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An Instagram post gets an unexpected boost. A TikTok catches in the algorithm. Sometimes that's all it takes to launch someone into internet fame. But then what? This Blew Up is a new podcast documentary that reveals how social media stardom is made. It's a different kind of fame that's not always as glamorous as it looks. From Spotify and the Ringer Podcast Network, I'm Alyssa Bereznack. You can listen to This Blew Up on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Hi, I'm Tara Palmieri. I'm Puck's senior political correspondent, and this is Somebody's Gotta Win. It was another lucky day in the courts for Donald Trump. He had a half a billion dollar civil judgment against him and his business for fraud, and he had to put up a hefty bond, right, about the same amount of money
But today, an appeals court basically lowered that, reduced the bond to $175 million and gave Trump 10 days to come up with the money. I mean, I went to bed last night thinking, how is he going to come up with $455 million by Monday? And I think a lot of other people thought that, too, because it was a hard deadline. But again...
Court just ruled in his favor. But also at the same time, there is an actual date for his hush money payment case to the film star Stormy Daniels. It's now set for April 15th. So he'll be back soon enough in court in a few weeks.
I don't know, Chris, what do you think about all this? By the way, Chris is my producer. He's amazing. And you're going to hear a lot more from him on the show. You know, I think that these are starting to become positive things for Donald Trump. Like he is kind of campaigning through each one of these court cases. I think it just seems like it's benefiting him at this point. And
What I want to know is why would they make this stay? Why would everybody, the media, the government, everybody's talking, looking forward to this day where Donald Trump has to pay this money. And then on the exact day, that's when they make the stay. That's when they make this judgment. It's absolutely unbelievable. He really is the luckiest man on earth. He has to be. Yeah. I think there was a feeling that it was too excessive. He was able to...
claim that he was a martyr. Of course, it goes against his entire persona that he's this wealthy man worth billions of dollars and could surely come up with $450 million, right? But we'll see. I think it was another lucky day, as you said. Probably has some of the best lawyers in the world as most of these wealthy men that go up against the justice system. So it's a very different experience than it would be for you or I, unfortunately. I mean, in a way, I hope that is luck.
Because if it's not luck, then there's some really nefarious puppet string. Hmm.
Yeah. Going on behind the scenes that are saving him. You know, that should be concerning if it's not luck. I think it's a bit of luck. I think it's a bit of lawyers. I also think it's his profile. You know, he turns all these cases into a reason to say he's a martyr. But yeah, I think being a rich guy is a very different experience in America for sure. But other rich guys get nabbed though too though. You know, I mean, some of them are held accountable. You know, some of them are. Some of them are.
And he's one of the more famous rich guys. Yeah. It's just very interesting. It's almost like a different category. We're looking at a different category than just like rich white guy here, in my opinion. Yeah. I mean, he's a political figure. I'm sure that weighs into it as well. But ultimately, the judgment remains like $450 million just because the bond has been lowered. He may ultimately pay that. But actually, in this episode, we're going to get into a lot of ways in which he may
not end up paying that money or how he may get a cash windfall. I speak to my Puck partner, Bill Cohen. He's brilliant. He writes about Wall Street for Puck and he's got so much information and he's got some really juicy little nuggets that he wrote about last night about how Trump was basically begging Wall Street to help him with the bond and offering them an extreme amount of money and interest.
And they sort of turned their nose at him. You got to listen to Bill. He's awesome. But there is something else that really like jumped off the screen for me. And this was on Friday and it's sort of circulating around. There is a CNN poll that just came out. And basically they did some polling in Michigan and Pennsylvania, two states that flipped blue in 2020 and basically helped Biden win the election, right? It's battleground states.
And the latest polling would be pretty concerning for the Biden team. It shows that in Michigan, Trump is beating Biden by eight points, 50 to 42 percent. And then in Pennsylvania, they're tied 46 percent each. I don't know. That's pretty concerning because Trump basically lost to Biden in 2020 by 100,000 votes in Michigan.
