Month: April 2018

The Trump Org tried to strongarm the Panamanian government

by digby

Because of course they did:

Lawyers representing U.S. President Donald Trump’s family hotel business appealed to Panama’s president for help days before an emergency arbitrator declined to reinstate the Trump management team to a luxury waterfront hotel.

The Britton & Iglesias firm, which has represented the Trump Organization in its fight to continue running the hotel, addressed a letter dated March 22 to President Juan Carlos Varela.

A copy of the letter was provided to The Associated Press by contacts who have worked as a liaison to the building’s owners in Panama.

The letter asks Varela to intervene, complaining that Panama’s courts denied the organization due process in violation of a bilateral treaty and warning there could be consequences for the country.

The letter written to Varela says it seeks to “URGENTLY request your influence in relation to a commercial dispute involving Trump Hotel aired before Panama’s judiciary.”

In February, Orestes Fintiklis, the hotel’s majority owner, tried to fire Trump’s hotel management and take control of the property for the owners’ association. Trump’s family company beefed up security, but on March 5, judicial officials sided with Fintiklis. Police officers ordered the Trump management team out of the building.

On March 27, an arbitrator in the U.S. ruled that Trump’s company should not have been evicted while arbitration was ongoing with the hotel owners, but said he would not reinstate the previous management.
On Monday, Panama’s foreign secretary Isabel de Saint Malo said her office had also been copied on the letter.

“It is a letter that urges Panama’s executive branch to interfere in an issue clearly of the judicial branch,” de Saint Malo said. “I don’t believe the executive branch has a position to take while the issue is in the judicial process.”
[…]

The letter goes on to say that the eviction violates the Bilateral Investment Treaty. “We appreciate your influence in order to avoid that these damages are attributed not to the other party, but to the Panamanian government,” the letter said, suggesting that the government, not the new management team, could be blamed for wrongdoing.

There’s nothing remotely untoward about the president’s personal business threatening the Panamania government with a charge of violating a treaty is they don’t intervene on behalf of the president’s private business.

Perfectly fine. No problem. Carry on.

The Panamanians didn’t capitulate which only proves that they have more integrity than the president of the United States.

,

Remember, the FBI raided Trump Org associates last week, asking about Cohen

by digby

The FBI raided Michael Cohen’s office and residence today. The right wing is losing its mind saying that Mueller is going after the Stormy Daniels case which is nonsense. Maybe there’s something there. But this is what it’s probably about.

McClatchy reported this last week:

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators this week questioned an associate of the Trump Organization who was involved in overseas deals with President Donald Trump’s company in recent years.

Armed with subpoenas compelling electronic records and sworn testimony, Mueller’s team showed up unannounced at the home of the business associate, who was a party to multiple transactions connected to Trump’s effort to expand his brand abroad, according to persons familiar with the proceedings.

Investigators were particularly interested in interactions involving Michael D. Cohen, Trump’s longtime personal attorney and a former Trump Organization employee. Among other things, Cohen was involved in business deals secured or sought by the Trump Organization in Georgia, Kazakhstan and Russia.

The move to question business associates of the president adds a significant new element to the Mueller investigation, which began by probing whether the Trump campaign and Russia colluded in an effort to get Trump elected but has branched far beyond that.

It’s unclear how many properties or deals the Mueller team might be looking at; the Trump Organization’s foreign business relationships span the globe from properties in Panama, Brazil and Uruguay to Azerbaijan and Georgia. Trump’s children — Ivanka, Don Jr. and Eric — were parties to talks involving many of the dealings. Generally, the discussions revolved around licensing fees for use of the Trump name.

Prior indictments and guilty pleas secured by the Mueller team to date have focused on campaign personnel such as ex-campaign chief Paul J. Manafort, his aide Richard Gates and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

The New York Times reported on March 15 that Mueller had subpoenaed unspecified records from the Trump Organization. Days before that, the Washington Post reported that Mueller’s team was looking into a Moscow hotel deal for which Cohen brought to Donald Trump a letter of intent from a Moscow developer during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Cohen left the Trump Organization in January 2017, and has been front-page news of late because of his acknowledgement that he paid $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the November 2016 elections through a company established for the purpose of buying her silence with a non-disclosure agreement. Daniels has sought to toss out that agreement, appearing last month on a 60 Minutes broadcast to describe her alleged 2006 extramarital affair with then-businessman Trump. Speaking to reporters on Air Force One Thursday, Trump denied knowledge of the payment to Daniels, deferring to Cohen.

“You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael is my attorney,” Trump said. “You’ll have to ask Michael.”

Cohen and Trump Organization attorney Alan Garten did not respond to requests for comment.

Before the Daniels flap, which includes a defamation suit she brought against him on March 26, Cohen was headline fodder because of revelations that he pursued a hotel deal for Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign.

His partner in that effort was Russian émigré and former Trump Organization associate Felix Sater, whose involvement in the pursuit of a Moscow-area hotel became public last year at a time when n ow-President Trump was insisting that he had no business interests in Russia.

The two men have said they teamed with a Russian group called I.C. Expert Consulting, and Cohen last year provided a detailed letter to congressional investigators about the deal and why it did not come to fruition. Appearing on MSNBC last month, Sater said that the local developer had sought financing from the Russian bank VTB, a big lender in Russia but one sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in September 2014, with its subsidiaries added to the list the following year.

