No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Bombshell court ruling signals disaster for Trump in November

Episode Date: February 18, 2024

Trump’s $355 million fraud verdict in New York is set to have a massive impact in November. Brian interviews Congressman Jared Moskowitz about the Republicans’ star whistleblower getting indicted by the DOJ for making false statements and the likelihood of Ukraine aid getting passed by this Congress. And he talks to attorney Tristan Snell about his successful litigation against Donald Trump, and what he thinks the likelihood is of Trump being successfully prosecuted in his upcoming trials.Buy Tristan's book: www.takingdowntrump.comShop merch: https://briantylercohen.com/shopYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantylercohenTwitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohenPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/briantylercohenNewsletter: https://www.briantylercohen.com/sign-upWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to talk about Trump's $355 million fraud verdict and its impact in November. And I've got two interviews I speak with Congressman Jared Moskowitz about Republican star whistleblower getting indicted by the DOJ for making false statements and the likelihood of Ukraine aid getting passed by this Congress. And I'm joined by attorney Tristan Snell to discuss his successful litigation against Donald Trump and based on his own experience against him what he thinks the likelihood of Trump being successfully prosecuted in his upcoming trials is. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen and you're listening to No Lie. Who would a guess that Trump would probably yearn for the days when he had to come up with only $83 million? So he was just hit with a jaw-dropping $355 million verdict for business fraud, New York, which jumps to $455 million when you add in prejudgment interest, a three-year ban on serving as an officer in any New York business.

His kids, Don Jr. Eric, were also hit with $4 million fines. And a court-appointed independent monitor will remain at the Trump org for three years to pour over every detail of the company's machinations to make sure that, nothing fraudulent or illegal is taking place. That's the part that reporting suggests pisses Trump off the most. I wonder why. And I know that we're all tired and cynical and looking at this and thinking, cool, but it's not going to have any impact. Two reasons here why I absolutely think it will.

The first is a point that I made after the E. Jean Carroll ruling. Trump's air of invincibility is gone. And by the way, that's borne itself out since that E. Jean Carroll ruling with this new one. Like, think back to the days before Trump was first indicted. Nobody ever thought it would happen. No one ever thought that a prosecutor would finally step up and actually do it. And then it happened in Manhattan. And then that damn broke.

And then it immediately got followed by indictments in Florida and D.C. and Georgia. And then we figured, okay, well, he was charged, but he'll never lose. And then he lost his first civil trial against E. Jean Carroll for $5 million. He lost his second civil trial against E. For $83 million. He lost his third civil case in New York now for $355 million. Like, I get that his branding suggests that he's Teflon Don. But the guy is a loser.

He loses more than literally anybody else I've seen in my entire life. He's out over half a billion dollars in just the last month, which is to say nothing of the fact that since he's been on the political scene, the guy's been responsible for massive losses in 2018, 2020, 2020, 2022, and 2023. And remember, Trump wants you to feel like he'll never be held accountable so that we all give up, so that we don't even try. Like, he wants us to feel helpless so that he's not challenged. But he's shed that branding now.

And in the same way that he's lost in court, he will keep losing in court, and he'll lose it the ballot box. The second point that I want to bring up here is to remember that most people aren't paying attention to politics right now. But as we get closer to November, they will. And you've got to realize that most people aren't going to be inclined to vote for a proven fraud, a conman, a rapist, and soon a convicted felon. I know that it doesn't feel like that because those diehard Trump supporters are so overrepresented

in the media. And like, you can't turn on the TV without seeing a feature story on some Trump sycophant and a diner with a maga tattoo on their face. But that's not the majority of people. It's just the result of a both-sides media that is desperate to lavish coverage, like undo coverage onto these people so that the media outlets don't get accused of being liberal. And by the way, the polling bears that point out. Like, after the Iowa caucus, a poll asked voters, if convicted, would Trump be fit to be president?