And in Pennsylvania, I believe Biden beat Trump by a very small margin, like one and a half percent. So this is super concerning for the Biden camp. And Trump, too, his supporters historically are difficult to pull. I think they already knew they had problems in Michigan before.
because there's a very large Arab population that's upset about the war in Gaza. Young people, they came out and voted uncommitted during the primary election. 100,000 of them actually came out and voted uncommitted. But, you know, this is pretty concerning. Eight points is not nothing. That is not the margin of error. Do you think this is residuals from the uncommitted voter situation? I don't.
Double hater.
Yeah, that's going to have an influence in there as well. And it's a really weird time right now. Yeah, it's probably bad because if you have double hate, that means you're probably going to vote for Trump, right? I mean, that's the feeling in the Biden world is that if you don't vote at all or you vote for a third party, you're essentially helping Trump. So, yeah, crazy times we've got right now. But I'm going to get back into the legal conundrum for Donald Trump, which is looking a lot rosier for him with Bill
Bill Cohen. Bill, thank you so much for joining. I just wanted to get your take on this story. What do you make of all of this? Why would they decrease the bond for Donald Trump and give him a 10-day stay? Well, partially, Tara, because...
When it comes to legal proceedings, the guy is like one of the luckiest people on the face of the earth. Probably if he weren't a rich white guy, this would never happen. But it does seem to happen to rich white guys, rich powerful white guys, who seem to, for whatever reason, get the justice system to bend to their will. He loses the power
you know, a verdict, a judgment at the lower court level in New York. I,
after years of deception and deceit and conning banks about the value of his assets and gets slapped with a $450 million judgment. He needs to come up with a bond of more than 500 million. He appeals to the higher court and he gets relief.
$175 million, and he's got 10 days to come up with it. Again, $175 million is a lot of money to most people, but the Donald has been claiming he's worth first $10 billion and then $11 billion. Yeah, his lawyer was on TV, and she was like, he's worth billions and billions and billions of dollars. Okay, yeah, right.
What do you think his real net worth is likely? Well, I know Tim O'Brien once upon a time said it was worth like $250 million and that Donald sued him for libel. He was a biographer of his, not official though. No, Donald didn't cooperate. But that's one of the greatest...
depositions of all time that he gave in that lawsuit many years ago, decades ago. And he's probably worth more than $250 million. But I would say at this point,
Maybe he's worth a billion, maybe. In assets, not that he can't liquidate it so easily. Yeah, liquid assets. Mar-a-Lago, could he sell? Sure. Doral, could he sell? Yeah. 40 Wall Street, Trump Tower. He doesn't own that much of Trump Tower anymore. He owns his...
He owns Condominium, he owns the lobby. I'm sure there's some sort of mortgage on it. I'm sure there's a mortgage on 40 Wall Street. He owns minority positions in two, one tower in San Francisco, one tower in New York, which probably both have mortgages on them, maybe even underwater. It's just not clear what kind of equity he's got anymore. He claimed in his deposition in this suit
to have, you know, last year to have $400 million in cash growing by leaps and bounds every day. You know, obviously that was not true. Yeah, then he would have been able to put it up. So instead of, you know, being sort of on the brink today, you know, he gets a reprieve. You know, a 60% reprieve. And, you know, most people don't get that.
Like nobody gets that. Why he gets it, I have no idea. Have you ever seen a bigger penalty though for a case like this? Because it did seem like pretty exorbitant, $455 million or $355 million plus interest, sorry. You know, during the financial crisis, during the financial crisis, Ms. Goldman got hit with a $550 million fine by the SEC, $550 million.
Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase had to pay a $13 billion penalty as a result of the financial crisis. Bank of America, something like that. Massive financial institutions. Well, all right, but fraud is fraud, and Trump is claimed to be worth
11 billion and being the most important developer in New York and created the Manhattan skyline and where would we be without him? So he's a big talker, he's very boastful. - The irony of it all. - I find the huge irony of the fact that he exaggerates the value of all of these properties. He gets sued for that.
