Bon Jovi, the Bills and Operation Big Tree: Inside Trump's Plot to Buy an NFL Team

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: Pablo Torre Finds Out
Episode: Bon Jovi, the Bills and Operation Big Tree: Inside Trump’s Plot to Buy an NFL Team
Host: Pablo Torre (A), Guest: Noah Shachtman (B)
Date: September 20, 2024

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Overview

In this episode, Pablo Torre and investigative journalist Noah Shachtman dive deep into the bizarre, untold story of Donald Trump’s 2014 attempt to purchase the Buffalo Bills. The tale weaves together sports fandom, political operatives, hair metal rivalries, and the lengths to which Trump and his team went to sabotage Jon Bon Jovi’s rival bid for the Bills—all orchestrated through a secretive group of Bills super-fans known as the "Big Tree Boys." The episode draws on Rolling Stone reporting and first-hand accounts, revealing how this failed NFL team quest echo’s Trump’s lifelong pursuits—and what might have been if he’d succeeded.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Strange Origin: Operation Big Tree

• Spring 2014: The saga starts in a rehab hospital with a man named Chuck, who just had his leg amputated. Mike, a lifelong friend and Bills fanatic, gives Chuck a secret mission—just days after the death of Ralph Wilson, the Bills' longtime owner. (01:10–03:12)
  • “Mike comes to me in the hospital and says, you gotta do something... I just got my leg up two days ago.” — Chuck via Pablo (02:04)
• A Team Assembles: Mike (aka Michael Caputo, political operative) drafts a ragtag crew including a former cop and a t-shirt guy. Their job: keep the Bills in Buffalo—and out of Jon Bon Jovi’s hands. (02:46–03:12)

Trump’s Lifelong NFL Obsession

• Over the decades, Trump attempts to buy at least six football teams, including the Colts, Cowboys, Patriots, and most iconically, the USFL’s New Jersey Generals, always bending the narrative after losing out. (06:24–07:54)
  • “Only a loser would buy the Cowboys.” — Donald Trump (07:19)
• Trump’s push to merge the USFL with the NFL culminates in a bizarre antitrust lawsuit, which he wins… but is awarded only $1. (14:05–16:11)
  • “The jury awards them $1. That’s right, $1.” — Noah (16:11)

The 2014 Bills Sale: Bon Jovi vs. Trump

• Jon Bon Jovi, backed by the Toronto Maple Leafs owners, becomes Trump's main rival bidder. Buffalo fans (stoked by rumors the team would be relocated) are incited against Bon Jovi by Caputo, Chuck, and the Big Tree Boys in a grassroots propaganda campaign. (23:28–32:36)
  • “They gather all these people together… started a Facebook group.” — Noah (29:54–30:32)
  • "No Bon Jovi" signs flood local bars and radio, who boycott his music. Even custom anti-Bon Jovi lyrics are written to the tune of "Livin’ on a Prayer." (31:01–32:36)
• Pablo notes the uncanny parallel to Trump’s signature populist strategy: “It sounds like they’re running a play from the Donald Trump playbook: America First.” (29:25–29:32)
• The campaign works—Bon Jovi becomes persona non grata in Buffalo. (33:09–33:47)
  • “Somehow it works, which is wild. I mean, this is a guy that, like, has rest stops named after him Jon Bon Jovi.” — Noah (31:44–31:51)

Trump’s Dubious Operations and Motivations

• Trump exaggerates his net worth and pushes banks (Deutsche Bank) for phony "proof of funds." He never supplies real documents, instead bringing a Forbes list of entertainers as financial evidence. (39:27–40:40)
  • “Deutsche Bank, who was basically his accomplice in this fraud, is like, sure, no problem. Here you go. Sight unseen.” — Noah (39:51)
• In the end, Pegula, owner of the Sabres, bids much higher ($1.4 billion) and wins. Trump, losing again, claims he never really wanted the Bills. (41:02–42:16)
  • “Glad I didn’t get the Bills. Better lucky than good.” — Trump tweet read by Noah (42:16–42:37)

Sliding Doors: What If Trump Had Succeeded?

• Several sources (including a confidante of Trump) say if he’d gotten the Bills, he likely wouldn’t have run for president—a crossover moment in modern American history. (43:09–44:06)
  • “If he had successfully gotten the Buffalo Bills, he would not have run for president.” — Noah (44:06)
• Bon Jovi remains “shot through the heart” by the whole saga, telling Stern in 2018 Trump was “an evil genius.” (44:47–45:17)

