shanksville, pennsylvania. ♪ announcer: this week on "q&a," author and columnist david cay johnston. mr. johnson talks about his book "the making of donald trump: a critical take on the 2016 presidential nominee." ♪ brian: david cay johnston, a book called "the making of donald trump" is your latest and you say in the book that in the spring of 2016, you talked to mr. trump on the phone. what was that about? david: i was working on a "politico" magazine

about all of his convictions to a major drug trafficker to con artists, swimmers, american mafia, russian mobsters and tunnels that send an e-mail asking if you would like to comment and he called me in essence is is, there are a lot of things i like but if you don't stop what you are going to write i am going to sue you. from working on the city council 50 years ago to today, that is the only politician that has ever threatened to sue writing what he didn't like. i said, donald, you are a public figure. that would mean you have to prove that i deliberately lied into it. he said, i know i'm a public figure and i will see you anyway. i think this is indicative of his character and authoritarian

approach, you do it the way i wanted or i will make life go for you. brian: what was your reaction when he said that? david: people have threatened to sue me a lot of times. it goes with the job. brian: 1988 in atlantic city usage you met up for the first time. david: i have left the los angeles times where i had spent 12 years to go to atlantic city. i believed we were going to see casino gaming spread across america which we did and i wanted to examine whether government could really clean up his business that was traditionally run by crooks. in a couple days, i met donald. i immediately recognized he was pt barnum, selling tickets to the amazing two-headed woman. then i started, because he was a dominant force, i started asking about him and his competitors included steve when and people who work for him in some big gamblers also to me, and all the casino business. come on, how could he not know anything about the casino business? he only knows how to extract money. donald and i had a cup of coffee not long after that and i asked him a question about craps and i literally made a false statement

and he immediately incorporated my falsity into his answer. that is what calling a artists do. that is what psychics who advertise on daytime tv do. so, i had a couple questions. he immediately embraced my full statements. i realize what i was being told was true, donald does not know anything. it is all bluster, appearance. he is quick. he is smart, but he is not at all studious or deep, and in the i quote testimony where he gives answers to questions. one of them, my students were third-year law and business students answering a question like this, anyone who is been to the wharton business school will answer like this, donald's answer is gibberish. the mostot understand basic issues. listen to how he answers questions. you ask them, what is your favorite bible verse and he says, no one reads the bible

more than donald trump. there are so many, so many, there are just so many. brian: he appeared on the oprah show in 1968. david: in 1988. [laughter] brian: that shows you my age. back in 88, all right. here is a clip of donald trump on that show in 1988. [video clip] oprah: i know people have talked about whether you would want to run. would you ever? mr. trump: probably not. oprah: why would you not? mr. trump: i do not think i have the inclination to do it. i love what i'm doing. i really like it. i just probably would not do it. oprah: the oval office does not pay as well. [laughter] mr. trump: i just probably would not do it, oprah. i do get tired to see what is happening with this country. i really am tired of seeing what is happening with this country. how we are really making other people live like kings and we are not. oprah: you said if you did run

for president, you believe you would win. mr. trump: i think i would win. i would say i would have a hell of a chance of winning. [end video clip] brian: that was 20 years ago. david: that was the year george -- he asked george w. bush to make him his running mate. the m quayle got the job instead. quayle got the job instead. donald has been talking about running for president since 1985 and 12 years later he ran and he said i'm going to be the first person to run for president and make a profit. this is indicative of donald. donald will tell you whatever he thinks is an is interest at the moment. that is what con artists you. they tell you whatever they think you want to hear to get whatever they want. brian: what are your own politics? david: i am a registered republican. i am not a political person.

i have voted for people on every line that is ever appeared on the ballot for different offices. i do not like politics. this is one of only two campaigns i have covered, the governor's race in 1976 in nevada and i hated covering it. i am a policy got. i am someone who believes that we should be using the government for the purposes, the -- six nobleposes purposes in the preamble, to establish justice, promote general welfare, and in fact, i am developing a new course to teach at syracuse, which is how we got the constitution and its context. ryan: you say the donald trump family has not really been voters. david: yes. two of his children did not get to vote for him because they were not registered. they then complained about the rules. they should have known them. they are the ones that are responsible for giving this. donald has not voted in a bunch of elections.

