Rick Wilson Discusses the Business of Politics (Podcast)

to the Department of Defense under Dick Cheney. He created a number of award winning ads for Rudolph Giuliani in the seven mayoral election, also campaign for Giuliani for the two thousand Senate seat. And he is the author of Everything Trump Touches Dies. A Republican strategist gets Real about the worst President ever. Rick Wilson, Welcome to Bloomberg. Well, thank you, very appreciate that I've been looking forward to this. But I gotta ask you, what's your beef with Trump?

He's making America great again. Well, that's a great catchphrase, Berry, but it's also at variance with a lot of the things that that I, as a conservative believe in. Okay, give us some example, limiting the size of government, engaging in a in a trade war that is ultimately going to end, as all trade wars do, with a complete economic and political disaster. But look, Donald Trump isn't a

conservative in the traditional way. He's more of a status more of an authoritarian, and it's definitely some stuff that I have a lot of issues with as a conservative. There's nothing that Donald Trump's character has ever indicated that he, you know, has any of the traits of moral probity,

or personal responsibility, or accountability or integrity. And so there were a lot of these reasons that I thought that Trump would be a damaging force in the country, not only for conservatism, but for our economy and for our system of government. And I've been I've been proven pretty consistently right on this over the last two years. I have to admit I was pretty shocked. I'm a lifelow in New Yorker. Everybody in New York kind of knows

what Trump's gig is. It's no big surprise. We all either know someone who's worked with him, or been involved with one of his properties, or been sued by him. And um, I was shocked at how easily the right wing just what his line when it was clearly nonsense, you know, at least about being a conservative, a fiscal conservative, etcetera, exactly,

you know. And and my New York experience started in ninety working for Rudy in the first in the re election campaign, and then I was here in City Hall for about a year working as this advisor and then on the campaign against Hillary. So I got enough of a taste of New York at that point to get so where people read Donald Trump and how they scanned him, And it was always like, yeah, the guy's kind of whatever, but you know, we'll throw m some parking passes once

in a while. But and his ascent politically from people here and other folks that have done business with him and that I've known in Florida and elsewhere, they were always stunned. How is how is anyone buying this con How does anyone believe this guy? This bs is. Everybody knows he's bankrupt constantly, every multiple everybody knows that this guy is in debt up to his eyeballs. That this is all a character he's playing on TV and not

the real guy. You know, all this idea that Trump is one of the wealthiest men in the world, and he's a amazing businessman, a masterful negotiator, all these things. It's all bs, It's all crap. And they all knew it, and and and why jump on the Trump train? And was it just raw attraction to power? And not a lot more than that. Trump identified something in the Republican

base that they really wanted. They wanted someone who was so transgressive, who was going to blow up everything, because there's a huge sense of inferiority in the Republican base there. They really dislike the fact that the educated elites and the Ivy League people quote unquote looked down on them. So and that's been stoked over the years by Fox and by the right wing talk radio circuit. And so those folks got this sense that Donald Trump was going to be, uh this, as I said, a transgressive and

destructive force for the establishment, which they hate. They hate the establishment Republicans more than they hate Democrats. They have a greater anxiety about about their own party's internal quote unquote elites than they do about the Democrats. And so Trump activated that very brilliantly, and the and the Republican elected officials who followed along in his wake did it for two reasons. The first reason, Man and I would say about you know, in the house, there used to

be a lot fewer today. A lot of those guys were just afraid of him. They're afraid of the Twitter feed, They're afraid of his followers, they're afraid of the crazy train. They're afraid of They're afraid of the people that Trump inspires. You write about that in everything Trump touches dies that there is a genuine fear amongst rank and file Republicans that if this guy comes after me on Twitter, my life is over. And they have a political fear that

they'll be primaried by some nutcase. They have to their own rights, to their own to their own right or or to the Trump zone. From the Trump zone, they have a state run media. There is a there is a deep sense that a lot of the followers of Trump are the guys that are gonna come to your town hall meeting and lose their minds with you. And I tell a story in the book of a guy who went to one of the first town hall meetings and he was asked, are you going to support president

percent of the time? And he says, well, I want to. I'm a Republican. I hope we can agree on a lot of things, but you know, I'm gonna stand taking a blind I'm going to stand up for my district first. It's like, no, no, are you going to support Mr Trump? One of the time and he says no, moves on next question. By the time he gets off stage, his Facebook page is filled up with death threats, his wife's

business Facebook page is filled up with death threats. His Twitter feed is a mess, his kids school is getting phone calls the next day. And it's because appropriate. Yeah, it seems it seems like a normal political course, right, Um, But it comes down to this point where the vast majority of the members of the caucus are just afraid. They're afraid of what Trump's gonna say or do. Um. There's a handful of them who are true believers. There are a few of these guys who really have all

the kool aide. Example, well, Devin is a perfect example. Data rohbockers perfect well, you know, and we should discuss his his district said, you're not putting your district first. Lust him out, and that is something that you know, that is something that we saw in this in this election.

