The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - David Cay Johnston, Judy Gold, and Dov Davidoff

Episode Date: March 23, 2017

David Cay Johnston is an American investigative journalist and author, a specialist in economics and tax issues, and winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting. He was recently featured on the Rachel Maddow Show, where he handed over a copy of President Donald Trump's taxes from 2005. Judy Gold is a standup comedian and two-time Emmy Award-winner. She can be seen regularly performing at the Comedy Cellar. Dov Davidoff is a prominent standup comedian and a regular performer at the Comedy Cellar.

You're listening to The Comedy Cellar, live from the table, on the Riotcast Network, riotcast.com. Good evening, everybody. Welcome to The Comedy Cellar Show here on Sirius XM Channel 99. We're here at the back table of The Comedy Cellar, of course, here with Mr. Dan Natterman and special guest comedian this week, Mr. Dove Davidoff. A frequent guest, Dove Davidoff. And we have an authentic comedy seller scoop. Yes.

You're absolutely the most important guest we've had, especially relative to what's gone on in the world in this past week. Mr. David K. Johnston, he is an American investigative journalist and author, a specialist in economics and tax issues, Pulitzer Prize winner, and most

notably, not most notably, but in the public conscience, most notably, he was recently featured on the Rachel Maddow Show where he handed over a copy of President Donald Trump's taxes from 2005. Welcome, sir. Glad to be here. We're also, by the way, waiting on Judy Gold. Share some of from silver first.

Well, no, I mention that because I'm a little, she may be angry that we're starting without her. So let's get right to it. First of all, has your life changed since this thing last week with the... Yeah, you know, it's very funny. Donald said I'm a nobody. For the last five or six years,

I have not walked through an airport in the U.S., Canada, or Germany without people stopping me. Wow. It's gone from, like, one person a day to, even on the way here from the subway, four people. Wow. Guy in the bar where I went and got a bite to eat before I came here, and yeah.

Well, we thought you were going to cancel on us. Never. Because I didn't think we were able to hold on to you. Anyway, let's get right to the question most burning on my mind, which is what... Oh, actually, I have two questions. The first one is actually personal. Does it bother you that all that Rachel Maddow

was on, was it Jimmy Fallon, talking about her scoop? It was your scoop. You brought it to her. My former newspaper, the New York Times, credited her, mentioned me at the bottom, never mentioned my website. Said, well, out of the 23 stories we've done out of my work, we gave one link to DCReport.org. Therefore, you know, we're okay.

And I pointed out Rachel Maddow said half a dozen times. I gave her the scoop. And they said, well, no, we're sticking with the story we have. I think it's terrible. But I'm not talking punitive about that. Why did they do that? Was that a selective omission? It was at The Times.

Gotcha. But I did not see Jimmy Fallon, but I was not surprised that people wanted to view her and not me. I mean, Donald said I'm a nobody after all. No, and she's Rachel Maddow. I'm not surprised, although I think you would have been just as good a guest. I just hope she mentioned me. If she did, I'm happy. I was listening to this.

I'm saying, you know, if I was Mr. Johns, if I was David, I would be like, how can she? It was ungracious of her when she actually referred to her own scoop as opposed to saying, I'm the luckiest woman in the world. It was brought to me on a silver platter. I'm just a conduit. Really, all the credit is his. It's my scoop. She got what's called the get.

I'm the get. I'm the get. Right. So anyway, I'll take that as a yes. But having watched it, I can't lie, I was furious with Rachel Maddow because I felt all the implication was that there was going to be something major, a real story there.

There is a real story there. What's the real story? That's the problem. See, what happened is people got this idea that this was going to be scandalous. When I got this document, my first thought was I got to authenticate it. And the second was I got to get this out as quickly as I can. How do you authenticate it? I'll get to that. But my other thought was, boy, Donald is going to be really happy.

He's going to be able to say, hey, look, this guy who's been writing about me for all these years, he comes up with this document that says I made a lot of money and paid a lot of taxes. He didn't, of course. They did unethical things at the White House about it, and then he dumps on me repeatedly. Because Donald is Donald. You know, it's like the story of the scorpion that asks the frog for a ride across the river and then kills it.

I told that to Doug's fiancé on the night before they got married. He didn't stop her. That's right. That's right. I married a scorpion, Doug. But, you know, here's the scandal in Donald Trump. It's not really a scandal, but here's the real thing I think people missed, unfortunately. For the record, how much taxes did he pay?

Okay. The White House lied about this. He had positive income of $152.7 million, which would put him in the top 400 tax returns that year. Quite a way up there, because it started $100 and the average was like $200. And that's after his income was reduced by his deductions, right? No, that's his gross income? Yes, that's his positive income. He paid taxes of $36.6 million.

The White House said $38, which is not true. His income tax was $36.6 million. Well, it's important because Donald never tells truth. The next day, Donald went on TV and said on one of the stations, I think it was with the guy who wears the bow ties on CNN, Tucker Carlson. I made

$250 million and then I had this $100 million deduction. No, you didn't. You made $153 almost and then you had the $103 million deduction. Anyway, he would have only paid $5 million on almost 153, less than 3.5% if his tax policy was in effect. Because the alternative minimum tax. That's right. What is the average tax rate of the poorest half of American taxpayers that year? It's a little

over 3.5%. So as we wrote at DCReport.org, Donald Trump wants to live like the.001% and he wants to pay taxes like the bottom half. So let me ask you questions because I know Bernie Sanders, I think, wanted to eliminate the alternative minimum tax. I want to eliminate it, but you have to do other adjustments to do it. Right. So does Donald... And your viewers should know that tax is an area where, I mean, I'm not a lawyer, but I teach tax law at a university to law students. So you're saying that Donald Trump's tax proposal is such that he wouldn't eliminate

any deductions. He would really allow a man such as himself to pay almost no taxes. Almost no taxes, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And by the way, I think this return is probably anomalous. It's unusual. Here's Judy Gold. This is David K. Johnson. I love you.

Oh, well. Yeah, I saw you on... These guys haven't said that, but it's okay. No, no, no. There's a lot of love here. There's a tremendous amount of love here. I'm holding judgment.

I want to make sure that I'm holding judgment. No, no, no. He's great. He's great. I haven't told my father I love him. My father... Tell your dad.

Tell your dad. I should, but the point is I have a hard time expressing love. It's a hard time expressing. I followed you after I saw you. You're one of the new people who discovered me, not one of the old ones.

Right. But my father was a tax attorney. And he wrote the tax laws for the state of New Jersey, corrected the bar and the CPA exam. So I come from a family... You should buy him a copy of my book perfectly legal. He's dead. He's been dead since 1990. Have a nice night. Yeah, sorry.

That's all right. So the alternative minimum tax, there are principled reasons to be against it on all sides, of all ideologies, correct? Here's the thing about tax law in America. I'm writing, I've written largely a new tax code for this country. Very simple. Don't file tax return, except for a few people who choose to.

But the existing tax code we have, 6,500 pages, by the way. Don't listen to people say it's millions of pages and stuff. Just under 6,500 pages. Mine's under 100. Wait a minute. You're writing a new tax code? Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I have that book out except for Donald being in the White House. And the tax code that we have is all sorts of things that are interlinked. There's a corporate tax. There's an alternative minimum tax. There is FACTA. There is a whole set of rules on partnerships and other entities. Tell me about it. So it's like a game of pick-up sticks. You know, when you were a kid, you pulled a blue one, and the whole pile's dynamic shifts in ways you don't expect. What Washington is talking about is not tax reform. I'm doing tax reform.

It's the alternative minimum tax. Yeah, but what Washington is talking about is just more goodies for people at the top. And by the way, the alternative minimum tax gets described in the news all the time as designed to prevent people like Trump from paying little tax. Well, he happened to be caught in it because of a particular rule. But almost all the people who pay it, here's who they are. They're married couples with more than two children who own their own home and live in high-tax states like New York, which, by the way, are the high-wage states.

