The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - BONUS: PABLO TORRE FINDS OUT Premiere - Le Batard’s Lost Trump Tapes, Revealed

Episode Date: September 5, 2023

Did you know that before Donald Trump was president, he was Dan Le Batard’s alleged long-time viewer and first-time caller? Pablo debuts his show on the third rail by confronting Dan — for the first time — with their company’s missing vault of interviews featuring Donald from Queens. And these tapes are as prophetic (cough cough pee tape cough) as they are humiliating. Journalism! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Pablo Torre, finds out I am Pablo Torre and today we're going to find out what this sound is. Thank you for watching our show, Donald. Thank you, Donald. Well, thank you. And keep the show going, it's terrific. Right after this ad. You're listening to Giraffe King's Network. Alright, so I've been waiting months Cortez to finally get to this story that I have pain

stakingly brought our audience today, but I just need to explain what happened as you've been sitting here, because we are sitting here. It's me and Ryan Cortez. Let's have you count. Yeah, very good intro. Me and Ryan Cortez are producer, sitting inside this new studio that we built over the summer at the Metal Lark offices in New York City.

And I just got this voicemail, okay? I got this voicemail from one of the many older people in my life who have absolutely no idea what my job is now. I'm Tony Cornheye, I believe in this message. Pablo's podcast is launching today. I don't want to help because I love Pablo. I've of course have forgotten what the title of Pablo's podcast is.

I think it's, Pablo Tori just found out or, Pablo Tori knows this. Maybe if public. Turing has a doubt. I've made it. Public. Turing graduated from Harvard.

So eat it. So yeah, a little, a little late. The thing is to read. No, Tony Cornies. I used to be a writer. And you could see it in that message where he says you might have had. Gout. Should we read.

It's honestly good. Merch. So there's so much going on. Actuallyout. That's like, should we read the show? It's honestly good merch. So there's so much going on, actually, that I feel like we should probably explain what it is that we're actually doing on this show. Pablo Torre finds out because people, I think Cortez, people rightfully, I must admit, might be confused. People want to know when is the show coming out,

where the hell has it been? You have a sub-stack channel that you've put some content on, not a ton, high quality, some content. The show is coming out? Where the hell has it been? You have a sub-stack channel that you've put some content on not a ton. High quality, some content. The show is coming out three times a week. That's what we can tell people. Yes. Tuesday, Thursday, Friday.

Correct. You're gonna want to subscribe to youtube.com slash Pablo Torrey finds out because the people running the video department I used to work with Patrick Kim at D.S. and Merrill, he is incredible. You're going to want to watch this subscribe to youtube.com. Patrick Kim. Behind the. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D.. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism.

Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism.

Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism.

Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism.

Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. Journalism. This is like the 500 spreadsheets you've created that have all these story ideas, some of which we've forgotten about over the months. I know. There's so many of them. There's so many, like,

I mean, admittedly a lot of them are just like semi-stoned ideas. To me, I could become fully-stone ideas. I just started the idea. With that attitude. With that production attitude. Okay, so there's that spreadsheet full of like reported ideas. But also once a week, I'm gonna do the thing that I think people may have heard already in our feed.

I'm gonna host a talk show. It's basically a talk show called Share and Tell, two of my friends and I all find out which stories we're obsessed with in that given week. Dan and Mina have done those with me already. Dan, you're referring to Dan Fatface, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Trapezoid. Dan Levitard. More on him in a second.

Our third episode, our third weekly episode is essentially liking fantasy football parlance. It's our flex spot. It's a flex spot. A flex episode, okay. Why have you received it running back? Tydan, if you're in that weird league, it can be anything. And that actually, that is what today's

very special premiere episode is, which we can finally get to. And I feel obligated, I mean, there was just no other way that I could have started this show, despite all the dangers associated with this specific episode, because the very first time, Cortez, the first time I ever co-hosted the Dan Lebertar show with Stugat in person,

this was my introduction into the family that became metal-lark media. It was way back in 2015. Wow. And we had a call in guest, okay? And this is a call in guest that I've been thinking about literally ever since. All right, Trump, thank you as always for joining us. I want to get to some truths here with you.

If I may, Pablo Torrey in with us all show today. Is it true that Donald Trump has never in his life used an ATM well i haven't used too many of them but i do love the concept and you know we're gonna have to be a little bit careful a lot of money is being taken out of different forms of computerization i think some day we're gonna have to go back to the old days you know the old way but now i'm not big on them but i have used them, yes.