31% said no. That is 31% of Iowa Republican caucus goers, the most engaged, the most likely to be in the tank for Donald Trump, saying that him being convicted would be discreet. qualifying. In New Hampshire, voters were asked the same thing. Forty-two percent said no. Trump wouldn't be fit to be president of convicted. And look, not that I can predict the future here, but the guy's contending with four prosecutions and 91 criminal charges, he's going to be convicted. He's already lost every case thus far. And even if half of that 31% of voters in Iowa or 42%

of voters in New Hampshire defect back to Trump, that would still leave a massive exodus of Republican voters who would view Trump as unfit to serve. And look, sure, of course, a number of those Republican voters are going to come home to him if he becomes the eventual nominee. But these aren't small amounts of people who are saying that being a convicted felon is a red line for them. And you got to imagine for all of the normal people out there who aren't paying attention to politics right now, there would be an even bigger share of the population who thinks that this would be disqualifying. Trump doesn't have the luxury of being able to relinquish massive swaths of voters, much less his own base. The guy lost by 8 million votes in 2020.

The last thing he should be doing right now is alienating his own party. So the fact is that this ruling in New York gives voters an important point to consider ahead of November. Do you really trust somebody who's not even legally allowed to operate a business in New York to be able to run the entire country? Do you really trust the guy who defrauded the city of New York to line his own pockets to protect you? Do you really trust someone who's found liable for rape to protect women and the reproductive care?

To protect seniors, protect kids, he will plow through us like he's plowed through everyone his entire life if it meant that he could make another buck. And just like he's always done, he will say anything and do anything now to protect himself. Next up are my interviews with Jared Moskowitz and Tristan Snell. Now we've got a member of the House Oversight Committee and best friend to James Comer, Jared Moskowitz. Thanks so much for coming back on.

Thanks, Brian. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm soon he's going to adopt me. Yeah. All right. So James Comer, speaking of, he basically predicated this whole Biden impeachment effort on whistleblower testimony from guys like Alexander Smyrnov, who was just over. arrested and charged with making false statements about Joe and Hunter Biden.

What's left of the impeachment effort at this point? Well, I mean, first of all, thoughts and prayers for James Comer and his impeachment inquiry because it is done. It is finished. They should end it. They should go get a shovel, buried it, bury it in the backyard because this was the birth, the 1023 form. Remember all the yelling about the 1023 form, the 1023 form, we had to go into a skiff from view the 1023 form. Well, the guy who put all that information into the 10, 1023 form was indicted.

Why was he indicted? Because he was indicted, because he made it all up. All of it. It's all a lie, the $5 million payment to Joe Biden, the Bidens. Remember, we heard this for months, all a lie. And look, James is 2 and 0. 2.0.

This is his second informant who has been indicted for lying. Let's not forget the Chinese, the Chinese forward agent who was selling Iranian oil and arms to the Libyans also was indicted several months ago for lying as well. And so, yes, this has been a lie. Don't get me wrong, Hunter Biden has gotten himself into some trouble that he's going to have to deal with. But that has nothing to do with this entire scope about Joe Biden. It is over. Well, look, if the point of all of this was always just perpetuating a narrative by any means necessary, regardless of any of the facts, why would this actually stop them from barreling

forward? Like, it's not like they were- Oh, they're going to. It's not like they were chastened by the lack of evidence before. So what would be different now? Because here's the deal. They're never going to impeach Joe. That's the key. They're never going to call for a vote to impeach them. First, there's no evidence. Second, they don't have the votes. They don't have the votes to impeach the president. How do we know that? That's why they kind of stopped talking about it for a little bit, right? And they pivoted to Majorcas, right, which they were only able to accomplish by one vote

on the day of the election in New York. Now they don't have the votes in the House to impeach myorkers, by the way. Guess what? That impeachment is also a waste of time. He's still the Secretary of Homeland Security. The Senate is not going to remove him. He also committed no treason or high crime and misdemeanor, so they didn't

do this in conjunction with the Constitution. So you know, Mayorkas will have to change his Wikipedia page. That's going to be the only thing that'll get accomplished. But they stopped talking about Joe Biden for a while. Huh, that's interesting. Did they know? And this is my, this is the real question, Brian. How long is James Comer known that Alexander Smyranoff, insert alcoholic joke here? How long did he know Comer what Smyranoff said or what was in that form was false? How long did he know that maybe Smyrmoff was being