Let's talk a little bit about the GOP. And there were so many questions that I had as as I was reading the book, the first of which was, what was the response from your fellow Republicans when you pretty much declared, Hey, this guy is not a Republican, he's an impostor, and he will destroy the party if you make him your nominee. That had to be some pretty fierce pushback in the beginning, not at all. Really, in the beginning, it was absolutely right, we're all in this together.

And one by one they fell to the conformity of d C, which is a corporate town, and a lot of them were dependent on work from the RNC or the NRCC, or the Senate Committee or the Governor's Association. And so they slowly, you know, shut their mouths, sat down, made their peace with the Trump world. And look, I had had a very successful career. I've done superPAC work for the last ten years. I've done campaigns in thirty

eight states. I've been to the rodeo. I wasn't really, you know, subject to a lot of the same motivations that they were of, you know, keeping the keeping the mortgage payments up on their five million dollar homes in Georgetown, Right, So I had a slightly different take on some of that. But it's also that that I've never tried to be

one of the d C guys. Yeah, they were all centrist Republicans and compassion to conservatives when George Bush was president, and the minute the tea party one, they were all hair on fire libertarians. We were going to burn down the government drowned in the bathtub, and and we were gonna We're gonna adhere to the Constitution strictly. That that sort of ethical um flexibility. Yeah, I mean, is it that blatant? Is it? In d C? It's not even

just that obvious. Part of the trick for a lot of these people was they basically had to hire Trump people to make good with the Trump family on the Trump Organization. A lot of these people in d C who hated Donald Trump with the fire of a million

sons to keep their RNC contracts. Suddenly they were hiring all these you know, cats and dogs that wandered in from the Trump world who couldn't have gotten a job at a burger king otherwise, and pretending that this was that that they had always been Trump, they had always been all about MAGA. So when did the push back to you start in earnest? When did you really start to have uh the GOP rank and file turn on you.

While on the front end, a lot of them have said had to say publicly, well, are not working with wreck anymore. Um, A lot of them still talk to me, and I have taken on this weird role as like a father confessor to some of these Republicans for the last two years. They'll call me up and say, I hate him. I hate him so much, I can't stand

this case destroying the country. And the next day they're sitting around the cabinet off the cabinet room table, or they're wearing a red hat at a rally because they're just afraid. So they won't even vote against them. No, no, they they're the fear defines them, and this desire to please his base defines them these days. And so look, once he got the nomination, I was definitely out of the out of the family pic necklist for a while.

But I have spent the last two years speaking freely and and and making a critique of Trump from the right, and honestly, I'm liberated. You don't have a specially kind things to say about Ryan's in the book. I don't because he had every opportunity to pull this pull the

circuit breakers on Trump. Yeah, why didn't he? I I think in many ways he feared that Donald Trump would leave the party quote unquote, go to the Democrat and run as an independent, and therefore would tap off a small but meaningful percentage in enough states that Hillary would be insure to win. That was That was what one of his advisers, you know, said to me at the time, And I said, is at an unreasonable position, it seems

fairly logical. Well, the thing about it is Donald Trump at that point would not be able to raise money from the Republican sucker base who loved him. He would have had to actually spend his own money for real, and we know he didn't want to do that. He never does. He doesn't have any money to spend. So my pet thesis about Trump this whole time has been was a phenomenal branding opportunity for him. He ran, he raised his profile. Everything he did financially after that was

a big win for him. I looked at is he has no interest in winning. He just wants to take all the free publicity, and of course and and the people inside Trump's campaign for the last month of the campaign. Oh, I can't wait till this is over. We're gonna go have a big steak dinner. I gotta tell you the crazy stories about this idiot. And on election night, Steve Bannon, rants previous, Kelly and Conway, all the senior Trump staffers are calling every reporter in the country saying it's his fault,

it's her fault, it's their fault. They were already they were all this is. At at four forty five, I got a phone call from from a major national reporter who just said I just got off the phone with one of the president's senior strategists who is today in the White House. And this person told me, oh, Bannon's an idiot and writes, blew this up. And they're just morons in the family or a bunch of greedy, you know, mafia people. This is a cry, this is this is horrifying.