It's resolved in the suit. He was exaggerating the value of all these properties. Then he gets slapped with a huge fine and then he needs to put these properties up to see if he can get the bond that he needs to appeal the fine. And he can't do it because he's exaggerated the value of the properties all along and everybody knows it. You had a funny story yesterday. You spoke to Anthony Scaramucci, who you've had on the show, and
You asked him about, you know, how is Trump trying to get this spawned because he was rejected by
30 bond agencies. And then Anthony told you that he went to Wall Street. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? Yeah, basically, he went to the lending, well, according to Anthony, went to the lending officers of Wall Street banks who had long ago decided not to do business with him. I think I wrote a piece in The Atlantic in 2008.
about why Wall Street doesn't want to do business with Donald Trump. You know, we even went to distressed investors, you know, people who invest in very risky securities and said, you know, he needed a $400
$50 million loan and was willing to pay 15% interest, and everybody turned him down. It's crazy that he offered to pay 15%. Yeah, it's a very large coupon, way above market rates, but probably makes sense given the riskiness of Donald Trump's credit. I mean, that's the prima facie evidence that you need
to know that even Donald Trump knows he's a risky credit. - Wild, and no one would actually give him the money even with a 15% interest. - No, and that would be like, you know what, paying $70 million a year.
In interest alone. Right. Does he owe interest on this $175 million bond or is there any sort of situation where he's got to keep paying interest on it? I mean, he was paying interest every day to like the tune of $150
$10,000 or something on the judgment. I wouldn't be surprised if he loses and retains that high amount, he will have to pay the interest accrued during the appeal process.
But, you know, that was probably up for the judge, the judges to decide, you know, at that time, you know, once it's resolved, which apparently isn't going to be even until September now. Okay, so talk me through this entire appeals process that will keep going on until September. Because it feels like a lot of it is like delay, delay, delay, right? You know better than anybody. He's the master of obfuscation. He's the master of delay. I guess it was also decided today that...
His criminal case, the hush money case, would begin on April 15th. I guess it was supposed to start today, but he got a reprieve there until April 15th.
You know, the appeals process in New York is complicated and can take a lot of time. You know, I guess this appeal won't be decided until April, I mean September. And I gather that, you know, only a few judges on the appeals process
Court will decide it. If he loses, then he can ask the appeals court en banc, you know, the whole, all the judges to then rule. If he loses that, there's even another court in New York State he can petition to take his case. And if he loses that,
he could go to the Supreme Court, where he probably, knowing him, would get a favorable ruling. It's kind of stacked in his favor. Is this the New York Supreme Court or the actual U.S. Supreme Court? So there's three courts in New York State, two of which are appeals courts. And one of those appeals courts he's at at the moment, there's a higher appeals court above this
middle appeals court, and he can petition them to take the case. They don't have to. This second appeal, this middle appeals court, I think, as you saw, had to take the case, and they ruled today they gave him a break. So
I mean, you know, knowing him, it'll be it'll be a long time before he actually has to pay any money. Yeah. For what it's worth, people who are close to Trump have always told me that he believes in civil suit, that he can win on appeal. Like, that's just a belief he has. Like, even in the Eugene Carroll case, which may explain why he won't shut his mouth, but he really does believe that he can win on appeal. Like, what are the chances that he ends up?
he ends up only owing $175 million in penalty or even less than that. Can you kind of explain what you think this stay and this lower bond actually means? Well, it could be foreshadowing of what the appeals court may decide in September. In other words, they may have already decided
decided that $175 million is enough of a penalty for the Donald in this situation. That certainly would hurt him, but not as much as a $500 million plus penalty, or it could be indicative of nothing.