and by the way, donald until recently was basically a democrat. one of the things he believes in is universal health care. we should get health care off of the backs of business and it should be a public good, as he says, provided to everybody. that is not a republican party position. brian: give us some background on yourself. david: i was born in san francisco and consider home to be santa cruz, california. my father was a 100% disabled veteran for world war ii. disowned was a baronet's, and i had the awesome -- my mother was a disowned and i had the awesome experience of growing up in a house over the beach that my parents rented for maybe $400 a month. my mother testified against her father in a lawsuit in 1941 and his only child, my mother was disowned and he was a very wealthy man. i went to work when i was 10

years old. i went to work full-time at 13. i became a reporter for some weekly papers and 17. my work immediately got noticed i did some simple things. if this will board said the average $34,340 house in santa cruz next year will pay $40.11 more in property taxes, i thought that was useless so i said, you will pay so much more per $1000 for your house. someone recruited me in the 19 hours writing front page stories as a staff writer. i went to the university of chicago at the graduate school for economics, new york times , philadelphia inquirer -- and just short of 40 years of doing reporting i left and since then i have been a columnist and teacher at syracuse university. i live in rochester and my wife runs the successful community foundation in rochester, new york, we have the best childcare and all of the united states, canada and western europe in a cost this much more.

-- this much more they are warehousing kids. very smart program. brian: a couple weeks ago, donald trump went to tampa to give a speech and when he got there this video, which was not done by him of course, done by the folks against him. it is about 30 seconds. [video clip] >> something stinks about the pam bondi-donald trump scandal. but don't take our word for it. >> when i call, they kiss my ass. ♪ >> when i call, they kiss my ass. ♪

>> when i call, they kiss my ass. announcer: join thousands of floridians and join an investigation into the bondi scandal. mr. trump: they kiss my asked. -- they kiss my ass. clip]ideo brian: so, what is that all about? david: well, donald trump had someone come to him which was a good business idea. the man was in the business of running continued education, lawyers, accountants and courses to make sure they are up on the law and he went and said, why do we not do one for donald trump real estate? donald trump said, that is such a good idea i am taking it away from you and give the guy a tiny steak in the business. they decided to turn it into trump university.

you cannot call it a university without a license. this was not a university in even the dictionary meaning of the word. trump university quickly became under investigation after a -- as a scam. people paid $1500 and what they got for the word high-pressure sales tactics were the faculty would stand over them and show them how to get more money and credit cards so they can pay $35,000 to get the full trump university package. donald made a promotional video, trump university is all about success and you will have success. we are going to have the best faculty and adjunct faculty. they will be hand-picked by me, the best of the very best and will get a better education from the best business school because i went to the best. he did not, by the way. he went to the undergraduate program at wharton, not the graduate program. it turned out that the faculty knew nothing about real estate. they included the manager of a

fast food joint, two people in personal bankruptcy and a lot of people with experience in high-pressure sales tactics as getting people to run other debt. by the way, if you run up your borrow as much as the banks will possibly give you two paper trump university, how do you have any borrow status for real estate? the new york state attorney general brought a lawsuit on this. he was told to stop using the word university and he ignored it for some readers. the texas attorney general office is under investigation and pam bondi the attorney general florida said publicly, she was thinking about joining the new york investigation. she and donald had some kind of communication. the donald trump charitable foundation made a campaign contribution to pam bondi. now, charitable foundations cannot be involved in political activities. this should cause the revocation of their status. before the newspapers reported they were perfectly comfortable with the gift from the donald trump foundation, which is

astonishing. pam bondi is a lawyer and she knows better than this. decided not to participate in the new york attorney general's investigation. which is pretty brutal, is about fundamentally pam bondi, the attorney general that accepted this guest. by the way, the donald trump people tried to cover this up. they argue, and i explained in my book, it was money to teach people how to protest against our current abortion laws. they did not get any money. then they said it was this outfit in california. they did not get any money. then they said, it was a mistake. well, if it is a mistake, pam bondi should give it back and it should go to other organizations. it goes to a core issue about donald. donald has no regard for whatever the law is. he does whatever he wants to do. brian: has he ever been sued? david: he has been sued more

than 4500 times by workers he would not pay and there is a chapter in my book about that. he has been sued by vendors, investors who say they have been swindled. right now, right after i finished the book, a paint dealer was not paid the last $34,000. for the country club donald owns. and that is a big hunk of their years profit. he sued and spent more than $300,000 on legal fees trying to collect the $34,000 and the judge finally granted it with the power to foreclose after donald trump's witness testified about, why did you not pay the 34,000, your contract that you had to pay. mr. trump says he feels the man was paid enough.

