The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - PTFO - Why Trump’s Road to the White House Runs Through His Four Black Athlete Friends

Episode Date: July 16, 2024

What do Mike Tyson, Lawrence Taylor, Darryl Strawberry and Herschel Walker have in common? They were Donald Trump's New York superstar allies in the 1980s — and they remain his time-warped avatars for Black American voters in 2024. Semafor political reporter Kadia Goba transports us from selling handbags at Trump Tower to receiving calls from these aging MAGA all-stars on a nostalgic, notorious and downright criminal journey toward interviewing Trump himself at Mar-a-Lago. Further reading: 'They see strength': The Black sports icons shaping Donald Trump's take on race, politics, and masculinity (Semafor) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre and today we're going to find out what this sound is. If I never saw Donald Trump and didn't know he was white, I would think that he was black the way they were treating him in the papers and in the press. Right after this ad. You're listening to Giraffe King's Network. reservation. And when you get to the main event, skip to the good bit using the card member entrance. Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash y amex. Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. So I believe personally that the single worst place to process the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump is the platform formerly known as Twitter. Which is obviously exactly where I was on Saturday night, watching people grandstand

and argue and generally use a horrifying shooting in Pennsylvania to spread conspiracies and rank propaganda. But there is one viral story that I came across from Forbes.com on Saturday that I want to tell you about here in particular because it provoked what I can only describe as a refreshingly and even inspirationally bipartisan level of disgust. The headline quote will surviving gunfire be Donald Trump's next appeal to black voters? Question mark. Forbes had published this story within hours of the shooting and they then took it down the very next day after managing to insult both leftists and MAGA Republicans for the obvious reasons. But the underlying premise here spoke to a story, a sports story in fact, that had put us in the company of some of the greatest athletes

ever. A story that we've been working on actually for more than a month, long before the chaos of this weekend. This was back when, you know, most of the headlines were about Joe Biden's alleged senility and or Trump's felonies. And we started working on it because another enduring condition of American democracy, besides all the guns, is that for all the twists and turns of yet another one of the most bad sh** election cycles of my lifetime, the actual outcome of this election may hinge, once again, on the question of Black voters. Which is exactly why Joe Biden had a sit down with BET scheduled to air tomorrow during the Republican National Convention, which is happening in Milwaukee, by the way, which

the GOP chose in no small part, I presume, because it is almost 40% black. And it is also why Hillary Clinton went on the Breakfast Club back in 2016. What's something that you always carry with you? Hot sauce. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Really? Are you getting information right now?

I'm just kidding. Hot sauce. Hot sauce in my bag, swag? Hot sauce. Really? Yes. Now, listen, I want you to know people are going to see this and say, okay, she's Hot sauce. Hot sauce in my bag, swag? Hot sauce. Really? Yes. Now listen, I want you to know, people are going to see this and say, okay, she's pandering

to black people. Okay. Is it working? No, it was not. It was not working. It turned out. But for the record, Joe Biden did win the black vote in 2020 by a margin of 92 to 8. 92 to 8, it's an incredible blowout. The problem now

being that Joe Biden in 2024 is so old that his own party is very understandably turning on him. And Donald Trump, as a result, the 8 in that aforementioned blowout, clearly senses an opportunity. Polling remains tight even now, but there is a reason that Trump recently held a rally in an unlikely borough. Right here in the Bronx. Who would think? Who would think? And I do want to be clear here.

Donald Trump is still the guy who repeatedly demanded the birth certificate of Barack Obama. He's also the guy who repeatedly demanded the death penalty for the Central Park Five, the five teenagers who were wrongfully convicted for assaulting a white woman who was jogging in Central Park 35 years ago. You better believe that I hate the people that took this girl and raped her brutally. You better believe it. And it's more than anger, it's hatred. But suddenly Trump's strategy seems to be shifting. He's apparently gotten rid of his so-called platinum plan

for black empowerment, which flopped obviously in 2020. And the Trump campaign just told the Atlantic that, quote, suburban women might be less a priority than young men of color, end quote. And so what I wanted to do today was sit down with a journalist, a journalist who had personally experienced Donald Trump's re-imagined black outreach strategy.

