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Suzanne Craig and Ross Butner are
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investigative reporters for the New York
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Times that is underselling they're
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amazing investigative reporters for the
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New York Times they've written a new
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book based on a lot of their reporting
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they have published this year uh called
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lucky loser how Donald Trump squandered
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his father's fortune and created the
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illusion of success Suzanne and Russ
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welcome thanks for having us thank you
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yeah thanks for having us so I went to
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your book event here in DC it was really
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interesting but you've been reporting
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for people who don't know on Donald
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Trump's an es for years but you go
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really in depth in the book talk to us
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about uh what obviously Donald Trump's
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all about talking about money but what
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does his financial history tell us about
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him as a businessman let's let's focus
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on that part yeah I think that was the
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our big interest in uh in doing this
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book was to get to the bottom of that we
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had done three longer stories in the
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times that explored different Windows
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how much money he got from his father
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and how his businesses performed in the
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80s and 90s and then again after the
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2000s but stringing all that together is
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where you really kind of see the pattern
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um and I think what you notice is that
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he's very good at you expect drawing
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attention to himself at selling things
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when there's things that need to be sold
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often he's drawing attention to things
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he never does that's one of the themes
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that runs through the book is he sort of
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builds up his reputation by saying he's
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going to do things that never happen but
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operationally he has difficulties um he
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never seems to be very careful about the
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finances of projects so he regularly
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spends far more than what the projects
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bring in he often says that and then he
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needs money from other sources outside
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of his business operations to support
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those businesses and what we saw was bit
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of a Ponzi scheme a little bit you see
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his inheritance filling in the holes and
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then later the fortune from The
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Apprentice uh really filling in a lot of
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holes as well and sort of sustaining
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this image that he's a powerful
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businessman when he's really having
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problems that he's hiding from public
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View and Suzanne talk a little bit about
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how you went about this reporting
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because you've been doing this for a
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long time right and like Russ said we we
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had a number of stories at the Times
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there's kind of three three big ones
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we've been covering him since 2000 it's
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hard to believe we're coming up on nine
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years of this but says every journalist
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I think covering this guy um and then we
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decided after the 2020 story it was a
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big story we had where we got Decades of
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his corporate and personal tax returns
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you know we found out in that that he
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wasn't paying much income tax ever um we
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also got an incredible window into how
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much he'd made from The Apprentice so we
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laid that out and then Russ and I had a
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conversation and and we realized we had
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a I think you know we call it a skeleton
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for a book but we really saw this as an
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epic American Tale and we wanted to tell
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it and we wanted to delve further into
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his father we were really intrigued
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about his dad from the reporting we did
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you know while we were at the paper um
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and then we wanted to just learn more
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about Fred and see that impact that it
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had had on his life and then re-explore
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Donald's life because I think there's
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just a lot of misconceptions that were
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out there some of them were laid down by
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him early on and just repeat it over and
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over and over and so you know and we
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decided Russ and I had a chat and and
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Russ took had very heavy lifting on the
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writing he's a beautiful writer and um
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we worked together and I did a lot of
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the reporting so we just spent a couple
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of years just full at it every day
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trying to get this together before I
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bring said talk about the role the f
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father this is Fred um talk about his
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role and influence because he was a
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pretty good business person in this case
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he was as a you know as a not a
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smalltime developer pretty big- time
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developer in New York which is a tough
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Market yeah I mean it's it it's an
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amazing Arc to his career he really was
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the self-created person businessman that
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Donald Trump's always said that he was
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um and he started out just building like
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garages in the upand cominging
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neighborhood in Queens where where he
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grew up and then over the course of the
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next like 40 years he really benefited
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from some of the big programs uh the
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government programs to solve the biggest
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crisises of the 20th century first the
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Great Depression then finding building
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housing for soldiers during World War II
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building more housing for Veterans when
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they got out and then a couple of
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programs to sort of build up housing for
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middle- inome people later than that and
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he built up this colossal Empire of 10
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to 20,000 sometimes apartments that were
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rentals he never had one except for a
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couple outside of New York City that
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didn't make money um and so by the time
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Donald joins the company Fred owns what
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would be during his lifetime a billion
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doll Empire of rental apartments it's
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kicking off tremendous amounts of cash
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it has very little debt and so Donald
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has this like windfall behind him to do
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what he wants and Fred it's a really
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interesting relationship to us and it's