And an hour and a half later, this person is on the stage age waving and smiling. Because the night came out differently, they had no anticipation of winning at all. You could tell from the lack of lists of senior cabinet people, ambassadors. There's still hundreds of unfilled slots. It's two years later. Take a look at the tax cuts. There's no rhyme, Maria. That was a Paul Ryan joint. That wasn't a Donald Trump joint. He just cares about the victory, is how I read it, and not the

policy DTA. He cares about the celebrity, yes, and that that's always been what motivates Trump. A friend of his former friend, current friend, I'm not sure you describe it said any one time. Whatever makes him money, whatever puts him on the in the papers that day. That's Donald Trump's entire world. Fame, money, and love. Those are the three most I wouldn't say love. Yeah, I'm trying to put a nice spin on it. So let's talk about what the Democrats should be learning from this election cycle.

What should they have done differently in sixteen, and what should they be doing differently. Well, I think what they learned this here, to their credit, and it's taken a long road for them to get there, is to try to nominate people for Congress who fit the district. For years though they had this very top down approach where no matter who you were where you were running. You had to be the same Democrat that would be acceptable

in Manhattan or Democrats right. You had to be completely pro choice, you had to be completely anti gun, you had to be completely high taxes, purity tests, all the ideological monoculture that Republicans like me used to defeat Democrats all over the country. What they learned is, yeah, you can you can. You can name an Occasio Cortez in the Bronx, but you gotta name a Connor Lamb in Pennsylvania,

in western Pennsylvania, in rural areas. The Democrats finally seemed to have started to learn that a little bit this year, and some of their more progressive candidates like Andrew Gilham in Florida, who you know, for all that people were very enamored of Andrew Gillham, he was very far to the left of where Florida is still came within one percent. Pretty shock. It was a very impressive campaign. He's an

impressive candidate. So a lot of the more progressive guys who felt like they still had to check all those boxes fell short. And the fact that thirty one candidates that Donald Trump endorsed for the House of Them lost that's amazing. Yeah, there's a pretty thorough repudiation the Trump. The Trump hit on House campaigns is something that we'll have a longer political runout than the fact that they won some Senate races and states that were the Democrats

were disproportionately holding those seats. I mean Claire mccaskell in Missouri, that is the state that has trended redder and redder. Indiana deeper and deeper red all the time. And so you know, we're shocked that people that the Republicans won in North Dakota, Trump won the state by thirty two points. So let's talk about some of the changes from the prior election. Uh, and you have to really begin with

white college educated suburban women. How significant was that group for Democrats losing the White House in and how important was it to this midtime of left about voted for Donald Trump. Isn't that a kind of a shock, but more than mid Romney. But right away, right away they realized there was an almost immediate oops oops factor and the tone and and things like Charlottesville and the immigration putting up, putting kids in cages not a good look

for suburban educated women. They're not really keen on it. So what you ended up with was they sort of got a separation in the fall of in the winter, and last night the divorce was final. They walked away from the Republican Party and enormous numbers we're starting to peel through the exit polls. But if you look in places like Pennsylvania, the Democrats picked up four congressional seats there, almost all of them in suburban areas where educated white

women are the driving political force. So here's the longtime question. Did they walk away from Republicans? Did they walk away from Trump? Is there a difference anymore? Well, I imagine there is. So I'm i'm I get grief from friends when I say I grew up a Jacob Javits Republican, which is pretty middle of the road, balanced budget, low taxes, no overseas adventures like Vietnam or subsequently Iraq, and keep the government the hell out of the bedroom. Fairly moderate

Republican with the best part of the libertarian side. I haven't changed. It's just that the hard right part of the party has taken over and really driven things. Uh see, there's a there's a real desire that we sort of pretended wasn't there for a long time, not for limited government and you know, the rule of law and low taxes and constitutional adherents. There's been an appetite for a sort of authoritarianism and a strongman, the bully character that's been fed for a long time by the sort of

talk radio culture. And so we've ended up with, you know what people wanted. They want the id of the Republican Party, not the super ego. Quite interesting. What keeps coming up all the time is that the country is so divided, and part of me feels well, Congress is divided, but there are so many things that Americans seem to agree with. It almost feels like more and more of us are living in purple states than deeper red and

deeper blue. And while there's certainly exceptions to New York and California, Indiana and and um, I was gonna say Kansas, but I guess I can't say Kansas anymore? How accurate is that media depiction? Are we a nation divided? Or or are there more things that unite us than divide us? When it comes to the politics. The siloing off of Americans has divided us profoundly. And what's the cause of that.

The first his politics has become a reality television show that we're all living in and people every day are fed by the channels they like, by the news sources they like, and the Internet has allowed people to silo themselves off into social groups. Look, we've become a disintermediate society. We don't do the things we used to do as people, and we don't we don't have the same sort of churches, social clubs, bowling leagues, baseball teams, all these things people

used to do together. What's more important to them now is their Facebook group, and they interact more with people through social media, uh than they did before. And so part of that whole social media problem is that people want to portray this optimized image of themselves and to and to get attention in that attention economy of social media, and so they become flaming partisans, they become something visible inside their social group. And so so that's that's number one.