So, yeah, thanks. Dan, what he informed me was that Donald Trump had been a recurring guest, but I had never heard or felt any of this, okay? I'd never heard any of these interviews, did not know that they ever, f***ing happened, and I really wanted to find out what they were actually like.

The problem was that everybody associated with the Dan Levitard show with Stu Gods had memory hold those tapes. I was gonna say, I don't think they exist anywhere like. No, that's old footage, right? Well, by 2016, they wiped them off the internet. They were gone forever. And in fact, what I realized recently was that they were banished.

They were banished to a physical hard drive in Miami. Accessible only to select metal-lark media employees. Dan Levittard. Never to be heard from again, right? Until now. Oh no. What's happening, Carl? It's all happening. Look at this. Look at this.

Where am I sitting? You're sitting not in your chair, because I'm going to sit in your chair. Okay. Because we're turning the table. Yes, we are turning the table. We're turning the table. Yes, we are turning the table. Turning the table. They're being turned. All right, five, four, three, two, one. This is what I was hired to do.

Was to make you sit across from me with little to no information about what's actually about to happen to you. I've asked you three or four times to tell me what we're doing. You have consistently, steadfastly refused to tell me what we're doing. Correct. It's better this way.

But in the interest truly, Dan, as you wear your ridiculous sunglasses in front of me, which is appropriate for someone who has to confront the blinding lights of his past. Are you, are you somebody who remembers anything about the tapes I'm about to play for you? You have just told me we're doing the Trump tapes

and I'm like, what is it? What are we doing? And now I'm led to assume just from the sheer delight, streaking across your face that we're about to do is play for me the time that we irresponsibly had donald trump on and frolic with him lest anyone say that we are echo chamber we've got bill riley on her all the revered just as i want to ask questions about his mustache and at the time great

must a reality game show host who surely would not win the presidency and threaten the toppled democracy because I'm an idiot. There is one major problem with what you just said, a false set, because you said time, and this is about the times. We've talked to them twice. Oh, more than twice. How many times have we talked about Trump? People have recommended to me that we not do this episode, as my first episode, Dominique Foxworth, our friend said, quote, do not fucking do this.

And he's never heard these tapes. He said he would never own up to them. If he were a person who had been involved in these tapes, he was kind of worried that we were going to cancel ourselves. As your first act in jumping into the arms of metal arc media with your wife and family. Yes, and three-year-old violet, all of that, going down in flames because I wanted to do the Trump tapes. Because you want to start on the third rail. How many times have we interviewed Donald Trump? You've interviewed him several times over the course of three years and

2013 2014 2015 We're going to go through them you were at one of them correct. I was at the last one of them who else was involved in the others I've legitimately no recollection of why it is we had him on my question for you actually was going to be Why did you have him on? And you're telling me that you don't even recall. When was the first one? I'm going to be like somebody being indicted talking in front of a federal government. I don't recall the incident you speak of, but I legit let's start with you cannot go. I'm not here to talk about the past. You can't go mark McGuire on us, even if you are wearing glasses conspicuously. Did we all do all of them at ESPN?

Yes. All three of them were done at ESPN. Okay, all I remember is the last one, the last one that you were involved in. And the only reason I think I remember it is because you wouldn't shut it up about it. Hahaha. This was how that first interview back on November 19th, 2013.

Oh, man. This is how it began. Really cool to have Donald Trump, who is going to join us right now on the subway, fresh day hotline here on ESPN radio. Stugots very badly wants to be Donald Trump. Even with all of Donald Trump's many enemies, Stugots just wants to be this guy. We've got a lot of things to ask him. All right, I'm now legitimately wincing.

That's not, but now you've got me fearing, now you've got me because I didn't have any idea of what Donald Trump was. And he was just celebrity TV ego host who was a famous person for reasons that were hard to discern. We were having him on because he was famous. I just wanna start this again, hold on.

Really cool? Yeah, I know, I heard him already, but that's really cool. That I didn't say that though. Really not cool, I didn't say that. I didn't say that. You didn't, in fact, Mike Ryan, Dan, I've been doing reporting around your company, our company now.

Investigative reporting. Investigative reporting, Pavlotore finds out, It's on the screen by me. Mike Ryan told me that Stugot was actually the one who booked Donald Trump. Oh, what's the backstory there? Ha. So quick interlude here because I did try to book Stugot's

to ask how he booked Donald John Trump repeatedly over three years as a guest. But what I got was this. Hi, you've reached John. I can't get to the phone right now. Leave a voicemail. I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks.

