Hello and welcome to a special episode of Trump Inc.

A podcast from WNYC in ProPublica that digs deep into the secrets of the Trump family business.

I'm Andrea Bernstein.

A few days ago, we held a taping at the green space in New York City before a sold-out crowd.

We had a display of Trump-rounded items like Success Cologne, Trump Vodka, and Trump Cufflicks.

There was a gold curtain, a Trump-themed cocktail, but even more important,

some really interesting conversations about Trump, the businessman, and Trump, the president.

Tony Schwartz, the co-author with Donald Trump of the Art of the Deal,

talked with Ilya Maritz from WNYC and Jesse Eisinger from ProPublica about what Schwartz does

and does not recognize in Donald Trump the president. Then, Eric Umanski from ProPublica and I

speak with Mark Schoops. He's the Investigations Editor at BuzzFeed, and he told us why he was the first

to post the Russia dossier, what he's learned since about collusion, and whether he thinks the

US is drifting towards a Russian-style relationship between business and government.

There was also a Trump-ink trivia contest you can test your knowledge.

One note, Masha Gessen, the New Yorker staff writer and author of the future his history was

supposed to join us. But unfortunately, she injured her jaw and couldn't speak. Don't worry,

she's recuperating nicely. She did, however, email us answers to some of the questions we would have

asked her. So those are coming up as well. So on to the show. The first voice you'll hear is WNYC's

Ilya Maritz.

Today is day 479 of the Trump presidency. I know. It's hard to process all that we've lived

through since inauguration day, the tweets, Russia, Stormy Daniels. To make sense of the Trump

presidency, we at Trump Inc. We have a very particular take on things. Our guidepost is that moment

...