(DRAMATIC ORCHESTRAL MUSIC)
(BIRDSONG)
MICHAEL WOLFF: I've written
three books about Donald Trump.
It's an incredible story...
Whether we want it to be or not,
it is the story of our time.
And, um, if you're a writer,
I hate to say it,
but he's a God send.
He's full of mystery.
How does this guy not be
brought down by all the things
that always seem
about to bring him down?
My last book Landslide
finishing with the impeachment
that followed January 6th
should've been the end of the story.
Are you ready?
(READING ALOUD)
"The age of modern bureaucracy
demands, at the very least,
being able to sit through a meeting
without barking like a dog."
TRUMP:
This is a major fraud in our nation.
We were getting ready
to win this election.
Frankly, we did win this election.
(CHEERING)
We did win this election.
"From the careening
and calamitous last stage
of his re-election campaign,
through the preposterous
election challenge
and the deadly mayhem
of January 6th..."
We're going to walk down
and I'll be there with you
because you'll never take back
our country with weakness.
You have to show strength,
and you have to be strong.
(INDISTINCT YELLING)
"..there emerges a much
different picture from the one
much of the media has painted
of a corrupt, cynical,
despotic effort to hold on
to power and to subvert democracy.
Here, instead,
is a far more complicated human
and political tale
of desperation and delusion.
It is one that should by any logic
have ended on January 6th."
We love you.
We will be back in some form.
Have a good life.
We will see you soon.
"But the most striking
and determinative fact
of the political age is that
the Trump story continues,
even in defeat,
to be inspirational to so many,
and why all Republican roads
now lead to Mar-a-Lago."
This book came about after
a long sit-down interview with him.
Trump was in
effective exile in Mar-A-Lago.
I mean he's been banished.
The Republican party
has turned against him.
He hardly has a friend in the world.
I think, yes.I don't know
how you feel about that.
I mean, I feel...
I'll put it this way.
What I'm interested in is
the excitement of the story,
the fight.
Which is still going on.
Yes, and what I like about
that period is that you... fought.
'How do you get anything
out of Donald Trump?
You know, there's a journalistic
pose here in which
you might challenge him.
Or you can take the approach
which I took here,
which is just to egg him on.'
(OVER RECORDING) "This is
a big thing that's happened.
I mean, it's a very
complicated thing.
Somebody must have been
coordinating this.
If we find that...
I mean, we have
so much evidence of voter fraud."
'At that point in time,
so the spring of 2021,
it immediately started to seem
possible that he could run again.
I saw a group of people
beginning to form around him,
something was coming together.
I felt a sense of story
that this was a tale to tell.'
I thought "OK, I should...
..put my boots back on."
(DRAMATIC ORCHESTRAL MUSIC
CONTINUES)
January 2024.
(READING ALOUD)
Trump was irritated by the cold.
And he was irritated by the hotel,
invaluably expressing his irritation
to most everyone on his call list.
He berated his entourage,
"Why are we staying here?
This place is no good.
Who picked this place?
Who put us here?"
Trump was always unhappy
when he wasn't in his own bed,
between his own sheets.
(READS ALOUD)
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
If you have a right ear,
that would be great.
Your... So, this one? Or right? OK.
Right-Right ear.
REPORTER: The filing centre
is already buzzing with activity.
There are people here
from all across the world.
All of them looking to see
who Iowa Republicans
will pick as
their first choice for president,
and we'll actually get a little
insight into what those results...
Well, Trump liked it yesterday.
'Here we are again.'
I'm feeling pretty optimistic.
'I am now in the midst
of a fourth book
because this story
continues to go on.
No one as surprised as I am.'
Great and what's... How long?
It'll be about three, four minutes.
Great.
'I've covered campaigns before,
that's a fairly
tried and true path.'
I'm just going to bring in our
US election expert Michael Wolff,
a journalist and author
of three books on Donald Trump,
including the worldwide
bestseller Fire and Fury. Michael...
'But this is different
because there are these trials.'
Trump is fighting
two different battles.
One is an...
is an easy battle for him.
It's-It's...
He's going to get the votes.
He is getting the votes.
The other, a much more uncertain
battle, which is in the courts.
'And this isn't one trial.
This is multiple trials.
And it is possible that
they will all come to trial
before Election Day
a year from now.'
There have been
four indictments, and, um...
and all they've done
so far for the Trump campaign
is given them a boost in the polls
and a boost in the amount of money
that they've... that they've raised.
'The stakes here for Donald Trump
could not be higher.
It is very possible
that he will be convicted,
he will lose, and he will go to jail
for the rest of his life.'
I do think that
he surrounds himself in chaos
and we can't be
a country in disarray
and have a world on fire,
and be in chaos.
I do think that
these court cases are distracting.
'Nikki Haley is certainly hoping
it presents an opportunity.'
He's trying to bully me
and anyone who supports me.
'She has come
to represent that isolated
outer edge of the Republican Party,
who sees Donald Trump
as morally unacceptable.'
Well, I've dealt with
bullies my entire life.
They don't intimidate me.
They only motivate me further.
And I never met a bully
I couldn't take on.
How close would Nikki Haley
have to get for you to think
that she does have a whisper
of a chance in this race?
You know,
I don't think that there is.
I mean unless she...
unless there was...
there was an upset which
everyone would find unimaginable.
I don't think that she
has-has a chance. Um...
'I don't think anybody has quite
come to grips with the fact that
Donald Trump is a fait accompli.
You know, anybody could win.
Who knows what's gonna happen?'
When it's very,
very clear what's gonna happen.
There's only one thing.
There has only been one person...
..since the Republican party,
since 2016.
(PHONE CHIMES)
I just had a push.
ANNOUNCER:
CNN projects that Donald Trump
will win the Iowa caucuses.
CNN can make this projection
based on his overwhelming...
(CHUCKLES)
And they get paid for that?
'Everybody has misunderstood
this Trump phenomenon.
They haven't been
able to explain it, certainly.
And I'm not saying that
I have any better explanation,
but what I'm saying is that
you can, I think,
begin to understand more about what
he is by the people who enable him.'
(APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: I want to thank Susie,
I have to say, and Chris.
Chris, they want no accolades.
They just want a victory,
and they want to make
America great again.
That's all they want, actually.
They don't wanna be speaking.
They don't wanna have pictures.
They just want
to do their job, right?
I want to thank you very much,
Jason, everybody.
You're really fantastic.
'You have no idea
what kind of life this is.
I mean, it's just the worst
possible life to do what they do...
..tending to someone who basically
doesn't listen to you.
Remember, the job is if you're good
at this, the job is just to win.
Just think of it as anyone
in the marketing business.'
When you have to sell the product,
you seem to believe in the product,
and you say all the right things
that you have to about the product,
and then you leave the office
or go out and you go,
"Oh, my God, what a piece of sh*t."
MAN: To someone like you?
To someone like me. Yes.
(LIGHT MUSIC)
'The people around Donald Trump,
I don't think that they
have any illusions.
They believe that Joe Biden can do
very little to win this race.'
That is not the fight
that Joe Biden has.
'But they believe that
Donald Trump can do
an awful lot to lose this race.
They're not worried about Joe Biden,
they're worried about
their candidate.'
(CHEERING)
'The interesting thing about
this time around is that
there is a core group of
reasonable professionals
running this campaign.
And there are
three principal players.
There's Chris LaCivita.'
I have a T-shirt that says
"I'm probably lying".
(CHUCKLES)
I wear that occasionally
to meetings with the press.