investigated, perhaps? How long did he know? And depending on how, how long he has known, why did he conceal that? He owes that not just to the members of the committee. He owes that to the members of the House. And Comer owes that to the members of the American public who, for a year now, he has gone in front of to talk about this 1023 form. Yeah. Last time I'd asked you if you had a message for James Comer in light of what we thought then would be the end of this whole mangled impeachment effort. And that was quite entertaining. So I wonder if in light of this latest, you know, death knell to this impeachment inquiry if you have another message for James Comer, given that he watches this show religiously. Well, I mean, look, James, if you're

listening, it's over, baby. It is so over. Oh, my God, it is beyond over, my friend. Come on, listen, listen to your dear friend here. I have only the best. I'm only looking out for you. Okay. I know you stopped having oversight hearings because, you know, you didn't want to hear from me. or from Raskin or from, you know, trust fund Goldman, like you like to call him. But, you know, look, you're friendly Smurf. I wore blue for you, James, today. If you're listening to me, it is way over. And so, but look, if he wants to continue to embarrass himself, Brian, he'll continue.

We just got notice that they're bringing special counsel her to Congress in March. Guess what? He's not coming to oversight. He's going to judiciary. Huh, I wonder. Did they take that away from James Comer? Probably they did. Some people are saying. Well, okay, so moving on to away from this clown car that is the James Comer impeachment effort. Can you speak on the significance of aid for Ukraine in light of Putin having Alexei Navalny assassinated? Yeah, look, this is a big problem in Congress right now. obviously the Senate on a bipartisan basis, 70 votes in the Senate, it's a big vote, past this foreign aid package, which kind of does it all. I mean, look, I wanted to see borders

border language in there. I want to vote to secure the border. The idea that they took that out because Donald Trump told them to take it out is a real mistake because one, we could really make changes at the border. This was the most conservative language we've seen in 30 years. But no, Trump wants it as an election issue for the next 10 months. So more chaos at the border. But the foreign aid package is good. It's not just for Ukraine. It's not just for Israel. It also a third of the money in there replenishes our own stockpile, our own, the United States' own military stockpile, which is very important. And there's humanitarian aid for all sorts of issues going around the world. And so for them to send that over with 70 votes is very powerful. But Johnson is not going to take it up. It's very clear.

takes it up, they will make a motion to vacate. Marjorie Taylor Green, the Freedom Caucus, who's in charge of the House along with Donald Trump. I kept saying that this guy, Mike Johnson, masquerades as the speaker, he walks around, but really Donald Trump's in charge. And if Donald Trump tells the Freedom Caucus no Ukraine money, because we're with Putin, Russia first, then they'll vacate Johnson. And so right now, if we're being honest, we're being honest, Brian, it's dead. It is all dead, of it. Now, could it be resurrected with, you know, procedural motions, maybe a petition, you know, maybe, you know, this, maybe that. But, you know, those are things that rarely happen. They get 218 votes on a discharge petition is really hard. It's going to take

Republicans stepping up and signing that discharge petition, something they've not been willing to do in the past. And so right now, I think it's a very scary time that because of Trump and because Johnson is just listening to whatever he says, and because of this motion to vacate, those three things, we are not going to be standing by our allies, and we're sending a very dangerous message to them that Congress is so chaotic, so dysfunctional. The only thing we can do is suspensions and expulsions, expel a speaker, remove a cabinet secretary that hasn't happened 150 years, remove a member of the House, which hasn't happened in 20 years. That's it. That's all we're good at. We can do a couple centuries along the way when we find time. But trying to help the

American people, trying to stand by our allies, trying to send a strong message to our enemies Congress, the 118th Congress is not able to do that. And in light of Donald Trump saying, oh, the hell with NATO, let Russia do whatever they want, even more dangerous with him out there that Congress can't function. Well, can you briefly walk us through the process of how a discharged position would play out? And is one in the works? Yeah, I think Speaker Jeffries will be dropping a discharge petition. I think it'll mirror the bill exactly that passed the Senate. It'll be that identical bill. The way it works in the House is you file that as a bill. It then has to sit for 30 days, right, and then it can become a discharge petition. So what does that mean? It sits down at the

well of the floor of Congress. You go down and there's a piece of paper. You literally sign your name on that piece of paper. You then list your district. and your district number, and you're done. You have signed the discharge petition. It takes a majority of the voting members of the House, 218. It takes 218 to pass a bill. It takes 218 to pick a speaker. It's 218.

