0:01

Welcome to Pablo Torrey finds out I am

0:03

Pablo Torrey and today we're going to find out

0:05

what this sound is. Thank you for

0:07

watching our show, Donald. Thank you, Donald.

0:09

Thank you. Keep the show going. It's

0:11

terrific.

0:13

Right after this ad.

0:16

You're listening to DraftKings

0:18

Network.

0:26

All

0:29

right, so I've been waiting months, Cortez,

0:32

to finally get to this story

0:34

that I have painstakingly

0:37

brought our audience today, but I just need

0:39

to explain what happened as

0:41

you've been sitting here because we are sitting here. It's

0:44

me and Ryan Cortez. What's up, you cowards? Yeah, very

0:46

good intro. Me and Ryan Cortez, our

0:48

producer, sitting inside this new studio

0:50

that we built over the summer at

0:52

the Metal Ark offices in New York City, and

0:54

I just got this voicemail. Okay,

0:57

I got this voicemail from one of the many older

0:59

people in my life

1:01

who have absolutely no idea what

1:04

my job is now. Now,

1:07

this is Tony Kornheiser leaving this message. Pablo's

1:10

podcast is launching today. I

1:13

wanted to help because I love Pablo.

1:15

I, of course, have forgotten what the title of Pablo's

1:18

podcast is. I think it's Pablo

1:20

Torrey Just Found Out or Pablo

1:23

Torrey Knows This,

1:25

or maybe it's Pablo Torrey Has Gout. I'd

1:27

have made it

1:28

Pablo Torrey Graduated From Harvard,

1:31

So Eat It.

1:33

So yeah, a little late. The

1:35

thing is, people don't know Tony Kornheiser

1:37

used to be a writer, and you could see it in that

1:40

message where he says you might have had gout. Should

1:42

we rename the show? It's honestly good

1:44

merch. So there's so much going

1:46

on, actually, that I feel like we should probably explain what

1:50

it is that we're actually doing

1:52

on this show, Pablo Torrey Finds Out,

1:54

because people, I think, Cortez, people rightfully,

1:57

I

1:57

must admit, might be confused. People want to

1:59

know. When is the show coming out? Where the hell has it been? You

2:02

have a sub-stack channel that you've put some content

2:04

on, not a ton. High quality,

2:06

some content. The show is coming out three times

2:09

a week. That's what we can tell people. Tuesday,

2:11

Thursday, Friday. You're gonna wanna

2:14

subscribe to youtube.com slash Pablo Torre

2:16

finds out because the people running the video department,

2:18

I used to work with Patrick Kim at Deezus and Marrow.

2:21

He is incredible. You're going to wanna watch this.

2:23

Subscribe to youtube.com. Patrick Kim,

2:26

behind the glass fist pumping because he

2:28

paid you to say that. But also it's

2:29

accurate. So format wise,

2:32

once a week Cortez, once a week we're gonna

2:34

do an originally conceived docu-style

2:38

fully reported podcast, like a narrative

2:40

thing. Journalism? Journalism, journalism. We're

2:42

gonna do goddamn journalism. We're gonna do seriously executed

2:44

sports investigations that are inspired by the

2:46

magazines that Tony Kornarzer and I used

2:49

to write for. But investigations

2:51

that while they are seriously done, don't take

2:53

themselves seriously. This is the whole like, we

2:56

wanna around, but we also want

2:58

to find out. And this

2:59

is like the 500 spreadsheets you've created

3:02

that have all these story ideas, some of which we've forgotten

3:04

about over the months. I know. There's so

3:06

many of them. There's so many like, admittedly a

3:08

lot of them are just like semi stoned ideas.

3:12

They could become fully stoned ideas. Which

3:14

is sort of the idea. With that attitude. With that

3:16

production attitude. Okay, so there's that spreadsheet full

3:18

of like reported ideas, but also once

3:20

a week, I'm gonna do the thing that I think people may

3:23

have heard already in our feed. I'm

3:25

gonna host a talk show. It's basically a talk

3:27

show called Share and Tell. Two of my friends and I all

3:29

find out which

3:29

stories we're obsessed with in that

3:32

given week. Dan and Mina have done

3:34

those with me already. Dan, you're referring to Dan

3:36

Fatface, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

3:38

yeah. Trapezoid, Dan Levittard.

3:41

More on him in a second. Our third episode,

3:44

our third weekly episode is essentially like in fantasy football

3:46

parlance. It's our flex spot. It's

3:48

a flex spot. A flex episode, okay. Wide

3:50

receiver, running back, high end if you're in that weird league,

3:52

it could be anything. And that actually,

3:55

that is what today's very

3:58

special premiere episode is.

3:59

which we can finally get to. And

4:02

I feel obligated. I mean,

4:05

there was just no other way that I could

4:07

have started this show despite all the dangers

4:09

associated with this specific episode

4:13

because the very first time, Cortez,

4:15

the first time I ever co-hosted the Dan Leburtard

4:17

show with Stu Gotz in person, this was my

4:19

introduction into the family that

4:22

became Metal Arc Media. It

4:24

was way back in 2015. Wow.

4:27

And we had a call-in guest, okay?

4:30

And this is a call-in guest that I've been

4:32

thinking about literally, literally

4:35

ever since. All right, Trump,

4:37

thank you as always for joining us. I

4:39

wanna get to some truths here with you.

4:41

If I may, Pablo Tori in with us all

4:44

show today. Is it true that Donald

4:46

Trump has never in his life used an ATM?

4:50

Well, I haven't used too many of them, but I do

4:52

love the concept. And you

4:54

know, we're gonna have to be a little bit careful. A lot

4:56

of money is being taken out of different forms

4:58

of computerization. I think someday we're gonna have

5:00

to go back to the old days, you know, the old way,

5:03

but no, I'm not big on them, but I have used them,

5:05

yes.

5:06

So, yikes.

5:10

Dan, what he informed me was that Donald

5:13

Trump

5:13

had been a recurring guest, but

5:16

I had never heard or felt any of this,

5:19

okay? I had never heard any of these interviews, did not know that

5:21

they ever f***ing happened. And

5:24

I really wanted to find out what

5:27

they were actually like. The

5:30

problem

5:31

was that everybody associated with the Dan Lebitar

5:33

show with Stu Gods had memory

5:36

hold those tapes. I was gonna say,

5:38

I don't think they exist anywhere. No, that's

5:40

old footage, right? Well, by 2016, they had

5:42

wiped them off the internet. They were

5:45

gone forever. And in fact,

5:47

what I realized recently was

5:49

that

5:51

they were

5:52

banished. They were banished

5:54

to a physical hard drive in Miami,

5:57

accessible only to select metal Lark.