Which would have been fine, except for this. The mailbox is full and cannot accept any messages at this time. Goodbye. And so I kept calling without any explanation because as with Dan, I just wanted Stu's most genuine, unplanned reaction, which I did eventually receive. Yeah. Hello. Hello, Pablo.

So he listened. Okay, we are doing an episode for my show That is all about the interviews you guys did with Donald Trump Sure You remember those of course I do what do you mean I book them? Did you ever get Trump's number would you ever ever text them? That is a great question. So hold on. There is a Donald Trump. Oh, no, it's my phone. I remember us liking him so much that we were wondering if we should turn it into a weekly.

I do remember that conversation because he was such a great guest. Like he speaks in perfect sports radio, you know. So I just remember Daniel, I like, we were like, wow, that would be fun. It's different to stuff that guy on every fucking every week just shredding people. By the way, I should say that I have been recording this phone call with you. So can we use any of this stuff on the show? You could also somehow point out that I was blowing cigarettes smoke out of my mouth as I told you I don't give a f***. But as for why the eventual 45th president himself wanted to call into the Dan Levitard

show and possibly texts to gods in the first place, that explanation was loud and clear because I heard it on the actual tapes themselves. By the way, you guys have a great show. That's why I'm doing it. But I think you have a great show. I watch it a lot. You know what? I remember he did that move each of the times he was on with us. I feel like and I believe that we thought afterward he's lying, right? He's just pretending like

he watches our show. I mean, I feel like when he says, by the way, you guys have a great show. That's why I'm doing it. But I think you have a great show. I watch it a lot. I watch it a lot in 2013 when you were doing a radio show that was maybe just becoming a video show. Oh, it probably wasn't even. I feel like there might be a real hypothesis about video there. Yes. He was saying he watched a show. Really, that was our first indication that Donald Trump was a total fraud. But then again, there was, you know, you guys are playing into it. Thanks for watching our show, Donald. Well, thank you, Donald. Well, thank you.

And keep the show going, it's terrific. And you did. You kept the show going, and it is, in fact, terrific. We really should have, we should run that now as something, even though we're not doing it as radio. All the big names talk here Donald Trump Yes, keep your show going. It's terrific wait does more time you have a great show too, and I really like it. Thank you That's my favorite part maybe

How much worse does this get because I am legitimately fearing what it is that you're about to play next. Like where you have to understand that I am looking at this through the prism of I did not know back then the evil energy that I was dealing with. I am talking to a game show host and so you've got me legitimately cringing right now. I can't stop smiling. It's bad, right? Well, look, it's just this part again.

Thank you, John. Thank you, sir. Yeah, it's like he's a military leader. Like he's going to be our commander in chief. Thank you, sir. Well, I want to point out that in these three years of talking to him, he did, as you might expect, just have a lot of weird random brags. I happen not to be a spanker. If he bucketed something wrong, I was be a spanker uh... if you've got to do something wrong i was never a spanker but there are spankers but you know there's a tremendous group of people and i don't mean beaters i mean spankers is a vast difference

what did we ask him that there's a vast difference that came out of a conversation about arian peter sent we just decided to ask trump about uh... well that the thing about what Trump would do. We asked Trump about the moralities of hitting a child. And he pointed out that, I happen not to be a spanker. You know, this is an important clarification.

I've never a spanker. But the point of these tapes, when you go through them, and you really relive those experiences. Well, it's the cringey chummyness, is it not? Well, I think that's the undercurrent of a schmarme of us, like all of us slapping each other on the back at the golf club. I mean, speaking of the highest stakes that Donald Trump has ever played for on the golf course.

Well, actually, the highest stakes are, you know, I've made some of my best deals on the golf course, and I've gotten to know people and i'm i bought trump tower on and you know if they're there built it but i bought the site because of golf because the people that i played golf with really liked me a lot and i made the deal because of them i mean because of golf and i've made many great deals and these are billion dollar deals because of golf trump do you know what you just did to me i asked you around you did okay at least you didn't aware

i don't know i can't question around the i answered it like a politician about the most i ever played for i gave you an extra little spin maybe that's been was more interesting but no no trump answer that question the biggest biggest thing I've flipped it around. I like my answer better, I think it's fine. Trump, the audience doesn't like that answer. They want a person. Yeah, maybe they like it.

