Bulwark Takes - We Spoke to the Guy Who Snitched on Kimberly Guilfoyle (w/ Eric Deters)

Episode Date: October 8, 2026

Sam Stein speaks with Eric Deters, the man at the center of the Wall Street Journal’s explosive report on Kimberly Guilfoyle. Deters describes his relationship with Guilfoyle, the hundreds of thousands of dollars he spent in Trump world, and his claims that she promised access and favors in exchange for money.Deters explains why he came forward and why he says Guilfoyle asked him for another $100,000 to pay off her credit card. He also details her attempts to connect him with Tucker Carlson and Billy Long, her warnings to stop putting things in writing, and why he now says, “I feel like a dumbass.”Lawsuits against Dr. Abubakar Atiq Durrani alleged that more than 500 patients received unnecessary surgeries. However, there are no precise numbers as to how many patients in total received those surgeries, how many children received those surgeries or how many of them died because of those procedures.In addition, Jared Kushner received a $2 billion investment for his private equity firm from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, not a $3 billion investment.This episode is sponsored by The New York Times.

Hey, everyone, it's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at the Bullwork, and I am joined by Eric Dieter's a former congressional and gubernatorial candidate in Kentucky, who is a primary character and a fairly explosive story from the Wall Street Journal last night involving our ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Gilfoy. We're going to get into the story. Long and short of it is that Eric had a quasi-business relationship with her, and she was promising Eric access and favors from various Trump administration officials. That did not pan out. And we got to read all about it in the journal. So, Eric, thanks for doing this. Why did you come forward? I came forward because I'm angry. And the reason why I'm angry is because despite what the Wall Street Journal reported, they focused on the wrong thing.

I am a retired lawyer who is a legal consultant and a financier and strategist in legal cases. I'm also, I have my own media company. I have been in media for a long time. So I am an advocate for the 580 victims of Dr. Durrani. And I, after I paid Kimberly Guilfoil $300,000, Don Jr., 200,000, President Trump, a couple hundred thousand, Eric Trump, $100,000, I approached Kimberly Gilfoy about helping me draw attention to these Durrani victims. And I told her, when the case settled, I'd give her a million bucks, but she's got to help her. help me. Well, she didn't do squat. And then right before her confirmation hearing, she asked me for $100,000 to pay off her American Express. And I was kind of taken back about that.

But she's so pushy. I mean, Kimberly Guilfoyle is wicked and she's pushy. I can tell you right now, I know why Don Jr. had enough of her. So anyway, I told her, I said, this is a bad timing for me. I mean, I spend two million bucks a year fighting for these Durrani victims, and it's been going on 14 years. So at the time, I didn't have it. So I was trying to figure out how I could do this to help her. She kept getting pushy. She kept getting madder in hell at me. And I finally said to her, I said, you haven't come through with me at all, Kimberly.

You haven't done anything that I've asked you to do. And she says, if you do this for me, I will be your ride and die forever in Trump administration. She said, you could ask me as many favors as you want, however you want, for the rest of your freaking life. I mean, she was ready to sell her soul for a $100,000. And I finally told her, by the way, this is a real reason. I didn't have it at the time. I didn't have $100,000 at the time. It was a worst time.

So I made up an excuse that. You said you were going to have to get a divorce. Yeah, I used the wife excuse. Everybody uses, oh, my wife wouldn't love me. You know, the buddy asks you for $20. You say, hey, man, my wife won't get it. You know, the George Sterold good song, yeah, buddy, you're funny, everybody's funny. So I used the wife excuse, and I didn't pay her.

And you know what's funny about this? This friendship that I had with her, she's calling me babe and honey and all this stuff. I never heard from her again. Never heard from her again. Why did she need the $100,000? I'm just going to go through. She has assets. She's got property.

If you look at her financial disclosure forms, it's not that she doesn't list any debt. that's of significance. And she did not list credit card debt. So why did she need the $100,000, as you understand? I think it's lifestyle. You know, she lives in that world of lifestyle. She broke up with Junior. She probably needed the cash for whatever reason.