Sater is cooperating with Mueller’s investigation and provided more than six hours of closed-door testimony on Wednesday to the Senate Intelligence Committee, which also focused heavily on the deals involving Cohen, according to multiple people with knowledge of the hearing. Sater previously provided similar closed-door testimony to the House Intelligence Committee in December 2017.

President Trump has repeatedly said he has no business deals with Russians or Russian companies, and that he had no knowledge of any campaign collusion with Russia. Reports last year about the Moscow hotel served only to raise more questions, however.

Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump

House Intelligence Committee votes to release final report. FINDINGS: (1) No evidence provided of Collusion between Trump Campaign & Russia. (2) The Obama Administrations Post election response was insufficient. (3) Clapper provided inconsistent testimony on media contacts.
3:07 AM – Mar 23, 2018
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McClatchy reported last year that Trump sought to splash his name across a giant glass obelisk-shaped hotel in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, and that he had taken out copyrights on everything from vodka to hotels across the former Soviet empire and even in Iran.

An in-depth investigation by the New Yorker magazine last year spotlighted the Trump Tower Baku in Azerbaijan, where the Trump Organization’s partners on the deal were relatives of a rich government minister whose family had business entanglements with a people tied to Iran’s notorious military unit, the Revolutionary Guards.

Shortly before that report came out, the Trump Organization in December 2016 said it was walking away from a deal to have his name atop a planned hotel, condo and casino development in Batumi, a Black Sea city that leaders of the former Soviet republic of Georgia said would become a regional destination. Trump lawyers originally blamed their Georgia partners before changing their tune to say the Trump empire was stepping away from foreign entanglements with Trump about to take office.

Just saying. There’s a lot more here than what the news is saying.

Dearest John Bolton

by tristero

Dearest John,

Now that you’re National Security Advisor, I assume you will try to implement the first-strike plan you outlined recently. It’s discussed with considerable alarm in this article the NY Times. And I’ve read for years about your general enthusiasm for military solutions, despite what some of your acolytes are saying to try to reassure the rest of us that you’re basically ok. Well, I have some advice from history for you.

One of your heroes is clearly General Curtis Lemay, who commanded the firebombing of Tokyo during WW 2 and was George Wallace’s running partner for president. Here is Gen. Lemay and one of his cronies secretly taped during the Cuban Missile Crisis of November, 1962:

General LeMay: If we don’t do anything to Cuba, then they’re going to push on Berlin, and push real hard because they’ve got us on the run. . . . This blockade and political action, I see leading into war. . . .This is almost as bad as the appeasement at Munich. . . . I just don’t see any other solution except direct military action right now. . . . A blockade, and political talk, would be considered by a lot of our friends and neutrals as being a pretty weak response to this. And I’m sure a lot of our own citizens would feel that way, too. You’re in a pretty bad fix, Mr. President. 

The President: What did you say? 

General LeMay: You’re in a pretty bad fix. 

The meeting ends. General LeMay and Gen. David Shoup of the Marines linger. General Shoup is impressed by the other’s bluntness: 

General Shoup: You pulled the rug right out from under him. Goddamn. 

General LeMay: Jesus Christ. What the hell do you mean? 

General Shoup: Somebody’s got to keep them from doing the goddamn thing piecemeal. That’s our problem. . . . Do the son of a bitch, and do it right. . . .

Lemay also said:

Now, as for the Berlin situation, I don’t share your view that if we knock off Cuba, they’re going to knock off Berlin. We’ve got the Berlin problem staring us in the face anyway. If we don’t do anything to Cuba, then they’re going to push on Berlin and push real hard because they’ve got us on the run. If we take military action against Cuba, then I think that the . . . 

JFK What do you think their reprisal would be? 

LeMay I don’t think they’re going to make any reprisal if we tell them that the Berlin situation is just like it’s always been.

Sounds like you, doesn’t it? The bluntness, the belligerence, the over-confidence spilling into hubris. And Lemay went to his grave believing he was right, that Kennedy was a coward, and he should have invaded Cuba, that if JFK had only listened to him, the US would have prevailed within days.

But what Lemay didn’t know was that had Kennedy invaded Cuba, American troops would almost certainly have been met by tactical nuclear missiles. The immediate number of casualties would have been catastrophic and within days, there would have been global nuclear war.

As for Lemay’s prediction that “This blockade and political action, I see leading into war:” The war never happened.

In short, dearest John, you don’t know what you’re doing and your belligerent attitude is likely to lead to a worldwide disaster. People far more level-headed than me are terrified you have this job.

So, John, please do us all a huge favor and resign now. Today. Immediately. It’s the right thing to do.

Thanks for taking the time to read this letter.

Love,

tristero

Are they really such suckers?

by digby

Trump tells US farmers they have to take one for the team:

“If during the course of a negotiation they want to hit the farmers because they think that hits me, I wouldn’t say that’s nice, but I tell you, our farmers are great patriots,” Trump said. “These are great patriots. They understand that they’re doing this for the country. And we’ll make it up to them. In the end they’re going to be much stronger than they are right now.”

I’m sure they’re fine with that. They voted for Trump because he aired all their grievances. Hurting them is all about hurting Dear Leader and they need to trust that he’ll “take care of them” whatever that means. Maybe he’ll write them a personal check but I wouldn’t get my hopes up. He doesn’t even pay his bills.

Basically he wants American exporters to sacrifice so he can demonstrate to the world what huge hands he has. That’s how he always does business. He struts around while other people do the work and pay the price.