Because what she found out is that this new strategy is also an old story about sports. It's finally here, best ball week at DraftKings and here's why it's a big deal. Our best ball millionaire contest is the biggest fantasy contest ever at DraftKings. 15 million guaranteed prize pool with two, TWO millionaires being crowned. No waiver wires, no roster management, bigger rosters, so injuries will not end your season, only the draft, and that is it. And this year DraftKings is offering everyone a draft one get one special $20 entry fee scores you a bonus

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So, Kadia, the reason, by the way, thank you for coming into studio here. Thanks for having me. For commuting from DC to be here. I have many questions about a story that I find compelling, on some level surprising, on another level, the complete opposite. Because I don't know of somebody else who has this sort of story in their portfolio where it's like, guess who I talk to? And the answer is, well, a lot of people who are very, very notable, to me at least, as well as lots of sports fans.

Me too. So how did this assignment start? This assignment that I consider one of the wildest assignments for anybody who's covered the Trump campaign. So originally I just set out to understand what the black outreach was coming from the Trump campaign. As you know, there's this polling that suggests black men are leaving the Democratic Party and like kind of slipping away to Republicans.

It's not clear if it's Donald Trump or the Republican Party. When you talk to them, most of them say it's all about Donald Trump. So I just like went to look out to understand what this was about, but also like as a New Yorker, growing up and remembering him from like the 80s and the 90s and having worked at Trump Tower, I was just like, yeah, I get it, right? Like I understand why certain men would be attracted to this guy, Donald

Trump. Let me explore that. And I kind of approached the campaign that way. Yeah. Let me explore what you just dropped, which is that you worked at Trump Tower. So we're both New Yorkers. I know Trump Tower from my childhood as the gleaming golden monument that was, you know, advertised, famous for being truly like this this temple to wealth. Come and be dazzled, Trump Tower. And where were you in that building? So I was on the second floor. I worked for Dooney & Burke. Leather Handbag Company, the company had two flagship stores, one on Madison Avenue and one in Trump Tower on the second floor.

And you'd see Donald Trump all the time. It wasn't like a big thing to see him roaming around the city or just like in Trump Tower, his apartment building. A lot of tourists came because, you know, the attraction of Trump Tower it was just like always a joke to be able to sell them like a yellow palomino handbag wallet and a keychain and match it's just funny. So now of course I should say I shouldn't bury the lead here so to speak you're now a political reporter at Semaphore. So oh yeah that's what I do. From handbags to I cover politics. Which is

all to say that this is a full circle kind of an assignment. All of this really has felt like jumping into a time machine, it turns out, for both of us. Okay, so you should know that Semaphore reporter, Kadia Goba and I are both from New York City. Kadia grew up in Crown Heights, in Brooklyn. I grew up on the east side of Manhattan, not terribly far away from Trump Tower, actually. And both of us, importantly, were alive in the 1980s,

the decade that most epitomizes America's spectacular capacity for greed and unsubtlety. The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. The 80s were unapologetic. The 80s were cartoonishly absurd.

And in New York, sports teams, not unlike the finance guys on Wall Street, were winning. A lot. In 1987, for instance, the Giants won the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl champions are the Giants. The Giants have accomplished something that many people thought they would never see. And that happened less than three months after the even Sadder Sack Mets won the World Series. But what I just need the kids out there to understand here is that the biggest avatar for this entire era, its bullishness, its bullsh**, its glorious excess, would turn out to be the only US president ever born in the borough of Queens, New York.

It's, as you and I were discussing, it's become the number one attraction in New York. All of which is to say that when Kadiya Goba started reporting the article we are here to talk about for semaphore.com, a global news startup covering politics and business and media and technology. She got the idea to personally interview that guy, the owner of the golden tower where she used to work, at the very moment when the Trump campaign just so happened to need some help from a demographic they had previously lost by a score of 92 to 8. And so how do you reach out to the campaign?

How does that conversation go? Take me inside how you even like go about completing, starting the assignment. Well, it's not my beat. I cover Congress, right? So you know, in journalism, you get in where you fit in, right? So I know some people in the campaign and I just pitched them the story and I Remember like crafting a letter with my editors to kind of pitch them on this approach I was asking for an actual interview with Donald Trump. Yes. I mean, why would they that's a very coveted interview?