Culture Wars, Old Grudges, and Redemption

• Michael Caputo’s animus against Bon Jovi was partly rooted in a hair-metal vs. Deadhead cultural clash: “It was just a perfect opportunity to vent some outrage at his music that I’ve held inside me for 40 years.” (36:43–36:55)
• In a late twist (47:51), Caputo texts Noah a video where Bon Jovi heroically saves a woman on a Nashville bridge, declaring on Twitter:
  • “This is the act of a good man. All is forgiven @BonJovi and I apologize. You are unbanned. #BillsMafia.” — Michael Caputo (48:08)
• The episode ends on a note of improbable bipartisanship and closure for Bon Jovi and the Big Tree Boys.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• Mad Lib Plot Unfolds:
  • “Jon Bon Jovi. It just feels like I’m trapped in a mad lib.” — Pablo (04:36)
• On Trump’s NFL Obsession:
  • “Donald Trump has rarely been as horny as he has been for football teams.” — Noah (06:24)
• USFL Lawsuit:
  • “The jury awards them $1. That’s right, $1.” — Noah (16:11)
• Weaponizing Fandom:
  • “They gather all these people together... started a Facebook group.” — Noah (29:54–30:32)
  • “[They] wrote an open letter... I want you to hear this from me. I’m not risking it all to let you down.” — Bon Jovi’s letter (33:14–33:21)
• Closing the Pop-Culture Loop:
  • “Jon Bon Jovi is a goddamn superhero. That’s incredible.” — Noah (47:42)
  • “All is forgiven @BonJovi and I apologize. You are unbanned. #BillsMafia.” — Caputo text (48:08)
• Sliding Doors for America:
  • “If he had successfully gotten the Buffalo Bills, he would not have run for president.” — Noah (44:06)
  • “A story that starts with this plot... ends with something that feels like bipartisan agreement.” — Pablo (48:52)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:53 Origin of the story: Chuck, Mike, and the post-amputation mission
• 06:24 Trump’s history of NFL and failed team bids
• 14:05 The USFL antitrust lawsuit; winning $1
• 23:28 Michael Caputo’s background and assembling the strike team
• 29:25 Launching the anti-Bon Jovi campaign
• 31:44 The anti-Bon Jovi campaign’s surprising success
• 39:27 Trump’s financial deception with Deutsche Bank
• 41:02 Pegula outbids Trump; Trump rewrites the narrative
• 43:09 Sliding doors: “If Trump got the Bills, no presidential run”
• 44:47 Bon Jovi’s heartbreak and years of therapy
• 47:51 Bon Jovi heroically saves a woman; Caputo apologizes publicly

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Tone & Style

The episode is both witty and incisive, mixing Pablo Torre’s signature dry humor with Noah Shachtman’s investigative color. They move from ironic disbelief to serious cultural analysis, with irreverent jokes and asides providing comic relief in a tale that feels both absurd and consequential.

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Final Thoughts

Pablo and Noah peel back the curtain not just on Trump’s sporting ambitions, but on the mechanics of how politics, fandom, and cultural grievance can be weaponized through grassroots (and sometimes truly bizarre) means. The episode underscores a key alternate history: Trump’s Buffalo Bills bid was more than a footnote; it could have rewritten the direction of American politics. In the end, a viral act of Bon Jovi kindness offers a redemptive coda, closing one of the strangest chapters in NFL and political history.

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For listeners craving a wild, detailed story that links NFL fixation, celebrity rivalry, and a presidential butterfly effect—all with Rolling Stone flavor—this episode delivers in spades.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out I am Pablo Torre. And today we're gonna find out what this sound is.

[B]

I'm not gonna do something totally stupid. Maybe just a little bit stupid, but not totally stupid.

[A]

Right after this ad, you're listening to Giraffe Kings. Noah, I'm so glad you're here. Thank you for being here in person in our studio.

[B]

Thanks, man.

[A]

It takes a lot for me to be moved by a sports and politics story at this point. We've both ridden them, read them, watched them. I'm numb to so much of it. But you say you have something for me that's worth our time. And so where do you want to start Our story?

[B]

How about 10 years ago, spring of 2014. It starts in a hospital room in a rehab center room. And a guy named Chuck has just gotten his leg cut off.

[A]

Proceed.

[B]

So Chuck, he's got a very serious bone disease. This is the second time he's had to have a limb amputated. He has left army cut off before. Now he's had his left leg cut off and he's trying to recuperate from this very serious operation. And he gets a call from one of his oldest, oldest, oldest friends, a guy named Mike. They grew up near the Bill Stadium and they're like Bill's super fans. They are Buffalo Bill's fanatics.

[A]

We moved here with my parents in 1971. They built the stadium, the Bill's new stadium. Then in 1973, whole life has been growing up with the Bills, the Buffalo Bills. And what does Mike want?

[B]

At this moment, Mike's got kind of a secret mission for him.

[A]

I was getting my leg amputated. Mike comes to me in the hospital and says, you gotta do something. I said, what do you mean? I just got my leg up two days ago. What do you want me to do? And so the mission, as I watch and listen to Chuck wearing clearly a Grateful Dead tie dye shirt.

[B]

Yeah, the two of them are super Deadheads. Been to a million shows together.

[A]

Of course they have their secret mission, if you had to explain it, like, was what, what, what's happening here?

[B]

The mission has to do with the Buffalo Bills. And a couple of days later, Mike brings in a kind of, I don't know, what do you call it? Like a team.

[A]

Oh, they're assembling a team.

[B]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[A]

It's that scene in the movie.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Are we doing Ocean's Eleven in Orchard Park?

[B]

He's the Clooney figure. Mike is the Clooney figure and he's assembling a crew. And it's like there's a former cop in the crew, There's a random T shirt maker guy in the crew. There's some guy that told me some cockamamie story about an Elmo suit and a TV matchmaker. And then there's Chuck.

[A]

And so the relevant question, I feel like in any good secret mission, is Mike in charge here?

[B]

Mike is sort of tactically in charge, but the big man, the man he's working for, his client is Donald Trump.

[A]

Of course it is.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so Donald Trump wants to do what to who?

[B]

Right. So a few days before Chuck had his leg cut off, the owner, the longtime owner of the Buffalo Bills, had died.

[A]

Ralph Wilson died like 2014, and he was the owner of the Bills. So Trump was going to buy the Bills, you know, put a bid in. He was like the fourth or fifth guy running to buy the Bills.

[B]

But in order to get the team, he had a very high profile rival that needed to be disqualified in some way from the bidding. This is his pre presidential rival.