5:59

media employees, Dan

6:02

Levittard, never to be heard

6:04

from again, right? Until

6:08

now. Oh no.

6:31

What's happening, Carl? Carl, is it all falling

6:33

apart? It's all happening. Look at this. Look

6:36

at this. Where am I sitting? You're sitting not

6:38

in your chair because I'm gonna sit in your chair. Okay.

6:41

Because we're turning the tables. Yes, we are

6:43

turning the tables. Turning the tables.

6:46

They're being turned.

6:49

All right. Five, four,

6:52

three, two, one.

6:56

This is what I was hired to do, was

6:59

to make you sit across from me with little

7:01

to no information

7:03

about what's actually about to happen to

7:05

you. I've asked you three or four times

7:07

to tell me what we're doing. You have

7:09

consistently, steadfastly refused

7:12

to tell me what we're doing. Correct. It's

7:15

better this way.

7:17

But in the interest, truly,

7:19

Dan, as you wear your ridiculous sunglasses

7:21

in front of me, which is appropriate

7:23

for someone who has to confront the blinding lights

7:26

of his past,

7:28

are

7:30

you somebody who remembers anything

7:32

about the tapes I'm about to play for you?

7:35

You have just told me we're doing the Trump

7:37

tapes and I'm like, what is it? What are we doing?

7:40

And now I'm led to assume just from the sheer

7:42

delight streaking across your face

7:45

that what you're about to do is play for me

7:47

the time that we irresponsibly

7:49

had Donald Trump on and frolicked

7:52

with him. Lest anyone say that

7:54

we are an echo chamber. We've had Bill O'Reilly

7:56

on, Geraldo Rivera, just because I wanted

7:58

to ask questions about his mother.

7:59

And at the time a

8:02

reality game show host who surely

8:04

would not win the presidency and threaten

8:07

the topple democracy Because I'm an idiot.

8:09

There is one major problem with what you just

8:11

said a falsehood

8:13

Because you said time and This

8:16

is about the times. We've

8:18

talked to him twice. Oh more than twice How

8:20

many times did we talk to Donald Trump people have

8:23

recommended to me that we not

8:25

do this episode as my first episode Dominique

8:28

Foxworth our friend said quote

8:31

do not fucking do this And

8:34

he's never heard these tapes He

8:36

said he would never own up to them if he were

8:38

a person who had been involved

8:40

in these tapes He was kind of worried that we were gonna cancel

8:43

ourselves

8:44

As your first act in jumping

8:47

into the arms of metal arc media with your

8:49

wife and family Yes And and three-year-old

8:51

violet all of that going down in flames because

8:54

I wanted to do the Trump tapes Because

8:56

you want to start on the third rail how

8:58

many times have we interviewed Donald Trump? you've

9:00

interviewed him several times over

9:03

the course of three years and 2013 2014 2015

9:09

We're going to go through them. You were at

9:11

one of them. Correct. I was at the

9:14

last one of them Who else was involved

9:16

in the others? I've legitimately no recollection

9:18

of why it is we had him on

9:21

my question for you Actually was going to be

9:23

Why did you have him on and

9:26

you're telling me that you don't

9:27

even recall when was the first one? I'm

9:30

gonna be like somebody being indicted

9:32

talking in front of a federal government I

9:35

don't recall the incident you speak of but I legitimately

9:37

let's start with you cannot go I'm

9:40

not here to talk about the past. You can't

9:42

go Mark McGuire on us Even if you are wearing glasses

9:44

conspicuously did we all do all of them

9:46

at ESPN?

9:48

Yes, all three of them were done at ESPN

9:51

All I remember is the last one the last

9:53

one that you were involved in and the only reason

9:55

I think I remember it is because You wouldn't shut up

9:58

This

10:00

was how that first interview back on November

10:03

19th 2013 again. Oh

10:05

no. This is how it began.

10:08

Really cool to have Donald Trump

10:10

who is going to join us right now on the Subway

10:13

Fresh Take hotline here on ESPN

10:15

Radio. Stu Gods very badly wants to

10:18

be Donald Trump. Even with all of Donald

10:20

Trump's many enemies, Stu Gods just wants

10:22

to be this guy. We've got a lot of

10:24

things to ask

10:25

him. All right. I'm now legitimately wincing.

10:29

Now you've got me fearing. Now you've got

10:31

me because I didn't have

10:33

any idea of what Donald Trump

10:35

was and he was just celebrity TV ego

10:38

host who was a famous

10:40

person for reasons that were hard to discern.

10:43

We were having him on because he was famous. I

10:46

just want to start this again. Hold on. Really

10:48

cool. Yeah, I know. I

10:50

heard him already. Really cool. I didn't

10:52

say that though. Not cool. I didn't say

10:54

that. You didn't. In fact,

10:56

Mike Ryan, Dan. I'm doing reporting around your company,

10:59

our company now. Investigative reporting.

11:01

investigative reporting. Pablo Torre finds out. It's

11:04

on the screen behind me. Mike Ryan told

11:06

me that Stu Gods was actually the one

11:08

who booked Donald Trump. Oh, what's

11:10

the backstory there? So

11:17

quick interlude here because I did try

11:19

to book Stu Gods to ask how he booked

11:22

Donald Trump repeatedly over three

11:24

years as a guest. But

11:26

what I got was

11:29

this. I reached John. I can't get

11:31

to the phone right now. Leave a voicemail. I'll

11:33

get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks.

11:36

Which would have been fine except for

11:39

this. The mailbox is full and cannot

11:41

accept any messages at this time.

11:44

Goodbye. And so I kept

11:46

calling without any explanation because

11:48

as with Dan, I just wanted Stu's most genuine

11:51

unplanned reaction,

11:53

which I did eventually receive.