You know, exactly. We don't know, obviously, what the appeals court thinking is, you know, in this matter other than what they've decided today. Yeah, I wrote a story a few weeks ago about how when the judgment came down, a lot of donors who are kind of like businessmen work in real estate or just like New York Wall Street businesses.
they were feeling bad for the Donald based on the judgment. These are people who weren't exactly fans of his, but they thought it was too excessive. And they believe that this is a common practice among real estate people in New York city and New York state. I don't know if you agree with that. Yeah. I mean, I'm not surprised people, you know, other wealthy people like Donald think this was excessive. I think there's a sense on wall street and, you know, and, and,
And Trump has articulated himself that, you know, this is a victimless crime. You know, the banks got their money back, you know, with interest. Nobody's unhappy. But I think that's inaccurate.
attempted murder is a crime. He obviously attempted to deceive his banks, and he probably did get a lower rate of interest than he otherwise would have gotten, and he also probably got looser covenants and just sort of a general better terms and conditions than he would have gotten had he
He'd been more accurate about the valuations that he presented. Now, of course, we all know how the game is played here, Tara, that people, developers especially, always overvalue their assets. And then the credit committee at these banks comes along and does their own assessment. And I'm sure Donald would say,
That's exactly what happened here. And they made their own judgments and they lent him the money that they lent him based at the rates that they lent it on, based on their own evaluation of his credit and the asset involved. But that doesn't mean he did not intentionally set out to be deceptive because he did. And that was...
proven, but whether he'll be able to wiggle out of it like he manages to wiggle out of everything,
you know, we'll see. I'd say that's about 50-50 at this point that he can wiggle out of this. Right. I mean, yeah, the argument they've made is, you know, no little old ladies were hurt in this crime. This isn't like Bernie Madoff. And the other argument I've heard is, you know, Deutsche Bank got paid back and they testified that they're fine with it. He did devalue his property also for insurance purposes. So he inflated it when it worked for getting a loan, then devalued it when it, you know, worked for insurance. You know, as we know, his...
audit with the IRS has been pending, you know, like forever now. And I'm sure for tax purposes, he, you know, talked about a much lower valuation. Right, right. I'm sure. That's why it's so hard to pin him on his net worth, just like how it's so hard to pin him on his policies on things like abortion. You know, he's so that's his thing. Look, he's it's not about policy. It's not about the facts.
it's about, uh, you know, a feeling it's about, it's about the cult of Donald Trump and being, uh, uh, a symbol of aggrieved Americans who feel that, uh, you know, uh, what they had once upon a time is slipping away from, from them. And for some reason they've put their faith in the cult leader, Donald Trump to help them restore that. I mean, uh,
that's all quite delusional, in my opinion. He's never done anything for anybody but himself. I mean, and how after putting up with him for a first term, anybody could ever want him back for a second is, you know, beyond me. But you're probably better at answering why that happens than I am. You know, it's interesting, like you talk about him as a cult leader, but like a big part of the myth of Donald Trump is that
He is this very successful businessman. And I think that's why these this case in particular hits at the heart of what Donald Trump has been selling. He's selling his gilded life with his beautiful model wife and the idea that the American dream, if you work hard enough, you can get even towers in the sky. You know, you've written about the idea that he could file for bankruptcy. And I think, you know, I read in The Washington Post that
Yes, this is an option, but they're terrified of doing it because it would write a different narrative about him. It would be contradictory to his narrative and would devalue his brand to his voters. What do you think about that? Do you think there's a chance that he files for bankruptcy? You know, this myth of Donald Trump, you know, pulled himself up from his bootstraps is obviously, we know, is total fiction, total crap, right?
why anybody believes it still is beyond me. His father gave him $100 million, right? $400 million. Sorry, $400 million to play with. Excuse me. $400 million to play with. And that was, you know, whatever, $1970. So, look, I mean, until the ruling today, you know, which spared him, you know, where he only had to put up $175 million,
If he had to put up 500 million by today, I think his best option would have been to file for bankruptcy because that would have slowed the whole thing down, made the process of selling his assets much more orderly, given him a lot more time. Obviously, he would have ceded control to a federal bankruptcy firm
court judge. But as a debtor in possession, he would still have a lot of say in the matter of what would happen. But again, now it's kind of moot because the penalty was reduced. I mean, he said he had $400 million plus in cash growing every day. Now he's got 10 days to prove that. Even though we know that's a lie, we've got to figure he's got
you know, some subset, some fraction of that $400 million. Okay. You think he'll come up with $175 million in 10 days? I do. I'm sure, you know, he must have signaled to the court somehow that that was the right number. You think it will be like a building or do you think it will be actually cash? I think it will probably be, you know, assets in his brokerage account or in his bank account.
