you want your kids drinking the water laced with cadmium It's real simple if you do well you know fine Did you know and all your dealings with with the president and mr.? Trump over the years Donald Donald as you call him Have you gotten under his skin that you're aware of or of the book? Can I borrow the book? Here, so I'm worked up here over the back quote Donald gave us a blurb on the back of the book He didn't mean to give us a blurb to be clear. I know the reporter is a weird dude Who's been following me for 25 years so obviously? He hasn't done well He's been following me in a negative fashion for 25 years always a hit, and I'm president so he hasn't done a very good job What was I don't disagree with him on that What was the contrast of that comment after I got Donald's tax return and the White House authenticated it, and they also did something That's one of the most disreputable things you can do as a PR person Before my story was posted a DC report and right after that I went on Rachel Maddow But we broke the story Sean Spicer gave copies of it to all the newspaper and TV reporters You just don't do that in public relations with somebody story. It's considered just about as bad as knows Bob's agreeing with you here and The next day he went on Tucker Carlson, who is the new Bill O'Reilly and his tax return was 153 million dollars of income 100 million dollar tax shelter that I write about and explained an illegal one shutdown by Congress and 49 million dollars of taxable income 153 million Donal goes on Tucker Carlson says well, you know I made 250 million dollars And then there was this hundred million or deduction I got so then it's a hundred and fifty million dollars, man Can't even keep his own tax returns straight So what would be the benefit of his leaking that to you if you think it came with? Why it is first of all showed he made a tremendous amount of money? three million dollars a week Secondly he paid a lot of taxes by the way most news organizations Said he paid thirty eight million dollars in taxes because that was the White House press release if they had just looked at the return They would know he paid thirty six million dollars in taxes Reporters often read the press release, and they don't look at the evidence right in front of their eyes What the reason Donnell wasn't thrilled when I when when the story appeared as I thought? I think he expected I would write a story saying you made a lot of money And you paid a lot of taxes you paid about roughly the rate that I do about twenty four percent Except that But for a back up tax called the alternative minimum tax How many of you pay the AMT if you know a fair number of people? But for that back up tax he would have paid five million dollars on a hundred and fifty three million That's less than three and a half percent and that turns out to be a very important number In two thousand five the poorest half of Americans who file tax returns made three hundred dollars a week not three million a week three hundred dollars a week and Their average federal tax rate was a little more than three and a half percent Donald has called for eliminating the AMT That means Donald Trump believes on three million a week that he should be taxed more lightly than people who make three hundred dollars a week and when I story emphasize that and I emphasized it on TV and Clearly Donald was very upset and of course by the way this portion of the AMT He got all of it back to the next year the year after Because well people like me the AMT that we pay we don't get back if you're in real estate It is essentially a refundable tax against future Depreciation Have any future income Have you ever been approached to like work on a campaign, or as an advisor? Or do you think that would you do that? No what juncture I'd be a terrible alter Shabbat Not a pot you know but yo you down a politician But I mean it's working now. I don't do that I don't I I speak to any but I mean I'll speak to anybody I speak to right-wing groups left-wing groups I'm the only the only person. I won't do a show on and he calls me a coward is is is Infowars because alex jones is so crazy Donald Trump endorses by the way that he's real news not fake news you can go on the internet and watch his 45-minute rant Interdimensional beings have taken over the elites, but thanks to Infowars it's beginning to come out Well he has a big following to which is that we can get into the whole media, and that's really terrifying You're right huge following you know and that's why? Beings don't care in a moment Where obviously I call the divide the information divide whether you want to call it the media divide and the audience goes where they want? But Alex Jones does have a huge following Sean Hannity has a huge following Have you been on Hannity or would you? I don't think that Sean Hannity has the courage to put me on his show okay that may get it Okay, and by the way if you're tweeting do that I also Shot and I'll say this Sean Hannity doesn't have the courage to put me on live Fox tapes most of those shows you see when i'm on CNN ABC MSNBC BBC, which i'm off and on in primetime from my home. Those are all live