It's not a tax about Donald. He just got caught by a specific rule, which I got caught in, because he's a real estate investor. So you're saying that's why it's kind of unfair? Because it's hitting people who are kind of like upper middle class in a way? The original minimum tax from 1969, which was repealed, applied only to investors. That's what we need is a rule only for investors. Why should you lose your exemption for yourself, your exemption for your children? Just forget about anything else.

Why should we take that away from you if you're an upper middle class or middle class citizen? And we do. Is the complex nature of the tax code, is it the manifestation of your special interest? Why are we at a place where it seems as though you need a Ph.D. to understand anything that's going on around this? I don't have a Ph.D. and I understand it. It's very simple. If you're rich, you can get Congress to pass some law that will favor you. They actually had a law once which didn't get passed because it was written about

just the day before it was going to be voted. But here's what it said. No tax shall be owing on the estate of any individual who died in Tarrant County, that's Fort Worth, Texas, on such and such a date and left an estate valued at not less than so much nor more than so much and whose sole surviving heir is his spouse. Incredible. And the Philadelphia Inquirer found this woman who goes, when she got him on the phone, she's, oh, you mean that little thing my congressman's doing for me? Yeah. That's incredible.

You know what I find interesting? I mean, you probably find this interesting, but, you know, the Defense of a Republican sort of argument that really what made sense about, you know, that they were together 40 years and because they couldn't get legally married, she had to pay a federal inheritance tax. Well, you know, I mean, understand that the Republicans want a government that's so small it can crawl into bed with you. Right. Exactly. So getting back to Rachel Maddow. The Republicans want a government that's so small it can crawl into bed with you. Right. Exactly. Well, okay. So getting back to Rachel Maddow. So you've made the case that this is interesting because essentially Trump's kind of a hypocrite.

Or you're saying, I think you're saying more than that. You're saying that Trump is really angling for a tax package because it would benefit him. Which would presume that he's still been paying those high taxes. Yeah, and I believe the 2005 tax return was anomalous. I mean, we know that in... Well, if it's anomalous, then how would this benefit him? Because he looks... No, in this case, he looks good because,

look, I made all this money and made these taxes. But there are, for someone like him, there are things called carrybacks that you don't get. So you make a lot of money in comedy one year, and the next year you don't make anything. You don't get to go back and reduce your prior income. Guys like Donald get to do that. No, but I'm saying that if it was anomalous, and in the last 10 years he hasn't been paying this high alternative minimum tax, then the motivation is not to save money to eliminate it.

No, it would benefit him in that year. But you also— But going forward, see, that to me is like... It's not black and white. I think it's Lawrence Kudlow or one of these guys who doesn't know anything about tax. One of the supply side who's actually responsible for the tax package.

I don't think it's Donald Trump's venality, which is... I don't think Donald Trump created this tax package at all. I once tried to give Donald tax advice. How'd that go? Well, Donald is always telling you how smart he is. Because I know he likes to take advice.

Yeah, right. He couldn't follow. It was actually very simple what I was trying to explain. I've explained to ordinary people, Donald is not that smart. What? Donald is not informed. Are you being sarcastic, Drew? Yeah.

But you said that that 2005 tax return shows him in a favorable light because he did pay those taxes and because that's the year he got married to Melania, also known as immigrant. So I thought Donald would put out a statement saying, hey, this guy has been pursuing me. Right, right. You know, look, look.

But he didn't do that. So then let's talk about, because this is what always comes back to me, is Rachel Maddow. Right, right. all the strains and the reasons we should be concerned about him. And then by the end, she was actually admitting to the fact that, well, you know, actually maybe Trump was behind this leak because it actually benefits him. Well, no, that was my point. That was me. But she didn't dispute it.

She was like, yeah, you know, which to me is like, you're doing this whole buildup of something which you think might actually be favorable to Donald Trump, and the buildup involves criminality. It was, I'm sorry, that was the dumbest thing I've ever seen. which you think might actually be favorable to Donald Trump and the buildup involves criminality. I'm sorry. That was the dumbest thing I've ever seen. I can't say I didn't like it because I enjoyed it because I don't like Rachel Maddow.

But I could not believe it. You know what? I couldn't believe it. And I thought it was bad for you in a sense. Go ahead. Sorry, Judy. I just feel like, you know, Rachel Maddow is a truth seeker. She uncovered the Bridgegate. She uncovered Flint, Michigan water crisis.

I don't think she necessarily uncovered those, but she certainly gave them national prominence. Right. And stuck to them and did them very well. And, you know, she definitely does her due diligence, as does her staff. Not this time. Okay. So there's one. But, you know, we have to really be on the side

of journalists at this point. I'm on the side of journalists. But just to say... You may be in a minority now. It was not a matter of diligence that she didn't do. It was a matter of foaming at the mouth of Donald Trump hatred that allowed her to

not see what anybody should have seen. Rachel, this actually, if anything, might make Trump look good. There's nothing there except hypocrisy, maybe. No, no, it's everybody has a different style, right? And every night she does a monologue. It's usually about 12 minutes. It's gone to 20, though, recently. This one, it went to 20, and that's her style.

And, you know, we talked about where to take this, okay, when I got the document. We could have just posted it on our website and told a lot of people. We were afraid it wouldn't get enough attention. No, she should try to make money on it. I wanted to go to Lawrence O'Donnell because he's, like me, a tax expert. I didn't know that. He is? Yeah.

He's also a good actor. I know. He's an actor. He's a wonderful actor. He's a great screenwriter. But he worked on the Senate Finance Committee. Oh, okay. He's got a temper. He knows tax good actor. I know. He's an actor. He's a wonderful actor. He's a great screenwriter. But he worked on the Senate Finance Committee. Oh, okay. He's got a temper.

And he knows tax very well. We thought about going to Chris Hayes. We thought about going to CNN. We thought, you know, the first thing we discussed was going to my old newspaper, the New York Times, and immediately said, now we'll get caught in the maw of the editing machine of the New York Times. 30 editors will weigh in on it. When they get done with it, you'll be, you think, you know, you weren't happy with Rachel. Trust me.

If I'd gone to the Times, you would have not known what it was about. Right. And so, you know, we said, Rachel's the one who's been hitting these issues that we've been hitting at DCReport.org, like the Russians. We did a 10,000-word investigation of the Russians. And when she didn't credit us because she hadn't seen it, she had me on to correct the record about it. So I thought well of her for that. And her style. I'm not upset with her for the show

she did with me. I am upset with the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the other news organizations that said she got it when a half a dozen times she very carefully said, David K. Johnston and DCReport.org broke this story, and I'm so happy they're here.

But were you at all, I don't want to say unhinged, but did you think when the buildup was coming with the clock on the television, you know, they were counting down, counting down. Yes, I certainly thought, when am I coming out of the green room, and are we going to get to this? Right, but were you thinking, this is way too much for this? No, all I thought was, because she does new ones. I think we should reset.

No. Okay, we're here at the Comedy Cellar show on SiriusXM Channel 99. I wanted to reset. Go ahead. Stop beating up on Rachel. We'll try something new. Let's beat up on. I love Rachel.

We're here with David K. Johnston, tax expert and the person who. Investigative reporter. Investigative reporter and he found the Trump's tax return. It was sent to him anonymously. One of my eight grown children found it in my mailbox. Eight grown children? Yeah.

There's a topic we need to get into. Placed in your mailbox or sent by... Rick, my mailman, delivered it along with the mail. Delivered by the mail. But it says client copy on there. So who the hell else would have the client copy? Right, right. Well, there are other people who might have it.