(LAUGHS)
'And the only measure
of their success is to win.
If that means embracing
something they don't believe in,
well, they'll do that.'
TRUMP:
The president wants the best.
You know, who's the best?
Well, I am.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
There's another,
a man by the name Jason Miller.
I think we saw tonight
was someone who's ready
to go back to the Oval Office.
Who's ready to get
this country turned around.
Who's ready
to save America once again.
'In 2016,
he got a campaign staffer pregnant
awkwardly at the same time
that his wife was pregnant.
This resulted in
a barely contained scandal,
and the only person who didn't
seem to mind this was Donald Trump.'
I will always accept
the results of an honest election.
'And so he went
back to work for the campaign.'
This one's different.
This one's much more personal.
This is very much a sense
of unfinished business.
If we don't save the US now,
we don't know if the country's
ever gonna look the same.
'And the third person is a woman
by the name of Susie Wiles.
She's run campaigns, and she's
from a political family in Florida.'
We complement each other
in a lot of different ways.
I'm the gas, she's the brakes.
Let's go, everybody.
'Their skill set is tactical.
Whatever is the path to victory.'
(TRAFFIC HUMMING)
(DOOR RATTLING, SLIDING)
(DISTANT SIREN BLARING)
MAN: (OVER RECORDING)
'Hardly a day passes without
somebody from Trump world calling me
with a phone call that
will invariably start:
"you won't believe it".
'People do like their say.
They do like to represent
their experience without fear
that it will show up
in the paper the next day.
What I say shows up
quite a number of months later,
and I've been
very trustworthy to these people.
I don't reveal who my sources are.
And the benefit is
I'm telling you things that
you would not know otherwise.'
All I do is cook and write.
That's it. That's it.
And shop for the food that
he's gonna cook.
I gotta shop, too.
Gotta shop.
Nothing else.
I would say it's very satisfying
to cook and feed my family,
but my children hate my food, so.
Eat.
What are the headlines?
Mm... Not exactly any headlines.
Can you believe that we're going
to the Rockettes tomorrow?
Well, I have a 9:40 Jitney.
We're gonna...
Yeah, we're gonna say goodbye.
Yep.
The camera guy's coming with you?
Yes, cos I'm posing as a...
as a writer.
Who needs to take
a break from his family.
In a country house.
The writer has to go and...
for seclusion.
He wants to be alone.
Yes. Which is not...
..in fact, true.
I don't like to be alone.
But... for the cinema.
You're not gonna make it-
You're gonna be like,
"Don't have enough paper towels."
You don't?
No, I don't know. I sure I do.
But I'm coming back on Sunday.
(BIRDS SQUAWKING)
(GENTLE MUSIC)
'Trump made three trips
to New Hampshire,
growing more and more irritated
with the other woman, Nikki Haley,
who is gaining attention
and preparing to make money
off of his name.
She was in this not to win, but just
to be the last person against him.
How did I walked into
Donald Trump's world?
In a sense, I guess,
we all ask ourselves that question.
As it happened,
I knew Donald Trump from New York.
For a long period of time,
I wrote a column about the media
for New York magazine.
I became one of the people
at the magazine who he would call up
to complain about
what was written about him,
or more often than not, complain
when we did not write about him.'
You're going to have to start
pushing these people now
a little bit cos it's getting
a little ridiculous
as far as I'm concerned.
So, just start pushing,
and start
pushing as hard as possible.
'So, I got along fairly well
with Donald Trump.'
(LAUGHS) You love me, you love me.
Yes! Yes!
That's nice, I love you too.
Oh, my God, thank you.
'Years forward,
you know, he becomes this...
this extraordinary
television star,
um, and then he starts
to run for president.'
Let's get inside.
I gotta go back to work.
I still gotta work. Bye everybody.
One more, one more.
But then, in February or March
of 2016, I was writing a column
for The Hollywood Reporter,
and the editor
had called me and said,
do you want to interview Trump?
Um...
Um...
And I was like, well, you know,
that-that could be amusing.
'It was not a hate story,
but it was...
it was a critical story,
I was making fun of him.
And his response was "great cover".
I have no idea
if he ever even read the article.
It didn't make any difference.
He liked the cover.
That then provided me with
the entree to keep going on this,
because from that point on,
the story really kept getting
bigger and bigger and bigger.
And I kept putting off
doing everything else,
like taking my family on vacation.
because the end was coming.
Election Day would be the end.
There would be
no more Donald Trump.'
And then 8:30 on election night...
CNN can report that
Hillary Clinton
has called Donald Trump
to concede the race.
And that's when I made
the proposal, I said,
"Why don't I come
into the White House
and write about the first...
the first hundred days?"
REPORTER:
It's flying out of bookstores
and into the national consciousness.
It's number one on both the New York
Times and Amazon bestseller list.
'I think when my book
Fire and Fury came out,
a lot of people thought
this was bad for him,
that actually, my book could
contribute to bringing him down.'
I consider it a work of fiction,
and I think it's a disgrace that
somebody is able to have
something... do something like that.
'Obviously, that didn't happen.
So, you might then reasonably ask,
did this book help him?
It somehow turned the chaos
into something recognisable.'
I mean, he doesn't look like
up close like anyone
you have ever seen before.
(LAUGHTER)
'And then when chaos
is recognisable,
you can make the argument
that it's no longer chaos.
And, um...
I don't know how I feel about that.'
(UPBEAT STRING MUSIC)
REPORTER: Michael Wolff's
first book on the Trump White House
was an international sensation
that garnered plenty of controversy.
His follow up book is also being
criticized largely about sourcing.
You have, frankly,
frauds like Michael Wolff
publishing without making
any efforts to fact check,
um, fiction under
the banner of non-fiction.
I find that I'm a fairly polarizing
figure among many journalists,
and I try to sometimes make
the distinction I'm not
principally a journalist,
I'm principally a writer.
Pardon me.
'My function is
to describe what I see.'
REPORTER:: This idea that as
a reporter you have your one source,
and you believe them credible enough
when you not even going to give
the other side the luxury of hearing
what you're about to publish.
What strikes me as odd about Wolff
is that he says
because he doesn't work for,
say, The Washington Post,
or The Atlantic, or The Daily Beast,
he doesn't have to do that,
as though reporters
are only calling for comment
because of the dictates of
the institution they work for,
as opposed to it just
being ethically sound thing to do.
Usually, after a book
comes out everybody says,
"Well, who are your sources?" Um...
And I say, "Well, I can't
tell you who my sources are,"
and there's a kind of
jostling about that.
And it's usually from
other journalists,
I mean, I don't find readers saying,
"Who's your sources?"
(APPLAUSE)
INTERVIEWER: You frequently
depend on single source accounts.
How do you gauge the trust
worthiness of some of
these folks that you're talking to,
especially when the environment
that they are working in
so "back stab-y"?
You-You know, I know these people.
I mean,
you know the people who are...
who are reliable.
And there have been some people,
um, in some instances that prove
not to be reliable,
but you get rid of them, um...
And, um, and-and you...
you continue on with, at this point,
the people who-who brought you.
(APPLAUSE)
'I have no agenda.
I have no point. I have
no political axe to grind here.
I am just looking for
this incredible story to unfold.'
Let me have the prosciutto cotto
and Swiss cheese.
Um, I want a, um...
A skimmed milk cappuccino.
Everything is to go?
Everything... Um, no, no, here.
OK.
Yeah, here is great.
Uh, that will be...
'Recently, Nikki Haley
ended her campaign.'