[A]

And so the rival in question that Donald Trump is trying to take down using this squad, this team, is who?

[B]

Jon Bon Jovi.

[A]

It just feels like I'm trapped in a mad lib.

[B]

If you think you're trapped in a mad lib now, wait till the rest of this comes out.

[A]

Okay, so there are Trump stories that do connect to sports and to music, and I, I just don't have interest in investigating them for you, frankly. This includes the current story in the news right now about how the wife of Patrick Mahomes, the great Chiefs quarterback, liked a Trump post on Instagram even though she is friends with Taylor Swift. And so, you know, Trump goes and makes fun of Taylor Swift and whatever, but the reason you're about to go on a journey with Noah Schachtman, a longtime magazine reporter and the former editor in chief of Rolling Stone, is because there is one story in this specific genre that I did need to find out about, and it's a story that Noah reported for us in partnership with Rolling Stone, which is publishing the written version of it today. Because I suspect that the story of Donald Trump and his quest to finally become an NFL owner, culminating with his attempt to buy the Buffalo Bills by way of this guy named Chuck and his friend Mike. And this truly bizarre scheme against Jon Bon Jovi can actually explain a lot.

[B]

Donald Trump has rarely been as horny as he has been for football teams. He's tried over the last, let's call it 45 years to buy, I would say, a half a dozen different teams at different points.

[A]

Jeez.

[B]

Yeah. He tried to buy the Colts at one point, right back when they were leaving Baltimore.

[A]

So that was like the early 80s.

[B]

Early, early 80s, yeah. He denied, of course, ever wanting to buy the Colts when he lost the bid.

[A]

That seems to be a pattern that we will return to.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

In future sequels.

[B]

Yeah. Then he allegedly passed on buying the Cowboys a couple years after that.

[A]

Explain that to me. Because the Cowboys, as we now understand them, are the greatest investment that a person could have made.

[B]

Right. And so, of course, that's the one that Donald Trump passed on. It was a $50 million offer that was going to be in place for the Cowboys. The Cowboys are now worth $10 billion with a B.

[A]

Yes. The most valuable franchise in American sports.

[B]

Yeah. He said that only losers. Only a loser would buy the Cowboys. Only a loser can buy the Dallas Cowboys. The Dallas Cowboys have been so good so long that. And the expectation level has been so high and will continue to be so high. But if the Dallas Cowboys become just a good team, above average team, the man who owns that team is going to be called a loser. So there he is.

[A]

Good take.

[B]

Yeah. Hot take.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Trump passed on that one. So he could instead make a low dollar bid for a club called the New Jersey Generals.

[A]

All right, so again, we are in the 1980s, and the new Jersey Generals, as you may know, were not an NFL team. They were, in fact, a team in the United States Football League, or USFL, as it's known. This upstart football league and aspiring challenger to the conquering NFL that was playing football in the spring instead of in the fall, which meant that they avoided going head to head against the NFL schedule directly. And Donald Trump, having already tried and failed to buy the Colts, an actual NFL team, bought the generals after the USFL's very first season in 1983, at which point Trump naturally wanted to make a big splash and also start taking credit for the USFL entirely.

[B]

Something that's interesting. And again, in this case, it's not just buying. We're not just buying a team. And we're going to three graph choices. We're going to make it better and better. We're creating a team, but we're creating a whole league.

[A]

I do feel like the Trump attraction to football is also about, of course, all the stuff that's not football.

[B]

Right. There's the tiny outfits of the cheerleaders that Trump is very attracted to. There's the popularity of it that he's Very attracted to the crowds. The crowds, yeah. And then there's very much that sense that it was, you know, this is the most exclusive club and in rich guy world. And one of Trump's longtime people use that exact kind of phrase, that this was the most exclusive of clubs for him to be a member of.

[A]

When you mentioned the phrase one of Donald Trump's people. Yeah, I do get the sense as we go through the history of this, that his people, I'll call them goons, I feel like that's legally defensible at this point. They are both people that you would not think a very exclusive person would necessarily be enlisting for these missions. Also, sometimes, though, according to various, you know, books and records, it's sometimes just him using a different name on the phone.

[B]

Right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, famously, he was his own press agent. He would call up people and be like, hi, this is John Baron. Okay. What's your first name? John. John. John. Most of the assets have been consolidated to Mr. Trump, you know, because you have downstair Trump. But I think you can really use Donald Barron called up because he had a hot tip for the New York papers that Lawrence Taylor, the famous New York Giants defensive linebacker. Yeah, extraordinaire. Was going to at one point sign with the New Jersey Generals.

[A]

And then there's a Lawrence Taylor situation. He signed a contract with Trump's generals, but he's still under contract with the Giants.

[B]

Valerie decides to sign a contract with the USFL, even if it's in 1987 or 1988, which is three or four years, that is tremendous credibility for the USFL, and the NFL knows it, and they really do know it. It was news to Lawrence Taylor that this was happening. He had been talking to Trump, and the. The whole thing was, hey, I might be interested, but we got to keep this on the DL because I'm going to be playing for the Giants for a couple years, but maybe I'll come over and join your team. And it's important to note that the USFL at that point was playing in the spring, so they were playing where the NFL was not.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Right. And they were doing pretty good. They were bringing pretty good ratings. They were bringing in pretty good names, big names. They brought in, you know, famously, future US Senate candidate Herschel Walker.

[A]

Who could forget?

[B]

So, anyway, so Trump immediately is like, no, we're going directly to the fall. We're going to challenge these guys immediately. To be clear, this is business suicidal.

[A]

It's not gonna work. It was obvious to everybody.