Yeah, Kadia, come on in. that wasn't that didn't happen, right? So they said you know what I have a good idea Why don't we connect you with some of you know? The people he knew from back then in that era who he is still friendly with and I was like, alright The first phone call I got was from Dallas strawberry. I remember the person connecting the call didn't know who Strawberry was. This is a weird thing for me to have a moral objection to when it comes to the Trump campaign, but I'm disappointed in them. That's kind of indefensible to not know who Darryl Strawberry is.

So let me just give you the back of Darryl Strawberry's baseball card here for a second, because the dude was Ricky of the Year at 21 years old in 1983. He was an 8-time All-Star. He was on the cover of Sports Illustrated 8 times as well. He could hit, he could run, he had one of the prettiest lefty swings in baseball history, and yes, he won the 86 World Series as the right fielder for the New York Mets. Darryl Strawberry. He even had his own chant. A taunt that became immortalized in an actual cartoon. Darryl, Daryl. So yeah, in other words, an icon.

I mean, just imagine it. Imagine being that young and handsome and famous in New York City in the 80s. There's only a matter of time before Daryl would cross paths with Donald Trump. There's only a matter of time before Darryl would cross paths with Donald Trump. So I wanted to know how they met, what he was like back then, you know, did his friends talk to Donald Trump, like how approachable he was, and he just talked about him just being a regular guy. I just, what I'm trying to wrap my brain around is the idea that anyone would describe Donald Trump as quote a regular guy This is New York City 80s 90s, right? Like it was not

Inconceivable if you could get into the right club, you might see him, you know, like or you know walking in the street I was looking at some old clips the other day and how Personable he seemed on David Letterman. And I was just like, oh yeah, I remember this guy. At the beginning of the show I said you either love him or you hate him. Now do you find that that's true or does everybody love you or does everybody hate you? Now most people love me and a few really have great distaste for me. And I know Darryl would go on to become like a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice.

Darryl, do you want to be fired? Yes. I think of these guys and sitting back and watching their effort and what they... Are you tired? Do you want to go home? So I know that they had stayed in touch, but did you get the sense that Darryl was now a Trump surrogate? Like was he a guy who was happy, eager to talk about the campaign and politics?

I want to preface all of this by saying the campaign was very specific about like, there was no suggestion that these are surrogates, that they're going to be talking to a bunch of people. They were giving Kadia this interview. His big point in our conversation was that he related to what Donald Trump was going through because he himself had been judged. At one point he kept talking about like, yeah, people judge me. They thought I was down. I'm here. I've had public opinion my whole life. They were saying, I couldn't survive, I couldn't make it. And guess what? I'm still here. I'm here, I made it.

And he identifies with this man. So just to clarify what Darryl Strawberry was alluding to just then, the public opinion he says he had to overcome. In 1995, Darrell Strawberry tested positive for cocaine and got suspended 60 days by Major League Baseball. And then he got suspended again in 99 for almost the entire season after he got arrested on charges of cocaine possession and solicitation of a prostitute. And one year after that, after his third positive drug test in five years, Strawberry got suspended

a third time, this time for a full calendar year. It is also worth mentioning here that in the 90s, Strawberry had been arrested twice for domestic abuse after allegedly punching a woman and allegedly threatening his wife with a gun. And he also pled guilty to federal tax evasion at one point, in order to avoid jail time. He was additionally an admitted sex addict. And when Darrell Strawberry finally went to rehab, he broke a number of rules, which again led to another arrest, after which he did spend nearly a year in jail.

Today, many years later, Darryl Strawberry is an evangelical minister. Glory, glory be to God. But one of the relationships Darryl has preserved from his old way of life in the 80s is the entire reason he was calling Kadia in the first place. I'm getting the sense that you are getting a personal and exclusive tour through the world of Donald Trump's black friends. Yeah. Yeah, you'd say that. Well, it starts with Darrell Strawberry, and the next person that you get to connect with ends up being who?

So the next call is about coming to the New Jersey rally because Lawrence Taylor is going to be there. At the time it was a big surprise. And I was like, oh, LT? Like, where's he been? I guess I would have to say Lawrence Taylor is the greatest defensive player ever. Look at him, Lawrence, you look like you could play immediately. They could use you.

All right, so I should be clear about this. In the world of football, there was only one Lawrence Taylor. There are people for whom LT was the greatest football player ever. Period. Donald Trump loved talking about Lawrence Taylor. In 1983, after failing to buy an NFL team, Trump wound up purchasing his own consolation prize, a franchise in the upstart United States Football League, the now-defunct USFL, and his franchise was called the New Jersey Generals.