HALEY: The time has now come
to suspend my campaign.
And although I will
no longer be a candidate,
I will not stop using my voice
for the things I believe in.
Donald Trump will be the Republican
nominee, I congratulate him.
'So, there is now nothing standing
in a way of Trump's nomination.'
You've had two things that
have gone on for the past year.
You've had this campaign
for the Republican nomination,
and then you've had this...
this legal battle,
this legal onslaught
um, and the...
the race for the Republican
nomination has been
hands down successful.
I mean... I mean, over...
I don't think that there's
ever been an example in which
a candidate has been as successful
as quickly as Donald Trump has been.
And at the same time,
flip the coin around,
and you have one indictment,
two indictments,
three indictments,
four indictments.
There're so many cases,
they all roll together as one.
Um, you could barely find
a man on the street,
you can barely find people
in the campaign
to, kind of,
make the distinctions, you know,
"This is the, um..."
You know,
"This is the Hush Money case,
this is the Boxes Document case,
this is The January 6th case,
this is The Atlanta case."
Which is...
Nobody knows what's going on there.
'And of course, his central
legal strategy has been delay,
and it's worked out very well.'
It turns out
if you have enough lawyers,
they'll just keep making motions
after motions after motions
to push these cases
and keep pushing them,
um, except that now one has fallen
through the cracks and it is here.
It's a little disruptive, you know.
I mean, it's...
(GENTLE ORCHESTRAL MUSIC)
REPORTER: Happening today,
former President Trump's historic
New York Hush Money trial begins,
making him the first ever
former president to stand
for a criminal trial.
'Because all the other
trials Trump has managed
to push beyond the election.
This trial kind of comes
to stand in for all of them.
And the campaign teams
worry about this.
You know, to be convicted
of a felony might have
psychic implications for many, many,
many voters that are unanticipated.
It's all part of an elaborate
effort not to face him
on the ballot box in November.
And look, it won't be over.
Even when he wins,
it's not going to be over till
he takes the oath of office.
At this point in the campaign,
we're not in a battle run state,
we're not in Michigan,
we're not in Pennsylvania,
we're not in Wisconsin,
we're in New York.
Why are we in New York?
Because President Trump is on trial.
Much rather be on the campaign
trail, but we're stuck here.
This sham prosecution,
this insanity,
this abomination has to stop now.
If this case happened
four years ago,
you'd have had The Rock,
you'd have had Cardi B.
Instead, they have Robert De Niro in
a mask, limping his way to a stage,
getting shouted down
by New Yorkers in his own town.
I mean, this is really...
Even these people
over here are kinda...
(INDISTINCT DISTANT SHOUTS)
It's kind of crazy.
They lost the pop culture that
the Democrats had because
the situation they've created
over the last four years is so bad.
It's so palpable.
MAN: We love you, Trump!
We love you!
We're for you, Trump!
'Many Democrats have felt that
this would seriously
handicap his ability to campaign.
But with these trials, essentially,
he brings the campaign to himself.
Nobody else is gonna be
interested in anything
but what is happening
in these courtrooms.
It will be all about Donald Trump.'
And does the system
destroy Donald Trump,
or does Donald Trump
destroy the system?
(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC)
REPORTER: Stormy on the stand.
The next witness in the Trump trial
will be Stormy Daniels.
She is expected to testify,
of course,
about getting paid off
by Michael Cohen to keep
her alleged affair with
the former president secret.
(READING ALOUD)
(GAVEL BANGS)
STORMY: As much as I didn't want
to get up there and face that,
the only thing that
I could think of being worse is
if the prosecution didn't call me.
Public perception of that would
have been they didn't trust her.
She's not credible.
And that's just something
that I wasn't willing.
I'd rather get shot at
than have everybody think,
"Oh, wow, she's the star witness
and they decided not to call her."
But nothing can really prepare you.
It's intense.
The trial was about
campaign finance violations,
you know, paperwork, boring stuff.
Um, but the press, the media,
the public continued,
and would not stop calling it
the Stormy Daniels Hush Money Trial,
which is not what it was.
The problem with that is that
lead everyone to attack me.
She's a little off this woman.
And to subject this jury
to the testimony that
they had to listen to that is
totally irrelevant, not probative,
and prejudicial in this case.
And she acts like what she is.
They were like, "Why did you have
to talk about his p*nis?"
Now, we all know that
if I was lying, he would have
dropped his pants a long time ago
or gotten a doctor's note.
Or has Melania been like,
"She's wrong.
I know what my husband's genitals
look like, and that's not it"?
Nope, not a peep.
Cos she knows I'm telling the truth.
Susan Necheles
sought to shame Stormy Daniels,
not just to her face,
but in front of the jurors
to say, "This porn star sl*t
isn't telling the truth."
His attorney came up,
and she was a f*cking b*tch.
She tried to, like, sl*t shame me.
I mean, read the testimony.
Like it is next level.
But then I was like, "Game on".
I don't start fights,
but I do finish them.
REPORTER:
Stormy Daniels kept her cool today.
I actually thought she performed
better on cross-examination
than she did on direct examination.
She answered the questions.
She was careful. She was listening.
She was thoughtful.
So, I don't think it will work.
She said, "Well, you're used
to making up stories
because you write porn."
I mean, it is so offensive.
And then she was like,
"You are just
making money off of this.
Like you signed autographs."
I'm like, "So does he!"
At least I'm signing
autographs of the books I wrote.
This m*therf*cker
is signing copies of the Bible.
I looked right at him.
He just...
You know. He just muttered.
He spoke, maybe...
I could hear him muttering,
but I don't know what it was,
but he doesn't intimidate me.
REPORTER: It's almost as if Trump
and the lawyers who he is
directing to a certain extent,
and we've seen that, are mad at her
for trying to, kind of,
take back her power.
If I could barely handle this,
I don't think there's another person
in the entire world that could have.
I was the perfect storm,
pun intended,
because I don't have a family
that could have been threatened.
I don't have a mainstream job
that I could have lost.
You know what I mean? Like what...
How are you going to shame me
after doing porn for so long?
Somebody else could have been hurt
so much more seriously
than I could have.
There could've been
so much more collateral damage.
You can't imagine
this has been easy for her,
but she yet withstood
this under fire.
A lot of fire.
It was all about trying
to undermine her credibility.
And I would say they didn't succeed,
and they may have failed miserably.
Yes, how are you?
No, I can't. I need...
I need one of those. I just...
So, it's as I explained, you know,
I'm just having dinner
with somebody, and I can't...
We can't be spotted.
OK. So, I have to...
OK. I'll have to find
some other place then. Um...
OK, bye.
Oh, damn.
Yeah. Hi, it's Michael Wolff,
and I wonder if I can get
a reservation for 8:45?
But the catch is, I need that...
the table, the hidden table
at the back.
OK. Thanks a lot. Bye-bye.
I am sneaking out
to have dinner with...
..a-a close...
someone in the close Trump circle...
..who will tell me what is...
what has been going on
for the last several days.
Thanks.
You're welcome.
(DISTANT SIREN BLARING)
'This story that I'm trying to tell
really depends upon people
willing to tell you
all kinds of stuff
that they should not tell you
in any way.'
(TRAFFIC HUMMING)
The message was that Trump
is really beating up his lawyers.
I guess this gets to the point
of just borders on abuse.
"You're drawing her out
and keeping her on the stand.
She's a lying scumbag,
and I never had sex with her,
and you keep letting her say I did."
(READING ALOUD)
"You're losing it completely.
You're making her look sympathetic.