[B]

Yeah, there's no chance of this working, like 0%. And Trump, somehow, because he's Trump, manages to convince all these owners to do it anyway. Are you at war with the NFL? Well, I don't know. We're not at peace with the NFL, I guess, but I don't know if you can classify it as a war. We're in competition for their players. They've been, they've done a good job over the years. They've done a great job in some cases over the years. And we're certainly looking to compete with the NFL. And the answer is we are in a form of war right now with the NFL. There's no question about it.

[A]

But the end game, in terms of, like, the NFL, USFL forever.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

His economic strategy, insofar as there was one, was what?

[B]

Oh, oh, it was just a Donald Trump economic strategy. As Jeff Pearlman documented in his incredible book, Football for a Book, which is about the usfl, he told his fellow USFL upstart owners that he was rich enough to buy a real big boy NFL team, and they weren't. And you know, they could go to hell.

[A]

Good teammate.

[B]

Yeah, good teammate. Then there's something else going on. And honestly, I, I don't feel like we ever figured out exactly, or it ever came out exactly what the strategy was, but it was either something like, hey, we're going to move to the fall and force the NFL to basically absorb us at some point.

[A]

A merger. A merger, maybe to make the problem of the USFL go away. Stop taking our players, stop taking our real estate. Yeah, we don't want them competing.

[B]

Or this was a way for Donald Trump personally to get an NFL team on the cheap. As in, maybe it doesn't have to be a whole league merger. Maybe it's just merge me right again.

[A]

Good teammates.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

A merger was the end game. Spoiler alert. NFL is like, no.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

And so Trump's move, legally speaking, what recourse does he have at that point.

[B]

He tries something that seems completely insane, which is he sues the NFL for antitrust violations. The United States Football League wants more than one and a quarter billion dollars in damages from the National Football League. The NFL. The antitrust action was filed yesterday. It alleges that the NFL has unfairly monopolized pro football and threatens the livelihood of the usfl. Some people are saying that you, Donald Trump, what you really want is to get Donald Trump's football team into the NFL. Totally false. Totally false. Totally false. And what about a merger? Some are saying that what you really Want is some kind of a merger between the USFL and the NFL. David, if it should, I'm not going to say here, sit here and say, well, it's not going to happen and we don't want it. If it should ever happen, it should happen. But we want to deal from a position of strength. Strength. This league has a great potential. If we weren't discriminated against so badly as the NFL has done, this league would be very, very successful. It's already done relatively well. And the crazy part, like, the truly crazy part of this crazy suit is that it works.

[A]

So the suit, the money, the damage is alleged. I mean, it is a $1.32 billion suit. No.

[B]

Yeah. And that's in 80s dollars.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

So that's a. It's a ton of money. And, and it works because the NFL and their genius actually had, you know, what's that line from the Wire like, don't take notes on a criminal conspiracy. Right. Is you taking notes on a criminal conspiracy? Is you thinking, man, the NFL violated that rule of thumb and actually had like a whole strategy document that was like, how to block out the USFL written by this very famous Harvard Business School professor, of course, of course. That, you know, came out in court. And so guess what? Yeah, it looked like the NFL actually did violate antitrust laws.

[A]

And so the USFL and Donald Trump, they get what for winning this case.

[B]

So remember, they've sued for more than a billion dollars and the jury awards them $1. That's right, $1. Basically, they say, you're right, they did violate antitrust. But guess what? You shouldn't be rewarded for engaging in this suicidal, insane move to go to move to the fall. So here's your $1. Go be happy. And the league had been totally counting on that money. Like, totally, totally counting on that money. So the league basically folds overnight. And so Donald Trump's need to get an NFL franchise on the cheap instead bankrupts and destroys this entire institution.

[A]

That tracks.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So all this adds up to me, right? Yeah, Massive failure. Infamous failure with usfl. Didn't get the Colts, didn't get the Cowboys. But what team then, because you mentioned about a half dozen of these attempts, what team is Donald Trump onto next? Given that the USFL is now in the rear view mirror.

[B]

Yeah. So it's a couple years after that, and the Patriots come up for sale. And once again, all kinds of bidders come out of the kind of out of the woodwork, and one of them is Trump.

[A]

Okay, so some quick math on how to buy the New England Patriots in 1988. It was a kind of funny thing in the case of Donald Trump, particularly because Trump, like Jon Bon Jovi, actually loved the Patriots, loved the name, the iconography, the Americana, all of it. And Trump's people had told him, apparently, that between the team and the stadium, Foxborough Stadium, the patriots were carrying $104 million in debt, which was too much for Trump to want to take on, which was odd, because Trump, as he often alleged, was also a billionaire who could definitely afford it. But Trump didn't. Couldn't buy the Patriots in the end, which simply meant that he remained obsessed with them for decades, as I myself personally discovered while co hosting the Dan LeBatard show with Stugatz in 2015. Because that happens to be when Donald Trump himself, Donnie from Queens, called the show with some legal advice for Tom Brady. As we've discussed on PTFO before, I.

[B]

Mean, you talk about Deflategate, I talk about those folks, and, you know, frankly, I think Tom Brady should sue the NFL for $250 million and settle for.

[A]

Nothing and, you know, get out of this thing. All of which is to say that Donald Trump cared a lot about Tom Brady, a lot more than I ever realized.

[B]

Trump was later tight with Belichick, but the guy he was tightest with of all, or the guy that he felt the most connection with, was the man to whom he was giving legal advice through you, which is Tom Brady.

[A]

How tight are we talking here?