Many people. It may have been photocopied for litigation, for regulatory purposes, et cetera. Do you think you'll ever be, I mean, like, there's got to be a way to get a hold of the rest of these tax returns. And, I mean, wouldn't it open up this whole Russia and his other interests and the Ukraine and I mean the hookers. Let's just say I haven't I haven't been living in

hotels and traveling nonstop for weeks now with a few visits home without a reason. Okay. You're hot on the trail. I love you. Yeah. Hot on the trail baby. Hot on the trail. So hot. You yeah. Hot on the trail, baby. What? Do you? Hot on the trail. So hot.

You do know that you're part of a minority there. Hundreds of people on the internet who want to have my children tortured in front of me as my skin is stripped off and I'm shot. I want you to... Based on what basis? I'm a traitor. And by the way, Trump supporters, many of them are... I don't know, but even if you are a Trump supporter...

This fine Christian man of integrity, how dare you? And if anybody who's read my book, The Making of Donald Trump, knows Donald Trump calls Christians idiots, fools, and schmucks. And he doesn't mean it to be redundant when he says schmuck. Well, I am a truth lover. And no Christian, but a truth lover. And whatever is true about Donald Trump, of course, of course, of course, we want it to come out. I find myself skeptical that there's going to be anything huge there. Only because I feel like, I mean, for instance, the tax returns. There's got to be 50 people who've seen Donald Trump's tax returns.

Oh, yeah, more than that. If there was something treasonous, really unpatriotic, somebody would spill it. No, you'd have to understand the document in context. Okay. I mean, I can take a tax return and tell you a lot of things because I've spent years working on this stuff. But a lot of people can look at a tax return and they would say there's nothing unusual here because they don't know the larger story. It's the thing as an investigative reporter for 50 years that has scared me every time I do something. What is it I don't

know? That's what you worry about. But you can learn an enormous amount about someone from their tax return. Absolutely. The fact that he wouldn't release them, that he lied about how he's under audit. I mean, Nixon was under audit too, and he

released his. I mean, I just don't understand how... Judy, I'm going I just don't understand how. Judy, I'm going to make you feel terrible now. You ready? Yeah. You know how easily you breathe? That's how easily Donald Trump lies. Yeah, I believe that.

Oh, I know. I believe it, too. This is a man with no moral core. And one of the key, you know, when he announced, when he came down that escalator, I immediately said he's serious this time because he's been talking about this for 30 years. Yes, yes. And I started calling my fellow journalists. I started writing pieces, 21 questions for Donald Trump saying, you got to get on this. And here are the things to ask.

And nobody did what they're supposed to do. It's called vetting the candidate. The New York Times ran this huge story about what Hillary Clinton was doing in the 70s. So when I called a couple of my former colleagues in the New York Times, I said, look at this about this major drug trafficker, not a dealer, a trafficker, whom he risked everything for, whose case was mysteriously transferred from Ohio to the New Jersey courtroom of his sister. And the lenient treatment he got, I was told, David, that was 30 years ago. Right, right, right. So different standards for Hillary and Donald. And in my book, The Making of Donald Trump, I tried to lay out,

here's everything you should know. Well, you know what? That book is number one worldwide bestseller. It's in 11 languages. Mazel tov. Yeah, but it's selling really well in Germany, France, England, Netherlands, Turkey.

It's not... No alternative minimum tax for you. Not so much in the U.S. Well, I have to say, with Noam, Noam's going to hate me for this, but that meeting with Angela Merkel, okay? We wouldn't shake hands. I didn't see it.

Did that really happen? Yes. And she was so disgusted by him. I grew up in a home where we didn't buy one German thing. Nothing from Germany. My parents wouldn't even buy a Ford because Henry Ford was anti-Semitic and friends with Hitler. Okay. I have more respect

for the German Chancellor. I mean, who knew? Than I do for the President of the United States. Well, as you should. You can't blame her for something that happened when she wasn't alive. I'm curious. The idea of a lack of a moral center.

This is consistent with general personality disorder diagnoses. And would you, are you on board with that? Well, okay, I'm not a doctor, but here's what I'll tell you. If you read the DSM, and you read narcissists,

diagnostical, statistical, manual, which changes as our knowledge changes, you will see, he has every symptom. Tick off the items of a narcissist, of Donald. Tick them off, absolutely. And Donald has, as I show in the book, let me tell you how lacking in any compassion and empathy

for anybody else is. He put the life of a sickly infant, his own grandnephew in jeopardy, over money. And when he got called on it, and this is my words, not his, the quotes are in the making of Donald Trump, he goes, basically, well, what else could I do? Because

he wanted the money. And this sickly infant was in the way of him getting the money. Who puts the life of a child in jeopardy over money? I mean, I would understand maybe if you're starving and your children are starving. It's going to be my kid we're going to save, not your kid. But a man

with the kind of money they have. So let's presume he's a narcissist. Presume? For the sake of argument. Just remember, a narcissist's story came to a bad end. Donald, so far, is doing very well. He's not drowning in the pool. Swamp.

Oh, smart remark of the night. Yes, thank you. What policies would you expect a narcissist to move forward? Oh, that's real easy. He's appointing minders like the communists do at every agency to make sure that there's loyalty to Donald Trump. Some of the people who come through into the U.S. entering the country have said that they were pulled in the back room and asked if they were loyal to Donald Trump or they support him. This is setting up a man who talked as if the president's a dictator for exactly that.

Donald Trump is about one thing. Donald believes, of course he should be our leader, because he is genetically superior to us. He said this, one of his sons has said this, and so this is about the glorification of the great Donald Trump, who is superior to us. He said this. One of his sons has said this. And so this is about the glorification of the great Donald Trump who is superior to us. If you don't believe that,

loser, loser, man. What precisely did he say when he said he's genetically superior? Oh, it's in the book. You can go see it. And his son has said it too. Well, what exactly did they say? I can guess which one.

Donald Jr. Oh, I knew it. Because I think you might be overstating that. Unless you have a quote that I haven't heard. No, no, no. He talked about Germans over there. I mean, he talked about genetics, but I don't think he said he's genetically superior to everybody else.

Donald has said that, and I know many. I've covered Donald for a long time, and there are lots of people around you who will tell you about conversations Donald has made about how he is genetically superior. I want to describe one possible trajectory of a narcissist. I'm a narcissist. I want everybody to love me. I want to be on Mount Rushmore. I don't want to be the guy

cutting anybody's anything. I want to be the guy who gives everybody everything because nobody ever remembers how a great president paid for his policy. So I want everybody to have healthcare on the house, as much money in their pocket, food. That would be kind of what a narcissist, I think,

if I were a narcissist, that's what I would do. If I'm not a narcissist and I'm more concerned with principle, listen, I'd be like, there's limited resources, not everybody can have everything. How come his narcissism doesn't lead him to be more generous to the population so that they'll love him? Well, you know, Donald used to believe in universal health care. He told me one time it should be like driving down the road in front of your house.

If you need it, you just have it there. Why did he believe that? Because he really believes it or because he's a narcissist? No, no, no, no. I think he believes that because he's a good German and he just thinks. And also as a business owner, and I run a small business. Well, but once again, you say he's a good German. You're...

You know... Yes, Dan, I'm being a little unfair to him. No, but that ties into your assertion. I'm trying to be funny and I'm not very... As my comedy writer daughter says, Dad, you're not funny. But you're tying that into this whole notion that he feels he's genetically superior. I don't mean he alone is superior. I agree with you if that was

your point, Dan. That he's suggesting he's part of a superior group of people, genetically superior group of people. I'm asking you for what quote he said. Dan, he doesn't have the quote. Can you answer my question? Off the top of my head? I'm sorry. Well, but if he said that he's part of genetically superior people, that's an important quote that I would think might stick in one's mind.

Okay, but it doesn't have the quote. I got lots of other quotes, but get my book. Okay, so my question. So you think in his heart he does believe universal health care? Oh, yeah. So how is that manifesting? Wanting everybody to love you, but also, and correct me if I'm wrong, wanting everyone to love you in that context isn't necessarily.