She's a scumbag,
and you're making her look good.
Do you know that's what
you're doing? Do you see that?
Everybody else sees that.
How can you not see that?"
(DRAMATIC ORCHESTRAL MUSIC)
(GENTLE MUSIC)
REPORTER:
The jury in the Donald Trump
criminal hush money trial
has reached a verdict.
Count one, guilty.
Count two, guilty.
Count three, guilty.
REPORTER 2: We're hearing
guilty on one through five.
One through 12 we have now,
13, 14, guilty.
Guilty on all 34 felony counts.
That is the verdict
here in this case.
I was sitting on the sofa
with my daughter
and I was just sobbing.
TRUMP: 'This was a rigged,
disgraceful trial.
And the real verdict is going
to be November 5th by the people.'
And we'll keep fighting.
We'll fight till the end
and we'll win because
our country's gone to hell.
We don't have
the same country anymore.
We have a divided mess.
(INDISTINCT ARGUING)
And we will fight
for our Constitution.
This is long from over.
Thank you very much.
(REPORTER SHOUTING INDISTINCTLY)
These people are all scumbags.
They're all the scum of the earth.
And what we are doing now
is we created a brand new wave.
I can't wait for November 5th
cos now you're gonna see
a guaranteed win.
(BIRDS CHIRPING)
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
Is that awkward?
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
OK.
Three things going on.
First, it's really a question for
him and for the people around him
how he converts this loss,
catastrophic loss, into victory.
So, he's just been convicted
after six weeks in court,
he's lost resoundingly, but he went
from court to a fundraiser,
and then there was
a Daily Mail pole,
which put him up six points.
You see the boom
that came from that.
You know, he-he got convicted on 34
counts and his popularity goes up.
He raises $400 million
in less than a week.
And he had a $100 million
from big tech Silicon Valley.
You know, these are people
who in 2020 would have
lined up behind Joe Biden.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
I'm thrilled to be back
in the city I grew up in,
the city I spent my life in,
the city I helped build,
and the city that we all love,
New York City.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
He's just a fighter.
Once he's in the game,
he doesn't stop. He's an animal.
(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC)
This is the first of two debates,
the first direct match up,
Joe Biden versus Donald Trump.
This is being billed
as make or break.
Trump's still slightly ahead in...
in several key swing states,
but slightly.
This is a big moment.
The Trump campaign
has defined Joe Biden as senile.
So, a moment of
bewildered equivocation
could be devastating to him.
But in Trump's mind it's,
"We can't go too hard on Joe Biden,
because if we do,
that will encourage the Democrats
to replace him, and Joe Biden
is the weakest person
he could run against."
ANNOUNCER: (ON VIDEO)
Donald Trump for President, again.
I'm Donald Trump
and I approve this message.
Chili dog?
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
Can I get a plain hot dog, um,
a seltzer, sparkling water,
and French fries?
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
Is this the look we're going for?
'All of these debates, there is
really very little point to them.'
We invented this as a media form.
Essentially, you have these people
going, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
We discuss tonight domestic issues.
And it's largely without meaning,
largely without detail.
There is no question but that
this nation cannot stand still.
Incredibly boring.
I think we can save money
through this whole
very sophisticated concept, Andrea,
that I know you do understand,
of competitive strategies.
And then a guy comes along
who does this for a living.
He's a reality television star
and producer.
You've called women
you don't like fat pigs,
dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals.
Your Twitter account-
Only Rosie O'Donnell.
(LAUGHTER)
No, it wasn't.
I mean, that is actually the moment
when everybody should have known
that something profound had
changed in American political life.
I don't, frankly, have time
for total political correctness.
INTERVIEWER:
You know, I mean, on...
You know, on one hand, let me...
let me confess,
I am grateful for there
to be something worth looking at
and listening to,
and something to wake me up.
Um, I mean,
the fact that this is a...
..a monster. I mean,
monsters are, you know, reliable...
um, reliable showstoppers. Um...
Donald Trump walking into this
suddenly brings life
back to something
that was completely dead.
Um, now, if it's a...
if that's, you know,
a weird life and a, um...
..um, and a kind of a sick life,
and, you know...
Yeah, but it's at least life.
(DRAMATIC MUSIC)
Hey. How are you?
I just want to introduce myself.
Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.
Um, are you writing
another book or...
No I... Who knows?
It's always like...
There's something.
Yeah.There's always something,
Well, good to see you.
Just wanted to say hi.
Very nice meeting you.
WOMAN: Governor, why is Donald Trump
doing so well in the polls then?
I mean, he's doing...
I guess he's doing fine.
We have a divided country.
Donald Trump believes that if
Joe Biden falls on his face tonight,
that the likelihood is that he would
be replaced by Governor Newsom.
So, the possibilities
of that are giving Newsom
the biggest crowds so far.
So, I'm not...
I'm just not of that mindset.
I mean, nobody really
believes that Joe Biden
can be replaced at this point,
even if disaster strikes.
(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC)
LACIVITA: We felt that
the White House would ensure that
Biden would have whatever
was medically available
to get him through an hour
and a half of standing up
and going toe to toe
with President Trump.
We actually said that
there should be a drug test,
um, and you throw out
things like that
to draw attention, "Oh,
what are they going to give him?
ANNOUNCER: We want to welcome
our viewers in the United States
and around the world
to our studios in Atlanta.
This is the CNN presidential debate.
Now, please welcome the 46th
president of
the United States, Joe Biden.
(DIALOGUE MUTED)
'Joe Biden crept unsteadily,
his balance gravely
in doubt up to the lectern.
The immediate signal
could hardly be misread.
Whoever had conceived of
this debate as a viable platform
had made a woeful gamble.
More than 50 million
people were tuned in,
and there were few who could
not see the trouble ahead.
Except for Trump.
From where he was entering,
he couldn't see it.
Sauntering in with
his usual ready for bare face,
he had yet no idea that the game
was already in radical transition.'
Gentlemen, thanks so much for
being here. Let's begin the debate.
And let's start with the issue
that voters consistently say
is their top concern, the economy.
We're going to take a look at what
I was left when I became president.
'He was concentrating
on his own opening
and hardly listening to Biden's
first catastrophic responses.
He thought he had heard Biden claim
that he had created
15,000 new jobs...
..15,000 new jobs...
..instead of 15 million,
but assumed he'd heard wrong.
Within minutes of the start,
no one was listening
to what Joe Biden was saying,
or trying to say.
It was all just unremitting
an excruciating spectacle,
and riveting.
Making sure they were able to make
every single solitary person...
(STAMMERS) ..eligible for
what I've been able to do
with the Covid... (STAMMERS)
..excuse me, with, um, dealing with
everything we have to do with, uh...
Look, if...
We finally beat Medicare.
Thank you, President Biden.
President Trump?
Well, he's right. He did beat
Medicare. He beat it to death.
'Trump,
concentrating on his own remarks,
was only slowly understanding
that Biden was performing weakly.'
Now, you're in a situation
where there are 40% fewer people
coming across the border illegally.
That's better than
when he left office.
And I'm going to continue
to move until we get the total ban
on the... the total
initiative relative to what
we're going to do with
more border patrol
and more asylum officers.
President Trump?
I really don't know what he said
at the end of that sentence.
I don't think he knows
what he said either. Look...
we had the safest border
in the history of our country.
The border...
All he had to do was leave it.
'It was at least 20 minutes in,
those crucial first 20 minutes...
..before he understood
what was certainly clear
to most of the vast audience.