[B]

So tight that he. I. I think there's no other way to talk about but that Trump felt a sexual energy with Tom Brady, how amazing it would be to have him in his family, and how he should really be having sex with his daughter.

[A]

So that's a big claim.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What's our journalistic sort of basis for saying it?

[B]

Well, many, many on the record quotes by one Donald J. Trump. But, Tom, the other big thing was that Trump always dreamed of you marrying Ivanka, and he told me he suggested it to you, but did you ever take him?

[A]

Did you ever go out with her?

[B]

That was. That was a long time ago. That was a long time ago in my life. So did you consider it? You know, I'm a. Did I consider dating her?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

No, there was never. There was never that where we ever dated or anything like that.

[A]

But just to clarify here, this was not for lack of trying on the part of Donald Trump, because Howard Stern was not lying there. Trump did talk to him a lot about how badly he wanted Ivanka, his daughter, to date Brady. In fact, in 2004, Trump told Playboy, quote, tom Brady would make any father in law proud. Meanwhile, the New York Times separately reported that Trump would often joke about how, quote, he could have had Tom Brady as his son in law. But instead, according to five New York Times sources who all heard Trump say this in person, quote, I got Jared.

[B]

Kushner, and then I also talked to this guy, Sam Nunberg, who's sort of a character in the Trump cinematic universe. Number told me it was like a running joke at Trump Tower how much Trump would talk about Tom Brady and about how he wanted to ship Tom Brady and his daughter. He discusses it when he's talking about Ivanka and saying, maybe she's going to start going out with Tom Brady. In fact, it was a frequent discussion. If Brady came up with the. And Ivanka was in the office, she would talk about, I told you he wouldn't be a good husband. You know, he wouldn't be loyal. And Donald would frequently say that Tom knows that Melania's prettier than Giselle. And he would often say, not often. Often it's not. But he did occasionally say, don't you think Ivanka's prettier than Gisele? And I actually do. So I would say yes. I would say yes on both fronts.

[A]

Just a phenomenally horrible series of statements.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

This is the underworld of operatives that Donald Trump has assembled, his team that he's assembled around him. But this whole momentum towards trying and failing, but trying and failing and trying again to get an NFL team brings.

[B]

Us where now we're back kind of at the start. It's 2014. Trump has just had sort of been floated as a candidate for governor. It's about a year before the infamous golden escalator and the longtime owner of the Buffalo Bills has died.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And we're back now in that rehab room, in walks Mike, the longtime Bills fan. Mike. Michael Caputo. Michael Caputo is like a longtime operative, political operative, communications operative, with a crazy backstory of his own, who's going to see his longtime Bill's fan growing up in the neighborhood, friend Chuck, who's just had that horrible.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You know, surgery to take off his leg. And they're going to team up to try to get Donald Trump. The Buffalo Bills.

[A]

They're trying to give Donald Trump a good name.

[B]

Come on.

[A]

Wait, let me try it again. Because he wants the Buffalo Bills dead or alive. Okay, so Michael Caputo, the political operative, this guy Mike, like the above mentioned, Sam Nunberg that Trump was surrounding himself with, has A particular resume that I do need you to know about, if you hadn't seen it on the news already. Caputo, who was on the Trump campaign.

[B]

From November 2015 to June 2016, had.

[A]

Lived in Russia in the 1990s working.

[B]

For the US government. He returned to the US in 2000 and worked as a public relations advisor.

[A]

To a subsidiary of the state owned Russian conglomerate Gazprom. Last year, he told the Buffalo News, I'm not proud of the way work.

[B]

Today, but at the time, Putin wasn't such a bad guy. I've intentionally stayed out of the hair of the White House and, and the administration, especially since my name was brought up in this. In the context of the Russian investigation, nobody in the administration or the White House needs my telephone number on their call list, needs me on their visitor.

[A]

Logs, or needs emails from me. Before becoming a Trump campaign staffer and also also a PR person for Gazprom, Michael Caputo had been mentored by the political operative Roger Stone, one of Trump's longest standing goons. And Caputo had also worked for both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. bush, specializing in media strategy. But one day in 2014, he eventually found his way back home to Western New York to focus on a football team. Team whose name, it turns out, the Bills did carry a bit of a double meaning in Donald Trump's personal financial context. And now Jon Bon Jovi was standing in the way. And so we're back in the rehab center. Chuck in his tie, dye shirt, missing, missing limbs. This visual, this visually stunning character.

[B]

Yeah. Someone said he was bleeding through some of his bandages because he had just gotten his leg cut off.

[A]

So this raises the question, from an assembling the team perspective, Noah, of why is Mike Caputo, longtime savvy political communications operative, working for Donald Trump, guy who likes a scheme. Why is Mike the operative? Like, I need Chuck.

[B]

So you got to take that back to the 70s, actually, where the two of them and a bunch of other guys grew up in a working class neighborhood called Orchard park that was right outside of where the Bills played football. Members of this group, which was called, amazingly, the Big Tree Boys.

[A]

Etymology. Why. Why are they.

[B]

Orchard Park, Big Tree. Okay.

[A]

Yeah, right, right, right.

[B]

One person described it to me as like a real street gang that fought other gangs. They said west side Story without the tunes, which is amazing.

[A]

Yeah. What if they loved football instead of dancing?

[B]

Yeah. So they would get into all kinds of schemes.

[A]

What are we talking about?

[B]

So Chuck in his wheelchair would go up to security guard and be like, please sir, can you let me in for $5 to the Buffalo Bills game?