And Trump, upon declaring that he was waging war on the NFL, wanted Lawrence Taylor, the King of New York football, to be his. First, we have Mr. Donald Trump, who is the visitor from New York City and the New Jersey General's owner. I think the general way that you have been presented in the media is money. And so in 1984, when Lawrence Taylor found himself in a contract standoff with the Giants, Trump convinced LT to sign a six-year deal with the Generals, a deal that came with a million-dollar signing bonus, which immediately became this tremendous headline, except for the fact that the contract could not start until four years later, and also the fact that LT never wound up playing a

single game for the Generals. Instead, of course, he went on to win two Super Bowls with the Giants in the NFL. But here now, in 2024, was Lawrence Taylor, on stage, in front of Kadia, proudly I just want to say I grew up a Democrat and I've always been a Democrat until I met this man right here. Where is this in Jersey? What's the... Wildwood? Wildwood happens to be where I spent my after prom party, which is embarrassing in multiple

ways now that I now realize. First rally I've gone to where the sand floor, that was interesting. And I got to go backstage. For the first time I saw what they do back there. Yeah. It was just a line of probably donors, I would say, and probably influential New Jersey people. I remember a lot of law enforcement also, like local sheriffs and state police from New Jersey.

All online for an autograph. Where do you encounter Lawrence Taylor? So he was one of the first people on the line and after he took his picture with Trump. Oh, Lawrence Taylor wanted a photo. Yes. And then I got a few minutes with him backstage and I was just like, why do you support this guy?

And he gave me this great story about him going down to Trump Tower because Trump had been trying to recruit him for his New Jersey generals, I think that was the name. Oh, the USFL team. Yep. Yep. Yes. Trump said, well, look in your bank account. And he said, at the time I had like 1300, $1400

because I wasn't making any money. He put a million dollars in my account and said, he wants me to play. Said, and we've been friends ever since. And they golf and everything. That is a good way to start a friendship, I suppose. I would imagine so. Is giving you a million dollars such that years later, I will still want to pose for

a photo with you in line at one of your rallies. I thought it was interesting because I hadn't heard anything about LT like supporting Trump. So that was kind of, I guess that was just like big surprise that day. Okay, so just a couple of clarifications about Lawrence Taylor that are really worth making I guess that was his big surprise that day. Okay, so just a couple of clarifications about Lawrence Taylor that are really worth making here. So one thing, one smaller thing, I suppose, is that because LT never wound up playing for the Generals, obviously,

he actually did have to pay that million dollars back to Donald Trump. It was basically a load. But far more important to know is that Lawrence Taylor, not unlike Darryl Strawberry, also has one of those Wikipedia pages with a giant section entitled, quote, drug and lifestyle problems. You write, I'd go through an ounce a day, there were times I'd be standing in the huddle, and instead of thinking what defense we were playing, I'd be thinking about smoking crack after the game. Well, like, well you

gotta understand though, it didn't affect my play. Lawrence Taylor tested positive for cocaine in 1987. He would later admit to smoking crack the day after his final game with the Giants and again the day that the Giants retired his number. Eventually, undercover cops would arrest Taylor for trying to buy crack… twice. And that brings us to another section, entitled Run-ins with the law. Lawrence Taylor, NFL Hall of Famer, maybe the greatest football player ever, was charged today with third degree rape and patronizing a 16-year-old prostitute. So to recap, Lawrence Taylor, a person the Trump campaign wanted Kadia to meet, while the former president endorsed Lawrence Taylor at a rally where Lawrence Taylor endorsed

him, is a registered sex offender. Which raised another question that I had for Kadia. What did LT say about any of the larger context about Trump's criminality in the present? I asked him, did anything concern you when he delved into this political arena? And he said, he just, he gonna speak his mind. He doesn't care what comes, how it comes out. You know, he seems not, he's not derogatory, but I mean, he is, I like him. He's a man's man.

And that he's a man's man aspect. What did you interpret that to mean? This is something I repeatedly talk about in my piece. This suggestion that machismo or just being a man's man is very attractive to men. Some men. And it doesn't matter if you are facing 34 criminal charges or anything like that. Or you've maybe said some off-kilter things that offend people. So, Kadia, who's the next person that you meet in this parade of friends that Donald Trump is sort of connecting you to? So then I talk to Mike Tyson. Perfect.