That's a that's a huge um. So we clearly have a divide set up by media. Let's talk about some of the other more interesting issues of the modern electoral campaign. The polling was under significant criticism in how they do in a little better in some places, but we are still at a point where we chase these polling stories that are built on statistical models that don't reflect what the turnout model is going to look like, and which has to do with what is it enthusiasm or just

not being able to reach people, it's not. It's a lot of There are a lot of mechanical and technical problems in pulling. Now you used to have to make a couple of thousand phone calls to get a decent sample, and now you have to make ten thousand phone calls to make get a decent sample. People don't answer their cell phones from strange numbers that they don't because you just assume it's it's it's spam, it's it's you know, healthcare enrollment is open. Everybody's gotten those calls, a million

of them. Landline phones are going to sickly old people plus or you know you're the chance of you owning a landline phone now it means you are sixty or older. So there are a lot of technical difficulties in pulling. We also are seeing some better analytics coming out using big data, using a lot of the things. I mean, look, it used to be you would take a random digit dial and you'd call you six hundred people and you'd

ask them pulling questions. Well, then you started making that dial list off of the voter file, so you're really talking to the people that are actually gonna be there. Then you started modeling that and saying, Okay, well, this guy's record since he's voted in to the last three primaries, so we're gonna definitely talk to him. He's a likely.

And now we've got consumer data, we've got clicked data from the internet, we've got you know, your we've got the ability to say, Okay, this guy reads Bloomberg every day, and he reads um the Wall Street Journal every day, and he looks at drugs three times a day, so we know he's an engaged person. Maybe the tax issues that when we want to talk to him about while asking this question. So there's a lot of stuff that's

giving us an enriched picture of who the voters are. Um, but the guys I work with my posters, you know, I was saying that people were gonna get thirty five Democratic seats and two to three Republican pickups in that in the Senate. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. We were pretty happy with that. I mean, we didn't feel like we missed a lot of big calls. And I've been you know, as as a as a Purple State guy,

as a guy who still lives in Florida. You know, I told people for weeks it's going to be razor Yeah, it's it's it's votes a state of twenty million people. Let's let's talk about Florida. Because what I haven't seen a lot of people discussing has been the proposition that passed. Namely, if you're a felon um and I think it's non violent, it's non violent, non violent felon throughout most of America, you go to jail and you lose the right to vote.

It's very much a disenfranchising um situation that falls into proportionately on Peter. Now, there's something like a million, three or one point four million felons in Florida who now will have the right to vote. What does that do to the state's dynamics. Well, it's interesting. Look, I don't think every single one of those people is going to become a likely voter. Okay, I don't think every single

one of those people is necessarily gonna be a democratic voter. However, I strongly supported this because I believe that you know our justice system, once your sentence is served, you've paid the debt, you danger debt to society and you and you get to move on. So I really think that in that with that particular amendment, it spoke to a fundamental sense of justice. It also spoke to something that in Florida, we are one of the most punitive states

in the country on the criminal justice side. We put a lot of young black guys in jail, and we put a lot of them in jail for one point oh one ounces of marijuana. Yeah, I mean this is this. We we put a lot of them in jail in the nineties during the hyper enforcement of the crack epidemic. And I was part of the original right on crime movement, where as conservatives, we we wanted to look at criminal justice in this country and was this an application of

state power that was disproportionate, particularly to African American man. Sure, and it is it's unarguable that that is the case. And as a conservative, I don't want the state to have this punitive thing hanging over these these guys heads for their their entire lifespan. So I got an email last night from a guy who not an African American, guy who had had a low level, white collar thing. He goes, I'm going to get to vote for the

first time in twenty two years. And this is a guy who has been who went to jail for two years and absolutely turned his life around in every conceivable way, the straightest arrow in the universe. And I was like, that's where this thing comes in. You know, at some point are we going to punish people forever and ever? And look, it is vastly disproportionate with African American men. I don't know what the what the overall percentage is going to be of that one point for but I'm

going to tell you it's probably close to six. So let's talk a little bit about voter suppression. There were all sorts of questions about vote suppression. I had no idea it was so prevalent in Texas. I read a big article I it was in the Atlantic. But we have to talk about Georgia. What what took place in Georgia? Uh, somebody tweeted if this was a foreign country, the U s would be found political from the Atlantic. Yeah, I

will say this. The things that we're coming out of Georgia on election night shocked me and and Brian Kemp's you know, self interest in the case of I'm going to run an enforcement operation to make sure to make sure that I win this race. That does strike me as as a little smell of the third world around. So so is this a viable issue for the Democrats to raise broadly, that we should expand voting rights to everything. They can raise it, They can raise it, but it's

not a cutting political issue. It's a boutique issue. And what I would do if they were the Democrats is make sure that we were they were litigating the hell out of it, which they they need to um and I would if I were, if I were the Democrats in in a lot of these states, I would make sure that that they do more voter training and education so that people know their rights. I mean people being told up, sorry, pulls are closed, now you're standing in line.

