All language subtitles for Biography.The.Trump.Dynasty.S01E03.1080p.WEBRip.x265-RARBG

- Donald Trump was never a man
wwho was dying to settle down.

[dramatic music]

- Ivana had other choices
and she chose Donald.

- He was generating
this image of himself

as a successful millionaire.

- You read about him
on the front page.

He was a big deal.

- In Atlantic City,

Trump in quick succession opens
Trump Plaza and Trump Castle.

- Okay, now is the time folks,
all right?

♪

- Donald Trump believed that
if he had three casinos,

he would dominate the city.

♪

- He had to borrow
$675 million

at an interest rate of 14%.

- Here comes the war
of the Trumps.

Ivana and the Donald
are calling it quits.

- He was on the front page
of the papers for 28 days.

I never saw anything like it
in my life.

♪

- Donald's debts are
piling up,

he was having trouble paying
all of his bills.

- In what could be his final
roll of the dice,

The Donald met late into
the night with creditors

who want to get
their money back.

- Trump was staring
at destroying

not only his own legacy

but his father's legacy
as well.

♪

[engines revving]

- I covered Trump so closely
for a period of time

that he was routinely inviting
me to fly with him

on his plane to Mar-a-Lago,

fly with him on his plane
to Los Angeles.

These were long plane rides.

He liked to sit
and watch movies

and he actually
has interesting,

eclectic, strange taste
in movies.

He likes everything from

Jean-Claude Van Damme
action flicks

to Citizen Kane.

- I have money and property.

If I don't look
after the interests

of the underprivileged,
maybe somebody else will.

- And one of his favorite
movies is "Sunset Boulevard"

and he and I watched
"Sunset Boulevard" together

with a giant feed bag
of potato chips.

[projector rolling]

One of the most
memorable moments for me

was when William Holden
and Gloria Swanson

are watching an old silent
Norma Desmond movie.

She issues a warning
to the Hollywood establishment.

- Oh, those idiot producers.
Those imbeciles.

Haven't they got any eyes?

Have they forgotten
what a star looks like?

I'll show them. I'll be
up there again, so help me!

- Trump stopped and said to me,
"Those are just amazing lines."

He loved Norma Desmond's
statement

about celebrity revenge

and what I took from that
was he knew what it was like

to be in the public eye,
to be a big celebrity,

and anyone who thought that
he had fallen out of favor,

would come to regret that
later and that he'd be back.

[crowd clamoring]

[crowd continues clamoring]

- All right, Mr. DeMille,
I'm ready for my close-up.

[jazzy music]

♪

- All right, this is
the Alan Marcus interview,

take one, marker.

[clicking]

[suspenseful music]

- Thanks again, Alan, for doing
this. We really appreciate it.

Why don't we jump to the time

that you started working
with him.

[indistinct chattering]

♪

- Back in, uh,
the early '90s,

Donald went through
a terrible period of, uh, time.

- The for sale sign
is going up

at one of Donald Trump's
Atlantic City casinos

in hopes of reducing
the company's

$1.7 billion debt.

- He overbought;

he bought the Plaza Hotel,
paid too much money.

He bought the Trump Shuttle,
paid too much money--

and the casino bankruptcies.

♪

[camera shutter clicking]

His divorce from Ivana,

his failures
in other businesses,

he was not the fair-haired boy
that he had been, uh,

when he was building
Trump Tower.

He was in a steady decline,

maybe $4 billion
of corporate debt.

The myth was broken.

Newspapers were now
going after him

instead of just doing
press releases on him.

Oh, it was very bad.

- Donald Trump can't
come up with enough cash

to make a debt payment.

- Donald Trump owed
$2 billion even.

- Will Trump's fragile
financial house of cards

start to collapse?

- We were in real trouble.

[solemn music]

We were on the precipice

of not being able
to make payroll.

We ended up borrowing
a significant sum of money

from his father's
estate trust.

There was a lot of nervousness
and angst and a lot

of working with lawyers
to protect the trust.

And I would walk
into Donald's office,

for one reason or another.
He'd be calm.

He would never even
ask me about it.

- Rough.

- Why does that happen?
Why--

- When he says that he's
not stressed about it,

what he's really saying
is that he didn't care.

If you're Donald Trump,
what you care about most

is what people think of you
and maintaining the image

of the consummately powerful,
always in control man.

- Donald doesn't care
about the facts.

He cares about
how the facts appear.

It's not what they are;
it's how they appear.

Donald would always say to me,
"We never use the B word."

- They would say,
"Oh, Trump went bankrupt."

I said I never went
[bleep] bankrupt.

I never did
a personal bankruptcy

or anything like that.

That's another falsehood.

Nobody has ever used
the bankruptcy code

better than Donald Trump.

- Donald said there were
no bankruptcies,

and that was always
Donald's interpretation

of a prepackaged bankruptcy,

but a bankruptcy
is a bankruptcy.

Donald knew that
he had to show that

that was in his past,

that he had to talk about
his comeback.

And so, he started by having
a book penned.

"Trump: The Art Of
The Comeback."

♪

- The business book is how
to come back from adversity,

how to handle adversity,

and I think it's something
that, really, people wanna read

as you can see by what
you're seeing right now.

- It was the comeback
of the year,

the comeback of the decade,
the comeback of the century,

but he had to find
new sources of revenue

because banks were
no longer interested

in doing business
with Donald Trump.

Sometimes you're forced
into something

by the way nature takes you,

and it was the best thing that
ever happened to Donald.

When it was becoming
more difficult to finance,

the Trump name
still had value.

You put Trump on a--on a--
on a building

and the resale value
of the apartments

was actually
pretty good and higher.

[suspenseful music]

There was a quality
attributed to it

because Donald made it
a quality.

Live like Trump,
be like Trump,

make a comeback like Trump.

We were talking once about
how many bathrobes get stolen

at the casinos,

these white,
terry cloth robes,

and I jokingly said, "Well,
why don't we sell them?"

I said, we could put that
dumb Trump crest,

which looks like
it's 300 years old

but it's about
three days old.

And sure enough, the Trump
crest went on the bathrobes,

they were selling them,
I think, for $26 apiece.

They cost us three.

And before you knew it,
it was Trump soap,

and it was Trump this,
and it was Trump that.

♪

There was actually
a Trump scent.

I was part of
the Trump scent team.

I remember thinking,

"Does anybody really wanna
smell like Donald Trump?"

- I fashion myself quite
the ad Sherpa, guru, expert.

This is about the only guy

I wouldn't have
to tell anything.

- A big and tasty
for just a dollar?

I think you'll like it.

- Cause he--he gets it.

He--he is the living embodiment
of his brand.

- The same luxury and comfort
I demand in my hotels.

- Only at Macys.
- This is a guy,

who in some animalistic,
intuitive primal ways

knows how to keep this beast
moving and growing

in every way,
even when it's failing.

- May I have the last slice?

- Actually, you're only
entitled to half.

- He was building
a steady stream of revenue

through those means,
but it wasn't anything huge.

So he was casting around
for the next big thing,

and along came a TV producer
named Mark Burnett.

- Mark Burnett
had his incredibly

successful franchise
with "Survivor"

and what he said was that
reality TV was such a cash cow

because it was cheap
to produce

and also it would keep
producing itself.

You didn't need scripts.

So he hoped to do
the same thing

with a still cheaper show,
"The Apprentice."

[epic music]

- Who will be
"The Apprentice"?

- Burnett saw Donald Trump
as the master salesman

who could market anything.

When Burnett came up
to the tower

and described
what he had in mind,

this show that would showcase
everything about Trump--

his helicopters would be
in the show,

his hotels would be
in the show,

his family would
be in the show.

Suddenly, Donald Trump was
quite interested in that.

- The whole show was
an infomercial for Trump.

♪

- New York, my city.

- The opening to
"The Apprentice"

is something like,
"We're now in the real jungle."

- Manhattan is a tough place.

- "Here you can be top of the
world and bottom of the world.

Careers are made and broken."

- If you're not careful,

it can chew you up
and spit you out.

- Trump starts "The Apprentice"
when he's on the skids.

- I was seriously in trouble.