All right, so of course the Trump campaign's third friend that they wanted Kadia to interview was gonna be Mike Tyson. Because as big as Darryl Strawberry's Mets and Lawrence Taylor's Giants both were, in the 80s, in New York, no athlete on the planet was bigger than Mike Tyson. A very impressive young athlete. Please say hello to Mike Tyson. Mike. Hi, Mike. How you doing?

Nice to see you. And Trump wasn't just around Mike Tyson in the 80s. They were basically business partners. Because just as Trump once used the New Jersey generals to wage war on the Giants and the NFL, Trump started hosting some of Tyson's heavyweight title fights in another part of Jersey, Atlantic City, in order to wage war on Las Vegas, the boxing capital of the world. This is the convention center of the famous boardwalk in Atlantic City, where Trump Plaza

plays host to a fight being billed as once and for all. Undefeated world heavyweight champion Mike Tyson defends his crown against another undefeated heavyweight with a claim to the title, Michael Spinks. In 1988, Tyson would knock out an undefeated Michael Spinks in the first round of that title fight. And that same year, back again at Trump Plaza, Tyson TKO'd Larry Holmes in the fourth round. All of which is how Mike Tyson's notorious promoter, the legendary Don King, also became friends with Donald Trump.

Both Donald Trump and Don King bonded over this shared recognition that there was no economic stimulus package quite like Mike Tyson. A genuine global sports phenomenon who happened to be from Brownsville, not that far from where Kadia grew up. Your fellow Brooklynite, Mike Tyson. Yeah, fellow Brooklynite. Who I never thought I would be interviewing. What did Tyson mean to you as a New Yorker growing up,

existing at a time when, of course, he was one of the most famous people on the planet? Yeah, so boxing was, you know, it was very popular then, right? Of course. Rarely was there like a New Yorker and specifically a Brooklyn boxer who had reached the depths that Tyson had. I mean, I remember my friend's older siblings like going to fights with him and going to see him in Vegas. They were paying to go to like Vegas?

That's how that worked? I mean, they were probably not paying paying but yeah, they were going I Remember them getting dressed and putting on minx and going like oh, that's fancy Extremely extremely died t-dates. Yeah, higher scene of it. There are real reasons to think like hold on. Let's have a sober-minded conversation about Donald Trump right like the Central Park five this was a story that Donald Trump was all over and he got it wrong and people suffered because of it. And Mike Tyson, did he address this part of the conversation? Was that part of it? Unsolicited, actually. He talked about, he just defended him and he claims of

racism. He said he was not a racist without me prompting him. Do you ever clash with other black men that are celebrities like yourself about Donald Trump? Because you've been a supporter for a long time. Do I ever? Do I ever? Yes. The only thing they can say is that he's a racist.

There can't be nothing more substantial than that. I was thinking of the Central Park Five. Other than that, they can't bring up anything else. And most of those famous black people, they weren't saying that, wait a second, when they were getting free tickets at the fight and getting free rooms at the fight, they weren't saying he was a racist.

Then, that's real talk. When they were getting free shit, they were saying he was a racist. So the that's real talk. When they were getting free s***, they were saying he was a racist. So the pitch from Mike Tyson on behalf of Donald Trump, how would you summarize like what he is sort of... He's the same guy. This is the same dude that we were all hanging out with. Don't cower now. He hasn't done anything he wasn't doing back then.

What about like real, like just regular degular people who like, you know, just like black men. Do you ever, what are those conversations like when it comes to Trump? Street people, you talking about street people? Yeah, yeah. If it's your man, I don't f*** with your man, but he loves you. I would venture to say, Kadia, that you're the first person to say regular degular. To, on, yeah, on a call during an interview. About a presidential campaign.

I told you it got very Brooklyn. Listen, um, the ordinary people's person. Who do you think voted in an office? Same as people know. The ordinary people. And so this is where we got to point out, of course, that Mike Tyson is yet another one of Donald Trump's friends who has a criminal record, not unlike Darryl Strawberry, and is also a registered sex offender, not unlike Lawrence Taylor.