But when I was on Bill, O'Reilly it was taped so he could edit it and make you look the way he wants Sean Hannity doesn't have the courage to have me on his show live And that in itself shows that he's not fair and balanced Which let's talk a little bit about the media I mean that I mean there's a lot of questions around that and sort of the question of following Tweets as it terms in terms of instead of going what you've done in your book I know you're fairly critical of what you know. I think mainstream media has done or not done Well during the campaign there was terrible failure to scrub the candidate That's the term in the business for investigating the background But I actually think the coverage in the White House by the York Times the LA Times knight-ridder Politico Bloomberg of Washington Post has been phenomenal and Many of the stories you see they involve Lots and lots and lots of over weeks going to this person getting from that one teasing out something over here And then finally being able to pull it together, and I mean it's really serious detective working I'm I'm mightily impressed by a great deal of it what I mean one of the things that was astonishing to me But maybe not so much to you is it Especially early on and slowed down a little bit with the leaks coming out of the White House. Yeah well Do you like it that was like when Donald's guys were leaking to me left and right? This is a man who he expects absolute? Fealty to him it is not only a one-way street And he tends to hire people who have some flaw somewhere that they are not going to be as successful somewhere else and and He you know he also has this philosophy. That's very important Donald wrote in one of the books or someone wrote for him in one of the books He said in speeches and a number of forums that his life Philosophy is revenge if someone just declines to do you a favor because they think that the ethically can't do so hit him in the face 15 times and He says I get pleasure from destroying the lives of these people and He tells about a particular woman who he got rid of and then her marriage fell apart And she lost her home, and it made him happier and happier as each of these things happen This is the man Jerry Falwell calls a fine Christian He says that anyone who turns the other cheek Sermon on the Mount is A fool an idiot mashach, and he's not using the third word as a redundancy He means it in the most vile definition of that it'sh work So I'm not surprised people are leaking a lot of place furthermore. This is a White House he didn't bring a political organization of people who came with him they went out and grabbed people and They're in the White House pretty heavy experience, and hey there's this reporter, and I can like you know and who knows in the future Leaked to them something So you do you think there's any sort of? Solution to the divide. I mean I'm not sure how this talk would have gone if we or say in, Missouri Or a red state and but I mean are you thinking about that I mean the book? is really clear it's really clear where you're coming from it's it's it's not heartening to read it and Yet, it's also not something somebody who likes Trump is probably going to read over, and you'll be discounted as an endeavor So how do you know when you're dealing with this and thinking about? How do you like bridge this divide? Which I think we'd all like to try and do it you thinking about that in a solution no Yeah I mean there has been a more than 40 year well increasingly well-funded campaign to attack on this journalism in this country Read her vine who started saying called accuracy in media Was the key big early player in this? And I've been the subject of a lot of these attacks over the years I mean I've been right in the battlefield with these people and I can point to things and say you know you guys wrote this piece that I did this terrible thing and it's that ADA isn't what I said and be here's the facts you can read them and Many of them are people who are not adults their children they you know what the during a child an adult pretty fundamentally is Children make true that which they wish to be true. You know as grown-ups. We go boy Unhappy that's the way it is, but I recognize. That's the way it is and We've developed especially with the Internet and the silos where you can be in the neck of chamber A lot of people who don't want to hear any news that Doesn't reconfirm what they believe if you want to know a lot about this There's a slim excellent little book by Farhad Manjoo called true enough and one of the things like social psychologists and sociologists and others have found by testing is that if somebody believe something that isn't true and They're shown the evidence it isn't true if you're a journalist Your training says well. You got to go where the facts go like it or not But most people this research shows double down, and they just reject the factual world so true enough does a good job very short read of explaining this stuff and Part of the problem is that I mean the underlying real? This is the America's education system was designed in the early stages of American dust realizations as we went