I was billions of dollars
in debt,

but I fought back
and I won, big league.

- Trump says, "I've been up,
I've been down,"

but he's not back on top.

He's engineering his supposed
comeback on the show.

Donald Trump
needs Mark Burnett

every bit as much as
Mark Burnett needs him.

He's now going to try
to trade on a new version

of his character,
which is that he's a survivor.

♪

- I'm looking
for the Apprentice.

- There are clouds over
the Trump Castle here

in Atlantic City.

- Trump was going through

one of the worst patches
in his career.

What "The Apprentice"
brought him was not only

the prospect
of even greater fame,

a chance to remake his image,
but also a steady income.

[horns honking]

- I had no expectations
for "The Apprentice,"

only that I was going to win.

Donald Trump was going
to host us

and select one of us
to be his heir apparent.

It was just a great narrative
for any young entrepreneur.

My first memory
of Donald Trump

is when we were all brought
into the boardroom.

- Hey, Mr. Trump
will see you now.

You can go in over there.

- We had to introduce
ourselves to him.

I read everything
I could find on Donald Trump,

on his parents,
on his grandparents,

going back to Germany.

I've got genetic pool,
big time, Mr. Trump,

just like you got from
your father, Fred Trump,

and your mother,
Mary Trump.

In my research,
I found that he is a big fan

of the Asian form
of greeting.

So, I bowed.
I wanted to win.

It was
the American dream on TV.

- The way the show
was originally scripted,

Donald Trump's role was
kind of minimal.

He was going to, uh,
issue the ruling

at the very end of the show

and it would be kind of cut
and dried.

♪

But in that first
taping session,

Trump kind of went off script.

- When you're trying
to be chosen,

you don't interrupt them
and say let me finish.

You know, in terms of life.

We're talking about life,
right, fellas?

- One of the first times
they were filming a firing,

he said to one of the
contestants, "You're fired."

- You're fired.

- And the producers of the show
called that gesture

"The Cobra."

And it was Donald cobra-like
striking

and getting rid
of the incompetent contestant.

- You're fired.

[dramatic music]

- Probably two to three
episodes in,

I started to get a sense

of the ratings
we were receiving.

I started to feel people
recognizing me

in the street in New York.

I started to have people
come up to me

and do the whole
"You're fired. You're fired."

It just started to snowball
and snowball.

- Mark Burnett is clearly
a genius.

His brilliant move
was finding Donald Trump

to host this.

Donald Trump was
the only person

that could host
"The Apprentice."

- Do you think that's true?
- Absolutely not.

- Kwame, what do you think?

- I think one,
Omarosa did a great job.

- But you lost.

- He did a good job,
actually, I think,

of kind of
picking people apart

in the boardroom.

People would kind of
just start to fold

because he would--he would
prick and pry

and--and maybe that was the
part that was good for ratings.

- Donald, right here!
- Need a picture, Mr. Trump!

- I think the appeal
of "The Apprentice"

is what it offered.

Power, money.

They wanted that, they wanted
to be in the position to say,

"You're fired,"

or they wanted to be
recognized by the man

who had the power and says,

"You're somebody who's
gonna make it in America.

Just gotta learn
to step on people."

- This quest to work hard,

to devise a concept,
the best concept wins.

- It's the embodiment

of the American
entrepreneurial ideal.

- It could become
really sharky.

People could just go
after each other.

You just had to really watch
what you said in the boardroom

and you had to be keenly aware
of how others were trying

to position you
and tell your narrative

and make sure that that was
connecting with Donald Trump.

- Sam,
you're sort of a disaster.

I don't know
what's going on.

Everyone hates you.

- I don't think
they hate me, Mr. Trump.

- Yeah, pretty close.
Some hate.

So far, you've got
no respect from anybody.

Would you say that's
a correct statement, Nick?

- I'd say that's correct.

- I think that was one
of Trump's great strategies,

to create chaos
and create situations

where people would essentially
start to tell on each other.

- Do you guys think
Sam's a leader?

- No, and we have to all,
the rest of the team,

tell Sam, calm down.

That's not showing
the sign of a good leader.

- You're fired.

I have no choice.
You're fired, Sam.

- It was like I had been shot
between the eyes.

I was devastated.

I was the only one
who was clueless

as to the fact that I was
going to be eliminated.

I believed that Trump and I
had this special connection.

[dramatic music]

- A number of the firings
really turned out to be nasty,

and they really
are amazingly devastated.

- And that makes great,
dramatic TV.

[suspenseful music]

- The funniest thing is
if you ever watch, like,

the first segment ever
of "Apprentice,"

it's like,
"I'm Donald Trump.

I own real estate
all over the place."

- My name's Donald Trump,

and I'm the largest real
estate developer in New York.

I own buildings all over
the place.

- Number one, he wasn't the
biggest developer in New York.

- [laughing]
It's--it's all bull[bleep].

He owned [bleep],
he owns nothing.

Nobody bull[bleep]
better than him.

- The Trump story is
the Trump narrative.

It's how he sees the story,
how he weaves the story.

How he decides what
the story is gonna be,

which maybe had no relationship
at all to the facts.

Whatever his message is,

that's what
you're going to hear.

- He's reality
a television performer.

He pretends to be
a successful businessman,

that is essential.

He looks the part
in a televisual sense.

- He's perfectly coiffed,

he's perfectly made-up,
he's perfectly lit,

he's in the high-back chair.

He looks like
a million dollars

and he's acting decisively.

- All of these tricks
of art tell us

that he's a rich person
beyond question,

you know,
always and forever, amen,

but in the real world,

he's a person
with enormous debt.

Donald Trump is not
a successful businessman

any more than the guy
who's playing the doctor

on "General Hospital"
is actually a doctor.

- I'd been very successful.

And people are starting
to find out

I've been much
more successful

than people even admit.

Okay, people are starting
to figure that out.

I'm much richer
than people understand.

- Donald has known
for a long time

that you can fool people

because they want
to be fooled, they're lazy.

He got some of that from
Roy Cohn, I believe.

I think he got some
of that from his father.

I think he got some of that
from his own intuitiveness.

- Well I didn't shape
the image, he did.

There should be no mistake.

Nobody shaped the image.
Donald shaped the image.

Did I help it along?
Yeah.

Um, um, was I complicit in it?
Yeah.

Uh, but--but the mastermind,
the genius, was Donald.

[dram ♪ to

- One Saturday,
Donald asked me to meet him

at his apartment
in Trump Tower,

and we jumped into
his Mercedes-Maybach

and drove from Manhattan
out to Bedminster

and I was just firing
various questions off

about how he felt
about himself and life

and one of the questions was,

what do you dream about
at night most often?

And without hesitation,

he said "[bleep],
it's always [bleep]."

[chuckling]

[upbeat music]

♪

- I used to own a model
agency.

It was the Week of Fashion.

We had our model agency party.

♪

The security told me,
"Mr. Trump is arriving."

Mr. Trump was already
considered a celebrity.

So of course he was
a VIP guest.

So I said, "Donald, please,

we'd like you to sit here
real fast."

And at the same table there
was Melania.

Melania was one of my models.

- In 1998, after his second
marriage had broken up,

Donald Trump was dating again
and he was out

And he spied Melania Knauss.

- Melania was really different
from many other models.

She was very, very
professional.

Very elegant.
Very classic.

She was very diligent about
her work.

She had a great portfolio.

- We were both at the same
party and that's how we met.

- I was actually supposed
to meet somebody else

and there was
this great supermodel.

I said forget about her,

who's the one on the left?
And it was Melania.

- Two weeks later, I did
a dinner for this designer,

Roberto Cavalli.

And they arrive together.

And I was really shocked.

But I saw some magic
between them.

[soft music]

[crowd clamoring]

- He was proud
of his relationship with her.

He felt having Melania
on his arm

offered evidence that he was
still sexually robust

and sexually attractive
and a man about town.

- Did you like him right away?

- It was a great chemistry
and energy.

We had, uh, you know,
great time.

We start to talk
and you know, it was--

something was there
right away.

- Melania is not like
so many arm candy, uh,

trophy wives, if you like,
looking all the time

to how to promote Melania.