he will use the work and then he will say, i am not going to pay you for this crap. they will tell you, are you going to spend $300,000 on lawyers fees to fight trump? this happens again and again and again. brian: this book was published at by which outfit? david: this was published by noble house press in london that do something, but i did with my first book which you interviewed me about back in 1992, i complained back then the publisher was doing everything on paper and they were slow and i said somebody needs to make this modern and quick. these folks did it. brian: wikipedia says it is a liberal publishing house. david: liberal, conservative, i do not care. i mean, i don't pay any attention to the politics of the people i work with. when i was with the l.a. times they ran editorials that they would say, don't read what that guy wrote.

i tell people i'm writing for what i'm going to write even when i was a reporter. they never tell me, unless it is breaking news. i would do that. i told him what i'm going to do and i have always done it. if you do a first, you eventually wear out your welcome wherever you work. brian: where did you get the idea to do this book and when? david: i think all but one chapter has a reference to trump in it. because he was so dominant in atlantic city. when he announced on june 16, 2015 he was running, i got a hold of my literary agent right away and said, we should do a book. she called around and everyone said, he is not going to get the nomination and i said, yes, he may get the nomination. i was particularly charged up by the fact that here is giving a speech talking about murderers and rapists for mexico and all of these young people applauding these lines. i thought, midtown manhattan is not a place known for racism and xenophobia.

what did he do? are these employees or did he bus people in? the "hollywood reporter" revealed they were actors paid $50 each to show up and applaud which shows you what a fraud donald trump is. anyhow, nobody wanted to do a book. at the time it became clear he would get the nomination, for traditional publishers you need about a year and it would be too late. i wrote about 25 pieces about donald for usa today, newsweek, national memo, and some other places. many of them aimed at reporters, this is what you should be asking, questioning. and then noble house calls out of the blue and says, can we do the book in three weeks? i said, no. but i said, i can do it by a later date. i wrote the book in 27 days. it was hell. and i am frankly not sure i am physically recovered from doing it. i will never do it again.

ryan: in 27 days it was finished. what day was that? david: my closing note is dated fourth of july. i finished the book the fifth of july and finished editing the 10th of july and there is a picture on my facebook page of me sitting in my garden reading the book on the 19th of july, two weeks later and it went on sale two weeks after that. and the german language edition went on sale august 30. they had to translate another version into german. brian: by the way, you call him a con man and a fraud. how concerned was the publisher, do they fill the lawyers in on this? david: yes, sir. this was vetted by a lawyer. one thing i do not do in the book is i do not break ground in it. because i knew we had to get it lawyered quickly. what i have done is connected the dots and pull together my words, one of the best reporters in new york city, pieces elsewhere, and i have this enormous collection of trump documents.

i used to have to rent to storage units to have all of my files on donald trump, jack welch, and some other people. but now they have been digitalized. so i have these files and one of my grown children would sit in the other room creating files chronologically for me and after i was done, she would put everything back so we can get back to it when we needed it. the lawyer, i do not think the lawyer on this book changed more than 10 words. i know that several times when he got to a paragraph, yes, wrong verb, fix that right now. brian: do you have any worry? do you have to have an assurance -- insurance policy to protect you? >> as donald is going to sue me, he will sue me. i was surprised he said that to me. he has tried to intimidate me in the past. i am a guy that hunted down and especially vicious murderer.

i have run into a burning building. brian: when was that? why did you do that? david: it was in california. i did it to get a better picture. i also ran towards to buildings people were and that they got out before i got there, think goodness. you do what you need to do in your job and my job is to tell people fax it would not know but for my work. i have been tailed by the lapd, the government in taiwan, people connected with it. i have had a lot of people threaten me. it is my job. you do what you need to do when you do the work that i do. the lawyer changed very little so anywaythe lawyer changed very little in the book. , on contrast, i wrote a piece for "politico" magazine that simply pointed out a number, not all of them, connections to criminals, his business dealings and his gratuitous connections with them. that was the most heavily lawyered piece of my career with maybe one exception. i have written stories accusing people of murder, people giving

up retirement and if it's over a story i wrote. jack welch. and that lawyer said they know he cannot win but they can cost him a lot of money. brian: the former ceo did what that he gave up his retirement? jack welsh, of ge. david: jack welsh had a retirement package that was described to investors that he would continue to receive while serving the company and then he left his wife and she, a litigator, put into the public record enough information that i was going to show that he was going to get $70 million of the use of a ge jet apartment, parking tickets whether he used them or not. i laid out the economics of the corporate jet and wrote an article in the wall street wrote anlch then