The courts have said time and time and time again that once you're at a polling place and you're in line, you get to vote. Easy lift. But a lot of people don't know that Republicans have been very good at educating their voters to get out early, to vote, absentee to vote, to do early voting. Democrats need do the same thing because it's harder to do it. It's harder to spread out a suppression effort over a week or two weeks of early voting than it is to do

shenanigans on election day. We have been speaking with Rick Wilson. He is the author of the New York Times best selling book Everything Trump Touches Dies. If you enjoy this conversation, be sure and check out the podcast extras when we keep the tape rolling and continue discussing all things electoral related. You can find that wherever you're finding. Podcasts are sold iTunes,

over cast, Stitcher, or Bloomberg dot com. We love your comments, feedback and suggestions right to us at m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net. You can check out my daily column on Bloomberg dot com slash Opinion. Follow me on Twitter at Ridolts. I'm Barry Ridhults. You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. Welcome to the podcast, Rick, Thank you so much for doing this. I have to tell you, I'm like two thirds of the way through the book and it's really hilarious. You have not only

a wonderful writing style, but a vicious wit. I'm glad I never ran a campaign on the other side of you, because, uh, you seem to have the ability to pull out the um dagger and not only sticking in but twist it. Let's talk about some of the things that you mentioned in the book look that I find absolutely fascinating. And I have to begin with the Tale of Congratulations. What to expect when you're gonna work in the Trump White House?

A tail in five pieces. It's ironic, But everything I read in that list, you can name a dozen people must have gone through that. It's pretty brutal. Um. What is it about Trump that just basically uses people and throws them away? And yet there's still a line of people willing to get fed into the more of the machine. Well, I'm gonna disagree with you on the last part, but I'll look back to that. Trump is a bad manager, he's a bad leader, he's a bad person, and he's

a bad president. How do you really feel I don't know, you know, I gotta get to a little bit right. But the folks that go to work for this guy, I mean, they all get they all get demolished. They they are every single person that goes into the White House loses their soul, their reputation. That's just a shocking you know. There there there are people that everyone thought would be fine, Like Nicky Haley, she's gonna be fine, she's worn out. She ran away? Who wrote? Who wrote

the anonymous letter? You have any idea? I have an idea, but m you're gonna keep it. I'm gonna keep it to myself for now because if if it is so I think it is, it's actually somebody who's who's pretty senior and uh and and and it's not not completely bought in. You don't want to you know what, I don't want to out them. Yeah, but I will say this the story I told there, the what to expect when you're working for Trump story. It's a mildly fictionalized

version of what we've observed over time. And it's also something that you know, guys that I knew who had done business with him here and in Florida told the same story. He's, yeah, who's that going to work for Trump? And he promises them you're gonna be a billionaire too, and it's gonna be great, and we're all gonna be driving Lamborghinis and and they bust their asked for a few years, they do that one of these projects for him,

and then then they get shafted. Right. It's amazing when that story came out that there were three thousand pending litigations from contractors who want to get paid. I heard. I heard a wonderful story of a guy. Um. I have a friend who worked in his legal department briefly and went back to a farm. Said it's just insane. Um. They needed this guy to get a certificate of occupancy and he basically said, nope, you consume you could do what you want. You will not get a CEO. You

could shut this whole project down. Every day what you only goes up. There's interest and penalties. My advice to you is to pay this tomorrow. And other than that guy, I don't know anybody who's been in that sort of dispute and actually got paid. And yet people continue to line up. Although you're gonna push back on that, I

will push back on that. Because Trump has had so much difficulty recruiting people who can walk and chew gum at the same time he is surround it himself with a subpar, no doubt, group of people, both in the cabinet um and inside inside the White House itself. These guys are checked out. They are engaged in a constant war with each other. All of them hate one another. I mean they're constant leaking between Jared Kushner and John Kelly, and between Kelly Anne and every other human being on earth,

and and Sarah Sanders sniping at other people. And these guys are all This is the leakiest white House we've seen in ages. I have a rule over time that's been proven pretty pretty accurate. Good white houses leak on purpose. Bad white houses and unhappy white houses leak all the time. This white House, this golden age of journalism we're in is because everyone in the White House, from the President on down, is leaking to dog other people around them.

