Ronan Farrow on the Scheme at the Heart of Trump’s New York Trial
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 17 April 2024
⏱️ 38 minutes
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Summary
Ronan Farrow, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and contributing writer to The New Yorker, joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the impact of rulings made this week by Judge Juan Merchan in Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York, where he faces thirty-four felony counts for falsifying business records related to hush-money payments made to adult-film star Stormy Daniels around the time of the 2016 election. Farrow explains why two other hush-money payments, made to former Trump Tower doorman Dino Sajudin and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, are central to the Manhattan District Attorney’s case. As Farrow explains, “the coverup is ultimately a much, much bigger story than any of the underlying things being covered up would have been.”
This week’s reading:
- Inside the Hush-Money Payments That May Decide Trump’s Legal Fate, by Ronan Farrow
- The National Enquirer, a Trump Rumor, and Another Secret Payment to Buy Silence, by Ronan Farrow
- Donald Trump, a Playboy Model, and a System for Concealing Infidelity, by Ronan Farrow
To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to themail@newyorker.com.
Transcript
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| 0:47.4 | We're looking at live pictures at Trump Tower of Trump Tower, |
| 0:50.9 | where former President Trump is expected to depart for court any minute. |
| 0:57.3 | This week, former president Donald Trump headed back into court for his first criminal trial in New York City. |
| 1:04.2 | You saw him there. He walked out. Kind of gave like a fist pump, right? Is that what you saw, John? |
| 1:08.4 | Yeah, I saw a fist pump. Trump faces 34 felony charges for falsifying documents related to hush money payments made to the adult film star Stormy Daniels around the time of the 2016 election. |
| 1:21.3 | But at the heart of this case is a much larger catch-and-kill scheme that involves the former president, his former lawyer Michael Cohen, |
| 1:28.5 | and a tabloid, the National Enquirer. |
| 1:32.1 | My colleague Ronan Farrow has reported extensively on this scheme and spoke directly with many |
| 1:37.3 | of the players involved. |
| 1:39.6 | The fact that a candidate is willing to so aggressively manipulate the media, |
| 1:47.1 | and far from welcoming transparency, is putting up these smoke screens, |
| 1:53.6 | and is willing to break the law and fudge the rules and do shady accounting to achieve that, |
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