MAN 1: You ready?
MAN 2: Yep. All set.
MAN 1: All right. Ready to roll?
MAN 2: A camera rolling.
GIANCARLO GRANDA:
Oh, sh*t, I don't... [laughs]
Let me mentally prepare myself
'cause I know my parents
are gonna watch this one day.
So, just... Um...
Look, if I would've known
that accepting this woman's invitation
to go back to her hotel room
would've led
to a scandal involving the president
of the largest
Christian university in the world
and the president of the United States,
I would've walked away
and just enjoyed my private life.
Tell 'em, pray for me
It was God that brought Dre to me
Even brought the... Kanye for me
Bless...
GIANCARLO: If you go
to the Fontainebleau on a Saturday,
it looks like you're in Vegas.
...ashamed of the city where he live
Make a...
Hate the logo on the Dodger cap
GIANCARLO:
And if you don't have the connections,
you're gonna wait two hours in line.
It's a big party scene,
everyone's having a good time,
people are drinking, there's cabanas.
People ordering bottle service,
spending a lot of money.
The waitresses would get hit on,
you know, us guys would get hit on too.
That's why it's a fun job.
Mama, forgive me
'cause I'm tryin' to make a living, hah
Them... hating 'cause they...
GIANCARLO: My job as a pool attendant
at the Fontainebleau was very simple.
Me and 'Ye killin'
Something like my Jesus piece...
GIANCARLO: Folding towels,
fixing the chairs, umbrellas,
and just interact with the guests.
Throw them su1c1de doors up
And let the Holy Ghost swing
Something like my Jesus piece...
GIANCARLO:
March 2012 was like any other day.
I'm doing the usual, just, uh,
changing towels, talking to the guests.
That day, I
I was flirting
with, you know, some girls.
They were about my age.
And then I look over,
you know, behind my shoulder,
and I see this woman looking at me.
She was just laying back,
sipping on a drink,
and just eyeing me down,
just staring at me.
She was actually snapping pictures of me.
She was in her 40s,
more than twice my age.
She was attractive.
Yeah, she was a cougar.
And I'm like,
"Why are you taking pictures of me?"
And then she tells me,
"Don't waste your time
with the younger ones.
They don't know what they're doing."
And at that moment, I knew
that she probably wanted something more.
It started intensifying.
She makes a proposition.
She's like,
"You wanna go back to my hotel?"
I'm like, "Let's go back. I'm down."
Like, I... I don't think any 20-year-old
would reject this proposition, right?
If an attractive woman tells you
to go back to the hotel room,
you're probably gonna take it.
And then she told me,
"But one thing, though.
My, uh, my husband wants to watch."
REPORTER 1: Jerry Falwell Jr. is officially
out as President of Liberty University.
The evangelical leader resigning
from the college his father founded
under a cloud of scandal.
REPORTER 2:
His fall from grace was swift and steep.
A one-time Miami pool attendant,
Giancarlo Grand a,
claiming he had a seven-year affair
with Falwell's wife, Becki,
and that Falwell watched
when they were intimate.
REPORTER 3: It is the latest
in a shocking string of scandals
to hit one
of the most influential families
in the evangelical Conservative movement.
Ooh, Lordy, trouble so hard
Ooh, Lordy, trouble so hard
Don't nobody know my troubles but God
Don't nobody know my troubles but God
Ooh, Lordy, trouble so hard
Don't nobody know my troubles but God
Don't nobody know my troubles but God
GIANCARLO:
I grew up in, uh, Westchester, Miami,
which is a predominately Cuban,
working-class, uh, neighborhood.
LILIA GRANDA:
He was a cute, little, blond baby.
Everyone loved him... Adorable.
He was the typical,
annoying little brother.
We have a seven-year difference.
GIANCARLO:
My childhood was pretty much normal,
you know, in Miami standards.
MARK EBNER: Giancarlo may seem
a little aloof, a little guarded.
That's just him
being a product of his upbringing.
He was raised in a conservative
Catholic family in Miami.
Write to me, Jerry Falwell...
MARK: His mom grew up
on The Old-Time Gospel Hour,
courtesy of Jerry Falwell Sr.
She was very religious.
She was a true believer.
LILIA: As a child,
he was always the social kid.
He made friends everywhere he went.
I went to a Catholic high school
called St. Brendan High School.
LILIA:
Once he got into the teen years,
there was a little bit of a switch in him.
He got really into video games.
It was an addiction.
GIANCARLO: Just spent an unhealthy
amount of time playing video games.
It became a problem.
My personality
just completely transformed.
I started to isolate, withdraw.
He became introverted, antisocial.
GIANCARLO: My ability to feel comfortable
in a social setting was, uh, compromised.
Like, I just...
I didn't wanna be out with friends.
I didn't feel comfortable.
LILIA:
It was rough to experience
'cause no one really knew
how to handle it.
GIANCARLO:
My parents, my sister,
they were very supportive
during that time.
It was a dark period for me.
It was sad and... and hard
for all of us, especially my parents
because they didn't really know
how to handle it.
GIANCARLO: After high school,
I told myself, "I need to change my life,"
so I started eating healthy,
started working out.
But I was still that shy, reserved kid.
I still had insecurities.
I wanted to... to work and experience life,
and... and actually,
make money and save money.
So I reached out to a friend
that worked at the Fontainebleau Hotel.
That's when he really started
coming out of his shell,
dating girls, having a social life.
He was doing good.
He was excited about school,
excited about his future.
GIANCARLO: I worked
at the Fontainebleau for one year.
I was working full-time
and going to school part-time.
There's days where I was making,
like, $200 to $500 a day in cash.
It was pretty good for a 20-year-old.
From that dark time
when he was, like, 15
to where he was at now,
like, it was just a different kid.
MARK: When he started busting out,
that was a whole new world for him.
And he went off the deep end head-first.
GIANCARLO:
After my shift, I'm driving home.
I tell my sister what's gonna happen.
This is a terrible idea.
Like, this is weird.
Who are these people? Where are they from?
Are they just here in Miami
just to do sexual escapades?
She's like, "Oh,
this doesn't sound like a good idea."
There's only so much I could tell him.
Like, once he makes up his mind
and is gonna do something,
he's gonna do it.
I probably should've listened to her.
That's been our relationship
our entire lives.
Like, if you'd just listened to me
from the beginning,
your life would be a lot easier.
GIANCARLO: That night, I get a
phone call from a blocked private number,
and, uh, it was the woman.
She said, "We rented a hotel room
at the Days Inn just around the block."
They didn't wanna
do it at the Fontainebleau
'cause their kids were staying there.
LILIA:
My brother calls me on his way
so someone knew what he was doing
and where he was going.
In case things got weird,
someone knew where to go to get him.
GIANCARLO:
I walk into the... to the lobby.
I'm nervous.
I'm like, "What the hell am I doing?"
Again, this is a very stupid scenario
I got myself into.
And I'm trying to talk myself out of it,
but then, I'm also thinking,
"Eh, who cares? I'll just do this."
I was a horny 20-year-old.
Uh, there... There really
is no other explanation other than that.
MARK:
This guy was as green as they come.
He never even had
a high school girlfriend.
GIANCARLO:
She's sitting there on the couch.
I sit down. I'm nervous.
She's like, "Hey, I'm Becki.
Take this to... to calm down."
She told me that,
"The night before, we were
at a swingers club called Miami Velvet."
I'm like, "Oh, sh*t."
"No, that's not our thing,
it's too public."
"We want something more private."
"We were looking around for other people,
and you were perfect."
She stroked my inner thigh.
She did a very good job at seducing me.
And the Jack Daniels definitely helped.
And she said, "All right,
let's just go up to the room."
I'm like,
"All right. sh*t, let's do it."
It's a small hotel room. There's two beds.
As I walk in, it's just her husband,
he's laying on the bed,
jeans are unzipped.
He's having a drink,
kinda giggling to himself
'cause he... he's excited.
We did small talk, trying to just get
comfortable with each other.
I told the husband, I'm like,
"Hey, if you get jealous,
or you don't like this
"and you... you don't want me here,
just let me know
and I'll walk out, no problem."
"Oh, no.
Don't worry about it. Just go for it.
I'm gonna sit right here,
and, uh, you guys do your thing."
We start kissing,
we were feeling each other up.
And then she said, "Anything but.
No penetration,
no actual sex, just oral sex."
We're kissing, and,
you know, we go back to the bed.
Oh, sh*t, I don't...
Yeah, it's... Ev... Ev...
Whenever I think of it,
I just... I cringe
at the thought of it but...
The husband gets up,
and I get... I get a little nervous.
I'm like, "What is he doing behind me?"
Uh, but he goes to the corner of the room.
He took off his jeans
and then he just started, uh, jacking off.
MARK:
Let's talk about cuck theory.
Ultimately, it's a guy who likes to watch.
"I'm fulfilled on a sexual level
by watching my wife
with a Cuban stallion."
GIANCARLO: I kept looking back,
and I saw him, like, in the corner.
He was trying to hide.
He didn't want
himself being exposed or anything.
He just wanted to observe the situation.
I wish the husband wasn't there.
That would've been a better situation.
That's what
I was telling myself at the time.
As a horny 20-year-old,
I'm like, "I'm gonna block this out,
I'm gonna have sex with this cougar."
Instantly, like,
there was this connection.
She was staring at me.
I could tell that
she obviously wanted to do this again.
The next day,
we hung out again at the Fontainebleau.
I knew what
I was getting myself into at that point.
After we finished,
we actually hung out and we talked.
And they said what their names were,
you know, Jerry and Becki.
"Wow, nice to meet you guys."
They said that
they help out a lot of young people,
and if I ever need help
that they can definitely help me out.
We were talking about politics.
We had, you know, common beliefs.
I... I was raised Republican.
I remember Becki said, "He's perfect."
It was nice connecting with them
and just humanizing the situation.
It wasn't just these strangers anymore.
After they left Miami,
she gave me a really good review
on Tripadvisor.
I didn't have her last name.
I didn't really know who they were,
until I... I got an email on March 22nd.
And it actually came from Jerry.
It was a picture of us that we took
at the Fontainebleau Hotel.
There's a picture with me and Becki,
and then one with Jerry.
He sent the email saying,
"Becki wanted me to send this to you."
Immediately, I was like, "Who?"
And she's like, "Oh, Jerry Falwell?"
She... She recognized the name.
She's like, "Isn't that,
like, the famous pastor, preacher?"
Wait a minute. Hold on.
This cannot be the same people
that I'm thinking about right now.
And I'm like,
"I... I honestly don't even know."
So I ended up googling him.
Becki, would you stand
in your Liberty Flames dress?
[crowd cheering]
I think it's very fitting
that she's wearing that dress
because I believe
she's the hottest first lady
of any college in the country.
[crowd cheering]
GIANCARLO: "Oh, so he's the
President of Liberty University."
I didn't know what Liberty University was,
never heard of it.
L-U
I can't hear you
L-U
Turn it up, turn it up...
Liberty University
is a one-of-a-kind school
in Lynchburg, Virginia.
It's a nonprofit Christian university,
where both students and faculty
practice what they preach.
154 students, man
How could they manage?
Now, we the biggest
Christian university on the planet...
GIANCARLO: I knew immediately
that they were successful,
and then I started learning that they were
not just successful and had money,
but they were powerful and well-connected.
My father founded
Thomas Road Baptist Church in 1956.
It is now located next door to campus.
Good morning.
And I welcome you to the morning service
at the Thomas Road Baptist Church
in Lynchburg, Virginia.
