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Howard Lutnick on living next door to Epstein, surviving 9/11 & late-night calls with Trump
01:11:25
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- [00:02]
A
Welcome back to podforceone. I'm Miranda Devine, and today I'm with Howard Lutnick, the Secretary of Commerce. Secretary Howard Lutmick. Thank you for joining podforce One. You're a New Yorker. You have known Donald Trump for 30 years. You know everybody. Elon Musk, Charlie Kirk. Jeffrey Epstein was your neighbour. I would be remiss if I didn't ask you about him. East 71st Street. You were. He was your neighbor for 10 years. How well did you know him?
- [00:36]
B
All right, so we are in number 11, and he lives in number nine.
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A
Right.
- [00:43]
B
So we renovate, we buy our house, and our house is pigeons and mice.
- [00:49]
A
Right.
- [00:49]
B
Okay, That's. It was derelict.
- [00:51]
A
Right.
- [00:51]
B
So we build, we rebuild our house. We move in in 2005. Okay. Jeffrey Epstein is arrested in, like, 08, I think, or something.
- [00:59]
A
Right? Right.
- [01:00]
B
So knock on the door. His assistant on, like, a Saturday, says, Mr. Epstein, your neighbor would like to invite you over for coffee. So my wife and I go next door. You know, we walk the seven steps.
- [01:14]
A
Yes, right.
- [01:15]
B
To the next house for. For coffee. We share a wall.
- [01:18]
A
Right?
- [01:19]
B
Right. So it's in New York City. So he invites us in. We have coffee in this. And he says, do you want a tour? He said, great.
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A
Interesting.
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B
He's got really big house.
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A
Every room you went in, he's got.
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B
He's got it. Well, I'll tell you. So his house is, like, super big, really wide. And so he gives me a tour in the living room. Big living room. And then across from it is double doors. I assume it's the dining room.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And he opens the doors, and there's a massage table in the middle of the room and candles all around and stuff. So I ask very insightful, cutting questions. I say to him, massage table in the middle of your house. How often you have a massage? And he says, every day. And then he, like, gets, like, weirdly close to me.
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A
Oh.
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B
And he says, and the right kind of massage. Now my wife is standing here. So she looks at me and I look at her and we say, I'm sorry, we have to go. And we left. And in the six or eight steps it takes to get from his house to my house, my wife and I decided that I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again. So I was never in the room with him socially for business or even philanthropy. If that guy was there, I wasn't going because he's gross. And so I look back at it as a gift.
- [03:00]
A
Yes.
- [03:01]
B
He gave me a gift of a voice so, yeah, that's my story. A one and absolutely done.
- [03:11]
A
Right? So I, I mean, that's an incredible story that you could pick up that he was a pervert.
- [03:18]
B
It's gross. The guy's gross, right? With my wife, like, he's grow. The guy's gross. This was not. Oh, the deep nuance of Howard Lutnick. This guy's gross, right?
- [03:29]
A
So how come Bill Gates and all these other people could hang around him and not see. See what you saw, or did they see it and ignore it or.
- [03:38]
B
No, they participated.
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A
Right?
- [03:40]
B
That's what his M.O. was, you know, get a massage. Get a massage. And what happened in that massage room, I assume was on video. This guy was the greatest blackmailer ever. Blackmailed people. That's how he had money.
- [03:53]
A
So, so what happened to those videos? Why is there now such a dearth of information when, you know, Donald Trump's people are running the FBI and the.
- [04:01]
B
Doj, I assume way back when, they traded those videos in exchange for him getting that 18 month sentence which allowed him to have visits and be out of jail. I mean, he's a serial sex offender. How could he get 18 months and be able to go to his office during the day and have visitors and stuff? Must have been a trade. So my assumption, I have no knowledge, but my assumption is there was a trade for the videos because there were people on those videos.
- [04:36]
A
And have you talked to Donald Trump about this and shared your theory?
- [04:40]
B
No. I mean, he knows the story, right? But like my story that, you know, I was the one and done with the guy. He knows that story, but that's it.
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A
He would have been interested in that.
- [04:50]
B
Story, but I don't know. It was just. It's a story. It's just a one and done. That guy.
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A
And does Trump feel. Did Trump feel the same way about him?
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B
I don't speak to him about these kind of. These are just distractions. The thing about the President is I'm doing the most important thing that I see. And then right after we do that, he does 10 other things that are as if not more important that are not my thing.
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A
Right.
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B
And you're like, wow. And he is great at it. And sometimes he lets, you know, he lets me stay. So, like, he lets me stay for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Come in.
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A
Right.
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B
This is like the coolest thing ever.
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A
Tell us a little bit about how you got into this bizarre role, really. You're a billionaire. You've been an incredibly successful businessman. You were a Hillary Clinton supporter, a classic New York Democrat. And Here you are Commerce Secretary in a Republican administration. How did you get here?
- [05:58]
B
I have known Donald Trump for decades, and I supported his campaign, but Hillary Clinton was very supportive of us after 9 11.
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A
Right.
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B
And so I sat down with President Trump, then candidate Trump, and I told him that I just don't forget. So I supported him in 2015. So I supported both because I told him I had to support her because she was helpful to me post 9 11. And I don't forget, remember, she was the New York senator, right. And she helped get bills passed that helped New York. Right. So, but then once, you know, so I supported both candidates, but once Donald Trump got elected, I, I was all in with, with Donald Trump. And, you know, he came over my house. I, I had him to fundraisers. I did all sorts of things together with him. But again, I was still rebuilding my company post 9 11. So I really wasn't involved in the politics side. I was just being financially supportive, and that was really it. And then towards the end of his campaign, the end of his presidency, when he's running again, then I went all in big. I raised a lot of money for him. I gave him a lot of money, and I was all in for Donald Trump. And then, you know, the election was stolen from him, as we all know, 2020. And I spent lots of time with him. We played golf together, we would hang out. And, and, and I always talk to him, oh, you're running again. And even when he was saying, I'm. I'm not running again, I'd say, oh, you're running again. You're running again.
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A
Why did you think that he would?
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B
Well, because, of course he would. Because the country needed him.
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A
Right, right.
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B
The country needed him. So now it's November 2023. He gives me a call. He says, will you help me? And this was not a normal conversation. He wasn't asking just for money. He was, he was talking to me as his friend, and I said I would. And then I, I gave him a lot of money. I raised him a lot of money. Probably $100 million.
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A
Wow.
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B
And. And then I went on the campaign trail with him, and I think the most important thing we did is we designed his tariff policy together. We talked through. He taught me, I tell you what, he taught me everything about tariffs. We designed the tariff policy together. And did you believe in economic policy? I didn't really understand tariffs before I met Donald Trump. I mean, you know, you're a New York businessman. It's not really your world.
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A
Right.
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B
And then once I started Talking to him about it, I understood it. And then I'm a voracious reader. I'm a voracious study. I studied everything he did during his first term. I knew everything that was possible. And I started talking to him about what is possible in his next term. And so we designed this model and that's why we came out so hot, right? Think about January 20th, he walks into the Oval Office, right? And by April, full on tariff policy is gone. I mean, so no one's ever gone this fast. No one's ever gone this big. And it was because we talked about it for over a year and a quarter to get ready to understand what to do and how to do it, what the laws were and how to go out there and go get a change in US Trade policy to stop every other country taking advantage of us and finally put America on the right footing.
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A
And you became his chair of his transition. Tell us, what does that mean? What did you actually do then?
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B
So in his first term, Chris Christie started as his transition chair. And what Chris Christie had done, we learned is that he made like, deals with the other guy saying, you know, if you get a job, you'll be loyal to President, but you'll also be loyal.
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A
Is that how he got so many bad people?
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B
I don't know. What happened is they, right after the election, they fired him from transition and they had to start again. That's why it just didn't work so smoothly. Yeah. So I started talking to the President about it in June, said, I will do it. I'll go learn everything about it. In August, he gave me the official role.