11:57

Yeah. Hello. Hello

12:00

Pablo. So

12:03

you listen, okay, we are doing

12:05

an episode for my show That

12:08

is all about the

12:10

interviews you guys did with

12:13

Donald Trump Sure You

12:16

remember those? Of course I do. What

12:18

do you mean? I booked them Did

12:22

you ever get Trump's number would you ever text

12:24

them that is a great question so

12:26

hold on There

12:28

is a Donald Trump poll number in

12:31

my phone I

12:34

remember us liking him so much that we were

12:36

wondering if we should turn it into a weekly I

12:44

do remember that conversation Because

12:48

he was such a great guest, like he speaks

12:51

in perfect sports radio, you know So

12:55

I just remember Daniel I like we were like wow

12:57

that would be fun a difference to have that guy on every

13:00

Every week is shredding people By

13:04

the way, I should say that I have been

13:06

recording this phone call with you so

13:09

yeah, we any of this stuff on the show

13:15

You could also somehow point out that I was blowing

13:17

cigarette smoke out of my mouth as I told you I don't

13:20

give a But

13:22

As for why the eventual 45th

13:25

president himself wanted to call into the Dan Levittard

13:27

show and possibly texts to

13:29

God's in the first place That

13:31

explanation was loud and clear

13:34

Because I heard it on the actual tapes

13:36

themselves By the way, you

13:38

guys have a great show. That's why I'm doing it. But I

13:41

think you have a great show I watch it a lot

13:43

You know what? Remember

13:46

he did that move each of the times he

13:48

was on with us I feel like and I

13:50

believe that we thought

13:53

afterward

13:54

He's lying, right? He's just pretending

13:57

like he watches our show. I mean

13:59

I feel like when he says, by

14:01

the way, you guys have a great show. That's why I'm doing it.

14:03

But I think you have a great show. I watch it a lot. I

14:06

watch it a lot in 2013

14:08

when you were doing a radio show that was maybe just

14:10

becoming a video show. It probably wasn't

14:12

even, I feel like there might be a real

14:14

hypothesis. We didn't have video there.

14:16

Yes. He was saying he watched a show really,

14:19

that was our first indication that Donald Trump

14:21

was a total fraud. But then again,

14:24

there was, you know, you guys are playing

14:26

into it. Thanks for watching our show Donald. Thank

14:28

you Donald. Well, thank you.

14:29

Keep the show going. It's terrific.

14:32

And you did. You kept the

14:34

show going and it is in fact terrific.

14:37

We really should have, we should run that

14:40

now as something, even though we're not doing

14:42

it as radio, all the big names

14:44

talk here. Donald Trump. Keep

14:47

your show going. It's terrific.

14:49

Wait, there's more.

14:50

Time for us. You have a great show too and I really like it. Thank

14:53

you, John. That's my favorite

14:55

part maybe, is this. How

14:57

much worse does this get? Because I am

14:59

legitimately fearing what it is that you're

15:02

about to play next. Like where, you

15:04

have to understand that I am looking at this

15:06

through the prism of I did not

15:08

know back then, the evil

15:10

anarchy that I was dealing with. I

15:13

am talking to a game show host and

15:15

so you've got me legitimately cringing right

15:17

now.

15:19

I can't stop smiling. It's bad,

15:21

right? Well look, there's just this part again. Thank

15:23

you, John. Thank you, sir. Yeah,

15:26

it's like he's a military leader. Like he's gonna

15:28

be our commander in chief. Thank

15:30

you, sir.

15:32

Well, I wanna point out that in

15:34

these three years of talking to him, he

15:37

did as you might expect, just have a lot

15:39

of weird random brags. I

15:41

happen not to be a spanker. If

15:44

Ivanka did something wrong, I was never

15:46

a spanker. But there are spankers,

15:49

but

15:49

you know, there's a tremendous group of people

15:51

and I don't mean beaters, I mean spankers. There's a

15:53

vast difference. What did

15:55

we ask him? There's a vast difference.

15:58

That came out of a conversation about Adrian. in

16:00

Peterson. We just decided to ask

16:02

Trump about... Well, the thing

16:04

about what Trump would do. We asked Trump

16:07

about the moralities of hitting a child.

16:09

And he pointed out that...

16:11

I happen not to be a spanker. You

16:14

know, this is an important clarification. I was

16:16

never a spanker. But

16:19

the point of these tapes, when

16:21

you go through them and you really

16:23

relive those experiences... Well, it's the cringey

16:25

chumminess, is it not? Like that's the

16:28

undercurrent of Schmarm,

16:30

of us like all of us slapping each other

16:32

on the back at the golf club. I mean,

16:35

speaking of. The highest stakes that

16:37

Donald Trump has ever played for on the golf

16:39

course. Well, actually the highest stakes

16:41

are, you know, I've made some of my best deals on the golf

16:44

course and I've gotten to know people. And I

16:46

bought Trump Tower on, you know, Fifth

16:48

Avenue. I built it. But I bought the site because

16:50

of golf because the people that I played

16:52

golf with really liked me a lot. And

16:54

I made the deal because of them. I

16:57

mean, because of golf. And

16:58

I've made many great deals and

17:00

these are billion-dollar deals because

17:03

of golf. Trump, do you know what you just did to me? I

17:05

asked you... I turned

17:09

it around.

17:11

I answered it like a politician

17:14

talking about the most I ever played for. I

17:16

gave you an extra little spin. Maybe that

17:18

spin was more interesting. No,

17:21

no, Trump, answer that question.

17:24

I flipped it around. I liked my answer better.

17:27

I think it's fun. Trump, the audience

17:28

doesn't like that answer. They want first.

17:31

Maybe they like it. That's

17:35

as hard as he's ever been grilled right there.

17:37

I really drilled him. It really is. He

17:39

didn't answer the question. No, he actually

17:42

just continued to talk about his friends. Who

17:44

is your best famous friend? Like

17:46

among your famous friends, I'm giving you the opportunity

17:49

you've waited for all your life here, Trump, to

17:51

just name-drop all of your friends. And

17:53

so I'm wondering, who is your best of your famous

17:55

friends?