Right, so narcissism manifests sometimes in the need for power as well as self-glorification. Well, he's sort of like the Grinch. He is like the Grinch. And by the way, if I had a dollar for every time Noam said or implied that the Jews have smarts, I'd be on a yacht right now. Well, I'm going to have to agree with

Noam on that one. There's some very interesting social research that supports this. There is an objective case to be made. I'm not aam on that one. There's some very interesting social research that supports this. There is an objective case to be made. I'm not a member of the tribe, okay? I have a question because as a member of the Jewish community, I heard a lot of, you know, he's not going to do this or he's not going to do that because he has Ivanka and Jared.

I'm rolling my eyes. I know. And that has been a constant in the Jewish community. He has Ivanka and Jared. I'm rolling my eyes. Let the record show you rolled his eyes. And that has been a constant in the Jewish community. Oh, he's not going to. No, he has Ivanka. Like, I want to punch Jared Kushner in the fucking face. Well, you know, we've had attacks on synagogues and on mosques and JCCs. This infuriates me.

Yes. The point you're making infuriates me. I disagree with it. He isn't saying anything of any kind. Can I just, as a personal anecdote, Judy's not my Facebook friend. For the last... I'll be your Facebook friend. I would love that. For the last

12 months prior to Trump's presidency, I was berating my fellow Jews about the fact they're not, they couldn't care less about anti-Semitism. I agree. They post everything

about anything that happens in the world to any other victim group while the ADL came out with an article that 2015 was a high watermark in the modern era of anti-Semitic acts

either in the country or the world. Right. And I post it crickets. Now that Donald Trump is president, every Jewish friend of mine has this hyper heightened sensitivity to anti-Semitism. And it's not that now my son's JCC was evacuated. And as we know, the one person they caught turned out to be some guy who was trying to

get his girlfriend in trouble or whatever it is. Right, right. But I've seen no empirical data to show that anti-Semitism is up after Trump is president. And even if it is up in some measure, it's not. It's just it's continuing on a trajectory that has existed over the last 10 years that nobody cared about until it was Trump. Well, it makes me crazy. I wouldn't say nobody cared, but it's certainly a high level of coverage that it was Trump. It makes me crazy. I wouldn't say nobody cared, but it certainly didn't get the high level of coverage that it's gotten. But, you know, Donald, you can go

through the statements he didn't make on the particular days he didn't make, and understand something. Donald doesn't have any empathy for anybody. If he makes a statement, it's because his staff said this will be good for you. Can I interrupt you one second? And I don't mean to defend Trump here, but when they killed that... I've defended Donald on occasion. When they killed the Jews in the kosher deli in Paris,

Obama refused to identify it as an anti-Semitic incident. And nobody cared. Nobody cared. Let Trump try that. I bet you Trump would identify it as an anti-Semitic incident. Because he hates Muslims so much. Right, right, right. No, I mean, really, I think I'm making a fair point here.

I think that we, just like Rachel Maddow, we all have to be careful no matter how much you want to hang him to not be guilty of guilting a lily. Norm, I'm more concerned about clearly what's happening to Muslims in America and to the efforts. This thing that came out today, airlines owned by eight countries. You can't bring anything with you electronic except your cell phone. Yeah, I just read that. Now, I'm sorry. Delta Airlines coming from that country can, but the Muslim country's native airline can't. Don't misunderstand what's going on here.

Donald Trump is a show- But England is on board with that, too. Yes, and they have some intelligence. And the Democratic head of the Intelligence Committee, a ranking member, whatever it is. Let the man finish. Donald Trump, unless your definition of a racist is you've got to hang somebody from a tree. Donald Trump is a racist. He's been one all his life.

He's been found after proceedings, formal proceedings, and been fined huge sums for discriminating. One point I would make is that Islam is not a race. And his motivation... A bigot. He's a bigot. He is a racist and he's a bigot. Why is Schiff also on board?

I don't know because I don't know what intelligence he's got. Well, the presumption... Wait, you didn't finish. Adam Schiff, the L.A. Congressman. Yes, yes, yes, is on board. He thinks that this ban is appropriate on the computers and cell phones from these countries. So I would have to presume that... Well, I think it's because of the leaks, too.

True or false, George Washington would love the Muslim ban. I don't know, you know, the... Love it! Love it! Take it or not. Hold on, I don't know. Love it. At the founding of this country, I got one for you, Dan. At the founding of this country, about 20% of the residents of this country are Muslims. That's incredible.

Hold on. Now, hold on. Now, you had me going there. You almost got me, and I respect what you do on the taxes. Your knowledge of taxes is beyond dispute. I'm a little sleep deprived, so it may be 16%, but there was a large number of Muslims

that were mostly slaves. How many Jews? 14. Very small. Oh, they were slaves. So that's how Washington liked his Muslims. I'm not defending Washington. I'm saying if Washington were alive today, he'd be saying bravo with the travel ban.

I'll tell you what. Even Lincoln, the great emancipator himself. But picking a fight with the largest religion in the world, with a whole number of countries, for no reason, good reason, and in fact just just picking it at all is not a good thing. You know, to recall Rodney King's remarks before he died, the guy who was beaten up in L.A., can't we all just get along? Can't we all just get along? Yes, yes. This is interesting to me.

So you're here. Now we're getting to something I can talk about. And you know that you have the same facts. We don't dispute that. England is on board with this. Yes. That the ranking Democrats are on board with it. Wait, are we back to taxes facts. We don't dispute that. England is on board with this. Yes. That the ranking Democrats on board with it. Are we back to taxes now?

We're still with Muslims. And yet you still, your presumption is still that this is something that if you had the same information they had, you would think was a product of bigotry. That I don't understand. Because I think that the signal, you know, leaders at the top don't control everything government does. When you're running an organization, you know, Jeffrey Immelt at GE doesn't put screws on wheels on locomotives in Erie, Pennsylvania. You set a tone and a tenor, and it shapes how people think. Even the Democrat who hates you? Yes, because he's getting information that's coming from these agencies.

And so you may have good information, you may have bad. In the case of Trump, there's not any credibility. So you're setting up a situation where you can take the anti-Trump or anti-government position on any issue because it's beyond any kind of facts or proving, even if the most liberals agree with it. You're like, well, that's just because the wool's pulled over their eyes. I think you have to be skeptical and careful about these things. Because what I heard— He's going to do some good things.

Donald Trump wants to be a successful president. Okay? That's what I was going to say. Everything he's going to do is not going to be bad. What will he do that's good? Well, some— Get impeached. Cut my taxes.

No one wants more bridges. Cut my fucking taxes. That's how you do that. And that wall. What about the wall? If, in fact, we have an infrastructure program, look at our country. It's just falling apart. That is true.

You've got China. You know, the other day I drove over the GW Bridge. Worked perfectly. Worked perfectly. I got to the other side. Over the lower level. No, but it is. I've done both.

You're absolutely right about the infrastructure. And it's scary. And so, I mean, that's one of the key areas. Donald, you know, said that nobody's going to be worse off because of, in the field of medicine. Well, I'm sorry. A lot of people are going to die because of Medicaid. In a reverse way, however, if Donald pushing something so hard wakes people up. I mean, I think, you know, we had two great religious awakenings in this country.

I think we're seeing a great political awakening. It started with the Tea Party on the right. Oh, I absolutely agree. And now we're seeing it with people on the left. And when we found a D.C. report, which we run on a little shoestring. It's donor-supported. We don't take ads. Atlanta Rubenstein Foundation.