Got it. Yeah, I was reading stories about Letitia James being able to like seize his bank accounts and that was pretty, you know, something last night. Everybody was sort of waiting to see what would happen this morning. Yeah, I mean, I personally thought he was going to do something last night, you know, it
sometime during the NCAA basketball tournament or something to maximal impact. He's very theatrical, as we know, and we love him for his theatrics. What could be more theatrical than pulling it out of his bony at 11:30 at the 11th hour?
But, you know, he got something better. He got a reprieve from the appeals court in New York State, which frankly surprised me because I didn't think it would happen this quickly or that he would get a reprieve. But he did because he's the Donald. He always slithers out of everything. And he might even be slithering his way back into the White House. This episode is brought to you by Vitamin Water. Food, entertainment, sports.
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There was one more thing I wanted to ask you about. The Truth Social SPAC. Yes. It's been sort of like presented as a sort of windfall for Donald Trump. It's worth $6 billion, apparently. I can't imagine how Truth Social is worth $6 billion, but you can correct me if I'm wrong. That's the account that he uses now that he doesn't have Twitter to, you know, spout out his nonsense. Is this something that's real? Like, is he going to come across $6 billion in six months? Like, what's the story with the SPAC?
Can he use it to pay for the penalty eventually if he ends up having to pay $500 million? So here's the situation with this SPAC. Again, proving that Donald Trump is one of the luckiest people on the face of the earth. This SPAC merger with Truth Social between
Digital World Acquisition Corp and Truth Social or whatever the parent company is, has been in the works for more than a year. And what are the chances that it gets approved the day before he needs money to pay this judgment? So it's gonna start trading tomorrow, on Tuesday, under a symbol, a stock exchange symbol, DJT.
which is amusing. I'm sure he loves that. I'm sure he loves that. At the moment, his stake is worth around $3 billion. In stock. His stake in this company is worth about $3 billion. He can't sell all the stock now, though, right? He's got to wait. He's locked up. Can't sell it for six months unless he gets a waiver from the five-member board of directors, which...
Knowing Donald Trump, he could probably get the waiver, but that would be something, if they were to do that, it would be very much against their own economic interests, which for some reason they may
be willing to do because obviously it would curry favor with Donald who counts favors like chickens. And so he would probably remember, at least from second, that somebody did something nice for him. Because if he sold this stock,
before the six month lock up, and even after the six month lock up, this company is Donald Trump. This company is Donald Trump.
and his tweets, or whatever he calls his truth social ramblings. - Right, truths. - His fake truths. So that literally is the only thing going on at this company. For his stake to be worth three billion, for the whole thing to be worth whatever you said, six billion, is of course absurd. It made like one or two million of revenue last year, and lost tens of millions of dollars.
