Rachel Maddow shares highlights from extensive New York Times reporting showing that contrary to Donald Trump’s efforts to portray himself as the product of his own work, much of his money is the result of his father feeding money to him.
Rachel Maddow, MSNBC October 3, 2018
Transcript
But then this afternoon, “The New York Times” published a freaking 40-page-
long, 13,000-word mind-bending expose about the president, specifically
about his money and how he got it, which turns out to be a 180-degree
different story of the president`s own account of how he made his money.
The story also potentially implicates the president in pretty substantial
fraud and tax evasion.
So – OK. Everybody on the staff here on the show, we now have these
little poker chips. Our show just had our ten-year birthday, which we`re
very happy about it. It`s a big milestone for us. Nobody makes it to ten
years.
And to celebrate, my sweetie Susan bought everybody these little poker
chips. Can we hold one up to the camera? Can we show it there? Yes,
there we go. Look, it can even focus.
It says THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW on one side and then the other side, it says
lucky ten, because we made it to ten years. It`s very sweet, right? This
is our staff present for turning ten. I love it.
And it turns out tonight, it wouldn`t take long to help tell this story.
All right. December 1990, Donald Trump owns a casino called the Trump
Castle in Atlantic City. He has done a very bad job running that casino.
He has way overspent on renovations, otherwise dumped way more cash into it
than the business could keep up with.
And on December 17th, 1990, his casino, the Trump Castle needed to make a
payment, a multimillion-dollar interest payment on a big loan they had
taken out for that failing casino. Just hours before that payment was due,
it really looked like Trump was not going to make it, which would have dire
consequences. And so, his dad, who was then 85 years old, sent a bag man
to this casino, to Donald Trump`s casino in Atlantic City. The dude he
sent, his name was Howard Snyder, walked into Trump`s casino in Atlantic
City. He went up to the cage where all the cashiers work on the casino
floor and he handed them a check for $3.35 million.
The cashiers verified that the check was good, and the casino promptly
handed over to Howard Snyder a big pile of poker chips. Here you go. Each
worth $5,000, $3.3 million worth of poker chips.
Howard Snyder took those poker chips, put them in a bag and left. He did
not play poker with them. He did not gamble with them. He just took the
poker chips away.
Apparently, the next day, it turned out that that $3.35 million wasn`t
enough. Donald Trump is still in trouble. Still not going make the
interest payment. Trump`s dad the next day wired another $150,000 to that
casino.
Once again, they checked that the wire was good. The money there was from
Trump`s dad. They issued another $150,000 in poker chips, $5,000 a chip.
Dude picked them up, put them in a bag, did not gamble with those chips.
He just took them and he left the building.
Poker chips are awesome. Take it from me, I now have a new habit of
playing with them all the time now because we have them for the show as
little tchotchkes. They`re fun.
But in December 1990, Donald Trump`s dad spent $3.35 million and then
$150,000, so $3.5 million just buying a big bag of these that he got to
take home. And they`re neat, but they don`t actually have integral value
unless you`re going spend them at the casino. He just got a big bag of
chips and left with it, $3.5 million worth. That was illegal. But it was
also handy in the moment when Donald Trump was up against that big deadline
from the bank that $3.5 million in that moment, it sort of ostensibly
looked like gambling income for the casino that came in just in time so the
casino could make its interest payment.
Of course, it wasn`t gambling income for the casino. It was just Donald
Trump`s dad transferring $3.5 million to his son without paying any taxes
on it, to bail his son out so he could pay off the bank.
Ultimately, they got actually caught for that by gambling regulators. They
had to pay a $65,000 fine for having pulled off that scheme with the poker
chips that they did not gamble with. But in the end, $65,000 fine, who
cares? Small potatoes, right? The whole scheme worked.
And this is one of the many anecdotes that “The New York Times” recounts
today about how Donald Trump`s entire life has been bankrolled to
spectacular effect by his dad, which he has always denied. This anecdote
about the poker chips is actually one that we`ve seen reported before.