article in the wall street journal relinquishing all of this saying, those who do not respect their contracts, but that the investor should know what they were paying jack welsh. i was told by another journalist that he is furious at the mention of my name and he is entitled. i cost him a lot of money. brian: in the book you talk about the academy of hospitality. academy of hospitality sciences, i think. david: this is an organization run by a particular mob associate. socks.-- joey two it hands out what is the most procedures award in the world, not the most procedures travel award but the most procedures, the five diamond award and the six-time in the war. at least 19 donald trump properties have these awards which huge plaques on the wall and they are signed by him. they are also signs of the chairman of the board of the academy, donald j. trump. donald trump gives awards to

himself. there are videos on the internet or you can see this. i mean, it is absurd, giving awards to yourself. brian: it works. david: well apparently, a lot of people think these are fabulous properties. the gulf properties. and if you look at the golf magazine, the 100 best golf course, no donald trump course is on a list. brian: what does he do best? david: he is masterful at making himself a household name. -- you have been on television for years and you are by no means a household name in and neither am i. we have been mentioned for years but neither of us are a household name. that is quite an accomplishment for him. he has created an image for himself as the modern midas, everything he touches turns to gold. he has also been successful in

getting even network television in america to run stories that he is surrounded by women like madonna pounding on his door. by the way, one of them said she has no idea hardly who even is a hand she is spoken drama only twice in her life. brian: carla brandy mary to sarkozy of france. david: when she became the first lady of france he had the opportunity on the howard stern show to back away from these imaginary lover stories he planted and he did not. he is good at planting these stories so the people have an image of him that has nothing to do with the reality of who he is. his building of the trump tower. that is quite a building. that is a significant accomplishment. it is on fifth avenue in manhattan rent in the middle of the city. it is 58 stories he tells everybody it is 68. that is part of how donald exaggerates things. those of the things he, pushes very well. they concluded that the 496 companies they study, donald came in dead last almost last in every single category. this does not surprise people that have worked for donald and

competitors. he is good at creating an image of himself that does not parallel with reality. brian: go back to the carla bruni story. what is the rest of it? how did he get in the middle of this? david: when donald was divorcing his first wife, he went out of his way to publicly humiliate the mother of his children. he planted all sorts of news stories, competition going on with madonna, kim basinger, carla bruni, and other women were trying to become the next mrs. trump and he used a pr man named john baron who was donald trump they call that these news organizations and they did not know who he was posing as a pr man promoting trump.

people magazine outed him at the town. -- at the time. brian: we have a clip. that was back in 1991. david: 1990 or 1991, yes. brian: when we are listening to this, there will be limits on the screen and that is donald trump masquerading as john baron. david: absolutely. that is donald. they outed him in the story. they made fun of him. a middle-aged man acting like a 13-year-old boy talking about some girl he was with. it is just extraordinary. brian: here is a little bit of this. it starts as low but you will be able to. right away. [video clip] >> what kind of government is coming from your organization? >> he really decided that he did not want to make any commitment. it was too soon. he is coming out of the marriage and he is starting to do tremendously well financially.

he is somebody that has a lot of options and frankly, he gets called by everybody. this in terms of women. he gets called by a lot of people. >> like you? >> he was just set up with, madonna calls. what happened i mean i don't , know if you want to listen to this. >> what is your position? handlingi am sort of pr because he gets so much of it. brian: going by the name john miller. did she know this was donald trump? david: she figured out very quickly. he explained such intimate detail that it was clear it was donald trump and people magazine ran a piece saying, there are odd stories, unusual stories, funny stories and then there is this really bizarre story. brian: how long did he do that? go under the name? david: he did that for years. he would call up journalists.

the united states football league, that was the spring baseball -- football league. he basically destroyed the football league with a litigation strategy rather than a market strategy. he would call up news organizations to find different reporters and then he would call himself and verify the story to get it planted. he would be john miller or john baron. he did this and got the story planted that went in the new york times about the football league. he also used it to menace or threaten people with litigation if they did not back off. in particular, there were 150 illegal immigrants from poland paying -- who he paid four dollars per hour. they slept on the site in the middle of winter because they had nowhere else to go. they did not have hardhats or goggles or any safety equipment, and they did not get paid, and so they threatened to hang his overseer off the side of the building because they had not gotten paid. donald was found by a federal

judge to have engaged in a conspiracy to cheat the workers out of their money. four dollars per hour, and he is not paying people. brian: will gary. bulgari. what is it and what is the story? david: a high-end italian jewelry company with stores all over the world, including across the street from trump tower. donald trump engaged in a box scam. he had them shipped out of state. he bought a $15,000 piece of jewelry and a $50,000 piece of jewelry and he had them shipped out of state to a nonresident of new york. the tax is not enforced very much. donald was not eligible for this because he lived in new york across the street. when law enforcement got onto this and the new york attorney general began investigating, donald got wind of this.