In 1991, Tyson was arrested for the rape of an 18-year-old and he got convicted the next year in a high-profile trial. A trial that Donald Trump, his, again, business partner, was obsessed with. Speaking of fights, explain to me now what you were thinking about the Mike Tyson situation. Shortly after the verdict was announced that he had been convicted, he was guilty of the crime, you had a plan. plan now what were you thinking? I was thinking that as soon as he gets out he's gonna fight in my casinos. Trump of course has now been accused of sexual assault or harassment by at least

26 women himself and Trump was also found liable by a jury last year for sexually abusing the writer E. Jean Carroll at a department store in Manhattan in the 90s. All of which is to say that the Trump campaign's black outreach strategy does not sound coincidental in this fashion. In fact, if you go back to how Trump had been talking in the months leading up to his 34 felony convictions, the entire approach kind of sounds about as subtle as the 1980s themselves. These lights are so bright in my eyes that I can't see too many people out there. But I can only see the black ones. I can't see any white ones.

You see, that's how far I've come. We've all seen the mugshot. And you know who embraced it more than anybody else? The black population. It's incredible. You see black people walking around with my mugshot. You know, they do shirts and they sell them for $19 apiece. It's pretty amazing. So while his pop culture legend is undeniable, Donald Trump's, I do want to get to the connecting of these two dots.

On the one hand, here is Donald Trump on trial. This is one of these interviews are taking place. And on the other hand, here are these black voters are trying to reach out to and persuade to vote for the man who is, again, under various indictments. What is the argument when it comes to connecting those dots in the mind of both Donald Trump and in the mind of Mike Tyson? Yeah so obviously this is not a blanket situation where all black men relate to his criminal past or criminal current I should say right? There is some sense where they relate to this guy who he keeps saying that he is, you know,

being persecuted and people relate to that. And then I got indicted a second time and a third time and a fourth time. And a lot of people said that that's why the black people like me because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against and they actually viewed me as I'm being discriminated against. It's been pretty amazing. Mike Tyson, at one point of the conversation we have this really interesting banter where he goes If I never saw Donald Trump and didn't know he was white, I would think that he was black the way they were treating him in the papers and in the press. Is that?

Think about that. I think the way they treated him in court, that's the way they did black people. You know, they're treating him like, they're treating him like, well, I'm not going to say what they're treating him like. And I said, no, it's fine. You can say it. And he said, you know, they're treating him like I guess the N word is what people say were you surprised that there was this interweaving of a

Of a again regular person struggle with the criminal justice system in black America We surprised that it was interwoven with the man who does seem to represent, as much as anything else, a caricature of golden wealth in America who is white. Yeah, I was, but this is what he is saying, this is what he says on the campaign trail, this is what Republicans are saying. Yeah, at a moment of crisis for the Democratic Party where it's like, how are we losing these people? Well, here is one theory, one hypothesis as to why. And I still think that black people are going to vote overwhelmingly Democrat. But this will be a tight race. And the idea of being able to peel off a certain group

or just a small portion of a certain group. That is extremely valuable in a race this tight. And it also feels like we should point out that you did talk to somebody, a friend of Trump who actually himself was trying to become a politician. Oh, Herschel Walker. Yeah. I'll tell you something else I heard. And I think about this, cuz at one time science said

man came from apes. Did it not? That's when you go to the science. Every time I read or hear that I think to myself, you just didn't read the same Bible I did. Well, what this was interesting though, if that is true, why are there still apes? Yeah, So okay, many moons before Donald Trump tapped Herschel Walker to run for Senate as a Republican in Georgia, where he ultimately lost a closely contested runoff election, Herschel Walker

was something else entirely. The greatest college football player of all time. They handed it off to Herschel, there's a whole five, ten, twelve, he's running over people! Oh you Herschel Walker! My god almighty, he ran right through two men! Herschel ran right over two men! At the University of Georgia, Herschel Walker was a three-time SEC Player of the Year, a three-time Unanimous All-American, the winner of the 1982 Heisman Trophy, and a national champion. His athleticism, meanwhile, his fitness, became the stuff of legend. A legend that I once asked him about,

myself, years later, in a particularly hard-hitting interview. I heard that you do 1,500 sit-ups a day. Are you still doing that? I am. I really do 3,500 sit-ups, about 1,500 push-ups every day. Journalism. Yeah. Anyway. Herschel Walker also became famous for going to the USFL instead of the NFL right out of college. And the team he signed with, you guessed it, was the New Jersey Generals. The same team that Donald Trump wanted to pay Lawrence Taylor a million dollars to play for.