This might be the most bewildering
moment that had ever occurred
to a presidential debater.
This wasn't a mess up.
This was human pathos.
Joe Biden was sundowning
before 50 million people.'
We are failing nation, but it's
not gonna be failing anymore.
We're gonna make it great again.
WOMAN: Thank you, former
President Trump, President Biden.
Stay with us because we have
full analysis of this debate.
Yikes.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
LACIVITA:
Look, there's gonna be a lot of talk
because there are so many
political experts on Twitter, right?
My God, it's just filled...
What you have here
are people waiting for, um...
waiting for someone
to come out and defend Joe Biden.
And no one is coming out
and defending Joe Biden.
Uh, so, this is now entirely
a Republican spin room.
I think at the end of this,
we're gonna have to, like,
identify Joe Biden by his dental
records he was bludgeoned so badly.
He was drooling on himself,
half the time he had
his mouth open, catching flies.
I don't envy my Democratic friends
here who've had to stand here
and try to defend Joe Biden's debate
performance, which was disastrous.
Here's the problem...
My God. Um...
Well, let's go...
'I don't know what happens now.
I mean,
I'm shocked by the whole thing.'
Right now, as we speak,
there is a deep,
a wide, and a very aggressive
panic in the Democratic Party.
It started minutes into the debate,
and it continues right now.
And they're having conversations
about the president's performance,
which they think was dismal,
and they're having conversations
about what they should do about it.
REPORTER: Would you prefer
Joe Biden to stay on the ticket,
or is there somebody else?
Joe Biden is not...
Joe Biden is not going anywhere.
The only way Joe Biden
is dumped off the ticket
is if he voluntarily
decides he's not going to do it,
and he's not going to make
that decision.
Thank you. Thanks, guys.
You know, I think,
OK, you know, this is...
how does this...
how does this disrupt the narrative?
My narrative.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
(SOMBRE MUSIC)
REPORTER: That was painful.
He didn't do well at all.
Uh, he...
He did not do well at all.
REPORTER 2: You cannot tell me
democracy is on the line
and then give that performance.
Based on that, in 18 weeks,
Donald Trump will be
the president elect.
REPORTER 3:
President Biden is facing calls
to drop his bid for re-election.
That's after his debate performance
against Donald Trump.
REPORTER 4:
The next few days will be critical
if he's to salvage his imploding
campaign and convince America...
'This becomes the story.
Biden and the Democrats have
occupied the media now
for a steady two weeks.
And for the Trump campaign,
this is their greatest fear,
when someone else becomes the story.
They don't know what to do.'
During the campaign, one of
Trump's people said to me, um,
"Our only matrix is attention.
Good, bad doesn't make
any difference.
The more attention we get,
the more the numbers go up."
He is the mover.
By dominating the media,
he dominates the election.
And suddenly he's lost all that.
Who wants to hear
about Donald Trump
when you have this
Shakespearean drama being worked out
in the Democratic Party?
Everybody's looking at
their news feed.
Has Biden resigned? Is it over?
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
REPORTER: Hi, Shannon.
A very hot day here in
the swing state of Pennsylvania,
but that didn't stop
these massive crowds
behind us from showing up here
to try and catch a glimpse of
the former president on that stage
here in Butler, Pennsylvania,
before he heads
to Milwaukee for the RNC.
(CROWD CHANTING "USA!")
If you wanna really see
something that's sad,
take a look at what happened-
(g*nshots)
(WOMAN SHRIEKS)
MAN: Get down! Get down!
(g*nf*re)
(CROWD SCREAMING)
Hold, hold.
When you're ready. On you.
(INDISTINCT SHOUTING)
Move! Move!
(g*nsh*t)
(WOMAN SCREAMS)
Sir, we've gotta move.
WOMAN: Oh, my God. Oh, my God!
Let me get my shoes!
How many shots was that?
Shield!
Watch out.
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
(TENSE MUSIC)
(CROWD CHEERING)
REPORTER: The FBI is
investigating the sh**ting at
Saturday's Trump rally as
an assassination attempt.
The former president appeared
to be hit but is OK.
Three men in the crowd were shot...
REPORTER 2: These are not only
the images that are
seared into the minds of Americans.
These are the images
that are now going to fuel
Donald Trump's campaign.
An image of the former president,
the presumptive Republican nominee,
bloodied with his fist
up in the air,
surrounded by Secret Service agents
as he's rushed down those stairs
and into that armoured vehicle
where he went to
a local hospital for treatment.
The former president moving forward
full steam ahead with plans
to attend the Republican
National Convention tonight.
And President Biden
promised every single resource
necessary to ensure the safety
of former President Donald Trump.
(CROWD CHANTING "Trump!")
(CROWD CHANTING "USA!")
(CHEERING)
(HEROIC MUSIC)
Has anyone ever in
the history of American politics
been as lucky as this guy?
You know, he gets shot at,
actually hit in the ear. Um...
Um, so, I mean, take a moment
to appreciate that
it's-it's in the...
probably the safest place
on a human body
to be shot at is the ear.
Um, so, um...
You know,
he gets shot, and then he...
and then he gets-gets up again.
I mean, literally in front.
So, producing probably the most
iconic picture since...
I don't know, um...
Iwo Jima.
Um, but even that,
that's a, kind of, a group shot.
This is really a singular shot.
Um, and then he has
the presence of mind to, um...
uh, to-to mug for the camera,
to pump his fist.
This is extraordinary.
(GENTLE MUSIC)
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
(METAL DETECTOR SQUEAKING)
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
For Donald Trump,
this convention becomes
a hero's welcome, a coronation.
I mean, all of the things
you could have only dreamed
that you might want it to be.
Hey. How are you?
Extraordinary.
You know, it's-it's, um...
Well, I mean, I guess
Donald Trump is gonna be the next
president of the United States.
Um, I mean, these guys think...
I mean, the Republicans think they
are gonna sweep every swing state,
plus Maine, plus Virginia and-and...
Um, um...
Yes. New Hampshire possible.
I mean, they really think Maine,
Virginia, and all the swing states,
but everything
is breaking their way.
I mean, they're-they're
seeing landslide.
It is therefore my honour
to nominate Ohio Senator JD Vance
for the office of vice president
of the United States of America.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
Choosing Vance was very...
full of ambivalence.
You know,
he really didn't want to do it.
Because of all the terrible things
Vance has said about him.
You know,
because Don Jr was supporting him,
and he thinks Don Jr is a dummy.
And then the fact that he's 39,
which, you know,
obviously Trump understands,
that's going to make him look...
look old.
Up until days ago, he was still
seriously debating this.
Right, I mean, Vance has very
clearly positioned himself
or repositioned himself
as the MAGA next generation.
Who would have believed, Jesus?
I mean, he was always the story,
but now... My God.
Anyway, I'll speak to you next week.
See you. Bye.
YASMINE: What are your plans
for this evening?
You know, to go to the convention
floor and to smell the crowd.
(APPLAUSE)
We love Trump!
(CHEERING)
(CROWD CHANTING "We got this!")
Hey guys. No worries.
Good to meet you, hey!
How are you?
RNC SPEAKER: Ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome former governor
of South Carolina and ambassador
to the United Nations,
Nikki Hayley.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
To me, Hayley, look like
prisoners of w*r
fighting for their survival.
And so, you have to do
what you have to do.
I'll start by making one thing
perfectly clear.
Donald Trump has my strong
endorsement, period.
Nikki Haley cannot have been
pleased with this.
This is just falling into line.
The art of politics is
the art of humiliation.