from an agrarian nation after the Civil War to an industrial nation and That system was designed to produce read and write in the mirth Metacritic illegals I have had better conversations about economics culture art politics with The waiter my wife, and I had in a roadside cafe in Austria the chambermaid Cleaning my room in Hannes burg South Africa than I've had with people who are senior executives running for thousand-dollar suits and it's very troubling to see that we're not teaching these these critical things skills and my friends who are Immigrants to this country one of my best friends grew up in Siberia because his appearance were on the outs with the Kremlin He just marvels at how you know. He just keeps talking about how can Americans not critically think about what's going on and It's a real problem But I don't I think the underlying issue is we have to teach critical thinking skills and stop running an education system to produce drones Thank you David can you know in terms of the collusion issues with the campaign? But it go much deeper in terms of Russian and this whole question the Putin is He taking us through to the best of your knowledge sort of the Linkage and the investment of the Russian oligarchs or money especially in real estate Let me make a suggestion about how to think about Vladimir Putin and influence Vladimir Putin believes democracy is a joke He said this repeatedly he has said they want to undermine democracy The oligarchs who are the biggest criminal gang in the world and he's their head have repeatedly tried to Not only Upset the political and electoral processes and democracies, but they have rate tried to raid the wealth of the West The whole Icelandic banks scandal was a Russian scheme to steal the pension wealth of England Netherlands if you're Vladimir Putin you think like the people on Sand Hill Road the venture capitalists in Silicon Valley You've got all these opportunities to do things to undermine or Cop promis-- people or develop people who may be unwitting agents lots of opportunities, so Out of a thousand you fund a hundred ninety-five of them are a bust they didn't worked out four of them, maybe Carter pages in this group Provides you with enough to justify the 95 that went nowhere, and then you get Amazon Donald Trump is vitam repute ins Amazon and he hit the jackpot and the Russians have been grooming Donald Trump since 1987 when they provided the Donald Trump and his wife with a trip to Russia and royally treated them while they were there and Donald Trump is not a sophisticated, man. He's not a sophisticated thinker He's not the kind of guy who would even Realize he's slowly being sucked in and being compromised and Carter page and you've seen him on TV. I mean talk about a weird, dude Carter page Was involved with two known Russian spies, and I think maybe three But two for sure so it's entirely reasonable that the u.s.. Counterintelligence operation is looking at Carter page What are you doing with these people we know to be spies? Why are you meeting with them? Why are you doing business with them, and now what are you doing with the Trump campaign and your name Donald Trump's? You know advisor on international relations even though you don't have any chops for the job If you or I were bi counterintelligence guys we'd say yeah but follow that very carefully and that's what the newest memo is in part about and so the way to think about all this is you know we have an adversary a Hostile foreign power that is determined to weaken our position and that certainly did not want Hillary Clinton in the White House somebody I don't hold any book for she tried to get me fired at the New York Times But he didn't want her because she would have made him feel Enormous pain up to the edge of going to war to get him out of the Crimea. She was very clear about that She wasn't gonna go to war over Crimea, but she was going to make him pay If he didn't give up Crimea And he wants to keep Crimea. He wants his one water port So how much I mean in terms of the mother maybe you're where some of these things But in terms of following the money the old adage Where is that going? Everybody could go in terms of showing the relationship the potential for money laundering? You know a lot of these things have or in the buzz Or it when Trump Tower opened technically in November 30th of 1983, but really in early 84 It was one of only two prime Residential buildings in New York where anonymous wealth could make a purchase you know the city of the state of New York's co-op laws if they had if the South had discovered them the civil rights movement have failed under those co-op laws you want to buy an apartment in New York City you have to show your tax returns and You know how your dog barks and everything else before you are allowed to buy into a building Trump and Olympia Tower owned by the family of the Anastos family would take Companies that you know know who they are so you could walk in and say hi I'm I I'm a lawyer. I represent a company called snow Inc in the Cayman Islands You know it might be a ski lodge in Colorado, and it might be a cocaine cartel in Medellin they don't care They