17:56

You know what people don't know about me? I have a lot of

17:58

friends. Bob Kraft is a friend. friend coach bella

18:01

check is a friend tom brady is a friend

18:03

and by the way tom brady is a great

18:05

guy buddy johnson of the jet is

18:07

a terrific i've a friend of mine and bread

18:09

will ponder the steinberg effect animal

18:12

as i just got back

18:13

from the united states golf association

18:16

with jack nicholas is a good friend of mine

18:18

was being honored jerry rice and

18:21

lawrence taylor played golf and i'm telling

18:23

you lawrence put on a chipping display i

18:25

play with michael jordan is a great guy

18:27

i've played with bill clinton a lot at

18:30

terrific i a terrific i'd

18:32

buy i will tell you that right now i am

18:35

deeply embarrassed but

18:38

i am deeply embarrassed beyond realms

18:41

beyond why you think i'm embarrassed

18:43

i'm

18:43

embarrassed by the sheer laziness of

18:45

that question tell me about your celebrity

18:49

tell me about who you hobnob

18:51

with

18:52

tell me about what it's like to be you

18:55

i'm just embarrassed by how little work went

18:57

into that question i'm disappointed that you didn't

18:59

follow up on bill clinton being

19:01

a terrific guy with anything about jeffrey abstain's island

19:04

personally well retrospax well yes

19:06

it with the clarity of hindsight yes it

19:08

is twenty twenty but there was

19:10

but the other part about these tapes is that there

19:12

is this wildly truly

19:15

eerie foreshadowing running through

19:17

it because we talked about how you

19:19

talked about adrian peterson and

19:21

that

19:22

random conversation about adrian

19:24

peterson

19:26

former viking star running back it

19:28

wound up here here's

19:30

the thing about adrian peterson famously he

19:32

has a death grip of a hand

19:35

shake famously you refuse

19:37

to shake hands correct well i

19:39

did check his hand and i do i really don't

19:41

refuse to shake hands but of course everyone

19:43

knows that i'm right because you catch calls

19:46

you catch clues you catch all sorts of things

19:48

by shaking hands but if you're living in this

19:50

society and i happen to like to jack japanese

19:52

custom better where you just said that look

19:55

at each other in your not

19:57

donald trump had a better

19:59

coherent and less racist towards

20:02

Asian people pandemic policy on

20:04

your show in 2014 Then

20:06

he did as president of the United States

20:09

in 2020. That is correct How

20:12

much more of this do I have to sit through? Well,

20:14

we got to get to the yachts What was the most

20:16

reckless period of the Donald Trump life

20:19

like give me the most reckless six

20:21

month or year-long period?

20:23

I went out and I bought adnan kashoggi's

20:25

yacht for a lot of money and I had

20:27

this yacht this tremendous yacht It

20:30

had 27 people on board working

20:33

It cost at the time 25 million

20:35

dollars now that was today the equivalent

20:37

to probably a hundred and something million dollars

20:40

and I had This magnificent yacht, but there was

20:42

a problem So I want

20:44

to pause that here

20:46

because you might think Dan that the problem with

20:48

buying adnan kashoggi's yacht Would

20:50

be that adnan kashoggi turned out

20:52

to be a renowned Saudi Arabian arms

20:54

dealer who sold weapons to autocrats?

20:57

Who also by the way famously had a bodyguard

20:59

it turns out that he literally

21:02

nicknamed quote mr. Kill

21:04

That was adnan kashoggi's bodyguard. But instead

21:07

instead the actual problem.

21:09

Donald Trump had with owning this blood yacht

21:12

Was this but there was a problem.

21:15

I didn't want to use it because I wanted to play golf So

21:17

I had a yacht sitting there waiting for

21:20

me at this massive crew and I'd

21:22

play 18 holes And I've won I've won a

21:24

lot of club championships So I'd be playing like at a

21:26

club championship and I didn't want to go

21:28

and go to the yacht after the round of golf

21:31

So it's that there's probably a the only

21:33

yacht owner that almost

21:35

never used his yacht

21:37

So you were? way

21:39

ahead in Terms of getting

21:42

Donald Trump on the public record Compromised

21:45

by Saudi Arabian arms dealers

21:47

again And all

21:50

I am hearing there and

21:52

I appreciate you saluting us for Hard-hitting

21:55

journalism there because we were ahead of the curve

21:58

all I'm hearing there is again the latest

21:59

and tell me how much money you have. Talk

22:02

to me about how much money

22:04

you have. Those, I don't

22:07

know if this is exactly the interview that people wanted

22:09

at this time from Donald Trump because

22:12

he was just famous for being famous. Sure. Oh

22:14

yeah, he was a celebrity. He

22:16

was a reality show personality.

22:18

And

22:21

so to your point about the questions you were

22:23

asking him, the very next question off

22:24

of this revelation about how he

22:26

bought this yacht. Not

22:29

a hard hitting Saudi question. Well, it was this.

22:31

Donald, give us the best party you've ever

22:34

attended. I

22:41

mean, okay, so just to be clear, what

22:43

you're doing right now is you've acted as

22:45

a first order of business

22:47

in the creation of this show that you've been talking

22:50

about for months. Months.

22:52

It's to embarrass the founder of this company

22:55

by resurrecting

22:57

a bunch of things that

22:59

not only I had forgotten about, but blissfully

23:01

and thankfully, the audience had

23:03

forgotten about until you remind them. Well,

23:06

this is why I'm reminding them. And this is why it's not

23:08

total embarrassment. It's because when

23:10

Stu asks this question. Donald,

23:13

give us the best party you've ever attended.

23:16

Obviously, this is absent any sort of

23:18

journalistic instinct. And

23:20

you fail to follow up on any of these sort of autocratic

23:23

adjacent

23:24

details. But what Trump says

23:26

in response to this question, Dan, is

23:29

kind of incredible.

23:31

Well, you know, it's a very interesting question because

23:34

it might've been last week. I went to

23:36

the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow.

23:39

And after the pageant in Crocus

23:41

Hall, which is a fantastic location

23:44

right outside, right inside of Moscow. And

23:47

everybody with all of the, you know, most of

23:49

the oligarchs were there. There was tremendous

23:51

wealth, unbelievably beautiful

23:54

women, including the people from the pageant who

23:56

were beyond belief. It could've topped

23:58

them all. It was wild.

24:00

I mean,

24:03

yeah. We need to just do the math

24:05

for the listeners here, okay? Because

24:08

I had to triple check what was just

24:10

said there.

24:11

And that week,

24:14

the wildest party week of

24:16

Donald Trump's life

24:18

is exactly when the P-tape

24:20

allegedly happened. Wow. The

24:23

alleged P-tape. This was November 2013.

