The Trump Children Were Investigated for Fraud, But Avoided Indictment

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 6 October 2017

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Trump SoHo was supposed to be a splash for the Trump Organization and for Ivanka and Donald Trump, Jr., who were leading the project. Instead, they were stuck trying to market very small units to buyers as the financial crisis hit. That they lied in selling the building isn’t in question, and the Manhattan District Attorney's office began investigating; but, after a meeting between the D.A. and Marc Kasowitz, a Trump lawyer, the government never filed charges. What happened? Andrea Bernstein, of WNYC, and the Pulitzer Prize-winner Jesse Eisinger, of ProPublica, jointly reported on the Trump SoHo; they spoke to The New Yorker’s Adam Davidson, who has reported extensively on the Trump Organization. Plus, the staff writer Doreen St. Félix tells David Remnick why Cardi B, the first female rapper since Lauryn Hill to hit the Billboard No. 1—is shaking up the music industry.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.
0:10.6	We're going to start off just up the street, about a mile north of the World Trade Center at the Trump Soho.
0:17.6	The building launched at a pivotal moment for Donald Trump.
0:21.2	2006 was not a good year for him at all.
0:23.6	He had lost control of his casinos, and he wasn't really building a lot.
0:28.2	Trump was becoming more of a branding enterprise.
0:31.4	But in the spring of 2006, on the season finale of The Apprentice, he makes a big announcement.
0:38.9	Located in the center of Manhattan's chic artist enclave, the Trump International Hotel and Tower of
0:44.6	his first building in New York in years. The Trump's Soho was going to be 43 stories in
0:49.7	lower Manhattan, not exactly in Soho as a matter of fact, but close enough. Donald Jr. and his sister
0:55.6	Ivanka had signed papers incorporating as Dunca Soho to develop the property.
1:02.6	Never before us had there been a building that fit aesthetically within the downtown environment.
1:09.8	For zoning reasons, though, this wasn't the usual luxury tower.
1:12.6	It was a strange hybrid of hotel and condo,
1:15.6	and it turned out to be a tough sell at nearly 2 million a pop.
1:19.6	And they were trying to sell it just as the financial crash hit.
1:22.6	I'm going to let staff writer Adam Davidson,
1:25.6	who's reported extensively on Trump's businesses,
1:28.6	take us back to 2006 and explain precisely what happened.
1:33.6	So the Trump Soho, this is not just another project for Donald Trump and the Trump organization.
1:38.5	This is not just one more and dozens and dozens of projects.
1:41.6	This is crucial.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from WNYC Studios and The New Yorker, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.