The church services
were broadcast nationally
in the 1970s and '80s.
REPORTER:
TV preacher, Dr. Jerry Falwell,
whose doctorate is honorary, not earned,
turned a small Virginia church of 35
into a Christians communications empire.
Falwell preaches
to a church of 4,000 each Sunday,
with a TV audience of 20 million.
JERRY FALWELL SR.:
I believe these are the last days.
What is the thing
that interests God the most?
Getting people ready for his coming,
getting people ready
for the sounding of the cross.
He founded Liberty University in 1971.
REPORTER:
A school for 50,000 students,
from kindergarten
right through a doctoral program.
We have what we think
is a boot camp here for the Lord,
training soldiers for Christ.
He founded
Moral Majority a few years later.
Moral Majority was a coalition that shared
pro-life and pro-family values.
One man for one woman for one lifetime.
It's called the traditional family.
It's worked for 6,000 years.
Many credited Moral Majority
with the election
of Ronald Reagan in 1980.
GIANCARLO: I told Jerry,
"I found out more about your dad."
"I read about what he would say,
blaming, uh, 9/11 on h*m*."
The abortionists and the feminists
and the gays and the lesbians,
all of them,
you helped this happen.
"Honestly, if you wanna know my opinion,
I think your dad was a piece of sh*t."
He's like, "Eh, you know,
yeah, a lot of people think that.
But I'm completely different.
I'm not like my dad."
He said, "I'm a business guy,
and I see the future,"
and I liked that.
MARK:
The Falwells are the Southern Gatsbys.
They're wealthy
and they're sloppy as f*ck.
How old was Becki when you guys met?
Uh, some of our freshmen
don't know this story.
No, we don't need to get on that story.
JERRY JR.:
She was 13 and I was 18 when I met her.
BECKI: All right, let's not get,
um... So, Candace. [Laughs]
Hey, girls, let's take a look at the ring
on Candace's finger, by the way.
I think it's 13 carats,
the same age that you were,
Becki, when you guys met.
[crowd cheering]
MEGAN K. STACK:
Becki grew up in North Carolina.
They were a religious family.
She told me that her father was in timber.
I later found out
her father was in trailer parks,
and went to prison for tax evasion.
Becki, tell 'em how you proposed to me.
Falwell Jr. went to Liberty University
with Becki's older sister.
Yeah, I proposed to Jerry.
He had finished law school,
and he had taken the bar exam.
MEGAN: She dropped out
of Liberty to support Jerry,
who was down
at the University of Virginia.
And I said, "Can we get married now?"
And he said, "Yes."
MEGAN: Becki said to me,
with sort of embarrassment,
"Oh, we had the most boring wedding
of anybody ever.
There was no drinking alcohol.
There was no dancing. It was just awful."
MARK:
And they popped out three kids,
Trey, Wesley, and Caroline.
MEGAN: These are two people
who have, for a long time,
been and remain very much in love.
I don't see any daylight between them.
They're just extremely intertwined,
psychologically and emotionally.
It's very unusual
to come across a married couple like that.
JERRY JR.: My father,
he would tell his congregation,
"Don't get mad
when people tell lies about you,
"just be glad
they don't know the truth." So.
[audience laughing]
MEGAN:
In some ways, Jerry was a black sheep.
A son who was not able
to access the kind of religious fervor
that defined his father
and that was going to define his family.
Jerry Jr. had not been
a conventional evangelical.
He believed that his role
to support the ministry
would be in business.
MEGAN:
He did set out doing real estate law
and not working with his father.
He came back to help get
the university out of financial distress.
JERRY JR.: I spent many days
negotiating with creditors
and spent many weekends begging
and borrowing from donors and lenders
to cover the paychecks
that had already been issued
on the Friday before.
DUSTIN WAHL: Falwell Jr. was never
a good fit to be in a public-facing role.
It wasn't something
that he sought out and asked for.
He inherited it
when his father passed away.
MEGAN:
He was a hero to Liberty, financially.
It brought Jerry Falwell money.
It brought him power.
It gave him
the tacit approval of his father,
even after his father's death.
MARK:
If you're part of this dynasty,
then you can do
whatever the f*ck you want,
and that couple did it to the hilt.
[indistinct chatter]
DUSTIN: He was beloved
by a lot of students for his quirkiness.
People didn't treat him
like he was the spokesperson
for one of the largest Christian and
Conservative institutions in the world.
People treated him
like he was a cartoon character,
or their crazy uncle.
He realized that
that familiarity students felt with him
gave him a lot of power.
[crowd cheering]
LILIA: What my brother did
was with almost like the first family
of, like,
the evangelical Christianity Church.
GIANCARLO: Becki calls me,
and she says they got a hotel
at the Cheeca Resort in the Keys.
This trip was different
because I wasn't just meeting them
and going back home.
I'm actually gonna
stay there for the weekend.
I remember driving down to Cheeca,
I'm like, "Wait,
we're gonna be in the same room.
Where's Jerry gonna be?"
Uh, so that was... that was a concern.
The sleeping arrangement was,
I slept on the bed with Becki
and, you know,
Jerry slept, uh, next to the bed.
Which, you know,
thinking back, it's kind of strange.
It was, I don't know,
like 5:00 in the morning,
and I just... I randomly woke up,
and I look over to the side
and Becki's just staring at me.
She has these dark black eyes.
I obviously kept hooking up with her,
but, you know,
I'm like, "This is kinda weird."
I'm like... I was startled by it.
MARK: The dynamic
of the relationship outside of the sex,
he liked being around them.
Jerry had the business acumen,
he was kind of a goofball.
And Becki Falwell
was Giancarlo Granda's warm bathwater.
She held his hand.
When we're talking,
it... it just felt natural.
We really connected
'cause we would talk about business,
how he was a real estate attorney,
how he developed real estate.
And he would tell me
about Liberty University,
how, you know,
they were doing over $100 million
in construction projects.
LILIA:
You go to Lynchburg, Virginia,
and they own
half of the real estate in that town.
He was impressed by them.
Your ego is being stroked,
and you have Becki on one hand
telling him how beautiful he was,
and then you get Jerry telling him,
"You're a bright kid,
and I like your thinking."
After the Cheeca trip,
we're talking on the phone every day
and texting every day.
She became my girlfriend.
MARK:
Becki was texting him 24/7.
They didn't end a day
without at least one hour on the phone.
She's really making an effort
to maintain this relationship.
MEGAN:
She said, finally she met somebody,
and she felt that she was having
an adventure.
She was having an affair.
She was living this carefree,
youthful lifestyle
that she never got to experience
when she was young.
GIANCARLO: Becki was the
first woman outside of my family,
uh, to say, "I love you."
This is three weeks after meeting 'em.
I'm like...
MARK: He's a kid,
he doesn't know what love is.
And this is where
it became dangerous down the line.
But in the beginning, it's like,
"Whoa, I'm being lavished with attention.
"She wants to do it again?
Which exotic locale are we going to now?"
GIANCARLO:
Shortly after the Cheeca trip,
they invited me to New York.
They were gonna go there for business.
And they're like, "Hey, come over
and we can discuss
how we can become business partners."
So I meet them,
and I stayed the weekend with them.
We stayed at the Gansevoort Hotel
on Park Avenue.
We're at dinner at STK,
and I was really worried
that someone was gonna discover us
and it's gonna end up in the tabloids.
We're looking through the dessert menu,
and Becki spotted
the Carnival Menage A Trois.
And she was like, "Oh, let's get this."
And I... I remember just feeling awkward
when she ordered
the Carnival Menage A Trois.
Like, they're not being subtle about this.
But after dinner, we're talking,
and that's when he said,
"You need to make money yourself.
"With my past in real estate,
it's a great way to build wealth.
"We'll acquire a property
and we'll give you an equity stake in it.
"You just have to manage it.
"And then, you know,
when you make your first million,
"we'll all drink champagne together
and life is gonna be great."
Deep down,
I always wanted to invest in real estate.
I wanted to get in the game.
I'm like, "This is it!"
I thought, "Well,
maybe they can help him in some way",
"and however weird this thing started,
maybe it'll turn into something good."
They did what they wanted to do,
everyone had their fun,
and now let's go and be... adults.
GIANCARLO:
But Jerry quickly wanted to cut to,
"Hey, let's go back to the hotel room
and do what we have to do."
Yeah
Woman got a big ol' ass
and bow legs...
GIANCARLO:
Becki, she said, "I have some good news.
We can go all the way this time."
They were both ready for me.
They both felt comfortable with me.
'Cause we gon' f*ck tonight
My d*ck is getting rock hard...
They thought it was the right time
to actually go forward with it.
Gonna be some f*ckin' tonight
Take your panties off
Moving things off to the side...
And there's no holding back anymore.
Is we gon' f*ck tonight
Yeah...
MARK: As the relationship grew
and it intensified,
Jerry could sort of move out
of that creepy corner that he was in.
GIANCARLO: Jerry, you know,
he went from just, you know,
masturbating in the corner
to whenever I would finish,
he would go in, uh, for round two.
MEGAN: They were both
kind of looking for these things
that weren't actually available to them
within their religious community.
Grand a is part of that desire
that they shared.
MARK:
He was that element of kink
that they needed for them
to become closer, if you will.
GIANCARLO: Fast forward,
I'm back in Miami looking for properties.
I actually started
driving around by myself.
I narrowed it down to Miami Beach.
What is happening?
What do you know about any of this?
Like, you're 20.
He was like,
"I know, like, what I'm doing,
"I know the right people.
Like, we're gonna get this done."
And he relied on the Fernandezes.
GIANCARLO: I reached out
to a friend of mine at the time,
Jesus Fernandez Jr.
We called him Tito.
That was his nickname.
And his dad, Jesus Fernandez Sr.,
he was a broker.
LILIA: Him and his dad
are like your classic wannabe,
just Miami bullshit artists.
It never really made sense
how he was friends with him, honestly.
I met Giancarlo through Jesus.
Giancarlo and Jesus
were kind of like best friends.
I was Jesus' girlfriend,
and I was very close with them.
I mean, everybody changed
in the five years that I dated Jesus,
they kinda grew up.
But Giancarlo did not strike me
as having any street smarts.
Nothing, not even an instinct.
He doesn't really have a hustle spirit.
Jesus was the street-smart hustler
of the group.
When I met him,
I was absolutely under the impression
that that was a wealthy family.
MARK:
Jesus Fernandez Sr. Was, at one point,
a big-time real estate investor
and a broker.
That family had lived the American Dream.
NICOLE: The houses that
they lived in were gorgeous.
Unfortunately, none of them lasted long
before... the sheriff's department came.
MARK:
If you look at Jesus Sr.'s rap sheet,
there was a major bankruptcy,
there were allegations of fraud.
The guy didn't even have
a broker license anymore.
None of this was disclosed to Giancarlo.
GIANCARLO:
By me reaching out to them
and telling, "Hey,
you're gonna get a commission from this,"
I felt like I was helping them out.
NICOLE: I was an assistant general
manager working at South Beach Hostel.
I mean, in Miami, hostels,
you build it and it's gonna be filled.
It's like a fail-safe business.
Jesus knew the real estate side,
I knew the hostel side,
and Giancarlo had the financial backing.
I called Jerry, I said, "Hey, come down.
I have some guys that are gonna
find the best investment property."
NICOLE: Jesus and Giancarlo,
his father eventually found a property.
It was Miami Hostel.
The first floor had a restaurant
and a liquor store.