My fellow Americans,
it is my honour to introduce
the 45th and soon-to-be 47th
President of the United States,
Donald J Trump.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
Let me begin this evening
by expressing my gratitude
to the American people
for your outpouring
of love and support
following the assassination attempt
at my rally on Saturday.
He had had the kind of experience
that necessarily changes a man,
even Donald Trump.
And it seems like
it could be a great speech.
A genius one.
Together we will launch a new era
of safety, prosperity and freedom
for citizens of every race,
religion, colour and creed.
The discord and division
in our society must be healed.
We must heal it quickly.
For minutes there, it was clear
to all, perhaps truly everyone,
that another Trump presidency
was inevitable,
even deserved to be.
I'm running to be president
for all of America,
not half of America,
because there is no victory
in winning for half of America.
But then, he relaxed.
The greatest invasion in history
is taking place right now
in our country from Africa,
Asia, the Middle East,
they're coming from everywhere,
they're coming...
We will drill, baby, drill.
..every week they got
another subpoena
from the Democrats crazy
Nancy Pelosi,
the whole thing just bum, bum, bum.
A jarring, and even embarrassing
juxtaposition between minutes ago,
the man humbled before God,
and now the same old, same old.
We've become a dumping ground
for the rest of the world,
which is laughing at us,
they think we're stupid
and they can't believe
that they're getting away
with what they're getting away with,
but they not gonna be getting away
with it for long,
that's what I can tell.
OK. We've got huge breaking news
right now on Twitter.
Apparently, President Biden
is saying that he will step aside
as a candidate.
This is just coming across on social
media right now. Breaking news.
The Trump people had become
so comfortable or complacent
in their incredible success
that they really hadn't come
to terms with the fact
that their success was going
to force Biden out of the race.
The Democratic Party
appears to have completely
rallied around Kamala Harris...
She experienced, she's tough.
She's capable.
..which is curious,
because if the issue
was finding the best candidate
to oppose Donald Trump,
you know, essentially,
they've the Democratic Party
has now rallied around, you know,
only the second worst candidate.
She has not been
a very good politician,
has not been very popular,
presents pretty badly.
The opportunity here was to take
this story from Donald Trump.
A new face is the only thing that
could make Donald Trump old news.
But instead,
we have the somewhat old face
and everybody else kind of
shying away from this.
DNC SPEAKER: Are you ready
for Kamala Harris to win?!
(CHEERING)
Good, because when Kamala wins,
America wins.
Having said that, you know,
the race does change at this point.
She gets to make a case for herself,
and she has certain
built-in advantages.
Trump has been making
serious inroads
in the Democratic African American
base, Hispanic base, even women.
So now she can reclaim
that Democratic advantage.
And it's not impossible
that we can return to a race
that hangs in the balance.
This election is not only
the most important of our lives,
it is one of the most important
in the life of our nation.
Donald Trump is an unserious man,
but the consequences
of putting Donald Trump
back in the White House
are extremely serious.
The speed in which he dropped
and then backed her,
I think, did surprise us a bit.
We knew her numbers would bounce up,
there'd be a bit of a halo effect,
but I'm not sure
we necessarily expected that
there would be such the halo effect
of the media who,
just two months prior,
were saying all these nasty
negative things about her
to then saying she's the one person
who could beat Trump
so we have to rally around her.
Very sad time for this country,
in many ways.
You had a candidate.
I was no fan of Joe Biden, but the
way he was taken out was a coup.
He got 14 million votes
and the person running now got none.
She was disgraced.
She was figured out
by the Democrat voters.
Now she's running against us.
Thank you, everybody.
(TRAIN HORN TOOTING)
We're on our way to Philadelphia
for the second debate
in this 2024 election.
This will be the first time
you can compare them side by side.
And I'm not sure and I think
a lot of people are afraid of that,
that she's up to that.
I don't want to look
at my involvement with this story
as a political involvement.
Some writers are highly political,
and that's what
they're interested in.
I'm interested in how a person
moves across the room.
What does this person say
to that person?
What is the nature
of their language?
The tone of their language?
It is very personal.
I'm the writer here.
Every word I write
is through my eyes.
I can't think of how that
could be more personal.
You have to look at this as a kind
of farce, as a kind of comedy.
The fact that it has
real world implications,
the farce, I think,
confuses people
and leads them to say,
well, it can't be farce.
And I'm saying, well, I don't know.
Let's look at this.
The woman there is Alina Habba,
one of the Trump lawyers.
You want to get her.
Trump once said that
he may not have the best legal team
or the smartest legal team,
but he has the hottest legal team.
And then he would always show
a picture of Alina Habba.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
RFK Jr.
There is no freedom of speech
in Europe anymore,
there is no freedom of speech
in Brazil,
and this is spreading across,
of course,
China and these other countries
that don't exist.
So interesting that he's a somebody.
ARTHUR: Why?
Why? Because he's,
you know, a crazy person.
60% of our kids now have
chronic disease
compared to 3.4%
when my uncle was president.
He said that Trump's main concern
was the children,
which anyone who knows
Donald Trump
knows that
never once in his life
has he been concerned
about the children.
We need to be again the exemplary
democracy in the world.
Yep.
If this is about hair,
and Donald Trump has clearly made it
about hair, I think Newsom
would be a very strong contender.
I assume that
there are Democrats here.
I just don't know
the Democrats as well.
It's not my beat.
OK. Four minutes to go. Let's go.
ABC ANCHOR: Good evening.
We are looking forward
to a spirited and thoughtful debate.
ANCHOR 2: So, let's get started.
They've destroyed
the fabric of our country.
Crime in this country
is through the roof.
Well, I think this is so rich
coming from someone
who has been prosecuted.
When you look at his economic plan
it's all about tax breaks
for the richest people.
She doesn't have a plan.
Take a look at her plan,
she doesn't have a plan.
She's a Marxist,
everybody know she's a Marxist.
In over 20 states
there are Trump ab*rtion bans.
Trump ab*rtion bans that make no
exception even for r*pe and incest.
They have done by allowing
these millions of people
to come into our country...
In Springfield
they're eating the dogs.
The people that came in, they're
eating the cats. They're eating...
They're eating the pets
of the people that live there,
and this is what's happening
in our country.
And it's a shame.
(CHUCKLES)
Talk about extreme.
Tonight we saw a someone
that has empathy,
who cares about ordinary Americans,
who talks about kitchen sink issues.
(APPLAUSE)
Fair, that's very fair.
But what about the pets that are
being eaten in Springfield, Ohio?
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
They documented video after video
where people have said...
Cats and dogs?
Yes, people have said that
they have pets that are missing,
they have seen animals
being decapitated,
people have reported...
Cats and dogs?Yes.
You should preserve that law,
you shouldn't just allow
that baby to die,
the indifference to a baby
born alive is in essence...
At times Donald Trump
seemed riled and angry.
MICHAEL: She probably
comes out ahead.
She can stand up against this guy.
He got destroyed in this debate.
Destroyed.
The reaction that she got
was totally flabbergasting,
she went from someone
widely disliked
to someone beloved
overnight.
The new national Reuters IPSOS poll
has Haris ahead by five points.
Let's take a look at that right now.
For both sides, their winning issue,
each believes, is the other side.
Donald Trump and the deep aversion
to him
on the part of so many Americans
is the Democrats winning hand.
In Kamala Harris
and the visceral dislike
and deep suspicion of her
in MAGA land
is the Trumper's Ace.
A tight race, as tight as any
in modern history
could default to the enemy you know.
