State Supreme Court elections across the country are getting ever more expensive and more partisan. In the third episode of “We Don’t Talk About Leonard,” ProPublica reporters Andrea Bernstein, Andy Kroll, and Ilya Marritz drill even further into the fight to gain influence over state courts, and reveal what Leo and his allies are planning for the future. This series is created in partnership with On the Media and ProPublica. Listen to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. ProPublica is a...
Oct 13, 2023•52 min•Ep 98•Transcript available on Metacast Leonard Leo realized that in order to generate conservative rulings, the Supreme Court needs the right kind of cases. In the second episode of We Don't Talk About Leonard, ProPublica reporters Andrea Bernstein, Andy Kroll, and Ilya Marritz investigate the machine that Leonard Leo built across the country to bring cases to the Supreme Court and fill vacant judgeships, and the web of nonprofits he’s created through which to funnel dark money into judicial races. This series is created in partnersh...
Oct 06, 2023•52 min•Ep 97•Transcript available on Metacast In this first episode of We Don't Talk About Leonard, a new miniseries created in partnership with On the Media and ProPublica, ProPublica reporters Andrea Bernstein, Andy Kroll, and Ilya Marritz investigate the background of the man who has played a critical role in the conservative takeover of America's courts — Leonard Leo. From his humble roots in middle class New Jersey, to a mansion in Maine where last year he hosted a fabulous party on the eve of the Supreme Court decision to tank “Roe.” ...
Sep 29, 2023•52 min•Ep 96•Transcript available on Metacast Andrea Bernstein introduces WNYC colleague Nancy Solomon's new podcast: Dead End: A New Jersey Political Murder Mystery . New Jersey politics is not for the faint of heart. But the brutal killing of John and Joyce Sheridan, a prominent couple with personal ties to three governors, shocks even the most cynical operatives. The mystery surrounding the crime sends their son on a quest for truth. Dead End is a story of crime and corruption at the highest levels of society in the Garden State....
May 03, 2022•5 min•Ep 95•Transcript available on Metacast Andrea Bernstein introduces Will Be Wild , a new 8-part series about the forces that led to the January 6th insurrection and what comes next. Through in-depth stories from a wide range of characters – from people who tried to stop the attack to those who took part – hosts Andrea Bernstein and Ilya Marritz explore the ongoing effort to bring autocracy to America, the lasting damage that effort is doing to our democracy, and the fate of our attempts to combat those anti-democratic forces. Because ...
Apr 25, 2022•4 min•Ep 94•Transcript available on Metacast This story was co-published with ProPublica . A birth certificate, a bar receipt, a newspaper ad, a board game, a Ziploc bag of shredded paper, a pair of museum tickets, some checks, and a USB drive. The series finale of Trump, Inc. This episode was reported by Andrea Bernstein, Meg Cramer, Anjali Kamat, Ilya Marritz, Katherine Sullivan, Eric Umansky, and Heather Vogell. We assembled our time capsule at Donald J. Trump State Park; it will be stored until 2031 with WNYC's archives department. Tru...
Jan 19, 2021•51 min•Ep 93•Transcript available on Metacast In the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol and an unprecedented second impeachment, a growing number of businesses, governments, and financial institutions are severing ties with President Trump. David Fahrenthold is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who covers the Trump family and its business interests for The Washington Post. Zach Everson reports on who patronizes the Trump family businesses for the newsletter 1100 Pennsylvania . Next week's Trump, Inc. will be the final episode of...
Jan 15, 2021•37 min•Ep 92•Transcript available on Metacast Donald Trump's presidency is coming to end, but there are ongoing legal investigations that will be following him out of the White House. We examine two of the pending probes into potential wrongdoing by Trump and Trump Organization. One, led by Washington, D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine for potential civil violations, the other by Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance into possible criminal activity. We speak with AG Racine about his pending legal action.
Dec 17, 2020•34 min•Ep 91•Transcript available on Metacast This story was co-published with ProPublica. Sign up for email updates from Trump, Inc. to get the latest on our investigations. Six days after President Donald Trump lost his bid for reelection, the U.S. Department of Agriculture notified food safety groups that it was proposing a regulatory change to speed up chicken factory processing lines, a change that would allow companies to sell more birds. An earlier USDA effort had broken down on concerns that it could lead to more worker injuries and...