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A
How did you know what to do?
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B
Well, you study, you read, you study, you, you think you understand it and you talk to Donald Trump a lot. And I knew what he liked and what he wanted. So then I went out and recruited everybody. I recruited eight people for each job. And I went out and found the top 150 Republicans across the country and had them help recruit for me, from Warren Stevens to Steve Schwarzman, Ross Perot, Chuck Schwab, you name it, across the country. I called them all and, and told them, I'm going to deputize you for transition. Help Donald Trump build the best cabinet ever.
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A
So is that the job transition is, is finding his personnel, his cabinet?
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B
Yeah, yeah, that's what transition is. To fill the cabinet position, the top 30 jobs of the government. So he had eight candidates for each job.
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A
Right.
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B
And he would not talk about it while on the campaign trail. He would think about it. I'd be with him. And he'd say, you know, no, no. Superstitious, really. Right. Let's win. Not worry about after.
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A
Because he thought he would jinx it if he assumed he was going to win.
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B
But he trusted me.
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A
Yeah.
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B
To know that I would recruit the best people. And so what we did is I had four screens. Four, giant 85.
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A
This is in a big room in Mar A Lago.
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B
Yeah, In Mar a Lago. Four screens behind him. Four screens behind me.
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A
Yeah.
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B
That mirrored each other. So you and I could sit across from each other. You could see the screen over my shoulder, but I didn't have to sort of go look around. I could see it right over your shoulder. And each screen had candidates and it had their resume, it had their video speaking so he could see how they present on tv.
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A
So you have like.
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B
Correct all the other people, but.
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A
Right.
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B
It started with 12 jobs, national security. And then I'd say to him, he'd walk in, I'd go pick a job, any job.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And he'd say, okay, Secretary of State. And up would come eight pictures.
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A
Right.
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B
And then he'd say, okay, let's pick Marco Rubio. And then all the details of Marco Rubio. Beautiful picture of Marco Rubio. Right. All his details. All his. And background. Everything you'd want to know. Page after page after page. And the next candidate. Next candidate and the President's job. Go from eight to four, which he did the first day on national security. Next day, 4 to 2, interview the two. Choose who you are. And that's why it went so quickly.
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A
And was he ever indecisive about. About, you know, was there one particular. Like, for instance, Attorney General. How hard was that?
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B
Well, I think he had a plan. Right. And his plan was, we'll go with Matt Gaetz, because we don't know what that report says.
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A
So forget the eight candidates.
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B
No, no, no. He had lot.
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A
Okay.
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B
He whittled it down because he thought Matt Gates would have backbone.
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A
Yep.
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B
And guts. Right. And that's what he wanted. He didn't have that last time. You remember that. He had. He had the opposite of backbone and guts.
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A
Yeah.
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B
So he was going to air on more backbone and more guts.
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A
So you would have had some sort of more conventional candidates. But he went with Matt Gates and then was. Where was Pam Bondi in there? Was she number two?
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B
No. Right behind. Basically, the model was.
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A
Yeah.
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B
We're going to read the report that's going to come out from Congress by Matt Gates. And you got to remember, the President has had lots of reports Written about him dirty. So he, like, takes him with a grain of salt because he knows they can often be full of it. Yeah, right. So he said, let's go read that report, and if we. If it's okay, stick with Matt, and if it's not okay, then Pam will come in one second later. So everyone knows the deal is already done.
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A
Right.
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B
And that's what happened. So you saw. I was like, right away. So Pam was always a great choice. A great choice.
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A
It almost worked with the Senate because they were so horrified about Matt Gaetz that Pam Bondi just skated through. Was that deliberate?
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B
I think Pam is a fantastic choice. I mean, sharp, capable, amazing. So I think the Cabinet, you know, so for me, I know the Cabinet really well.
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A
It was. Was everyone that he chose your number one choice?
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B
No, no. I see here was the beauty of it. I had no number one choice to do my job correctly. I can't say I like this one a little better, you know, because that would make me a player. So he called once and he said, what do you think of my choice? And I said, I think it's a great choice.
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A
Which one?
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B
Doesn't matter. And he. And I said he was angsting a bit. No. And he just said, why? I said, because it's one less thing for me to do. You're happy, therefore I'm happy.
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A
Right.
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B
And he goes, you didn't have a favorite. I go, no, that's not my job. My job. I mean, if you think about it, let's say we're talking about Department of War, right? So you'd say, well, based on my deep government experience, which is zero, and my deep knowledge of defense and the military, which is zero, I think you should pick. Oh, come on.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Yeah, Right. And so the answer was, find the best candidates, set up the best candidates, and let President Trump and anybody who wants to bring in the room to advise him and guide him, let them all come in. Because he likes to do things with other people. Let him pick who he wants, let him interview who he wants, and I would just support them and support the process. And it went brilliantly. Well, brilliantly, quickly. He was very, very happy. I mean, he just loved it because he'd say or play their video, and there they are talking right now. They're not talking about being Secretary of War or Secretary of State there, but they're just. He could see how they present. And the thing about our Cabinet is. And I love these Cabinet meetings because these people are so capable, and so, you know, they're Just they can talk, they can present. They're really super smart. This is the best cabinet that anybody, any president has ever had.
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A
Yes. And they're all very young, intelligent, and as you say, they can sell the message of the government. And was that a number one criteria?
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B
I think it was a key criteria that they could talk. Right. That they could present that. He didn't want people who couldn't get out there. And if we're going to have a policy, go sell the policy, go talk about the policy, make sure the people of America can understand what we're doing. And that mattered to him. So I think he wanted people who are smart, thoughtful.
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A
It was a bit like you set it up, a bit like the Apprentice.
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B
Not really. A little bit.
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A
And at what point did you decide that you wanted to do more than just be transition chair and go back to your life, that you actually wanted to be an active part, a cabinet member, and in fact, treasury secretary?
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B
Well, the, the deal was that I was going to help with transition.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And then the train was going to leave the station and I was going to wave goodbye on the platform.
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A
Yes.
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B
And go back. Because remember, after 9 11, you know, my company was located on the 101st to the 105th floors of the World Trade Center. And all my 658 of my 960 New York employees were killed. My brother Gary was killed.
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A
Yeah.
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B
My best friend Doug. So I rebuilt the company to take care of their families. We gave 25% of our profits, which since the company wouldn't really make much profits after the murder of Everybody, we gave 25% of our payroll to the families, your bonuses, and we gave them $180 million to those families. So I just had to rebuild my company, you know, and my company was finally back, you know, was big and strong and winning and capable. And that was sort of, that's what I was supposed to do. So I did this for Donald Trump. I really set aside working, you know, starting in August, full time. I worked on the transition because you can't recruit all these people and do it right sort of as a part time job. And I expected to go back to my firm, but the president had such a good time with the transition and it went so fast and he felt so good about it. He started every. He would leave the room and slap me on the back and say, come on, how are you going to serve? Come on, how are you going to serve? Come on, how are you going to serve? So that's where it came from. You know, you got to serve. You got to be with me. Come on. You got to be with me. And he would just say it, you know, pat me on the back and head out.
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A
He wanted you with him.
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B
He did, yeah. And then we would have dinner, and he would just talk about it, so. But that really wasn't what I was interested in.
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A
Yeah.
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B
You know, that wasn't the plan. That wasn't the gig.
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A
But then you decided you wanted to be treasury secretary, but Scott Besant already had his heart in that role. So there were rumors at the time about tiffs and sort of a showdown at the Mar A Lago corral. What. What actually happened then?
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B
Yeah, there was no showdown at the crowd. Nothing like that.
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A
Subtly.
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B
Yeah, nothing.
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A
You're New Yorker. You don't do it out front.
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B
No, it's all that happened was that the question was, what role? If he was pushing me to have a role.
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A
Right.