That's as hard as he's ever been grilled right there. It really is. I really drilled him. It really is. He didn't answer the question. No, he actually just continued to talk about his friends. Who is your best famous friend? Among... among your famous friends i'm giving you the opportunity for all your life your trump

to just name drop all of your friends and so i'm wondering who is your best of your famous friends you know what people don't know about me i have a lot of friends obcraft is a friend coach bellichek is a friend tom Brady is a friend and by the way tomek is a friend tom bradie is a friend and by the way tom bradie is a great guy what he johnson of the jets is a terrific eyes a friend of mine and red willpon and a sign brinnefair i know more as i just got back from the united states golf association with jack nicklaus who's a good

friend of mine was being honored jerry rice and larrence taylor played golf and i'm telling you larrence put on a chipping display. I play with Michael Jordan. He's a great guy. I've played with Bill Clinton a lot, a terrific guy. A terrific guy, by the way. I will tell you that right now I am deeply embarrassed. But I am deeply embarrassed beyond realms beyond why you think I'm embarrassed. I'm embarrassed by the sheer laziness of that question. Tell me about your celebrity. Tell me about who you hobnob with.

Tell me about what it's like to be you. I'm just embarrassed by how little work went into that question. I'm disappointed that you didn't follow up on Bill Clinton being a terrific guy with anything about Jeffrey Epstein's island personally. Well, yes, with the clarity of hindsight, yes. up on Bill Clinton being a terrific guy with anything about Jeffrey Epstein's island personally. Well, yes, with the clarity of hindsight, yes. It is 2020. But there was, but the other part about these tapes is that there is this wildly truly

eerie foreshadowing running through it because we talked about how you talked about Adrian Peterson and that random conversation about Adrian Peterson, former Viking star running back, it wound up here. Here's the thing about Adrian Peterson famously. He has a death grip of a handshake famously. You refuse to shake hands, correct? Well, I did shake his hand and I really don't refuse to shake hands, but of course, everyone knows that I'm right because you catch calls you catch blues you catch

all sorts of things by shaking hands but if you're living in this society and i happen to like to jack japan is custom better where you just said that look at each other and you're not donald trump had a better more coherent and less racist towards asian people pandemic policy on your show in 2014 than he did as president of the united states in 2020 that is correct how much more of this do i have to sit through well we got to get to the yachts what was the most reckless period of the Donald Trump life like give me the most reckless six

month or a year long period i went out and i bought adon kashoggi's yacht for a lot of money and i had this yacht is tremendous yacht it had twenty seven people on board working it cost at the time twenty five million dollars now that was today the equivalent to probably a hundred and something million dollars and i had this magnificent yet but there was a problem so i want wanna pause that here, because you might think Dan that the problem

with buying a Nankishogu's yacht would be that a Nankishogu turned out to be a renowned Saudi Arabian arms dealer who sold weapons to autocrats, who also, by the way, famously had a bodyguard, it turns out, that he literally nicknamed quote, Mr. Kill, that was a Nankishog danke show these bodyguard but instead instead the actual problem donald trump had with owning this blood yott

was this but there was a problem i didn't want to use it because i want to play golf so i had a yacht sitting there waiting for me at this massive crew and i'd play eighteen holes and i've and I've won a lot of club championship. So I'd be playing like at a club championship. And I didn't want to go and go to the yacht after the round of golf. So it's that there. I was probably the only yacht owner that almost never used his yacht.

So you were way ahead in terms of getting Donald Trump on the public record compromised by Saudi Arabian arms dealers. So, again, there's that. All I am hearing there, and I appreciate you saluting us for hard-hitting journalism there because we were ahead of the curve. All I'm hearing there is again, the lazy stupidity, and tell me how much money you have. Talk to me about how much money you have. Talk to me about how much money you have. Those, I don't know if this is exactly the interview

that people wanted at this time from Donald Trump because he was just famous for being famous. Sure. Oh yeah, he was a celebrity. He was a reality show personality. And so to your point about the questions you were asking him, the very next question off of this revelation about how we bought this yacht.

