I'm John Batchett with Ken Vogel of the New York Times, an investigation over many years.

Interviews with many of the principles and different dates back then and most recently.

First Trump term, Biden term, second Trump term coming up.

However, the story of devil's advocates include a man named Robert Strick, who's at the center of this, a young man, very attractive, a good talker, a good salesman, and the term is old-fashioned grifter.

That's a 20-19th century word. Serendipity is also-fashioned grifter. That's a 2019-century word.

Serendipity is also part of grifting.

One day, in discouragement, he's sitting at a roadside cafe.

I imagine it's in Georgetown, a leafy setting, and a large dog wanders up and either befriends him or regards him as a possible subject of attention,

the dog is trailed by a young woman who turns out to be a representative of New Zealand.

Ken, it doesn't get any more accidental than this.

What does Bob's Robert Strike make of this moment in time well like with all the

the sort of moments that he seizes in his sort of parapetetic journey he you know he initially

is just sort of drawn to the conversation and wants to to, you know, wants to show off without regard

for whether there is a potential benefit for him, a business or pecuniary benefit for him. And so

he starts talking to the owner of the dog, who is, as you said, she's the second in command at the

New Zealand embassy in Washington, D.C.

And, you know, they have some small talk about wine and New Zealand wine, and Stryck talks about his Oregon winery.

And before long, the conversation turns to the subject that was dominating everyone's attention back

then. And, you know, now fast forward 10 years and it's still dominating everyone's attention,

which is Donald Trump. But at that time, Trump was, you know, he wasn't yet even sworn in.

It was, it was in the transition period soon after he upset Hillary Clinton in one.

And this New Zealand diplomat tells him, you know, with the degree of candor, I think is refreshing and surprising in diplomatic circles, but something that is sort of an unspoken truth of everyone in that community, which was that the New Zealanders, the Kiwis, were completely unprepared for Trump.

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