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Tom, it's great to have you here, back at Bloomberg, so good to be with you.
It's back to the future a bit. Tom.
It's worth reminding everybody a little bit about your relationship with the president elect. Joe just told us, and he's absolutely right, of course, that you were chairman of the inauguration back in twenty sixteen. You were, of course then President Trump's biggest fundraiser at the time. You and he go back more than forty years. It gives you unique insights into the man and more importantly, what Trump two
point zero is going to be like. One of the things that people want to know most is how Trump two point.
Zero is going to be different from Trump one point Oh. Tell us, so, first.
Of all, the insight into the man going back forty years his I've learned one thing, trust his instincts. And I think what the country now has decided is that all the rhetoric, all the confusion, all the drama around how it may be presented, this is not only one of the greatest political athletes that we've ever seen. He's just one of the greatest athletes. But the question I
think on what two point zero is. It's going to be hopeful, phenomenal and much better I think than even the other side, in fear of what might be coming.
Will accept.
Why because think about in twenty sixteen we were together, we were having this conversation. You have a man who's one of the best builder, developers, financiers in the world, a reality talk show host for thirteen years on The Apprentice, zero political experience zero washingtonsters. Right in those if you had to go out of the two one two area code in those days, it was a flurry.
Comes to Washington.
Putting a team together, right, We all thought we were putting the best team together. You had to find resources to do with people were apprehensive of doing it, and just finding your way around DC was not.
So is the point that he's no longer a rookie in the job and he knows what he's doing.
Well. Not only is he not a rookie, he did a great job. And if you think of what happened, were right. We went from a Muslim band to no isis. We go to a great economy and the world. We have no problems with Mexico at the time, immigration is under control, healthcare security, housing, all of those things seemed to be better four years then of being attacked physically, legally, socially,
and reflecting on all of the other things. So in that reflection of four years got him ready to say, if I had the opportunity in the Stewarts to have another four years and really create my legacy, I now know how to do it, and I know what the people are that I need, and I know the wiring of the plumbing and the system.
So let's talk for a moment about the instincts. So few of the President elect's nominees for cabinet positions, not all, of course, but so few, I would say, have the resume traditionally needed to achieve high office.
Why Tom, help us understand?
Why is he choosing people with such limited experience and limited on a relative basis qualifications.
I don't know that's limited qualifications, right, qualifications.
On a relative basis. If you look at the resumes of the people who got those jobs in the last administration, in the first Trump administration and administrations going back decades, they were quote unquote more qualified.
Well more qualified of being in the system. But the America people just said to Donald Trump, is we believe you, We understand you. We we are not supporting the system. It's not working for us. It's not working in housing, it's not working in medicare, it's not working with our children. We can't say God in school. We don't want our boys to become girls or girls to become boys. That's
out of the system. So I disagree the qualification for the system, for the bureaucracy right when we're talking about the deep state or the establishment, and the establishment is not bad, right, These people are not bad. It's it's not corrupt, it's corroded. So to come in with a new frame of mind, with a new set of people who have integrity, have commitment, have dedication, who understand a different program is.
What you need to move the cheese you need. You need to break the system. You need to move that. You need to break the system.
Absolutely, I mean, and you're saying that, it's it's it's important to hear you say that because you're not I know this. We've known each other long enough.
You're not a burn it.
Down kind of a guy. Absolutely, you've found ways to succeed inside the system. Trump in many ways has success in spite of the system. And now he kind of wants to burn it down. Is burning it down in principle, is the risks that you take in burning it down, the risks that you take with the rule of law, the risks that you take with civil rights, the risks that you take with military competence, the risks that you
take with financial markets. Are they worth it? Are they worth the prize that potentially is there at the end of the day when you've burnt it down.
Absolutely, And he's not burning it down. And the price is freedom in America, right, I mean, that's what we're looking for, is the American dream to be reinstated. So if you look at how what he's doing, it's analog to digital right. We have a federal government that is not corrupt. These the Justice Department itself, we all talk about. That is kind of the mainstay of the focus of
these atrocities that have happened. Steve Bannon in jail twenty seven of his associates indict what they've done to him time in and time out. In my opinion, is not because Merrick Garland is correct, or least a Monaco is corrupt, or the civil servants, the ninety four US attorneys.
That are there.