Melania's always made sure
that Trump feels

that he is the focus
of her interest.

One of her friends
said to me,

"Ask not what the Donald
could do for you

but what you can do
for the Donald."

That was gonna be the mantra
by which she lived.

Her role was
to be brand enhancement.

- Donald Trump is
on the phone.

- Oh!
- Hi, Howard.

- Let me talk to
that broad in your bed.

What is she wearing?

- I don't know,
maybe I should get her--

do you want me to get her?

- Yeah, yeah, let me talk
to her for a second.

- I think he has always chosen
women as ornaments.

He's very about aesthetic
and beauty.

- Hello?
- Hey--hey.

- Hi, how are you?
- You are so hot.

- Oh, thank you.
- I see pictures of you,

I can't believe it,
you're a dream.

- Oh!

- I think that Trump
always felt

that being surrounded
by beautiful women

was part of the aura
he needed to develop.

- Are you in love with Trump?

- Yeah, we have a great time.

- You wanna marry him?
- Uh, I'm not answering that.

[crowd clamoring]

[light music]

♪

- I went to the wedding
because a big sort of callout

went out to have various
media people invited,

and of course I couldn't
resist that it was

at Mar-a-Lago.

Was it a fun intimate wedding
where you felt in touch

with a certain amount
of intimacy with a family

that was embracing a marriage?

No, this was a marketing event

and rather a well-done
one actually.

[chuckling]

- It was my first time
at Mar-a-Lago.

I never been to such
a fabulous wedding

in my life.

There was a thousand people.

All VIPs.

I even met Hillary Clinton.

- We're so happy
for both of you.

I know the third time's
the charm

and, uh, we wish you the very
best and much happiness

for many years to come.

- Thank you
and make sure you watch

"The Apprentice" tonight,
Katie.

- Oh, my God, do you ever quit?
All right.

- At one point we're
in the back of his limo,

and he was talking about
his wedding

and he sort
of randomly shared with me

that he was
a little bit nervous.

And I asked, "Well, why?
Why are you nervous?"

And he said,
"Well, you know,

"it's one of those things--
the hunt is so enjoyable,

"but then once you get it,
it can end up being

a little disappointing
once you have it."

- Do you worry about women and
him being attracted to them?

- No. I don't worry about
that at all.

I know--I know who I am

and, um, if a man doesn't
want to be with me

or I don't want to be with
a man--so--

- Goodbye and good luck.
- That's right.

- They get married in 2005
and about nine months later

the news breaks
that Melania is pregnant.

- And Mr. and Mrs. Trump,
[indistinct].

- Around the same time,

Donald, who's now
a television celebrity,

is recorded on a hot-mic
by a correspondent

for "Access Hollywood."

- [chuckling] - There is one event that
defines sports entertainment.

- Welcome to WrestleMania!

[cheering]

[upbeat music]

- In 2007, Donald Trump is
searching for other venues

to help him build
his personal brand

and one part of that
effort is to suddenly appear

in professional wrestling.

♪

- He had made a study of the
ratings from "The Apprentice"

and he knew he was especially
popular not on the coasts

but in the heartland--
white, middle-class voters,

and that's who was coming
to WrestleMania.

Just as with
"The Apprentice,"

WrestleMania was
a crucial stepping stone

on Donald Trump's path
to the Oval Office.

♪

- Donald Trump has
a pretty long history

with professional wrestling.

In the 1980s, his properties
were hosts for a variety

of pay-per-view
and major cards

for what is now the WWE.

When Donald Trump arrives
in the WWE in 2007,

he is arriving at a point
where Vince McMahon

has developed a character.

- Mr. McMahon!

- He is the evil boss
of the WWE.

The fans despise Mr. McMahon.

The problem is you need to find
someone else who can step in

and make Mr. McMahon pay for
what he is doing to the fans

and to the wrestlers.

- You laugh at me, huh?

[crowd yelling]

- You need someone who is
popular and famous

and wealthy and powerful,

and Donald Trump is
just perfect.

His first appearance,

it is supposed to be
fan appreciation night

and the visage
of Donald J. Trump

appears on the Titantron,

chastising Mr. McMahon.

- The audience really just
doesn't like you.

- And then money is dropped
from the rafters

of the arena in Dallas.

This is actual currency.

Trump will claim it
was his money.

In reality,
this was WWE money

that had been earmarked
for this event,

and all of this is then
going to lead up to the point

where they decide that
they need to resolve this feud

that has developed
between them.

- Donald Trump is gonna be
in my world,

and when you're in
my world, I rule.

[crowd groaning]

- WrestleMania was a perfect
venue for Donald Trump.

It involved most of the major
food groups of his life.

It's a game of enormous
emotions, of trash-talking.

- Well, this is one deal

that Donald Trump is gonna be
really sorry he's gonna sign.

- Clear lines
between winners and losers.

The winner gets a trophy;

the loser is damaged,
destroyed.

- Trump and Mr. McMahon agreed
that the loser of the match

will have his head shaven
after the match.

- Two billionaires hell-bent
on shaving the other bald.

- This is a long lived
wrestling storyline,

a Hair vs. Hair match,
a real public humiliation.

[cheering]

- You might have some support
from this audience,

but 95% of them are idiots.

[crowd booing]

- To me, they look like
a very smart group of people.

[cheering]

- These were his people.

Not the glitzy people
of 5th Avenue,

not the social club types
who never took him seriously

but the plain, everyday,
middle class Americans.

[cheering]

all: Donald, Donald, Donald!
- [chuckling]

The Donald chant going there.

all: Donald, Donald!

- Trump believed that
he brought to TV

a natural ability
to connect with people

who were less educated,
less wealthy, uh,

people who were perhaps
sneered at by the elites.

He saw himself as someone who
could break through that wall.

- Here's a guy,

he's a billionaire living
in a tower on 5th Avenue

adjacent to the Tiffany's
Jewelry Store.

He's meeting middle America

and he's bonding with these

many different types
of people.

- He can talk to anybody,

cab drivers, waiters
and waitresses, doormen.

He's a billionaire who's never
lost his Queens roots.

[epic music]

The battle between Donald Trump
and Vince McMahon

was fought by actual wrestlers
who did the fight for them.

- Of course, it's all
choreographed and scripted

and as per the method
of Donald Trump

throughout his life,
the fix is in.

- And--whoa!
[explosion]

- What's going on over here?

- When order needs to be
restored in the match,

Donald Trump is going to be
outside the ring

and deliver a clothesline
to Mr. McMahon.

- Hey, look at this!

Donald Trump! Donald Trump!
Oh, my God!

- Much to Mr. McMahon's
consternation,

these were legitimate blows

that Donald Trump
was landing on his head

because Donald Trump hadn't
quite perfected the technique

of fake punches that become
sort of second nature

to actual
professional wrestlers.

- Oh, my God!

Oh! Oh, my God!

[yelling indistinctly]

- And then Trump's guy won.

It was Trump who got to cut
Vince McMahon's hair off,

which he did with great relish.

- [whimpering] No!

- Donald Trump's actually
doing the honors himself.

- Once McMahon
has been humiliated

with his head shaving,
he will flee from the ring.

- I almost have empathy
for Mr. McMahon.

- And then it was time
for Stone Cold Steve Austin

to be part of the show

and Trump is literally facing
off against an actual wrestler.

[cheering]

- Oh, Austin!
Austin stomped the Donald!

- What?

-Even though he's down
on the ground

in a loser position,

not a place Donald Trump would
ever want himself to be...

[cheering]

He has made it with this group.

[cheering]

The crowd's sentiments
have turned

and they're on the side
of the billionaire.

These are his people.

- Do you have a stage persona?

- I don't think of myself
as a performer.

You know what I
think my biggest attribute is?

I'm a great builder.

I build the great--whether
it's buildings

or golf courses or clubs
or whatever,

I've always said that
I build the best product

and people get that.

♪

- He was a living
valuable brand,

but his bankruptcies
have soured the American banks

from lending him
any more money.

- The only major bank that's
left in his corner

is Deutsche Bank,
the biggest bank in Germany,

and there's always
been this question of why.