So the whole thing is, you know, it's obviously a meme stock. It's a cult stock. It's ridiculous. But if he, you know, sells his stake in it when the only thing it is is Donald Trump,
then, you know, he's basically saying, you know, I'm out of here. I'm going to try to make what I can from this and it's going to go to zero or close to zero. I mean, if he keeps using it, though, then he's endorsing it, obviously, right? I mean, I think he's the only person really using it. Doesn't that matter more than selling it? Well, in terms of propping up the value, but if he didn't get this reprieve today and he
owed 500 million, it probably would have been a decent source of a lot of that 500 million, even if it tanked the stock. Because, I mean, you know, you gotta ask yourself, Tara, I mean, this is like found money for him, right? I mean, he doesn't care about
Digital World Acquisition Corp. He probably doesn't even care about social. He can go back to X or whatever. But what he cares about is the fact that now his stake is worth $3 billion. It's found money. If he goes to sell it in the stock tanks and he ends up getting only $400 million out of it or
you know, 10% or whatever, that still found money for him. It's not like, it's certainly much, got to be much better from his perspective than selling Trump Tower or 40 Wall Street. Nobody's even going to know that he sold that thing because nobody even knows that he owns $3 billion. Right. It sort of came out in the past few weeks that it was like, oh, that SPAC's about to sell. I mean, we've been writing about it for weeks, but I think it's only sort of been in the mainstream media that, oh, wait,
He could have a serious cash windfall, but I don't know. I think he's going to be tempted to use X before the election, and I think that will devalue Truth Social. Don't you? I think everything going on with Truth Social or from when it starts trading tomorrow is going to devalue it.
whether he uses X, whether he sells stock, whether he loses, whether he goes to jail. I mean, it's all gonna be a litmus test of Donald Trump and his popularity at this point. And plus the fact that SPACs, these vehicles,
that were popular on Wall Street during the pandemic have been so discredited that the only reason this isn't already at zero is because it's become a Donald Trump meme stock.
uh but you know once the bloom is off that rose as it is it will be inevitably it's going to trade down uh if he goes to sell his stock it's going to trade down rapidly even if he waits to the end of the lockup period and then tries to sell if you look at all the specs they're all heading to zero so he can't be like propped up by his whatever if
30% base that just loves him whether he shoots someone in the face. That won't keep Truth Social alive. - If his people keep buying this stock, they'll lose money too, but that'll probably prop him up. Again, he'll slither away like he always does, taking advantage of all these people who think he cares about them when he obviously does not. He only cares about himself. I mean, have you ever seen a president
surround himself and be surrounded by more people who are pleading with us not to return him to the White House and to power. I've never seen anything like it in my lifetime. Usually everybody around presidents are sycophantic and love the guy no matter what he does. This guy, everybody around him, everybody says how horrible he is.
Yeah, there is a very long list of former staffers ready to write books and tell all. Actually, I had one on last week, Sam Nunberg. It was a good episode, though. Everyone should really listen because he kind of talks about what to expect this election cycle in terms of like Trump leaning into January 6th conspiracies, mail-in voting conspiracies, his ability to not hold back his lack of self-restraint and how he'll probably sabotage the election because he just can't show...
show restraint. Although he does give examples of times he has, so maybe Trump is... This seeming amnesia that we all, many people are suffering from about his first term is baffling to me. I mean, look at what Jamie Dimon said at Davos and what David Solomon supposedly is saying about how he's not so bad, he did a lot of good things. I mean, really?
This guy was a frigging nightmare from day one. And there's actually a chance that he, and a decent chance, that somehow he may return to power. Well, they like their tax breaks.
They like their deregulation. That's what they're saying. They don't care about immigration policy or they don't care about that kind of stuff. They just like their tax breaks and their deregulation. Like, you know, these guys, they're Wall Street guys. Yeah, but they're not going to get any more. They've had the tax break. I thought the tax breaks expire in 2025. Well, OK. And what, they're going to get extended? Who has to extend them? Congress? Well, Congress is going to be a roadblock.
He's not going to get anything done. We'll see. I don't know. We'll see what happens. But you did send me an article this morning, a New Yorker article about the press. I'm going to read the headline for everyone. This is Claire Malone's latest article.