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B
What role would that be? Because I didn't want. Like, that would go against the rules. Right. If I'm not pushing for any candidate for any job. Right. I. It was better for me that I wasn't even looking for anything for myself. That was better. Right. And so when he started pushing me, oh, you got to do something. Got to do something. That created. People worried that, what if I put my name in for their job?
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A
Right.
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B
And so it was more prophylactic, people protecting themselves rather than saying, oh, Howard's in for the job, or Howard's in for that. That job. It was. They were worried that the guy running transition would try to get this job.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Yeah. And so in the end, I sat down with Donald Trump and I said, what do you want? And I. And he said, well, Howard, what's the most important thing for you? And I said, the most important thing for me is the trade agenda.
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A
Right.
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B
That's what I've been talking about on the. On the campaign trail with you. That's what I care most about. So as long as I can oversee the trade agenda, really, it doesn't matter to me. That's what I want to do with you. And so we decided that the Commerce Department has the most tools, right? It has BIS, right? BIS, the Bureau of Industry and Security.
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A
Right, right.
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B
Export controls, 232 tariffs. That's the auto tax, the pharmaceutical taps, the semiconductor tax, aluminum. Right. All these. And these are not part of the Supreme Court case. They are not. These are durable, defensible. It's why Europe did the deal. It's why Japan did the deal. So even why Korea did so.
- [20:39]
A
Even if the Supreme Court overturns the tariffs in November. You think that they're still durable?
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B
Oh, yes. Oh, oh. These 232, this building where we're in.
- [20:50]
A
Yeah.
- [20:50]
B
Is the power. Is the power of tariffs. That's why I am the Commerce Secretary, because there is incredible power of the tariff agenda in this building. This is great. So I think. I think the President's going to win the case in ipa. It's perfectly sensible that the President, United States should design our foreign policy. How could he not? Right. That would be ludicrous for him not to be able to do it. But the backbone of our tariff agenda is also these, what we'll call sectoral tax, you know, autos. Right. Things like semiconductors, those kind of things where we can bring manufacturing back to America. So that's part of the joy of being the Commerce Secretary.
- [21:33]
A
Last time I saw you was in Scotland a couple of months ago, and you and President Trump had just clinched the deal with the eu, and that was a massive one, I think the biggest one ever. You had 15 tariffs they'd agreed to from nothing, and then $750 billion that Europe was going to invest in America, in energy. Tell me a little bit about how it works in the room. He was. How does Donald Trump work? I remember you describing it as you set the table and he comes in and closes the deal. But there's a lot of theater in there, isn't there? He pretends to be angry, walks out. How does it work?
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B
I don't think he pretends anything. I don't think Donald Trump is there to act.
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A
But it's a show.
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B
Well, I think it's a show of strength.
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A
Right.
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B
I mean, Donald Trump knows that he's going down. So the tables are sort of set. Like their two chairs, the two leaders chairs, sort of face each other, but sort of face in and out.
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A
Layden was there. Yeah.
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B
And Madam President is there. And. And Donald Trump is there. And then his advisors sit sort of right next to him along the way. And. And they talk to each other. Right. And. And so Donald Trump comes out and he. And he starts with, you know, very strong position. Right. We are the greatest economy in the world. We have the greatest consumers in the world. And we all know the customer's always right. Right. Because we are the buyer. And you run a $235 billion a year surplus with us. You. What is it about you, Europe, that you should be selling us 235 billion more than we sell you? It just. Just doesn't make sense. It's because the rules are stacked wrong. Do you agree? And that's, you know, that's a tough way of negotiating, but he is.
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A
But you've already softened them up beforehand, haven't you? You've literally set the table. You've gone in and spoken to these leaders, and it's sort of good cop, bad cop with Donald Trump, is it?
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B
I do set the table. And the President calls me the best table setter he's ever had.
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A
And what does that entail? What is it? What, what's your personality that allows you to be that?
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B
It means. Well, it's. It's a businessman, right. A deal maker and a businessman. And I work for him. So my job is to set it up so he can close the deal. Right. And get as much as I possibly can. Don't lay off at all. I'm not a layoff sort of guy. So I get the most that I can.
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A
You push, push, push.
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B
And then. And then he comes in and does better. I mean, there's just no doubt about it. He. He does better. And it's such a joy for me to watch him do it because he is the best deal.
- [24:24]
A
What does he do? Is he charming? Is he menacing? How does he do it?
- [24:29]
B
He's everything.
- [24:30]
A
Right.
- [24:30]
B
He's depending on soft and hard. No, at the same meeting.
- [24:33]
A
Oh, right.
- [24:34]
B
No, he's very kind and very warm and then very sharp and very. And he says, look, you know, in the middle of the EU meeting, he said, all right, I guess we're not going to get it done. We'll just come back in a month or two and we'll. We'll do it then. And, you know, that was really one of the few times that I spoke when he said that, I said, well, we're all here now. Why don't we try again? Madam President, do you really want to get a deal or do you want to wait till that time and then she jumps in? No, let's get a deal done.
- [25:04]
A
And then what was the sticking point?
- [25:07]
B
Remember?
- [25:08]
A
Right.
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B
I mean, we reached the exact right point. Because in every economic deal, there's a number where if you go above that number, trade goes down. Right. So if I charge 25%, you're going to sell less.
- [25:25]
A
Yes.
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B
Right. Because everyone, otherwise you just raise your price forever. So there's a price where. So we knew that 15 was the maximizing number where you do the most trade with Europe, and that's the highest price you could charge without denting that trade.
- [25:43]
A
Yeah.
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B
So America would make the most money. So Donald Trump and I went over that before the meeting. So he knows the man.
- [25:51]
A
Yeah.
- [25:52]
B
Right. So now how he wants to play it is up to him. Now, you could charge more, we would make more, but they would make less. You know what I mean? It becomes. It becomes we win, they lose a bit, and they feel 15% is kind of like sweet spot.
- [26:10]
A
Yeah.
- [26:10]
B
So it's up to him to decide does he want America to win more or does he want to make it like the perfect deal with Europe?
- [26:18]
A
And Ursula van der Leyden, who runs Europe, she seemed happy afterwards and relieved and was hugging everybody. Is that how you want to leave people to feel like they haven't been ripped off, but they're part of the sort of team.
- [26:32]
B
Yeah. The. If you get the sweet spot. They knew that you had to change those numbers, that, that $235 billion trade surplus, that they're selling more to us, you know, it's just not sustainable, and it doesn't make any sense. So they knew that Donald Trump was going to fix it. So could we fix it in the maximizing way? Let them have their auto industry, not the 25% would have forced their auto industry all to move to America. Right. So could they keep the jobs? Could they maintain their industries? Could they keep their pharmaceuticals there? Right. These. These things mattered. And then what they had me do is I spoke to all the prime ministers who are against the deal beforehand to get them on side, to have them understand the deal, why it made sense, why the economics made sense, and that's how I set the table so that Ursula von der Leyen could come in and she would have the authority. Because we have the rock star president.
- [27:38]
A
Yeah.
- [27:38]
B
You know, they have someone who's appointed by 27 other people. And does she have the power? Doesn't she have the power? That's. It's just not the same.
- [27:46]
A
And was she on the phone to Macron and people while she was talking to the president or talking to you.
- [27:52]
B
In the weeks before?
- [27:54]
A
Yeah.
- [27:54]
B
So she had to get the authority. And when someone would push back, she would call me and say, I'm not. I'm not having success with Macron. Can you speak to Macron? And I would speak to Macron.
- [28:05]
A
Right.
- [28:06]
B
Go over the details, and he would then say, oh, I understand why we want to do it now.
- [28:11]
A
Yeah.
- [28:11]
B
So the whole idea is you had to explain to him what the alternatives would be if they didn't do a deal.
- [28:16]
A
Right.