24:27

This was the same month Trump was allegedly

24:29

taped watching prostitutes, yes, pee on a bed

24:32

in Moscow, host city of the Miss

24:34

Universe pageant, which he owned. The entire

24:37

shroud of how is an American president

24:39

this in bed with Russia, many

24:42

people suspect, although nothing has

24:44

ever been credibly linked to it, that

24:47

it was a party in which Russian oligarchs

24:50

have photographs of Donald Trump

24:52

being peed on by prostitutes,

24:54

by sex workers. Excuse me. Or

24:56

him, yes, watching them pee on

24:59

a bed that Barack Obama had rented in

25:01

that Ritz Carlton, allegedly.

25:03

All these theories apply.

25:04

None of which I asked him about. I

25:06

didn't raise a single journalistic antenna

25:09

to party with Russian oligarchs

25:11

being something that was probably

25:13

a bit of malfeasance in it.

25:15

But the point is, he

25:18

went on the record authentically

25:21

talking about that same week

25:23

in Moscow with Russian oligarchs,

25:27

the wildest week that he still could

25:29

not stop thinking about in November 2013, the week after this

25:31

happened. We got his first

25:33

public comment after possibly. Literally.

25:36

Literally because Stu Gatz asked this. That's

25:39

right. Donald, give us the best party you've ever

25:41

attended. Stu

25:44

Gatz accidentally gathered circumstantial

25:46

evidence for the most infamous rumored

25:49

tape in American political history. Government

25:51

evidence. I knew it until now because

25:54

everybody forgot about it. Because you decided

25:56

to start your career

25:57

shaming one of the founders of this

25:59

company. This is, by the way,

26:01

how you rewarded Stu Gatz's investigative

26:03

journalism in these interviews, by the way. No,

26:05

no, no! Can you fire my co-host on your way

26:07

out the door, Stu Gatz? I know everyone requests

26:10

this of you everywhere you go. Just fire Stu

26:12

Gatz. Tell him he's fired. Well, Stu Gatz, you are

26:14

absolutely fired. You don't have it. There's

26:16

no question about it. As a team, you're

26:18

phenomenal, but individually, you're

26:21

fired. So you are just actually

26:23

physically trying to become,

26:26

like, smaller, and you're trying

26:28

to shrink inside of yourself. It's hackery

26:30

of the highest order. Like, I'm just,

26:34

hey, real estate television

26:36

monkey. Do your television

26:38

real estate monkey phrase. It

26:41

was kind of like watching someone ask

26:43

Jaleel White to do a little Urkel. It was

26:45

that way. Just so lazy. It's just...

26:48

I'm mostly what

26:50

I'm embarrassed by. This is hard to

26:52

say. It's hard to think. It's

26:55

just what

26:56

a hack job that interview was. Just

26:59

embarrassing as content.

27:04

Even more embarrassment after

27:07

the break.

27:15

I

27:18

do want to be fair to you because there was

27:20

a real moment of legitimate journalistic

27:22

integrity. This is true. Because by this point,

27:24

again, Trump was reality TV star. People

27:26

didn't take him seriously. He had awful takes

27:29

that were sort of only vaguely addressed.

27:32

But you asked him directly about

27:34

this topic.

27:36

That birth certificate fiasco with the

27:38

president, that was just a nightmare, right? We'd

27:41

do that differently if we had to go back and do that over? No, I don't think

27:43

so. I mean, I think it was,

27:45

you know, there's a large group of people out

27:47

there that would like to see what's going on.

27:50

Look, right now, I will say this. This

27:52

country has bigger problems. Well, we have a health

27:54

care thing that's in total shambles. And

27:56

you can't get a website after spending a billion

27:58

dollars. I mean... we have some

28:00

very big problems but no i don't consider that

28:03

at all there's so many people i walked down the street

28:05

and people are screaming keep it going keep

28:07

it going to love it now maybe they like it for entertainment

28:10

and maybe they like it because they believe it but

28:13

that is a uh... you know it it was

28:15

a very very serious object and there are a lot of

28:17

people out there that agree so that

28:19

you know i don't again no regrets

28:21

whatsoever i just think that i'm onto

28:24

other things

28:25

so the whole demanding barack

28:27

obama provide his birth certificate to

28:29

prove that he's an american thing no follow up

28:31

from me after that how we'd the hardest

28:34

uh... the the most that i lean into it

28:36

was we do that one over again differently

28:38

when we that was my controversial stance on

28:40

it

28:41

yeah the thing you did next was actually did the stukas

28:43

your fired thing that came after this so

28:48

yeah followed it with the natural follow-up

28:50

but this part of his defense

28:52

i felt was really actually interesting

28:55

because he remembered in all of that monologue

28:58

he kind of just gave away the

29:00

game a little bit now maybe they like

29:02

it for entertainment and maybe they like it

29:04

because they believe it and that sort of instinct

29:07

and again on the record with you is is

29:10

why he was already instinctively

29:12

good at politics before people actually

29:14

took him seriously about politics right i

29:16

mean this was the whole thing he was shameless

29:19

about what his actual thinking

29:20

was he was kind of a sports radio

29:23

caller who was staggeringly transparent

29:25

about where his instincts had led him

29:28

i don't think there's anything in

29:32

my life nevermind the history of american

29:34

politics as i viewed it

29:37

that has left me feeling

29:39

more foolish then underestimating

29:44

what total shamelessness could

29:46

do to american systems

29:48

that i thought were stronger than that i

29:51

gotta think that as we talk about

29:53

this i'm assuming there's going to

29:55

be fear involved for him on the

29:57

idea that indictment from every corner

29:59

of the universe might

30:02

put him in jail for a long time, but for

30:05

his last move to be not

30:07

if I topple the entire system

30:09

to prevent the checks and balances from working,

30:12

I would have never guessed that I would be so stupid

30:15

as to think that that entity,

30:17

that from that entity could come

30:19

the challenging of like the principles

30:21

we hold dearest allegedly as a country.

30:24

No, and it's especially ironic that you say

30:26

that because you did ask

30:28

him about this.