GIANCARLO: It was just in the heart
of South Beach, which is perfect.
The land itself is very valuable.
LILIA: Once the Fernandezes saw
these evangelicals come down here,
they probably saw, you know,
just nothing but money signs everywhere.
MARK: This is a guy from Lynchburg
trying to do business in Miami.
He didn't know where the f*ck he was.
They should've done diligence
on these guys.
NICOLE:
I understood flying him places,
but I have never heard of anybody
buying some kid,
that they met at the Fontainebleau pool,
a four-and-a-half-million-dollar business.
What the f*ck? Like, what's going on?
GIANCARLO:
Tito and his dad were both very curious,
and they were trying
to find out what was going on.
And they kept trying
to get answers out of me.
I'm like, "No,
they just wanna help me out."
Obviously, that didn't make sense.
That... That was just... That was...
You know, it wasn't a good excuse.
I think that they... they were convinced
there was more to it,
and they were right, there was more to it.
Now you got
the Fernandezes working Giancarlo,
because they're smelling money,
real money.
The long con had already started.
Who knew what a buddy fucker
Jesus Fernandez turned out to be, right?
LILIA: It was a few months
for the deal to actually close.
Throughout this process,
my brother and Tito,
their friendship started fracturing a bit.
GIANCARLO:
The Fernandezes received their commission
on the sale of the property,
and we didn't really talk much after that.
It was just like,
all right, the deal closed,
and then they kind of just vanished.
LILIA:
Between the time that he met the Falwells
to when they closed on that property
was less than a year.
About 11 months after meeting them,
we're closing on
a 4.65-million-dollar commercial property.
It just felt like I was living in a movie.
It just didn't feel real.
I'm like, "Why am I here?
Why am I a part of this?"
LILIA:
Imagine the first property you own
is a four-and-a-half-million-dollar
property.
GIANCARLO:
I saw it as a big opportunity to learn,
to grow within business.
It was tough to turn down.
Okay, so how did the deal break down?
Who was the principal in name?
It wasn't Jerry.
He didn't want his name
anywhere near that deal
with a 20-year-old pool boy,
so he put it in Becki's name.
At this point,
my dreams were coming true.
I can see
how I can make that first million.
How do you keep Giancarlo on a leash?
Go into business with him.
And Jerry was looking
at keeping his wife happy at that point.
Where she was happiest
was when Giancarlo Grand a
was balls-deep inside of her.
So from March 2012
till about, like, June, June, July,
you know, we had this sexual component
with the relationship.
I broke it off.
I told Becki, I'm like,
"We can't have sex anymore
"'cause I found a girl my age.
I wanna date her, I like her a lot.
We obviously can't be doing this."
She didn't take it very well.
Becki cried.
She made me feel guilty for it.
"Oh, you replaced me for someone younger."
She would tell me, "God put us together."
I'm like, "I need to live my own life.
I need to find someone my age."
And then Jerry said,
"Well, she doesn't have to know.
We won't tell her."
And I said,
"No, I'm sorry, I just... I can't.
I... I don't feel comfortable doing it."
What I did agree to,
and it's not... it's not right,
I continued the emotional connection.
I kept texting her,
I kept talking to her every day.
I felt like I was living a double life.
Becki, she would call me every day,
she would text me every day.
If I didn't respond to her right away,
she would call me crying.
If I didn't respond for a couple days,
then Jerry would call me.
He was disappointed.
He'd say, "Hey, what's going on?
Like, she loves you so much."
"Why are you trying to break away?
She's been so nice to you.
"And we're going to bat
for you for this property.
Why... why break up now?"
Things started slowly morphing into,
"Oh, this is just sex and friendship,"
to "Now we're gonna control you."
LILIA:
Imagine how sick and twisted that is.
Like, you're middle-aged people
calling him, making him feel bad
because he's not texting your wife?
What the f*ck is wrong with you?
So I had two options:
I could just walk away
and never talk to 'em again
and lose out on this multi-million-dollar,
uh, commercial property,
or just trust them and see what happens.
MARK: These are predators.
Becki, she was addicted to the idea
of being in love with this kid,
and she was not gonna let go.
GIANCARLO:
One day, Becki texted me,
"I was watching
some video clips on my phone... Wow."
At that moment,
that just, like, set off an alarm.
And that was the first time
that I realized,
"Oh, they were recording everything."
I felt like it was a subtle hint as to,
you know, "We got the goods on you too.
Like, don't forget that."
MARK:
Jerry Falwell Jr., at the time,
was everything
that Giancarlo wanted to be.
Giancarlo wanted all of this
and they knew it.
So they were using it
as a method of control.
"Hey, you know,
have fun with your little girlfriend,
but we own your ass."
You're fired.
Money, money, money, money
GIANCARLO: September 2012,
Becki gives me a call saying,
"Hey, do you wanna meet Donald Tr*mp?"
'Cause at the time,
he wasn't who he is today.
He wasn't running for president.
He was just the star on The Apprentice.
They knew that I liked Donald Tr*mp,
that I read his book, The Art of the Deal.
LILIA: My brother loved business
and thought Donald Tr*mp was great,
and so he was like...
Yeah, absolutely!
MARK:
They were bringing him into a world
that he couldn't even imagine.
"Real estate, politics,
my future, everything is here."
He had never in his life imagined
being able to be allowed entre
into that world.
GIANCARLO: I paid
for the ticket from Miami to Lynchburg,
then they put me at a hotel.
But after a day, they're like, "Hey,
you don't need to stay there actually.
Just come stay with us at our house."
It was the first time
that I met their kids.
I don't think they suspected anything
at the moment.
Jerry and Becki did tell the kids
they were helping me out,
that they wanna give me
the opportunity to rise within business.
Jerry was the leader
of this Christian university,
so they're around young adults.
It's actually pretty reasonable.
No one really asked why I was around.
I just kind of blended right in.
I was kind of expecting
this weird Bible college
in the middle of nowhere,
but Liberty University is one
of the nicest campuses I've seen.
Jerry was very proud,
and he mentioned that the endowment
was about two billion dollars.
Coming from Miami where you have
people from all parts of the world,
it's a melting pot,
but what I did notice at Liberty,
there weren't many Black students.
It was mostly white evangelicals.
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: Today,
I want to say to the people of America
and the nations of the world,
we are not about to turn around.
We are on the move now.
Yes, we are on the move,
and no wave of racism can stop us.
[crowd clamoring]
March 1965 is a big turning point
for many white evangelical pastors
to understand that the world was changing.
They would have to consider
what side of that world
that they wanted to be on.
Would they be on the side
of the Civil Rights Movement,
or would they be on the side
of white supremacy?
And Jerry Falwell Sr. Made a choice.
JERRY SR.: I remember preaching a sermon
justifying the segregationist position.
One can make the Bible say almost anything
he wants to make it say.
Our God is marching on.
Glory hallelujah!
Glory hallelujah!
Glory hallelujah!
Jerry Falwell Sr. Says that ministers
should not be involved in the political,
they should only be involved
in preaching the Gospel of Jesus.
But later on, his game had changed.
REPORTER:
School districts began desegregating today
under Supreme Court orders.
Jerry Falwell Sr. Was not happy
about the Brown v. Board of Education
decision.
But as the public schools reopen,
a number of new private schools,
all white, sprang into existence.
He started his own
segregation academy there
in conjunction with
the Thomas Road Baptist Church.
These segregation academies
were not called segregation academies.
They had Christian names.
But they were built to make sure
that white children did not have to be
in contact with African American children.
The IRS wants to revoke
the tax exemptions for private schools
which discriminate racially
in their admissions policies.
MATTHEW SUTTON:
In the 1970s, the IRS determines
that if you were
a charitable institution by definition,
so it means you get tax exemption,
you cannot practice segregation.
And one of the things they'd then target
are these Christian-segregated academies.
So this really wakes up Falwell
and a number of other ministers,
and they realize that if they don't have
allies in the Federal Government,
they're not gonna be able
to keep doing what they're trying to do.
JERRY JR.:
I preached a few years ago
that Christians
shouldn't be involved in politics,
but I think we have every right to speak.
We're citizens too.
He actually at least had the integrity
to acknowledge that he was a hypocrite.
Jerry Falwell Sr.'s idea
about ministers being involved in politics
was to support the status quo
of white supremacy.
Falwell is really at the ground level
doing this through his school,
through his academy
in Lynchburg, Virginia.
We're waiting in this back area.
I'm with Becki and the kids.
And then Tr*mp and Jerry walk in.
Immediately, Tr*mp just
sucked up the energy of the room.
Jerry says, "I wanna introduce you
to our business partner in... in Florida.
He... He used to work
at the Fontainebleau."
And then he signed my book, and he wrote,
you know, "Giancarlo, work hard!"
And it was... it was a cool moment.
And it just reinforced all the things
that Becki was telling me,
that I'm very lucky
to be mentored by Jerry.
I mean, he's clearly well-connected.
He's in a powerful position,
there's a lot of influence.
If I learn from him,
look what I can potentially become.
I felt special.
Like I was part of this exclusive club,
part of their inner circle.
It was intoxicating.
Michael Cohen was present.
I didn't know who he was,
I just saw him as, uh, like,
"Oh, his attorney or business associate."
Michael Cohen kinda leaned over,
he's like, "Who is that guy?"
Like, he just didn't really get it.
He's like, "What? I mean,
this guy's, you know, 21 years old."
At that moment,
I'm like, "Does he know?"
Like, it was just this moment
like, "Why... Why did he ask him?
Why did he react that way?"
He was paid,
you know, to dig up dirt on people
and to be able
to control them with that dirt.
At that moment, he registered
that there may be something here.
[indistinct chatter]
Liberty University has this big arena.
[crowd cheering]
I walk in.
I'm not sure
how many people are seated there,
I don't know what the capacity is,
but thousands.
Thousands of students.
We're on the big screen
and people were clapping for us
as we were walking to the front row.
We are the sole focus of the show.
I... I just couldn't believe it.
Tr*mp was speaking
at this thing they called the Convocation.
I didn't know what Convocation was.
DUSTIN:
Convocation is sort of like a big chapel.
It's three times a week.
If you live on campus,
you are required to be there.
You have no right to be ordinary.
DUSTIN:
The person that comes up to speak,
they get the blessing of having
a stage that they can stand on
that has spiritual legitimacy.
So it's especially nefarious
when that stage is abused.
And that stage is abused all the time.
WOMAN:
Good morning, Liberty University.
Are you excited to be here?
Mr. Tr*mp
single-handedly forced President Obama
to release his birth certificate.
[crowd cheering]
I would like to ask Donald Tr*mp
to join me at the podium.
[crowd cheering]
GIANCARLO:
Donald Tr*mp gave a speech.
You know, your founder,
Jerry Falwell, was a great man.
So impressive, so smart,
so tough when you had to be tough.
GIANCARLO:
When I'm sitting there in the front row,
I started to think to myself,
"Everything about Liberty University
and the Falwells is all about power,
and making sure
that people are aware of this power."
- Don't let people take advantage...
- This goes for a country too, by the way.
Don't let people take advantage.
Get even.
[crowd cheering]
GIANCARLO: And then I find out
that the students
aren't even allowed to dance,
or drink alcohol,
or hold hands or hug, or anything.
The Liberty Way is this set of rules
that students have to live by.
Dress modestly.
You cannot attend a dance.
You're not allowed to drink.
And it controlled
the sexual conduct of the students.
And you agree that, you know,
"The school can fine me
if I violate one of these rules."