We’ll have to see how far their devotion really reaches. The last I heard he was going to make everyone very very rich. Sacrifice wasn’t on the menu.

.

For those of us who have been closely following politics for the past couple of decades the following words are undoubtedly something we never in a million years expected to read: today is John Bolton’s first day as the National Security Adviser to the  president of the United States. After observing his years of extremist rhetoric and his checkered career in government, it seemed unimaginable that Bolton would ever attain such an important job. But then, it was once unimaginable that a reality TV host and shill for cheap consumer goods could become president either. Perhaps it’s time to recognize that we are so far down the rabbit hole that comparing this administration to what we previously called reality isn’t particularly relevant.

In an unusual move for this president, Bolton’s predecessor, H.R. McMaster, was allowed to leave with some sense of dignity, even though he had been subtly critical of the president over his handling of Russia in a couple of speeches in his final days. Trump apparently allowed everyone in the White House to pretend that McMaster wasn’t fired and must have approved his staff giving the departing general a big send-off. (You know they wouldn’t have done this without the president’s OK.)

This felt…odd…from the North Driveway. This picture only adds to that feeling, since McMaster was FIRED by their boss. Not defiance, but… pic.twitter.com/9RvOlLbYNQ

— John T. Bennett (@BennettJohnT) April 7, 2018

I’m sure most in the White House were genuinely sad to see him go, considering who is replacing him. This administration has been careening wildly from the beginning, but it’s about to take a sharp right turn.
The White House announced on Sunday night that another top national security aide, Michael Anton, would be leaving to spend more time with his far right intellectuals. Anton is best known for his pseudonymous essay “The Flight 93 Election,” a bizarre metaphor in which the nation was 9/11’s Flight 93, Hillary Clinton was the liberal globalist terrorist who was trying to take over the plane and Donald Trump was the heroic passenger Todd Beamer saying “let’s roll” and charging the cockpit. (I confess I never understood why anyone thought this was so inspiring, since the plane crashed, killing everyone on board.)

According to the Hill, Anton was once a true-blue Trumper who changed in the White House and became aligned with those considered more moderate. One source was quoted saying that Anton “completely flipped. He was brought in because of [Michael] Flynn but he became the biggest cheerleader for the McMaster faction that fought against implementing the president’s policies.”

In any case, he’s the last of the original America Firsters, and Bolton will be able to build his team in his own image. His biggest problem is going to be the same as any other White House adviser — making coherent policy with Trump all over the map. Those who believe Trump is an isolationist probably think he and Bolton are a bad match. In fact, they share the same domineering sensibilities and, with the exception of Israel, have no affinity for any of America’s allies. Much as they might disagree on the wisdom of invading Iraq, they both share a deeply held conviction that “nation building” is for losers.

As Kmele Foster, former host of Fox Business’ “The Independents,” told Tina Nguyen of Vanity Fair, “Trump and Bolton are probably more alike from a dispositional, philosophical standpoint than most people appreciate. I don’t think he’s likely to turn [Trump] into a neocon, because I don’t think the guy’s really that much of a neocon himself. I’m being generous here, or I’m being over-broad but [Bolton] would have been happy to install a dictator [in Iraq] who would have at least been subservient to the United States — even if he was kind of an awful monster — because he’s not concerned with those totalitarian impulses or human-rights violations, per se.”

I would guess that dovetails nicely with Trump’s own view. As long as the U.S. could extract as much of the nation’s natural resources as it chooses, he’d be happy to install friendly dictators everywhere. He certainly admires many of those who exist today.

There is little doubt that Bolton would agree wholeheartedly with Trump’s approach to warfare, as reported by The Washington Post:

Trump’s words, both in public and private, describe a view that wars should be brutal and swift, waged with overwhelming firepower and, in some cases, with little regard for civilian casualties. Victory over America’s enemies for the president is often a matter of bombing “the s— out of them,” as he said on the campaign trail.

In Trump’s current “unleashed” mood, he is apparently taking contrarian stances to demonstrate his dominance. The Washington Post reported that the president’s directive to the Pentagon to achieve “victory” against ISIS in Syria within six months and then withdraw completely came as a surprise to the brass, since they had in the past had success with presenting Trump with binary choices heavily weighted to favor their own consensus. It didn’t work this time and he issued the order, leaving them to scramble trying to figure out how to carry out his order. (Personally, I think he just wants to be able to say he “won” a war and then have his big victory parade.)

Walking into a spear
by Tom Sullivan

Somehow I missed Facebook’s alleged role in the alleged genocide in Myanmar. (That’s already too many alleges.) Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy brought it up Sunday on “Face The Nation.” He will be questioning Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in hearings this week on Capitol Hill:

Kennedy, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee that will hear Zuckerberg, voiced concerns not only about the breach but also about Facebook’s role in disseminating false information — which, he noted, helped contribute to a possible genocide against the Rohingya in Myanmar.

“We can do it the easy way, or the hard way,” he said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” urging Zuckerberg to be frank and suggest solutions. “I do not want to regulate Facebook half to death, but we do have two major problems we’ve discovered.”

Kennedy also worried aloud that the issues may be “too big for Facebook to fix.”

Vox provides some background on Kennedy’s comments:

Close to 700,000 Rohingya, a minority Muslim group, have fled Myanmar in the wake of a coordinated campaign of ethnic cleansing. Facebook has helped fuel the violence, becoming a platform for hate and violent speech against the minority group. The popularity and accessibility of the social network has exploded in recent years and become a vital source of information — something bad actors are trying to exploit.

