The Trump Children Were Investigated for Fraud, but Avoided Indictment
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 9 October 2017
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ 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.
Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choicesTranscript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hi there, I'm Lale Arikoglu, and this podcast is brought to you by Wilderness, a conservation-driven |
| 0:06.4 | hospitality company that offers intimate world life encounters in extraordinary remote landscapes. |
| 0:12.5 | Last year, I embarked on two separate solo adventures with Wilderness, one to Botswana and the other |
| 0:18.2 | to Namibia, where the expert guides delivered a truly once-in-a-lifetime |
| 0:23.6 | experience. I promise you, whatever you watch and see before you go won't prepare you for the thrill |
| 0:29.4 | of a wilderness adventure. eBay, it's a place to fall in love with new pre-loved vintage and rare |
| 0:36.6 | fashion over and over again. |
| 0:39.0 | Your favorite designers, expertly authenticated. |
| 0:42.5 | Yeah, eBay. |
| 0:44.0 | Things people love. |
| 0:48.6 | I'm Dorothy Wickendon. |
| 0:50.3 | On today's Politics and More podcast, the New Yorker's Adam Davidson talks to Andrea Bernstein of WNYC and Jesse Isinger of ProPublica about Trump SoHo. |
| 1:01.0 | An investigation by WNYC and ProPublica in partnership with the New Yorker highlights the dubious tactics used by the Trump Organization and launching the Trump Soho luxury building in 2007. |
| 1:17.5 | We're going to start off just up the street, about a mile north of the World Trade Center at the Trump Soho. |
| 1:24.8 | The building launched at a pivotal moment for Donald Trump. 2006 was not a good year for him at all. He had lost control of his casinos, and he wasn't really building a lot. Trump was becoming more of a branding enterprise. But in the spring of 2006, on the season finale of The Apprentice, he makes a big announcement. |
| 1:46.1 | Located in the center of Manhattan, chic artist enclave, the Trump International Hotel and Tower. |
| 1:52.0 | His first building in New York in years, the Trump's Soho was going to be 43 stories in Lower Manhattan, not exactly in Soho as a matter of fact, but close enough. |
| 2:01.8 | Donald Jr. and his sister Ivankaka had signed papers incorporating as Dunka Soho to develop the property. |
| 2:09.9 | Never before us had there been a building that fit aesthetically within the downtown environment. |
| 2:17.1 | For zoning reasons, though, this wasn't the usual luxury tower. |
| 2:20.3 | It was a strange hybrid of hotel and condo, |
| 2:23.3 | and it turned out to be a tough sell at nearly 2 million a pop. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The New Yorker, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The New Yorker and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.