now, he had a casino license and his involvement in any crime would get him in trouble. he was not the only one involved. mary tyler moore, henry kissinger were involved. brian: did those people know was illegal? david: of course he was. instead of paying the postage for what the weight was of the they would send empty boxes. it is clear evidence of donald participating in tax cheating. that should have cost him his casino license had the state of new jersey had any interest in tightening up and enforcing law on donald with clear evidence that they are morally fit. brian: so some of your friends,

if you are with your friends and donald trump was with elected president. you look at the screen and see he is the winner, what is the first thing you would say to them? david: i would say, how long until we have a constitutional crisis? donald trump does not understand the powers, limits, and duties under the constitution. he talks like the president is a dictator. he has said he will order the military to engage in illegal acts. if you are a senior u.s. military officer, you are reading up very carefully on how you refuse and unlawful order from the military commander-in-chief. torture people. that would be the big concern. we executed soldiers in world war ii for waterboarding. the second would be if donald was president of the united states, i am certain i would have trouble with somebody and federal law enforcement. he would find some way to make my life bad because that is who he is. his philosophy, which he has written about and interviewed

about is, get revenge. this story anybody. if somebody will not do you favor, destroy their life and take pleasure in it. he says when he destroys peoples lives, it makes him so happy. if he gets elected, i am going to have trouble. brian: what would you say to the same group if hillary clinton is elected? david: you know, i have not thought a lot about that. hillary clinton, like john i mean kasich, is competent to , be president. she knows the job and how to do it. i don't see any indication she will pursue policies in the long-term interest of the country. i don't like a lot of her policies, but -- brian: but you are an investigative reporter. you must have looked at the foundation.

david: i can't do everything. i don't know hillary clinton. when i left the l.a. times if i , had gone to little rock, i would be writing a book about hillary clinton. i went to atlantic city, and i met donald trump. there are well-written books and also garbage on both of them. there are well-written books. i encourage people to read those books. i have written about hillary clinton twice in my life very i -- i have never spoken to her or anybody on her staff. in 1997 in the new york times, i pointed out they paid twice as much income tax as the lot -- as the lot required, despite having $9,000 of having taxes prepared. that is because she mishandled the tax matter, the royalties from her book, "it takes a village." give away the difference. she was furious. she did not know about it. the new york times published my story the first year. i had some editors lined up about it. and the next year, i went to the white house to get the

president's tax returns, and i said there is nothing here about the new book. and i think someone from knight letter tonted out, body and socks. i said, yeah. the spokesman said the clintons gave the publishing rights to it charity. i said, oh really? the spokesman said, yes. the clintons should not take their advice from the new york times, but they obviously did that. it's meant less for charity and less for the government. brian: how many years were you with the new york times? david: i was with him for 13 years. i left in 2008. i came there to show that we could cover taxes in a different way. in terms of how the system actually works opposed to what politicians and others say about it. which is why i did it out of my home in rochester, new york, and not in washington, d c

and i followed politicians, things right in front of us that we were not paid attention to. principally i did taxes. as measured by congress, my work resulted in over a quarter trillion dollars of tax dodges being stopped, and a lot of people went to prison. brian: what was the biggest? david: the biggest was, president bush had it in his tax plan but he would not show it , before the election, a stealth provision that would allow -- brian: which bush? david: president george w. bush. it would repeal the gift tax. that was an idea conservative republicans put in law in the 1920's. when the white house press secretary ari fleischer was asked about this, he said i knew my stuff about taxes. they quietly withdrew this provision that congress later, staff reports showed in the first 10 years, a quarter of a trillion dollars.

and there was the bermuda mailbox scam and a lot of other -- the professor that teaches law at duke called me the tax de facto chief tax enforcement officer of the united states. brian: you told me before we started, you have a book you are planning on taxes. david: the book i was writing on was called the prosperity tax, an entirely new federal tax code for the 21st century economy. we have a really great tax system in america for 1960. we no longer live in the industrial age. we live in the industrial age tax system. we need a tax system for the current economy. this book will have statutory language. i'm not a lawyer, but i have a -- learned how to write statutory language. i'm expecting it to be about 100 pages. there was only one thing that is not already in the law.