- Why?

- Um,
I'm not gonna answer that.

- Deutsche Bank,

the number one preferred bank
by Russian oligarchs

for money laundering.

A bank that has spent over
$600 million

paying fines for
laundering money for Russians

in Cyprus, in Germany,
and in New York City.

Deutsche Bank financed
the Trump Tower Hotel

in downtown Chicago,

the fourth tallest building
in America.

[suspenseful music]

♪

- And this was
a beautiful relationship

that went wrong in 2008 because
there was a financial crisis.

- Tonight,
the growing housing crisis.

- A huge increase
in foreclosures

across the country.

♪

- Trump was due to repay
$40 million

and, um, he couldn't.

Then Trump did something
very extraordinary:

he sued Deutsche Bank
and said that Deutsche Bank

had co-created
the financial crisis

and Deutsche Bank owed him
$3 billion

and he wasn't gonna
pay anything.

And then what happened
was really weird.

The private wealth management
wing of Deutsche Bank,

which deals with
high net worth individuals,

lent money, another 2,
$300 million,

to Donald Trump
to pay off his debt

to the real estate division

that was now refusing
to lend anymore of the money

to Donald Trump.

We've talked
to sources inside the bank

who say they
are bewildered by this,

and they find it suspicious.

They wonder whether actually
the loans to Donald Trump

were underwritten
by third parties,

by external actors by
dot, dot, dot--maybe Russia,

maybe Russian state entities.

Today, the story of
Donald Trump and Russia

is the biggest political story

and possibly scandal
of--of our era.

♪

- What do you make of all this
Russia money and collusion,

and everything?

- Do I think there
was flat-out collusion? No.

But what I do think is--

is that he will use
any advantage he can get.

- I mean,
the big question here is,

what is the relationship

between Donald Trump
and Russia,

particularly with
regard to business?

And when did Trump's love
affair with Russia start?

Actually, way back.

[crowd clamoring]

[suspenseful music]

♪

[yelling]

-Repeating once again
our top story,

Soviet President
Mikhail Gorbachev

has been removed from power.

♪

- I lived in the Soviet
Union when this was happening

and even two months before,

nobody really believed it
would happen.

[crowd clamoring]

- When the Soviet Union
broke up,

there wasn't a lot of time

to sort out what property was
going to belong to who.

It was just very often
who was fastest

and who was the most ruthless.

[gunfire]

[crashing]

The kinds of people
who emerge successfully

out of a situation
like that,

those were the people
who quickly rose to power

in the 1990s,

the oligarchs.

[suspenseful music]

- They become so wealthy
so quickly,

they literally
became millionaires,

even billionaires,
overnight,

and so what do you do
with that money?

You can't just keep it
in a bank.

Russia is unstable.

You have to start looking
outside of Russia.

♪

And that's exactly
what happened.

♪

[upbeat music]

- In the 1990s,

Trump himself and his team
came to realize

we're uniquely positioned
in the world

to profit from this desperate
need of oligarchs

to get money out
of their home country.

♪

There's a ton of these
increasingly rich Russian mafia

and new oligarch-type
characters

who are in the New York area

and are amassing wealth
through their connections

to the collapsed Soviet Union

and--and the corrupt
oligarch economy.

And he's really pursuing them.

You know, he's putting on
these Russian music shows

at his casinos,

he's going around
letting it be known

that anyone can live
in Trump Tower.

We won't even ask
who you are.

We won't ask
a single question.

- Donald Trump offered
a very, very special amenity.

He allowed you to buy
anonymously,

through shell companies,
without using your name

in all-cash purchases.

He was one of the very first
real estate people to do this.

-And Trump is not
the only guy doing this,

but he's certainly
the most prominent,

the biggest name doing this,

and doing this
very aggressively.

♪

-I know the Russians
better than anybody,

sold many apartments
to Russians.

How many people are gonna buy
$20 million apartments?

- It's a very,
very limited market.

- So I'm sitting back
and watching.

- He looked to Russia as a
source, not in a sinister way--

he saw that as market
development.

And then,
like all things Trump,

it grows bigger
than it was intended.

He--he can never say no.

He never leaves anything
on his plate,

and he'll eat off yours.

- In 2007, Trump was able
to strike a deal

with an American company
owned by former Russians

that were gonna build
a condominium hotel

in New York down in SoHo.

- During an episode
of "The Apprentice,"

Trump held out an internship
at the Trump SoHo

as the prize for one
of the show's winners.

- The other project
is in New York City's

trendiest neighborhood: SoHo.

When it's completed in 2008,

the Trump SoHo, the new $370
million work of art,

will be an awe-inspiring
masterpiece.

[cheering]

[drilling]

- In the midst
of construction,

I get a phone call,
and it's from a Deep Throat,

somebody that wouldn't
identify themselves.

And they started talking to me
about a--a young man

that was involved with
Donald Trump in this project,

Trump SoHo.

His name was Felix Sater.

♪

- Felix Sater's one
of the most interesting guys

I've ever met.

You can make a half dozen
Hollywood movies about him.

- It turns out that Felix Sater
had a record.

- He had gone to jail

for taking
a broken margarita glass

and grounding it into the face
of someone at a bar.

Uh, he ended up needing about
100 stitches in his face.

Felix did some jail time
for that.

After he got out of jail,

he and a group of Italian
and Russian mobsters

ran an investment scam
that took $40 million

or so from unsuspecting
senior citizens.

- Pumping up prices
of small stocks,

then dumping them
on unsuspecting investors.

- They're defrauding hundreds
of innocent victims.

[camera shutter clicking]
[crowd clamoring]

- And when they were busted,
he worked out a deal

where he would become
a federal cooperator

and he ratted out others
around him.

-And instead of going
to jail, he goes to Bayrock.

Bayrock is a real estate
company in Trump Tower.

-Sater has this sort
of cloud over him,

and one day he goes up
to Donald Trump's office,

says to the receptionist,
"I have a real estate deal

I want to talk
to Donald Trump about."

And he said within minutes,

he's sitting
in Donald Trump's office.

- I basically, um,
knocked on his door,

said, uh, I think
we should become partners,

I have great real estate deals,

I'm gonna be
a very successful developer

and you want to work with me.

- That's a very Trumpian move.
- Um, I don't know.

I think it was
a very Felixian move.

- Did you guys get along?
- Yes.

- It was one big happy family.

They were going to be doing
a string of deals.

[applause]

- Thank you very much
to Bayrock.

The Trump SoHo is
a very, very special building.

So we're honored by
the partnership

and it's always really nice
to have my children

working on a building
with me.

[applause]

- As I learned about
his background

and could document it,

I came to realize that
everything my anonymous caller

was telling me
was actually true.

I was flabbergasted that
Mr. Trump was not careful

about who he got
into bed with.

[applause]

- Bayrock has quite a crew,
and they have ties

in one way or another
to either the KGB

or the Russian mafia.

In Bayrock, you see money
laundering happening

in two ways.

It's not just the sale
of individual condominiums,

but you also see money
coming in to finance

the actual development
from Russian Mafia as well.

♪

- I came on Felix Sater

before anybody
had ever heard of him

and I expected that my story

would blow up
their relationship,

that they would be
so embarrassed.

You know, what happens
to your brand

when you become sullied
by, uh, criminals?

♪

But it didn't seem
to phase them.

In fact,
their relationship continued.

♪

- Bagli's piece was like
an earthquake inside Bayrock

and the Trump organization

and there was a lot
of scrambling going on.

- But the Trump organization
wanted to portray Trump SoHo

as a successful venture,

so Ivanka was quoted saying,
"The bulk of the apartments

in the building had been sold,"

when, in fact,
they hadn't been.

- Lying about that is
a real violation.

It means that you are conning
people out of their money.

- The Manhattan district
attorney, uh, launched a probe.

But the Trump organization
made a deal

with the condo buyers,
who had sued,

that virtually all the money
would be returned

as long as
they didn't cooperate

with the Manhattan DA's office.

- Ultimately,
the building's a failure,

and it's sold off in auction
to another real estate company.

♪

-I really look at Trump SoHo
as a transitional project.