We don't sell our name. Yeah, right. Our position is we refer to our government newspapers always say the government we say our government because our view is we're the owners and we should act like owners and we empower people we don't just say here's this regulation that's going to hurt may hurt we think will hurt you we say there's a formal rule making you don't know how to do a rulemaking? Put this in the subject line, send it to this address, and

they are required to accept into the formal record what you have to say. We're empowering people to make their government accountable. It's our democracy. And this idea that, oh, we can't do anything about it, we're not in control. Nonsense! Take your government. You've shifted, now maybe because you've exhausted

the list, you've shifted from now maybe because you've exhausted the list, you've shifted from the good things that Trump would do by intention, no, build infrastructure, to the good things that will happen because everybody hates him so much. Can I make one other point? Is that the end of the list of the good things that you think he would do on his own, that he would intentionally do

with infrastructure? You're against lowering taxes? No, it depends on what you want to do. I mean, it depends on if you want to broaden the base, I'm in favor of lowering tax rates. Okay, can I please make a point? Please. This renaissance and this interest...

730. And this interest, renewed interest in politics and how the government works, I think it is a direct result of Donald Trump's ignorance and stupidity when he believes that the executive branch can do whatever the fuck it wants to do. And I think people are finally saying, no, no, no, no, and understanding the way the government works. Judy's point, Noam, takes me back to the fundamental point.

Donald Trump is manifestly unfit to hold office. And I don't mean just president. I mean city council. He is... You're talking community school board. Yeah, yeah. Auxiliary police officer.

He has no regard for anybody else. He lies as easily as you breathe. He doesn't know stuff. It's astonishing. In my book, I mean, I quote him where he's under oath and other places. The things he doesn't know are terrifying. Donald doesn't. One of my lines is, Donald doesn't know a Sunni from a Shia and why it's critically important to American foreign policy.

And he doesn't know that a Sikh is not a Muslim. A Sikh is not a Muslim? I think, again, is that about general curiosity and intelligence as much as it is the idea that narcissism is basically seeing the universe as it relates to your own needs? Well, I think it's both, but he doesn't read books. Remember, his expertise is taxes, Doug. Yes, yes, yes.

Let me give you an example of this. Hugh Hewitt is a very smart guy. He's a right-wing radio talker. I know taxes, Doug. Yes, yes, yes. Let me give you an example of this. Hugh Hewitt is a very smart guy. He's a right-wing radio talk show. I know him, yeah. He had Donald on the air, and he asked Donald on his radio show, well, what's your priorities for the nuclear triad if we have to cut the budget? And Donald goes, oh, nuclear, nuclear, it's such a big deal. It's so important.

Nuclear, nuclear, you know, it's... And so then four months pass by. He appears on one of the debates. I think it was the one by Fox, December of 2016. And the same, 2015. And Hugh Hewitt asks the exact same question, and Donald gives the same nonsense answer. I remember that. And then Hewitt turns to Marco Rubio.

Marco Rubio says, well, for those who don't know, the nuclear triad is the capacity of the military in the United States to deliver nuclear bombs from bombers, submarines, or land-based missiles. If you have to be schooled by Marco Rubio, and he has four months to learn. My friend is Latino, so he doesn't like your attitude about Marco Rubio. I can't stand him. But I agree with you. He's a bullet point memorizing nothing.

Now, the other thing that I can't wrap my head around is the fact that he accuses Ted Cruz's father of killing JFK. He insults his wife. He accuses Obama of a felony. Right. He accuses Marco Rubio. They're talking about their penis size. He's so low class.

I mean, he just proves. He's so low class. I mean, he just proves that money does not buy class. I'm sorry, you don't like men walking around talking about their penis size. I'm a comedian. I've been hearing it for 34 years. And I have two sons. But how the fuck does he get away with saying, grab women's pussy? He's got a 35% approval rate.

That one I can explain to you. Is there any woman you know who hasn't been sexually harassed? My wife. So I think a lot of women, particularly ones inclined to support Donald, their attitude was, okay, on the range from sort of inappropriate to complete pig. He's a complete pig,

but you know, men are like that. I think that's how a lot of people rationalize that. I think you'll agree with what seems to be already the conventional wisdom, that there was so many disaffected white people in the Rust Belt, and they did not care. They didn't like these things

about him, but they just wanted change. And they didn't want a politician. And just make America great again, it really reverberated with them. So here's the irony of that for me. I spent my years at the New York Times documenting inequality. I mean, I literally got a letter once from somebody prominent when a survey came out saying most Americans now think that equality is a problem. And the opening line was, this is your dang GD fault.

I wrote a trilogy of best-selling books, Perfectly Legal on Taxes, Free Lunch on Subsidies, and The Fine Print on Monopolies, explaining how the 90% were having their pockets subtly drained and giving money to people like Donald Trump, one of the biggest welfare kings in America. So I'm the guy who devoted 20-plus years to telling the 90%, here's how you're being screwed, okay? And along comes Donald Trump, who didn't care about these people, who says in his initial problem in America is wages are too high. You go back and look at his opening speech, and yet people think he's going to improve their economics. So I've got to tell you, for me personally, this is like, really? Can this happen? Can you spend years explaining this and then have some?

And I'm also going to tell you, and I don't know if you agree, what actually Donald Trump's biggest problem is. It's not the narcissism, because I have to believe we've had narcissistic presidents in the past. Not on this level. This is his biggest problem, and it was the reason in the end that I didn't support him.

He cannot control his own behavior to conform to his obvious self-interest. After a successful speech at the convention that night, you may not like the speech, the next day he's out there railing against Ted Cruz's father. Yeah, and listen.

This tweet about Obama being sick and tapping his phone. He cannot control himself. How can he? Why is this not? This is what is going to bring him down. And yet, and yet, Noam is on record as saying he's kind of glad Trump won. Well, I hated Hillary.

He's kind of glad. You know, the hatred of Hillary. I hated her. If she was a guy, would you have hated her? You know, I made that very point. Yeah, I resent, I resent that question. Well, no, I want to know that. I want to know that. I want to know that.

One of the reasons. Does anybody ever answer yes to that question, Judy? The question is an accusation. Nobody say, yeah, actually, you're right. No, I'm saying if he was a man. If she was a man. The question is not a fair. She was qualified for the job.

Oh, she's definitely qualified. Right. So you would rather have someone who doesn't fucking read or know anything about diplomacy or the government or anything. No, this is what I said at the time. If I was doing the hiring, I would have to hire Hillary. Clearly, she was the right. Viscerally, what she would say, you mean wipe it with a cloth and all this, and the Clinton Foundation. It made me crazy. Here's the problem with Hillary Clinton.

She's incredibly qualified. Two things, though, should stand out. Number one, she and her husband and the people around them are what I call Republican light. They're not out there fighting for working people and working people damn well know that. They're not their enemy.

They're moderate. They do want to get, yeah. But they have sucked up too much to Wall Street and that's the big fight the Democrats are going to have. Are we going to be the party of working people, or are we going to be the soft Republicans? But the second thing is, you know, in love, war, and politics, you have to respond to your opponent. Donald Trump runs this unconventional campaign, and she just keeps going along on a straight line. I know. That I agree with.

And that actually is very revealing about something that isn't so good about her, that she stuck to this strategy. She should have gone to every working town she could find, and she should have raised holy hell about the networks not covering her statements and her policy positions. But she also should have been going to, you know, not the advanced manufacturing, this is the future, but some ordinary place where they bend metal. Right, right. Absolutely. And by the way, I found, for instance, because it's all fuzzy now, her shenanigans not releasing her Goldman Sachs transcripts was just as offensive to me as Donald Trump not releasing his tax returns.

It's the same thing. And Sanders wouldn't release his tax returns. He said, oh, well, they're in our filing cabinet. You should see all the nasty email I have for holding Sanders to the same standard I held everybody else to. God bless you. Good for you. What was in his tax returns? Well, we didn't see them because they didn't put them out.

But I have said, however, there's very good evidence that his wife committed a couple of felonies involving a bank loan. His current wife? Yes. I now love you because you're fair. Let me ask you this question. Can you say you love him now? I don't have any love to give. No, I'll be honest with you.