For a small violation like swearing,
you're probably just gonna end up
getting a few points put on your record.
For something more serious,
like possession of alcohol,
right away, you could get a $300 fine,
which is the same potential fine
for committing a felony, like r*pe.
They run a Christian university,
but this is what they're doing.
They're staying at the Fontainebleau
and partying and drinking.
MARK: This is Jerry Falwell Jr.,
this is Becki Falwell,
and this is their ultimate hypocrisy.
Becki and Jerry as a team,
they didn't play
by anyone's rules but their own.
GIANCARLO:
I started feeling guilty.
The students, they have no idea
what's really going on behind the scenes.
They all think that the Falwells
are this godly, perfect family.
I just felt very awkward.
You know, it's not too late to get back
in the presidential race, is it?
I don't know.
[crowd cheering]
Jerry and his family
have absolute control,
and no one is going to stand up to them
'cause they're gonna get crushed.
My brother was so into this world,
he was, like, high
off the power and the money,
and being around
all these powerful people.
He owned this building on Miami Beach.
He was, like, on top of the world.
GIANCARLO:
When my ex-girlfriend and I broke up,
Becki pretended like she was sad,
but she was obviously very excited
because it meant
that we were gonna go back
to the original nature
of the relationship.
You know, we just started up again
as we did on day one.
A part of me
felt like I... I owed them this.
They had this weird
psychological hold over me
with these constant guilt trips
and me being financially tied to them.
I can't really explain it,
but I felt like I had to.
I get invited to Trey's wedding.
LILIA:
There's like the first level of weirdness
about the whole thing,
and then what really took
my weird feelings to the next level
is when he started
being friendly with the kids.
GIANCARLO: The Falwells stayed
at the Presidential Suite.
Why the f*ck
are you going to that wedding?
I mean, why are you invited to that?
And I would just sneak away,
go to the room, and we would have sex.
MARK: The idea of getting caught
was part of their sexual kink.
Why else would you be so reckless?
MEGAN: There was a sense
that if they just went along
and got the university rich,
that people would leave them alone
and that they could pursue
this very racy private life.
GIANCARLO:
Becki would refer to Trey
and their other son, Wesley,
and their daughter as my siblings.
If you look at it,
it's a good cover story.
They were always gonna be able to say,
"Yeah, you know what?
We saw him as a son
and we were just trying to help him out."
Christians are known
to reach out to people that are vulnerable
and going through a tough time,
and lifting them up.
The kids saw it as something admirable.
They had no idea
that their dad liked to watch his wife
get f*cked in a room by a younger guy.
LILIA:
Involving your kids with this person
that you had
this sexual relationship with,
they're the adults in the room,
they run a university, they're parents.
He was at the age of,
like, I think, one of their sons.
The whole thing was just, like, icky.
GIANCARLO: With family vacations,
whenever they went down to Miami,
Becki would just sneak away
and, you know, have sex with me.
There was a running joke
amongst the kids and everyone,
they're always like, "Where's Becki?"
She was always... She was always missing.
They actually made a shirt
that said, "Where's Becki?"
It was a little inside joke
amongst everyone.
She was hanging out with me.
Jerry, his job was to distract the kids.
"All right, let's go to the beach.
Let's go to the pool.
Let's go get drinks. Let's go explore."
And then Becki and I
would just hang out in the hotel.
As long as we recorded it,
he was okay with it.
A lot of pressure came from Jerry.
Basically, her job was to seduce me
and successfully have sex with me.
And if she wasn't able to do that,
Jerry would get upset.
The lies just started building up.
I had to lie to my girlfriends,
I had to lie to my family.
It was exhausting.
If you look at the Falwells,
they were living their best life.
They were professionals
at living a double life.
Over the years,
it just... it weighed on me.
When you're forced
to hold this secret and lie to everyone,
you start to become a liar.
And I didn't like who I was becoming.
At a certain point, you just...
You just don't wanna do it anymore.
MARK: And then all of a sudden,
the Fernandez duo, father and son,
started making claims what they would do.
And they started making threats,
and they started being a pain in the ass.
I think that visions of grandeur
and money,
that was in everybody's head.
Everything kind of turned sour.
Greed fucks everybody up.
GIANCARLO:
I hadn't heard from the Fernandezes
since the deal closed,
then all of a sudden, in fall, 2014,
I received a letter from an attorney
who was representing them.
And it had to do with breach of contract.
They were claiming that they were promised
50% of my equity stake,
but they weren't promised an equity stake.
To the best of my understanding,
the agreement
was a real estate commission.
I've never heard of them speaking
about being 50-50 in the property.
GIANCARLO: I give him a call.
Hello, Mr. Giancarlo Grand a.
Just being theatrical.
As a devout Christian, I'm heartbroken
about the things that my client
is telling me about the Falwells.
GIANCARLO:
He referenced compromising images,
photos of me and Becki.
Obviously, I'm like, "Oh, my God,
everyone's gonna find out."
"My family's gonna find out.
"This is all gonna crumble.
"Oh, my God, what... what do they have?
"Did they have the videos of me and Becki?
Do they have that?
I didn't... I didn't really know."
It does not feel good when you know
that this secret part of your life
is about to be exposed.
He was definitely nervous.
I think this also started
his becoming a little paranoid.
Who do you trust? Who you can't trust?
GIANCARLO: I was so frustrated
at the fact that I was being betrayed
by someone who I saw as a friend.
It's just disgusting
to thr*aten to reveal our private lives.
You know, later, I found out that
his dad owed a lot of money. [Chuckles]
He owed like, I don't know, like,
34 million dollars or something like that.
So the $15,000 that they got
from commission wasn't gonna put a dent.
NICOLE: Jesus and his father
are always looking for the next hustle,
and that was Jerry Falwell Jr.
I just told him, "You're gonna
be hearing from my attorney."
Called Jerry immediately after.
I said, "It seems like
we're being blackmailed here."
There's a mediation.
Jerry flies down to Miami.
The Falwell attorneys
actually made an offer to the Fernandezes.
But you see, greed doesn't play that game.
GIANCARLO:
The reason why it was a shakedown
and not just a normal legal dispute
is because they were claiming
for half of my equity stake
and anything that I made.
And we offered it to 'em,
and they declined.
They figured
they could get a hell of a lot more.
They didn't really want half
of the equity stake, they wanted millions.
He disguised this shakedown as a lawsuit.
It was just them saying,
"We know what happened
with this relationship.
"Not only do we know,
but we have compromising material.
We have photographs."
GIANCARLO: "If you don't pay us,
then it's gonna become public."
At this meeting, they showed the images,
and it was the images
that she shared with me.
LILIA:
Pictures? [Chuckles] Okay.
Like, pictures of you guys doing stuff?
Yeah.
Well, you're f*cked.
I told Jerry, I'm like,
"Like, I didn't give it to them.
They just somehow obtained them."
And Jerry's like, "Look, I trust you.
Don't even worry about it.
I know we're all on the same team here."
I tell him, like,
"We need to call the FBI."
"We shouldn't pay them,
you know, a penny."
But it seemed like Jerry, he never
really wanted to testify under oath.
He has a lot to hide.
MARK:
He knew the volatility in those photos,
and he knew that they had something
that could literally destroy him.
I told Jerry, I'm like,
"What did you tell your attorneys?"
And he's like, "Well, I told them
that you had a crush on Becki,
and you somehow got, you know, the images,
and then your friends got it somehow."
I'm like, "Uh, that's not what happened."
And at that point, I'm like,
"Is this... Am I being represented here?
"Like, are they looking out
for my best interests
at this point for this lawsuit?"
I mean, I was concerned
because, obviously, Jerry has influence.
He has power. He has connections.
I just saw how easy it was for them
to just spin this to favor the Falwells.
At that point, I'm like, "I'm screwed."
Once the thr*at
of the Fernandezes started getting real,
things might come out.
He, I think, thought,
"Well, let me tell my parents
before they find out any other way."
- "I don't want any secrets."
- This is what happened. It was stupid.
"But we are business partners,
and that's it.
It was stupid,
I was young, but I'm moving on."
Obviously, my parents were upset.
My mom was blown away by that.
She was shocked.
You know, she really thought
that they were an amazing family
for helping me out.
It broke her heart.
Becki called me.
I told her I was stressed out.
I want no part of this.
I'm... I want out.
"Oh, the lawsuit?
Don't even worry about it.
"We called our friend, Michael Cohen,
"and he's gonna take care
of those guys that are suing us.
It's never even gonna go public.
We're in good hands."
Whenever you need something
to go away or get settled,
or any sort of legal dispute
to be, uh, resolved,
then, uh, people within Tr*mp's orbit,
they would reach out to Michael Cohen.
After Michael Cohen intervened,
it seemed like
our problems just went away.
The Fernandezes
and the lawsuit just vanished, you know?
And it did for a while, at least.
It's true that Michael Cohen
helped them out with the legal dispute.
But he didn't just help 'em out,
now he owns the compromising material.
MARK:
This story isn't quite over
in terms of Michael Cohen
and what his business was
and may still be with the Falwells.
Who owns who in this situation?
GIANCARLO:
I'm at the hostel doing work.
I get a phone call from Jerry and Becki,
and they told me they were in Miami.
And they said,
"Hey, come over to the Loews,
we gotta talk about something serious."
And I'm like, "Oh, sh*t, what's going on?"
So the first thing that Jerry says...
He offered me
1.1 million dollars for my equity stake
in the property in South Beach.
And then he also said
he owns a hotel in... in Lynchburg,
it's La Quint a.
And they... they offered me an equity stake
just equivalent of $50,000 a year.
He said, "Do you want it?"
And I said, "Yeah."
I accepted immediately
right there on the spot.
But he's like, "We're gonna have
to wait till we settle this lawsuit
because there's this legal claim on us."
It's like kind of, like, having a lien.
I was essentially
handcuffed to this property.
I think at this point, he was
very much over the bullshit of it all.
GIANCARLO: Over the years,
Jerry would always tell me,
"Wouldn't it be nice
if you just come work over at Liberty?"
He just really wanted me in that world.
I asked, "Why are you being so generous
with this proposition? What's going on?"
Then he told me, he's like,
"Michael Cohen approached me,
"and Donald Tr*mp's
gonna run for president,
and they want my endorsement."
I didn't take it seriously.
I'm like, "You can't be serious, right?"
Like, it's probably for ratings.
There's no way he's actually running.
He's like,
"No, no. He really wants to run.
And, uh, we believe
that he can actually win."
If Jerry was gonna get
more involved with politicians,
just like how his dad did,
he had to ensure
that all loose ends were tied.
MATTHEW: In the 1970s,
when the evangelicals and Jerry Falwell
became engaged in politics,
they realized that
the civil rights issue was wrong,
like, they... they were
on the wrong side of that one.
And so they begin
to shift towards other issues.
There was a kind of a period
of almost market testing
to see which issues would grab
these evangelical voters.
MATTHEW:
They go after the feminist movement.
JERRY SR.: God didn't make women
for NFL football or combat,
or a lot of other things.
I don't believe we should demean womanhood
by saying that men and women are the same.
They also began to go after p*rn.
JERRY SR.: Until once again
the p*rn are looked on
as the sleazy merchants of garbage
as they once were,
and in fact, still are, we haven't won.
They go after the gay rights movement.
The scriptures are very clear
that h*m* is moral perversion.
And that's in violation of everything
that the Word of God teaches.
In a nation
that's becoming ever more diverse,
Falwell is trying to roll back
any progressive change
that's gonna happen.