In an interview with Ezra Klein, Zuckerberg claimed his company’s detection systems put a stop to violent communications. But that claim is dubious, civil society groups wrote in an open letter to Facebook:

“In your interview, you refer to your detection ‘systems’. We believe your system, in this case, was us — and we were far from systematic,” the letter read. “We identified the messages and escalated them to your team via email on Saturday the 9th September, Myanmar time. By then, the messages had already been circulating widely for three days.”

The letter explains that this particular Facebook Messenger incident wasn’t an isolated one, and “epitomizes the kind of issues that have been rife on Facebook in Myanmar for more than four years now and the inadequate response of the Facebook team.”

During the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, new communications technology (fax machines) allowed protesters to bypass government censors and inform the world of what was happening. But as the GRU and Guccifer 2.0 know well, communication technology cuts both ways. It is not only a tool for liberation. Radio fueled the Rwandan genocide.

Facebook’s rosy predictions of the transformational possibilities of its platform have bumped up against reality:

“I think that if he had gone immediately [after the scandal broke] up to Congress it would have been bad, now I think it’s gonna be horrific,” veteran political analyst Charlie Cook told Chuck Todd on Meet the Press. “This poor guy’s gonna be walking into an ambush…It’s gonna be like Custer’s last stand.”

“Zuckerberg will get roasted,” the National Review’s Editor Rich Lowry added. “The issue is that Facebook has a tremendous amount of data and there’s one man who makes the decision about how it’s used and that’s Mark Zuckerberg and I think that regime, one way or another, is ending.

Eventually, Facebook will go the way of the fax machine. The question is how much damage it will do while it hangs on.

Hey, we’re still trying to hasten the revolution using Blogger.

* * * * * * * *

For The Win 2018 is ready for download. Request a copy of my county-level election mechanics primer at tom.bluecentury at gmail.

QOTD

by digby

“Manufactured doubt and moral atrophy”

The function of lies is no longer to persuade; it is to challenge the primacy of facts. Relativism has been weaponised by the powerful to eliminate the very possibility of justice. 

This doubt is distinct from the kind of legitimate scepticism that might check against unqualified belief. It is ersatz and functional, manufactured to thwart action and allay guilty conscience. Politically immobilising and morally liberating, it sustains political inertia among cynical politicians and the will to disbelieve among jaded publics.

This opens the door to authoritarianism — you can believe me or you can believe your lying eyes.

It’s happening everywhere..

That quote is from an excellent article about what’s happened in Syria. It’s profoundly disturbing.

Chatting with his bff back in the day

by digby

For some reason I missed this interview with Trump from 2008 with his BFF Piers Morgan. It’s interesting to see how he adjusted his talking points in the ensuring decade.This was particularly interesting I thought:

I am the greatest hawk who ever lived, a far greater hawk even than Bush. I am the most militant military human being who ever lived. I’d rebuild our military arsenal, and make sure we had the finest weapons in the world. Because countries such as Russia have no respect for us, they laugh at us. Look at what happened in Georgia, a place we were supposed to be protecting

What do you suppose happened between 2008 and 2016 that made him so lovey-dovey with Russia?

Does the way China behaved in the Olympics show how they might behave on the global stage?

All that stuff with them fielding 14-year-old girls and lying about their ages shows China is a country prepared to bend the rules, whereas America is so politically correct it is hard for us to compete. We are going against people who don’t understand the meaning of political correctness. And at a time when we should be sending our best and brightest to take them on, we have Condoleezza Rice negotiating for us. A woman who has done nothing, made not one deal in eight years. She goes to countries, shakes hands with lots of people and comes home with nothing. It’s incredible. We need our best people to deal with countries such as China, Russia and India as they get bigger and better. Instead we send average people.

Whether you like Clinton or don’t like Clinton, we had no deficit for the first time in many years, and were doing well economically.

And then Bush came in, and wrecked it. After 11 September, America had the chance to be the most popular country in the world, instead, in a matter of weeks, that man destroyed it. We are no longer respected like we used to be, no longer the place where people want to invest to the extent they did before. We have been seriously hurt by Bush and his cronies. I think he will go down as the worst president in history.

You’ve been very outspoken about the Iraq war.

Right. The main problem I have is that Iraq did not blow up the World Trade Center. The terrorists who did it came out of Saudi Arabia, and other places, but not Iraq.

How many Americans really understand that Saddam Hussein didn’t do it, do you think?

The interesting thing about Saddam is he hated terrorists, he killed terrorists. He knew they represented a liability to his country and to him. But now Iraq is a breeding ground for terrorists, it’s where they are trained. It’s inconceivable what Bush has done. He invaded a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, absolutely zero. He purposely lied, and his lies got us into a war. But he wasn’t impeached. Clinton was impeached for something that wasn’t one millionth as important.

Having a fling with an intern versus launching an illegal war – not a difficult choice to make as to comparative significance, is it?

Incredible, truly. We’ve lost 4,000 young servicemen and women, and at least a million Iraqis were killed, and for what? Bush should be impeached, but the Democrats have let him get away with it. It makes me so angry.

Do you know Bush? 

I’ve met him once or twice, but I don’t want to know him.

