Trump, Inc.
195 episodes - English - Latest episode: 7 months ago - ★★★★★ - 5.6K ratingsHe’s the President, yet we’re still trying to answer basic questions about how his business works: What deals are happening, who they’re happening with, and if the President and his family are keeping their promise to separate the Trump Organization from the Trump White House. “Trump, Inc.” is a joint reporting project from WNYC Studios and ProPublica that digs deep into these questions. We’ll be layout out what we know, what we don’t and how you can help us fill in the gaps.
WNYC Studios is a listener-supported producer of other leading podcasts, including On the Media, Radiolab, Death, Sex & Money, Here’s the Thing with Alec Baldwin, Nancy and many others. ProPublica is a non-profit investigative newsroom.
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Episodes
Trump’s Patron-in-Chief: Sheldon Adelson
October 10, 2018 16:00 - 27 minutes - 25.5 MBLate on a Thursday evening in February 2017, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s plane landed at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland for his first visit with President Donald Trump. A few hours earlier, the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson’s Boeing 737, which is so large it can seat 149 people, touched down at Reagan National Airport after a flight from Las Vegas. Adelson dined that night at the White House with Trump, Jared Kushner and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Adelson and his wife, ...
The Cost of the Office? Trump's Billion-Dollar Loss
October 05, 2018 16:00 - 14 minutes - 16.2 MBA new investigation by Forbes magazine finds the president's net worth has dropped significantly since he took office.
The Cost of the Office? Trump's Billion-Dollar Loss
October 05, 2018 16:00 - 14 minutes - 13.2 MBNearly 20 years ago, Donald Trump told Fortune magazine that he could run for president and make money doing it. "It’s very possible that I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it," he said in an interview in 2000. But now that he's president, the story is looking a bit different. A new report from Forbes concluded that the presidency has not enriched Trump overall: Measuring Trump's net worth before he announced his run for the presidency in 2015 to the last ...
The Business of Silence
October 03, 2018 16:00 - 27 minutes - 28.6 MBTrump has long worked to enforce silence. And he’s been trying to take the practice to the White House.
The Business of Silence
October 03, 2018 16:00 - 27 minutes - 25.5 MBPresident Donald Trump has had many roles in his life: Real estate scion, reality show star, Oval Office holder. But through it all, one thing has remained consistent. He tries to control what information becomes public about himself and his business. In the latest episode of Trump, Inc., our podcast with ProPublica, we’re looking at the ways Trump has tried to buy and enforce silence — and how it matters more than ever now that he’s president. We talk to The New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow about...
Elliott Broidy's All-Access Pass
September 26, 2018 16:00 - 32 minutes - 29.5 MBTrump, Inc. is back. Our podcast with ProPublica focused earlier this year on the many mysteries around President Donald Trump’s businesses. This season, we’re widening the lens to look at the people around Trump and how they are benefitting from his presidency. Our first episode looks at Elliott Broidy. You might remember him as the Republican financier who agreed to pay a Playboy model $1.6 million in return for her silence. (Broidy has said it was just to help her financially.) Before t...
Elliott Broidy's All-Access Pass
September 26, 2018 16:00 - 32 minutes - 32.6 MBOur podcast investigation is back — and this time we’re looking at more than just the president’s family.
Two Convictions That Shook Trump-World
August 22, 2018 16:00 - 41 minutes - 38.1 MBIn April, we published an investigation into Michael Cohen’s past. That episode traced how so many of Cohen’s associates over the years have been convicted of crimes, disbarred or faced other legal troubles. But — at the time of the episode — the president’s former lawyer had himself never been convicted, or even accused of a crime. Well, it’s time for an update. Cohen pleaded guilty Tuesday to eight felony counts, including tax fraud, lying to a bank and campaign finance violations. The ...