What was your interaction with Herschel Walker like? He talked about Donald Trump coming to, you know, practices and bringing Don Jr. and him just going, I'm going to take you to Disney one day. And he said, one day they just came back and Don Jr. was like, hi, I'm ready to go to Disney. So they went to Disney. Wait, Herschel Walker took Don Jr. to Disney. Yeah.

Then a couple of times Trump would join them. I'm sorry. Trump Senior. Trump Senior, Don Jr., and Hersha Walker are like riding the teacups together at Disney. They're at Disney. Yeah. That is a level of friendship that I did not anticipate. So Hersha Walker, who again, of course, ran lost as a MAGA candidate for Senate in Georgia in 2022. How enthusiastic a political surrogate is

Herschel Walker now for Trump? I think you might see him on a trail but again he's a loser right? Right. He didn't win that race so. And why do you think Trump wanted you to talk to Herschel? What did Herschel have to say about, again, the candidate? Just an adoration for this man. Because I know the man. I know the man has got a great heart. Getting a through line here. These are people who love this guy.

Yeah, this is someone who... These are people who love this guy. And look, I don't want to keep belaboring this pattern that I can only assume you noticed a long time ago about the four horsemen that the Trump campaign connected to Kadia. But yes, so to date, Herschel Walker has been accused of, and largely denied, a list of allegations which include stalking, frightening his ex-wife to the extent that cops confiscated his handgun, threatening his ex-girlfriend that he would quote blow her head off, attacking another ex-girlfriend,

paying his ex-girlfriend to have an abortion and urging her to have a second one, this despite becoming a staunchly anti-abortion candidate, and also being a deadbeat dad and a liar, according to his own son, this despite being a family values conservative. I stayed silent as the atrocities committed against my mom were downplayed. I stayed silent when it came out that my father Hershel Walker had all these random kids across the country, none of whom he raised. And so on the subject of black outreach specifically, I was curious what kind of advice Hershel Walker would have for Don Sr., his old friend and former

employer. He said to like he should like embrace the community and go to the community, engage with them, let them talk, let them hear him talk and you know engage with them. I keep on thinking about this clip in particular. Look at my African American over here. Look at him. I suppose I don't even really have a question other than I also wonder if the man who was unseen on that screen, who was allegedly over there, Trump's quote unquote African American, was a real person that exists in life. Look at him. Are you the greatest? Do you know what I'm talking about? Okay. So how does it happen where you finally get to meet Trump himself? I got home around three o'clock in the morning,

I'd give this phone call later on that morning asking if I wanted to come down and actually do this interview. Now, I had thought I was going to go through maybe an off the record with him, just to kind of warm up. That was kind of what the team was promising me, but they were ready to do the interview,

I guess, after a series of monitoring my conversations with the other, his friends. So I hopped on a plane within an hour and a half and I was in West Palm Beach waiting to see Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago. So we are not allowed to play tape from Kadia's interview inside Mar-a-Lago with former president Donald Trump, just FYI, but you can imagine why Trump calls the resort, which was originally built by socialite Marjorie Merriweather Post, his winter White House. Trump has hosted authoritarian world leaders like

Hungary's Viktor Orbán, that was just last week, in addition to dozens of classified documents since seized by the FBI. Just listen to Trump's head butler while he was giving a tour to CBS years ago. This is the main entrance hall from 1927 on. This is the way you came in. You came in this hallway and came into what was known as the great room, the gold room, the grand salon, or as Mrs. Post would say, this is the living room. Do you think this is a little ostentatious for a six week winter home? But more than anything, I think, and this is in keeping squarely with the theme of today's show, the place feels like the 80s.

It's like a Miami Trump Tower, right? It's, you know, palatial and bronze ceilings with wings, a stone walkway overlooking a pool area. Right. Did you see a pool full of gold coins or was that hidden somewhere else? No gold coins. Oh. Where are you waiting as you're waiting for Donald Trump? In the grand room. It's kind of like a living room setting. So there's like two sofa settings, a couple of like settees, I guess you would say, off to the side.

And it's right next to the dining area where he was going to be having dinner later on that day with a group of HBCU former and current students, as well as Michaela Montgomery. The gymnast? No, the young lady who went viral for hugging him at the Chick-fil-A in Georgia. What the media tells you Mr. Trump, we support you. Okay, 4pm, we've been 4pm. Come here, let me give you a hug. Trump is now yours for a time.