Same with his cronies. One of my people rang me the other day to say Donald Rumsfeld was in Trump Tower in New York, and asked if I wanted to meet him. I said, “absolutely not”. What he and Bush did to this country is unforgivable.

This interview is going to be published a few days before the presidential election. What is your view of Barack Obama?

I think he would have had a much easier chance of winning if he had chosen Hillary Clinton as his running mate, definitely. But obviously he doesn’t like her, and I don’t believe the Clintons like him.

What about John McCain?

I know John well, and I like him. We had dinner together recently.

Who would you vote for, then?

McCain, because his tax policies are better. But I wish he would promise to get us out of Iraq faster. I am not in love with that aspect of what he represents. What irks me most about Iraq is that there is $100bn of oil money sitting in their banks and we don’t get anything out of it. That country is now worse off than it ever was under Saddam.

Are you a natural Republican person?

No, I am a natural good-person person. Look, nobody has been stronger against Bush than me. And Bush doesn’t have the intellect to be president. When he said he reads 60 books a year… give me a break. Of course he doesn’t. And then he said he never watches TV, which I don’t believe either. Everyone does. Nothing he says is the truth.

Is America ready to vote for a black president?

Nobody knows. That is what makes it so fascinating. I have a great relationship with blacks. Russell Simmons [a leading black American entrepreneur] told me I was the most popular white man in America!

I like blacks and they like me. But in numerous elections where a black candidate has been leading substantially, they either didn’t win or it was a much closer “squeaker” than predicted. Race is a huge factor.

If you were president, how would you quick-fix the country?

First, I’d get out of Iraq right now. And by the way, I am the greatest hawk who ever lived, a far greater hawk even than Bush. I am the most militant military human being who ever lived. I’d rebuild our military arsenal, and make sure we had the finest weapons in the world. Because countries such as Russia have no respect for us, they laugh at us. Look at what happened in Georgia, a place we were supposed to be protecting.

Vladimir Putin is now perceived to be stronger than Bush.

That’s because when they started out together, Putin played Bush like a fiddle. Bush went around saying what a nice guy he was, and thought he was his friend. And since then, Russia has gone up like a rocket and this country has gone down like a not so successful rocket. It’s booming, and we’re the opposite.

How are you dealing with all the big money Russian competition?

It’s great for me, because I have the stuff they want to buy. I bought a house for $40m in Palm Beach and just sold it to a Russian for $100m. They’re smart, cunning business people. They know great assets when they see them. And they know exactly what they’re doing when they hand me a big fat cheque. Russia’s been unleashed. Everyone was worried about China and India, but it’s Russia that is flying and that is down to Putin.

What advice would you give to people suffering in the current global economic credit crunch?

Look, the last time this happened in the early Nineties, I owed billions and billions of dollars, and nearly went under. Many of my friends went under. It was a very tough time. But I reacted positively. I went forward quite bravely, I’d say, given that so many people were going out of business. My theme was “survive till ’95” and that turned out to be about right, because those who survived until then were OK.

What did you learn from that?


A lot. No.1: I could handle pressure. A lot of my friends couldn’t and just took the gas. I knew tough guys, or people who I thought were tough but who crawled into a corner, put their thumbs in their mouths and cried, “Mummy, I want to go home.” I didn’t lose sleep, I never, ever gave up, and I fought hard to survive. The biggest thing I learnt is that economic cycles don’t last forever, they go up and they go down. And whatever you try to do to keep a cycle going, they end. Period. If you study the financial charts from 1900 to now, it’s almost a perfect roller-coaster graph, it’s amazing.

I studied your book Think Big And Kick Ass! carefully before doing The Celebrity Apprentice…

Ah… did you? That’s probably why you won.

Yes, probably. But you have often renamed it in interviews as “Think Big, Be Paranoid”.

Yes, that’s right. Paranoia means, to me, as the boxers would say, “Keep your left up.” Never let your guard down. A lot of people rely on people, trust people who betray them and take advantage of them.

How do you avoid that happening to you?

By hiring good people, and then watching them.

Do you actually fully trust anybody who works for you?

Very few, I don’t want to trust people.

Is there anyone?

Look, we are worse than the lions in the jungle. Worse than any predator. Lions hunt for food, to live. We hunt for sport. Our hunting involves doing lots of bad things to other people, whether it’s stealing their money or whatever. People are bad, they really are! They’re evil in many cases! So you have to keep your left up.

People have to respect you, if they don’t respect you then, even if they are fairly honest, they will start to steal from you. That’s the way it is. Pretty sad, but true.

Do you think you’re ruthless?

No, I think I’m intelligent. I went to the Wharton School of Finance, which is the best. I had great marks, which a lot of people don’t know about me. I come from smart genes.

And your father always lavished you with unstinting praise?

My father was incredible. He was an untrusting guy too, though.

Except when it came to me. He totally trusted me. And you know why?

Because I did something, and it worked. I did another thing, it worked. After you do 20 things in a row that work, your father starts to trust you, right..

Do you have the same trust in your kids?

I can’t tell you yet, because they’re too young. I think they have the potential to be very successful and very talented. I have three of my five children working for me now, and they are very smart.

They were all great students. So far, great.

Having watched you interact with Ivanka, 27, and Donald Jr, 30, on The Apprentice, I could tell there’s a lot of of respect and love on both sides. But how important is their success to you? Could you love and respect them as much if they turn out to be business failures?