Two Convictions That Shook Trump-World
August 22, 2018 16:00 - 41 minutes - 41.2 MBIn April, we published an investigation into Michael Cohen’s past. That episode traced how so many of Cohen’s associates over the years have been convicted of crimes, disbarred or faced other legal troubles. But — at the time of the episode — the president’s former lawyer had himself never been convicted, or even accused of a crime. Well, it’s time for an update. Cohen pleaded guilty Tuesday to eight felony counts, including tax fraud, lying to a bank and campaign finance violations. The ...
Manafort, Inc.
August 02, 2018 16:00 - 21 minutes - 22.3 MBPaul Manafort was Donald Trump’s campaign chairman for three critical months in 2016, leading up to the Republican Convention. But for a decade before that, he did political work in Ukraine. And it's the money Manafort made from that work that is now under the microscope in a Virginia courtroom. Manafort stands accused of tax fraud and bank fraud in the first case in the Mueller investigation to go to trial. Allegedly, Manafort set up secret offshore bank accounts, took in tens of millions o...
Manafort, Inc.
August 02, 2018 16:00 - 21 minutes - 19.3 MBPaul Manafort was Donald Trump’s campaign chairman for three critical months in 2016, leading up to the Republican Convention. But for a decade before that, he did political work in Ukraine, and it's the money Manafort made from that work that is now under the microscope in a Virginia courtroom. Manafort stands accused of tax fraud and bank fraud in the first case in the Mueller investigation to go to trial. Allegedly, Manafort set up secret offshore bank accounts, took in tens of millions ...
Government Employees Spend Your Money at Trump Hotels
June 28, 2018 16:00 - 24 minutes - 25.1 MBTracking the money that goes to the president from political campaigns and taxpayers.
Government Employees Spend Your Money at Trump Hotels
June 28, 2018 16:00 - 24 minutes - 22 MBShortly before President Trump took office, his lawyer promised Trump would forgo any profits his hotels made from foreign governments. There was no similar pledge for money earned from federal government employees, state officials, or anybody else who might be seeking to curry favor. And a lot of that money is coming from you, U.S. taxpayers. In this episode of Trump, Inc. we’re going deep on Trump’s hotel rooms and the people who are paying to stay in them. We will talk to three people tr...
Trump, Inc, Live: From ‘The Art of the Deal’ to the Dossier
May 18, 2018 16:00 - 35 minutes - 35.9 MBThe Trump, Inc. Team holds a live show in New York City to ponder Donald Trump’s business model from the 1980’s to today.
Trump, Inc, Live: From ‘The Art of the Deal’ to the Dossier
May 18, 2018 16:00 - 35 minutes - 32.8 MBA few days ago, we held a live taping of the Trump, Inc. podcast at The Greene Space in New York City. Tony Schwartz, the co-author with Donald Trump of The Art of The Deal, talked with Ilya Marritz from WNYC and Jesse Eisinger from ProPublica about what Schwartz does and does not recognize in President Trump now. Then, ProPublica’s Eric Umansky and WNYC’s Andrea Bernstein spoke with Mark Schoofs, the Investigations Editor at Buzzfeed. Schoofs explained why he was the first journalist to po...
The "King of Debt"? He Pays Cash.
May 11, 2018 16:00 - 17 minutes - 19.5 MBDonald Trump has proclaimed himself "the king of debt." So how come he paid all-cash for mansions, golf courses, and a winery?
The "King of Debt"? He Pays Cash.
May 11, 2018 16:00 - 17 minutes - 16.4 MBLast week, the Washington Post had an intriguing story: In the nine years before now-President Donald Trump announced his candidacy, his company paid $400 million in cash to buy a number of properties. Real estate companies doing deals usually borrow money for the same reason that many homeowners take out mortgages: Leveraging your money—especially when the cost of borrowing is low, as it has been for a decade—makes your money go farther. The fact that Trump, the self-styled “king of debt,...
The Hidden Hand of a Casino Company In Trump’s Contact with Vietnam
April 25, 2018 16:00 - 27 minutes - 28.2 MBTrump’s first call with the Vietnamese prime minister was arranged by Marc Kasowitz, a Trump personal lawyer who has another client with business interests in Vietnam.