But it begs the question is this. A, it was she really, if there wasn't an American Express bill, she was really trying to scam me and she thought I was a suck. The whole time, my whole relationship with her, she thought I was some kind of like, googie eye oh mara lago trump world sucker and i'm not i'm a midwest farm boy i can care i've been to mara lago four or five times met the president five times i mean i've hung out with those kind of people you know what i you couldn't pay me to go back to marlago that's not me okay so she she was trying

to sucker me to give her a hundred thousand dollars i just think she needed the money but the reason why i'm coming forward now is because after i cancel patriots state freedom fest because my quote-unquote rich friends, I had famous line, rich people suck because they wouldn't buy my VIP tickets, is I decided to strike. And I thought to myself, wait a minute, if I give the world my Kimberly Guilfoyle story, maybe I can draw some attention to these Dr. Durrani victims, and maybe just maybe I can guilt the Trump administration. But I can't stress this enough. This is a letter, and I've put it on my Facebook page, J.D. Vance, hand delivered it. This Happen in his backyard, ignored. Vivek Ramoswamy ignores. All the Ohio public officials

ignore. I contacted Pam Bondi. I contacted Todd Blanche, Don Jr., Kesh Patel, all these people in Trump World. I'm somebody who's given over a million dollars to Trump World, supported Trump from day one. My whole news media is pro-Trump and law. You know what I do every day? I fight for the little guy against the man. Well, Eric, I guess the question is, you can look at it two ways, right? One is they should have paid attention to the case, in part, on the merits, in part because you are someone who's given a lot of money. But on the other hand, it's like should giving money get you attention?

Bingo! Bingo! No. You know what? You're absolutely correct. These victims, I'm just thinking about these. These are 580 people had unnecessary spine surgeries. 185 of them were children, 105 of them have died. I think on their own,

they should get some freaking help, whether I'm a donor or not. But what really pisses me off, and this is why I'm pissing the Trump administration. And nobody's written about this. I'm breaking news here for you. And from 2020 to 2024, Trump world was desperate.

They were under indictment. They all needed money. Legal fees were killing them. they needed money from anybody and everybody. People like Eric Dieters. Well, now that they win the presidential election and they got all the billionaires, they don't need Eric Deeters anymore. We don't need you anymore.

You know, forget about you. So there's the stories that you're talking about, and then there's kind of the macro story about just how many people in Trump world, as you put, and I put it, too, are on the take or are willing to take cash from people and kind of hide it away. obviously you directly worked with Kimberly Guilford, but you also said you paid for speaking fees for both Trump's sons. What's your sense of how many people in this universe

are trying to pay these people for access and help? The best way I can tell you this is there's no question. I got to know Corey Lewandowski. He was my consultant on my governor's race and promised me the Trump endorsement, and I fired him when he didn't come through. Corey Lewandowski is a grifter, okay? Christy Knoem, with Corey Lewandowski by here,

side, grifter. Kimberly Guilfoyle, grifter. What Eric and Donald Trump, Jr., have done, is a completely different way of grifting than, I call it the shadow criminal world of Hunter and Joe Biden. They did it

in the shadows. Well, you have Jared Kushner taking $3 billion from the Saudis to do his fund after doing the Abraham Accords, and then he's the envoy in the Middle East. By the way, the two people that I detest, more than anybody in Trump world is Jared Kushner and Ivanka.

They are yuck yucks. I mean, they are just the epitome of yuck, yuck, okay? Don Jr. is kind of an average Joe dude. He's kind of like the black sheep in the family. You know, he likes to hunt, likes to do all those things. You know, Donald. Eric Trump's the golden boy, okay? He's his dad's golden boy.

He's focused on business or everything else. But those two, remember Trump hated, he called crypto a scam. And then his boys get involved in crypto. All of a sudden, it's wonderful. Okay? So they, in my opinion, they're doing it out in the open, you know, getting rich. Now, as far as other cabinet members and other people, I don't know. I'm sure there are some.