It is a I mean, the wave of leaks that will come out after this election, of everyone blaming Trump. They're gonna be inside the White House and he can't He's he doesn't get it. He's blowing this. It's it's it's gonna hurt him in if he talks about a red wave, which was his big conceit for weeks and weeks on end, there'll be a red wave. We're gonna gain seats in the House. It's gonna be great. We're gonna have the best day ever. I'm the King of

This didn't quite work out that way. But so all these folks inside the White House, they're constantly having their egos just ground up. They're constantly forced to go out and and adopt public positions that they know our lives, that they know are anathema, that they know will end up hurting their reputations in the long run. And and yet you know, the ones they do, the ones who are the ones who were stuck there, are stuck there because you wouldn't hire these people to manage a waffle house.

So you mentioned Jared and Ivanka. What's with the nepotism and bringing the family in. It just seems so at odds with everything we've learned about how do you ethically run a business? But remember, the business of Trump is not government or patriotism or loyalty to the country or

service to the American people. The business of Trump is Trump, and he doesn't he skipped that part in the Constitution where we don't do titles of royalty, because he seriously considers himself to be some sort of you know, uh royal figure above the law, above the constitution, and his and the royal family idea is something that is clearly

playing out here. You have his fans who say things like, well, after Trump runs, then Don Junior will run, then Ivanka will run, and then Eric will run, and then Baron will run in the near in the far far future, and they can't you know, the cult like devotion to this guy is one of the most shocking elements of Trump, isn't it is. I mean, look, I love me some, George W. R. George H. W. Bush, I love me some.

George Bush, I love me some. Jeb Bush. Bush family has been great to me, and I've been loyal back. But you of what if one of them said to me, hey, go drink this poison cool aid, I wouldn't do it. But Trump could stack people up like jonestown and they would do it. The his his line about shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue had the disadvantage for our country of being entirely true. That that's shocking. Um, Let me shift games a little bit and ask you about the unspoken

elephant in the room. The past month, the Mueller investigation continues silently to grind forward. My best guests is, let me rephrase that if I had to pick somebody, assuming I was running a sort of sketchy business and there perhaps might have been some Russian involvement and maybe to some money laundering, if I had to pick the one guy I didn't want investigating me, it would pretty much be Robert Mueller. This guy was built to investigate Trump.

How does this play out? The last two months, Robert Mueller made a very conscious decision to become a hunter submarine. He's under the water, he's listening, he's working, he knows where the targets are. Just because you don't see him doesn't mean he doesn't see you. This is a guy with a reputation for being methodical, for being diligent, for driving home, for going for getting to the X of

any operation. And he's got resources both on the intelligent side, on the on the financial investigatory side, and on the legal side that the clown show around Donald Trump has never taken seriously and never understood, and what happened with the election. Robert Mueller is protected now that Trump can't just idly fire Robert Mueller, and what happens if he does. It's the apocalypse politically. I mean this that do you end up with the House Oversight Committee hires Robert Muller

and the investigation. Let's just go ahead. Now, they can also ask for Robert Mueller to provide them that report, which would not have happened, and you would not have happened with Devin Nunyez and and good Latin, those guys that would never have happened. It would never seen the light of day. There will be political consequences now. And there is no defense operation where Nunez or roar Backer or Jordan or any of these, any of these guys

Team Obstruction I call them. There's no further ability for them now that they're not chairman, to go out there and filibuster on the you know, in these hearings, to blast Robert Mueller and to blow up the FBI, and to go and attack an assault an investigation, and and to look away from the involvement of Russia and trying to manipulate our elections. So what's going to happen is the shock and awe effect of of further indictments is going to cause a sort of accelerating cycle. Trump will

get more and more crazed by the way. I think Jeff Sessions has gone. Within a week, I think he's out. Isn't it all I was gonna say normally, isn't the second term when when there's a turnover, But you just saying post election, he's done, post midm post mid terms. I think he's gone because Trump recognizes that the most dangerous window of time for him going forward is between

right now and when the Democrats take power. His actions in the next ninety days are going to be very very telling, um, and it's gonna be very very dangerous for this country in sixty days, excise me so. So assume he he asks Sessions to resign. If Session resigns, he could do an interim appointment. But if Session says, Nope, you've gotta fire me. Oh, he's gonna you know, he's gonna have to fire Sessions. But I think Sessions will go.