Not a hard hitting Saudi question. Well, it was this. Donald, give us the best party you've ever attended. I mean, okay, so just to be clear, what you're doing right now is you've acted as a first order of business in the creation of this show that you've been talking about for months. Months. It's to embarrass the founder of this company. By resurrecting, by resurrecting a bunch of things that not only I had forgotten about,

but blissfully and thankfully, the audience had forgotten about until you remind them. Well, this is why I'm reminding them, and this is why it's not total embarrassment. It's because when Stu asks, when he asks this question, Donald, give us the best party you've ever attended. Obviously, this is absent any sort of journalistic instinct, and you fail to follow up on any of these sort of audit pratic adjacent details but what trump says in response to this question dan is kind of incredible

well you know it's a very interesting question because it might have been last week i went to the mission of a sped up in muskow and after the pageant in crocus hall which is a fantastic location right outside right inside of muskow and everybody with all of the you know most of the oligarchs with their tremendous wealth

unbelievably beautiful women including the people from the pageant or beyond believe it could have topped them all it was wild and yeah we need to just do the math for the listeners here, okay? Because I had to triple check what was just said there. And that week, the wildest party week of Donald Trump's life is exactly

when the P-tap allegedly happened. Wow, the alleged P-tap. This was November 2013. This was the same month Trump was allegedly taped watching prostitutes, yes, Piana bed in Moscow, host city of the Miss, the Miss Universe page. The entire, the entire shroud of how is an American president, this in bed with Russia, many people suspect, although nothing has ever been credibly linked to it, that it was a party in which Russian oligarchs have photographs of Donald Trump being peed

on by prostitutes. Or just being on. Or him, yes, watching them pee on a bed that Barack Obama had rented in that Ritz Carlton allegedly, all these theories apply. None of which I asked him about. None, I didn't raise a single journalistic antenna to party with Russian oligarchs being something that was probably a bit of malfeasance in it. But the point is he went on the record authentically talking about that same week, man Moscow with Russian oligarchs, the wildest week that he still could not stop thinking about in November 2013, interview him the week after the time.

That's right. We got his first public comments after posthiging. Literally, yeah. Literally because Stugots asked this. That's right. Donald, give us the best party you've ever attended. He acts, St God's accidentally gathered circumstantial evidence for the most infamous rumored tape

in American political history. Government evidence. And nobody knew it until now because everybody forgot about it. Because you decided to start your career shaming one of the founders of this company. This is by the way how you rewarded Stu God's as investigative journalist. No, and he's interviews by the way. No, no, no. Can you fire my co-host on your way out you rewarded Stugots's investigative journalist in these interviews by the way.

Can you fire my co-host on your way out the door, Stugots? I know everyone requests this of you everywhere you go. Just fire Stugots, tell them he's fired. Well, Stugots, you are absolutely fired. You don't have it. There's no question about it. As a team, you're phenomenal, but individually, you're fired. So you are just actually physically trying to become

like smaller and you're trying to shrink inside of yourself. It's a battery of the highest order. Like I'm just, hey, real estate television monkey. Do your television real estate monkey phrase. It was kind of like watching someone ask Jaliel White to do a little herbal. It was that way. It was so lazy. It's just I'm mostly what I'm embarrassed by. This is hard to say. It's hard to think is just what a hack job that interview was just embarrassing his content.

Even more embarrassment. After the break. I do want to be fair to you because there was a real moment of legitimate journalistic integrity. This is true. Because by this point again, was reality tv star people in the picture seriously yet awful takes that were sort of only vaguely

addressed but you asked him directly about this topic that birth certificate fiasco with the president that was a just a nightmare right we would do that differently if we had to go back and do that on the i don't think so i mean i i think it was you know there's a large group of people out there that would like to see what's going on and it looked right now i will say this this country has bigger problems we have a health care thing that's in total shambles

and you can't get a website after spending a billion dollars i mean we have some very big problems but no i don't consider that at all there's so many people i walk down the street and people are screaming keep it going keep it going they love it now maybe they like it for entertainment and maybe they like it because they believe it but that is a uh... you know it it was a very very serious object and there are a lot of people out there that agree so that you know i don't again no regrets whatsoever i just think

that i'm on to other things so the whole demanding baraka obama provide his birth certificate to prove that he's an american thing no follow-up for me after that how we'd the hardest uh... the the most that i leaned into it was we do that one over again differently when we that was my controversial stance on it yeah the thing you did next was actually did the stucas your fired thing

that came after this. Yeah, followed it with the natural follow up. With this part of his defense, I felt was really actually interesting because you remember, in all of that monologue, he kind of just gave away the game a little bit. Now, maybe they like it for entertainment and maybe they like it because they believe it. And that sort of instinct, Dan. Again, on the record with you is why he was already instinctively good at politics before people actually took him seriously about politics, right?