The face of Donald Trump's deceptively savvy media strategy. The former president and his spokesperson, Stephen Chung, like to hurl insults at their political rivals. But behind the scenes, the campaign has maintained a cozy relationship with much of the mainstream press. Just curious, Bill, what do you think about that story? Again, you would know better than I, but, you know, obviously I reached out to him to get a comment.
about this, what Anthony Scaramucci told me about him going to Wall Street and trying to get a $450 million loan with a 15%
coupon on it and he didn't respond to me. So, you know, I must be even below, you know, the quote unquote mainstream press in terms of his interest in being cordial too. I don't think that's the case. I think for a story like that, he probably didn't have an answer. They're thinking mainly about how it impacts their voter base and
and they're probably assuming that their voters are not reading Puck. Although their voters may be listening to this show right now, and they haven't responded. But they may be assuming that they're not reading Puck, and that's nothing against Puck. Puck is amazing. And, you know, we have an amazing audience, and it's growing every single day. But I think their main thing is they want
stories out there, Trump looking tough, right? That was what this article was about. And they respond to stories in which they think Trump looks weak. And honestly, like I've worked with Stephen Chung since he was in the White House, since I covered the White House as a White House correspondent for ABC News. And they were barely responsive then. They are transactional. They don't respond to everything. And they also don't complain about anything.
And actually, I was talking to Katie Rogers about this. She's a White House correspondent for The New York Times. And we were just talking about the old days and the Trump White House. And she was like, Trump at one point cut off their subscription to The New York Times. They weren't even getting it in print. So they didn't even know what her story, they didn't even bother to get like subscriptions themselves. So they didn't even know the stories in The New York Times. I do know that Stephen Chung has a subscription to Puck. And I know that he forwards our articles around
which means we're not getting subscriptions. I'm calling you out on the show, Steven, okay? But it's certainly read by like the inside crowd there, but they probably just thought that they didn't need to respond or maybe they don't have an answer or it's true. I often think that when they don't respond, it's usually an answer. It's true. Now dealing with the Biden White House is completely different. They micromanage every story. They read every line. They
have a nasty gram. There's a back and forth off the record, tense conversation about everything, background quotes, et cetera. They really care way more about the press, but like
Trump has essentially devalued the press and said that they're all fake news, so why even engage, right? And he can just say if he doesn't like a story, oh, it's fake news, right? He can go right to Fox News and say what he wants and they won't challenge him on it. I feel like he's not on that much anymore. Do you think so? Well, probably not as much as he was when he was calling in every day, but I mean, he was on CNBC the other day, blithering away. I mean, so... Yeah, he'll be on TV more. I mean, he's a candidate now. He's the Republican nominee.
I'm always surprised by what they respond to and what they don't respond to. Yeah, well, the Donald hasn't liked me for a while since I wrote that Atlantic article, and then I followed it up with the piece in Vanity Fair about him and Trump University and Eric Schneiderman. He didn't like that either, so...
That was before he was a candidate. That was 2013 and 2014. So he hasn't liked me for 10 years. And also he wrote it, you wrote it in his preferred format, which is glossy magazines that he likes to frame when they are adoring and when it's glossy and it's in print and it's not adoring. I mean, this is an old school guy. You know, it's amazing that he has a SPAC in the digital sphere when like he's really old school kind of guy.
you know, real estate guy. When I worked at the New York Post, like when he was kind of like flirting with running in 2011, 2012, like he would just call the post every single day and try to get a story on page six. Like that was better to him than getting a story in like Politico or the New York, maybe not the New York Times, but he was like, I'd rather get it in the New York Post. I'd rather get it in page six. So I remember fielding some calls from him at that time. Well, I mean, I thought it was funny because I wrote this article in The Atlantic about why nobody on Wall Street wants to do business with him.
and then immediately followed it up with this Vanity Fair. And he didn't like it, and he told me so afterwards, and then followed it up with a request for an interview for this Vanity Fair story about Trump University. And I knew he didn't like me, and he didn't like the Atlantic story, but I knew he couldn't resist Vanity Fair.