We're going to continue this interview with Eric Dutters, but first we have an advertisement from the New York Times. Now, there's a story in today's New York Times that involves a different U.S. ambassador. Times found that David Milstein, a senior advisor to U.S. ambassador Mike Huckabee, was skewing information to portray the Netanyahu government in a favorable light before it reached officials in Washington, D.C. Time spoke with more than a dozen U.S. officials and reviewed internal cables and other documents to report that story. That's exactly why fact-based reporting matters. I personally can have an opinion about what happened and we can debate what it means, but somebody has to

go and actually report it out first. They have to talk to the people involved. They have to review the documents and they have to put together the facts that the rest of us can then argue about. For me, the New York Times is one of the places I turn to for that kind of reporting. You may have your own sources that you trust, whether it's the Times, the Wall Street Journal. Heck, we at the Bullwark do reporting as well. You can go to your local paper or a reporter just knows the beat. But this show, and really all commentary on current events, it depends on somebody doing original reporting first. That story is just one example of the result of fact-based reporting.

Now you get to decide what to think. So wherever you seek it out, nationally, locally, support fact-based reporting. You wanted to meet with Billy Long for a tax matter. Kimberly Guilful tried to get you meeting. The article ends with her saying, boom, apparently she got in touch with Billy. Did you ever talk to him? Okay. But did you ever talk to him?

No, I'd ever talk to him. And let me tell you something. The tax matter was not a big deal to me. I took a deduction. It's not criminal. I took a deduction. IRS challenge. after three years being silent, three years after my return, they go, oh, we want to challenge this tax.

I felt like I was being targeted. It's not a criminal matter. It's in tax court. And you know what? If I win, I win. If I lose, I'll pay the damn thing. But you know what? I said, hey, I think maybe I'm being targeted here.

So he goes, oh, I'll get a hold of Billy Long. Well, Billy Long lasted like 30 seconds as IRS commissioner. But the Wall Street Journal painted that like that was a big deal. No, no, no. That was like a minor little thing to me. It really was. My focus, you have to understand something. I have fought for these victims for 14 years.

I have spent millions and millions of dollars fighting for them. I care about these people. And I want them to get justice. And I could sense that that was the reason to try to get in Tucker Carlson's show, was to try to bring this up. A million dollars is extraordinary, though. Can you explain what the hell? Wall Street Journal messed that up too.

Before she hit me up for the $200,000, I told Kimberly this. I said, Kimberly, if you help bring some attention against medical protective and help me on these Dr. Durrani cases, when it settles, I'll give you a million dollars. So she said, well, I can help you with that. I'll get you on Tucker Carlson. I never agreed or offered to give her a million dollars to get me on Tucker Carlson. It was her idea to get me on Tucker Carlson to draw attention to it, which she also lied. The Wall Street Journal called Tucker Carlson and says, nobody ever contacted us about getting Eric Deidson. on the show. Who the hell is there again? So she lied about that. See, what she was doing, she put it in overdrive. She wanted to show me that she was doing all these things, so I'd give her the $100,000. And I finally stood up to her. I said, Kimberly, uh, you haven't got me on Tucker. You haven't helped me at all. Oh, I even wrote a song. I mean, I'm a kind of weird song.

The kid rock song. Yeah, I fought a cage fight. I wrote a song called Kentucky Outlaw, which is a badass song. I wrote it for Kid Rock or Eric Church. She, Kid Rock, DJed, and her Christmas party. I mean, and I was invited to the Christmas party. I attended her birthday party. I mean, I was her friend. I said, can you get this song, these lyrics to Kid Rock for me? She never even, she never even did that for me. I mean, she, I was so gosh damn man. So when I stood up to her, she tried to kick it in overdrive. Oh, I'll work on it. I'll get Billy Long. Billie Long, you know what she did? Her last, her last scam. She goes, come, it's in the text message. Come to the walled off of Astoria. I want you to be at my confirmation.

hearing, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's the last damn place I want to freaking go to Nick Wall and off the story and go to her. I'd rather be at home in my beautiful home with my wife and just hang out of my house. I don't want to go do that crap. But she thought that was like a golden,

a shiny object that I would want to do. She was obviously quite paranoid about this coming up. She kept insisting to you to stop putting things in writing, to call her to do signal. It felt like you were putting them in writing for a purpose, though. I wasn't.