just say oh, well yes And here's how much the apartment is and these were premium prices because you got to hide your identity Trump Tower is full of criminals It's the most watched building in New York City by Interpol the FBI the New York State Police and has been for years and gotten so Donald Trump made a lot of money off of selling apartments to these people and when he got in trouble and He couldn't pay his bankers, and he told me one day's worth three million dollars Just before I revealed he wasn't a billionaire And you know I said it Donald one point Donald if you're a billionaire pay your bills if you're really a billionaire Billionaire can't pay his bills because he's not a billionaire When the banks cut him off except for deutsche bank the preferred bank for russian money laundering He began to get influxes of capital from russians in various ways The most outrageous deal and the easiest to see what was going on is two miles from mar-a-lago Some nouveau, riche people, built a house that would make the Texas Oil Barons of the 50s looked like masters of sophisticated taste I Looked at this building and went what hath God wrought? and He buys it for 40 or 41 million dollars in 2008 Donald declares that an act of God has destroyed the real estate Market the market is he says dead in all of America He tries to get out of a loan to Deutsche Bank of 40 million dollars That's coming too and along comes Dmitri rebel of Lev one of the oligarchs Who pays Donald a hundred million dollars 95 plus a commission that as Donald tells the story for this property? Well once it becomes an issue, and it would have been a big issue if he had been the state senator or a mayor Donald's the cover story. That's put out is that River love love was getting divorced and he's a Multi-billionaire, and he was hiding money from his wife Now I want you to just imagine you're trying to hide money from your spouse in anticipation of a divorce Would you go pay two or three times what something is worth? I mean why not just take a match to your money and burn it up you would buy things at a discount and They were putting money in Donald's pocket One of the sons came back from a conference in Moscow and said the Russians are giving us all the money to buy the golf courses that was 2007 so is any of that illegal is that word mothers going do you think tens on what's going on it could be illegal could Not be illegal. I mean the Trump is so concerned about the answer. I always taught my law students to every question is it depends So yes I mean I'm sure there's clear going to be clear criminality involving this money laundering deals done in Panama Ripping people off the previous book the making of Donald Trump has a lot about these corrupt deals And how he ripped various people off and and it isn't just Donald when they were trying to sell condos in In Baja, California Where to get there, you'd have to drive through Tijuana which is right now one of the most violent cities in America I think in the Americas. I think only Tegucigalpa is is more dangerous They held an event to encourage people to buy and they want Trump comes and To persuade one woman to do the deal she says well you know I'm getting a unit two maybe I'll come by and borrow a cup of sugar I Mean these are polished swindlers and drifters Well David's point of view is clear And I near the end of the book you quote a Sociologist named Johnson Knight, and I recommend you all because I was thinking this book went in with something uplifting mm-hmm So I'm gonna just this is another sentence she wrote, and then we're getting close to the end here But how can here's what you basically go through an imagery? And it's you can imagine sitting next to someone like Donald Trump on a plane and your own impressions of him And you go through that scenario, but at the end of that scenario. I won't get in all the details But you basically say this is after your hearing this Trump Speaking use your stranger you would I imagine fear you were to use a trumpian term stuck next to a nutjob until your trip ended How can it be that millions of people do not see Trump for what he is an autistic ill-informed thriving old blowhard So do you have a I mean? You've thought a lot about this and What do you say you know my yeah, but I mean also. This is really and you say this in the book Trump It's this Trump, and this release is all about America And who we are and what we are as a country because again if we were in a different part of the country You know the reception would be very different. I mean you're traveling around the United States now I I don't know what the audiences are like you're on radio shows but Why doesn't this stick I mean it is this divide around culture around values? About belief and there are many people Who think you know as you said, maybe may take those treats and protect him well one of the ways I think about it is when you and I were in high school at the same time there were ads That if you put this stuff in your hair called Brylcreem the girls would be all over you right Sounds absolutely ridiculous right they sold a lot of Brylcreem when my oldest son was about to go to