In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court
today legalized abortions.
The majority, in cases
from Texas and Georgia said
that the decision to end a pregnancy
during the first three months
belongs to the woman and her doctor,
not the government.
Abortion was considered a Catholic issue
by evangelicals in the 1970s.
Evangelicals really felt
like abortion was a personal decision
that could be made
with a minister and a doctor.
What they don't want
is the state telling people what to do.
RANDALL:
It wasn't until the '78 midterm elections,
abortion finally begins
to appear on the radar screen
of American evangelicals.
Abortion could be the most volatile, single,
political issue in the country today,
and the right-to-lifers,
the most powerful, single issue block.
RANDALL: Several conservative
activists, pro-lifers, Roman Catholics,
target four senate races.
REPORTER: Right-to-lifers passed out
300,000 leaflets
the weekend before the election.
RANDALL: Two days later,
all four Democratic nominees
who were highly favored
lost to anti-abortion Republicans.
At that point, Falwell realized
they had an issue
that would work for them politically.
Jerry Falwell Sr. Does not preach
his first sermon against abortion
until five years after Roe v. Wade.
JERRY SR.:
Abortion is a moral issue.
It is a human rights issue.
An issue that concerns the human rights
of unborn babies,
who, by the hundreds of thousands,
are being m*rder*d.
ANTHEA: Abortion becomes
the number-one wedge issue
that they can all agree on,
and all get in line behind.
Jerry Falwell Sr. Saw that as a way
to put himself in the forefront
of the culture wars of the day.
It's much easier
to say you don't want abortion
than to say you don't want
a little Black child on the school bus
with your little white girl.
And this becomes
a very lucrative business proposition.
I want every one of you
to leave here this morning
without a penny, a nickel,
a dime, or a quarter.
No change left.
This is the cash receipts department.
I'm guessing, today,
they will probably do $200,000 here.
$200,000 a day?
REPORTER: At its peak,
Falwell's ministry brought in
nearly 100 million dollars a year.
This is the country God has raised up
for the purpose of world evangelization.
ANNOUNCER: Jerry Falwell,
a Lynchburg, Virginia, preacher
who runs Moral Majority,
a new political machine
that's anti-abortion,
anti-ERA, anti-gay rights,
and for, what he calls, a "Moral America."
All the moral issues that count today
are in the political arena.
There's no way to fight these battles
except in that arena.
REPORTER: Moral Majority
claims 47 state organizations
and a network of 72,000 preachers,
combining to form, what some call,
a Christian political machine.
MATTHEW:
They want to use political power
to help elect a president
who can appoint judges
to reverse
the Court's decision on abortion.
We're gonna make it impossible
for a fellow to run for dog catcher
if he's pro-abortion.
MATTHEW: Liberty University
is going to be the essential stop
for political candidates,
especially Republican Candidates,
especially Conservative
Republican Candidates,
for getting out your message
and for substantiating
what you wanted to do with the country.
ANNOUNCER:
This is an NBC News Special Report.
Donald Tr*mp is lining up,
what could be, key endorsements.
REPORTER: For Tr*mp,
a major evangelical endorsement,
Jerry Falwell Jr.
Falwell could give Tr*mp
the credibility he needs.
Can we just put our hands together
for our great president?
President Falwell, everybody. Come on.
[crowd cheering]
Matthew 7:16 tells us
that by their fruits, you shall know them.
In my opinion, Donald Tr*mp
lives a life of loving and helping others
as Jesus taught in the great commandment.
Please welcome back
to Liberty University, Mr. Donald Tr*mp.
[crowd applauding]
Wow.
It's an honor to be here.
I wrote The Art of the Deal,
I wrote many bestsellers.
I always say,
a deep, deep second to the Bible.
The Bible is the best. The Bible.
GIANCARLO: Jerry was
entrenched in, now, the political world
in campaigning for Donald Tr*mp.
Evangelicals are tired
of being betrayed.
And I think the song from 1971 by The Who,
Won't Get Fooled Again,
is very pertinent in this situation.
And I think
that's how a lot of evangelicals feel.
We don't wanna get fooled again.
DONALD: Jerry Falwell Jr.
Was so helpful. He was so helpful.
You know,
I'm leading with the evangelicals.
I'm a good Christian.
The majority of evangelicals believe
that Donald Tr*mp is best equipped
to save the country.
DUSTIN: He was one
of the very first Christian leaders
who made it possible
for other Christian leaders
to get on board
and get their congregations on board
with the Tr*mp campaign.
The evangelicals, they're with me
'cause they know one thing about me,
I'm not a liar.
Well, you just heard it
from Donald Tr*mp.
Christians love him.
GIANCARLO: If Tr*mp didn't get
into real estate development,
he could've been an evangelical preacher.
There's 15 devils.
GIANCARLO: And he's a character.
All these pastors, they're all characters,
they're putting on a show.
Everybody wants to talk about my hair.
Maybe they don't like my hair,
which is real, by the way.
Look at that sucker.
[audience laughing]
RANDALL:
You can make a case that Donald Tr*mp
is very much in the tradition
of the televangelist.
He was an evangelist for capitalism.
Many of you would need
to anoint your billfold with this oil
for a financial blessing.
DONALD:
Tr*mp Steaks are by far the best tasting,
most flavorful beef you've ever had.
RANDALL: And so, Donald Tr*mp emerged
as the champion for the religious right,
much like Reagan did in 1980.
RONALD REAGAN:
I was asked once what book I would choose
if I were shipwrecked on an island.
The Bible.
RANDALL:
What this is, is politics.
Politics in the pulpit.
REPORTER: Few concern themselves
with the delicate balance
between church and state.
JERRY SR.:
Mr. Reagan's enemies are my enemies,
and they're yours too.
Donald Tr*mp is the only candidate
who cannot be bought.
I am the law and order candidate.
You wanted law and order in this town,
you've got it.
- All of us are sinners.
- All of us are redeemable.
Falwell stood by his side
and continued to argue
that Christians should support him.
JERRY JR.: Five years from now,
when the Supreme Court is stacked
with people who will rip
our Constitution to shreds,
get rid of the Second Amendment,
nobody's gonna be thinking
about what Donald Tr*mp said
on a videotape in 2005.
ANTHEA: Evangelicals didn't care
about Donald Tr*mp not being Christian.
They were willing to take a man
who had been married three times
and had five children
from three different mothers,
just like they didn't care
that Ronald Reagan wasn't evangelical.
RANDALL:
Here you have Jimmy Carter,
a born again,
Southern Baptist, progressive evangelical.
And evangelicals,
they turned dramatically against him
and then settled, improbably,
on a divorced and remarried,
former Hollywood actor,
who, as Governor of California in 1967,
signed into law the most liberal
abortion bill in the country.
When you interrupt a pregnancy,
you are taking a human life.
As you know, I'm pro-life.
INTERVIEWER:
Should the woman be punished
for having an abortion?
There has to be some form of punishment.
- INTERVIEWER: For the woman?
- Yeah.
Moral Majority founder,
the Reverend Jerry Falwell
is quoted as saying,
he expects a reshaped Supreme Court
by President Reagan
would outlaw most abortions.
Do you wanna see the Court
overturn Roe v. Wade?
Well, if we put
another two or perhaps three justices on,
that's really what's going to be...
That will happen.
Evangelicals,
all they wanted to do was win,
and they were willing to win
with anyone that they possibly could.
BOTH:
We will make America great again.
In 1984, my father stood
at this convention
and offered the opening prayer
before our party's candidate,
Ronald Reagan.
We pray for our beloved president.
Upon a man that many of us believe,
indeed, to be our greatest president
since Lincoln.
[crowd cheering]
Ronald Reagan went on
to accept the nomination
and win in a landslide.
A little over 30 years later,
I stand here with the sincerest prayer
that history is about to repeat itself
with the election of Donald J. Tr*mp.
[crowd cheering]
GIANCARLO: Just about four days
before the Republican National Convention,
I received a text message from Jerry.
He said that
"You have equity in the company,
you've worked really hard
in maximizing the value of this company."
No matter what happens,
whether he buys it out
or we sell the property,
that he would ensure
that I get no less than $600,000.
I was making it clear
that this legal dispute
was, you know,
taking a toll on my mental health.
I just wasn't feeling well. I wanted out.
He probably wanted
a clean cut from everything too.
LILIA: This was just another form
of trapping my brother in,
giving him a reason
to, you know, stay close.
Now there was this whole new dynamic.
Jerry Falwell was getting himself involved
with the future president of this country,
so he needed to make sure
that his circle was tight,
and that no one was gonna be out there
saying anything crazy about them.
ANNOUNCER:
Fox News decision desk has called
Pennsylvania for Donald Tr*mp.
This means that Donald Tr*mp will be
the 45th president of the United States.
ANTHEA:
Evangelicals have played a role
in electing every Republican president
since Ronald Reagan.
NARRATOR:
The numbers were overwhelming.
81% of self-identified white,
born again, or evangelical Christians
ultimately voted for Tr*mp.
It was an evangelical turnout for Tr*mp
that exceeded George W. Bush in 2004,
John McCain in 2008,
and Mitt Romney in 2012.
MARK:
Much like his father before him,
Jerry Falwell Jr. is now a kingmaker.
DUSTIN:
After Tr*mp was inaugurated as president,
Falwell felt invincible.
And he was increasingly weaponizing
Liberty University,
and making it into an arm
of the Tr*mp Administration.
I call Liberty the Fox News Network
of the academic world.
Why is it that the left mocks God?
Welcome to the United States of America,
where illegal aliens have more rights
than American citizens.
DONALD Tr*mp JR.:
Enough. Enough of the PC garbage.
Enough of the never-ending movement
of the woke.
g*n owners know that the only
truly free people that have ever lived
have been armed people.
President Jerry Falwell,
I'm inspired by the work you're doing.
GIANCARLO: You're forcing them
to attend every single speech,
and you're repeating the same rhetoric.
To me, that's...
That's kind of like indoctrination.
- Praise Jesus.
- Yes.
Jerry and I have gotten
to be friends over the last year,
and I can tell you,
my respect for him is boundless.
It's so refreshing
to come to a university
where people care about their country,
and... and it's okay
to say, "Merry Christmas."
JERRY JR.:
John Kelly, Rex Tillerson,
lots of deep state people,
really run the government.
That issue of the Confederate flag
was not about hate.
As Christians,
we should be unbelievably concerned
that the left, first and foremost,
they wanna turn government into God.
DUSTIN: Jerry and Charlie Kirk
founded the Falkirk Center.
It operates as Liberty's think t*nk.
But they don't do actual research.
There's no academic product
that comes from the Falkirk Center.
It's just like a big Tr*mp troll farm.
CHARLIE KIRK: The launch of this center
is answering the important questions:
Was Jesus Christ a socialist?
MARK:
Jerry had the board under his thumb.
And as soon as someone
from the board spoke up,
boom.
REPORTER: New this morning,
a Liberty University board member
has resigned
after publicly criticizing
the school's president.
DUSTIN: Mark DeMoss was Jerry
Falwell Sr.'s personal chief of staff.
DeMoss speaks
to the Washington Post and says,
"Donald Tr*mp's behavior
does not reflect the Christian values
that have been taught
at Liberty for generations."
That was the last time a board member
stood up to challenge Falwell.
GIANCARLO: At this point,
I noticed that Jerry's behavior
was becoming more
just egotistical and arrogant.
Can you imagine
if the governor was trying
to take away our First Amendment rights?
Second Amendment's
just as... just as sacred.