I just don't have it in me. But now most of the people that voted for Trump were not broke, rust-belt people out of work. But they were his margin. Right? They were his margin. But what about all the people? Okay, they were his margin. But what would possess somebody that's a normal of college educated voters, actually. What would possess somebody

that's a normal human being, that's not in desperate straits... Anger. To vote for somebody that you've characterized as unfit, stupid... Anger. Not stupid, but not as smart as he says. In other words, if he's this horrible, and I'm

not doubting... We got the question. Let him answer it. Dan, Dan, Donald sold an image of himself that's not him. Right. That's what you, you know, Lawrence O'Donnell one night said, you know, you see me in this box. That's not who I am. And that's what Donald did. Donald understood marketing.

I mean, Donald is the most brilliant manipulator of the convention. Dan's question presumes that the people accepted that he was a narcissist and they didn't and they hadn't and they'd been hoodwinked. Well, listen, there's something else. Well, but are they still hoodwinked? Boondoggled. As a business guy, we really wanted the end of the Hillary Clinton types. I know you're skeptical of it.

I'm a small businessman. We're just, like, strangled by everything. We're the bad guy. Now we're bureaucrats. Now we've got to do a healthier. If we're doing well and we have 49 employees, put 100,000 price tag on the 50th employee. Noam, as the founder of a little company, American Family Resort Hotels, LLC, which sounds a lot bigger than it is, when we started it, I had to spend an inordinate amount of time figuring out how to get health care for the only two full-time employees, two of my sons.

And I sit there and I say to myself, why? Who my employees sleep with, what religion, management, not ownership, a management company. I thought it was all Indian. It's none of my business who my employees sleep with, what church they do or don't go to, what car they drive, but their health status is my business. I want healthcare off the backs of employers. And the Republicans were in favor of that. Richard Nixon was going to get us national universal health care. Now the Republicans say, oh, no, you should just negotiate with your doctor. My leg is broken.

I was in an accident. My femur is sticking out of my skin. Can we negotiate the fee of the surgery? That's ridiculous, too. And you know that famous George McGovern column, I'll send it to you afterwards, where he talked about his experience, big, small business. And he kind of said, well, if I had known then what I know now, I would have voted differently. Yeah.

So a lot of us, and I have a couple of friends who were enthusiastic Trump supporters. They just wanted the idea of a pro-business president, someone who actually had done it and understood what we go through. Here's the thing you're missing, though. Being good for business is not being good for the economy, necessarily. And you can't ever assume that anything Donald Trump says has any substance to it. He flip-flops. I mean, my God, he's the biggest flip-flopper I've ever seen. He will say, you know, he was pro-life and then he's, I mean, he was a pro-freedom of choice, then he's pro-life.

There's no way he's pro-life. He'll say anything. That's exactly right. The people who brought you, you see those, you small business people, you didn't build that. Right. I understand his point, but it's dismissive. And for anybody who's worked like 90, 100 hours a week for 20 years, you just want to say, get these guys out of here. Because maybe if Barack Obama or any of them had actually worked for a living, then maybe they would see what's going on.

Instead, they literally think all businessmen are rich, that they're the bad guys and liars. No, I don't think so. Well, their policies. Oh, next question. This is a good one. I thought, and this ties to tax policy, and I had suggested this to our friend Harry Enden from 538.com. I love Harry.

And he thought it was a good idea, but he never followed up. You certainly love a lot of men, Judy. I do love men. I just don't want to have sex with them. There should be a concept of an American Dream Index, which is as follows. Yes. How much money does one need to have the things which don't make you greedy? For instance, I want a house for my three kids.

I want to be able to have a car for me and my wife. I'd like to take two vacations a year. I'd like to be able to go to the movies and eat out and send them to summer camp, whatever that basket of... You don't want his and her personal 747s. That's right. Some people have. I just want those things which don't make me greedy,

but something that... Make you comfortable. A comfortable life. Yeah. How much money does one need, for instance, in New York City or New York, to have that life?

And shouldn't they not raise taxes on people who make less than that? No, I actually play a game with people about this on how much can you spend with a set of rules. You've got to work 50 hours a week. You get two weeks vacation,

but you have unlimited money that you have to consume. So if you buy an oil painting, that's just buying set of rules. You've got to work 50 hours a week. You get two weeks vacation. But you have unlimited money, which you have to consume. So if you buy an oil painting, that's just buying a new asset. You buy a house, that's an asset. Actually consume. Like you did Brewster's Millions. Most people can't spend more than about $400,000. Sounds about right. That's what I was going to say.

Have you seen the movie Brewster's Millions? Yes. Well, that's what you're describing. By the way, there's a lot of data to substantiate that perspective. There's a lot of psychological data about happiness to substantiate that you can put a number on these things. Yeah, but I'm not – I get that, and you're right, too. But I'm saying that – Capitalism is being –

This is what – because Obama said, you know, why should Warren Buffett – Warren Buffett, what is he? How many billions does he have? He has more money than anybody with his DNA will ever be able to spend for as long as the planet Earth. Why should Warren Buffett's secretary pay less than Warren Buffett? He'll pay a higher rate. Hold on. And then he used that as a way to justify raising taxes on people making more than $300,000 a year in New York.

As if someone making $300,000 has anything to do with Warren Buffett. By the way, I just want to make the point. Oftentimes when people say that the poor pay less, they mean they pay a less percentage. They don't mean that the secretary... I think some people listening to this and some people thinking... Warren Buffett's secretary pays a higher percentage of her income. But far, far less than Warren Buffett.

But that wasn't my point. Those bridges are not being built with secretary money. They're being built with Buffett money. The top federal tax rate in this country cuts in at less than $500,000. There are people in this country who make $500,000 a day. Why do we stop at $500,000? Why don't we have higher rates as we go up? And by the way, progressive taxation is the oldest surviving principle in Western civilization.

It is older than this false notion that in the Christian era, marriage has to be between one man and one woman. Anybody who's read the New Testament should know that. It's older than that. Even John Locke supported progressive taxation in incredibly mild form. Nothing for the poor, a low level for everybody else. This is a principle that is fundamental to the creation of democracy. But it has also countered it to everything else we do economically, which is to say that a poor person and a rich person

have to pay the same money for everything else, but taxes is the one area where the rich people pay quite a bit more money. And they have a huge, huge tax rate, and they're the happiest people in the world. All the Nordic countries. Yeah, they're so great.

Because they don't have to worry about it. I think in Denmark, it's not their tax rate that makes it better. You know what the highest tax country in the world is? It's the one that Heritage and everybody calls the lowest tax. It's Singapore. They have a hidden tax. People don't pay attention to it. It's an 80% tax on capitalists. It's a capitalist little island.

79% tax on capital. It's an 80% tax on capitalists. Capitalist little island, 79% tax on capital. It's hidden. So here's a question I'm getting at. Tell me if you think this is true. Rome is burning. I've noticed this in my own life. Burning. That the people I know who make millions of dollars, they don't really care if their taxes go up.

Some of them do. Some don't. For the most part, the people I know, oh, another $50,000, another $100,000. At some point, they care. But another couple points, it's the people earning between $200,000 to $500,000. The people who are right in the heart of what I'm talking about. People trying to get

their... Like you and me. Hold on a second. They have to send their kids to school. They want to take a vacation. By the way, coach vacates. They say, you know, I'm strapped here. I don't want to pay more. Call me greedy. Call me whatever you want. I don't want to pay more taxes. Well, you shouldn't be

more heavily taxed than somebody who has an income that's 100 times what you're making. But he's not more heavily taxed. I mean, the guy making 100 times what no one's making is still paying a lot more money. Your proper measure, though, Dan, is the percentage of your income you pay. Well, that's a proper measure by your standing. What percent?

No, every economist will tell you the proper measure is, and every sociologist and social scientist, it's the share of your income. I mean, I applaud Warren Buffett. How much money did Warren Buffett pay in taxes? I got to take one executive thing because we're running out of time.