[A]

And when he opened up the gate, all my brothers and my friends jump on the other side. They had a lot of equipment over there, so the first thing we hoisted was some bolt cutters. And then we emptied out their tool supply. You know, they had nice electric drills. So we filled up my friend's garage, installed them. So, yeah, we did pretty good. We're profitable around here. It's a particularly funny thing to steal the tools people use to break into stuff and sell that for money.

[B]

Yeah, that's capitalism, baby.

[A]

Hell of a street gang.

[B]

Oh, yeah, man.

[A]

Chuck, in other words, he's the. He's the Trojan horse inside of which all of these guys will jump out and do stuff.

[B]

And he's also. He's a beloved character, clearly, like before, during, and since the fact that you.

[A]

Go from breaking into the Buffalo Bills stadium.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And now to this Rehab center in 2014 with this mission from Donald Trump to unseat Jon Bon Jovi as this countervailing political force. How are they going to do that?

[B]

They're going to do it by staging a citywide boycott of Jon Bon Jovi because Jon Bon Jovi's partners in buying the team were. Were the guys that own the Toronto Maple Leaves. And so, because the Bills had already played games up in Toronto.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

There was a huge fear that the Bills were going to leave town. Buffalo was in rough shape back then 10 years ago, and there's a real. No fear that they were going to take the Bills away. And longtime Bills fans Michael Caputo and. And Chucky Sontag were not going to let that happen.

[A]

It sounds like they're running a play from the Donald Trump playbook that we all know, which is America First.

[B]

Yeah, I guess so. I guess so.

[A]

And so how do you organize a citywide boycott? Like, okay, okay, Big Tree Boys. Like what you got?

[B]

So they gather all these people together, and this is like how Chuck describes what Mike pitched to him that day.

[A]

So he organized a group, and he got, like, four guys and sent them to my hospital room. And four guys. One of them I knew was from the neighborhood. One guy owns a T shirt company, you know, an imprint company. The other guy was working for a food, you know, distributor. And he was like, these guys were, you know, they knew a lot of people. They knew how to work computers. I just love, you know, one of these guys. They know to work computers. Yeah, I'm glad they got the. Know how to work computers.

[B]

I think what he means is they started a Facebook group. I am. I think that's the thing.

[A]

And so this was a multipronged attack, a multimedia effort.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. No, it was online. They would go from. From bar to bar with these signs. These, like, save the bills. No Bon Jovi signs. They'd ask them to hang them up. They went to local radio stations and said, don't play Bon Jovi anymore.

[A]

So again, Jon Bon Jovi, for. For me, that's. That's a pretty big name to convince radio stations to not play anymore.

[B]

For you. My first concert in, like, 1984 or whatever was seeing Jon Bon Jovi open up for the Scorpions at the Garden.

[A]

Yeah, no, I mean, it's pretty big look when. When the former editor of Rolling Stone is like, jon Bon Jovi is my origin story.

[B]

Yeah, I don't know. Hold on. I don't know about origin story. Let's take it down there a notch.

[A]

The point being, though, that you're telling Buffalo this piece of Americana is not actually American, not to be trusted, and.

[B]

Somehow it works, which is wild. I mean, this is a guy that, like, has rest stops named after him Jon Bon Jovi.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And it works so much so that local rock stations start re recording Bon Jovi tunes. Like Living on a Prayer with anti Bon Jovi lyrics.

[A]

Wait, they're. They're. They're freedom frizing Jon Bon Jovi.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're, like, not, like, using.

[A]

Yeah, exactly.

[B]

Johnny used to get played on Jack. Now he wants our Bills, but Buffalo.

[A]

Just won't take that.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Being hoisted on your own petard on your own riff. That's catchy.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. No, it's good.

[A]

But this has the feeling of a political campaign of like, Of. Of. Of a retail politics that went precinct by precinct, knocking on doors to turn the tide against the candidate to the point where the candidate was.

[B]

And it was a brilliant media strategy. Bon Jovi even wrote, like, an open letter to the Buffalo News, the big paper. Like, wrote an open letter that was like, no, I love Buffalo. I want to keep the team in Buffalo. On Sunday, he wrote an open letter.

[A]

To Bills fans pledging to make the.

[B]

Team a success in Buffalo.

[A]

He writes, I know how much the Bills mean to the people of this region, so I want you to hear this from me.

[B]

I'm not risking it all to let you down. That just spurred, like, even more rounds of vitriol and anti Jovi hate.

[A]

So if the. If the proxy war that Donald Trump is waging through the Big Tree Boys, this local street gang that has now turned the tide against Jon Bon Jovi. As all of that is happening, how is Chuck. How is he communicating with the big man, with Trump himself?

[B]

So Trump now has to stay away in public from this campaign because the NFL has rules about if you're going to be a bidder on an NFL team, you have to follow certain things.

[A]

Right. Very NFL.

[B]

Right. And one of them is no rat publicly.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

So he's got to stay away from that. But Trump is still talking to his longtime operative, Michael Caputo, and Caputo is still talking to Chuck.

[A]

I was doing an interview at AM Buffalo, and Caputo was driving me, and. And Trump called him and said, what are you doing? He said, I'm taking my friend to. To AM Buffalo about Ban and Bon Jovi and Trump. I was in the car over the speaker, and Trump said, hey, how was your friend doing? He said, he's right here. So that was pretty cool, because even.

[B]

Back then, he was super famous. So you had this, like, super famous guy calling you and look into.

[A]

Yeah. Looking to buy our bills and be our safe.

[B]

Be your savior. Yeah.

[A]

And just so I get a sense of how this works when you do a good job for Donald Trump.