Nov 25, 2020•18 min•Ep 90•Transcript available on Metacast As the Trump campaign wages a haphazard legal campaign against the rightful outcome of the 2020 election, the Trump administration is working to remake the federal bureaucracy. • Adam Klasfeld is a senior investigative reporter and editor for Law & Crime .• Denise Turner Roth, an Obama appointee, served as administrator of the Government Services Administration from 2015 to 2017.• Robert Shea was associate director of the Office of Management and Budget under President George W. Bush.• Ronald Sa...
Nov 12, 2020•33 min•Ep 89•Transcript available on Metacast We're all wondering how the 2020 election will pan out. Our colleagues at Radiolab went looking for answers. This episode was reported by Bethel Habte (who's now a producer at the Gimlet podcast Resistance ), with help from Tracie Hunte, and produced by Bethel Habte. Jeremy Bloom provided original music. You can read The Transition Integrity Project’s report here . Sign up for email updates from Trump, Inc. to get the latest on our investigations....
Oct 31, 2020•38 min•Ep 88•Transcript available on Metacast Go to New York Magazine to read our list of insiders who profited off the Trump presidency . On April 30, 2018, nine top executives from T-Mobile checked in to the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., with their names on a list of VIP arrivals. They landed in Washington at a critical moment: Just the day before, T-Mobile had announced plans for a merger with Sprint. To complete the deal, the company needed approval from the Justice Department, one block away on Pennsylvania Avenue. Han...
Oct 28, 2020•36 min•Ep 87•Transcript available on Metacast Trump, Inc. co-host Andrea Bernstein sits down with Kai Wright, host of The United States of Anxiety , to discuss how American history informs the 2020 election. The conversation, called "Who Matters in America 2020?," was part of Reporter's Notebook series at The Greene Space . Sign up for email updates from Trump, Inc. to get the latest on our investigations....
Oct 22, 2020•29 min•Ep 86•Transcript available on Metacast President Trump ran for president on three promises: He'd build a wall on the Mexican border, repeal Obamacare, and overhaul the nation's tax system. And approaching the 2020 election, Trump's only accomplished one of them — and even that didn't live up to the hype. "It's important to point out is the impact has been not what he said it would be," says Sally Herships, host and co-executive producer of The Heist , a new podcast from the Center for Public Integrity. "It has not been what he promis...
Oct 14, 2020•46 min•Ep 85•Transcript available on Metacast In his new book, " Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation ," prosecutor Andrew Weissmann offers a new account into the inner workings of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into President Trump. Related episodes:• The Questions Mueller Didn't Ask • Trump's Moscow Tower Problem • Six Tips for Preparing for the Mueller Report, Which May or May Not Be Coming Sign up for email updates from Trump, Inc. to get the latest on our investigations....
Oct 07, 2020•28 min•Ep 84•Transcript available on Metacast This story was co-published with ProPublica . Sign up for email updates from Trump, Inc. to get the latest on our investigations. After the news broke in May of last year that government-sponsored lending agency Freddie Mac had agreed to back $786 million in loans to the Kushner Companies, political opponents asked whether the family real estate firm formerly led by the president’s son-in-law and top adviser, Jared Kushner, had received special treatment. “We are especially concerned about this ...
Oct 01, 2020•30 min•Ep 83•Transcript available on Metacast President Trump has spent years fighting with politicians and prosecutors who wanted to see his taxes. Now we know what he’s been hiding. Co-host Ilya Marritz talks to ProPublica's Heather Vogell and WNYC's Meg Cramer about what's in the groundbreaking new reporting from The New York Times and the new questions raised by 20 years of Trump tax data. Check out some of our own stories from years of covering President Trump's taxes: • The Accountants • The Family Business • The Numbers Don't Match •...
Sep 28, 2020•21 min•Ep 82•Transcript available on Metacast This story was co-published with ProPublica . Sign up for email updates from Trump, Inc. to get the latest on our investigations. President Trump likes talking about voter fraud. He also likes filing lawsuits. Now his campaign is filing lawsuits across the country, citing the alleged dangers of voter fraud. Plus: ProPublica reporters Mike Spies, Jake Pearson, and Jessica Huseman on secret, Republican-only meetings about election policy ....
Sep 24, 2020•31 min•Ep 81•Transcript available on Metacast The Qatari government rents office space in President Trump's most profitable building. No one works there. Dan Alexander is a senior editor at Forbes and author of the new book "White House Inc: How Donald Trump Turned The Presidency Into a Business." This interview is based on an excerpt of the book that ran in Vanity Fair ....
Sep 17, 2020•28 min•Ep 80•Transcript available on Metacast The story of the long, strange wind-up to the attack that remade the world… and the chances we had to stop it. A new series from HISTORY and WNYC Studios.