It opens
this new chapter overseas

in which Trump
and the Trump organization

did a lot of business

with a lot of very questionable
figures around the world.

Selling the Trump name
as a brand on a hotel

or a residence
or an office tower

is the chapter we actually
know the least about,

but it's the
most important chapter.

[cheering]

[dramatic music]

♪

- Our current president
came out of nowhere,

came out of nowhere.

In fact,
I'll go a step further.

The people that went
to school with him,

they don't even know--
they never saw him,

they don't know who he is.

Crazy!

- There is a meme out there,
a narrative,

that I sold Donald Trump
on birtherism.

Nobody sells Donald Trump
on anything.

- Nobody knew who the hell
he was.

He's now our president,
he's our president.

- Donald Trump chooses
what he will say

and when he will say it.

Donald Trump became
interested in the question

and circumstances
of Barack Obama's birth,

and he decided
to talk about it.

- Nobody trusts Obama.

There's nothing
to trust about Obama.

If you look at
his last few years,

everything's a lie,
his background is a lie.

I mean, there's so much about
him that's a lie,

it's incredible.

[upbeat music]

- Donald always needs a foil.
He needs someone to attack,

and as you watch his career
from the earliest time

until now,
there is always an adversary.

- I wouldn't mind
forgetting the issue,

but I'd like him to show that
he has a birth certificate

because a certificate
of birth,

you can get it with
a telephone call.

- There is always somebody
that he can punch, call names,

vilify, uh, because he thinks
that by doing that,

he escalates his own persona.

- Donald Trump has never been
afraid to say what he thought.

He almost embraces that
he's willing to say things

that are off limits
to most people.

I think he thinks that's part
of the fascination with him,

part of his appeal.

- I want him to show
his birth certificate.

- Why?

- There's something
on that birth certificate

that he doesn't like.

- Oh, my God, that is just
the worst thing...

[indistinct chattering]

- Darling, I love you.
I'm telling you.

- Donald, I love you too.

I think that's the biggest pile
of dog mess I've heard in ages.

[light suspenseful music]

- Donald Trump
isn't the first person,

but he is by far
the most famous person

who launches birtherism attacks

and then becomes
the most sustained birther

in America holding out
on it for years.

- The fact is that we have not
seen his birth certificate.

He, I assume, I would hope
he has a birth certificate,

I'm sure you do,
I know I do.

It's all very important
for one reason:

if you're not born
in this country,

you can't be President.

- But you've never seen George
W. Bush's birth certificate,

have you?

- No, I haven't
but I'm sure he has one.

- So it's really about calling
in question the legitimacy

and the validity of America's
first black president.

- I did believe then,
as I believe now,

that it did reflect, uh,

a very substantial
body of thinking

on the American right.

In a free society, you're
allowed to think what you want.

- It's a page out of
the Roy Cohn playbook--

the creation of doubt
in people's minds.

- I mean, in Hawaii...
- Absolutely.

And they cannot believe
what they're finding.

I've been told
very recently, Anderson,

that the birth certificate
is missing.

I've been told that
it's not there

and it doesn't exist.

- What have they found?

- That's none of your business
right now.

We're gonna see what happens.

- Have they found anything?

- We're gonna see what happens.

- He understands that politics
isn't all about issues,

isn't always about legislation.

A lot of it is cultural.

- I've had a lot of friends
of mine

that are very conservative,
on the conservative side, say,

"Ah, skip that issue,
Donald,

it's not a good issue
for you, skip it."

And I say, "Why is that
not a good issue?"

- For a long time,
President Obama tried to ignore

the birther discussion,

maybe thinking it
was beneath contempt--

certainly beneath
the notice

of a President
of the United States.

- And just to be clear, I know
where my birth certificate is,

but a lot of people don't.

[crowd laughing]

- But it became apparent that
this was catching on

to such an extent,
that it needed to be addressed.

[epic music]

♪

- The White House
Correspondents' Dinner

is this strange ritual.

All of the White House
journalists come

and they bring, usually,
celebrity guests

and then the President
tells a lot of jokes.

There were a bunch of people
who pitched jokes.

I was one of those people.

President Obama was kind
of pushing us to, like,

be a little sharper,
be a little edgier,

and there was this kind
of open question of,

how are we gonna address
the elephant in the room

where the elephant in the room
is Donald Trump?

- This was going right into
the heart of the beast.

These are the political
and media elites

who never took his potential
candidacy seriously

and therefore I would not
have recommended

the White House
Correspondents' dinner.

- Everyone in the room
was waiting for,

when does Obama
get to Trump?

That was really the big
pregame suspense of the night,

and it had been the pregame
suspense of the night,

at that point,
for weeks.

- My fellow Americans.

[cheering]

- He started making jokes
about Donald Trump.

- No one is prouder to put
this birth certificate matter

to rest than the Donald.

[laughing]

- And the crowd started
laughing more and more.

- And that's because he can
finally get back to focusing

on the issues that matter.

Like, did we fake
the moon landing,

and where are Biggie
and Tupac?

[laughing]

- I was sitting behind Trump
that evening,

and I watched his neck go from
pale shrimp to deep beetroot

as he listened to Obama,
very wittily and coolly,

making fun of him.

- He was relentless.

- What you had was this kind
of sea of laughter

and then this just pure island
of rage in the middle of it.

- It was the night
of Barack Obama's revenge.

[applause]

[laughing]

- Donald Trump wanted to be
taken seriously,

and this was an effort by
the president,

and to a certain degree,
I think,

the Washington establishment
to say,

"Hey, look, New York
and tabloids are one thing.

"This is the big leagues.

Go back home."

- Donald Trump left

the White House
Correspondents' dinner early.

I don't think he decided
in the car that he was going

to run for president
and win.

I think he decided
as he rose from his seat.

- And I sort of imagined
in the back of his mind,

it was like Norma Desmond.

- Those imbeciles.
Haven't they got any eyes?

Have they forgotten
what a star looks like?

- Do they think
I'm a has-been?

- I'll show them.

I'll be up there again,
so help me.

- I'll show them
what a star is.

[laughing, applause]

- You remember
the famous interview,

when Obama was asked,
"Donald Trump says,

'You're the worst president
in American history.'"

What's your reaction?"

- At least I will
go down as a President.

[cheering]

- Who got the last laugh
on that one?

[dramatic tone]

- So, you are running
for the Republican nomination

if you run?
- Yes.

- Okay, you--you described
yourself politically

as a conservative?

- I am a very conservative
person.

- Very conservative person,
but recently you said--

- With a big heart.

I'd like to say I'm
conservative with a big heart.

- He was always amused by
those in the mainstream media

who kept insisting
that running for president

was all a publicity stunt
to burnish the Trump brand.

Uh, that he's never really
gonna run.

- Well, I think I have
a lot of experience.

More than most people--

certainly more than
most candidates.

- In 2012, I think he came
very, very close to running,

but he ultimately decided not
to make that race,

I think,
largely based on the fact

that Obama was an incumbent.

[cheering]

- Thank you.

I have just called
President Obama

to congratulate him
on his victory.

- I think that Donald Trump
was very disappointed

when Mitt Romney lost.

I think he immediately
regretted not running himself.

- God bless these
United States.

- He did tell me that right
after the election,

he had trademarked the phrase
Make America Great Again.

To me this was a sign
of his seriousness.

I gave an interview
very early

in which I said,
in an off-handed manner,

well, I thought he should run
in 2016

because it would probably be
his last chance

given his age.

Boy, he chewed my ass
about that.

- I'm Donald Trump

and this is the most important
pageant in the world,

and I should know
because I own it.

[upbeat music]

- Donald Trump had always
loved the idea

of beauty pageants
in his Atlantic City days

running casinos.

In 1996, along came
an opportunity to buy

the Miss Universe Pageant.

A better match could not
have been made.

- Look this way, Lisa.

♪

- He was very excited that
he had a business

that would keep him in touch
with very young women.

- He had felt the pageants
had started to emphasize

women's minds
and abilities too much

and what he said to me is,

"Nobody wants to watch
one of these things

"and see a girl playing
a violin.

They just want to know what
she looks like."

He wanted to get it back
to its roots.