- [28:17]
B
And, like, the pharmaceuticals, like that, you know, that's a problem for them if they don't do a deal. So the idea was to bring them all together, get her in a position. Madam President of the European Union. Get her in a position where she could negotiate with Donald Trump. Right. She's uncomfortable negotiating. So we also talked about how she could negotiate with Donald Trump and be successful.
- [28:42]
A
You, you trained her in a way. You coached her well.
- [28:45]
B
I told her that if you attack Donald Trump, it charges his batteries. He doesn't, it doesn't back away. You know, Donald Trump, I've never seen him on his back foot like, you come at him with energy. You just charged him up. He's coming back at you at double.
- [29:04]
A
That explains a lot, right?
- [29:06]
B
So he's like a centrifuge. You know, you go in and go, zing. And he goes back at you faster.
- [29:10]
A
Right?
- [29:11]
B
So if you want to negotiate with him, him, I said, use your superpower. She says, what's that? I go, you're a woman of great authority. Just speak that way. When he says, I'd like to do X. If you disagree, say, oh, no, no, no. You know, that's too much like, don't say no, don't do that. Because if you go at Donald Trump, he's going to win. There's a reason he was one of the great businessman of the world and his president, United States of America, he's going to win. So you have to do it with him, become his partner, do it together with him. Diffuse the conversation and make sure you're in it together. Because he's always kind and he's always going to be respectful to whoever's on the other side of the table. He's going to be. So when she said, oh, no, no, no, you know, they worked it out. Isabel Brown.
- [30:07]
A
Isabel Brown.
- [30:07]
B
Isabel Brown.
- [30:08]
A
The wait is almost over.
- [30:09]
B
She's joining Daily Wire plus with the Isabel Brown Show.
- [30:12]
A
Cannot wait for you guys to see how hard we've been working. I could not be more excited for this new adventure. You can expect larger than life guests, deeper questions. To the nerds meeting the President of the United States and the Vice President. And now meeting our new American Pope. This is crazy. Let's jump in. Join me every week weekday for the Isabel Brown show on Daily Wire plus or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [30:36]
B
Hey, Bill O'Reilly here, host of the no Spin News corporate media programs. They're often lazy and dishonest. You know that the podcast world filled with misleading bomb throwers masking important issues that directly impact you. The no Spin News is here to counteract that. We are a fact based Honest and unaffiliated broadcast. Our purpose is to inform you and give the best assessment of the situation, whether it's political or cultural. Please listen to the no Spend news with me, Bill O'Reilly on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever podcasts are found. Remember, trust is earned.
- [31:28]
A
You know Donald Trump better than almost anybody. And he. He's someone who's an open book, but he's also an enigma. What makes him tick.
- [31:38]
B
He cares about everything. Right. And. And people just don't understand that. He cares about how the columns of the Kennedy center look. Okay. He cares about how. That we don't have a ballroom, that we should have a ballroom. Okay, let's build the ballroom. And then when he builds the ballroom, he cares about the design of the ballroom. He cares about the design of the trade policy. He cares about getting the hostages out of Gaza. He cares about settling wars that there's no president. The United States cared about Cambodia versus Thailand. Why would you care about that? Oh, he cares about everything. And that is what people don't understand. And he cares about it. Not with, oh, you take care of it or you take care of it. In every trade deal, he does it. Not me. He does it. I set the table. But he'll get a better deal than I would be able to get because. Shocking. He's Donald Trump and the President, United States of America. I mean, he's a great negotiator and the president, which makes him an incredible negotiator, which he was in the first.
- [33:03]
A
Place and is part of that because he has an ability to read character, to understand people's motivation. He seems quite insightful and have high emotional intelligence, I guess.
- [33:15]
B
I think that's absolutely right.
- [33:16]
A
Right.
- [33:16]
B
I think he reads people really well.
- [33:19]
A
Right.
- [33:19]
B
And he's friendly. You know, he'll. He'll say a good relationship with him, and I have a good relationship with him, and, and he's the President, United States. When the president, United States says, I have a really good relationship with xyz, that really plays well for them at home.
- [33:35]
A
Yeah.
- [33:35]
B
And so he's giving them a gift of his personal feelings. And he's doing that because they're going to do for him what he wants, which is settle this war with this other country and he has nothing in it. Right. Think about it. What does he get out of settling a war with Aber, you know, with all these countries. Right.
- [34:01]
A
Eight countries, I think.
- [34:02]
B
Yeah. So many. What does he get out of it? And the answer is he cares.
- [34:08]
A
I mean, I think you also have the Same degree of high social intelligence. You love people.
- [34:13]
B
Thank you. That's very nice.
- [34:15]
A
What I picked up from the little. I've met you. But what is your relationship with him? I, I understand that you have, you talk almost every day. You're on the phone in the wee hours of the morning. What is that relationship?
- [34:30]
B
We're friends.
- [34:30]
A
Right.
- [34:31]
B
We're friends. So we talk about business, but we watch golf.
- [34:36]
A
Right.
- [34:36]
B
You know, you can be friends. And he knows that I will laugh when he tells a joke.
- [34:44]
A
Right.
- [34:45]
B
Whereas other people are afraid. Do you just don't know. Do you love the cat?
- [34:50]
A
They're funny.
- [34:51]
B
Yeah. Oh, I wouldn't laugh if it wasn't funny.
- [34:53]
A
Right, right.
- [34:54]
B
Oh, but you know, he says, like, you know, one of my favorites was he's, he was talking about out, you know, bringing back plastic straws.
- [35:02]
A
Right.
- [35:03]
B
You know, and I just thought it was hysterical. The President, United States. The President, States has to bring back plastic straws. And he's talking about like a shark with the straws. And it was just, I thought it was hysterical. The whole concept is hysterical.
- [35:15]
A
Yeah.
- [35:16]
B
And other people are like this too. Like this. Because they don't know if it's okay to laugh.
- [35:20]
A
Yeah.
- [35:21]
B
You know, and I know it's okay.
- [35:22]
A
To laugh, but you're in New York and his, his humor is very New York. I mean, it's unique. And I think maybe that's why a lot of people in the rest of the world don't get it.
- [35:33]
B
Oh, he's, you know, he's funny. I mean, he loves to, you know, to go and drive the media crazy with the things. They take him serious on everything he says. You know, he wears the Trump 2028 hat and they go, oh, you know, and controls the. He's just having fun. Come on. He, he's just, it's great fun. And everybody takes him so seriously even when they know it's just fun.
- [35:58]
A
Yeah. Yeah. And, and you talk to him at 1 o' clock in the morning, 2 o' clock in the morning, you both night owls.
- [36:04]
B
Yeah, I, I mean, I go to sleep about 1:30, you know, and he, and he jokes, he goes. When I call somebody else that late at night, first thing I hear is the phone bouncing on the ground. And then they say, hello. He goes. Whereas I call you. You go, what's up? Yeah, I mean, I, he sleeps less than me.
- [36:24]
A
Right. How much do you sleep?
- [36:25]
B
I sleep about five hours.
- [36:26]
A
Right.
- [36:27]
B
Okay. So I go to bed at 1:30 and I get up at 6:30. He sleeps less.
- [36:32]
A
Right.
- [36:33]
B
And, and he is just amazingly on it. It's extraordinary because he can call me any time. You know, usually I'll say, are you still awake? And then a half hour later, he calls me, you know, like.
- [36:44]
A
And what do you talk about?
- [36:46]
B
Well, sometimes we talk about the day, sometimes we talk about tomorrow, and sometimes we talk about nothing.
- [36:52]
A
Right. Nothing like what, golf?
- [36:54]
B
Yeah. Just family fun. Right. What's going on?
- [36:58]
A
Right.
- [36:58]
B
Just. Just nothing. Like men. You have to realize, like, when men play golf, my wife would always.
- [37:04]
A
Yeah.
- [37:05]
B
When I would come home, she would always ask me, so would you talk about. I go, nothing.