If you get 218 members, that bill then comes to the floor under the discharge petition rules. But it's then got to come, when it comes to the discharge petition, it then has to, you have to have enough votes to pass the rule. Right? You've seen Republicans when they bring stuff forward. There's a rule vote and there's a vote on the issue. So now, if those Republicans who signed the discharge petition, because it's going to take a couple of them, they then have to vote for the rule to hear the bill. My guess is there's 213 Democrats. We probably can get 200, 205 to sign the discharge petition. So we're going to need somewhere between 10 and 15 Republicans to go and sign it.

Now, when you say the rule, does that just mean like with the members who are on the rules, or do they just, or a full House vote has to vote for the rule and then has to vote for the actual bill? Well, so if it goes, yeah, if it goes to the Rules Committee, we need people on the Rules Committee vote for it. If that's not going to happen, then it can come under suspension, right? But now you need two-thirds to pass the bill. I think you can pass the bill with two-thirds.

I think you would get two-thirds of the House, but you still got to get 218 on the rule vote to get to the suspension bill. But I mean, do you think you have, with 205 Democrats, like surely there has to be like 13 Republicans who still recognize the danger of emboldening or there's more than that there's a hundred okay which one of them are going to have the balls to go and sign their name uh and deal with the online backlash i mean that's what we're talking about here we're not talking about that there aren't a hundred or a majority of republicans that want this to pass there are and they and they're with us on it but are they

willing to stand up to Donald Trump and the online trolls who want to bring back isolationism and put their name on the dotted line for this foreign aid bill? We've not seen that yet in this Congress. We've not seen it. We've only seen the moderates stand up when Jim Jordan looked like he was going to be speaking. Right. That's it. Because it would hurt them ultimately to know that they'd have to go back to their districts in 2024 and say, vote for me so that we can put Jim Jordan in charge of, in charge of the house. Well, Mike Johnson had come out in the immediate aftermath of Putin having Navalny killed. And Johnson said that Putin will be met with united opposition. So can you help me square these things? Because he just unilaterally

blocked Ukraine aid from being taken up in the house, which would help Ukraine against their war with Russia. So like, what the fuck is he talking about when he presents himself as this champion against Russia? Three words. Motion to vacate. That's it. I actually think Speaker Johnson is with us on the issue. Yeah, I agree. I actually think Speaker Johnson understands how important it is for us to make sure that we stop Putin in Ukraine so that he doesn't march in to Europe. So he doesn't try to reassemble the USSR, which is really what Putin wants to do. I think he gets that.

And I think he understands that it's avoiding boots on the ground as well with this aid package. Also, you got Israel's aid package in there, which I think is really important as well. So I think Johnson is with us, but the reality on the ground that the deal that they made with Kevin McCarthy in order to make him speaker is that one member can make a motion to vacate, that is what is holding up Johnson, putting that on the floor. I am telling you, if that motion to vacate didn't exist, we would have already voted on it. But Johnson knows that if he puts it on the floor, he's gone unless he makes a deal with the Democrats to vote again. That's what I was just going to ask. Do you think that any deal with the Democrats in exchange for putting this bill up for a vote would be possible?

Here's what I would say, right? And I don't speak for all of us. But what I would say is if there's a Speaker of the House that's doing the right thing for the American people, that's doing the right thing for our allies that is standing up against the access of China and Russia and Iran and is trying to help keep world order, I would find it very hard that Democrats and the very nice. next vote would allow the Marjorie Taylor Greens of the world to go and remove the speaker and pick the next one. I don't see that happening. I don't see it. But we got to let that play

out, right? Johnson's got to show everyone he's willing to do the right thing. All right, let's finish off with this. Tucker Carlson also just finished his little Soviet-style propaganda tour when he went food shopping and went on the subway out in Russia. And he was apparently so enthralled with the prospect of putting a quarter in a shopping cart, and then you get the quarter back at the end. Here's a clip of that. All right. There we go.