[camera shutter clicking]
[crowd clamoring]

- Donald Trump saw
in the ability to own

the Miss Universe Pageant
not only a chance

to hang out backstage,

but also, this was a way
for Donald Trump

to get the Trump name
and brand spread

to many more countries.

- I have a name that's
the hottest name in the world.

When I'm doing deals,
I'm buying this one,

I'm buying that one.

They really want Trump,
'cause Trump is a hot name.

It's the hottest name
in the world.

- Donald Trump was
an empire builder.

He was 1,000% committed

to the accumulation
of wealth and power.

This was the lesson that
he was taught as a child:

you never stop pushing,
you never stop building.

[crowd clamoring]

♪

- At that time, the Trump
Organization is doing business

with players in countries
all over the world.

♪

- Trump comes up with
this new model that--

it's almost amazing
it took him so long to find it

because it's so perfect
for who he is,

this model
of just selling his name

and putting his name
on a project

and Trump always had

a group of would-be
deal-makers around him.

These often
were people with shady pasts.

- Donald Trump ended up
in Baku,

the capital of Azerbaijan,

where he had business
connections with

another billionaire developer,
a guy named Anar Mammadov.

- The Mammadov family was seen
as unbelievably corrupt

and corrupt even
for Azerbaijan,

which is
a very corrupt country.

They were in business
with a company that was

almost, without question,
nothing more than a front

for Iran's
Islamic Revolutionary Guard...

[men chanting]

Which had created
a global financial network

to fund terrorism, to acquire
weapons of mass destruction--

true bad actors.

- Anyone who's done business
with Donald Trump

knows that all you have to do
is walk into the office

with a bag of cash
and drop it on his desk,

and he'll do business
with you.

If the money's there,
he'll go for it.

He doesn't do due diligence.

[suspenseful music]

♪

[applause]

- In June of 2013,

Trump announced
that he was gonna hold

the Miss Universe contest
in Moscow.

- And really,
we wanted Moscow all the way

and part of
the reason we want it is

one of the great families
in Russia is our partner

in this endeavor.

- He's paid by
a Russian oligarch,

Aras Agalarov, to bring
this contest to Moscow.

It's lucrative.

- It's going to be amazing.

- Aras Agalarov was
a builder,

he was known
as Putin's builder

because he had built
so many projects for Putin

and the Russian state.

- The Agalarovs are
a huge step up for Trump.

He had been in this frenzy
from 2010, '11, '12,

just doing business with
a whole bunch of characters

all over the former
Soviet Union,

but these are third tier
characters

and third tier countries,

and Moscow is a huge step up.

♪

- Moscow was, by 2013,

one of the most expensive
cities in the world

and Moscow real estate

had become this hot,
hot market.

- If you talk to people in the
Miss Universe Organization,

they will tell you that
holding the contest in Moscow

was really not
the prime objective.

It was to open a pathway

to building a Trump Tower
in Moscow.

- Trump gets obsessed
with Russia

and clearly sees
it as a place

where he's gonna make a mark,
make a fortune,

where's he's gonna be
a major player.

- For Trump, having
a Trump Tower in Moscow,

I think, would have been
the jewel on the crown.

- [speaking Russian]

[suspenseful music]

- Trump flies to Moscow
November 8th, 2013.

He gets there in the middle
of the day or so.

- And he is
the arriving champion.

- There's my guy!

- The Miss Universe is
the biggest thing going on.

- We're very happy
and Moscow

and all of Russia
is going wild.

- Now at this point in time,

Trump is obsessed
with really one thing.

He's obsessed
with Vladimir Putin.

As soon as Trump announces

that he's gonna hold
Miss Universe in Moscow,

[ping]
he's tweeting out,

will Vladimir
Putin come to the event?

Will he be my new best friend?

- Meanwhile, Putin's
already widely regarded

around the world as a thug.

He has repressed dissent
in Russia.

There had been massive human
rights abuses in Chechnya.

- Russian forces need
to leave Georgia at once.

- If anyone thinks that
they can come and kill us,

they should think what
consequences such a policy

will have for them.

- Journalists and critics
of the Russian state

have been killed,

but Trump is enamored
with him.

[epic music]

- Trump rather nakedly
and openly

had been courting Putin's
favor for many years,

eagerly hoping to have
a relationship with Putin

and to have business
in Moscow.

- Trump Tower in Moscow was
this kind of elusive thing

Trump's been trying
to build for three decades

unsuccessfully.

- We know that real estate
developer Trump

really cares about status.

And so, having
the tallest building

and then your name on top
of the tallest building

is like the symbol to show off
how successful you are,

how rich you are.

- Trump is basically
auditioning.

He comes to Moscow,
hat in hand.

- I called it my weekend
in Moscow,

but I was with
the top-level people,

both oligarchs and generals

and top
of the government people.

I can't go further than that,
but I will tell you

that I met the top people.

- The heart of the matter is
whether or not that trip

and what happened during
that trip involved activities

or business deals that gave
the Kremlin leverage over him.

[eerie music]

- The first day, there's a
lunch held for Trump at Nobu.

This is
the famous sushi restaurant,

and there are a bunch
of Russian businessmen there,

bankers.

Later, Trump says all
the oligarchs were there.

- I got to meet all
of the leaders.

I got to meet all--

I mean, everybody was there.

- After the lunch,
he goes to the theatre

where they're doing
the final run-through

for the
Miss Universe Pageant,

which is gonna be
the next day.

[crowd clamoring]

And at night,
there was a birthday party

for Aras Agalarov.

♪

And around 1:00 a.m.,

Donald Trump went back
to the Ritz Carlton hotel

in downtown Moscow
where Trump was staying.

- Keith Schiller,
who was Trump's bodyguard,

says that Trump went into
his room alone

and that he stood guard
there for a little while

and then left.

[suspenseful music]

♪

There, of course,
is a question

about what happened in
his hotel room

the one night he stayed
in the Russian capital.

♪

- The hotel
where Trump stayed

is known to be completely
bugged by the FSB.

That basically everything
you do there is watched.

- The FSB,
the spy agency

which Vladimir Putin
once headed,

films people inside
their flats,

in their bedrooms.

I know from
personal experience.

When I was in Moscow with
my wife and two small kids,

for three and a half years
we were watched,

and the FSB let us know
this because on one occasion,

uh, I came back from a family
holiday in Berlin to discover

that the FSB had left
a little present by the side

of the marital bed,
a sex manual in Russian,

which they had bookmarked
to a page on orgasms.

In--in essence,
they were saying,

we were watching
you having sex.

- The Russians collect
this information.

It's called Kompromat,
and they use it all the time.

- Kompromat is, um,
an old term,

from, um,
the Soviet era,

uh, that basically means
compromising material

or blackmail.

- They will have videoed
Donald Trump for sure,

and those--those tapes
will still exist.

- Earlier in the day, someone
came up to Keith Schiller

and said, would Mr. Trump like
five women in his room tonight?

And Keith Schiller says
that he told this person,

"We don't do that,"
and that was that.

- If you're thinking
about 2013

and the Miss Universe
Beauty Pageant,

you have to ask yourself
this question:

did Donald Trump
go to bed early

with a cup of hot chocolate
and a 19th century novel,

or did Donald Trump

have a more exciting
and exotic time?

Uh, I'll let you decide.

[suspenseful music]

♪

[upbeat music]

- The story next picks up
early, early the next morning.

He had been asked to do
a cameo appearance in a video

that was being shot
for the son of Aras Agalarov,

Emin Agalarov.

Emin is a pop star.

oh, let's say,
of modest repute.

- He actually makes
this pop music video

with lots of contestants
from Miss Universe.

- ♪ In another life

♪ We would be together

- And Trump has taken
a liking to him,

and so he appears
at that video shoot.

- Emin, wake up.
Come on, you're fired.

♪

- The rest of the day,

he has lots of interviews
and press conferences.

- We're thinking about doing
a Trump Tower Moscow

so we're talking to a group
of people about doing that.

- It was announced that
he and Agalarov

were proceeding with
the project.

- Now Trump has a partner
that can help him

cut through the red tape,

that has a good relationship
with Putin,

so the deal finally
starts to move.