If I didn’t think they were good, I wouldn’t want them in the business. It’s tough and ruthless in the real estate game, and if I didn’t think they were up to it then I would let them go. It just wouldn’t work at all.

You’ve never touched alcohol?

No.

Not one drop?

No. Never.

That amazes me. Why not?

Because I had a brother who died of alcoholism. He was called Fred, and he was a very handsome guy; had the best personality. But he got into drinking at college and became an alcoholic, and I watched him disintegrate with alcohol. And he did something to me.

He was 11 years older, and he told me never to drink or smoke.

Drugs weren’t really in vogue then or he would have added “don’t take drugs either”. He’d smoke three packs of cigarettes a day. And he hated smoking and drinking, but he couldn’t stop it. He knew he had a problem, and didn’t want me having it. It’s a sad thing about alcoholism. I know a lot of alcoholics, and you know they never really stop. They talk about stopping, they talk about going to the Betty Ford clinic, they go back and back and back. But they never stop. It’s a terrible drug. I’ve heard it’s harder to stop drinking alcohol than stop taking drugs.

You don’t even drink coffee either, is that right?

Yeah, but I love women…

We’re coming to that! 

We all like something! [Laughs]

Are you not curious?

No, I’ve seen it destroy people. I was with someone the other day who was a very respected banker. We had to carry him out of the dinner because he was so drunk. And you lose respect for people when that happens. He is a smart, tough guy but he can’t stop drinking. I’ve seen too many people like that, men and women. The reason they can stop drugs easier than alcohol is that drugs are a no-no. You can’t go out to bars and openly shoot heroin into your arm. But you can drink anywhere. Society encourages it. I preach to people in speeches not to start drinking. One friend of mine when we were very young at the Wharton School of Finance said to me, “I hate the taste of Scotch but I’m trying to get used to it.” Can you believe that? But he’s a major alcoholic now and he drinks so much Scotch it’s incredible. And this is a guy who didn’t like the taste! I mean, try something else – try milk.

Are you a woman-holic? 

[Laughs] Well, I love women, that’s for sure. But I have a great wife, Melania, who is a spectacular mother. And we have a great relationship. But I do love women, definitely. I respect them, I think they’re magnificent. And I don’t just mean their physical beauty.

I have noticed that women behave in a weird, very adoring way, around you – do you think it’s because they know you love them so much?

I don’t know. But I do know this, I get all these things written about me, and they say what a great financial genius I am, and then they always have to add “but we hate his hairpiece”. Now, I don’t wear a hairpiece. It’s mine, you know that.

I do know that. I’ve studied it at very close quarters and I can see it’s definitely your hair. But people do seem to be obsessed with it. When I won The Apprentice, all people back home in Britain wanted to know was, “What’s his hair like?” 

I know. And it means I can’t even send these otherwise great articles around, because there’s always this stuff about a hairpiece I don’t have! But I’ve never had a problem with it.

Your wives have got progressively more beautiful…

Melania is a great beauty, that’s for sure. Ivana and Marla were both great beauties too.

I saw Ivana and her new husband recently at the Monaco Red Cross Ball, and he is, to put it mildly, not quite what she had before… 

Well I hope it works out, I really do.

I don’t think I’d put much money on it. 

Well, I hope it does. I let them use my Mar-A-Lago estate in Palm Beach for their wedding, and she is a good woman and he’s a nice guy. I don’t think he’s a bad person, and remember it’s not easy for her, it’s a different life for her these days. She had a great life with me.

He looked very scruffy to me, chewing gum and stuff. 

Really? I don’t want to comment 

Are you a good husband? 

I think I’m a great father.

That wasn’t the question.

[Laughs] I answered a much easier question! I think I’m a good husband now. It’s not easy for someone competing with my business.

What have you loved more – your business or your wives? 

I remember seeing John Paul Getty interviewed on TV years ago. They asked him a version of that question. They asked him if he had his time again whether he would rather be John Paul Getty the great financial genius, or would he rather have a great marriage. And he said he’d rather be John Paul Getty because many people have great marriages, but there is only one John Paul Getty.

Do you agree with that?

I do agree with that, but maybe you can have both.

What has brought you more happiness, women or money?

I know a lot of rich people who can’t get a date. I read an article not so long ago that said women aren’t just attracted to money, there has to be an attraction to the man as well. And I think that’s true. I know rich, smart, cunning guys who just can’t get a woman to go out with them.

Why?

Because they’re missing something. I’ll tell you a great story. A rich friend of mine calls me recently because he knows I know a lot of great-looking women because I own Miss Universe and run a hot model agency. And he knows I have a good understanding with women.

So he says he wants to go out with the particular woman, who I know very well. And this guy’s got his beautiful houses, his cars – he’s got everything money can buy. So I call this woman, and she’s a top model, and she has no interest in going out with him. So I said, “Look, do me a favour, this guy’s breaking my ass, is it such a big favour to ask you to go out with him once?” And eventually she agrees to go on one date. And they go out, and she calls me afterwards and says, “Do me a favour now, never make me do that again. Just don’t waste my time with guys like this.” This is a guy who eats financial geniuses for a living, he beats up guys with his head. And he’s got so much money he doesn’t know what to do with it. But in front of a beautiful woman he gets lockjaw. Anyway, he calls me the next day and says, “Donald, that was the greatest woman I ever had dinner with. Would you call her and ask if she will go out with me again.” Think about that. I can understand why I have to do it for the first date, but if I have to do it for the second one too then there’s something wrong, right? And I know a lot of very rich guys who can’t go out with a girl twice because they’re so boring.