it is much simpler. very few people will have to file tax return. nobody has to. there is a group that can choose to. corporations will have a much easier time. it will be much more efficient. we can shrink the irs down, and i set up a mechanism that if you want to cheat, you have to engage in conspiracy with the other person. the other person is liable, you will both go to prison. brian: what is the publishing time for this? david: i am not teaching this year, so hopefully 2018. brian: speaking of tax, how much tax did donald trump pay from what you know? david: we know for a matter of fact, he paid no income taxes in five years. in recent years his adjusted gross income, the last line on the front page, was less than $500,000. now the tax law has all sorts of , provisions that allows some people at the top to live tax-free or virtually tax-free. private equity managers, hedge fund managers, and people who

are full-time real estate professionals like donald trump. there is good reason to believe that because of those rules that donald probably has paid no income taxes or maybe a couple of years a little bit, since 1978. brian: do you think you will -- david: release the tax return? it will never happen. if you could not tell anything from his reaction, give me his complete tax return for one year, and i will back engineer and tell you the value of his hard assets, i will tell you where his income sources are. i will tell you a lot about him. brian: you mentioned a lot about his religion, donald trump's religion and also his bible reading. here is jerry falwell junior who spoke at the convention this year on his behalf and has been supporting him. [video clip] >> my family and i have grown to love the trumps for other

reasons. we have never met such a genuine and loving family. i truly believe he is america's blue-collar billionaire. [end video clip] brian: yeah? david: i have met him and spent time with monsters who were good family men. that part does not impress me. what does trouble me is the christian pastors who are saying donald trump is a good christian man, donald trump, in his own words, is aggressively antithetical to christianity. first off, he denigrates the communion. well, you get your little water in jordan little cracker. he will eat the cracker. when he is asked as he has been many times to cite a favorite passage from the bible, because he says nobody reads the bible more than donald trump, he gets -- there is just so many. one time he tried, he got it wrong. he said leviticus, an eye for an eye.

and he did not even understand what that concept actually means. i am sorry, in the sermon matthew 39 to 45, the message was turned the other cheek, be kind to other people. donald rejects that. he says people who do that, you are fools, you are idiots, you are shmucks. he did not do a just and passing. this is a well-documented record. to the pastors endorsing donald trump, if they want to say he is better than the other person, i don't have a problem because that makes perfect sense, but do not deceive your flock. man to win youis with flattery. do not spread these falsehoods. i have e-mailed them and offered my thoughts and a short description. one got back to basically say, if we want to know anything, we will get in touch with you. ministers have an absolute duty not to deceive their flocks in not to tell them the man whose own lengthy statements and

actions are aggressively anti--b-message of jesus christ and is a good christian man and to vote for him, that is an awful development. i want these pastors held to account. the members of their flocks and other religious leaders should be raising cain about this. brian: give me an idea of why this man is supporting him. they had the largest christian university with their online service. david: i hope it is because he is badly informed. that is my hope. my concern is he is more interested in political sounding than following the message of jesus christ. brian: you have a story in your book about a man named satter -- but sometimes you say it was spelled sater. david: felix satter is the son of a reputed russian mob boss. who by the way has threaten out twice to sue me about writing

about them. he was donald trump's senior advisor. he had business cards, senior adviser to donald trump. his office was in the main suite of trump tower. he and donald traveled all over together, colorado, denver, phoenix, fort lauderdale, new york, london. they were involved in putting building products together. felix satter is the defender in a private attorney action in new york. accusing him of running a quarter billion dollar tax fraud. his only accusation. it could not have taken place but for a letter donald trump signed that authorized changes that made it possible. this tax fraud goes to icelandic banks to russian oligarchs. he is a convicted violent felon. he put the broken end of a margarita stem into a man's face.

it took 110 stitches and his face will never be right. he is a convicted stock swindler with the help of four mob families in new york, he ran a $40 million stock scam. he pled guilty. donald is not supposed to be, when he had a casino, associating with these folks. secondly, they are borrowing money from banks and they hid this. the reason felix sometimes put an extra t in his name is so journalists would not find out about his background. donald trump had a duty to investors and to bankers he borrowed from to inquire about this man's background. he did not or he did not want to. he has told, i think it was the ap, jason horowitz, i think it was a when he said this to. he said i hardly know the man. if he was in the room, i would not recognize him. i have photographs and videos of them together. interviews. i mean, that is absurd. he knows this guy very well. this is part of the not fully developed understanding we have about donald's connection to the

putin regime and the russian oligarchs that should be very much the subject of a lot of inquiry by my peers. they should be deeply into what is it donald trump is advancing in primary foreign-policy objective of vladimir putin we weaken nato.o -- he has been paid millions of dollars by russian oligarchs -- i had every one of them in a room in moscow, eight years ago. he has tried to do all sorts of deals in russia. there is a 47 story building in one of the former soviet empire countries. with donald trump's name on it. there is this alleged tax fraud. satter is that the center of all of this. what is donald trump spending years for with this convicted violent felon and stock swindler, into there are a bunch of lawsuits. including hiding his criminal background from investors that