- [37:09]
A
No, I. Yeah.
- [37:10]
B
You know, men could spend four hours playing golf and actually talk about nothing, you know, but just. They're friends. We're just. We're just friends.
- [37:17]
A
What's the best thing you've seen in the oval Office?
- [37:21]
B
Nothing jumps out. Nothing. He just. He can go. The most interesting thing about him is that, like, we're negotiating the Japanese trade deal, and the next meeting is Mike Johnson bringing in six members of Congress. So the president sees Mike Johnson, he goes, come on in. You can watch. And they sit and they watch him negotiating with the Japanese. And he put so much by doing that. He put so much pressure on the Japanese. It was the coolest. It was like, as it played out, I was like, wow, that may be the coolest move I've ever seen anybody do, because it empowered him and put.
- [38:14]
A
Pressure on them because he had an audience and they didn't know what was going on.
- [38:18]
B
Exactly.
- [38:19]
A
Right.
- [38:19]
B
But it was the speaker of the House, so it wasn't like, you know, it was like, one of the most important people in u. S. Politics.
- [38:26]
A
Yes.
- [38:26]
B
He's just wandering in to their negotiation.
- [38:28]
A
And they're like, and when did you first meet him? Do you remember the moment?
- [38:33]
B
It wasn't really a moment. It was the New York charity circuit. So basically, in New York, you're honored, or people are honored all the time, and the honor is to raise money for that charity. Congratulations. I honor you to raise money for prostate cancer. Right. And you're the man of the honoree moment in exchange for you raising a million dollars for prostate cancer. So you ask all your friends to give money because you're being honored or you're the dinner chair. So there are always two jobs, and your job is just to raise money from your friend group. And in exchange, when you're in New York, when you do that with someone, then you give to all their charities. Right, Right. It's sort of give and take, and that's how it works. So I was out on that charity circuit during the winter. You're out three nights a week.
- [39:20]
A
Right.
- [39:20]
B
And these black tie charities and Donald Trump is always there.
- [39:24]
A
And you're a young man.
- [39:25]
B
I was 30.
- [39:25]
A
Right. Making your way in. Cantor Fitzgerald.
- [39:27]
B
Correct. So I just become the CEO and I'm out all the time. You're 30 and I'm 30 now. He's out all the time and he's 45.
- [39:35]
A
Right.
- [39:35]
B
And we would just every once in a while at the end of the evening, we would say, you want to go out? And we would just go out for a drink together. Not obviously not a drink because he doesn't drink. No, but we go out together. Just. No, not to it. Not to a nightclub with like a disco ball, but like to a, you know, to a place where you could sit and talk. And there are other people around to know him. And he's. He's the most popular known person, you know, so going out with him is so fun because everybody comes up and says hello. Way before he was president, you know, I love to say, like he was on the COVID of time magazine like 58 times. Right. And he'd say to me, you know, Howard and 20 were good. You know, so who has the power a to stand that? There's 30 of them that aren't good. Right. Or.
- [40:33]
A
Yeah.
- [40:34]
B
Who's on the COVID of so many magazines? And he always has been. So going out with him was so fun.
- [40:42]
A
Did it ever occur to you he would be president?
- [40:45]
B
No, no, I don't think I.
- [40:46]
A
Was he political then?
- [40:48]
B
No, no, but he. He was talking about the trade deficit.
- [40:54]
A
Right.
- [40:55]
B
I didn't hear it.
- [40:56]
A
Right.
- [40:56]
B
That means. Now that I've looked.
- [40:57]
A
Yes.
- [40:58]
B
And I see him on Oprah talking about the trade deficit and all these different things.
- [41:01]
A
Yeah.
- [41:02]
B
But at the time.
- [41:04]
A
And tell us about 9 11. So you are the CEO of K Cantor Fitzgerald. You've got the top five floors of the Twin Towers. One of the Twin Towers, and disaster strikes. You lose everybody, including your brother and your best friend. Tell us where you were and what happened that day.
- [41:24]
B
So September 11th is the first day of my oldest son. He's 29. His first day of kindergarten.
- [41:31]
A
Right.
- [41:32]
B
So my wife convinces me we got to take him to school.
- [41:35]
A
Yeah.
- [41:36]
B
So, you know, he's our oldest son. He's got a little wet ears. He's got a little backpack on. I've got a picture in front of his school at 8:48.
- [41:44]
A
Oh, wow.
- [41:45]
B
Ray, 46, I think, in the plane, hits the building at 8:48 it's like two minutes before. And remember, you know, I'm so old that their photographs had, like a little time stamp in the lower right hand corner in orange. So we have that photo and then we went upstairs. They told me a plane hit the building.
- [42:02]
A
You're in the school then.
- [42:04]
B
Yeah, I'm just in the school.
- [42:05]
A
Right.
- [42:06]
B
And then my phone keeps ringing, but I have a flip phone, but there's no one on the other end. So just before they came and told me a plane hit the building, my phone kept ringing. I kept saying, like I was annoyed. Like, they can't just leave me alone for an hour to take my kid to school. I always have to be. Some. Some thing has to call me from work. And then an administrator came in, told me a plan hit the building. Wow. So I said to my wife, you stay with my son and I'm gonna go, so. But I hadn't seen a video or anything.
- [42:37]
A
Yeah.
- [42:38]
B
Right. This is 2001. There's no, like, streaming video on your phone or anything. Yeah. Like some small Cessna.
- [42:44]
A
Yeah.
- [42:45]
B
You know, I don't know what it is. So I go right to Fifth Avenue because I know, you know, I've been working at the World Trade center for decades, so I know this. The soonest you can see the building is on. From Fifth Avenue, you go straight down. By the time you get to the Village, you can see the building.
- [43:00]
A
Yeah.
- [43:00]
B
And. And you could see smoke in the city rising. So I'm scared.
- [43:06]
A
So you could see the two towers.
- [43:08]
B
Still by the time we got there?
- [43:09]
A
Yeah.
- [43:10]
B
I could see smoke pouring out of my tower because my tower was the one with the. You know, I never heard of it as the north or South Tower. Right. I just knew number one and number two.
- [43:21]
A
Right.
- [43:21]
B
I was in One World Trade Center.
- [43:23]
A
Right.
- [43:23]
B
My firm had the 101st to the 105th floors. Each floor was 40,000ft with the best views. Like, it didn't matter whose window.
- [43:33]
A
Yeah.
- [43:34]
B
The windows were sensational. Looking at the Statue of Liberty, looking at Manhattan, who cared? It was breathtaking.
- [43:40]
A
Yeah.
- [43:40]
B
And also I went to the building and I was going down and everybody was coming this way, but I was like, we got to get to the building. We got to get to the building. Because I could see the building was on fire.
- [43:53]
A
Yeah.
- [43:53]
B
And. And I got to the doorway of the building and I started grabbing people as they were coming out, asking what floor they were on.
- [44:02]
A
Right.
- [44:02]
B
Because I knew there were lots of doors. You know, there were probably 20 ways out of the building.
- [44:08]
A
Right.
- [44:08]
B
And if one of my Guys came out of this, then they were steaming out w. Yes. And the highest floor I got to was 92, meaning someone told me they were on the 92nd floor. And then we heard this sound. Loudest sound I've ever heard in my life. I had no idea what it was. And I'd never seen a video of all this. So I just hear this noise and I start running. Right now I'm just like this, right? In my suit. I'm running. And I mean, I'm running. It was the other building collapsing.
- [44:43]
A
And what did it sound like?
- [44:44]
B
It sounded like, you know in Titanic when it breaks apart in the movie, Right?
- [44:49]
A
Yeah.
- [44:50]
B
It was just the loudest smashing banging I ever heard in my life. It was an explosion of thunder, right? And I just started running. And I'm running my tail off all my might, and I look over my shoulder and there's a tornado. Check. Chasing me. This black billowing thing that you've all seen in that video. So I'm running and then I. I make a right on VC street and there's a. There's a cemetery there. I've never seen the cemetery. It's not like Trinity Church behind St. Nicholas.