glossy magazine, even though it was going to be negative. And so, you know, back on the record, talking about how much he hated Eric Schneiderman, and then Eric Schneiderman talking about how much he hated Donald Trump, and then Eric Schneiderman went down the tubes. And we still have Donald Trump. I feel like that AG job either attracts a lot of slimeballs, or it's cursed. Spitzer, Cuomo, Cheney,
Schneiderman. You know, Letitia James seems to be doing a good job. Until she gets caught too somehow. I mean, I don't know. I think it's cursed. Maybe she'll end up being governor first. That's true. I think she probably wants to be, right? Didn't she run? Yeah, she was like, and her whole campaign was about nailing Donald Trump to the wall. Maybe she finally did it. Yeah, I think I wouldn't take the non-response from Chung. I do notice that like
They really have sealed off the palace intrigue and fighting stories. You don't even read them in the New York Times. That was sort of the mainstay of Maggie Haberman, Josh Josse. Even when I was at Politico, I wrote a ton of stories about that, too. It was just kind of like that was the story. But don't you think that'll return if he gets reelected? Maybe, because there's just going to be more people around him.
They're really proud of the fact that they don't have these palace intrigue and fighting stories anymore. He likes to pit his staff against each other. So I'm sure it takes a lot of restraint for them to not leak on each other because that's something that Trump likes to do. So I don't know. We'll see. The campaign's got to get bigger. And not everyone's going to agree with everything. Gee, I don't know about you, but I just can't wait to live through another Trump administration.
That was so much fun the first time. Does it feel like it's real? Does it feel like it's happening for you? I'm still harboring probably some misbelief that the American people will do the right thing here.
But toss up, it's 50-50. It's 50-50 anyway. There's only two candidates, right? Now, normally an incumbent in a strong, you know, relatively strong economy would be reelected easily. But, you know, even though the economy is relatively strong and better than most people thought it would be, Biden's not getting any credit for that. You know, we're just so polarized that people, you know, are locked into hating Biden or hating Trump and,
Question is, you know, what's going to happen in the five toss up states and how close is it going to be? And what's going to happen when Trump tries to manipulate the electors? And what's going to happen when he then says if he loses, it was all a sham and rigged. And, you know, let's have a civil war. I will say the one thing that was pretty eye popping for me.
was this CNN poll that came out last week that shows Trump ahead of Biden by eight points in Michigan, 50 to 42. That's eye-popping. Trump lost Michigan by 100,000 votes to Biden in 2020. The poll also shows Biden and Trump tied in Pennsylvania. And we know Biden beat Trump by, I think, like a point and a half or something in Michigan. I mean, sorry, in Pennsylvania. So these polls are...
Numbers we didn't see in 2020. In fact, I think Trump probably outperformed the polling in 2020. Well, who answers polls? I don't know. Do you know anybody who's ever been called by a pollster? I mean, they wouldn't poll us, right? We live in cities. I don't think so. Would they? Yeah, I mean, do you have to have a landline? Do you have to be there for the landline when it rings? I don't know. Again, maybe I'm being delusional. I just don't see...
how people can possibly vote for this guy. I didn't see it the first time, Tara,
I didn't understand it the first time being from New York and being a journalist who's written about him and living in New York City. I didn't see it the first time. I guess I convinced myself after it happened that I guess I could see why it happened, all things considered. But after living through that chaos and that fiasco of those four years, how anybody could possibly vote for him again and in enough numbers to give him a second shot at this,
I don't know. I just don't see it. It's hard to believe we're here. Thank you, Bill, for coming on the show. So illuminating, so interesting. And thanks for explaining everything to us and making everyone feel a lot smarter after this conversation. Congrats on your great show and your success with it. Thank you.
That was another episode of Somebody's Gotta Win. I'm your host, Tara Palmieri. I want to thank Christopher Sutton, my producer, for dropping into the show. Like I said, you're going to hear a lot more from him. And Connor Nevins, our production supervisor. If you like this podcast, please rate it, subscribe, and share it with your friends. If you like my reporting, please go to puck.news slash Tara Palmieri and sign up for my newsletter, The Best and the Brightest. You can use the discount code Tara20. I'll be back on Thursday.