They're not corrupt, they're corroded. The system doesn't work. You have to change the system. And the only way you can change the system is from the bottom and from the top.
And yes, he's going to do it.
His appointments absolutely understand the program. Congress now is on side. But by the way, Congress is not so easy. Right, if you're a sinner in Congress, you don't want your fiefdoms to be totally taken away from you with someone else's decision. So his artfulness in dealing with Congress will be better. But these people are first class choices at Tulsa. Gabber, Bobby Kennedy, just.
Now, you make it sound so reasonable. But even some Republicans look at a nomination of a Matt Gates say themselves, WTF what is Trump doing? Is that a serious nomination or is that sort of a joke or perhaps a maneuver of some sort.
Obviously I can't speak for the president. I can tell you it's not a joke.
So what is he doing.
He's disintermediating everything we've lived in ten years of disintermediation of everything that we've not used. Right, every company that was was triple A ten years ago is almost non existent today. So it's the same thing a Matt Gates, his pick of a Matt Gates going into something like the Justice Department. Right when you think of the thousands of GS twelve's, GS eleven's, GS ten's lawyers, FBI agents has to have some chilling effect, his qualification, hilling effect. Well,
he's not there yet. His qualifications will be vetted by the Senate. Do you want somebody out of the system that's been a critique of the system when the people in America are saying the system's not working for us. None of it is working for us. So put somebody in who agrees the system isn't working. He can't move it individually.
Surely Matt Gates is not the only person who thinks the system isn't working. There are a lot of people to choose from.
Yes, there are. And Matt was a loyalist.
He took on heavy duty fire in the midst of a lot of controversial things.
And the president knows what he's doing. I think we should just.
Give him a chance trust his instincts. This man has been thinking about all of this for four years. He had four years of unbelievable experience. He's going to do the right thing for all of us, and it's not retribution, it's not devisiveness. In his mind, his legacy is the most important thing to him at the time. Promises made, promises kept along that.
Road, Promises made, promises. Capt Tom, I think back to a conversation that you and I had in twenty twenty one, and it was, for very unpleasant reasons for you, an untimely conversation, but it was timely in the sense that it gave you a chance to reflect on where you'd been with the president in his first term. And one thing you told me is that you didn't want to
be part of a campaign built on divisiveness. If the president wanted to take a President Trump wanted to take a second run at the White House, This was a campaign built on divisivests.
How did you get over that?
Well, the reason that I entered into it is I had been a subject of a nine count indictment by the Eastern District.
Although you didn't know it at the time. You didn't know that was coming when we spoke.
It was just.
Before but I wasn't involved in the campaign at that time, so I had done my service for him, for the country.
I was honored.
I couldn't believe that, you know, a Lebanese financial lawyer like myself could ever work for the president of the United States. And then and then it starts, and I look at that experience of saying, fine, if you fly at forty thousand feet, it's not I'm being targeted. But I'm not being targeted out of corruption. I'm being targeted because the political will of the other side is saying, ah, we need, we need to mobilize our political agenda.
Now.
Fortunately I had the resources to be capable of mounting a defense. So what my whole experience was is the system works, right, the system works. I had a one and a half year experience. I had a two month trial, this judge and the jury and one day a full acquittal. The average person doesn't do that. So in the Justice Department. And I'm getting to why Trump Trump, Trump has gone through this since Spain. Nobody knows what it does.
To your life.
This man can suffer absorb more pain than any human being I have ever seen what it does to lives. What's under the lives of all the people around Rogerston and Paul Manafort, Steve Bannon, They've all been attacked. So for me coming back and saying I was honored to be a part of it. I went through this system, and I admire the system, and I don't have anger revenge even that the people who brought those charges against me, I understand what they're doing.
But it's got to be fixed. It has to end.
It has to end, not prosecuting Democrats, not prosecuting the existing prosecutors, not prosecuting the political people who were there before.
We have to say a time out. This isn't Venezuela. We need a new system.
Okay, yes or no, That's all I'm going to ask. Should Donald Trump, is one of his first access president, pardon anybody who might otherwise be prosecuted for the same reasons on the democratic side.
That's up to the president.
It's yesterday, it's way outside of it, all right.
Tom, It's been wonderful.
Having you here. Thank you so very much. Great to see you.
Tom Barrick, the founder of Colony Capital,