Actually, shortly after it happened, this happened in December 1990. “The
Wall Street Journal” wrote a story about it in January of 1991, and it`s
interesting. There is even a little bit of foreshadowing for all of us in
the way that story was initially reported.
“Wall Street Journal” broke the story about the poker chip scheme and
Donald Trump`s dad`s bagman in January of 1991. At few months later, by
that summer, “The Wall Street Journal” had actually taken that reporter off
the Donald Trump beat, because unbeknownst to the editors at “The Wall
Street Journal” at the time, that reporter had once taken some boxing
tickets off Trump, tickets specifically to the Evander Holyfield/George
Foreman fight that year in Atlantic City.
Editors at “The Wall Street Journal” found out that their reporter had done
that, had taken those tickets when Trump himself called the editors of the
paper to complain about their negative news coverage of him. Having
compromised this reporter by slipping him some boxing tickets that he`d
have to keep secret from his bosses, Trump then dropped the guillotine,
right? He narced that reporter out to his editor, for taking the tickets,
and then he got that dude taken off the Trump reporting beat. Bleh, right?
It`s gross. Like both the story that they were initially reporting on and
that kind of management of the press thereafter, I mean, that was 1990,
1991. But that`s the bubbling toxic stew we all live in now when it comes
to covering not just this presidency, but the federal government he now
controls.
What “The Times” has documented in this new blockbuster piece of reporting
on Trump`s finances is that that scummy little anecdote, when Trump`s dad
sends in a bagman to illegally and secretly bail out his son and evade
taxes, that was not a one off. That was emblematic of a pattern and a
indeed a plan that shows us a wildly different story about the president`s
wealth and his business history than anything that he has ever admitted to
publicly. It also appears to implicate him, as I mentioned, in tax
evasion, fraud, and other potential criminal behavior.
Part of the reason this behavior and this larger pattern of the president`s
financial history hasn`t come to light before now is because “The Times”
somehow for this story obtained hundreds of thousands of previously unseen
documents from the Trump family and their businesses and their financial
entities. No, they still did not get Donald Trump`s personal tax returns,
but they apparently did get his dad`s. And reams and reams and reams of
family business documents both from public sources and also apparently from
private files. So, that`s one reason this story has never come to light
before, this documentation has never been used for journalistic purposes
before.
But the other reason this story about Trump`s financial story hasn`t really
been told before, at least not in this level of detail is because what “The
Times” quite candidly describes as the history of Trump getting uncritical
press coverage, particularly around his finances. He has not been a
financial genius. He has not been a great deal maker. He has not been a
great business mind, but he has been great at convincing the credulous
press to describe him as such over a period of decades.
And that big blustery PR effort was effective at disguising this blatant
con that he played on the public for years, pretending to be some kind of
self-made millionaire or even self-made billionaire when apparently he
really isn`t anything of the sort.
Here is the lead from “The Times” tonight. Quote: President Trump
participated in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including incidents
of outright fraud that greatly increased the fortune he received from his
parents. Mr. Trump won the presidency proclaiming himself as self-made
billionaire. And he`s long insisted that his father provided almost no
financial help.
But “The Times`” investigation based on a vast trove of confidential tax
returns and financial records reveals that Mr. Trump received the
equivalent today, excuse me, received the equivalent today of at least of
$413 million from his father`s real estate empire, starting when he was a
toddler and continuing to this day. Quote: In every era of Mr. Trump`s
life, his finances were deeply intertwined with and dependent on his
father`s wealth. By age 3, Mr. Trump was earning $200,000 a year in
today`s dollars from his father`s empire. He was a millionaire by age 8.
Soon after Mr. Trump graduated from college, he was receiving the
equivalent of a million dollars a year from his father. The money
increased with the years to more than $5 million annually in his 40s and
50s. Fred Trump, Donald Trump`s father, was relentless and creative in
finding ways to channel his wealth to his children.