I mean, this was the whole thing. He was shameless about what his actual thinking was. He was kind of a sports radio caller who was staggeringly transparent about where his instincts had led him. I don't think there's anything in my life. Never mind the history of American politics as I viewed it. That has left me feeling more foolish than underestimating what total shamelessness could do to American systems that I thought were stronger than that. I got to think that as we talk

about this, I'm assuming there's going to be fear involved for him on the idea that indictments from every corner of the universe might put him in jail for a long time, but for his last move to be not if I toppled the entire system to prevent the checks and balances from working, I would have never guessed that I would be so stupid as to think that that entity, that from that entity, could come the challenging of like the principles we hold dearest allegedly as a country no and it's especially ironic that you say that because you did ask him about this

donald do me a favor break news right here on this show on espn radio don't wait till june are you running for are you running for office are you running for press on looking at it very seriously fell is in by the way you guys have a great show that's why i'm doing it but i think you have a great show i watch it a lot but i am thinking about it very very seriously and uh... the countries in trouble with being left at by everybody chinese taking our jobs at taking our manufacturing their loaning us the money that taking our money and then they loan it back to us

we'll try to get out one point three trillion dollars can you believe trillion one point three trillion dollars mexico's not a friend mexico is doing a number on us not only at the border but they're doing a number economically they're taking our jobs like crazy for just announced that you want to have billion dollar plant in mexico i am looking at it very seriously and i'll be announcing in june and i think a lot of people are going to be very very

surprised one thing i will tell you if i decide to do it and if i win i will make this country great again that part dan i was sitting next to you when he said that and it occurs to me only now that that was the first time i would hear a phrase that has been said millions of time since that we will hear unto eternity.

I will make this country great again was in some sense debuted soft-launched as we were interviewing this man at ESPN radio. With a Stugots question that has one of my favorite things in it, replay the question so that people can hear one of my favorite things, which is Stugots feeling like he's tripping while running in the middle of a thought. Donald, do me a favor. Break news right here on this show on ESPN Radio. Don't wait till June. Are you running for office?

Are you running for office? The sound of him being punched, it sounds like the sound of him being tased in the middle. One of my favorite things. So, three weeks after Stugat's gets tased, answering, asking this question that Donald Trump answers, he runs for president. Three weeks after this. That's the timeline. That was his final appearance on the show. And I'm assuming, based on how you have physically viscerally reacted, that that was also the last time that you personally ever talked to Donald Trump. It is, and I also just have washing over me,

like when you say visceral, that's one thing that's washing over me. But I haven't felt a long time, the way that I feel right now, where I'm listening to something back that we have done, and I'm genuinely afraid of back that we have done, and I'm genuinely afraid of what it is that happens next and how it is that it's going to embarrass me because, yeah, because in retrospect, it becomes very clear how foolish we were.

But let's talk through this because the reason I wanted to do this is because you obviously became one of the foremost critics of Trump in sports media and media generally you risk your employment. There's a racial division in this country that's being instigated by the president and we here at ESPN haven't had the stomach for that fight, but what happened last night at this rally is deeply offensive. Send her back about a Somali refugee who serves in Congress. This is deeply offensive to me as somebody whose parents made all the sacrifices to get

to this country, send her back. How are you any more American than her? You're more privileged, you're wider, you're richer, but people don't know whether your money's real or not. You've had every privilege afforded to you by America, every privilege. And now what you do with that power is you go after brown people and black people and minorities.

And around here we won't talk about it. The idea that you did those interviews, and then you did all of that criticism. And you feel the way you do now, how are these things informing each other inside of your heart? Well, one of the things that I'm looking idea from that perspective of my view of America that that conversation would be seen as something dangerous instead of playful because I'm arming somebody casually with the ability to say, no, I don't regret that I was claiming

that Obama had a fake birth certificate. I think that you will find somewhere if you go through the sound. My guess is you can find my voice on something saying that I was hoping that Donald Trump would run for president, not because I thought that he would win in any conceivable, fathomable idea, but because I wanted the circus of anarchy that would come with him debating legitimate politicians who wouldn't, I wanted the entertainment, the spectacle of it. But that's actually what you talked him about as well when it came to him doing something

closer to sports. I would love for you to be an owner though because you'd be so meddlesome. Oh my God. You'd be totally meddlesome. Oh my God. You'd be totally battle. Every time you said something bad about me that I made a bad move. I'd crawl you. I know. And you would be a disaster. I would be a total disaster. I didn't get disaster for you. Although, you'd guys would like it. Yeah, you'd be so much worse than Jerry Jones. It would be facts. But the point that you wanted the chaos and the anarchy because there was entertainment

in that, and the reason why you believed that that was a worthwhile goal despite the risks was because you had a belief in the fortitude, the resiliency of America's institutions. The irony here seems to be that you were actually, ironically, too patriotic. You thought that America would never do this because you believed in America so much, and instead, the bullsh**t that we do in sports, in reality, television, entertainment, that would never actually get all the way into the Oble Office when, in fact, exactly that is what happened. The naivete and it is a bit stupifying. I guess it's sort of, it would be the articulation of privilege to assume that the America that