30:30

Donald, do me a favor, break news right here

30:32

on this show on ESPN radio. Don't wait

30:34

till June. Are you running for office? Are

30:37

you running for president? So I'm looking at it very seriously,

30:39

fellas. And by the way, you guys have a great show. That's why

30:41

I'm doing it. But I think you have a great show. I watch it

30:43

a lot. But I am thinking about it very,

30:46

very seriously. And the country's

30:48

in trouble. We're being laughed at by everybody. China's

30:50

taking our jobs. They're taking our manufacturing.

30:53

They're loaning us the money. They're taking our money.

30:57

And then they loan it back to us. We owe China now $1.3 trillion. Can

31:00

you believe trillion? $1.3 trillion. Mexico's

31:04

not our friend. Mexico is doing a number

31:06

on us, not only at the border, but they're doing a number

31:09

economically. They're taking our jobs like crazy.

31:12

Ford just announced a two and a half billion dollar

31:14

plant in Mexico. I am looking at

31:16

it very seriously. And I'll

31:19

be announcing in June. And I think a

31:21

lot of people are gonna be very, very surprised. One

31:23

thing I will tell you, if I decide to do it and

31:25

if I win, I will make this country great again.

31:29

That part. Dan, I

31:31

was sitting next to you when he

31:33

said that. And it

31:35

occurs to me only now

31:38

that that was the first time I

31:40

would hear a phrase that has been said millions

31:43

of times since that we will hear unto eternity.

31:46

I will make this country great again.

31:48

Was in some sense debuted

31:50

soft launched as we were interviewing

31:53

this man at ESPN

31:55

radio with a Stu gots question that has

31:57

one of my favorite things in it to replay

31:59

the.

31:59

so that people can hear one

32:02

of my favorite things, which is Stu

32:04

Gotts feeling like he's tripping while

32:07

running in the middle of a thought.

32:09

Donald, do me a favor. Break news right here

32:11

on this show on ESPN Radio. Don't wait till June. Are

32:14

you running for office? I'm

32:17

looking at it. The sound

32:19

of him being punched, it sounds like. The

32:21

sound of him being tased in the middle. One of my

32:23

favorite things. So three weeks

32:25

after Stu Gotts

32:27

gets tased, answering,

32:30

asking this question that Donald Trump answers, he

32:33

runs for president. Three weeks after

32:35

this, that's the timeline. That was

32:37

his final appearance on the show,

32:39

and I'm assuming,

32:40

based on how you have physically viscerally

32:43

reacted, that that was also the last time

32:45

that you personally ever talked to Donald

32:47

Trump. It is, and I also

32:49

just have washing over me, like

32:52

when you say visceral, that's one

32:54

thing that's washing over me. But

32:57

I haven't felt a long time the way

33:00

that I feel right now where I'm

33:02

listening to something back that we have done, and I'm

33:05

genuinely afraid of what it is that

33:07

happens next and how it is that

33:09

it's going to embarrass

33:10

me because, yeah,

33:13

because in retrospect, it becomes very

33:15

clear how foolish we were. But let's talk

33:17

through this because the reason I wanted to do this is

33:19

because you obviously became

33:22

one of the foremost critics

33:24

of Trump

33:25

in sports media, in media generally,

33:28

you risked your employment. There's

33:31

a racial division in this country that's being

33:33

instigated by the president, and

33:35

we here at ESPN haven't had the

33:37

stomach for that fight. But what happened

33:39

last night at this rally

33:41

is deeply offensive. Send

33:45

her back about a Somali

33:47

refugee who serves in Congress. This

33:50

is deeply offensive to me

33:52

as somebody whose parents made all the sacrifices

33:55

to get to this country.

33:56

Send her back. How are you any more American than her?

34:00

You're more privileged, you're whiter, you're

34:02

richer, but people don't know whether your money's real

34:04

or not. You've had every privilege

34:07

afforded to you by America, every

34:09

privilege. And now what you do with that

34:11

power is you go after brown people and black

34:14

people and minorities, and

34:16

around here we won't talk about it. The

34:19

idea that you did

34:21

those interviews and then

34:24

you did all of that criticism and

34:26

you feel the way you do now, how

34:28

are these things informing each other inside

34:31

of your heart? Well, one of the

34:33

things that I'm looking

34:35

back at as you

34:37

talk about some of this stuff is

34:42

just being truly shocked

34:45

that I had

34:47

no idea from that perspective

34:50

of my view of America that

34:52

that conversation would

34:55

be seen as something dangerous instead

34:57

of playful because I'm

34:59

arming somebody casually with the ability

35:02

to say, no, I don't regret that

35:04

I was claiming that Obama

35:06

had a fake birth certificate.

35:08

I think that you will find somewhere

35:11

if you go through the sound, my guess is you

35:13

can find my voice on something saying

35:15

that I was hoping that Donald Trump

35:17

would run for president, not because I thought

35:19

that he would win in any conceivable,

35:23

fathomable idea, but because I wanted

35:25

the circus of anarchy that would come with him

35:27

debating legitimate politicians. Of

35:29

course. I wanted the entertainment, the spectacle

35:32

of it. But that's actually what you

35:34

talked to him about as well when it came to

35:36

him

35:37

doing something closer to

35:39

sports. I would love for you to be

35:41

an owner though, because you'd be so meddlesome. Oh

35:43

my God, you'd be. I would be totally meddlesome.

35:46

Every time you said something bad about me that I

35:48

made a bad move, I'd call you. I know, I mean,

35:50

you would be a disaster. I would be a total

35:52

disaster. I'd be a disaster for you,

35:54

although you guys would like it. You'd be so much

35:57

worse. You'd be so much worse

35:59

than Jerry Jones.

36:01

It would be. Facts. But

36:04

the point that you wanted the

36:06

chaos and the anarchy because there was entertainment

36:08

in that,

36:11

and the reason why you believed that that

36:13

was a worthwhile goal despite the risks

36:15

was because you had a belief in the fortitude, the

36:17

resiliency of America's institutions.

36:20

The irony here seems to be that you were actually,

36:23

ironically, too patriotic.

36:26

You thought that America would never do

36:28

this because you believed in America so much, and

36:31

instead the bullshit

36:33

that we do in sports, in reality

36:36

television, entertainment, that would never

36:38

actually get all the way into the Oval

36:40

Office when, in fact, exactly

36:42

that is what happened. The naivete,

36:45

and it is a bit stupefying, I guess

36:47

it's sort of,

36:49

it would be the

36:53

articulation of privilege

36:56

to assume that the America

36:59

that I thought existed was

37:04

what I experienced, as others were not

37:06

experiencing that America because

37:08

I wasn't thinking about things like gerrymandering.