[B]

Right.

[A]

As an operative.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What's in it for Mike, for Michael Caputo?

[B]

Well, according to Chuck, what was in it for Michael Caputo was that he was going to become the general manager of the Bills.

[A]

If he was going to buy the Bills, he was going to make Michael Caputo the general manager of the Bills.

[B]

Caputo said that that was more of a big tree sewing circle rumor.

[A]

But just for clarity's sake, when it comes to Michael Caputo's qualifications to perhaps be the general manager of one of the now really good teams in the NFL in 2024.

[B]

What.

[A]

What's his sports background?

[B]

Doing PR for Putin's oil company?

[A]

Stealing bolt cutters and selling them.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

No, it sounds like Michael Caputo. Yeah. Love the dead. Love. Loves going to these shows with. With Chuck. That's what he's into more than sports, it seems like, even.

[B]

Yeah. But the two things go together. Right. Because back then, you got to put yourself in that mindset. Like a deadhead, you know, sort of continuation of classic rock type. Those people felt back then, like, really at odds with hair metal. Right. And it was too poppy for them, too bubblegum for them.

[A]

A culture war of itself.

[B]

Yeah, a culture war of its own. Exactly. And so Caputo would later profess that this sort of, like, grew out of his hatred of hair metal.

[A]

I think Bon Jovi is one of.

[B]

The worst hair band artists I've ever heard in my life.

[A]

I hated his music when I was a kid.

[B]

I thought it was bubblegum music then. I think it's bubblegum music now. It was just a perfect opportunity to vent some outrage at his music that I've held inside me for 40 years.

[A]

So what Michael Caputo is saying is that how dare we give his love a bad day? So I also want to just explain that part of your assignment here.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

With Pablo Tori finds out in Rolling Stone was, can you look through all these documents? Can you just like, pore over, like, court transcripts?

[B]

I did.

[A]

What was that like for you as you try to figure out where the Bills fit into all of these things?

[B]

So I'm not gonna lie. It's not like the cornerstone of it or anything like that, but it's a part. It's a real significant part. Michael Cohen brought up the idea before Congress, before AOC, I think in like 2019. I am giving to the committee today three years of Mr. Trump's personal financial statements from 2011, 2012 and 2013, which he gave to Deutsche bank to inquire about a loan to buy the Buffalo Bills. And then it was also brought up multiple times, multiple, multiple times in this trial that happened in New York, the civil trial, this fraud trial.

[A]

Right.

[B]

That resulted in such a huge judgment against Trump. The most high profile examples of fraud, the Trump Tower penthouse. The Trump Organization inflated its value by some $200 million declaring. Declaring it was 30,000 square feet. But Trump signed a document certifying it's a third that size. 11,000 square feet. And while Trump claimed his Mar A Lago resort was worth up to $600 million, its true assessed value was no more than 27 million.

[A]

But Trump inflating his wealth and obfuscating his actual amount of money that he has in the bank. I mean, this is where it's a familiar song.

[B]

I like buying things. So that we'll see what happens. I'll put a bid in and we'll see. I would be good. The team is Buffalo, as you know, and we'll see what happens. Everyone knows I'm doing that. I'll be bidding, but many other people will be bidding. And I would say the chances are very, very unlikely because, you know, I'm not going to do something totally stupid. Maybe just a little bit stupid, but not totally stupid.

[A]

When Donald Trump is challenged to provide proof of funds. You know, we cover sports ownership on the show all the time. These would be transactions sure. When you're asked to show that you got the money.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What does Donald Trump do?

[B]

Well, thing number one is he goes to Deutsche bank, that's his longtime banker, and he basically says, give me a letter that's certifying that I have the cash to pay a billion dollars for the bills. And Deutsche bank, who was basically his accomplice in this fraud, is like, sure, no problem. Here you go. Sight unseen.

[A]

Great.

[B]

That's then delivered to Morgan Stanley, who is representing, I think, the NFL. Trump sends another letter that says, I am worth $8 billion. Like documents supplied upon request. And Trump and his guys have a meeting in August, I think, of 2014, with Morgan Stanley and a. There's no documents supplied.

[A]

I was going to say now it's request time.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Where are the documents?

[B]

The documents aren't there, but he does bring a copy of The Forbes Top 100 paid entertainers list that year. Yeah. Mark Wahlberg.

[A]

Jesus.

[B]

Seth McFarland.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Donald Trump.

[A]

Really?

[B]

What it is, is like, who's got a publicist that can trick Forbes into printing their name on this list?

[A]

Yes. One of many things I found out today is that the Forbes list not to be trusted as an economic indicator.

[B]

Sorry, man.

[A]

So when we last left the Big Tree boys, yeah, they were succeeding wildly.

[B]

Wildly.

[A]

Had defeated Jon Bon Jovi on. On the mission from Donald Trump. And I want to now square the circle. Donald Trump famously did not buy the Buffalo Bills. Noah.

[B]

He did not buy the Buffalo Bills. No.

[A]

Terry Pula, who owns the Sabres, bought the team in 2014. That's the big winner of all of this. After the ban Bon Jovi summer that operative Mike Caputo and. And Chuck executed brilliantly. Why didn't Trump get the team?

[B]

Pegula bid a whole lot more money, bid $1.4 billion. As Caputo himself said to GQ, who was the first one to break the news of Trump's involvement in this whole thing, said Trump could never outbid the Canadians. So in other words, Trump wanted to get this team on the cheap.