I think he will. He will go in the next sixty days, before before the Democrats new And I will say this also, I know, for I know the White House has been shopping for a new a g and I know, well you could see Lindsey Graham kissing up that slot. Yeah. But I the person that's rumored very heavily right now is Ham Bondi, the former Aga Florida who who By the way, when you look at the Florida foreclosure debacle, correct, it was as corrupt as any

public official ever. I've spoken to Trump friendly Republicans in the Senate who are begging him, do not name her. Is she gonna open an amazing she cannot, she cannot be confirmed, Do not name her. So if he tries to name Pam Bondy as the a G I think they're gonna be some there's gonna be some very very hard pushback, even from his own side. Um. But but the narrow window between now and when the Democrats what's

the date of that? Um, the narrow window between now and then, it's going to be a fact, a very risky time. But I think he may buy himself more trouble if he does. I mean, the guy's already like knocking on the door of obstruction charges every single day. So if he tries to play Shenanigans between now in the time of Democrats have oversight ability, it's going to be a real uh, it's gonna be a really ugly moment.

And I think one of the things about the Democrats taking over that people are underestimating They're not as dumb as they look. They're not gonna race the shift is pretty They're not They're gonna They're not gonna race to impeach Donald Trump. This is the death of a thousand cuts. This isn't easy. You know, we're trying to throw the president out of office. This is gonna be We need your taxes now. We need to talk about your business dealings. We need to talk about um, you know, your your

dealings with Russia and Russian banks and Russian oligarchs. When you talk about your meetings with the Russians, we need to talk about your communication with them. When you talk about Cambridge Analytic and Steve Bannon, the relations. They're gonna just peel this thing back, one little, one little strip at a time, and it's gonna make Trump crazy. Is he dangerous when he's crazy? Is he more dangerous? I should say. I think Trump is a danger to the

rule of law in this country. And I think there have been very few checks on him so far. And I think he grew accustomed to being unaccountable. And when people are accustomed to being unaccountable, they are dangerous. Now, you've been on Bill mars show right a couple times, and and mar thinks that when it's time for him to go, he's not gonna leave. I don't buy into that.

I think the mechanism of between the secret service in the military and the police, it's going to be I don't care what you say, Grandpa, here here's the door. I could be wrong, but I doubt it. That would be a hell of a moment. That would be a hell of a constitutional test in this country, the most severe constitutional test we've had since Nixon. And and it is a real question about whether Trump um look hypothesized

that he's impeached for whatever purposes we have. They find video of a Putin giving him a sack of money, and you know, let's just hypothesize he gets impeached. It is gonna be tough to drag him out of that out of that room. I think Bill is right about that, But I think at the end, but he'll be impeached, not convicted, and so why bother correct he In the end, the impeachment thing has always been a unicorn for Democrats. Okay, let's suppose they impeach them in the House. They could

do it tomorrow. So what you know they could do it? You got how you get to two thirds of the Senate, don't You don't even get the Senate. So why alienate the people? That's why I think they're going to go and investigate and tear things over slowly, and it's gonna look is an administration that is lavishly corrupt. Lavishly corrupt they are, they are you know, they are so overt about it. We look like the cold guys. They basically took a shopping list to the White House with prices

next to the things they wanted. Oh, well, you get a million dollars if you if you take care of this regulation, and we'll give it. We'll give the Inaugural Committee half a million if you'll do this for this company. These guys, it's just they aren't even pretending. And so and what about the amalience clause. That's got to be

an issue that comes out. It should be an issue that comes up, and it will be I think, and that as I think, by the way, one of the venues where Donald Trump's tax has become revealed because how do you know, We've got to have an answer on that, and the only way we can really get that answer because you know, Donald Trump's financial statements are always sort of mythical creatures. You know, it's it's man, bear, pig,

it's whatever he thinks up at that moment. I'm worth ten billion dollars because I believe my brand is worth seven billion, okay, eight billion, in goodwill do brand equity is different than what you think it is, Donald um. But you know, so I think the emolument stuff where

this guy is obviously profiting off of lobbyists. And look, I know of tunnel obbyists in d C, their friends and foreign countries going to the trumpels, and they now go to the Trump hotel to have all of their meetings and all of their events, and they pay a gigantic premium, a gigantic premium across the street at the Willard, which is not exactly the Motel six. Everything in d C now has to go through the Trump properties. And so that's it's like such small, crappy grift, but it's grift.

I mean, it's just are they gonna have to disgorge those profits I don't have to disgorge them, but I think they have to disclose them. And I think that's why you get to the taxes under a monument. That's amazing. I know I don't have you forever, So let me get to my favorite questions and our speed round. Let's plow through this. Let's do it. What's the most important thing People don't know about Rick Wilson. They don't know that I am a hell of a cook. Quite fascinating.