37:11

I wasn't studying what

37:13

it meant to put in federal judges

37:16

in positions where they could distort law. Like

37:19

in some ways, when

37:21

it came to politics, a bit of an infant

37:24

soaked in embryonic fluid about

37:27

what it is that

37:29

could happen to America because I didn't

37:32

think America was that flimsy that it could be toppled

37:34

by an oaf. I didn't think, an

37:36

oaf shouting fake news. Not only did I believe

37:38

in America that way, I believed in media

37:41

that way. The idea that journalism would

37:43

matter more. You can't just shout down journalism

37:46

by being a real estate liar

37:48

and criminal who just shouts fake news,

37:51

but you can.

37:52

Right. No, the fact checkers actually don't have

37:54

to matter if you don't let them

37:56

was what he sort of realized. And to your

37:58

point, the question I ask myself is,

37:59

and I asked myself as a person who was with

38:02

you in that interview that we're both cringing at. I

38:04

was right next to you. I noticed you didn't play

38:06

any sound from you in that interview. Well, this is

38:08

my show.

38:10

The question. You did ask questions,

38:12

right? You didn't sit anything out, right? You did

38:15

participate. All right, fine. Donald,

38:18

I'm curious, is there a

38:20

story of somebody from sports asking

38:22

you for advice and do you recall a

38:24

notable piece of advice you gave to somebody

38:27

in the world of athletics? Well,

38:29

I get it all the time. I mean, you talk about deflategate.

38:32

I talk about those folks and, you

38:34

know, frankly, I think Tom Brady

38:36

should sue the NFL for $250 million and

38:39

settle for nothing and,

38:40

you know, get out of this thing. But, you

38:42

know. That's a good soundbite, though. That's

38:44

a good one thing I felt good about. Did

38:47

they put it on ESPN? They should have. Did

38:49

they put the scroll, the Trump, Tom Brady should

38:51

sue the NFL for $250 million? That sounds

38:53

like a legitimate piece of news. We

38:56

made real news. And now the question

38:58

that I have to ask myself with

39:01

you here is

39:02

a question I ask myself a lot in

39:04

these times, hashtag these times.

39:08

Are we the bad people in the documentary?

39:11

Are we the people who missed

39:14

the thing that obviously ended up

39:16

in the next scene being horribly,

39:19

horribly explosive to everything we

39:21

now say we care about?

39:23

I think that if you're showing

39:26

this graphically, what it should look

39:28

like as a montage is sort of Confederate

39:31

statues toppling, you

39:34

know, Nazis in the street

39:36

in Tallahassee and sort

39:38

of the jovial cackle of Stu

39:40

Gotts in the background just laughing,

39:43

throwing his head back and saying, what

39:45

was the best party you attended, Donald?

39:48

Donald, give us the best party you've ever

39:50

attended. Yes, here

39:53

are the complicit enablers, the fools

39:55

who helped an army

39:57

of hatred overtake democracy.

40:00

Is it just guilt? Is that the feeling

40:02

in

40:03

your chest cavity? Is it just guilt? I

40:05

mean you make this company

40:07

Metalarc Media Founded on

40:09

a principle of

40:11

I'm gonna do things differently

40:14

Very differently. I'm gonna do things I could not

40:16

do before I join up under

40:18

that same ages

40:19

How does what we

40:21

just revisited?

40:23

intersect with your ambition here I

40:27

Both of the feelings that I have

40:29

in both starting the company and listening

40:32

to that are Similar in

40:34

that I'm thinking to myself as

40:37

it happens God damn I

40:39

did not know I could be this big of a fool

40:41

showing my ass in front of this many

40:43

people but if your starting

40:46

point on all of that is being able

40:48

to make fun of yourself because you

40:50

were a fool and you tried to do a vaguely

40:53

principled thing at ESPN

40:56

by leaving

40:57

to create your own thing in 2024 when

41:01

I was telling people in the creation of this company

41:04

I feel like these microphones are gonna matter the

41:06

independence of these microphones

41:09

is gonna matter I didn't see a writers strike coming

41:11

or corporatization of The

41:13

content economy coming But I

41:15

did say to skipper and anybody who believed

41:18

in the idea of the creation of this company

41:20

That we need to have the freedom of the microphones

41:23

in 2024 so we can learn

41:25

from our mistakes and so that we can do

41:27

it better and the ideas

41:29

that I had about America handed

41:32

down from my parents and grandparents near

41:34

the Freedom Tower because America

41:36

was the place that wasn't communism that

41:38

wasn't Cuba that wasn't a dictatorship.

41:41

I wanted to make sure that we had Microphones

41:44

in Miami not because I knew Florida would go this

41:46

bad Not because I knew

41:48

that the press in general

41:50

would come under siege But

41:53

because we'd built something in 20

41:55

years and I wanted to protect it.

41:57

This is where I do want to like

41:59

sort of sit up

41:59

up straight a little bit

42:01

and not be totally cowed by our

42:03

past selves as much as we are embarrassed to be

42:06

our past selves. And

42:08

it's because what you did,

42:10

what we did

42:12

was truly recognize Donald

42:14

Trump's superpower. It was

42:16

not merely a willingness to disregard

42:19

the truth and certainly a shamelessness

42:21

about destroying America's institutions. It

42:24

was that he is entertaining. He

42:28

was funny.

42:29

You

42:31

have told me before, you'd like to collect weirdos,

42:35

strange people.

42:36

Trump qualified because

42:38

he is not just funny intentionally.

42:40

More than that, he's

42:44

funny without trying. And

42:46

that part,

42:48

like him being a sports talk radio caller,

42:50

literally with you, and also as a

42:52

matter of just wiring mentally, he's

42:54

an A plus gas bag man. And

42:57

he spawned imitators, but the

42:59

reason why he succeeded was because

43:02

you actually want to

43:04

watch and listen to him.

43:06

Despite all of it, he's just actually

43:09

good at that.