The Hidden Hand of a Casino Company In Trump’s Contact with Vietnam
April 25, 2018 16:00 - 27 minutes - 25.2 MBOn Dec. 14, 2016, one month after his election, President-elect Donald Trump had a call with the prime minister of Vietnam. At a time when foreign governments were scrambling to contact Trump, the conversation was a victory for the Vietnamese. State television broadcast footage of the call, with the prime minister surrounded by other smiling officials. But inside the State Department, officials were puzzled and concerned. Historically, post-election calls to heads of state are carefully cho...
The Company Michael Cohen Kept
April 18, 2018 16:00 - 46 minutes - 45.2 MBLong before Donald Trump’s attorney paid Stormy Daniels or had his office raided by the FBI, a pattern was established: The associates of Michael Cohen often land in legal trouble.
The Company Michael Cohen Kept
April 18, 2018 16:00 - 45 minutes - 42.1 MBIf you’ve seen video or images of Michael Cohen, President Trump’s personal attorney, they’ve probably been set in locations that exude power and importance: Cohen berating a CNN anchor in a TV studio, for example, or striding across the sleek marbled interior of Trump Tower, or more recently, smoking cigars in front of Cohen’s temporary residence, the Loews Regency Hotel on Manhattan’s Park Avenue. But to understand how Michael Cohen arrived in those precincts, you need to venture across N...
Trump’s Company Is Suing Towns Across the Country to Get Breaks on Taxes
April 11, 2018 16:00 - 22 minutes - 23.7 MBWhy is Trump’s business arguing its properties are worth just a fraction of what Trump has claimed they are on his own financial disclosures? To save on taxes.
Trump’s Company Is Suing Towns Across the Country to Get Breaks on Taxes
April 11, 2018 16:00 - 22 minutes - 20.7 MBPresident Trump is famous for bragging about his net worth. Publicly, he claims he’s worth more than $10 billion. He even sued an author over the issue and lobbied the editors of Forbes about his ranking on their billionaires list. Yet quietly in another setting, the Trump Organization says the president’s holdings are worth far less than he has proclaimed. Across the country, the company is suing local governments, claiming it owes much less in property taxes than government assessors say...
Trump, the Ex-Lobbyist and 'Chemically Castrated' Frogs
April 04, 2018 16:00 - 19 minutes - 19.1 MBThis week, we’re doing a couple of things differently on Trump, Inc. Instead of focusing on President Trump’s businesses, we’re looking more broadly at business interests in the Trump administration. We’re also giving you, our listeners, homework. Last month, ProPublica published the first comprehensive and searchable database of Trump’s 2,685 political appointees, along with their federal lobbying and financial records. It’s the result of a year spent filing Freedom of Information Act req...
Trump, the Ex-Lobbyist and 'Chemically Castrated' Frogs
April 04, 2018 16:00 - 19 minutes - 18.1 MBThis week, we’re doing a couple of things differently on Trump, Inc. Instead of focusing on President Trump’s businesses, we’re looking more broadly at business interests in the Trump administration. We’re also giving you, our listeners, homework. Last month, ProPublica published the first comprehensive and searchable database of Trump’s 2,685 political appointees, along with their federal lobbying and financial records. It’s the result of a year spent filing Freedom of Information Act req...
The Many Red Flags of Trump’s Partners in India
March 28, 2018 16:00 - 29 minutes - 28.2 MBThe Trump Organization has five active projects in India, a country where corruption is common in the real estate industry.
The Many Red Flags of Trump’s Partners in India
March 28, 2018 16:00 - 29 minutes - 27.2 MBPresident Donald Trump does not like the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. “It’s a horrible law,” Trump has said. The FCPA makes it a crime for U.S. companies to bribe foreign officials, or to partner with others who are clearly doing so. Trump has argued that the law puts U.S. firms at a disadvantage. “It’s things like this that cause us to not be able to lead the world,” Trump said on CNBC in 2012. “For this country to prosecute because something took place in India is outrageous.” Corrupti...