- Uh, Donald,
do you have a relationship

with Vladimir Putin?

- I do have a relationship

and I can tell you
that he's very interested

in what we're doing here
today.

He's probably very interested
in what you and I

are saying today.

- In one interview,
he praises Putin.

- That, uh, Putin has done
an amazing job

of showing certain leadership

that our people have not
been able to match.

- He says Putin's watching
very closely

what we're doing here.

You know, almost implying
that Putin's gonna come

and he wants Putin to come.

[cheering, applause]

[cheering]

- He asks the people
around him,

over and over
and over again,

is Putin coming?

[cheering]

Will I be meeting with Putin?

Will I see him?
Can I see him? Can I see him?

- This is the moment.

- They say, "We're waiting,"

and he gets anxious and anxious
and anxious about this.

- So, Miss Universe, 2013
is Venezuela. Gabriela Isler!

- You're a rock star!

- Congratulations to you,
Miss Venezuela!

Goodnight everybody
from Moscow!

- Finally, the phone rings
and it's Dmitry Peskov,

who is Putin's Chief Spokesman
Strategist, and he says,

"I'm sorry, the President
can't see you."

[dramatic music]

"His schedule
won't permit it."

Trump, of course,
is disappointed.

And at one point

he says to one of
the Miss Universe officials,

"You know, we could tell people
that Putin came.

No one would
know the difference."

[chuckling]

[ping]

- After the Miss Universe
pageant wraps up in Moscow

in the fall of 2013,

there's a memorandum
of understanding

that is drafted between
the Trump organization

and the Agalarov corporation,

which is Trump Tower
in Moscow,

and the deal starts
to actually move.

[gunfire]
[yelling]

- But then Russia invades
Ukraine and annexes Crimea,

and then immediately
sanctions hit.

♪

And the sanctions kill
the deal.

- Based on the executive order

that I signed in response to
Russia's initial intervention

in Ukraine,

we're imposing sanctions
on more senior officials

of the Russian government.

- From Trump's mind
at the time,

I can imagine
this being a key moment

where he sees Obama trying
to kill his dream deal

that he's been working
for--for, now, decades.

[light suspenseful music]

- A few weeks after the Miss
Universe contest was over,

a woman shows up
at the Miss Universe office

in New York City.

It's the daughter
of Aras Agalarov.

She has a gift
for Donald Trump.

- Putin didn't or wouldn't
make time to see Donald Trump

and did arrange for Trump
to be given a gift.

This is a black lacquered box.

- The box is delivered
to Trump at Trump Tower.

[upbeat music]

Inside the box,
there is an envelope.

And to this day
no one knows--

at least no one
in the public knows--

what was in that note.

- It might have just been,
"Sorry I missed you."

It might have been
something more,

but my guess is
that whatever it was,

it was an indication that Putin
knows how to play Donald Trump.

[applause]
- Please welcome Donald Trump.

[cheering]

- Thank you, thank you,
thank you so much.

I saw the other day
on television

people just walking across
the b--they're walking.

The military's standing
there holding guns

and people just walking
right in front,

coming into our country.

♪

- It's January 2015

and some of the people
on Trump's staff,

including a guy named
Sam Nunberg,

really believed in the power
of illegal immigration

to galvanize
Republican voters,

but the problem they had

is they couldn't keep Trump
on message.

He would get up before these
conservative groups and--

and he would wander, and so
Nunberg came up with this idea.

He told Trump, "You ought
to go out there and tell them

"that you're gonna build a wall
to stop illegal immigrants

from coming
into this country."

And, you know, initially Trump
didn't seem too interested

in the idea, uh, but finally,
at an Iowa event,

Trump tried out the line...

- We have to build a fence,
and it's gotta be a beauty.

Who can build better
than Trump?

I build.
It's what I do.

[applause]

- The crowd just roared.

Trump, who's
a very intuitive politician,

saw that this drew an enormous
response from his audience.

- So I would say that
if I run and if I win,

I would certainly start
by building a very,

very powerful border.

[cheering]

[applause]

Thank you all very much.
Thank you, thank you.

[applause]

- This was something
that really galvanized

a lot of hard right,
anti-immigrant voters,

who became, uh, the strength
of his political base.

- Beautiful, thank you.

- Donald Trump
wasn't gonna do nuance.

Americans didn't want nuance.

With the immigration thing,

one thing he said to me was,
he goes,

"Sam, you write things that
are too [bleep] complicated.

Who the [bleep]
can understand this?"

And you know what?
He was 100% right.

♪

- One way that Trump became
convinced that this issue

had real power and salience
with grassroots conservatives

was that when he tweeted
about illegal immigration,

he would get hundreds
and hundreds of retweets.

[pinging]

- I introduced him to Twitter
with Roger Stone.

We're working for him and we're
like, "What are we gonna do?

How are we gonna continue
to get paid?"

And Roger says to me, "We're
gonna work on his Twitter."

[epic music]

And we just started sending
in suggested tweets.

- Donald Trump's
political ideology

is called Donald Trump.

He's very malleable.

His gut instinct is
to be a populist.

It's to be whatever's driving
the American people crazy,

and so he has been open to,
and susceptible to,

all kinds of conspiracy ideas.

♪

- Trump was using Twitter
as a focus group

to hone the issues
that he would later run on,

seeing what it was that would
resonate with his followers

and what wouldn't.

- He'd be on the plane

and he'd have this big Samsung
phone in his hand

and he'd be
fat-fingering a tweet

and then, all the sudden,
he's pressing "send"

and you're praying that
there's no spelling mistakes

and then--boom!

We're watching satellite TV
and it's up,

you know, the chyron's up,
you know.

"Trump says
blah-da-dee-blah-blah,"

you know and you're,
like, laughing.

- I told him,
"You gotta stop.

"Stop tweeting. You're creating
headaches for yourself.

Stop tweeting."

And he's like,
"Why should I stop tweeting

"when I can bypass the fake
news companies in this country

and go directly
to the American people?"

- I've got millions of people.
- Right.

- Between Twitter
and Facebook,

I'll be at five million
people.

That's more than
the biggest media company.

- You know how many people
on Twitter every day ask me

to run for president?

"Please, Mr. Trump,
run for president."

"Please Mr. Trump,

you're the only one
who can save the country."

- Thanks to the internet,

and thanks especially
to social media,

he's starting
to connect on issues

that he thinks will speak
to the emotional gap

in Americans' political
experience.

That brought him into
a world of people

who were outside
the mainstream,

sometimes even beyond
the mainstream of Fox News.

They included the folks
who worked at Breitbart News,

where a lot of ideas about
American nationalism,

about fighting back
against multiculturalism,

were being built up
by Steve Bannon,

a former Hollywood producer
who had turned himself into,

kind of,
the voice of Breitbart News.

- The center core
of what we believe,

that we're a nation
with an economy,

not an economy just
in some global marketplace

with open borders, but we're
a nation with a--a culture

and a, uh,
and a reason for being,

and I think
that's what unites us.

- Trump became a fan
of Bannon's work,

and they bonded over the idea

that the United States was
in deep, dark trouble.

- Bannon starts briefing
Trump on politics.

Trump,
who doesn't use computers,

isn't gonna read
these articles on a phone

or on his computer,

so Trump's staff
actually prints out

the Breitbart news articles
on paper

and hands them to Trump
in a manila folder.

- Breitbart didn't come off
as academic and nerdy.

I couldn't get Trump
to read something

from "The Wall Street Journal."

He's not gonna read something
that he's not interested in.

But if Breitbart wrote
something about it,

he would look at it.

- If you look at the issues
that Breitbart news

is most concerned about,

it tends to be things
like the idea

that immigrants from Mexico
are marauding killers

and rapists who pose
a dire threat

to the American citizenry.

- He started listening
to a diet

of right wing conversation

that was not mainstream
Republicanism

and bought into a series
of conspiracy theories

that got wilder and wilder
about immigrants coming in

and stealing American jobs.

- Bannon was
in Trump's ear talking,

"We need to double down
on these ideas.

This is really resonating
with the Republican base."