I thought existed was what I experienced as others were not experiencing that America, because I wasn't thinking about things like Jerry Mandarin. I wasn't studying what it meant to put in a bit of an infant soaked in embryonic fluid about what it is that could happen to America because I didn't think America was that flimsy. There could be toppled by an oaf. I didn't think an oaf-shouting fake news. Not only did I believe in America that way, I believed in media that way. Yes. The idea that journalism would matter more you can't just shout down journalism

by being a real estate liar and criminal who just shouts fake news but you can right now the fact checkers actually don't have to matter if you don't let them was what you sort of realized and to your point the question I asked myself and I asked myself as a person who was with you in that interview that were both cringing at I was I was right next to you I know it shouldn't play who was with you in that interview that we're both cringing at. I was right next to you. I know it shouldn't play any sound from you in that interview. This is my show.

The question. You didn't ask questions, right? You didn't sit anything out, right? You did participate. All right, fine. Donald, I'm curious, is there a story of somebody from sports asking you for advice? And do you recall a notable piece of advice you gave somebody in the world of athletics

well i get it all the time and you talk about deflate gate i talk about those folks and uh... you know frankly i think tom brady should see the nfl for two hundred and fifty million dollars and settle for nothing and you know get out of this thing but that's a good sound by done that's a good one thing that they put on the scroll did they put it on ESPN did they put the scroll the Trump Tom Brady should sue the NFL for 250 million that's things like a look we made news we made real news and now the question you have that I have to ask myself with you here is a question I ask myself a lot in these in these times

hashtag these times. Are we the bad people in the documentary? Are we the people who missed the thing that obviously ended up in the next scene being horribly horribly explosive to everything we now say we care about? I think that if you're if you're showing this graphically what it should look like as a montage is sort of confederate uh... statues toppling uh... you know uh... not season the street in tala hasi and sort of the jovial cackel of stugots in the background just laughing throwing his head back and saying what was the best party you attended, Donald?

Donald give us the best party you've ever attended Here are the complicit enablers the fools who helped who helped an army of hatred overtake democracy Is it just guilt? Is that the feeling in your chest cavity? Is it just guilt? I mean, you make this company, Metal Arc Media, founded on a principle of, I'm going to do things differently, very differently. I'm going to do things I could not do before. I join up under that same ageous, how does what we just revisited intersect with your ambition here? Both of the feelings that I have in both starting the company and listening to that are similar in that I'm thinking to myself as it happens, God damn I did

not know I could be this big of a fool showing my ass in front of this many people but if you're starting point on all of that is being able to make fun of yourself because you were a fool and you tried to do a vaguely principled thing at ESPN by leaving to create your own thing in 2024. When I was telling people in the creation of this company, I feel like these microphones are going to matter. The independence of these microphones is going to matter. I didn't see a writer strike coming or corporatization of the content economy coming, but I did

say to Skipper and anybody who believed in the idea of the creation of this company that we need to have the freedom of the microphones in 2024 so we can learn from our mistakes and so that we can do it better. And the ideas that I had about America, handed down from my parents and grandparents near the freedom tower because America was the place that wasn't communism, that wasn't a Cuba, that wasn't a dictatorship. I wanted to make sure that we had microphones in Miami. Not because I knew Florida would go this bad,

not because I knew that the press in general would come under siege, but because we'd built something in 20 years and I wanted to protect it. This is where I do wanna like sort of sit up straight a little bit and not be totally cowed by our past selves as much as we are embarrassed to be our past selves. And it's because what you did, what we did was truly recognize Donald Trump's super power.