damage their interests. brian: what marx would you give your peers that you mentioned? david: overall, i think the american news media has done an awful job. they will say, nobody vetted barack obama. actually, they did. just go read the news. i know about women he dated, went to grammar school with, lots about him. what his professors said about him at columbia and harvard where he was incredibly highly regarded. this is an example. in donald trump's case, you are only now starting to see an inquiry into him. the washington post had 20 reporters on this. i helped them with documents. i often do it with reporters. most journalists don't, but i do. they have done some pretty good stories. they are written in the way that highbrow newspapers do. unless you are a sophisticated reader, you don't get the point. the wall street journal has done nothing of consequence. the new york times has recently done some very good stories, but

the same thing. they are written in very highbrow fashion that you cannot easily grasp what is going on. brian: what about television? david: absolutely appalling. brian, i have been on national networks, national networks in australia, canada, britain, france, germany. repeatedly. i have not been on a single u.s. broadcast network, not a morning talk show. there are people that don't know anything, talking about donald trump and speculating, and i can give them hard facts. brian: why do you think they are doing that? david: first of all, donald trump is great television. you can't turn it off. and fox news has said, that when they turn off donald trump, people turn off their tvs. it is not just like watching a car wreck, it is like watching in incredible car wreck. there is commercial interest. newsrooms have been trump enormously.

basically, the fastest disappearing white-collar job in america has been journalism. the resources are there. i once spent $10,000 at the los angeles times money for one paragraph. today, to get $10,000 to do a story, you have to really convince editors there is something substantial there. in then, i think more importantly, the duty of journalists, which is to tell you that which people don't want to tell you, has been in decline because of all the attacks from people who don't want to hear things. they mount attacks. both the left and the right. brian: here is his dad, 1985, getting the horatio alger reward. [video clip] >> i used to watch other successful people and that they -- that did good and that did

bad and i followed the good qualities they had to perfect myself. said, never follow an empty wagon because nothing ever falls off. [end video clip] brian: i don't know if that is is lear.re, maybe that david: but he was an incredibly industrious guy. but he also was a guy that profiteer non-g.i. housing after the war and president eisenhower, when he found out fred trump had $4 million of excess profit, the proof of that is 100 federal investigative report on fred trump and other developers. this is indicative of the future under donald trump. he said, this is all just a misunderstanding. i did not profiteer. yes, i have $4 million. it it is in the bank.

so i have not taken any money. i am not a profiteer. so was fred trump honest? they covered applications for rebels. a renter? with stuff to rent, they would be steered away to black and latino apartments. we heard about his racism because of the generosity of the guthrie family in a book. racism ofut the donald trump's father. and he is well-known for his , association with the mob guys, through willy tomasello, his partner. brian: there was a documentary that has held up a long time. here is an excerpt called "trump what is the deal." you can buy it for $2.99. here is an excerpt, and i want you to explain after we see this. [video clip] >> it was the biggest high-stakes game on the boardwalk in years. the players, merv griffin and

billionaire businessman donald trump. the prize was the unfinished are -- taj mahal. >> i won, i won, i won. he would tell america those he won. i would look at them and say, donald you one. now you can eat. you feel better? >> he had called me after he negotiated to sell the property to merv griffin. he said, did not give you the best deal, didn't i get the best of merv? i said donald, it was great you sold the property, but you may look back. i think buying the taj mahal is going to be a bad thing for you. what do you mean? it is going to be the greatest success ever. you just don't understand. [end video clip] brian: so what happened to the taj mahal and this documentary? david: they both could not pay

bond interest, which was what happened. there was a terrific job of telling you who donald trump was. it was only shown twice. his threats of litigation shut it down. they shut down many things with litigation. i wrote a proposal for a tim burton movie about donald trump. and his threats of litigation shut it down so it never came about. finally hendrix decided when he was running for president, i have got to put this out. the updated it in the opening because people need to see it. it is 80 minutes, a great big lesson on donald trump. i would rather you buy my book, but the movie is pretty good. this particular deal was indicative of the fact donald trump the not have the business skills he says he has. he cannibalized his own market. he took over this white elephant of a property, and his name will disappear october 10 from atlantic city because his casinos are gone. nt goes around saying it is terrible in atlantic city.