[applause]

- We need strong borders.
We need a wall.

- There's no doubt that as
the years went by,

Trump got much more angry
and much darker.

- The fact is, we're
run by either very foolish

or very stupid people.

- He's really being
indoctrinated with

the Breitbart worldview.

- You're gonna have people
just flowing into

this country worse
than it's ever been.

- Then when he gets
glommed-onto, in a sense,

by, uh,
the Breitbart right,

the kind of ideology found
its angry man,

and the angry man found
its ideology.

- They struck a chord
with Donald Trump

because they appealed
to his sense of himself

as the outsider sneered at
by the elites,

who saw him
as this caricature,

as this sort of clown,
and he always resented that.

- Washington is totally broken,
and it's not gonna get fixed

unless we put the right person
in that top position.

- CPAC, give it up!
Donald Trump!

- Thank you, thank you.

[applause]

- Is he serious this time
or just selling something?

- The real estate mogul
and reality TV star

has flirted
with White House runs before.

- I love playing a tape on
television and radio

where all of these people were
laughing, "Run, Donald, run.

Please, you'll never win."

- Do it, do it.
Look--look at me. Do it.

I will personally write you
a campaign check now.

- Trump's running
for president like...

- This is your worst nightmare.

- People think that
Donald Trump is a clown.

- Does anybody seriously think
that Donald Trump

is serious about running
for president?

- He doesn't take on fights

that he doesn't think
he can win.

Donald Trump wants to win
at everything he does.

[crowd clamoring]

- I remember saying to myself,

what's gonna happen when "The
Apprentice" goes off the air?

What's he gonna do?
He can't go back

to just being
a B-level developer.

It was about, I'm not gonna be
a star anymore.

The focus is
not gonna be on me.

How can I keep
the cameras pointed at me?

Because he didn't want
those lights to go out.

Well, we got the answer,
didn't we?

[solemn music]

- When I write about people,
I get to know them implicitly.

I'm trying to draw out of them
their inner selves

in order to get at
that essence.

We're driving up
the interstate,

I'm taking notes,
we're talking.

- I really was determined
to answer this question

that was bugging me
about what goes on

inside this person's being.

What is the nature of
that private self?

And so I said, "What time
do you wake up?"

I knew he didn't sleep much.

And he said,
"You know, 5:30."

I said, "Okay, everyone's
asleep, you're awake,

"you're in your bathroom,
you're shaving,

"you're looking in the mirror--

what do you see?"

♪

And silence. He doesn't have
an answer to the question.

And I said, "Well, are
you looking in the mirror

and thinking,
'Gee, I'm Donald Trump?'"

And he still doesn't respond.

By the time
I was done with him,

I was able to reach
a conclusion

about his interior life,

and with Trump,

the essence
was--was a vacuum.

- I think what
has kept him going

is a need
to feed an emptiness.

He had aspired to and achieved
the ultimate luxury.

He lives like a king,

but for all the things
that should give one pleasure,

there is something lacking
in those pleasures,

and he's been trying
to feed that emptiness.

There is an unfillable hole
inside this person,

and I think that that is

his--his fear
and his destiny both.

♪

- He wanted me there
around 7:00.

I got there at 7:30
because I'm always late.

He's in a black suit

with the red tie
and the white shirt,

and he says, "What do you
think, should I change?"

I said, "I love it."

He goes, "No
you're a [bleep] idiot.

I'm going to change."

And Melania comes down,
Mrs. Trump,

and I'm, like,
holy [bleep] Jesus,

look at that dress
she's wearing.

You see her back,
and God, is she gorgeous.

And here's something
nobody is going to believe

even when I tell you this--
he prayed.

He went like this.

♪

And then he said,
"Okay, let's go."

[upbeat music]

♪

- When everybody else
was going crazy,

including a lot of
my colleagues at Fox News

about Donald Trump may get
into this race,

I remember saying, "I'll
believe it when I see it."

[crowd clamoring]

Lo and behold,
on a June morning in 2015,

he and Melania come down
that escalator.

[applause]

- Ladies and gentlemen,

I am officially running...

[cheering]

For President
of the United States.

And we are going to make
our country great again.

all: Trump, Trump, Trump,
Trump, Trump, Trump!

Trump, Trump,
Trump, Trump, Trump!

- Donald Trump takes
on 16 seasoned, powerful,

professional politicians

and one by one, he's knocking
them out of the race.

He's re-written
the rule book.

- They're killing us
at the border

and they're killing us
in trade.

The American dream is dead.

But we're fighting for you
so what's good for me,

is good for you and
I mean that totally 100%.

[cheering]

- But while this is going on,
Trump was not done with Russia.

♪

- In 2015, Felix Sater,

Trump's business partner
from Bayrock,

accidentally bumbles
into the dream deal

of anybody
in the Trump orbit.

♪

A friend of his
lets him know

that he has some property
in Moscow.

Felix instantly thinks, could
that be a Trump Tower Moscow?

The thing that Trump has wanted
more than anything forever.

- Felix Sater emails
Michael Cohen,

Trump's personal lawyer,

and says I have secured
financing

for Trump Tower Moscow
from VTB Bank.

It's a Russian state bank.

♪

- VTB Bank is not really a
bank in any traditional sense.

It's more like a tool
of the Kremlin.

- Vladimirovich Putin.

- A tool of Putin
and his cronies

to get money
where they want.

It was also sanctioned after
Russia annexed Crimea

as a way to punish specifically
Putin and his cronies.

[suspenseful music]

- That didn't seem
to put them off any.

There are no emails in which
Michael Cohen says,

"Hey, we can't work with
a sanctioned bank."

It's sorta like, "Well,
you keep going, Felix."

- I approached Michael Cohen
about the opportunity.

He was very excited.
- Thanks very much.

- Donald Trump signed
the letter of intent.

- This is not a secret
from Trump.

Trump knows about this.

♪

Trump signs
a letter of intent.

They get pretty far
into the weeds.

How much money Trump
would get up front--

$4 million
just for moving ahead.

There would be a spa,

and the spa might even be
called "Spa By Ivanka."

I mean, they're really getting
into details.

Now there's a little bit
of a problem here.

Trump's running for president.

- Here you have an American
presidential candidate

doing a business deal
with a bank in Russia

sanctioned by
the U.S. government.

Does any American voter
know about this?

No, it's a secret.

- I humbly and gratefully
accept your nomination

for the presidency
of the United States.

Russia, if you're listening,

I hope you are able to find
the 30,000 emails.

I have nothing
to do with Russia.

Who's gonna pay
for the wall?

all: Mexico
- Who?

all: Mexico!

all: Lock her up!

- Honestly,
she should be locked up.

You know what we're gonna do?

Even better, we're gonna
beat her on November 8th.

With your help,
we are going to win,

and we are going to win big.

- This is CNN breaking news.

- The American people
have spoken.

Donald Trump will be the 45th
President of the United States.

all: USA, USA, USA!

[dramatic music]

- All right, so you know
I'm trying to march you

through your life.

- I know that.

- And you are in the present,
you're always in the present.

- I'm--I'm never in the past.

- Right, I know, I know.
It's hard for you.

- The problem that
you have with me

is that I'm not in the past.

I'm--I'm a person that thinks
to the future and the present.

[cheering]

[applause]

I don't think people
change very much.

You may slow down,
but honestly--

yeah, I don't
think people change.

I think I'm a very big
believer in the fact that

when you are a certain way,

pretty much
that's the way you are.

[solemn music]

Now environmental situations
change, conditions change,

wealth changes,
both up and down.

♪

But I think basically
our personality is set

from very close
to the time of birth.

♪

I mean, if I look at myself
in the 1st grade

and I look at myself now,

I don't think
I'm that different.

Now I have vast experience,
I have vast success.

Like, I've had
these tremendous successes

and then I'm off
to the next one.

I just don't like wasting
time on the past.

I don't like to analyze myself

because I might not
like what I see.

♪

- Mr. President,
Mr. President...

- Mr. President,
when was the last time

you discussed Trump--
when was the last--

when was the last time you
discussed Trump Tower Russia?

[indistinct chattering]

♪

[hip-hop music]

♪