I have one last question, and then hopefully someone, then you guys can, hopefully someone ask him about the Russians, but I just have one more question. I do, I want to. Going back to the first Trump tax controversy, when he thought he paid no taxes. Well, he didn't in some years.

Right. Just explain to me, because my attitude was, I have an accountant, he tells me what I owe, and that's what I'm paying. I've never heard of anybody paying more than what they owe. The Clintons paid more than twice as much as they needed to pay. And Hillary tried to get me fired for reporting that. I was about to say. In the New York Times. I would never have heard of anybody paying more than what they owe unless they had a reason to do so.

The Clintons probably did it for political reasons, whatever it is. Because they got bad tax advice. They paid a fortune for bad advice. The point is that you could fault the tax code, but how could we fault Donald Trump for paying what he legally owed? Oh, that's very simple, because Donald Trump lobbied for these cuts. He bought a dubious tax shelter that was so odious, the Republicans, the minute they learned about it, shut it down in a matter of weeks. Which tax shelter was that? The one for the $918 million, where he double-deducted.

The banks took a $918 million loss. That should be income to Donald, and he pays tax on it. You borrow money and don't pay it back from a bank, that's income. Did he follow the laws, is what I'm asking. Well, my point is, if they take him to court, he would have lost it. But what Congress and the IRS do is they say, oh, we've discovered this tax shelter, pass a law, stop it, but you guys already bought this terrible thing.

We're not going to spend time on it. You can keep your money. I just feel like if I take my taxes to an accountant and he tells me what I owe. He tells you to pay his liabilities. I pay what I owe. This isn't a passive. This is going out and finding dubious tax shelters.

That's what I'm paying him for. Go ahead, Judy. Okay, so I have a question. I pay taxes. I hate it, but I know it's my responsibility. Okay. The fact that our tax money, that he hasn't paid taxes,

and yet my tax money goes to him going to fucking Mar-a-Lago and his wife staying here in New York and him building up a fucking stupid wall. Like, you know, it's... It makes me so curious.

A lot of people have a different view than you do about it. And I understand it makes you curious. I do think there's a legitimate case for his extra national security costs. I don't have any problem with whatever it costs to protect the president. But his having these three locations when we provide him with Camp David and a White House, that that's going to cost us as much money as the National Endowment for the Humanities. That I got a problem with.

I think that's real hypocrisy. But, you know, we're talking about chicken feed in terms of the economy and the federal budget. Now, if they... And vulgarity. If we find out that he, you know, was... He's obviously colluding with Russia. He obviously has, you know has financial interests in Russia.

At DCReport.org, we've written a lot about the very deep connections that are there that we can document easily from the public record. So why is he still unimpeachable at this point? Well, listen, the top Republicans in the House and Congress, they know who's got them. Paul Ryan has said privately in that tape that got out, you know, he won't cooperate with them. Right. But they don't have the popular support. This is not a legal issue.

This is a political issue. When Donald does something so outrageous, remember, he's promised to use nuclear weapons. Right. Now, that may actually strengthen his position. There are a lot of Americans who have no idea what it means to use a nuclear weapon. Right. Americans who have no idea what it means to use a nuclear weapon. But if he does something that absolutely shocks people, then I think you will see a shift away from him. And I assure you that-

He's done so many things that are shocking. What are his ties with Russia that affect his government? Donald's been doing business with the Russians for more than 30 years. Okay. The deal he did in- When you say the Russians, you mean people of Russian companies? Donald always says, I don't do anything with Russia. And that's true.

He does it with Russians. And the Russians are the oligarchs. And who are the oligarchs? They are a government-sponsored network of international criminals. Right. Donald bought this piece of property down near Mar-a-Lago for $41 million in bankruptcy. Right. It wasn't even worth $41 million.

And he sold it for $93. Nobody would buy it. He sold it for $100 minus a commission, $95 million. And it was sold three years later in the same market where he was trying to get out of a $40 million loan. He said the real estate market's dead. Nobody would buy. Had he been a city councilman and they'd done this deal, even if everybody knew he was a billionaire, and there's no evidence Donald's a billionaire, everybody would have said this is a payoff.

And the argument that Dimitri Rybo was trying to hide money from his wife, when you're trying to hide money from your wife, you don't pay twice or three times what something's worth. Right. I told you that, though. You look for a fire sale, you go to Donald and say, hey, I'll take this off your hands for $30 million. And so this just smacks of being a payoff. There are many other financial transactions that we haven't published about yet that are very troubling. Do you believe that widely regarded as patriots, McMaster, Mattis, people

like that would turn a blind eye to Donald Trump engaging in his criminal conspiracy with Russia? I don't think so. I don't think so. And I will tell you that at the end of the day, Donald, who talks about the presidency as a dictator, if he moves to take over the country, we will remain a free people only if our military says no. And this is one of the problems with having a draft. We used to have an officer corps that was 50-50 Democrats and Republicans. It's now about 80 or 85 percent Republicans. This is not good. And we need to have a balanced military. But right now, if Donald gets an excuse, let's say Putin sets up brilliantly something that happens in the U.S., and it's an excuse for Donald to suspend habeas corpus, which is a privilege, by the way,

under our Constitution. You don't have a right to make a phone call when the police arrest you. It's a privilege. And he can suspend it. It is the military that will determine whether we continue to be a free people in a democratic republic or we become an empire. And you know, the Senate still existed in Rome after it ceased to be a republic.

It was just a vestige. I have a question. I only have a couple more minutes. I would like to get into the hotel business, which is really the reason why you came. I just want to know. My son runs it, but you know one of the reasons we did this? I wanted to establish that, yeah, I could start and make a successful business. I always had little businesses as a writer hiring people for my books and stuff.

And we run a really well. No, that's the whole point. We don't have a franchise. We don't advertise. It's a bed really well... No, that's the whole point. We don't have a franchise. We don't advertise. It's a bed and breakfast. No, it's a... I'm kidding. We fill our hotel

with first-rate customer service. You come to our hotel, Dan, this year, and you come back to Ocean City, New Jersey. They make the money on the porn and all. No, we don't have that.

Oh, I am a Jersey girl. No, no, now with Wi-Fi, nobody needs porn. It's a dry family town. You don't need it. But if you come to our hotel, no, now with Wi-Fi, nobody needs porn. It's a dry family town. You don't need it. But if you come to our hotel, Dan, if you've got kids, we'll probably say to you, well, thank God, there are two boys. I do it, I'll come.

When you come, we're going to next year say, by the way, how are Billy and Sam or whatever it is doing? Because we treat our customers really special. But here's the problem. When I go to a town, I don't know the hotels. I see Red Roof Inn. I see Courtyard. I know what I'm getting. If I see... What do you call your hotel? Well, I'm not in it anymore. My son's retired.

What's the name of the hotel? It's called the Ocean 7. It's 7th and the Boardwalk. I see the Ocean 7 hotel. Now with the internet, I guess I can look it up. You can look it up. I always look at the views. But normally... Ocean 7? Wonderfully. Okay. I don't know these people. I normally, we have the ocean ships wonderfully. I don't know these people. I know the Red Roof Inn.

Can I get one question in? Yes, last question. You've had quite a few questions. I just wanted to ask about the hotel business. Go ahead. Do you think Donald Trump will remain president for the entire term? I've said consistently I don't think he can get through one year. And remember, we have two ways to remove a president.

25th Amendment and impeachment. But he's got to do something that absolutely shakes his base. That takes the mask off. That people suddenly realize, you know, all these people writing to me saying, you know, you should be shot. Your family should all be tortured in front of you and then shot. Ouch.

All of these people writing this, they have no idea of our constitutional system of government. I've written back to a number of them. It's very clear that we don't teach civics anymore in many schools. And to them, Donald has to do something that shocks their consciences. Even them. Then we will see something happen. And you think it will be within a year?