So I guess you put in 10 rubles here and you get it back when you put the cart back. So it's free, but there's an incentive to return it and not just bring it to your homeless encamping. Okay. All right, so what was your reaction to Tucker's delight at a technology that's existed at every all-de-year? supermarket for like 40 years? Well, first of all, he went to like a shopping market like was half

empty. Okay, that that's the first thing. The second thing, he didn't check aisle five because in aisle five in the Russian supermarket, he could have picked up ricin. That's right. To use against his political opponent. I mean, by the way, you know, I thought Tucker was going to interview Putin because of that opportunity and because, you know, he just wants to, you know, be a, be like a little little Yago for Putin on the shoulder. But he is, oh boy, Tucker is in deep now. I mean, if you listen to him, are you watching him? I mean, they have, the Russians have reprogrammed Tucker Carlson. He is now a straight up Russian stooge, right, full Russian propaganda. It's amazing here. Love Moscow. Get a summer home here. Take the family to Moscow. You can go food shopping. You can ride

the subway. I think the term they use is a useful idiot, right? By the way, we're beyond a useful idiot. They have used sciops on Tucker, right? And they have totally got him now, hook, line, and sinker. We've seen the Russians do this before, okay, where they go and they show you like these wonderful things. And they're like, look, Moscow's like Disneyland. And they're like, ah, I met with Putin.

He's delightful. He's got a soft touch. You know, he moisturizes. I mean, Tucker is just, he's gone. I mean, it's it's kind of scary because like Tucker, I don't like him. I mean, he's not an uneducated guy. I mean, how does he not realize that they have just totally used him? And he's now a propagandist for Vladimir Putin, unless he's doing it on purpose, of course, because he knows that sells on X. Yeah. And it's about, and since he knows there's an audience on X, he's doing it

for money, which is obviously possible. But yeah, Tucker, keep saying that you're activated. And you're now an activist against the United States. Yeah, that keep, keep showing us the true colors. Yeah, nothing like the, the America First Agenda at play there. With that said, Congressman, thank you so much for taking the time. Thanks, Brian. Now we've got Tristan Snell, attorney and author of the new book, Taking Down Trump, 12 rules for prosecuting Donald Trump by someone who did it successfully. So, Tristan, you beat Trump in court over his fraud that was Trump University. Based on your experience in that case knowing what it took for him to lose what do you think the outlook is for his pending prosecutions in dc and florida and manhattan and fulton county well let's see

as i say in the book uh even john goddy wasn't able to make it through four criminal trials without finally getting convicted uh he famously got away with the first three and it was the fourth one that brought him down so i i think that donald trump's chances of escaping from this unscathed are low, quite low. Now, the questions, in my mind, is not really if, but it's a when. It really, this is about the timing and then how that relates to the election. If Trump were just now a private citizen and then we're sort of curious as to when he was eventually going to get in prison, it would be clear that it's like, look, it's going to

happen at some point in the next year. But given the presidential calendar schedule, that's a totally different ballgame. That said, like, what does it take to bring him down and what are these cases doing to do that right or less right, et cetera, et cetera. How's that relate to Trump's efforts with his own playbook? The D.C. case, I think, is probably the most dangerous for him all the way around. It was done as a very tight case. They're trying to get it done as fast as possible.

They didn't overcharge him. They've been stoic and not responding to any of Trump's, you know, counterattacks. They've been dealing with his attempts to delay it, trying to move. move that immunity issue through the courts as fast as possible. So I think they've really been applying the lessons on that a good bit. I think we shouldn't sleep on the Manhattan case. It doesn't have the same gravity, but I do believe that there's a lot there. And I think that that one's probably going to ultimately, the big question will be on

appeal regarding whether or not the, I think he's going to get convicted. The question is going to be, is it for felony or misdemeanor? And that will probably end up being decided on appeal. The Mar-a-Lago case, good grief. Your guess is as good as mine. And Fulton County, I can talk about that one more, too, but I think the kicker there is they just went it with a different path. They charged a whole lot of counts and a whole lot of defendants.