The culture at Liberty was affected
by this permissiveness
that Falwell Jr. felt.
I think they're gonna be faced
with civil disobedience,
not just by citizens
but by police officers.
GIANCARLO: Jerry was offered
the position of secretary of education.
They said, "Are you gonna take it?"
And he said,
"My dad told me that it's better
to be a kingmaker than a king."
I think he was just, like, drunk on power.
LILIA: And literally drunk,
with his bottle of tequila
in his hand at all times.
- Mr. Tr*mp learned about Clyde Fra...
- Ooh, sorry.
[crowd laughing]
He would walk around campus
with a water bottle
with half-water, half-tequila.
A lot of people at Liberty had told me
that Jerry was drinking during the day
at the university,
that he was going into meetings
smelling of alcohol.
DUSTIN: He literally said
I couldn't say half the things I say
at any other university either.
[crowd laughing]
DUSTIN: Which was exactly right.
He couldn't, uh, because
someone would hold him accountable.
But nobody at Liberty ever did.
Look at this.
[crowd chanting "Jerry"]
Jerry texted me a picture
of a former student
exposing herself at his private property.
MARK:
Just think of that young girl's parents.
They're paying
for their kid to go to Liberty,
and this is the receipt they got?
He was basically untouchable.
They own, like, a 500, 600-acre farm
with a Confederate cemetery on it.
[g*ns f*ring]
sh**ting g*ns in the backyard.
And then Jerry said,
"Well, the good thing is,
"now I know if Becki
were to run away with someone,
I know who it is."
He said, "If that were to happen,
if she tried to divorce me,
I'd probably have her k*lled."
At that moment,
I really took it as a serious thr*at.
People have so much influence,
they control this town.
If they wanted to make me disappear,
they could do it without a trace.
LILIA:
I mean, at the end of the day,
Jerry endorsed the guy
who ended up becoming president.
So you're like,
"I don't wanna f*ck with these people.
I don't know what they would do to me
to keep their charade going."
You don't know
what lengths people are willing to go,
especially when they have so much to lose.
GIANCARLO: As time went on,
his behavior continued
to become more radical.
- How the establishment, the deep state...
- They look at all of us as deplorables.
But I have the distinct honor
of being the first person
that Hillary Clinton called a deplorable.
It was 2015, and it was right after
the San Bernardino sh**t, and I said...
If some of those people
in that community center
had had what I've got
in my back pocket right now...
[crowd cheering]
If more good people
had concealed carry permits,
then we could end those Muslims
before they...
Before they walk in and k*ll.
[crowd cheering]
At this point, I didn't really see
much common ground with Jerry anymore.
It just boggles my mind
that anybody would be against
what Jesus told his disciples
in Luke 22:36.
He told 'em if they had to sell their coat
to buy a sword, to do it.
Because he knew danger was coming,
and he wanted them to defend themselves.
[crowd applauding]
GIANCARLO: We have seen the divide
happen between Conservatives and Liberals,
and, you know, he was cognizant of that.
He would just always bring it up.
Virginians, including my family,
went to w*r in the Revolutionary w*r.
Revolution always bubbles up.
CHILD: Wow, good sh*t!
That's what's happened
with President Tr*mp.
And so they can...
They can oppress people for a while,
but, eventually,
people speak for themselves,
and they've had enough.
GIANCARLO: He would say,
"We're so close to a civil w*r."
Got it.
I'm noticing this really obvious,
blatant divide within our country.
This extreme violent rhetoric
being pushed by Tr*mp
and everyone within his orbit,
including Jerry.
I started noticing that there's
actual consequences to these words.
It's not just words anymore.
It's leading to v*olence.
DONALD: People proudly had
their Confederate flags.
They're not talking about racism.
They love their flag.
It represents the South.
They like the South.
People, right now, like the South.
REPORTER 1: A young white man
accused of k*lling nine people...
REPORTER 2:
Roof revealed that he chose the church
because it was
a historic African American church.
Corrupt, power-hungry globalists.
You know what a globalist is, right?
You know what a globalist is.
REPORTER 1: A gunman
burst into the Tree of Life Temple
down the tree-lined streets
of Squirrel Hill.
11 people k*lled.
The sh**t's social media page stating...
REPORTER 2: Do you think
somebody's helping that caravan?
DONALD: I wouldn't... I don't know who,
but I... I wouldn't be surprised.
A lot of people say, "Yes."
The sh**t had posted
about the caravan of migrants
moving up from, uh, Central America,
called them invaders.
- That's an invasion.
- That's not... That's an invasion.
And then, you... you have
what happened in Charlottesville.
REPORTER 1:
Hundreds of white nationalists,
some wearing what appeared to be uniforms,
carrying weapons, Confederate flags,
and n*zi symbols...
[crowd screaming]
A horrifying scene,
as this car plowed into a crowd of people.
Very bad people in that group.
But you also had people
that were very fine people on both sides.
Falwell rushed to Donald Tr*mp's defense
as eagerly as ever.
JERRY JR.:
One of the reasons I supported him
is because he doesn't say
what's politically correct,
he says what's in his heart,
what he believes.
And sometimes, that gets him in trouble.
MATTHEW: The seeds of that were
in the work of people like Jerry Falwell
generations earlier.
He laid the foundations
for... for this kind of political v*olence
that we've seen, really, since the 1990s.
The man charged
with k*lling an abortion doctor
says he has a defense, the Bible!
Roe vs. Wade has resulted in 10
to 12 million deaths of little children.
MATTHEW:
Jerry Falwell has unleashed demons
that he can no longer control.
[expl*si*n blasting] [screaming]
JERRY SR.:
Contrary to the wishes of the founders
who wanted neutrality as the policy
of the government toward religion,
in fact, the government
was becoming hostile,
in my opinion, towards religion.
This new Christian nationalism
gives rise to things
like the Oklahoma City bombing...
REPORTER 1: It looks like part of
the building has been blown away.
REPORTER 2: Look at that sh*t.
REPORTER 1: Wow. Holy cow!
REPORTER 2:
It is absolutely incredible.
- And nobody's bothering you, right?
- Well...
[expl*si*n blasting]
BILL CLINTON: The bombing
at Centennial Olympic Park this morning
was an evil act of terror.
REPORTER 1:
Eric Rudolph is charged with
the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing.
REPORTER 2: Rudolph next struck at a
Sandy Springs, Georgia, abortion clinic,
then a gay bar in Atlanta,
and finally, another abortion clinic
in Birmingham, Alabama.
REPORTER 3: Rudolph is believed
to belong to the Christian identity
known as a white supremacist sect.
MATTHEW:
One thing Jerry Sr. Taught us
was that politics, demagoguery,
and hysteria is a way to make more money,
give them more influence and more power.
And so, Jerry Jr. recognizes this
and really picks up
with what his father had started.
I did notice that the only time
the president calls me to go on TV
is when he's in real trouble.
- I felt guilty.
- I'm like, "I know the truth about Jerry."
"He's trying to appear
as this, like, strongman,
but I know him as just the cuck
in the corner of the room."
ARAM ROSTON:
I started looking at Jerry Falwell,
in part, because
of his endorsement for Tr*mp.
For a lot of people, it was a surprise.
Tr*mp didn't fit the model, necessarily,
of the evangelical candidate.
It was a puzzle.
One of the things you routinely do
as a... as a journalist
is you look at people's backgrounds,
and one of those things is litigation.
And that's where I saw,
you know, this... this... this lawsuit.
The lawsuit alleged
that this father and son
had been inappropriately cut out
of this business transaction
involving this youth hostel,
Giancarlo Grand a, and Falwell.
I did my best to find Giancarlo Grand a.
I did my best to figure out who he was.
GIANCARLO:
Aram Roston texted me,
introducing himself,
that he's a journalist,
and he would like
to have a conversation with me.
He was asking questions about the lawsuit,
about Michael Cohen.
I realized that this was gonna get messy.
But I was instructed by the Falwells
to give him no comment,
and just to communicate
with my attorney, or Jerry.
LILIA: What do you do, right?
He didn't know what the right thing was.
And then has the Falwells
really putting the pressure on him now
like, "This is the time.
We gotta stick together.
They don't have anything."
But at the end of the day,
you know, my brother was worried,
as he should've been,
because people are gonna dig
and more things are gonna come out.
Everything that I was afraid of
was about to actually materialize here.
Uh, the whole world
was gonna find out about it.
ARAM: Our first BuzzFeed story,
it disclosed the existence
of this business relationship,
this unusual litigation,
this unusual youth hostel,
the involvement of the pool attendant.
It also mentioned Michael Cohen.
And it also mentioned the endorsement
and how important that endorsement was.
A source said that
even before announcing his candidacy,
this source believed
there was an understanding
that Tr*mp would get
Falwell's endorsements,
which meant
there was some sort of relationship
between Falwell and Tr*mp,
and I was trying to understand that.
What was clear was that we didn't know
as much as we thought we knew
about the Falwells.
I should tell you that they don't have
what you're telling me they have,
because he made it
sound like they told him...
Mm-hmm.
That they have pictures
that supported their theory...
Mm-hmm.
That there was something
going on between you and me.
Yeah.
Just wanna let you know,
this is gonna work out fine.
Yeah.
I'm going to bed. Good night, y'all.
- Okay.
- All right, have a good night.
You wait. You can talk to me.
I'm actually really tired too.
I'm sure you are.
It's so hard.
Yeah.
Especially when we're not talking,
I just feel lost.
[sighs heavily]
I'm sorry about all this.
Anyways, I'm gonna go to bed, okay?
Okay.
All right. Good night.
I love you.
Love you too.
After the BuzzFeed story,
Giancarlo's f*cked.
You go on the internet,
and anything attached to his name
read "Pool Boy,"
which became a meme in short order
and really started
to upend Giancarlo's life.
They don't really have all the facts.
They started just spreading lies.
LILIA:
My brother now, he's in a bad place.
He's upset,
falls into, like, this depression.
It was the first time
my name appeared in the press.
No one taught me how to deal with it.
It sucks.
LILIA: Imagine that your job
that you had when you were in college
for one year of your life,
that that's what
now you're associated with forever.
This is definitely
a manifestation of my worst fears,
from... dating back to 2012.
MARK:
Perhaps BuzzFeed did him a favor,
'cause it planted the seeds
for his escape.
[phone line ringing]
And as if this story
can't get more bizarre,
enter Tom Arnold.
- MICHAEL COHEN: [over phone] Hello?
- Hey, buddy. Tom Arnold.
MICHAEL: [over phone]
Tom, how are you?
- Happy 4th of July.
- Happy Independence Day.
MICHAEL: [over phone]
Same to you. Same to you.
- How are you doing?
- I'm doing well.
ARAM: So Tom Arnold audio taped
a conversation he had with Michael Cohen
about the Falwells.
And Michael Cohen
told Tom Arnold about this episode.
MICHAEL: [over phone]
And I'm just disappointed.
Donald doesn't speak to me anymore.
Um, even the Falwells,
who I brought to the table.
Yes, you did. You did.
MICHAEL: [over phone] None of the
evangelicals wanted to support Tr*mp.
Right. Well,
you definitely brought the Falwells in.
You definitely... With that
I mean, you did the deal
with, uh, the pool, uh, the pool boy.
ARAM: And Michael Cohen
laid out for him the scenario
where he said there were,
what Michael Cohen called,
personal photos.
Uh, he said
that they were the type of photos
that a couple wants
to keep between themselves.
Yeah.