Former Indian Official: Donald Trump Jr. Pushed 'Blatantly Illegal' Project
March 21, 2018 16:00 - 30 minutes - 27.5 MBLast month, Donald Trump Jr. visited India to tout new Trump properties. Full page ads in India’s top papers announced, “Trump has arrived. Have you?” It wasn’t Trump Jr.’s first trip to India. "I've been coming to India for over a decade,” he said during the visit. “There’s an entrepreneurial spirit here...it needs no further explanation.” This week on Trump Inc., we’re looking at the Trumps’ years-long work in India, where corruption in the real estate industry is endemic. We worked wit...
Former Indian Official: Donald Trump Jr. Pushed 'Blatantly Illegal' Project
March 21, 2018 16:00 - 30 minutes - 28.5 MBA Trump project in Mumbai had its permits revoked after investigators found “significant irregularities.” Then Trump Jr. traveled to India to get the decision overruled.
Where’d Trump’s Record Inauguration Spending Go? 'It’s Inexplicable'
March 14, 2018 16:00 - 24 minutes - 22.5 MBLast month, the committee that ran President Donald Trump’s inaugural festivities released basic details about its revenues and spending. Trump raised $107 million, almost twice the previous record, and spent $104 million. The committee’s tax filing showed that $26 million of the spending went to an event planning firm started in December by a friend of the First Lady. It’s not clear how the firm spent that money, or how most of the money raised for the inauguration was used. The tax filing...
Where’d Trump’s Record Inauguration Spending Go? 'It’s Inexplicable'
March 14, 2018 16:00 - 24 minutes - 23.4 MBLast month, the committee that ran President Donald Trump’s inaugural festivities released basic details about its revenues and spending. Trump raised $107 million, almost twice the previous record, and spent $104 million. The committee’s tax filing showed that $26 million of the spending went to an event planning firm started in December by a friend of the First Lady. It’s not clear how the firm spent that money, or how most of the money raised for the inauguration was used. The tax filing...
Son-in-Law Inc: The (Other) Secretive Real Estate Scion in the White House
March 07, 2018 17:00 - 22 minutes - 20.9 MBWe’ve seen headline after head-spinning headline about Jared Kushner, son-in-law of President Donald Trump. We’ve heard that his company has been on a global search for cash, that it got giant loans from two big financial institutions after Kushner met with officials from those companies at the White House, and that countries believed they could manipulate Kushner through his “complex” business arrangements. Like his father-in-law, Kushner has not fully divested from his family’s business, ...
Son-in-Law Inc: The (Other) Secretive Real Estate Scion in the White House
March 07, 2018 17:00 - 22 minutes - 21.9 MBWe’ve seen headline after head-spinning headline about Jared Kushner, son-in-law of President Donald Trump. We’ve heard that his company has been on a global search for cash, that it got giant loans from two big financial institutions after Kushner met with officials from those companies at the White House, and that countries believed they could manipulate Kushner through his “complex” business arrangements. Like his father-in-law, Kushner has not fully divested from his family’s business, ...
Trump Org Ordered Golf Markers With the Presidential Seal. That May Be Illegal.
March 05, 2018 17:00 - 8 minutes - 7.6 MBDonald Trump loves putting his name on everything from ties to steaks to water — and, of course, his buildings. But now the Trump Organization appears to be borrowing a brand even more powerful than the gilded Trump moniker: the presidential seal. In recent weeks, the Trump Organization has ordered the manufacture of new tee markers for golf courses that are emblazoned with the seal of the President of the United States. Under federal law, the seal’s use is permitted only for official gover...
Trump Org Ordered Golf Markers With the Presidential Seal. That May Be Illegal.
March 05, 2018 17:00 - 8 minutes - 8.55 MBThe president’s company placed an order to manufacture replicas of the Presidential Seal, raising new ethics questions.
