Getting to Grips with the Trump Phenomenon

i'm here today with David Cay Johnston and we're talking about his book the making of Donald Trump how did you get inspired to do this book well I've known Trump since 1988 and when he announced this time that he was running because he's been talking about it since 1985 I recognized he was serious what troubled me was that my peers on the national journalism level we're not asking the right questions I mean Trump is is terrific television it's like not just when your rubber neck to look at a car wreck it's like a car wreck with fireworks and dancing girls and performing seals and people just can't turn away from it so journalists weren't asking the questions they need to ask but well who is he does his self-image that he's selling you comport with reality and what are his actual philosophies and and positions so i wrote about two dozen pieces about this and no publisher wanted to do a book 2015 because nobody believed he would get the nomination although I said right from the get-go I thought he might and by the time he got it nobody could do it except someone like this publisher Melville House which specializes in doing books at high speed and so we got the book out August second with regard to Trump what do you want to impart to people about him you talked about what I would call a map between what he says what he might say we want and what he is well Donald is a master salesman anybody who's done any kind of sales should admire his unbelievable ability at sales but he's also PT Barnum you know hey buy a ticket to see the incredible Fiji mermaid and the two-headed man and so it's important to understand that he is selling you what he thinks he can sell you what he wants you to buy and in the Presidential race what he's selling you as his belief that he's superior to the rest of course he should be President of the United States as one of his sons has said they believe that they're genetically superior to the rest of us and so would be beyond question that he should be President but the problem is well who is he and what he actually got well there's no evidence that he's a billionaire none he's somebody who was always borrowing money from his father borrowing money from banks he's posted i borrowed money knowing i wouldn't have to pay it back not paying his bills you don't actually a billionaire to own up a thirty-year-old jet and a smaller jet a couple helicopters you have a lot of income but you don't have to be a billionaire and I wanted people to understand that Donald Trump throughout his adult life has gone out of his way to do business with criminals they've been his father's business partner was an associate of the Gambino and Genovese crime families according to the New York State organized crime task force and a lot of other law enforcement reports Donald when he arrived in Manhattan as a young man made a beeline to the notorious Roy Cohn and through him got connected up with all sorts of mafia figures who Cohn represented but he went beyond that he did business with a Russian mobsters just as recently as a couple of years ago he has done business with con artists and swindlers and perhaps most importantly of all the person who supplied his casinos with helicopters wasn't somebody at one of the many breezily well-run well-capitalized helicopter companies it was a mob associate convicted felon and it turned out that this guy had a second business he was a major cocaine trafficker shipments of cocaine marijuana up to 1,500 pounds of time that he personally handled and when he was indicted Donald should have run away from him New Jersey Casino Control Act says that the owner of a casino is required to prove by clear and convincing evidence that he or she doesn't associate with criminals instead Trump drew this guy closer and while the case was from Miami to Cincinnati that's where the drugs went he asked the case be moved when he agreed to plead guilty to either Miami or New York City where he lived and somehow mysteriously because neither the defense or the prosecutor can explain this the case was transferred to New Jersey where it came before a newly appointed relatively newly appointed judge Mary Ann Trump Barry Donald's sister now she removed herself from the case but she also had to go tell the chief judge that she was flying around in helicopters of a major drug trafficker think of that we have a sitting federal judge flying around in helicopters as was her husband of a major drug trafficker Trump then wrote a letter pleading for mercy for this guy he then lied about it and denied he did it until he was confronted with it again and he called the man a credit to the community stand-up guy who is a diligent citizen well the mules who drove the drugs got 20 years up to 20 years this guy served 18 months and he said he was eligible for parole because he had a job with Donald Trump and he said he had no money to pay back his fines and debts to the government but he moved into his girlfriend's newly-acquired multimillion-dollar Trump Tower apartment now boy that's something journalists should be asking about on national TV voters should be asking about and I have been invited to talk about this on national networks in Australia Japan Canada Britain France and Germany because the book is selling all around the world including a German language edition but I have not been on ABC NBC CBS or Fox and PBS edited out every reference Donald's connections with these criminals every reference you haven't read about it hardly in the New York Times where I used to work a little bit a little bit in Washington Post and I've helped both those papers with their stories by giving documents that I have but the public doesn't know who Donald Trump really is what they know is the image he's been selling them it almost sounds like an episode of The Sopranos yeah well there are some elements of that in there for sure yes and you look at this man you have is if you're like a social scientist you have to start with there is an attraction here yes it is not uniform across the population and obviously he does things that drive some people away and attract others but he did get the nomination he went through the biggest what you might call money to party in the country and blew right through all of the structures that were designed to inhibit someone from like this from winning well at the other one level rob this reflects the weakness of political parties in America and they're becoming almost irrelevant but on another level Trump understand something that is you know I've spent the last 20 plus years of my life writing about which is inequality how government is creating it through policies the tax system that favors people top and in Trump grasps that ninety percent of americans are not doing well and he knows how to sell them what they want to hear and he's telling people elect me and I will get you out of your economic misery I know who I were having trouble and he doesn't talk about these complex things that are in the real