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seminal to Donald's life Fred really
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puts his full faith in Donald from that
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point there were other siblings two
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brothers for various reasons Fred the
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older one falls off the scale doesn't
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get his father's trust becomes an
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alcoholic and dies very young
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unfortunately um and the younger one
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never really seems to be taken seriously
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because Donald's already claimed the
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helm by then and Fred never challenges
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Donald at all in anything he wants to do
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and they're entirely different as I said
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Donald starts saying he's going to build
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things that he doesn't do Donald's not
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paying attention to the bottom line um
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Donald's taking great risk but it's not
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really with his money but Fred
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throughout his life supports him even as
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Donald starts to say I'm way bigger than
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my father was when he's only built like
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one building with other big Partners but
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it's really seems to be a seminal
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relationship in his life I have to say
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Carol though you do see it in in R
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talked about Fred and in that era where
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he went into these larger projects they
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came out of government programs and Fred
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was seen at the time as taking advantage
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of them and exploiting loopholes and you
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know there's even there was a article in
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the in one of the Brooklyn papers that
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that ultimately called him a pariah
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feeding off government large s and
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gouging his tenants so you see shades of
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sort of what the practices that Donald
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is accused of yeah racism also yeah in
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in in some respects but but a great
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Builder so there's contradictions in
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there right right no always a malevolent
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Force Scott go ahead
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yeah uh nice to meet you so the data
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that I've seen is that from the 7s
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through the '90s when his dad ultimately
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passed away inherited he inherited
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approximately 4 13 million is the number
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that sticks my mind and if that were
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invested in just an S&P Index Fund it
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would be somewhere depending on the
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returns worth today somewhere between 10
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and 20 billion and it's very hard to
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nail
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down his actual net worth but we know
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it's less than that we know if he just
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stuck it in an index fund he'd be worth
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more money which
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businesses have been the most successful
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and which have been the least successful
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that he's been engaged in since
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inheriting that money I got to imagine
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the casinos and the golf courses have
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not paid off but The Apprentice was a
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big deal what else has made and lost him
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money it's a great question I'm so happy
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that you remember that number because
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that was on a spreadsheet on my screen
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for about a year and a half we were all
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coming up with the numbers to get to
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that 413 um and and you're right that's
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the way we've kind of looked at his
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wealth and his General success is that
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you know if he had just invested it and
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gone saing he'd probably be infinitely
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more wealthy than he is now um I mean on
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The Apprentice look all he did was show
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up there Mark brunett had the producer
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had made this deal with NBC that he
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would get half or he would get all of
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the product integration money and it
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wasn't really product integration each
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show was a commercial for whoever
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sponsored it and they didn't know NBC
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didn't know at the time what that was
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going to be worth um it took about a
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year to get it going but pretty soon
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companies were paying one two three four
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million dollar to be on each episode and
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brunette in order to persuade Donald to
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join that
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effort who he thought was really busy
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promised to give him half of whatever
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that would would would would raise and
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so that became just a huge windfall in
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his life about $200 million and then
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there was a string of Licensing deals
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that as soon as he became famous flowed
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from that early on the year before he
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had tried to get licensing deals and he
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had literally been laughed out of
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offices as soon as The Apprentice starts
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they just start pouring in the door
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eventually that goes bad you see Trump
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University and all these developments
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that don't happen because he's not
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really doing due diligence but still
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over the course of the years of The
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Apprentice that generated another $200
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million but when you look at the
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businesses that he created in that
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window um we see a lot of like
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alligators the Chicago Tower he secretly
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declared worthless on his tax returns
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while he's telling the world it's hugely
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successful the retail part of that Tower
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was built below grade so there's no
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Street traffic it's been empty now for I
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think 15 years his UK golf courses have
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continued to suck money and require
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influx of cash the Old Post Office the
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same problem that right he built that
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thing and and he spent too much on it
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all his competitors knew he was spending
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too much on it and we saw his tax
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returns he was having to put 7 to1
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millionar a year into it which we
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presume came from the easy money he was
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getting from The Apprentice and from
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licensing deals so golf has been a mixed
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bag real estate's been a mixed bag a
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little bit uh 40 Wall Street for
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example's been up and down at different
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times um but overall like the the line
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that's stuck in my head on this is that
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the less involvement he has in designing
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and operating a business the greater its
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chances of financial success so talk a
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little
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about this Suzanne this idea of wealth