college They ran the I think I have a tiling right they ran the these ads where if you I'm from a certain brand of beer in your dormitory the Swedish bikini team would show up a particularly absurd idea and It sold a lot of that brand to beer people respond to these images And we're manipulable and so Donald through his TV show sold this image of himself as being this fabulously fabulously successful businessman and the media plays a role in this Trump He now said I'm worth eight point seven billion ten billion more than ten billion at one point. He said 11 billion After he became president. He asked if he could file his financial disclosure statement without signing it under penalty of perjury and when he was told no he filed it, and it's 1.4 billion and That's exaggerated, too because he lists his Scottish golf courses where he has to report revenues and profit or loss as More than 50 million, and he's characterizing as being worth more than a hundred million dollars. They're losing money I don't know about you, but I don't think I'd admit Gulf course doesn't even have a revenue to justify that kind of price so There's a lot of cultural forces at work, but the air zat's experience of television. We haven't fully adapted to You know Vance Packard? 1958 we wrote a book the hidden persuaders why do you pick up the red box read the blue box? And Donald is a real Master of how to get you to look at you know pay attention to this is a living nor that there is no stake And be fun to have you and Donald Trump on the stage, and we have a surprise guest come on in But unfortunately we've reached the point in our bargain where this time only one last question It's the two-minute warning, and here's a question from the audience, which maybe Lead to a hopeful answer, but potentially a solution and the question is hard to imagine It's worse than I think but aside from the midterm elections and gubernatorial races. What are the three most important points? We need to act upon to counter the damage oh I like that well first of all you know I'm a very I'm optimistic among other things She can't be the father of eight children and not be optimistic Number one You need to listen to pee people who think Donald was terrific and people who disagree with you sympathetically You know and find out why they believe the things they do You don't get anywhere by telling them. They're stupid. They don't know what they're doing Many people who support Donald Trump You know may not know jack about politics but if you were sitting in a and I've done this sat in singing in a blue-collar bar in Michigan or Ohio or Western New York where I live dressed in the right attire and Something happens on the TV with a sports game. You will see the most incredible analytical skills that work Because people are engaged in these things so When people over could Jol them make that word part of your life cajole people to think things may be different the second thing is Don't just post things on the internet invent act Make sure you're registered to vote make sure your family and friends are registered to vote on before Election Day arrange to go to some district that is turnable and go help drive people to the polls if Enough if they had done that in Wisconsin during the recalls instead of trying to outspend the koch brothers on ads Imagine unions trying to outspend the koch brothers on ads Scott Walker, I don't think would be governor of Wisconsin because at the end of the day, it's only the votes that matter but it's more than that you got to get people to vote you can get them to to the polls and thirdly Start a discussion about what kind of America we want to have This country was founded by people who embrace the Enlightenment the idea of reason and fact and its purpose I believe is to Ennoble the human spirit and set it free to see what human beings can be? But there's always a tug by people who want to have an authoritarian telling them what to do that will extinguish that spirit and You want to get people to think about what kind of America? Do you want do you want the kind of America where today? You can't walk into a courthouse without being searched and the police have my automatic rifles Do you want to have an America where we have children reports of children all over the country being? told go back to Mexico or go back to Egypt or wherever and insulted because of the color of their skin or the way their hair is and women being treated the way that We've seen after the Billy Bush tape Talk about the positive talk about what we can be what we can be what we can be so thank you Okay Well said our thanks to David Kay Johnson Pulitzer prize-winning journalist founder of DC report org and Author of the new book it's even worse than you think what the Trump administration is doing to America we also Thank our audiences here and on radio television and the Internet we want to remind everyone here that copies of mr. Johnson's book are for sale, and he'll be pleased to sign books outside this room immediately following the program I'm Robert Rosenthal and now this meeting of the Commonwealth Club of California The place where you're in the know is adjourned