world of government rules you've never heard of he talks about easy to understand things it's the Mexicans it's the Chinese it's the Muslims that's the other into a lot of people that's a simple easy-to-understand explanation that he can sell and so that's a good important and good and important part of his base is selling this the simplistic answer here's the trouble that Donald Trump has no plan or policy to do anything for ordinary people in fact he started off the beginning of his campaign saying wages are too high he said it in november and one of the presidential race wages are too high he was asked about the next day said wages are too high the next day after that however he appeared on fox news and he said I wasn't saying wages I was saying minimum wage was too high because he asked on the Wednesday morning event about what about the minimum wage people living on there's no question that Donald Trump has said repeatedly wages in America are too high so people who think Donald Trump and white house will relieve me of this economic terror I've been living in where we don't have unemployment insurance now for lots and lots of people who lose their jobs they're just we've restricted their eligibility at the state level we people don't have savings wages haven't grown the the median wage in this country half make more half make less has been stocked from 1998 through 2014 at about the same level 28 thousand dollars when you adjust for inflation he has no plan to deal with any of that yes but i want to take the other side ok slightly i agree with you that he has no prescription but the attraction comes from a diagnosis and it's in one phrase and everything else is a variation on that the system is rigged yes and and he's right about that i mean that's the subtitle of one of my previous best sellers the system is rigged and he's right and you know what Donald Trump's one of the people who rigged it yes he well a thief to catch a thief as though is the old saying here is a guy who is trying to inspire us to believe because he's played on the inside he can now be the ref and stop the inside players from pulling more wool over our eyes except maybe he won't get he's pulling wool over our eyes himself well and I think it's very clear he's pulling wool over eyes for a couple reasons Trump has a very very short attention span and I know that from having talked to him at lunch with him interviewed many times incredibly short attention span he literally doesn't know anything I he was asked in won the presidential debates by Hugh Hewitt the very smart conservative talk show host what's your priority for the nuclear triad he gave an answer with gibberish he would followed up he gave another answer was gibberish and Marco Rubio was asked the question and Rubio explained its the ability to deliver nuclear weapons from submarine missiles land missiles or jet bombers well I point out in the making and Donald Trump that you had asked him this question four months earlier on the radio Trump had four months to learn about it when I met Hewitt recently by chance I brought this up and Hewitt said yes isn't that amazing in four months he didn't do anything about because he doesn't know anything think about how he describes the job of the President does he talk in terms of what the Constitution says are the duties powers limits he talks like a dictator he's going to tell Ford and Nabisco where they can build factories he's going to order you to do this he's going to do that that's not within the purview of the President and then finally on top of all of that no legislation and he can't do anything without legislation that he says he's going to do will move through Congress unless one person allows it and that's the speaker of the house so who did Donald Trump pick repeated fights with Paul Ryan the speaker who did he appoint to run his campaign Steve Bannon who is the chairman of Breitbart a website that regularly attacks Paul Ryan and that has said and in fact has an article that says Paul Ryan is a secret double agent for Hillary Clinton now that tells you he doesn't understand how government works he has no idea how it works therefore I conclude he can't actually accomplish any of the things he said I think that you're right in one sense that he may have demonized the government by picking Paul Ryan yes but the demonization of the government may be part of what gets him elected oh yes and then he'll have trouble implementing because of the way he scarred and antagonize the speaker the house who is that vital know i think Trump has been brilliant in making the government to be the bad guy here and we have had this enormous disconnect between Washington and the rest of the country for going on and building for about 35 years one of my grown children whose Republican likes to say you have to recognize that in America the Republican Party and Republicans are two separate unrelated things and at the base of all that is the campaign finance system and you know Trump says repeatedly I give money and they do what I tell them I want to do because they want more money that's the underlying real problem he's exploiting as someone who created it benefited from it but I don't see any evidence he's got the capacity and the skill level and the diligence to fix to repair it systemically yes most people are interested in the issues about their own lives know Gandhi said the politics of india our bread salt and water and the politics in America are people want to roof over there had a car that starts in the morning and ability to feed and clothe their kids most of them don't want to do and are willing to do what it takes to have some huge amount of money that they don't need in the first place they want a pension that's going to be there when they actually retire and another interesting aspect of this Rob one of things Trump teaches in his books and his lectures is never trust any workers especially the high level workers around you they're always out to get you must never trust them because any chance they get their gonna go get you or I think he's projecting about himself in this regard whereas business and capitalism are based on trust you and I make an agreement i'm going to buy your house in 30 days and i expect 30 days that you're going to be there you're going to perform and you expect me to show up with house in good shape as represented and whatever and and the Democrats need to I think recognize that they are supposed to be the party of people not a business and they need to represent the interests of people who are never going to have significant amounts of capital but we want to encourage them to save and have so they're not living paycheck to paycheck but higher wages and by the way remember Donald Trump wages are too high in America one of his principal themes wages are too high remember the old Frank Zappa line is that a real poncho or is that a Sears poncho well are you a real Democrat yeah in terms of ways that touch my life and people have lost faith in the democratic