Who are some of your early mentors? Some of my early mentors, Um, Well, this guy named Dick Cheney. Uh really, he was the Secretary of Defense. I mean you you learned from Vice President well and Vice president later. Um. There was a guy that I also worked with a lot named Donald Rice. He was the Secretary of the Air Force. One of the most brilliant, considered policy guys I ever met in my career. Um And and I've been I've been very fortunate over the years to learn

from great people in New York. Ray Harding, who was the chairman of the New York Liberal Party, which is very used to say it's neither liberal nor a party, it's my political machine. Ray taught me more about New York politics than any human being on earth. But I've been very fortunate over the years. Since you're here discussing your book, let's talk about books. What are some of your favorite books, be they politics or what have you. Well, um, I'm gonna say my one of my favorite books, um

is Cryptonomicon by Neil Stephenson. Sure, which is about money and encryption and war. I'm I'm I'm a big fan of overly complicated stuff like that. Um. Um. It was a classically educated guy, so I read a lot of I read a lot of ancient history. UM. Give us a name. Well, Livy and and Plutarch and Tacitus. So you're talking about real classic yeah, yes, like actual um, but for modern version, modern interpretation that Michael Grant's very good about a lot of that stuff. Um. I read voraciously.

So my my house is way too fold books. So there are worse things to have filling up your house. UM. So what are you excited about right now? What? What? And I know that's a silly question because I know what you're excited about. I'm excited about the fact that America is under a big stress test right now, and and I'm excited to watch how our resilience plays itself out this time. I am really fundamentally optimistic about the country. I think Trump is a terrible, destructive, horrible figure in

our in our politics and our society. But I also think that there have been our immune system. It takes a while to kick in sometimes, but it always does in the end. And I feel that starting to reshape where we're going politically in the country. And I'm also excited about the sort of you know, modern elements of of you know, the bad sides of social media we've seen now, but I think it's also providing this new organizing tool and and and and this new way of

for people to remediate themselves into effective political groups. So tell us about time you failed and what you learned from the experience. Sure, it failed in I did everything I could to stop Donald Trump. I helped run Evan McMullen's presidential campaign as an independent. We absolutely crashed and burned. It was horrifying. What I learned was the two party system is really strong, that tribal affinity is really strong, and you have to bring a real a game to

those things to to break that mold. And and you know, you learn more from the campaigns you lose in the campaigns you win. Isn't it always that way? Always always learn from failure. What do you do for fun? You mentioned cooking? What else? Hunt? I fly? I like to be out on the water, pilots in pilots license, Um what do you fly? Piper archer? So this a little thing, but um I I I get out as much as

I can on the water, which I love. I love my I've got a bunch of hunting dogs, German short hair pointers and uh and and luckily, since I live in Florida, I love the chainsaw things because we have a lot of trees down after the big storms lately, so we came very close to getting a griff on German short haired. Uh. They're just spectacular. Juran short hairs are an amazing They're great hunting dogs in the field. They're great family dogs at all. Just have to run them.

You do have to run them. I have a Portuguese word dog love them in the pool, out on the boat constantly. Um. All right, So a millennial comes up to you and says, I'm interested in a career in political consulting. What sort of advice would you give them? Um? The first advice I would give them is go volunteer on a campaign, to do the crappiest job you can find. Drive. You know, I started out with Connie Mack as a as an advanced kid, as a driver. That was how

I started in this thing. I ended up meeting and getting to work for the president of the future president of the United States because I had hustle and you know, being willing to go out and do the and do the scut work and the crap jobs and the stuff that you don't you know, they get this sort of wrong impression from watching television where there's these twenty four year olds in perfect suits in the White House being, you know, senior officials. You gotta go do the hard work.

And politics is one of those few things in this country where it doesn't matter where you went to school. You've got to go out and be in the field and bust your tail, and you've got to go do the things that you put up the stupid yard signs and go deal with the with the cranky volunteers and go knock the doors. You don't get into this, into this tribe of consulting unless you go and do those things and and it's all. It's it's there's no shortcut to it makes sense. And our final question, what do

you know about the world of politics today? You wish you knew thirty or so years ago. People lie upholsters all the time? Really, yes, that they lie upholsters all the time. That is not well understood by a lot of fun though, And it's it's clearer and clearer all the time. How much they're a bunch of damn liars. Amazing. I love it. I love I love trying to like get to the nut of a question with with polling. But you've got a dispactor that in these days quite

quite astonishing. We have been speaking with Rick Wilson. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Everything Trump Touches Dies. If you enjoy this conversation, well look up an inch or down an inch on Apple iTunes and you could see any of our other Let's uh round it up to the size of Trump's inaugural address and call it two d and fifty previous conversations over the past five years. We love your comments, feedback and suggestions right to us at m IB podcast at Bloomberg

dot net. You can check out my daily column on Bloomberg dot Com. Follow me on Twitter at rit Halts. I would be remiss if I did not thank the crack staff that helps put these conversations together each week. Michael Batnick is my head of research. Taylor Riggs is our book or Slash producer. I'm Barry rit Halts. You've been listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.