Are you guys staying here
all winter?
We're here.
Do you live in Montauk?
I do now.
Oh, nice.
Wow!
Oh, nice.
Nice catch.
That is huge!
That's a big male.
(INDISTINCT)
In many ways, I've become
a kind of court reporter.
I'm often accused of reporting
gossip or being a gossip.
That is that kind of quintessential
position of the guy
in Louis' court or, you know,
of the diarists in London
of a particular time.
You're telling the things
that other people,
nicer people, I suppose,
would not say.
But I'm telling this story
in a way that is true, or I think.
The real question is,
does it need to be told?
You know,
we believe we need to be told
but maybe politics is just
this illusion that we all support
and perhaps
it's completely meaningless.
I have no politics.
I'm a writer.
I have a stake in what I'm writing.
I have a stake in being able
to take what is in front of me
and put it on the page.
The problem with farm stands
is that the people who work here
are bloody incompetent.
Do I have a rooting interest?
I have no rooting interest.
I just have a descriptive interest.
ARTHUR: But as a father
and a husband,
do you have a different
sort of interest?
I... (CHUCKLES)
I think I just answered
that question.
I can be more precise here.
I don't vote.
I don't want to vote.
That's not what I do.
My job is a different job.
I don't see any reason to add
that complication
or that perspective on what I do.
How's the book coming along?
You mean...
Does that mean...
Will I finish the book? I will.
I will finish the book.
Will I finish the book on time?
I always finish on time.
TV ANCHOR:
Now, a judge in New York
throws former President Donald
Trump's felony convictions
into some question,
delaying his sentencing.
That move comes following Monday's
US Supreme Court ruling
granting presidents some immunity
for official acts.
The most surprising thing of this
campaign is that he survived.
Each of these cases appear to be
each on their own a mortal threat.
That was a key
of the Democratic campaign.
At some point it began to be clear
that he was going
to circumvent this.
He is...
I think the term would be
'scot-free'.
TV ANCHOR: Tonight, a tape
the Kamala Harris campaign
will want Americans to hear.
JOHN KELLY:
So yesterday we learned that Donald
Trump's former chief of staff,
John Kelly, a retired
four star general,
confirmed that,
while Donald Trump was president,
he said he wanted generals
like Adolf Hitler had.
Kamala Harris has been groping
for a way to label him
and describe him.
So, this immediately became
an element of this campaign.
It is clear from John Kelly's words
that Donald Trump is someone
who, I quote, "certainly falls into
the general definition of fascist."
I mean, fascism implies
a fairly structured programme
to realise those kind of corporate
populist and authoritarian goals.
Does Donald Trump have that?
Oh... Jeez.
I doubt that he has thought
that through in any way.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
Thank you.Thank you.
Have some before you lose them.
Was the ice cream machine working?
You want ice cream?
I'll get you some ice cream.
But on the other hand, you know,
there are pieces of that
which he certainly displays.
So, what is that?
What does that add up to?
In a sense to say it is fascism
is dignifying it.
I was a spooky one.
A spooky one?
OK. But you have to be quiet now
because we're making a movie.
And so began what was perhaps
the worst week of the campaign.
Having been exiled
from New York City,
indeed, convicted by it,
the concurring anti-hero was back
at the very centre of it.
20,000 people were
at Madison Square Garden
to celebrate him.
Trump is actually re-enacting
the Madison Square Garden rally
in 1939.
Neo-Nazis, fascists in America
were lining up to pledge their
support for the kind of government
that they were seeing in Germany.
So I don't think we can ignore it.
What do they mean by fascism?
By wanting to have your country
be able to survive,
by not wanting to constantly be
in other people's wars.
Like, he could cure cancer
just by doing this
and they'd totally find something
to say 'fascism!'
'h*m*!' And it's like,
we need to stop with these things.
Nobody cares who you sleep with.
Nobody cares what colour you are.
Who is the greatest president
in American history?
ALL: Trump!
As Trump backstage railed
against his speech writers
for finding nothing new to say,
word started to filter back
that Tony Hinchcliffe
whom few have ever heard of
was on stage
throwing a b*mb into Latino voters
whose margin may well provide
the Trump victory.
There's a lot going on,
I don't know if you guys know this,
but there's literally
a floating island of garbage
in the middle of the ocean
right now. Yeah.
I think it's called Puerto Rico.
(CROWD BOOING)
OK... Alright. (CHUCKLES) OK.
WOMAN: You're my female hero
because you said to that man
what every woman in this world
wants to say to him.
Frankly, there are way too many men
in this world, big, small,
who have little microgram
of power over women.
And you showed those women,
"Guess what?
My voice means something."
Make sure you vote.
Yep.
There is no doubt about voting.
I want to make sure
everybody's voting.
While Trump may be holding a rally
at Madison Square Garden
purely for his own ego,
New York's not gonna to flip, right?
The rest of us are trying
to survive on a planet
that is really suffering
from climate change.
We're trying to build a world
where the next generation
has access to, I don't know,
health care and education.
So, it's really wild to be
an American right now.
We really are living
in two different countries.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
Oh, hi Stormy!
Hello!
(INDISTINCT)
Thank you!
I think we should all worry
about Trump.
I worry not just because
I'm an actual figure
in this f*cked up horror movie,
but also just as an American
citizen, as a woman,
as a mother to a daughter,
as a friend to so many g*y
and trans people.
And yeah, I think that
we should all be very afraid.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
This is so much more
than a political movement.
This is the greatest family
in the world.
We are fighting for a country
we love.
Are you guys ready
to take your country back?
(CHEERING)
America is for Americans
and Americans only.
If you're outside
of the Trump bubble,
it's very hard to appreciate
what's going on here.
I mean, it's sort of
one moron after another.
Our message to g*y Americans
tonight, is this.
You're free to marry who you want,
if you want,
without the government
standing in your way.
But that doesn't mean that
boys get to compete with girls
in girls' sports.
Or you do genital mutilation and
chemical castration on our children.
You could not literally
sit through this
unless you were in the bubble,
you've drunk the Kool-Aid.
MAGA, baby, it's time.
Ladies and gentlemen,
the greatest capitalist
in the history of the Unites States
of America, Elon Musk.
Elon!
Elon!Elon!
(UNCLEAR)
(CHEERING ON TV)
Didn't he used to hate Trump?
Oh!
I wonder how his Tesla sales
are doing now.
Because all liberals
that buy those, right?
It's like mass possession.
What the f*ck is happening?
I talked to a priest about it,
"Is it possible for a mass
possession
or like a virus?
It's like the Walking Dead.
Cos, I mean, there's people
that I would never expect
just go full, full f*cking cult.
On day one, I will launch
the largest deportation programme
in American history.
(CHEERING DROWNS SPEECH)
If he gets away
with not getting sentenced,
he gets it thrown out
when I gave up everything
and I lost a contract
for a big podcast,
I should have been making $1
million.
I gave up everything to testify.
But most importantly,
all that time without my daughter,
then it was all for nothing.
And I'm hereby calling for the
death penalty for any migrant
that kills an American citizen
or law enforcement officer.
(CHEERING ON TV)
At this very moment
I think he's going to win.
Because people have gotten
complacent,
and these people are crazy
and rabid,
and they will walk in the snow
uphill both ways to vote for him.
(CHEERING)
Meanwhile, Harris' closing speech
before a crowd of as many as 75,000
at the ellipts in Washington DC,
exactly where Trump
urged on similarly sized crowed
to march on the capital
on January 6th 2021,
was as powerful and cogent
in argument
for the dire future of a government
return to Donald Trump's hands
as she had made in the campaign.