party again i want to ask you a question that has kind of haunting me and there probably is a good answer you talk about the turning point being Ronald Reagan's promises at the time I remember seeing clips of Death Valley days and this is an actor and the sky is perhaps a more regal PT Barnum but that's what they think that's what Democrats alleged he was at the time in 1980 not suited to be a president of the United States well Ronald Reagan remember though had eight years as governor of California he had a record we can establish we know that he said he would never have a state income tax withholding each week or each paycheck and then as soon as we got in office he wanted to expand the Highway Patrol so he agreed to do that Reagan was a very smart guy who played this doddering character in public the defining characteristic of him was that he had a couple of things he cared about less regulation lower taxes deal with the Soviets and crumbling Empire by speeding up its falling apart and care about the rest of it so it's one of the reasons that we had was a hundred and thirty some indictments of Reagan administration officials that was the record about Reagan was was a smart guy he was lazy that was his principal shortcomings he was he was lazy his own staff has written about him but people knew who he was because of GE theater in Death Valley days and all the speeches he given and the fact that he said Medicare would lead to by now the enslavement of Americans has proven to be absurd that didn't affect people what they heard was vote for me and you'll be better off and the solutions that he proposed unfortunately they may be better off business owners because they now have an incentive to withdraw capital from the business and spend on their lifestyle we went from successful business owners only maybe a single-engine plane or a 2 engine prop plane today we have business owners who have his-and-her 747s and you know more mansions then they can count so that is not worked out well for the average person and what I'm concerned about with Trump is that will see more of the same his tax plan is heavily weighted to very wealthy people his child care proposal isn't much value if you're an ordinary working American but if you're somebody who's got say three nannies to watch your kids and you flying around first class your various houses totally deductible expenses under the under the Donald Trump plan and people don't seem to be recognizing this is not in their interests it's in the interest of people like Donald Trump so you talk about the money politics system your son says that broke the Republican Party away from the- it was my daughter oh your daughter I'm sorry you've got Ronald Reagan slightly more credible but Trump having that magnetic energy as well right you've got despair or now like you had in 1980 yes what do we have to fix so that Democrats and Republicans can represent people and people feel more connected well the core of all this is the campaign finance system you know when i wrote about this 40-plus years ago the campaign finance system i thought these reforms were put forth by liberal reformers were going to be terrific they haven't turned out to be that way at all in two states Maine and Arizona we tried publicly financed elections the voluntary system you have to help to find it worked much better than anybody thought and the fear that publicly financed elections would lead to incumbents being reelected no incumbents got thrown out and one of the great things about publicly financed elections is you gotta budget we're going to learn how will you manage that budget in a way where is now or you have unlimited dark money and we know from the emails in Wisconsin that even though dark money is supposed to be separate independent committees governor scott walker in the dark money crowd where hand-in-glove so until we break that system and come up with a new one financed elections that's the problem i once had a new york state senator let we both landed at laguardia airport so we took a cab together in manhattan and he told me that in the 10 years he was in the state Senate he said every morning when I was shaving it would think about what do I have to do for my 10 biggest donors so they'll continue to support me and not support somebody else and he said in many cases I knew that they not only would never get it but what they wanted was actually bad for them it would hurt them they just couldn't see it but I had to show them i was doing something or they would run somebody against me they said you know I can't remember a single time I ever thought about the average citizen in my district or what should I be doing for them people respond to incentives and I could sit here and tell you man if I was in the u.s. senator the Congress i would do this or that no I wouldn't i would have a staff telling me David today you're gonna meet with the furthest first survive then try to do good and yeah you know we gotta fix that we've got to have a system where members of Congress are directly responsible to people and we have to get rid of gerrymandered districts we corral in some states all the Republicans or all the Democrats in a handful of districts need to stop that we have 96% retention rate in the house representatives with an eleven percent approval rating that's right little uptick answer is actually that's changed slightly used to be ninety-eight percent approval rate for people who are running it is slipped down a bit but not much and you know I've interviewed many many members of Congress well over a hundred congresspeople and Senators about this they hate the fundraising they find it demeaning and I'm not surprised that they find it demeaning but their risk averse that is they're not willing to say ok let's blow this up and try something new well it's incumbent insurance. well we need to blow it up for them. it is incumbent insurance at some level sometimes you have policy to sell with your Challenger may not David thanks for joining us thank you

Channel: New Economic Thinking

Views: 232,950

Rating: 4.7291665 out of 5

Keywords: donald trump, trump, make america great again, election 2016, presidential debate, hillary clinton, clinton, new economic thinking, robert johnson, david cay johnston, pence, presidential election, policy, politics, government, republican, republicans, democrats, democracy, sales, salesman, vote, voters, economics, trump economics, Nick Alpha, Matthew Kulvicki

Id: Zy7wGrRSB24

Length: 21min 29sec (1289 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 04 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/loru_90]

This best thing about this interview is that they leave the groping/sexual harassment stuff out of it. (Not that it shouldn't be talked about) but he explains why Trumps so called "policies" really are asinine and won't work.

[u/[deleted]]

Amazing. This kind of analysis is how I wish the mainstream media had approached him. His actual policies seem to have been drowned out by the noise on both sides.