people in atlantic city today are making nice, fat profits, above average for the country, for all businesses. he did not because his company was terribly manage. three of his executives were killed in a helicopter crash unfortunately. every other case, he eventually drove out his top executives. his confident executives. if you are confident, what are you going to put up with this for? he put in place yes-men. to answer your question, a donald trump administration would be full of many people you would never hear of whose distinguishing characteristic will be loyalty to donald trump, not the constitution or the american people or long-term welfare of the country but to donald trump the person. brian: i have a couple more names i want to bring up. bob? david: bob was the biggest loser

in atlantic city. he was a con man and a mob guy, not a made guy, but a mob associate who i spent a lot of time with. and donald was fined for moving black women and asian dealers and cocktail waitresses because he thought it was turning favor with bob because bob was losing money would let loose with violent, crazy language. and bob, when i interviewed him, he said, i did not know donald trump was doing that. that is outrageous. i say these terrible words, but i am not a racist. donald trump is the racist. if bob calls you a racist, that is pretty bad. brian: where is he now? david: he died a few years ago. donald tried to seduce his daughter. and someone else told bob and then they told the story to me. he got to keep all the way from your daughter, because you will kill him, and i will lose my best customer. bob, as he told a story to me,

went to donald and said, after donald had given her a cream-colored mercedes and had a video made for her birthday and other things, if you approach my daughter, i will castrate you without the benefit of a knife. brian: you mention in the book about his germophobia, but now he is shaking hands. what happened to that? david: i don't know. i shook hands with him once and he disappeared into the bathroom. he is now shaking hands. somebody told him it is not good if you don't do that. brian: i will you pronounce this name. david: accio kashiwagi, i am the only journalist watched him gamble at the rate of $14 million an hour. an0,000 a bet, 700 bets hour. donald trump brought him twice to atlantic city. he completely mishandled this guy. should have won $12 million but lost $6 million. i recount in the book what

happened here. donald hired jeff markham, a teenager who went on to be a cofounder of the rand corporation, one of the geniuses of the last century, was told to watch the game because he was convinced the guy was cheating. and i recount in the story that he figured out there was half a million of chips missing that nobody else notice. it turned out that he had in fact scammed him of half a million in chips. but if donald had understood the game it was 87 to one odds that , he would wipe the guy out. he gave him the space to walk away from the table and donald lost money as a result. thatat proves the fact donald just doesn't know anything. brian: back to the lawyers in this book, what do they excise from the book? david: nothing was excised. nothing was excised, there were

a couple of places where we just did some minor light editing. i have been doing this for so many years, 50 years now. i know how to write things so they are legal and they are fair. brian: how did you get on the new york times best seller list? david: a lot of people brought the book -- bought the book. brian: how did they find out about it? television has not had you on. david: because i have a pretty good-sized twitter following. melville house is good at marketing. they were telling people about the book. the initial orders we got from bookstores were nothing because there were a bunch of trump books. my fear was, what would happen if my last two got sold? they ran out of books. a lot of bookstores ran out of books, and then they started ordering lots of books. it is now readily available. but it was just devastating to me the first time around. i am going up on the new york times bestseller list, and they don't have enough books. this time, the people at melville house have been extraordinary in their understanding of how you market a book and get people to buy it.

brian: any other title? david: i wanted it to call "the art of deception." they did not want to do that. that is not a neutral title and it turns people off. i have had people post things on the internet because they think it is pro-donald trump. it is essentially neutral. who is this guy? where does he come from? i start with his grandfather who was a german draft dodger that made a fortune running war houses on through donald development, education and his associations. that he does not want you to know about. my goal was to balance his masterful pr image of himself with all of the things donald does not want you to know. brian: our guest has been david cay johnston. you can find him in the university of syracuse, university of rochester, new york. and if they want to see you on twitter, what is your handle? david: davidcayj. brian: thank you for joining us. david: thank you, brian. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the

national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪ announcer: for free transcripts, or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at .org.ate programs are also available as c-span podcasts. announcer: if you liked this othersew, here are some you might enjoy. ar program last week featured judicial watch president focusing on some of the government scandals that occurred during the obama

administration in his book "clean house." also robert costa on donald trump's residency. and on the campaign ross perot ran. it marked cuban talks about his success as an entrepreneur. you can find that online at c-span.org. >> the c-span radio app makes it easy to continue to follow the 2016 election from wherever you are. stay up-to-date on all the election coverage. it means you always have c-span on the go. >> coming up next, prime minister's questions at the british house of commons.

>> members of the british parliament were back this week. she was also asked about the brexit decision and u.k. relations with europe moving forward. target and i hope to work with her to make sure we achieve that target, too. >> order. questions to the prime minister. [shouting] >> question everyone, mr. speaker. >> the prime minister. >> thank you, mr. speaker. i know the low house which i mean current graduating the british