It was not merely a willingness to disregard the truth and certainly a shamelessness about destroying America's institutions. It was that he is entertaining. He was funny. You have told me before you'd like to collect weirdos, strange people, Trump qualified because he is not just funny intentionally. More than that, he's funny without trying. And that part, like him being a sports talk radio caller, literally with you and also as a matter of just wiring mentally, he's an A plus gas bag man,

and he spawned imitators, but the reason why he succeeded was because you actually want to watch and listen to him. Despite all of it, he's just actually good at that. But the celebrity guest is supposed to always remain a guest. He's not supposed to beat all the Republican nominees and then become a guest who lives in the White House and can then take all of the systems to just pour them into his own bank accounts with with with ideally with a system breaking that none of us that none of us had any idea that the key to surviving a single

water gate is just to have a thousand of them. Yes, bed of nails theory. Don't get punctured by one scandal, have a thousand of them so that none of them can puncture the skin. It's unbelievable. But the idea of now are we hypocrites, right? Because I'm anticipating all of the stuff coming back at us because I have decided to do this when I first show. I do not believe that we are hypocrites because hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty, that would be to say, no, he was never actually that interesting. And in fact, I would never listen to him today

because the reality is, when he gets on a debate stage, Dan, I'm gonna be watching and listening and probably laughing at some of those clips. I admit this, like it's not like I have found religion where I am now cleansed and all of my instincts towards why is this man interesting and entertaining and funny have been erased the battle that I I'm going to have to sort of reckon with as I go through another election cycle as just a guy in this country is am I not supposed to laugh anymore? If you put him on a debate stage with DeSantis, I'm at least watching it

part just to see how scared DeSantis gets and how how yeah how frozen in the lights he gets. No, I mean look the reality of what this is and I now I'm just like on the therapy couch with you were both sort of like sitting in a lying in a king-sized therapy couch together is I feel like we have to be honest about what he's good at. And that to deny it, to sort of indulge the moral scolding that we did not do when he was on the radio, with you is to amplify his power

because the whole point of him, the reason why he is appealing, is because he sort of has changed that formula on, they used to say about presidential candidates, you want it to be somebody who you drink a beer with, with Donald Trump, it's different. It's a little different. You want him, Donald Trump, you want to watch him while drinking a beer. He is entertaining you. And that part of it, if we're not honest about his skill,

if these candidates were, if the Democratic candidate is not honest in a debate about, look, that guy is about to be 10 times more entertaining than me. It does feel like part of the game, if you choose to play it with him him is to concede that I am not going to out charisma. This man whose charisma is fueled by the most base instincts that are only found at the most compelling, perversely compelling levels of sports talk radio. He is that, right? He is the sports talk radio caller.

He is New York sports talk radio. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes. It's guy who knows it all, even though he doesn't know very much at all, as somebody that Mike and the Mad Dog are throwing their entertainment vehicle to. Here, Donald on a mobile, please do our job for us with this call be entertaining by whatever it is you have to say. Donald from Queens Dan was not just any sports radio caller. He was your sports radio caller. You're deligning a little bit too much and that's it. Yeah. That laughter you've been muffling at the entire time. It's been in your sternum the entire time we've been doing this i i legitimately thought when you gave me the vague notion of will be doing the trump tapes i'm like

do i have to listen to like some wiretaps or something around the the documents that they found in his toilet how are you not going to give me some information on what the trump tapes are only to find out that there are three interviews with Trump, one of which I remember. Yeah, it was just gonna be me, the entire time just pressing this button. Thank you, son. Thank you, son.

You, uh, thank you, son. You, uh, thank you, son. Yeah, you're an a- You're an a- Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. have noticed that this show is not actually over yet, unless Stan has already canceled it, in which case I do understand. But I wanted to explain what we're gonna be doing at the very end of our episodes, because here at Pablo Torre finds out, we do, in fact, f*** around. Shout out to Daniel Baldwin and everyone who listened

to our trailer. But after each episode, I do wanna honor our literal title by going a little bit toogie houseer, and just taking a second to reflect on what exactly I found out in a given day. And today, there was a lot. Something we didn't even get into, I realize, is that when we fed the audio files

of these Trump interviews into our high-tech transcript generator, the AI literally could not tell the difference between Trump and Stugots. That is not a joke. Their cadences, their voices are so similar that their quotes all got labeled as each other by artificial intelligence. But what I really found out is a lot simpler. Because I believe that America deserves to know the truth. The truth

about how, yes, lots of media figures from Seth Meyers to John Stewart have all been blamed for inspiring Trump to seek higher office. But that narrative has been missing a crucial piece. Today, what I found out is that Dan Levittard and his long forgotten radio interviews with Donald Trump are clearly responsible for the ongoing collapse of American democracy. This has been Pablo Torre finds out, a metal-lark media production. And I'll talk to you next time. you