If I said to you now that you can have a cheque for $10bn, but the proviso is you can’t have sex for five years, would you take it?

No, I wouldn’t. Because ten million dollars isn’t a lot of money to me.

Ten billion.

Oh, ten billion. I might think about taking that!

And you could go five years without sex?

For ten billion dollars, sure. You can do a lot of things with ten billion dollars. You double up my net worth just by not having sex, sure. That’s pretty good. I could do that.

So you’re worth ten billion dollars already?

I think I’m worth around that neighbourhood, yeah.


That makes you one of the richest men in the world.

I live nicely, definitely. [Smiles]


What is the secret to being good in bed?

I think there are a lot of secrets. A lot of it is down to the Look. Don King, the boxing promoter, is a friend of mine, and he is a believer in the Look. He doesn’t mean you have to look like Cary Grant, he means you have to have a certain way about you, a stature. I see successful guys who just don’t have the Look. And they are never going to go out with great women. The Look is important. I don’t really like to talk about it because it sounds very conceited… but it matters.

I think part of your success with women is that although you appear to be very arrogant, you actually have a very natural charm as well.

I understand how life works, it’s very fragile. I was lucky, born with good things. But I’ve seen people go up and down, and get sick and so on. I know the game, I have a good sense of the street. The people who like me most are not necessarily rich people, in fact many of them don’t like me.

Because they’re jealous?

Because whatever. Lots of rich people hate me. I’ll tell you the names later… but the people who like me are the workers. They’re the ones I get along with best. They love me and I love them.

That’s because they see you as a champion of the underdog and of the American dream. I’ve often heard you talk up the working-class people in your country.

Every time I see one of my workers, I give them a hundred bucks, and people are amazed by that, but some of them have worked for me for a long time, they do a fantastic job for me. And I love giving them a hundred bucks to take their wives out for dinner or something, and it’s a big thing for them, beyond the money it’s a big thing for them. So I have a very good relationship with the workers.


You’re the perfect person to ask this question: can money buy happiness or not?

I couldn’t live without money, not because I need the money so much, because I don’t need to live in lots of great places. I couldn’t live without it because it’s a game. I wouldn’t be the same person without money.

Do you live for the money itself, or for the deal?

Both. Money is the scorecard. If I didn’t have money then it would mean that I am not very good at what I do. Does that make sense?

You’re motivated by success.

I am, I like success. And I like being successful. I am very competitive. I like winning when I study, when I play sport, when I’m in business. I like to win.


You said once that golf is a great judge of a businessman’s character. 

I did yes. I love golf. I’m a three handicapper now. I was off scratch, but time erodes that. Over my lifetime, I’ve played a lot of very good golf, people are surprised by that.

Do you think if a man cheats at golf, he’ll cheat in business? 

Yes. I’ve seen it many times. They move the ball an inch and hope nobody sees them, but I always see them. Then I don’t trust them. If you cheat in golf you do it in business.

Have you played with Bill Clinton, because he’s supposed to be a notorious golf cheat isn’t he? 

He’s a member of my club actually, and he’s a much better golfer than people understand. He doesn’t cheat. What he does, because he doesn’t get to play very often, is he’ll hit a ball off the tee, and if he doesn’t hit it well then he’ll play another one, in full sight of everyone. That’s not the same as secretly moving a ball.


Does he play three when he does that though, or two?

I don’t know. I don’t check his card. But he’s open about it, so I don’t have a problem with it. It’s the ones who do it secretly who I have a problem with.


I love Clinton. I watched him make an incredible speech at the Labour party conference once. He was amazing.

Bill’s one strong guy. And he will go down as a great president. I have a lot of respect for him.

Who do you genuinely respect in business? 

I think Jeff Immelt at General Electric is doing a fantastic job following a legend in Jack Welch. And Terry Lundgren, who runs Macy’s, is doing a great job in a tough business. There are a lot of good people out there. But we don’t use them properly.

It’s people like those guys who we should use to negotiate with countries like China, Russia and India. Instead we use diplomats and politicians. And that’s a shame.

Sir Alan Sugar’s version of The Apprentice is about to show in America. What do you think of that?

I’m happy, I helped choose Alan to do The Apprentice, because I co-own the format to the show. And I think he’s done a very good job. What do you think of him?

I like him a lot. He’s abrasive, but underneath it a great guy. 

How successful is he? Very, or just modestly?

Very.

Right. Anyway, I’m really happy with him because it’s my show.

If his version gets great ratings in America, how will you feel? 

They asked me that question about Martha Stewart, who did a copy of my show and it failed badly. People said, “Would you rather she failed, or had been successful?” And I found that a very… [laughs]… a very tough question! But no, I’d like to see Alan succeed here because I’d rather my show was successful generally.


How would you like to be remembered? 

As someone who gave good quality. I always try to provide the highest quality, and as a result I get prices for my properties nobody else can get.

How much of that is your name?

A lot of it is my name and a lot of it is my quality. I get the right locations, the right architecture and so on. But people tend to follow me and my name. I was very well-known before I did The Apprentice, to put it mildly, and the TV stuff is a very small part of my life. What I do is real estate. And I am very successful at it.

So what would your tombstone say?

I put a lot of people into work, I have done a lot of really good jobs, and I really believe that in terms of the word “quality” there is nobody who tops me.