MICHAEL: [over phone]
But there's a bunch of photographs,
you know, personal photographs, you know?
The evangelicals
are kinkier than Tom Arnold.
I became a little obsessed
with this Jerry Falwell thing
because Jerry Falwell gave license
to all the other evangelicals
to go, "Yeah, this is the guy."
I had a show called
The Hunt for the Tr*mp Tapes.
I... I wanted to meet
everybody in Tr*mp's world
that was kinda pushed out.
And so I just wanted to connect the dots...
I wanted the truth.
MICHAEL: [over phone]
It's terrible, you know?
Nobody wants their...
You know, their private photos.
Especially not when you have children
- and now grandchildren.
- Oh, geez.
MICHAEL: [over phone]
So my heart went out for Becki, you know?
I loved them. They were like family to me.
He goes, "No, no, what I did,"
and he explains
what he did for the Falwells.
And he's like, "No, it wasn't like sex.
It's like a boudoir picture of Becki."
And then he says.
MICHAEL: [over phone]
I actually have one of the photos.
- He has...
- He showed me some pictures.
I feel like
a bit of a scumbag too because
even the "boudoir" pictures are like p*rn.
But that's not the end of this story.
Michael Cohen used the pictures
to say, "Hey, look what I did for you.
Now I need you to do something for me."
It... It was a quid pro quo.
The Falwells enlisted
Michael Cohen's help
to make this blackmail thr*at go away.
Then the following January,
Cohen helped persuade Falwell
to issue his endorsement
of Tr*mp's presidential candidacy.
When Michael Cohen published his book,
he was very specific.
He said he would call in this favor,
not for himself but for the Boss,
at a crucial moment
in his journey to the presidency.
It's fair to say that Jerry
was gonna endorse Tr*mp,
but the compromising material
that Michael Cohen had,
I think that was just insurance.
These events may have
changed the course of history,
but in the New York Times' quest
to explain why Falwell endorsed Tr*mp,
they left the most important question
unanswered:
Did someone f*ck the pool guy?
[audience laughing]
Wake up, Becki
I've got something to say
Listen to me...
My brother, in 2018, gets accepted
into grad school at Georgetown,
to the master's program.
So we make a road trip out of it.
It's me, my mom,
my brother, and the dog.
GIANCARLO: We go to DC. My family's
helping me move into my new apartment.
I get a phone call from Jerry.
He said, "Hey, we have
this event at the White House",
"but after that,
we're going to the Tr*mp Hotel.
You guys should come over."
LILIA:
They were at the White House for...
It was some sort of evangelical event.
Every top preacher in the country
was there that night at the White House.
GIANCARLO: Meet up with
the Falwells at the Tr*mp Hotel.
Becki, I'm almost home...
Everyone's drinking
and having a really good time.
There was one in particular
that, I had no idea who she was,
but my mom's like,
"Oh, she's on TV. What's her name?"
[speaking in tongues]
Her act is... is crazy!
[continues speaking in tongues]
But when you meet her in person,
she's nothing like that.
She's kinda flirting with people.
She was flirting with me.
I think that night my mom had
a kind of a... a come-to-Jesus moment.
She's like,
"Oh, I understand now. It's all a show."
They have a public image,
but behind the scenes, they're all freaks.
LILIA: I think my mom was like,
"Okay, um, I think we're good.
"We don't need to be around them anymore.
Like, ever again."
GIANCARLO:
I'm in my first semester of grad school,
and I'm trying
to just move away from the Falwells.
LILIA: Once he starts school,
he's loving it.
He loves DC.
He's making new friends.
He starts applying for jobs.
It's a little difficult for him
to even get people to call him,
because they're googling his name,
and no one wants
to be associated with this.
GIANCARLO:
It was just 'cause they were worried.
Like, why would they go with me
where there's so many other people
with a similar resume
with no national scandal?
But he finally gets
this interview with this company.
He's super excited.
The hiring manager emailed me
saying, "Congratulations.
We wanna move forward with hiring you."
Right there, he offered me the job.
LILIA: Finally, he sees some sort of light
at this end of this, like, insane tunnel.
It was exactly what I needed.
I was so excited,
that, um, I just... I shared it with Becki.
The following week,
I get an email from the firm,
and the hiring manager
rescinded the offer.
And, you know,
there's times where I felt like
he was purposefully
sabotaging everything around me
in order to keep me close
and them being my only option.
I just felt so overwhelmed.
That's it.
I'm forever attached to the Falwell name.
I was so loyal to this family.
I protected them. I lied for them.
And I end up
getting att*cked by the media,
and I'm still defending them.
Everything was crumbling.
I felt like there's no way out.
It's all over for me.
He felt like
that was just really the end of the world,
so he went into a really dark place.
It was a really difficult time.
I started contemplating su1c1de.
I just wanted to go away peacefully.
And I told Becki, I said,
"My life and my reputation,
everything is completely ruined."
Um...
Then at that moment,
I just thought about my, uh,
I thought about my mom,
and my dad, and my sister
and I just... I couldn't...
I couldn't make them go through that,
so I just... I stopped.
Just... I... I need a moment.
LILIA:
You know, getting calls from your brother
telling you that he wants to k*ll himself,
that there's no way out of this,
he's never gonna recover.
It's...
It's hard to [clears throat]
explain what that feeling is like
when someone that you love so much,
someone that you want
nothing but the best for, is...
Is thinking of hurting himself.
[exhales]
That was obviously a dark time,
so... just had to relive it
at that moment there.
But [clears throat]
should be good now.
And then, to add insult to the injury,
for an undisclosed amount
to make this lawsuit disappear,
Jerry Falwell Jr.
Settles with Tito Fernandez.
GIANCARLO: There were three events
that pushed me to rock bottom
and left me at a crossroads.
The first one
was losing out on the job offer.
The second was Jerry settling with Tito.
Meanwhile, my brother,
who actually worked his ass off for years
running this building,
managing it, overseeing it,
he had actual stakes in it.
How do you think Giancarlo felt
knowing that of all people to get a check,
it would be Jesus Fernandez?
GIANCARLO:
I was upset because they settled,
but there was no more talks
about buying me out
or any word from Jerry saying
that he was gonna honor his promise.
They just kept stringing me along.
They, you know, dangled the carrot
of, like, "We're gonna help you."
"We're gonna set you up with,
you know, real estate and get you going
so you can fulfill all of your dreams."
And they just
completely f*cked him in the end.
GIANCARLO: I texted Jerry.
"Just own up to your promises
and we can move on with our lives
in a peaceful manner."
He wasn't threatening them,
he was saying, "I want my life back."
"Give me what you owe me.
"Let's call it a day.
Let's go our separate ways.
Let's be done with this."
The third and final blow
was... what broke all of us.
It was summer 2020.
REPORTER 1:
In just a few short months,
this pandemic has infected
some two million here at home.
MARK: So by the summer of 2020,
the mood in this country
was like, "Is the world gonna end?
Was Jerry Sr. Right?
Are end times upon us?"
I mean, it's biblical
how f*cked up this world had become.
REPORTER 1:100,000.
The obituary names grow daily
with no end in sight.
JERRY JR.:
There's some bad strain of the flu
that comes in every two years.
For some reason,
it's always on election years.
I don't... I don't know why that is.
GIANCARLO:
2020, it was a terrible year.
We had the pandemic.
George Floyd's m*rder*d.
[protesters chanting "I can't breathe!"]
Civil unrest is unfolding,
it's intensifying.
[crowd clamoring]
And then you have Tr*mp just,
uh, kind of doubling down
and not trying to unite the country.
Instead, he was enjoying this.
And he was magnifying this division.
DONALD: You know what I say?
Protesters, your ass.
These are not acts of peaceful protest.
These are acts of domestic terror.
You know, initially, going back to 2012,
I admired Tr*mp.
I thought he was someone
I would like to become.
But now he aspired to be a dictator.
My family fled a country
where there was a dictator
that consolidated power.
I didn't feel optimistic
about our country's future.
At that moment, I realized
how much weight there was
behind, uh, Jerry Falwell Jr.'s words.
And if this man was able
to anoint Donald Tr*mp in 2016,
then why wouldn't he have
that same power in 2020?
MARK: Giancarlo certainly feels like
Jerry is responsible for all this chaos.
You know, and why wouldn't he?
The kingmaker, right?
Now, look what happened.
GIANCARLO:
When I hit rock bottom, I had two choices:
Take my own life or take back control.
And, um, you know, one big takeaway
from, uh, from Tr*mp's speech in 2012,
in his advice to win
in real estate or business,
or whatever you're doing is...
Don't let people take advantage.
- Get even.
- Get even.
It feels like right now,
this is happening for a reason.
Me confessing to the world
what happened
would somehow stop
one of Tr*mp's closest allies,
which is Jerry Falwell Jr.
I felt like I had a responsibility.
I texted Jerry.
I think he just wanted
to just unburden himself of all of this
and just say,
"This is what actually happened."
He had no other choice left at that point
but to just come out and speak his truth.
I'd been trying
to talk to Giancarlo Grand a
since I first started working on this.
And I... I didn't have any luck.
GIANCARLO: I texted him.
I said, "Hey, I would love
to meet with you
and just talk about everything
that happened."
I finally met Giancarlo near DC.
GIANCARLO:
Obviously, he was shocked,
but, like, it kinda confirmed
everything that he, uh, speculated.
There was an element of hypocrisy here
that was very glaring.
To stand up our story,
we needed some corroborating evidence.
I had certain evidence
dating back to 2012, 2013, 2014.
ARAM: There were these texts.
Sort of romantic, loaded phrases.
And another one was this audio recording.
- All right.
- Gian's been very busy lately, studying.
- Yeah, yeah, sorta.
- It's good, good.
His new thing is, like, telling me
every time he hooks up with people,
like, I... like I don't have feelings
or something.
- You're gonna make her jealous, Gian.
- Yeah.
Aw. I'm not trying to do that.
Like a week ago,
I was in tears for a whole freakin' day.
Completely depressed.
- Come on. You don't...
- You don't care about me anymore.
Maybe the more you tell me,
the more I'll get used to it.
You don't care about me anymore.
Oh, yeah? Really?
Yeah, obviously.
In an ideal world,
you'd have videotape
of everything that ever happens,
but this is not the way the world works.
[phone ringing]
GIANCARLO:
When I showed them the video,
I mean, it was case closed right there.
On January 16th, 2019,
Becki and I, uh,
we hop on a FaceTime call,
and she's drinking white wine,
and then she starts stripping,
uh, completely naked.
She's walking around the house.
She's going from room to room,
the places where we've had sex.
She's says, "Oh, do you remember this?"
She's going to the kitchen,
she's showing the island.
"Oh, I know you remember doing it there."
And then she went into the kids' rooms,
"Remember doing it there?"
Which is crazy, as, you know,
we... we had sex in, uh, their kids' rooms.
"So, do you remember this spot?
Do you remember this spot?"
ARAM: And at one point,
Jerry Jr. appears to peek out
from behind a doorway.
GIANCARLO:
And at that moment, I'm like, "Oh, my God",
"I finally have
the smoking g*n that I needed,
uh, to prove my side of the story."
Well, that helped.
I mean, that...
That was the... the, you know?
That was, uh, very helpful,
the, uh, FaceTime video with Becki naked.
GIANCARLO: Like, this is 100% true,
and Jerry has been involved since day one.
Well, we wouldn't have been able
to run the story
if we hadn't been convinced,
if there wasn't the corroboration
that there was.