You were not. I wasn't. You were not trying to create a paper trail the entire time? I called me naive. I never used Signal before. I used it one time. She kept asking me. She stopped putting in writing.

I'm like, why? We're friends. What's the big deal here? You know? But she was worried about the legality of it, the ethics of it and the look at it. Oh, her other scam was. Was she not wrong, Eric? Here we are sitting about these texts.

You know what? She had to. I'm being right. I'm probably being right. Well, there you go. Before the publication in the journal, obviously she had some heads up and the journal reached out to them. I'm wondering, in the time period before that,

did she or anyone from state or anyone in her world reach out to you to try to get you to not do this or retract? No, here's what I did. And you need to know this. On Thursday last week, I sent an email to Susie Wiles. Don Jr. and Kimberly Guilford. And I laid out what I was going to do. And I said, this is my last attempt to get you guys to help these Durrani victims.

I said, you got to 5 o'clock till Monday. Five o'clock to Monday rolled around, didn't hear anything. Boom. I sent it all out. I gave them one last opportunity and they ignored me. So that kind of pissed me off as well. Do you have that email that you? Could you pull that up and read from it or now?

Oh, yeah, I can pull that email up. Trying to think of who I would have sent it to that it would still be there. Some of my buddies, let me see if it's still there on this guy here. But yeah, what it basically said was this is what I want from, you know, it would be bad show for me to keep looking for that for you. You know, I gave them one last opportunity and they didn't take me up on it. and it's sad that they didn't do it. But I, I, go ahead. They didn't respond at all.

They didn't respond at all. Have you heard from anyone since publication in that orbit or from the State Department or from Guilfoy herself? I have not, I've not heard from anybody. Oh, Kimberly Gilfoyle, this is great. Kimberly Gilfoy's team said, I'm suing her for defamation. See, her and her lawyer, their problem just got worse. You're suing Kimberly Gilfell for defamation?

Yeah, let me say what. As of what? You know what she told the Wall Street Journal? She told the Wall Street Journal her and her lawyer that those text messages were all fake. The Wall Street Journal two times had me punch up Kimberly Gilfoyles. This is great. Kimberly Gilfoyles to open it up to show that it was her. There's Kimberly Gilfielfielfiel right there.

Had me punch it up and had me scroll two times all the way through all those Kimberly Gilfoy message twice. I proved that they're not fake. And then you know what they also said? I'm a notorious blackmailer. What? I've never been accused of blackmail, charged with blackmail. I've never blackmailed anybody.

So I'm going to sue, her and her lawyer, for saying the text messages were fake, and I'm a notorious blackmailer. Have you filed the suit yet? Nope. By the way, just to let you know, you understand. I've also trademarked the Kentucky outlaw, the song that I wrote, which is a badass song, Kid Rock's called the Kentucky Outlaw. I am a guy who basically, as a lawyer, got sick of the Kentucky Bar Association's crap, gave them the middle finger and said, hell with you, I'm retiring. And I'm free of that.

So I know how the legal and court system works. And I can speak out. In the Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky area, I am the number one enemy of the man here. I fight the hospitals, the insurance companies, the government. I hate both political parties. I got to nickname the Bulldog for a reason. So I'm hated here by all of that stuff. You need to know something.

I'm a good guy. I fight every day for the little guy against the freaking man. And the man, they try to label you. Oh, he's a crazy guy. Oh, he lost his law license, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff. Well, I can tell you right now. I'm so glad I'm not a lawyer. There's a reason why lawyers rank down here.

Lawyers suck. A couple quick questions for you. Do you think Mark or Rubio knew about this? Specifically about Gilfoil during her confirmation hearings, basically trying to trade access for money. Nobody does now. Okay. Two, what is the, what is your understanding of the Gilfoyle Don Jr. relationship? Because obviously, when you met her first, they were together.