- [45:25]
A
Yeah.
- [45:26]
B
I never paid attention to it. I didn't know. But I see the tornadoes coming across the cemetery and I dive under a car and go at this, and then it just goes whoosh. And then it's black and silent. And I'm thinking, I'm laying there thinking I'm dead. Son of a gun.
- [45:51]
A
Wow.
- [45:51]
B
I'm dead because it's silent and black. So I said, all right, I'm dead. So I go like this. I stab myself in the eyes. I'm like, ah. I'm like, okay, I'm alive, right? I'm blind because remember, it's black and silent. So I'm blind and. And deaf, but I'm alive. So I said, okay. I get up, but of course I'm hiding under a car.
- [46:20]
A
Yeah.
- [46:20]
B
So I smash my head. So now I'm bleeding. Self inflicted.
- [46:25]
A
Oh, bleeding.
- [46:27]
B
So I climb out from the car. I stand up. Know what the first thing I do is? I run. But it's black. So what do I run into? Parked car. So now I parked car. Smash it. So now I'm bleeding, limping in black.
- [46:43]
A
And was there anyone else around?
- [46:45]
B
No, no, I saw a light, right? So now. Now I've got it. So I'm like walking like this, and I go to the light and there's a policeman holding a flashlight. So I put my hand on the back of his collar, which is like one of those hard collars.
- [47:03]
A
Yeah.
- [47:04]
B
And I go, let's get the F out of here. Right? And he. He sits down because he's in shock. He just. The thing went through him and he just. Sorry. Grab the flashlight. Yeah. So now I got a flashlight. I'm, like, walking around limping, bleeding.
- [47:22]
A
Wow.
- [47:22]
B
I got a flashlight and I go. I just walk up there slowly. It. You know, the fog breaks down, and I can see my feet, all the crap everywhere. I just. I walk uptown. The last part of the story, I'll tell you. So my. I walk to where people are clean.
- [47:45]
A
Right.
- [47:45]
B
Could realize I look like I've been flushed down, you know, to me.
- [47:50]
A
Right.
- [47:51]
B
Five or six.
- [47:52]
A
I love you. All right.
- [47:53]
B
Just covered. And I go to where there's people clean and there are people online for a payphone because your cell phones don't work.
- [48:04]
A
Of course.
- [48:05]
B
And. And by the way, the phone that was ringing that I couldn't pick up, it was my brother Gary trying to call me.
- [48:12]
A
Oh.
- [48:12]
B
And he. So he couldn't get through me. Yeah, he couldn't get through to me, but he got through to my sister. And she said, oh, thank God you're not there. He said, I am here, and I'm just calling to say goodbye. I'm gonna die.
- [48:26]
A
Oh, he knew.
- [48:28]
B
Yeah, I knew he was gonna die, so he told my sister was gonna die, and he tried to get me, and he couldn't get me. So say goodbye. So I. I see these people are clean and they're online for the pay phone. So I walk up to the front of the line. There's a woman talking on the phone. I take the cradle from her, and I hang up the phone. And she turns around to start cursing me out. And she looks at me with the blood, you know, and she's like, whoa. Like a ghost. And I called my wife because it's like an hour later.
- [49:03]
A
Yeah.
- [49:03]
B
Hour and a half later.
- [49:04]
A
She must have been panicked.
- [49:05]
B
Tell her I'm alive.
- [49:06]
A
Right.
- [49:07]
B
She saw when the building fell.
- [49:10]
A
Yeah.
- [49:10]
B
She said she fell to the ground because she knew, you know, these were my friends, it was my firm. And you love the people you work with. You don't say it, but you feel it. And the only way you would really know it is if I ripped them all away from you. You know what you would do? You would cry. And I cried every day until October 21st, 2004.
- [49:43]
A
Three years.
- [49:44]
B
Yeah. And I remember.
- [49:46]
A
Why did you stop then?
- [49:48]
B
I. Just as I fell asleep at night, I said to my Wife. You know, I didn't. I didn't cry today. And she wrote it down. That's the only reason I know the date what happened is I would be sitting with you.
- [49:59]
A
Yeah.
- [50:00]
B
And you would say, oh, you know, I knew Suri, and I hadn't really thought about Suri's death. And I would think about it right then.
- [50:09]
A
Yeah.
- [50:10]
B
And I would start crying because you can't process 658 people getting murdered. You just can't.
- [50:16]
A
No.
- [50:16]
B
And so it just stays a part of you for a long time. So then I called. I called my. My wife, and that's how she knew I was alive.
- [50:24]
A
What. What did you do then? I mean, you. You'd lost everybody in your firm. You'd lost your brother. What made you decide to start all over again?
- [50:34]
B
We hosted a phone call the next night. I had no way to communicate, so I just told the media, if you work at Cana Fitzgerald, call this number.
- [50:46]
A
Right.
- [50:47]
B
Okay. That was it. That was. That was my outreach.
- [50:49]
A
Yeah.
- [50:49]
B
You know, and. And so we hosted a call, and I said, we have two choices. We could try to rebuild the company, or we can go to the funerals of our friends, which will be every day.
- [51:06]
A
Right.
- [51:07]
B
And they were. By the way, there were 24 funerals a day.
- [51:12]
A
Wow.
- [51:12]
B
Every day for 35 straight days for your people. From just my people.
- [51:18]
A
Wow. So did you go to them?
- [51:20]
B
I went to as many as I could.
- [51:22]
A
Yeah.
- [51:22]
B
And. And I became an expert. You know, I. I go to the. You know, I had. Go to the. Sit in the second row of the church, say hello to the widow and their family. Then as the. As it started, you know, when there was a break, I would head out, go back, and then go to the next church and go to the next church. But I had to work or go to churches. That's one of the two things I would do.
- [51:45]
A
Yeah.
- [51:46]
B
And.
- [51:47]
A
And how many staff did you have left?
- [51:49]
B
Well, I had. I had 960 in New York.
- [51:52]
A
Right.
- [51:52]
B
So 658. So I had 302.
- [51:55]
A
Right.
- [51:55]
B
But I had. You know, I had. I had assistance without bosses.
- [52:00]
A
Rise.
- [52:01]
B
You know, I had four people in the division of 60, you know, so, yeah, we decided if the boss was alive, the division, we would rebuild it. But the idea was. And all those employees, they said, let's go rebuild the company. We've got to go to work now. Maybe they wanted to go to work. Maybe they couldn't think of anything else to do, whatever. But it was unanimous, and we committed that we would give 25% of our payroll. Payroll.
- [52:30]
A
So people's own money.
- [52:31]
B
Everybody.
- [52:32]
A
Right.
- [52:32]
B
And everyone we hired. So imagine I'm trying to hire you. Come on, join the firm. We'd like to pay $200,000. You agree? I go. But I have to send 50,000 to the family. So I can only pay you 150.
- [52:44]
A
Right.
- [52:45]
B
So only one out of four turned it down. Three out of four said okay, wow. So think that's where the money came from. Right. You can't, you can't make a hunt. You know, we're not going to make 700 million dollar profit in this company that was destroyed. It came from the salaries of everybody.
- [53:04]
A
Wow.
- [53:04]
B
Okay, so now Fast forward to 2008. The company's doing well.
- [53:12]
A
Right.
- [53:12]
B
But how can I go forward having the payroll of all these people who. Most of whom I hired, who weren't even part of 9 11.
- [53:25]
A
Right, right.
- [53:25]
B
Who gave of themselves 25% of their pay?
- [53:29]
A
Yeah.