They're getting people to flip, which is good in its own way. But on the other hand, it just means it's a big, clunky case that's taking forever. The reason why that case is moving slower is not because of the stuff with Fannie Willis, which is a classic Trump counterattack, but because there were night. defendants, there's all the dozens of counts. One of the first things the judge said when that went up for a hearing was he wasn't sure there was a courtroom in Atlanta big enough to hold the case. So that's what's going on with that one. Well, at the end of this whole process, we may not need a courtroom that big considering how many people have flipped us far and who are

likely to flip moving forward. That's true. That's a good point. Talk about real quick this idea of not overcharging in the DC case because I think a lot of people look at this and say, why didn't he get charged for insurrection, for example? But what are the merits of not overcharging? Why does this redound ultimately to prosecutors' benefit? You know, there it's a, A, it's a matter of speed. And I think they have been looking to do this. The bigger the case, the more possibility there's,

the more possibilities there are for issues to be brought motions to be brought, the discovery, which is when the prosecution then has to hand over all of its evidence to the defense prior to trial, that would be more voluminous. And then it's just a matter of sticking a more complicated case in front of a jury. The bigger of the story that you've got to tell to a jury with more counts and more claims and more defendants,

the more they've got to actually keep track of. And it's a lot. It's a lot for any of us. It's a lot for those of us who cover this stuff for a living. It's a lot to keep track of when you have a case like Atlanta. So the D.C. case, I feel like they stayed true to the things that are going to be. the easiest to prove, and we have to remember that it's less about the violence of January 6th

and the inciting of that violence. And it's more about the palace coup, the bureaucratic part of J6, and it's less sexy to talk about. But I think it's going to be the thing that brings them down. It's the fake electors, it's pressuring Pence, it was trying to hijack DOJ, and then it was the bureaucracy of the fact that they sought to and successfully delayed the certification of the electoral college vote that day. Constitution requires it to be done on the 6th of January. And it actually wasn't. It didn't happen until the next morning. So I think those things which are drier to talk about, people have asked like, oh, when are we going to find out about the proud boys? When are we going to find out about the Oathkeepers? It's like, you know, in the role

that Trump or Roger Stone or somebody played in all of that. It's like maybe we're going to get more indictments about that later, but not in this case. They designed this case to be a torpedo, not a Armada. Now, I want to move over to the book here because I think you spoke about a bunch of instances that can really inform what we're about to see now with these ongoing prosecutions. There was one part in the book in particular that I thought was really telling, where you say we He just broke in the case wide open, all because of Donald Trump's being a cheap predatory asshole who doesn't pay his bills. So can you talk about the Trump University negotiation blowing up in his face?

Look, there's a number of things there. You had all of his, a couple of his Achilles' heels, he's got more than one. He's got more than one weakness here, but he's got some really big weaknesses. One of them is being so cheap. And that's a recurring theme throughout the book, right? pointed to the thing about the we were able to break the case quite open because we managed to get a jilted vendor to cooperate with us even though that guy had originally not wanted to cooperate with us but when i brought up the fact that he himself had not been paid when trump university

was shut down that was when i finally got him to say you know what i'm going to get you all those documents another one is the fact that he doesn't pay his lawyers so we've now been seeing more and more up to the present day, instances in which you can get him to, you can get some of these people who were close to him to turn against him, Michael Cohen, being perhaps the most prominent example, but now we're seeing it happen again with Jenna Ellis. And now she's turned state witness in the Georgia case. And you can bet she's probably going to show up on the witness list for the DC case too. So Trump's got some problems in this department. Then there's the fact that He actually, he's more interested in, what's the best way to put this?

He's so stubborn about trying to show off that he's a tough negotiator, that he actually puts himself in bad negotiating positions. Yeah. Because he could have gotten the Trump University case to settle for probably around a million bucks, maybe even less than that. And rather than we offered, and it wasn't me, $2 million. Ultimately, we settled for $25. offered two and he wouldn't even counter and that had the ironic effect of pissing off the then

AG Eric Schneiderman so much because the kicker was that Schneiderman was also somebody who had a big ego but also very thin skin and so his take was he's disrespecting me he's not even going to counter and so it ended up that these two frankly big babies yeah basically like had a standoff and couldn't actually cut a deal that would have been to Trump's benefit. It would have been to our disgrace thing. And it's actually a good thing that it didn't happen. But yeah, Trump is an absolutely terrible negotiator. Really, really bad. I've been litigating for 20-some-odd years. I've negotiated a lot of big settlements, including with like Chase and Wells and B of A. Like Trump is absolutely terrible at this. Yeah. Well, I think they call that the art of the deal.