They are not together now. But it is kind of interesting that you emailed Don Jr. last week, in addition to Susie. Wiles. So what is their relationship? Well, I can tell you this. I'm sure it's one of convenience. Like, I think it's probably done now that they've sold the house. For a while there was really weird. They were broken up. Don Jr's living with a Bettine or whatever name is, and she's staying in the house. It was bizarre. So now that the house, it's all, but you have to understand, this is my assumption. I'm not stupid. They wanted to put her, park her in Greece, give her a bone, She's away and she's out of the country.

She can meet a rich Greek billionaire and be okay and shut the hell up. That's what I think they're doing. But I can tell her right now, Don Jr. got tired of her crap. What I described in my article that I wrote, the Last Freedom Fest was hysterical. He wouldn't look at her. He wouldn't talk to her. He wouldn't sit next to her. My wife had to sneak her alcohol.

She kept telling me to compliment her in front of him. It was the most bizarre middle. school breakup scene ever. And we had a front seat to it. But I think Don Jr. got sick of Kimberly Guilfoyle, and I don't blame him. Last question for you. I mean, now that it's all said and done, I know it was for a really good cause and that you were trying to effectuate a good cause.

I know it didn't work out. And I have a sense you're going to say, well, this is how the game is played, that you have to find ways to influence people. And this is just what it's like operating in Trump world. But why do you feel icky about the fact that you spent 300, thousand dollars this way you were employing her as a quasi-lobbyes but there's no disclosure about it the money is kind of obscene from a general standpoint because people that's like a million dollars is a lot of money like as you look back in and now would you do things differently do you feel

bad about any of it i feel like a dumb ass you guys don't know me you all would love it i'm like the typical man's man woman's man all right i'm at the every man in america okay. I feel like a dumbass. My wife is so gosh damn living at me. All right. If I could turn the, I didn't disclose to her everything. I was, you know, I mean, she's ready to kill me, all right? I got a great marriage, got a great wife. I, by the way, she's the opposite of Kimberly Gibbon. She's the most non-obnoxious woman in the world. She's married to me. So I feel like a dumb ass. And if I could turn the clock back, I wouldn't have given them a damn nickel ever. How did you end up giving them money? Did they basically say this is how it works and you have to play by these rules? Here's what happened. I put on that Patriot State Freedom Fest. I had a lot of money at that time.

Between 2020 and 2020, I had a ton of money. I've put it all back in this case now. But in my thinking, and my thinking the whole time was, I need to get into this Trump world. And this is why I feel like a dumb ass. And then they will help me. in this Durrani battle. I mean, so that was methodical.

It was all, in the back of my mind, the day will come when this will pay off. But why Guilfoyle? Because there's vectors all over the place. You could have done, like Corey, you talked about. There's plenty of people you could have used, but why Gilfoyle? Well, the reason why is because the way it all forms, she came to the first Patriot State Freedom Fest.

The second one I held, she calls me on the phone, and she says, you got to have junior here. You got to bring junior. I said, okay. So it's just the way it developed. She became my point person. I mean, she invited me to her birthday party, which I went, the Christmas party. When Trump got indicted the first time and they had a support party in Marlago, I got invited to that. Sixth row seat. This is hysterical, okay? So I go to Marlago. The only guy in blue jeans and cowboy boots, sport coat on. I'm in the six freaking row in Marlago with all these filthy, freaking rich people. And I noticed these. Marlago ladies and man looking at me like, who is that guy? Because I didn't fit. You know, who's that guy? And I think they probably thought he must be a real rich guy from Texas or something,

you know, eccentric. But I mean, I just was out of place, man. And but I played the game because I thought the time would come. And I want to stress this to all this is because I never asked the Trump people for anything. I never asked for a job, an appointment. I didn't lobby him for anything besides the Durrani victims. And hey, I think I've been targeted by the tax guy if you could help me out. Yeah.

Well, all right, Eric, I appreciate you talking us through this. It's an interesting story to say the least. I'm a dumb ass. That's the long and the short of it. We could have just done this in two seconds. Eric Dieters, thank you for joining the Bullwark. For those who enjoyed this video and want more content like this, subscribe to the All right. Take care, man.