Sep 12, 2020•49 min•Ep 79•Transcript available on Metacast This story was co-published with Time Magazine and ProPublica . Sign up for email updates from Trump, Inc. to get the latest on our investigations. Rick Perry came to Washington looking for a deal, and less than two months into his tenure as Energy Secretary, he found a hot prospect. It was April 19, 2017, and Perry, the former Texas governor, failed presidential candidate and contestant on Dancing With the Stars, was sitting in his office on Independence Avenue with two influential Ukrainians. ...
Sep 10, 2020•36 min•Ep 78•Transcript available on Metacast Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist and President Trump's niece, talks to co-host Andrea Bernstein about the Trump family, the Republican National Convention, and her book "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man." Additional reading:• In secretly recorded audio, President Trump’s sister says he has ‘no principles’ and ‘you can’t trust him’ (The Washington Post)• Mary Trump, The President's Niece (Fresh Air) This conversation originally aired as part of WN...
Aug 28, 2020•26 min•Ep 77•Transcript available on Metacast In this bonus episode of Trump, Inc., co-hosts Ilya Marritz and Andrea Bernstein talk to Politico’s Natasha Bertrand and The Atlantic’s Franklin Foer about the new report from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence detailing Russia's role in the 2016 election. Additional reading:• “Russiagate Was Not A Hoax” by Franklin Foer• “The Trump-Putin Relationship, as Dictated by the Kremlin” and “How a Russian disinfo op got Trump impeached” by Natasha Bertrand• Read the full Senate report . This c...
Aug 26, 2020•31 min•Ep 76•Transcript available on Metacast This episode was originally released Nov. 13, 2019. The impeachment inquiry focuses on whether or not there was a quid pro quo: Military aid in exchange for an investigation. But what if you look at the same events from a different vantage point? The business interests at play. This episode: How Rudy Giuliani's associates worked their connections to oust the U.S. Ambassador in Ukraine. How President Trump's personal interests came into alignment with the interests of an indicted foreign business...
Aug 19, 2020•40 min•Ep 75•Transcript available on Metacast This story was co-published with ProPublica . Stay up to date with email updates about WNYC and ProPublica’s investigations into the president’s business practices. President Donald Trump’s recent musings about staging his Republican National Convention speech at the White House drew criticism from government ethics watchdogs and even one Republican senator, John Thune of South Dakota . The suggestion wasn’t an isolated blending of official presidential duties and the campaign. It was part of a ...
Aug 12, 2020•33 min•Ep 74•Transcript available on Metacast The president’s campaign has paid millions to law firms filing defamation suits against news organizations. Experts say lawsuits are doomed, but Trump could still get what he wants.
Jul 23, 2020•31 min•Ep 73•Transcript available on Metacast On the last day of its term the Supreme Court released a climactic set of decisions on presidential power and the rule of law. The court said that yes, the president is subject to congressional oversight — to a point — and could be subject to a criminal investigation. Melissa Murray, professor at NYU Law and co-host of the Strict Scrutiny podcast, joins us to discuss the decisions.
Jul 10, 2020•26 min•Ep 72•Transcript available on Metacast This story was co-published with ProPublica . Sign up for email updates from Trump, Inc. to get the latest on our investigations. Donald Trump is famous — and infamous — for his use of Twitter and Facebook. But particularly since the pandemic forced him to largely swear off his favorite mass, in-person rallies, his campaign has been amping up the use of another form of alternative media: YouTube and podcasts. The president’s most recent sit-down interview? As it happens, it occurred last week on...
Jun 24, 2020•23 min•Ep 71•Transcript available on Metacast This story was co-published with ProPublica . Sign up for email updates from Trump, Inc. to get the latest on our investigations. When Congress was considering passing the more than $2 trillion coronavirus bailout two months ago, President Donald Trump made his vision for oversight clear. “I’ll be the oversight,” he said . The CARES Act empowers a number of different offices to make sure the money is spent wisely and without favoritism. Shortly after he signed it into law, Trump ousted the inspe...
Jun 10, 2020•42 min•Ep 70•Transcript available on Metacast This story was co-published with ProPublica . Our reporting on President Trump's relationship with Deutsche Bank was originally published in May 2019 . A decade ago, loan filings showed Trump Tower in New York City had a reported profit of about $13.3 million. But when the tower refinanced its debt soon after, the profits for the same year — 2010 — somehow appeared higher. A new lender listed the profits as $16.1 million, or 21% more than they had been recorded previously. The next year’s earnin...
May 27, 2020•50 min•Ep 69•Transcript available on Metacast 