The Mysterious Loan Trump Made to Himself and More
February 28, 2018 17:00 - 24 minutes - 23.7 MBDavid Fahrenthold with the Washington Post answers your questions — and then asks one himself.
The Mysterious Loan Trump Made to Himself and More
February 28, 2018 17:00 - 24 minutes - 22.7 MBListeners have been sending us lots of questions about President Trump and his businesses. So we sat down with one of the best in the business to answer them. The Washington Post’s David Fahrenthold has been digging into Trump for nearly two years. And he’s involved readers from the get-go. Among the questions Fahrenthold takes on: How much money has the government spent on Trump properties? How much does it cost taxpayers and does Trump profit when he visits Mar-a-Lago? And who is Trump li...
Trump, Russia and 'Alternative Financing'
February 21, 2018 17:00 - 24 minutes - 22.7 MBAfter Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russians for an intensive, elaborate effort to interfere with the 2016 elections, President Trump reacted as he has before — with bluster and bellicosity, at everyone but Russia. This week on Trump Inc., we’re exploring the president’s, persistent weirdness around Russia: Why has Trump been so quiet about Russia and its interference? Glenn Simpson has a theory—that one cannot understand the Russian collusion scandal without understanding Tru...
Trump, Russia and 'Alternative Financing'
February 21, 2018 17:00 - 24 minutes - 23.7 MBAfter Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russians for an intensive, elaborate effort to interfere with the 2016 elections, President Trump reacted as he has before — with bluster and bellicosity, at everyone but Russia. This week on Trump Inc., we’re exploring the president’s, persistent weirdness around Russia: Why has Trump been so quiet about Russia and its interference? Glenn Simpson has a theory—that one cannot understand the Russian collusion scandal without understanding Tru...
Money Laundering and the Trump Taj Mahal
February 14, 2018 17:00 - 25 minutes - 24.4 MBThe casino’s money laundering controls were so lacking, regulators found, it amounted to “willful" violations of the law.
Money Laundering and the Trump Taj Mahal
February 14, 2018 17:00 - 25 minutes - 23.4 MBJust months before Donald Trump announced his bid for president in 2015, federal regulators announced they were slapping one of his longtime Atlantic City casinos with a record-setting $10 million fine for lack of controls around money laundering. The problems went back years. The penalty was actually the second record-setting fine for the Trump Taj Mahal involving money-laundering oversight. What exactly did the Taj fail to do? Casino officials admitted to “willful and repeated” violation...
Open For Business
February 13, 2018 17:00 - 14 minutes - 13.6 MBLast year, Trump's attorney Sheri Dillon made a promise to the country: The Trump Organization would donate all the profits its hotels collected from foreign governments to the U.S. Treasury. But what she didn't mention was what the president would do with the profits from his commercial tenants. According to Dan Alexander and Matt Drange in Forbes Magazine, that's where the real money is. The two investigative reporters dug through financial documents, real estate websites and even measure...
Open For Business
February 13, 2018 17:00 - 14 minutes - 14.5 MBForbes investigative reporter Dan Alexander found the president's company is collecting at least $175 million in commercial rents. And Trump doesn't have to tell us who's paying.
Trump's 'No Conflict Situation'
February 07, 2018 05:00 - 24 minutes - 23.7 MBAs president, he says he can’t have a conflict of interest with his businesses. But that interpretation turns the ethics laws on their head.
Trump's 'No Conflict Situation'
February 07, 2018 05:00 - 24 minutes - 22.7 MBA couple of months ago, a few of us from ProPublica and WNYC sat together in a conference room and started scribbling on a whiteboard. We were brainstorming all the possible paths to explore around President Trump and his family businesses. It looked like Carrie Mathison’s wall from Homeland. There’s so much that’s still unknown: We don’t know if the president is taking money from his businesses, or what deals are happening, or who his business partners are, who’s providing the financing. I...