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and success how he put this out as sort
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of using Creative Accounting using
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various task codes and rules to his
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Advantage not something other people
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don't do and he actually brags about it
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why shouldn't I take advantage of it so
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can you talk a little bit about what how
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he does that and creates these f
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um faux ideas that he's Rich he just
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says it right I mean it doesn't well I
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think that what a great yeah because
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there's there's of course the use of the
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tax code but I think when I think about
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that question when you first said it I
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think about just this crazy image that
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he projects that's not backed up by
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reality you look at one of the things I
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always remember about the book was when
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we got um or just the project it was we
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got it before we started the book we got
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10 years of tax records from 1985 to '94
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and in that was of course the year he
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wrote Art of the deal and we were
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thinking well there maybe going to be
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some good news in there that year he's
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writing a book saying he's this master
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deal maker and he lost $45 million do in
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change that year so behind the curtain
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that's what's going on and in that
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decade we actually were able to find out
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because we got some anonymized taxpayer
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data through the national archives in
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Washington we were able to go in and
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compare his taxes for that decade to a
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huge number of other taxpayers and in
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that year it looked like he lost more
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money than any other single American
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taxpayer but what he did this is like
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the interesting part of how it started
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is he was able to identify I think
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really in in the 80s I mean in the 70s
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he was spinning the story that he was
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richer than he was but then he fell in
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with not just the Larry Kings of the
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world who where he was able to get on
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CNN and repeat it but wealth porn sort
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of took off in the80s and you saw him
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shows like Lifestyles of the Rich and
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Famous with Robin Leech and and he had
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he had the accoutrements of success so
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he's flying around in his helicopter he
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was on his yacht he was losing a lot of
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money we we know that now from his taxes
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but they loved him and and not a lot of
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really rich people wanted actually to be
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on that show because it's sort of taky
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but but he was all in and it and it
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perpetuated this idea that he was rich
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and then he was getting on the rich
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lists and all that I mean it really did
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feed on itself but he started in the
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early 70s by lying about his wealth
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famously to the New York Times saying he
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was worth a couple hundred million
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dollars actually his dad was and then it
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just rolled up and kept the number kept
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getting bigger and bigger one of the
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things I really appreciate about
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appreciate about your work is that you
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both really did the work reading through
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uh some of your work I just can't
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imagine how much time you were in a
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conference room with bad coffee trying
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to string together tax filings and
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really connect the dot really do
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appreciate that you did the work and
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also that the New York Times would
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support you or support provide you with
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resources to do that kind of in-depth
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work my question is around Donald Trump
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media 80 million shares 23 bucks a share
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you know one whatever is that
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1.84 billion worth of of value in those
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shares my understanding is he hasn't
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sold any and that would come up am of
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filing if he had sold them but if I were
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him I would be writing calls I'd be
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doing prepaid variable forwards I would
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be borrowing on margin like crazy to
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diversify do you have any sense of or
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any evidence around what he is doing to
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diversify that Shar monetize that those
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shares but you left out run by that
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well-known Tech executive uh Devon Nunes
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but go ahead
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s let me just tell you this podcast
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makes more money by far than than Trump
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I think in a story I this is Russ's
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favorite R this is his favorite thing
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well I think in a story I compare their
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revenue does not compare favorably to a
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single Chick-fil-A restaurant right
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they're they're they really or a
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McDonald's they're it's just not a real
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store once too yeah it's not a real
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company and they don't really have a
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business plan that makes sense they're
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going to stream videos that are
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available for free Elsewhere on their
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platform because they're risk of being
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shut down but to answer your question
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Scott I I don't have any Intelligence on
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other ways he might be trying to
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monetize those shares at this point I
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think it's an excellent question I don't
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know that there's any way to certainly
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no public way to see that right now um
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but you know we'll be trying to watch
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out that for that and if you see any
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hint of it please let us know yeah we
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may be sifting through court filings one
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day looking for what he's done
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absolutely will be also on the crypto
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the sneakers whatever you have that's
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one of the great things here so many
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court filings uh anyway once again the
00:14:26
book is lucky loser how Donald Trump
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wandered his father's Fortune created
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the illusion of success I took it home I
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read it it's so good it's I I love
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accounting I hate to tell you but I love
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accounting but this is a really great
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reporting accomplishment that you two
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have done and I'm I'm excited to see
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more even though I'm not excited to see
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a grifter continue to grift but you've
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done a great job