Yeah, I'll be surprised if he's here more than a year. What could that be, hypothetically, in your estimation, that would shock the base? That would shake the base? If we can directly tie Donald to a crime in which money went to the Russian oligarchs or from them. I'm not sure that's going to do it. That might do it. I'm not sure that's going to do it. I agree with you, because Pence, they're happy with Pence as well.

Yeah, well, the Republican leadership would much rather have Pence because he's one of them, and he's a, you know, you cannot like his politics and still respect that he's a competent politician. Some people, now Ann Coulter, who's a friend of the club, her position is, well, I know that Judy certainly doesn't like Ann, but

her position is, yes, Donald is horrible, but we've got to close the floodgates of immigration. Now, for people like her, and I don't know what percentage of the electorate falls into that category, almost anything is forgivable because America as America,

the very concept of America is at stake. That is to say, if you let too many of the wrong people in, there won't be an America, according to that line of thinking. And that bar is very, very high. Now, I wonder how many... Dan, I'm glad to know that Ann Coulter is at one with the Native American peoples of this country.

Now, is your hotel... But my question is, is how many people have that line of thinking? And in which case, the bar is much higher. I don't know, but, you know, this country is an idea, and it's been built by people who came here from somewhere else. And, you know, everyone at this table, our ancestors, came here. Even Donald Trump's. Even Donald Trump's family.

And look, his father came here and was a criminal, his grandfather. He couldn't go back to his original... He was a draft dodging pimp who ran whorehouses. He didn't want to come here. They were all criminals. No, but he... And when he went back to Germany, they said, get the fuck out of here.

Wait, I have one question. Is your hotel a safe space? I don't know. I'm retired from it. But the point I was trying to make was... It's the kids' hotel. It's his son's hotel a safe space? I don't know. I'm retired from it. But the point I was trying to make was... It's a kid's hotel. It's a son's hotel. I'm kidding.

David, are we on an inevitable trajectory? No great state has ever sustained whatever greatness looks like. Regardless of Trump, is it possible that this will end up being academic? Is Rome kind of starting to burn? Dov is quite right. We won't last forever. The question is, is for how long? We can last forever if we choose to.

Dove, when I was very young, I covered demonstrations in the Bay Area for the San Jose Mercury. I went to the homes of right-wing radicals who built bombs and left-wing radicals who built bombs. And I have followed radical extremes all my career. And I will tell you that I've long worried about and I've said that if we have a revolution in this country, it's going to come from the right and it will be the bloodiest thing the world has ever seen. With their guns. I was on a radio interview one day, and my two youngest daughters, who are now in their

late 20s and early 30s, were sitting in the living room, and they started snickering. And as soon as I got off the radio, I said, what are you snickering about? And one of them said, Dad, did they ask you if you're going to get shot if there's a revolution? And I said, yeah. And they said, Dad, you always say you're an incurable optimist. That's why you have eight kids. If you think you get shot in the second round, Dad. Right, right, right, right. But do you feel like capitalism is somehow collapsing under its own weight and usefulness? What's happening is the economics on which we develop market capitalism, which has been a very efficient vehicle and has raised a lot of people out of poverty, are changing because of technology. And we are moving into this digital age and the biological age is coming very quickly.

Inefficiency in bending metal and creating steel created jobs. When the first steel was created thousands of years ago, guys with big arms pounded coal into iron. Now financial services is three-quarters of the GDP. No, no, no, but hold on, steel. It took man years of labor to make one ton of steel. You know how much labor it takes now to make one ton of steel? Less than one person hour of labor. Less than one person hour of labor.

And so we are facing a new world in which more and more labor is performed by capital. So think about a guy who gets a job hauling sacks of grain. He makes enough money, he saves, he buys a donkey. He makes more money now, he buys a car. He makes more money, he buys a truck. He makes more money, he builds a short haul railroad. They're all one person operations. More and more labor is performed by capital. And that's something we're not addressing and thinking about about the future. So, I mean, we have real problems. I am very worried that our democracy will not endure. I'm very worried that, you know, we will go backwards. In the very long run of human beings, we make progress, but it's not a straight line.

I agree with you totally. And I also fault the left for this because, my mother, I really mean, because you have to go. In the way that we always knew we had all that oil and shale, and as soon as the price of oil went up. We didn't have the technology to get it. We finally got the technology. The raise in the minimum wage,

minimum wage is really between a rock and a hard place because all that automation, it used to be in the 70s you raised the minimum wage, the employers had to pay it. All that automation is going to come online now and already is. So they really cannot raise the floor much like they used to. What's going to happen to these people?

Well, one of the arguments that's made is the capitalist financier Louis Louis Kelso, in the 50s, wrote a book called The Capitalist Manifesto. He wanted everybody to be capitalist, everybody to own capital. And they wanted to get more capital with the earnings of capital. And that's one of the things we need to be talking about. What do we do when we have a society where we don't need nearly so many workers, we have this population that keeps growing

that I can turn into a two-disc proportion. No one talks about this politically. Nobody talks about population control. I don't even want to say a function of population control, but we don't talk about how we could become more efficient. We also don't talk about how the way we set up our rules of ownership, and those are, after all,

human constructs. Some people do nothing and have money running out their ears, and other people labor just to make a living. And so, you know, we choose the rules of how we do this. Maybe there are smarter rules that will result in more social cohesion, a healthier society, less risk of revolution and war, and we're not thinking and talking about those. Because the minute you bring up something like this,

you must be a communist. Yeah, then the labels fly. I'm a guy whose books champion competitive markets, and I teach the ancient virtues to my students. But there's no room for nuance in this context culturally. And not only that, but when a new hotel comes to town, you have no mercy.

That's exactly right. One of my biggest worries was, as a practical matter, was if one more hotel gets built on the island, there goes a big chunk of my profits. And yes, and this is why in electricity markets, I write about how they set up these markets and they said it's called a clearing price auction. People get these outrageous prices for electricity. You know, they generate it for $3. You get $3,000 for a unit of electricity.

The theory is more people will invest in electric plants. No. Wall Street comes along and says, hey, if we can eliminate some electric plants, we can get $6,000 an hour. There you go. All right. Mr. Johnston, David, thank you very, very much for coming on our show. Thank you. Yes, sir.

Thank you, sir. We canceled one time for some reason. I'm sure we had no choice. It was your choice. No, I mean, I don't remember the reason, but it had to be a good reason because you were one of my most sought-after... A tremendous guest. Just so you know. So, I got to run, but I want

two things. You have anything you want. I hope people will sign up for our free alerts at DCReportSingular.org. It's a little play on my name, David Kaye, and District of Columbia. DCReport.org. We've broken a number of stories. We tell you when the government starts to do something that we think is inimical to your interests, and we tell you what to do about it.

We have action alerts, and we talk about our government. Secondly, I hope you go read my book, The Making of Donald Trump, because everybody I've heard from who's read it says, oh my god, I had no idea that whatever I thought, whether I thought Trump was sort of okay or terrific, or I thought he was a monster, he's far worse than anybody imagines. And everything in that book is from the public record. There's more than 40 pages of source notes, Donald's own words. There's no unnamed sources. And when you read about both how he put the life of this sickly infant in jeopardy

and then how he went to bat for this major cocaine trafficker he was involved with in business up to his eyeballs. All the favors he did for him. How the case mysteriously got transferred from Ohio to his sister's federal courtroom in New Jersey. It will give you a whole different impression of him. But she recused herself. She did after three weeks, but how did it get to her?

Well, I don't want to read it because I don't want bad news. By the way, your daughter is a comedy writer? One of my daughters is a script. She was the script coordinator three days out of college for House of Cards. She worked on another show. She hasn't been hired as a comedy writer yet. I thought maybe we could plug something of hers, too, because as a comedy audience, maybe we could plug your daughter. Unlike Dad,

Kate's funny. Tell Kate to call me. Also send emails to podcast at comedyseller.com Yeah, send those emails saying you want Judy on all podcasts at comedyseller.com and thank you very much. Good night.

Good night.