[A]

All of which is to say that the. The documents do not get supplied and Trump is left. And I remember this as a user of twitter.com in 2014, we with a man who is constantly posting about this story about the Bills and why he didn't actually, you know, wasn't trying to. He didn't want them anyway.

[B]

I'm not going to try to do a Trump impression, but I'll read a couple of. I'm not going to be watching much NFL football anymore. Too boring. Too Many flags. Too soft. Then another one. Boring games. The NFL games are so boring now that actually I'm glad I didn't get the Bills. Boring games. Glad I didn't get the Bills. Better lucky than good. Yeah.

[A]

Spoiler alert. The NFL would become the most popular television show in modern American history.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

And I must confess that a big part of me, as I reread these tweets, in all of their anger and obvious sadness compared to what happened next. Noah, where does he go?

[B]

What do you mean, where does he go? He goes down that golden escalator.

[A]

This conveniently transportative metaphor for the direction our country also.

[B]

Yeah. Would go. But he kind of never lets go. He kind of never lets go of this NFL thing.

[A]

But when it comes to just this sliding doors aspect of, like, that timeline in which Trump owns the Bills prevents this other timeline that we're living in, in this studio together.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What did the people that you interviewed who know Trump, what did they say about that as a crossroads? This story specifically as a crossroads?

[B]

I talked to somebody who. Whose opinion I really trust on this, who was like, he couldn't have started some brand new, complicated, high visibility venture and put a lot of energy into running for president. And so this person and several others said if he had successfully gotten the Buffalo Bills, he would not have run for president. Yeah.

[A]

The Big Tree Boys.

[B]

The Big Tree Boys, man, Did a number on all of us. How they stole all our bolt cars.

[A]

How is it that it goes back to the Big Tree Boys? All roads. All roads. How haunted is Jon Bon Jovi, though? What does he have to say about all of this in the aftermath?

[B]

I asked him nicely to talk about this. His reps declined.

[A]

Shocking.

[B]

He did go on Howard Stern in 2018, so these years after the fact. And called Trump an evil genius for what he had done. Yeah.

[A]

So his evil genius.

[B]

And people say, I go, no, it's genius what he did because he was taking out a serious candidate to buy the team and then hoped that he would get it at a bargain price. But we were as real as real got. And, you know, I'm brokenhearted because I would have loved it and what we would have done in western New York. And, you know, people don't realize that I was really going to, you know, get a house there. I was going to move there. And he told Stern that it took him years of therapy to get over. Yeah.

[A]

That is the sound of a man who has been shot through the heart. And I think we know who to blame. No. Before you throw me out of my own studio as a musical authority. I do want to know where Chuck and the Big Tree Boys are these days. Like, what's up with them in the present tense?

[B]

Chuck and Michael Caputo are still friends and still go to Dead End company shows together and, you know, going to.

[A]

Bills games and going to Bill's games. Michael Caputo. We have not heard on tape from Michael Caputo, Noah. Why not? Where is he?

[B]

He is working in a policy role on the Trump for President campaign.

[A]

Right now. Like today, this one?

[B]

Yeah. Like literally today. Michael Caputo would not comment for this podcast.

[A]

Sometimes you schedule an episode and you have someone report it and they do a very good job and you're like, and we're done.

[B]

Right?

[A]

This does not feel like one of those episodes at this point.

[B]

And another thing.

[A]

What's the other thing? What, what has happened that has just broken in the world of Jon Bon Jovi vs Trump World? Oper lives.

[B]

The day before we taped this, the Nashville police released security camera footage of someone on a bridge who was about to, you know, was on the wrong side of the railing. And this security camera shows Jon Bon Jovi walking on that Nashville bridge. He was filming a music video or something like that. And he sees this person and they.

[A]

Start talking and, and, and he is in all black and his hair is, is lustrous. And he's lifting this woman over the rail back to the right side of, of the railing, help lift her to.

[B]

Safety, and then hug her. You then see Bon Jovi and his.

[A]

Team and it's incredible. It's, it's, it's a remarkable candidate. Bit of footage.

[B]

Jon Bon Jovi is a goddamn superhero. I mean, that's incredible.

[A]

How, how did you find out about this video?

[B]

Caputo texted me the video along with a tweet of his that said, and I quote, this is the act of a good man. All is forgiven at Bon Jovi and I apologize. You are unbanned. Hashtag Bill's Mafia.

[A]

So the end of this story in which Jon Bon Jovi had been banned from Buffalo, New York in the service of Donald Trump's bid for what he really loves and wants in this world.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

NFL ownership ends with this random video of Jon Bon Jovi saving, helping to save the life of a random woman in Nashville and warming the heart of a man who hated his guts, who tried to destroy him, who's.

[B]

Who claimed to hold a, you know, half century grudge against him. And by that one act of kindness, now all is forgiven.

[A]

Look, I'm not a spokesman for the Big Tree Boys. Okay, that's not what I want to take away from the story to be, but it is shocking to me that a story that starts with this plot orchestrated by Donald Trump by proxy ends with something that feels like bipartisan agreement. Noah Yep. Is is not not something I I I can claim to be numb to in 2024.

[B]

Right on.

[A]

Thank you for reporting this story.

[B]

Seriously. My pleasure.

[A]

Pablo Torre finds out is produced by Michael Antonucci, Walter Averoma, Ryan Cortez, Sam Daywig, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, neely Loman, Rob McRae, Rachel Miller, Howard Ethan Schreier, Carl Scott, Matt Sullivan, Chris Tomanello and Juliet Warren. Steve Engineering by RD Systems. Sound design by NGW Post. Our theme song by John Bravo. All of us will see you on Tuesday.