He made Donald not just his salaried employee but also his property
manager, his landlord, his banker, and his consultant. He gave him loan
after loan, many of which were never repaid. He provided money for his
car, money for his employees, money to buy stocks, money for his first
Manhattan offices and money to renovate those offices.
He gave Donald Trump three trust funds. He gave him shares in multiple
partnerships. He gave him $10,000 checks at Christmas time. He gave him
laundry revenue from his buildings.
But being a young man who was just living off his dad`s considerable
wealth, just being on the receiving end of his dad giving him tons and tons
of money and paying for everything in his life, that apparently was not the
public image that Trump wanted for himself or that Trump`s dad wanted for
his son. And so, the selling of a contrary and untrue public image about
Donald Trump himself being some sort of self-made business maven, that is
something that Trump orchestrated, but the press really helped him out. He
couldn`t have done it without them.
And this is where “The Times” gets very candid, even about its own role in
its part about this public lie of Donald Trump. Quote: He`s tall, lean and
blond with dazzling white teeth and he looks ever so much like Robert
Redford. He rides around town in a chauffeured silver Cadillac with his
initials, DJT, on the plates. He dates slinky fashion models, belongs to
the most elegant clubs, and at only 30 years of age, estimates that he is
worth more than $200 million.
So began a November 1, 1976 article in “The Times,” one of the first major
profiles of Donald Trump and a cornerstone of decades of myth making about
his wealth. How can he claim to be worth more than $200 million when he
would divulge later to casino regulators that his taxable income that year
in 1976 was actually $24,594 for the whole year?
But “The Times” in 1976 apparently bought it hook, line and sinker, and
then they turned around and sold to it public.
Quote, in the chauffeured Cadillac, Donald Trump took “The Times`” reporter
on a tour of what he called jobs. He told her about the Manhattan hotel he
planned to convert into a Grand Hyatt. His father guaranteed the
construction loan. He took her the Hudson River rail yards that he planned
to develop. The rights were purchased by his father`s company.
He showed the reporter, quote, our Philanthropic endeavor, the high-rise
for the elderly in East Orange, New Jersey. That too was bankrolled by his
father. Also, an apartment complex on Staten Island, which was owned by
his father.
What he called their, quote, flagship Trump Village in Brooklyn, that too
was owned by his father. And finally, Beach Haven apartments which were
also owned by his father. Quote: Even the Cadillac was leased by his
father.
But he didn`t talk about his father`s ownership of any of those things. He
passed it all off as his own, and then he boasted to “The Times” and they
dutifully printed, so far I`ve never made a bad deal.
As “The Times” concludes today, now knowing that everything he was passing
off as his own was actually owned by his dad, “The Times” concludes today,
quote, it was a spectacular con.
And they`ve got all this detailed reporting that just makes the story get
worse and worse and worse. Quote: Weeks after “The Times`” profile ran,
Trump set up still more trust for his children, seeding each with today`s
equivalent of $4.3 million.
Even into the early `80s, when Trump was already proclaiming himself one of
America`s richest man, he was still on his father`s payroll, drawing an
annual salary of $260,000. Meanwhile, Fred and his company has also began
extending large loans of credit to Donald Trump.
Consider 1979, when he borrowed in January from his dad $1.5 million. In
February, $65,000. In March, $122,000. In April, $150,000. In May,
$192,000. In June, $226,000. In July, $2.4 million. And in august,
$40,000.
He borrowed all of that money month after month after month after month,
all from his dad.
Quote: In theory, the money had to be repaid. In practice, records show
many of these loans were more like gifts.
But the column of bundled nerves that runs down the spine of this story is
not just that Trump took over $400 million from his father and lied for
decades about having built some sort of business empire on his own when
really what he was doing for decades was just cashing his dad`s checks, the
stuff that rings like a bell in this reporting, not just for what you might
have thought about Donald Trump in the past, but for him now, it`s not just
about the lying and the false public persona that became his political
persona when he decided to turn it into that. The tough stuff here is
about crime. It`s about potential criminal fraud and criminal tax evasion
and being on the hook for that even now. That`s next.