So, yes. No, I want to talk about Schneiderman. There are a long line of New York Attorney Generals who kind of dropped the ball when it came to Trump, starting with Schneiderman. Can you speak on that? Because I feel like that is the subject of the ire of so many of us out here who kind of have spent so long wondering why nothing has happened to him until it became so egregious that it kind of needed to, you know?

Yeah, I think that my take there is, and I go through this, none of this was new, but the way like this was all stuff that had been reported on and written on many many many many times but that i tried to put it all in a pattern and a context to show everybody what has been done and it goes back even further you can go all the way back to the 70s and 80s but there's a whole lot of prosecutors uh mostly in new york because of course he was here that at the the state and the manhattan d a the city and then also the the feds the u.s attorney for the southern district namely Rudy Giuliani, who held that role back in the 80s. And there was an open, I'll just use that one as a good example.

There was an open investigation into Trump having turned a blind eye toward money laundering at Trump Tower by a known member of the mob. The guy showed up, this mobster showed up to his closing to buy his condo at Trump Tower with a suitcase or briefcase full of money. at the closing yeah and the trump tower people were like uh yeah we'll take that from you sir thank you very much yeah standard real estate negotiation standard you know that isn't that how everybody does their real estate closings i mean come on brian who among us who among us right brought a suitcase of money to a real estate closing um but the and there was an open

investigation and then and then it suddenly evaporated but then lo and behold not too long after that Giuliani launched his first run for New York City mayor and who wasn't among the most avid vocal supporters and donors to him but Donald Shade Trump and it's like gee I wonder what happened there so this happened for a long long time so the co-opting but also the bullying the intimidation you know that's a big chunk of the first third of the book is about

is about the leadership qualities that are necessary to take him or someone like him down, and the lack thereof when it comes to a lot of other folks that that came before. From 1973, when he was first had a government enforcement action against him for racial discrimination in housing, to 2013 when we brought the Trump University case against him for 40 years there, he basically never had a serious government action taken against him. Now it's been more and more and more. Our case, I feel, was the turning point that really showed, hey, this can be done and it should be done more often. Yeah. I mean, it does feel like since that point that the dam has finally broken

against somebody who otherwise has been able to evade accountability for his own actions for, like you said, I mean, for decades there at least. Tristan, what's it like in retrospect knowing that you successfully defeated the guy who would ultimately become, you know, this aspiring autocrat? What was it like to see his like rise to power and to know who he was, especially to a degree so much more profound than the rest of the country had, you know, years, years before. I mean, you started this, what, in 2011, I believe? Yeah, that's right. So we joked about this around the office, but not because we thought he was ever going to be president. In fact, it was just to draw the analogy. We never thought he'd be

American politics. We used to describe him as the as sort of the MoMar Gaddafi of the business world. That was like our joke about him back in 2011, 2012, 2013. It's like he has, and a lot of folks might not, go Google Momar Gaddafi, but like, maybe if you don't remember him, but just like he was the dictator of Libya for many decades. And Gaddafi always was in some palace where everything was painted gold. he always had some like absurdly weird number of like oddly dressed um nominally attractive

but somehow not women around him um and only listened to yes men uh and and really didn't actually have that much power but somehow was in the news all the time yeah and it's like that was trump like basically trump was that is that was exactly trump and the and the jokes we had were like, he actually has a very small operation. The Trump organization is only like 14 people. You know, he'd surround himself by these like pageant contestants and other random women. And he somehow was in the news all the time, even though his real actual power as a business person was really not that great. And then we joked like, gosh, he could never actually run for anything because he would just get completely destroyed by all of the scandals in his past.

And yet here we are. Yeah. You know, the shamelessness factor just ended up. That's really his superpower. And that plus being able to just manipulate media and publicity. But the fact that he just embodies that notion of like no publicity is bad publicity, that's basically that's him. And unfortunately, it works.