Donald Trump has spent a decade
trying to keep the American people
divided and afraid of each other,
that is who he is,
but, America,
I am here tonight to say
that is not who WE are.
That is not who WE are.
(CHEERING)
In this final week,
I mean, there's a, you know,
sudden death feeling.
Many people have suddenly felt
the urgency to be witnesses
to who Donal Trump really is.
And it occurred to me,
I could add to the story.
Good morning, Michael.
James.
So... the end. Days to go.
I know you've spent Sunday
with 10,000 of your closest friends
in Madison Square Garden,
but we'll set that aside for now,
cos there's something
I'd like to talk to you about.
Something we talked
privately about before,
but I don't think you have ever
talked about this publicly.
You had a particularly secret source
when you wrote Fire and Fury.
Quite particular.
It was Trump's old friend,
Jeffrey Epstein.
Well, this past week,
the Epstein-Trump connection
surfaced again
when a well-known model of the 90s,
Stacey Williams,
gave an interview saying
that while she was dating Epstein
he introduced her to Trump,
and Trump, virtually,
upon their introduction,
well, let me quote from the story...
"Mr Trump pulled miss Williams
toward him and touched her breasts,
waist and buttocks,"
she said,
as The New York Times reporter did.
So how much do you know
about Jeffrey and Donald?
Quite a bit.
I probably have 100 hours of Epstein
talking about the inner workings
of the Trump White House.
Having this conversation, Epstein,
on more than one occasion,
would bring out these
photographs that he had.
They were from the late 90s
and they were Trump at
Jeffrey Epstein's Palm Beach house
sitting around the pool
with these young women,
topless, and in some of the pictures
they're sitting in his lap,
and there's one
I especially remember
where there's a stain,
a telltale stain
on the front of Trump's pants,
and the women are pointing at him
and laughing.
This is getting creepy.
The creepiest framing of this
is, you know,
here are these two guys, both driven
by a need to do anything they wanted
with women.
Dominance and submission
and entertainment.
And one of them end up in the
darkest prison in the country
and the other in the White House.
Yes.
Explain that.
Let's have a discussion about,
you know, if we wanna push this out.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
I have tried countless times to do
something with this material,
I have discussed this with almost
every media organization,
but no-one has wanted
to let Epstein be a witness.
From my point of view, to really
point out that Jeffrey Epstein
was Donald's Trump close friend
for a very long time
is damming information,
telling information
and important information.
It does feel like
there are secrets here.
We've just got 100 hours
of Jeffrey Epstein
saying him and Trump are BFFs.
I didn't even get no alert about it
on my phone...
But nothing happened.
That's the thing about the news
cycle, it passes very quickly.
..interviews Epstein did
with the writer Michael Wolff,
who took his sweet time
releasing this information.
I cannot explain why Donald Trump
has gotten a pass on this.
Donald Trump has said repeatedly,
"Oh, I barely knew the guy'"
when in fact he was his best friend
for ten years.
One of the interesting aspect
of this is that the Trump campaign
released the statement calling this
election interference,
which is, um...
which is puzzling,
which sort of goes like
anything you would say against us
before the election
is election interference.
The story has happened.
I'm just waiting now to find out
how it ends.
As we sit here and I start to think,
well, he could, he could win.
Donald Trump could very well win.
Disregarding what that means
for the country,
the world and the future
of my children.
The idea for me that I might have
to go on writing about him
is... almost unimaginable.
So were it to come to pass
that he was to be defeated,
I guess I would feel... liberated.
SAM NUNBERG: 'Hi!'
Sam, I want your up-to-the-minute.
'I think she has Pennsylvania,
but that doesn't stop Trump
from being able to win
cos he can still go through
Michigan and Wisconsin
assuming he wins the sunbelt.
The problem in North Carolina
is this f*cking as*h*le
who didn't drop out.
Trump has never mentioned that guy,
I forget his name.'
Right, right yeah.
'The porno guy.'
Yeah.
'The porno n*zi guy.'
So you think at this moment...
'Listen, listen,
what I'm telling you is,
I think she's gonna win.'
Yep, got it.
'But I'm saying, like,
if somebody's paying me,
"I want your analysis",
I'm like, look,
I don't have a high confidence
on this and I'm not hedging to you.'
I mean, you're actually somewhat
more optimistic on her side
than I am at the moment.
Call me tonight. See ya.
'Are you pissed...
Did you hear anymore
about the Epstein stuff?'
Oh God, Jeez. All I do is hear now
about is Epstein, Epstein, Epstein.
'I'll call you or text you
when I hear about Pennsylvania.'
Thanks.
So that was one of my all-time
favourite Trump orbit people,
who is often thought to be,
even among Trump people,
to be the guy who knows Trump best.
Writing about Donald Trump
and Donald Trump becoming one's
antagonist is an interesting,
in a way, confounding situation.
My first book, Fire and Fury,
he denounced it,
threatened to sue me,
the whole litany of things.
And that actually redounded
to the success of the book.
You enter into this weird
symbiotic relationship,
The more he vilifies you,
the more you become a public figure.
You enter into his news cycle world
and likely benefit from it.
It's 5:06 on Election Day
and the majority of quality polls
are now showing
Harris with an Electoral
College victory.
(TV CHATTER IN THE BACKGROUND)
Democrats with 32 seats,
Republicans with 42...
She's going to do better
in certain areas like Philadelphia,
which is a city.
So that looks like she's doing well.
Looks like she's winning the state.
But there will be other votes
coming in from rural Pennsylvania,
for instance, where Donald Trump
will do much better.
Donald Trump.
Donald Trump, you say it.
Donald Trump wins.
(UNCLEAR)
If he wins,
then the likelihood is that
I am committed
for another four years,
that I am not sure
that I could easily extricate myself
from being the chronicler
of the Donald Trump era.
But I would like to go on to other
things before my time is over.
The action, such as it is,
shifts to the Grand Ballroom...
The rumour starting to build up
is that Trump's the winner...
..but in a way it seems more of a
club event than an historic event.
It's blue hairs
and men in sports jackets.
An easy victory, and that's what
it increasingly seems to be,
might seem to deprive everyone
of the sense of battle.
Victory seems to lack
the energy and passion
of believing that victory
has been stolen.
At 2:25 am he comes out on stage.
He seems less than himself.
Thank you very much.
Winning the popular vote
was very nice.
Very nice, I will tell you.
This turn of events is certainly
not evidently filling him with joy.
Not yet anyway.
Where is the dancing?
He is, you might read
the weary body language,
in a kind of stoic mood.
It's a flat affect.
Control of the Senate.
Wow, that's good.
(CHEERING)
Almost, in fact, the manner of a
conventional politician in defeat.
How to get through this?
He proceeds to deliver
his standard rally speech.
A subdued Donald Trump
is not Donald Trump.
Has victory robbed him
of his reason for being?
The fact that he will take
every swing state
that in his third try he will easily
win the popular vote...
We've been through so much together
and today you showed up
in record numbers.
..that he will significantly
reconfigure many safe assumptions
about an otherwise
predictable electorate,
that somehow at this moment
he might seem to be
the most successful figure
in American politics
since Franklin Roosevelt,
was a new and bewildering reality,
even for those who were part of it,
even for him, perhaps, most of all.
..you the people,
we will make America safe, strong,
prosperous, powerful and free again.
(GENTLE PIANO MUSIC)
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Rewriting Trump (2025)
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