For about 12 minutes. For about 12 minutes. For about 12 minutes. And can you explain what that interaction is like? Both of us are standing. I'm interviewing him like I'm in the halls of Congress with the mic, phone to his mouth, like a mic. I'm talking fast. He's talking fast.

You know, I preface all of this by saying, hey, I'm doing a story on black outreach in 2024, both for him and Biden. And, you know, a lot of people are surprised that black people are, you know, look up to you. And I wanted to tell this story about like, why it's probably not that surprising. So and you know, your campaign was nice enough to set this up. Here's my first question. How would you describe what Trump told you? So I asked, you've been making the point to say that black people identify with the charges and what you're going through in the court system and the justice system.

I'm being indicted for you, the black population. I said, is that going to be part of your campaign? He said no other than you asking me right now I'm not going to make that a point. He said but they identify with it and then he goes on to say That they identify with it during that dinner. He has with Michaela Montgomery I talked to her after about like what they talked about and she said she told him Don't say that don't say that black Men identify with your criminal background like don't say that and so so basically this was like a help me help you Scenario of like hey just FYI. Yeah

This is not a good black outreach strategy This is not a good black outreach strategy. Essentially, yes. I thought that was interesting, right? Because these guys just met at that Chick-fil-A that we talked about. He makes lots of friends in various places, it turns out. Yeah, I mean, she'll probably be in the administration. Who knows? Yeah, it sounds like she's probably the Secretary of Interior coming up.

At one point I asked him about, I told him, you know, your campaign has like put me in contact with all these people. Why do you think that happened? And he said, well, you know, he started to do his Trump campaign pitch, right? Like, oh, they want, you know, safer borders and they want crime and stuff. And I was like, no, no, well, these guys are rich. And he goes, oh, I know. Oh, right.

Yeah. Yeah. Good point, Kadia. That was kind of the last question he kind of ended with. Like, you know, I have a lot of black friends and you know, if they would, if they talk to me, that clearly means I'm not a racist. Hold on. So the last thing that Trump says to you though, on the way out, I just want to

get this clear, is what? Um... And I'm not racist! Perfect. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Something definitely said by somebody who is not a racist is, and I'm not a racist. In addition to like, they wouldn't be my friends if I were a racist. And you know, that is a trope we all hear all the time. And some people say it who actually don't have black friends, right? And here, here

I am like telling a story about his black friends. So it's just like, What you found out, Kadia, is that Donald Trump has, in truth, a non-zero number of black friends who happen to be some of the greatest athletes in certainly the 1980s. Very big personalities. Who happened to have all had criminal records. Well that's it. So, as I sit here wondering what it is exactly that I found out today, I do want to acknowledge that we have been living inside a time capsule this episode. A time capsule from the 1980s, most obviously, but also a time capsule from before this past weekend, from before the assassination attempt on the life of Donald Trump. And I think that perspective is instructive for understanding the rest

of this election season. It is instructive to revisit what Kadiagoba discovered at the end of her journey here into the heart of this campaign. Because when offered this new opportunity to simply address Black America, let alone atone in any way for birtherism and the Central Park Five and any number of other things that may have lost him votes in this demographic, Donald Trump literally just said, I have black friends. And he pointed back to his favorite decade, which ended almost 35 years ago now, a decade when he met Darrell Strawberry and Lawrence Taylor and Herschel Walker and Mike Tyson, all of whom more or less affirmed that Trump is a regular, ordinary American. And so I should also say that Kadia, in order to be totally fair to everyone involved here,

did follow up with the Trump campaign for clarity when she was writing this story. And she did ask if there was any policy proposal of any kind that she should know about. Another thing that I was beating the campaign over the head about, whether or not they had some kind of policy push that they were targeting black people, it doesn't seem like that is the case and I've actually heard from other black conservatives who said you know what hey what happened to the platinum plant? I know horrible name, but I mean, we're months before the election. I haven't seen anything.

Which is all to say that what I found out today inside of this time capsule turns out to be very simple. Because on the subject of black outreach outreach Donald Trump doesn't want to do much more than have you know that he is not a racist and that strategy really is an ordinary regular undeniably American thing to do. This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production. And I'll talk to you next time.