- [53:29]
B
How can I go forward and be like a businessman again if I'm. If all these people have done that? So we take a company of ours public and it's the weirdest deal on Wall street because I give my shares double what each of those people gave. So let's say in the example I gave, you gave 50,000. The next you got a raise, you gave 55,000. Then you gave 1665 and 70,000. So you gave $300,000 over five years. I sold at the IPO 300,000 in your name and gave you 300,000 cash and then gave you 300,000 in stock for saving my soul. So I gave a third of the company to the employees.
- [54:15]
A
Right.
- [54:16]
B
How much do they own now? A third.
- [54:19]
A
Right.
- [54:20]
B
Have they ever sold? No. We had the lowest turnover of any company because, you know, they just, they knew we cared.
- [54:27]
A
Yeah.
- [54:28]
B
And so it was a special company and that's why I always spoke about it so glowingly. It's not like a normal CEO.
- [54:35]
A
Yeah.
- [54:36]
B
Banter. This was. These were extraordinary people doing extraordinary things. Hey, Mike Baker here, host of the President's Daily Brief podcast. If you want straight talk on national security, foreign policy and the biggest global stories going on of the day, this is the show for you. We publish twice a day, Monday through Friday, once in the morning, again in the afternoon, and on the weekend we go longer with the PDB Situation Report with excellent guests including national security insiders and foreign policy experts. Check us out on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. Also on our YouTube channel at PresidentsDaily Brief from around the world, Trey Yingst joining us from Tel Aviv, Israel, to Washington, I'm Mike Emanuel. To your own backyard. If a story impacts you or your wallet, we're on it. It's the FOX News rundown. We give every story the deeper look it deserves with must listen interviews and smart analysis from. From the voices you can trust. Start your day with a FOX News rundown. Listen and follow now@foxnewsrundown.com or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.
- [55:44]
A
Take us back to your childhood and I guess what the resilience that you had on 911 came, I guess in part from the tough times that you had as a child because your parents died quite young. Take us back to Long Island. What it was like growing up and then the tragedy.
- [56:03]
B
So I had a classic sort of middle class upbringing. You know, my house was identical to the house to the right and to the left and 6 over and 12 over and 18 over. You'd ride your bike down the street and there were 20 kids who'd join you, you know, and you'd play football out on the street, and when a car would come by, you'd yell, car. Everyone would get off the street, you know, but father was professor, American history.
- [56:31]
A
Right.
- [56:32]
B
Mom teacher and art teacher, local college. And. And then, and then cancer, you know, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and that had spread and they gave her six months to live.
- [56:52]
A
Mm.
- [56:53]
B
And. And she lived five years.
- [56:55]
A
Right.
- [56:56]
B
But she lived like a tornado.
- [56:59]
A
Right.
- [57:00]
B
She's like five, six months to live. Ready? Go.
- [57:04]
A
How old were you when she got diagnosed?
- [57:06]
B
So she got diagnosed. I was 12.
- [57:11]
A
12. Right. And you're the, the second. Second child.
- [57:15]
B
Little child.
- [57:16]
A
The oldest of the two boys. You've got an older sister.
- [57:18]
B
I have an older sister. Two years older than me. So.
- [57:21]
A
So tornado.
- [57:22]
B
So she would, like, she would go to India for a week, come home and walk in the door and yell at me that I wasn't doing my homework. Like tornado.
- [57:30]
A
Right.
- [57:31]
B
And then, and then she was taking, you know, the brand new chemotherapy.
- [57:39]
A
Yeah.
- [57:40]
B
You know, but it was, it was not ready yet. So she lost her hair and, and so she wore a wig and stuff like that. That. But, but she taught me how to live, how like today is the greatest day of your life.
- [57:53]
A
Right.
- [57:54]
B
Today. Today is the joy of being alive. Every day is the joy of being alive. If you, if you fritter it away and you don't do something that makes you laugh, smile, happy, you know, I kiss my wife, I tell her I love her, tell her she's beautiful every day. Every day. Because those things Are true every day. And so she lived five years.
- [58:16]
A
And did she take you along on part of her.
- [58:19]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I went. You know, I. I would get called. I would get called out of school, and the vice principal would come and say, howard, come here. And I come out of class, I'd say, what is it? They'd say, it's your mom. So I go running outside. She was in the car. I said, you're right. She goes, yeah, yeah, let's go. And we'd go to art galleries in the city, and they go see the opera and then have dinner after. Oh, love. You know, just. Just like. And then she'd get me home super late at night and say, better get your tail out of bed in the morning and get. You know, get on the bus and go to school. So that's. She lived. She lived life. And so she died in 1978.
- [59:02]
A
Right.
- [59:02]
B
Right when I was 16. About, you know, the next summer, my father develops a cough, and he doesn't tell me, but they diagnose him with lung cancer, and he does not smoke.
- [59:18]
A
Wow.
- [59:19]
B
So how did that happen? I don't know. No, I don't know. He drops me off at college. Doesn't. So I don't know anything.
- [59:28]
A
Right.
- [59:28]
B
Drops whoever college goes in for his first chemotherapy shot. Nurse makes a mistake, give him someone else's counsel. So.
- [59:40]
A
So you don't even know he's sick?
- [59:42]
B
No.
- [59:43]
A
Oh, no.
- [59:44]
B
So you lose one parent, it's one thing.
- [59:45]
A
Yeah.
- [59:46]
B
When you lose the second parent, it's a whole nother thing. Okay. The second parent is a whole nother thing. And my relatives pulled out at my father's funeral. My father was killed September 12, 1979. Wow.
- [60:05]
A
September.
- [60:06]
B
No, no. Not a good time to hang out with me. No, no, no. September 12, 1979. At his funeral, his brother says to me, do you want to come over for Thanksgiving? I said, isn't that, like, in two months?
- [60:23]
A
Right.
- [60:23]
B
I go, are you actually inviting me over for Thanksgiving? Aren't you worried about how I'm going to eat tonight? He said, just let me know if you want to come over.
- [60:33]
A
Wow.
- [60:33]
B
I never spoke to him again. No, they pulled away because they were afraid me, my sister, my brother would be sticky. You know, we'd come over and never leave.
- [60:42]
A
Right.
- [60:43]
B
So it really was.
- [60:44]
A
You'd be a burden.
- [60:45]
B
Yeah. So it's just me, my sister, and my brother. And we were tight.
- [60:52]
A
Yeah.
- [60:53]
B
Tight together.
- [60:54]
A
Did you have money?
- [60:55]
B
No. No, Professor. You know, we sold the house.
- [60:59]
A
Oh.
- [61:00]
B
You know, net of the mortgage.
- [61:01]
A
Right.
- [61:02]
B
You Know. Which was mostly. You know, there was.
- [61:05]
A
I mean, you had to do all that?
- [61:07]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [61:07]
A
At 18.
- [61:08]
B
Yeah.
- [61:09]
A
Yeah.
- [61:09]
B
I used to drive home on the weekends to sell the house.
- [61:13]
A
Right.
- [61:13]
B
And it was miserable.
- [61:15]
A
Yeah.
- [61:15]
B
Try. Try selling your parents clothing. Giving it away. It's just. Talk about dark.
- [61:23]
A
Yes.
- [61:23]
B
You know, and then driving back and forth in the dark.
- [61:26]
A
Yeah.
- [61:26]
B
Boy, it was sad.
- [61:28]
A
And no one to cook for you or look after you.
- [61:30]
B
No, no, no, no, no. Me. Me, my sister and my brother. My brother went to a boarding school next to Haverford College.
- [61:40]
A
He was just 15.
- [61:42]
B
And he would live with me on the weekends.
- [61:44]
A
Oh, really? At college.
- [61:45]
B
At college. He would live in my dorm room.
- [61:47]
A
Wow.
- [61:48]
B
And then. And then he did that for a year. And then my sister graduated college and she went to law school at Syracuse. And so then she got an apartment, and my brother moved in with her and graduated from the public school in Syracuse. Oh, yes. She went to a law school. And, you know, we. We got through.
- [62:07]
A
Mm.