And it worked wonders. And then now no one seems to care that he's committed all of, misdeeds in the past. His supporters really don't care. It seems to be old news to a lot of folks in the media, so we really don't even think about these things anymore. But just, you know, I'll take one example. The thousands and thousands and thousands of small business owners whose lives he ruined by not paying them what they were owed. And these were not people that did a bad job or anything. He did it because he could. They had put down carpet or tile or whatever at one of this facilities. The guy I was talking to that helped break open our case, he had run a small

company that transcribed the tapes of Trump University seminars. And he had gotten stiff. And it was a contributing factor to his business going under. Like the human wreckage that he's left in his wake just through just like horrible callousness. But now we just, it's just like we don't even think he's he's done so many bad things that we kind of don't even pay attention to any of the smaller or medium-sized ones anymore at all. It's insane. That's a point that I wanted to kind of dig into. I mean, he presents himself as this champion of working class people. Like, he presents himself as this populace. Can you talk about, like, you know, just some moments that you had while you were speaking to these people whose lives were turned upside down by Donald Trump and the actual

impact that it had on them moving forward, them and their businesses? You know, it was a combination Yes, exactly. It was the combination of what he did to these business owners over the years. If you Google, you know, Trump Atlantic City vendors, like you can go and look this up. But it's also that the people that went to Trump University were aspiring entrepreneurs. So Trump is supposed to be this like embodiment of the American dream. Never mind that he inherited all his money and then actually it's been well shown that if you just took the money he inherited. Put it in the S&P 500. And put it in the S&P 500, you would be way ahead compared to what he actually did with it. But these people were trying to live that Trump American dream. The whole point of Trump University was to supposedly, it was all lies, but it was to try to teach them to be real estate investors,

actually to buy houses out of foreclosure or things that were underwater and then flip them in a pretty predatory way. Like if you actually followed what Trump University said, you probably would have been pretty unethical, but let's just put that aside too. The thing is they promised that they would give all this mentorship and support, special access to lenders, you know, so forth and so on, that the teachers were handpicked by Trump, they weren't, et cetera, et cetera.

All of it was lies. The whole thing was just a bunch of, it was one big scam. And it was an illegal school. You can't have a school without it being, licensed you can't call yourself a university without having a license and none of those things were true either yeah so you had all of that going on um donald trump is is quite possibly the biggest enemy of the american dream and of main street the of the last hundred years he's i can't really think of who would be a bigger one um he like the sheer like again the sheer evil that he has exhibited in

how he has treated these people. The 6,000 people that he ripped off on the Trump University scam, when that happened, what did they do? They actually blamed the people and said, well, if you didn't make money from what we told you, then that's your fault. You clearly weren't working hard enough or you just didn't do a good job. And that's pretty much like the Trump thing in a nutshell is like, you know, he's going to pretend to be the champion of Main Street the champion of the little guy. And then when it doesn't work out for them, they're losers. Or he finds a way to make himself the victim, which is again.

Yes, exactly. That's right. It's just horrifying. It really is because these people were not Democrats. They weren't liberals. I mean, some of them might have been, but they were his super fans. These were people who watched the apprentice and the celebrity apprentice every week. They showed up and they were like psyched to be there because this was Donald Trump's school

and they believed in him and believed in what he supposedly. represented and they were the people that wanted him the most that wanted to be anywhere near his proximity to him the most and he knifed them and cleaned out their pocketbooks and it's a recurring theme that continues to this day you know watching the people who are closest to trump in his orbit just ultimately have their lives turned upside down i mean if they're not in prison then they if they're not in prison then they have no financial future and and and on and on tristan where can we get the book? The book is available at Taking DownTrump.com.

Then from there you can go to any of your favorite booksellers. Well, it was an excellent read. A very quick read, too. Again, that book is Taking Down Trump. Twelve rules for prosecuting Donald Trump from someone who did it successfully. I'll put the link in the post description of this video and in the show notes for the podcast.

Tristan, I appreciate you taking the time. Thanks, Brian. Anytime. Thanks again to the congressman and Tristan. That's it for this episode. Talk to you next week. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen, produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, interviews captured and edited for YouTube and Facebook by Nicholas Nicotera, and recorded in Los Angeles, California. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app. Feel free to leave a five-star rating and a review, and check out Briantylercoen.com for links to all of my other channels.