And personally?

Good father, sometimes good husband [laughs], a loyal friend. I’m a loyal guy; I’ll give you an example. Choosing you as my Celebrity Apprentice was tough. You’re a smart, tough guy, but you’re abrasive too and everyone loved Trace Adkins [my 6’7″ country-singing Mr Nice Guy opponent in the final], and the easiest thing to do would have been to let him win. I had so many people telling me to do that. But I did what was right, you deserved to win. And you had some pretty high-powered friends telling me I should choose you, too! I was surprised by that. I did the right thing because I chose a winner.

Why, thank you Mr Trump. I liked the way you described me in the final as “ruthless, arrogant, evil and obnoxious”, but then chose me as your apprentice anyway. 

I also said you were talented! But a funny thing happened, from the day after the finale, everyone started saying, “Hey, you did the right thing choosing Piers.”

That’s because America loves winners, period. And you, more than possibly anyone else in the country, personify the word “winner”.

You’ve gotta win. That’s what it’s all about. You know,

Muhammad Ali used to talk and talk, but he won. If you talk and talk but you lose, the act doesn’t play. I gotta go.

He’s certainly much more brittle now, more edgy, more stressed out.  He was always a 100% full of shit, used car salesman, cheapskate con man. But it’s interesting to see how he’s played the room at different times in his life.

They hate teachers too

by digby

I don’t think I will ever get over the fact that a large number of American adults have come to despise public school teachers. That tweet above is just some dude. But I’ve seen this sentiment expressed in different ways all over the internet. The right sees teachers as the enemy. Of course the profession is 70% women so I suppose this makes sense.

Who are these people? I’ve been around right wingers my whole life but even the wingnuttiest among them never called for knee-capping and cracking the heads of school teachers.

Something has gone very wrong. Very, very wrong.

That something? Hate radio, white nationalist propaganda and Fox News.

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It’s the pictures, stupid

by digby

Trump saw the horrifying pictures of the latest gas attack in Syria and got upset. He even called out his pal Vlad, in the process betraying the fact that he still, after being in office all this time, sees all relationships between world leaders as personal, rather than strategic. (After all, Putin’s support for Assad isn’t contingent on Assad’s decency. There isn’t any.)

President Trump on Sunday promised a “big price” to be paid for what he said was a chemical weapons attack that choked dozens of Syrians to death the day before, and a top White House official said the administration would not rule out a missile strike to retaliate against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

In a tweet, Mr. Trump laid the blame for the attack partly on President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, the first time since his election that he has criticized the Russian leader by name on Twitter. Mr. Putin’s forces have been fighting for years to keep the Assad government in power amid Syria’s brutal civil war.

Mr. Trump also left no doubt that he believed the assessment of aid groups that Mr. Assad’s military had used chemical weapons to inflict the carnage on Saturday in Douma, a rebel-held suburb of Damascus. The attack left at least 42 people dead in their homes from apparent suffocation and sent many others to clinics with burning eyes and breathing problems.

Many dead, including women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack in Syria. Area of atrocity is in lockdown and encircled by Syrian Army, making it completely inaccessible to outside world. President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price…— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 8, 2018

….to pay. Open area immediately for medical help and verification. Another humanitarian disaster for no reason whatsoever. SICK!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 8, 2018

Thomas P. Bossert, Mr. Trump’s homeland security adviser, said he and the rest of the president’s national security team had been in talks with Mr. Trump late Saturday and early Sunday about how to respond. Asked specifically about the possibility of a missile strike, Mr. Bossert did not rule it out.

“I wouldn’t take anything off the table,” Mr. Bossert said on ABC’s “This Week.” “These are horrible photos; we’re looking into the attack at this point.”

That raised the prospect of a strike along the lines of one that the president ordered almost exactly a year ago after a sarin gas attack in Khan Sheikhoun that killed more than 80 civilians. In that strike, the United States military dropped 59 Tomahawk missiles on the Al Shayrat airfield.

Mr. Trump may be considering such a strike even as he has expressed his desire in recent days to pull American troops out of Syria, where they are seeking to eliminate the last vestiges of the Islamic State. White House officials said Mr. Trump would have a meeting and dinner on Monday at the White House with senior military leaders.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said Mr. Trump should make good on what the president appeared to be threatening on Twitter.

If the president “doesn’t follow through and live up to that tweet, he’s going to look weak in the eyes of Russia and Iran,” Mr. Graham said on “This Week.” “This is a defining moment.”

“You need to follow through with that tweet,” he added. “Show a resolve that Obama never did to get this right.”

That’s Graham again thinking he’s being psychologically clever again. But taunting him about looking weak in the eyes of Russia obviously doesn’t work. Everyone in the world has been taunting Trump that he’s being weak on Russia for the past two years.

Syria has been a dystopian hellscape the entire time he has been in office. He believes that war should be “short and brutal” and should not spare civilians so this is frustrating to him because pictures of toddlers suffering and dying make him look bad. (He didn’t seem upset about nerve gas assassinations in England and there have other reports of similar attacks in Syria since he famously “became president” by ordering a bombing.)

He does not want any pictures of children dying from chemical attacks on the front pages or on cable news. He thought if he withdrew troops from Syria, Assad wouldn’t have to gas kids and it won’t be on the front page because he’d win and it would all be over. And then everything would be fine. Why did he have to go and screw up Trump’s plans?

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