A photo posted then deleted
from Jerry Falwell Jr.'s Instagram
is now going viral.
A Houston Chronicle reporter
posted this screenshot
showing Liberty University's president
with his pants unzipped...
MEGAN:
And it was an atomic scandal at Liberty.
All these things that were not permissible
inside the Liberty community,
are contained in this photograph.
This scandal was just another thing
that was going to back me up.
INTERVIEWER:
And I'm just gonna throw it to you.
What was up
with that picture on Instagram?
JERRY JR.: [slurring]
You know, it was weird [indistinct].
She was... She's pregnant,
so she couldn't get her...
She couldn't get her pants zipped.
And, uh, I was, like, trying to, like...
My... I had a pair of jeans
that I haven't worn in a long time,
so I couldn't get mine zipped either.
It was evident
that he was drunk on that call.
I mean, he was slurring his words.
JERRY JR.: [slurring]
I promised my kids I'm gonna try to be
I'm gonna try
to be a good boy from here on out.
It just showed you who he really was.
He was just... He was a mess.
This announcement was made
just before 05:00 this afternoon.
It followed a meeting
of the Executive Committee
of Liberty's Board of Trustees.
The committee requested Falwell
take an indefinite leave of absence.
Falwell agreed.
Liberty's board was going to pay
for Falwell's rehab,
and they fully anticipated
to bring him back, uh, afterwards.
MEGAN: Either they didn't think
that they would get caught
or that it would come back to them,
or on some level,
Jerry Falwell just didn't care.
Because there was
some part of him that thought,
"If I can't live my life
in this very fun way,
then I don't even want this life."
LILIA: My brother was talking
to the reporter for months.
I, at one point, had to speak to him
because they really
just went through every detail,
they fact-checked everything.
I'm an investigative reporter,
so I take a long time with stories.
You know, we never publish
until we get it, you know, damn solid.
GIANCARLO:
It was a tough process,
and there were certain times
where I'm like,
"I don't think this is gonna happen.
I think it's gonna get k*lled."
At this point, he knows
that perhaps Falwell and his team
are planning something nefarious.
To his credit,
Giancarlo was right.
ARAM: The night before
we were going to run our story,
a local newspaper here in Washington
published this statement by Jerry Jr.
That laid out this alternate account
of the entire relationship
between Giancarlo and the Falwells.
REPORTER: Jerry Falwell Jr.,
the son of one of the most influential
TV evangelists of all time,
is publicly sharing a story
of his wife's infidelity,
which led to, what he describes as,
an extortion scheme.
GIANCARLO: Although I was expecting it,
when you actually see it written,
"Oh, extortionist. He's a criminal,"
this and that, it... it hurts.
It's like, uh... It's like
just getting punched in the gut.
It's extremely f*cked up how,
for my brother
to be able to tell his story
and to come public with it,
it had to go through months of vetting,
and then on the flip side,
you have the Falwells
who just email someone
that they know at the Washington Examiner,
and they just basically
copy and paste whatever Jerry said,
and then it gets published that same day.
They published this,
uh, this bullshit article
to attempt to discredit my move
of coming forward.
REPORTER: Falwell writes,
"Becki had an inappropriate
personal relationship with this person,
something in which I was not involved."
It deteriorated into, what he describes
as, a fatal attraction type of situation.
The man is Giancarlo Grand a,
who worked poolside...
MARK: The main takeaway was,
that m*therf*cker
just threw his wife under the bus.
And they were doing everything possible,
everything in their power
to k*ll that story.
And they almost did.
But I was waiting. I was waiting.
And the next day,
you know, the Reuters article comes out.
Ooh, Lordy, trouble so hard
Ooh, Lordy, trouble so hard
Don't nobody know my troubles
but God...
GIANCARLO:
And then Becki texted me.
"Jerry just resigned."
REPORTER 1:
This morning, Jerry Falwell Jr.'s time
as president of Liberty University
may be coming to an end.
Falwell telling
The Wall Street Journal overnight
he submitted his resignation letter.
"Because I don't want
something my wife did
to harm the school
I've spent my whole life building."
REPORTER 2: Today's news comes
amid allegations that Jerry Falwell Jr.,
while president of one of the nation's
largest Christian universities,
used to watch his wife Becki have sex
with another man.
Quickly, the empire starts crumbling,
as it should.
JOHN CARLIN: Liberty University is suing
its former president, Jerry Falwell Jr.,
for upwards of 40 million dollars.
REPORTER 3: It alleges he was dishonest
with the Executive Committee
when negotiating
a generous severance package.
Now, the school claims during that time,
Falwell Jr. knew a brewing sex scandal
would likely force him out at some point.
Giancarlo took on
all these people by himself.
That's a f*cking lonely place.
Giancarlo put a stake in his heart.
He just buried it.
Jerry was, you know,
in the room, laying...
You know, there's two beds,
he was laying on one bed.
So Jerry texted me
after the article was published,
and, uh, he wasn't too happy about it.
He texted me.
I mean, he's obviously...
He's kind of f*cked at this point.
Jerry Falwell, as you know,
has accused you of lying,
saying that while you did
have an affair with his wife,
he was not involved in any way.
Jerry's lying.
Um, that was his game plan
from the beginning,
to just throw her under the bus,
um, which I...
The Falwells are predators,
and they prey upon people.
It's psychologically so abusive.
REPORTER: Grand a also calling
Jerry Falwell Jr. a predator,
alleging Falwell sent him an image
of a Liberty University student
exposing herself at their farm.
GIANCARLO:
In the middle of the media blitz,
Politico drops a bombshell.
And in this article,
one of Trey's band mates,
he claimed that, uh,
Becki jumped into bed
while he was sleeping
and she started performing oral sex.
But he didn't really want it.
REPORTER 1:
The Falwells deny the allegation.
When he mentioned
that, uh, she was pursuing him,
sending him, uh, like, love songs
and, uh, inspirational quotes,
it just reminded me of my younger self.
I'm like, "Yeah, that's exactly
what she was doing with me."
Anytime you have sex,
and then lies, and then mix religion,
I mean, that's some nasty, nasty sh*t.
DUSTIN: What Grand a did
was to make it possible for other students
or other victims
of the Falwells and of the culture
to come forward with their stories.
REPORTER 1: A new lawsuit says Liberty
University "Enabled on-campus r*pes."
According to over 50
former female students and staffers
I was drugged and forcibly r*ped
by multiple people.
REPORTER 2:
Heather filed this police report
naming her alleged attackers.
My assailants were prayed for
and let go back into society.
REPORTER 3: They also allege that LU
weaponized its honor code, The Liberty Way.
REPORTER 4: Jane Doe 6 claims
her boyfriend
slipped dr*gs into her drink,
but LU fined her $500
for breaking the Liberty Way
for drinking alcohol.
I think 100% the Liberty Way has been
weaponized against women on campus.
LILIA:
I'm very proud of my brother.
To see these other stories come out,
I was like, "You did this."
Like, "You came out, you told your truth,
you went through so much sh*t,
but now there's, like,
a light at the end of the tunnel."
Like, "People believe you
because you're telling the truth."
"You put a spotlight on the grossness
that was going on in the school,
the abuse of power."
This is who these people really are.
They're not the good Christians
that they try to portray themselves to be.
I am a survivor of... of abuse,
and I believe Giancarlo is.
Because now we... we think of abuse
in a lot of different ways.
Coming forward and exposing
your... your... your, uh, private life,
and everybody knowing your...
your... your business, it's not fun.
But I knew that I did the right thing.
MEGAN: Jerry,
he has literally been kind of exiled
from the place that he built
and his family's sort of legacy.
You have to remember,
his parents are buried on that campus.
By banning him,
they have effectively prevented him
from visiting his parents' graves.
REPORTER: Falwell tells CBS News
he believes he was targeted
because of the number of evangelicals
that he was able to bring over
for Donald Tr*mp in 2016.
He told us today by phone,
"Bottom line, it's an election year
and I expected this."
ARAM: Falwell Jr. didn't make
any more political appearances,
and no more endorsements of Donald Tr*mp.
The Fox News decision desk
can now project
that former Vice Present Joe Biden
will win Pennsylvania and Nevada,
putting him over
the 270 electoral votes he needs
to become the 46th president
of the United States.
The Associated Press said
that Joe Biden is president.
[laughing derisively]
[audience laughing]
DUSTIN: After the election,
Conservative Christians,
Tr*mp Republicans, were telling lies
about what had happened in the election
and... and trying to spread doubt.
At this point, we do not know
who has prevailed in the election.
REPORTER: Tonight,
President Tr*mp refusing to admit defeat.
[crowd chanting "Go, Tr*mp, go!"]
MAN: God has voted.
Donald J. Tr*mp will stand again
in this land, whether you like it or not.
All hell is going
to break loose tomorrow.
You are not gonna steal this election.
DUSTIN:
There were Falkirk Center contributors
who were at the January 6th insurrection.
TOM:
Charlie Kirk paid for 80 buses of people
to go to the insurrection rally
on the... the 6th of January.
That money could have come
from Jerry Falwell and Liberty University.
RANDALL:
These are people parading around
with Christian symbolism,
and invoking God, and Jesus, and the Bible
in the service of sedition.
We fight like hell.
And if you don't fight like hell,
you're not gonna have a country anymore.
DUSTIN:
There was nothing Christian, obviously,
about what happened on January 6th.
There's nothing Christlike
about Trumpism or Christian nationalism.
JACOB CHANSLEY: Thank you, Heavenly Father,
for blessing us with this opportunity.
We love you and we thank you.
In Christ's holy name, we pray.
ALL: Amen!
ANTHEA:
Christian extremism is just as dangerous,
or even more dangerous
than Islamic extremism
for one very big reason:
Christian extremists live next door to us.
They sit in the pews next to you,
and they work with you.
[screaming]
Help!
ANTHEA:
And the att*ck in the Capitol on 1/6
was Christian jihad.
We are gonna have one nation under God,
we have to have one religion under God.
ANTHEA: Evangelicalism today
inserts their belief system
into the government of America,
hoping to change it into a theocracy
ruled by white Christians specifically,
and men in particular.
GREG LOCKE: You cannot be a Christian
and vote Democrat in this nation!
They are God-denying demons
that butcher babies and hate this nation!
REPORTER 1:
The Supreme Court has ruled
on the future of abortion rights
in the United States.
REPORTER 2: The landmark decision
from the United States Supreme Court
which has ended
Constitutional protections for abortion
that had been in place
for nearly 50 years.
REPORTER 3: Evangelicals became
fully radicalized in the goal.
That was the justification for the
religious right's deal with Donald Tr*mp.
He single-handedly shifted
the Court far enough to the right,
it could finally undo
abortion rights in this country.
MEGAN: In a very real way,
Jerry Falwell Jr. has now
officially completed the work
that his father began.
The black sheep and the rejected member
of the evangelical community
actually has delivered to them
in a very tangible way,
the one thing that they most sought.
RANDALL:
One of the great glories of this nation,
and I believe America's best idea,
is the First Amendment
and the separation of church and state.
[protesters chanting
"Separation of church and state!"]
This whole so-called
Christian nationalism movement
that insists that America was
and always has been a Christian nation,
the founders were
very, very clear about that.
Their intention
was precisely the opposite.
To protect the nation,
protect the government,
protect the people
from religious factionalism.
Go back on that fundamental principle,
to compromise that in some way,
I think is deeply, deeply perilous.
God Forbid: The Sex Scandal That Brought Down A Dynasty (2022)
Moderator: Maskath3
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