- [62:08]
B
We got through because we got through together.
- [62:12]
A
And what did that teach you? What life skills did that teach you?
- [62:17]
B
I knew what hell felt like. But I also know that you climb out of hell. And so on September 12, 2001, I sat with my sister. I said to her, do you smell it? Because I do. Smelled like hell.
- [62:40]
A
Yeah.
- [62:41]
B
I was back in hell.
- [62:43]
A
Yes.
- [62:44]
B
Back in the same spot of hell again. But I knew as one of the few people who actually knew how you climb out of hell.
- [62:56]
A
Yeah.
- [62:57]
B
And so I could talk to the widows in a different way than everybody else.
- [63:03]
A
Yes.
- [63:04]
B
So I would give them my home phone number, and they would call me. You couldn't sleep anyway. Horrible nightmares. So they would call. A widow would call me at three in the morning, and we'd talk for a half hour. I never hung up first. Never. Never. And I would say something, and she would chuckle. And I'd say, 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 45 seconds sucked today. But that 15 seconds is pretty good. Things getting better, right? You know you're an optimist, but it was a joke that only.
- [63:36]
A
Yes.
- [63:37]
B
The two of us could tell. It wasn't for outsiders.
- [63:41]
A
No.
- [63:42]
B
And. And so I knew what hell was. And I know that hell takes time. It takes perseverance, and it takes an optimistic attitude.
- [63:56]
A
Yes.
- [63:56]
B
And it takes loving every day you're alive. And you need to love every day you're alive, because it's the joy that God has given you today. And you don't know what tomorrow will bring. No bad day at the doctor. Tomorrow will change everything. But today. Today's pretty great.
- [64:21]
A
You don't want to take it for granted.
- [64:24]
B
Yeah, you can't take it for granted. So, look, I've had. I had cancer.
- [64:28]
A
Yeah.
- [64:29]
B
I had non Hodgkin's lymphoma. And every day I made sure that I did something that made me smile. I mean, you know, you get chemotherapy, it's terrible. It's terrible, right? You know when you take your dog to the vet, your dog shakes like a leaf.
- [64:50]
A
Yes.
- [64:51]
B
Because your dog knows. Like, when I was sitting in the chair, like, I figured myself, I'm pretty strong. The nurse would come in with it, with the chemotherapy syringes, my body would start shaking like a leaf.
- [65:02]
A
Wow.
- [65:03]
B
Because they knew the poison's coming. Like, come on, we need the poison. We need it to fight it. It didn't matter. My body was.
- [65:11]
A
You went through that for three years, didn't you? You only got the all clear last September.
- [65:15]
B
No, no, no, no, no. You get the all clear in about seven months.
- [65:19]
A
All right.
- [65:20]
B
Yeah. That's when. And I don't like rumors. Not a big fan of rumors. So when I was diagnosed, I did a video. I put my phone down and made a video and sent it to my employees. Right, right. And then when I went in for my first chemo, I told them, and then I kept them abreast of how I was going. And then when I. When I got cancer free, I said, today, I was told I was cancer free. The only time a doctor can say the word cancer to you that's okay is put the word free with it.
- [65:50]
A
So it's just seven months.
- [65:51]
B
Seven months.
- [65:52]
A
Wow, that's great. And was that terrifying for you, knowing what happened to your parents that hear cancers come again?
- [65:59]
B
What was terrifying was getting the chemotherapy.
- [66:03]
A
Right, right.
- [66:03]
B
Because I'm sitting in the chair, like, effectively the same chair that my dad was killed, and the nurse comes in and says, okay, I've got the story. I'm like, well, how do you know it's mine?
- [66:13]
A
Yeah.
- [66:14]
B
And they say, no, no, we triple check. We do that. They tell us everything. I said, well, how do I know the pharmacologist didn't go on a rager last night? He's getting divorced. She's like, I don't want to. I'm not going to kill you, Mr. Lining. I go, well, you know, I know you don't intend to, you know, but I had more angst, of course, on that topic, because that's literally.
- [66:33]
A
Yeah.
- [66:34]
B
How my father was killed.
- [66:36]
A
And tell us about your wife, Alison. You've been married, I think, 31 years.
- [66:40]
B
Which is almost 31.
- [66:41]
A
Almost 31. Congratulations. When's your anniversary?
- [66:44]
B
December 10th.
- [66:45]
A
Ah, lovely. So how did you meet her and what she like?
- [66:48]
B
We had a blind date before, you know, before Facebook. Right. Where you could see what someone looked like. You actually had a blind date. So. Friend of mine from college was her office mate in legal aid. My wife is a lawyer, and she was a litigator for the public defender's office. And. And he. He called me, said, my. You would like my office mate. And. And so I called her. This is a kind of a funny story. So she. We have a great conversation, but I'm at that time, I'm traveling. I would live a week in New York, a week in London, and a week in la, because I worked for Bernie Kanter, and. And by the way, Bernie Cantor cut from the same mold as Donald Trump. One of my great advantages is they're not the same person. But the decision by orchestra, you know, all this kind of stuff was similar.
- [67:55]
A
Right.
- [67:55]
B
So to me, I, you know, I've seen the movie.
- [67:58]
A
Yes.
- [67:59]
B
So a week in New York, week in London, a week in la. So I. I go on, I talk to my Allison on the phone, and I say, look, I'm gonna travel. I'll call you in a couple of weeks when I get back. So then she goes on a date with an old flame and gets together with him. And my friend calls me and says, you know, she's off the table, off with someone else. And I was like, well, I've never met her. It's. So to tell you a little bit about her, three months later, she breaks up with him. And she calls me. You know, that's what she's like. She's like, Tuesday, you know, she's a. Get back on the saddle.
- [68:38]
A
Yes.
- [68:39]
B
So like, she calls me and then. And then we went out, and we would go out once every three weeks. Because when you were back. Yeah, I would. Then I would come back and then I would go out, and then. And then, you know, she's just such a fantastic girl. So she's beautiful, super smart. You know, we have four kids together, and great kids. And the best part is my kids love each other.
- [69:07]
A
Right.
- [69:08]
B
They really care about each other and love each other, and that's beautiful.
- [69:12]
A
Did you deliberately set out for that to happen?
- [69:15]
B
I think my kids had a very unusual upcoming upbringing. They had an upbringing where their strong, powerful dad cried every day.
- [69:24]
A
Right.
- [69:25]
B
So my children have empathy. They know when they meet you and say hello that you're putting on a strong facade, but they know your mom could be sick or your dad's got problems or maybe some, something is going on in your life that you are covering up and you can, when you meet them, you feel it and you know you don't. Parents don't want their 22 year old to have empathy. No, we want to protect them. Yes, right. Like parents, they dive in front of anything going to their kids so that the kids have a great life.
- [70:00]
A
Yeah, Right.
- [70:01]
B
And so my kids, my kids have empathy and so they are, you know when, when people have asked me, wow, you know, they're, they're really like. And you can tell right away when you, you meet them. And I'd say, yeah, but you don't want to raise them the way I did because it was just sad.
- [70:21]
A
I could talk to you for hours, but I'm getting the wind up. So, last question. You are a very successful person. You were around very successful people. You've met so many. What are the secrets of success?
- [70:36]
B
Passion. If you deeply, deeply care, then you leave no stone unturned. There's no easy way to create success. Some people are lucky, granted, but most people make their own luck. It's. For me, it's the intensity that passion brings. If I want to do something, I need to know everything about it because I'm passionate about it and I deeply care. So I'm going to read everything, I'm going to know everything. I'm going to talk to everyone. No one is going to know better than I do.
- [71:12]
A
Great. Way to be. Thank you so much, Howard Lutnick.
- [71:14]
B
Great.
- [71:17]
A
Thanks so much for listening to Pod Force One. I'm Miranda Devine. Please hit the like and subscribe buttons just to make sure you don't miss any future episode.