43:10

But the celebrity guest is supposed to

43:12

always remain a guest. He's not supposed to

43:14

beat all the Republican nominees and

43:16

then become a guest who lives in the White House and

43:19

can then take all of the

43:21

systems to just pour them into

43:23

his own bank accounts. Yes,

43:26

ideally. With a system breaking that

43:28

none of us had any idea that

43:31

the key to surviving a single

43:34

Watergate is just to have a thousand

43:36

of them. Yes, bed of nails theory. Don't

43:38

get punctured by one scandal, have a thousand

43:40

of them so that none of them can puncture

43:42

the skin. It's unbelievable.

43:45

But the idea of now are we hypocrites,

43:47

right? Because I'm anticipating all of the stuff coming back

43:49

at us because I have decided to do this from the first show.

43:52

I do not believe that we are hypocrites because

43:55

hypocrisy and

43:56

intellectual dishonesty, that

43:59

would be. to say, no, he was

44:02

never actually

44:03

that interesting.

44:05

And in fact, I

44:07

would never listen to him today

44:10

because the reality is

44:12

when he gets on a debate stage, Dan,

44:14

I'm gonna be watching and listening and

44:16

probably laughing at some of those clips.

44:19

I admit this, like it's not like

44:21

I have found religion where I am now cleansed

44:23

and all of my instincts towards why

44:26

is this man interesting and entertaining and funny have been erased.

44:29

The battle that I

44:30

am going to have to sort of reckon with

44:33

as I go through another election cycle as

44:35

just a guy in this country is, am

44:38

I not supposed to laugh anymore? If

44:41

you put him on a debate stage with DeSantis, I'm

44:43

at least watching your part just

44:45

to see how scared DeSantis gets

44:48

and how, yeah, how

44:50

frozen in the lights he gets.

44:52

No, I mean, look, the reality of what this is,

44:54

and I now am just like on the therapy couch

44:56

with you, we're both sort of like sitting in a, lying

44:59

in a king size therapy couch together, is

45:03

I feel like we have to be honest about what

45:05

he's good at and that to deny

45:07

it, to sort of indulge

45:10

the moral scolding that we did not

45:12

do when he was on the radio with you

45:15

is to,

45:16

And you. And me, is

45:19

to amplify his

45:20

power because the whole point

45:23

of him, the reason why he is appealing is

45:25

because he sort of has changed that formula

45:28

on, they used to say about presidential candidates, you

45:30

want it to be somebody who you drink a beer

45:33

with. With Donald Trump, it's different. It's a little

45:35

different. You want him, Donald

45:37

Trump, you want to watch him while

45:40

drinking a beer.

45:41

He is entertaining you.

45:43

And that part of it,

45:45

if we're not honest about his skill,

45:48

if these candidates were, if the Democratic

45:51

candidate is not honest in a

45:53

debate about, look,

45:54

that guy is about to be 10 times

45:57

more entertaining than me. It

45:59

does feel like a good guy. I feel like part of the game, if

46:01

you choose to play it with him, is

46:04

to concede that I am not

46:06

going to out Charisma. This

46:08

man whose Charisma is fueled by the

46:10

most base instincts that

46:12

are only found at the

46:14

most compelling,

46:16

perversely compelling levels of

46:19

Sports Talk Radio.

46:21

He is that, right? He is the Sports Talk

46:23

Radio caller. He is New York

46:26

Sports Talk Radio. Yes, yes, yes.

46:29

It's guy who knows it all, even though he doesn't know

46:31

very much at all, as somebody

46:34

that Mike and the MadTug are throwing

46:36

their entertainment vehicle to. Here,

46:38

Donald on a mobile, please do

46:41

our job for us with this call. Be

46:43

entertaining by whatever it is you

46:45

have to say. Donald from Queens, Dan,

46:48

was not just any Sports Radio caller. He

46:50

was your

46:51

Sports Radio caller.

46:53

You're delighting a little

46:56

bit too much. That

46:58

laughter, you've been muffling it the entire time.

47:00

It's been in your sternum the entire

47:02

time we've been doing this. I legitimately

47:05

thought when you gave me the vague notion

47:08

of, we'll be doing the Trump tapes, I'm like,

47:10

do I have to listen to some wiretaps

47:13

or something around the

47:15

documents that they found in his toilet? How

47:17

are you not going to give me some information

47:19

on what the Trump tapes are, only to find

47:22

out that there are three interviews with Trump,

47:23

one of which I remember? Yeah,

47:26

it was just going to be me the entire time

47:28

just pressing this button. Thank you, sir.

47:35

You, uh... Thank you, sir. Yeah,

47:37

you're an asshole. Thank

47:40

you, sir.

47:56

All right,

47:59

so you may... have noticed that this show

48:01

is not actually over yet, unless

48:04

Dan has already cancelled it, in which

48:06

case I do understand. But

48:09

I wanted to explain what we're gonna be doing

48:11

at the very end of our episodes because

48:13

here at Pablo Torre finds out we

48:16

do

48:17

in fact f*** around. Shout

48:19

out to Daniel Baldwin and everyone who listened to our

48:21

trailer. But after each episode

48:24

I do want to honor our literal

48:26

title by going a little bit

48:28

doogie-hauser and just taking a second

48:31

to reflect on what exactly I found out

48:33

in a given day.

48:39

And today there was

48:41

a lot.

48:44

Something we didn't even get into I realize

48:47

is that when we fed the audio files

48:50

of these Trump interviews into our high-tech

48:52

transcript generator the

48:54

AI literally could not tell

48:56

the difference between Trump and

48:59

Stu Gotts. That

49:02

is not a joke. Their cadences, their

49:04

voices are so similar

49:06

that their quotes all got labeled as

49:08

each other by artificial intelligence.

49:12

But what I really found out

49:16

is a lot simpler.

49:18

Because I believe that America

49:20

deserves to know the truth. The

49:23

truth about how yes lots of

49:25

media figures from Seth Meyers to

49:27

Jon Stewart have all been blamed

49:29

for inspiring Trump to seek higher

49:31

office.

49:32

But that narrative has been missing

49:35

a crucial piece.

49:39

Today what I found out is

49:42

that Dan Levittard and

49:45

his long-forgotten radio interviews

49:47

with Donald Trump are

49:49

clearly responsible for

49:52

the ongoing collapse of American

49:54

democracy.

50:02

This

50:02

has been Pablo Torre finds out, a Metalarc Media

50:04

production.

50:10

And I'll talk to you next time.