place and then why donald trump gave up on it. at the end of the day, you know, he still considers himself to be in the hospitality business and he saw an opportunity to take the biggest leaders from around the world and he wanted to put on the absolute best show, the best visit that he possibly could. you say he considers himself in the hospitality business. sure. he s the president of the united states. yeah. but he s that s his background. he wanted to put on a show. he wanted to take care of folks. that s the he s in the hotel business. at least he was. joining us now, an expert on trump business. tim o brien, he s the executive editor of bloomberg opinion and msnbc contributor. he s a longtime student of the workings of the businesses of donald trump. jonathan alter is also back with us. tim, the trump plan launched last week by mick mulvaney was going along smoothly until this weekend and then it hit the rocks. i m so glad the white house hasn t learned yet th
jonathan alter is also back with us. tim, the trump plan launched last week by mick mulvaney was going along smoothly until this weekend then it hit the rocks. the white house hasn t learned yet they need to keep mick mulvaney under lock and key because he put out there what the president has put out there, this has been about the money from day one. when donald trump ran for president, i don t think he thought he was going to win. i think he saw it as a marketing event. we ve seen time and time again when people have tried to explain what motivates donald trump and gone to these sort of elaborate locutions or backflips around strategy or political jujit jujitsu. it s always about the money. the reason he has an interest in turkey is he sees at some point now or in the future, he can get a deal done there. i thnk think that informed everg around his attitude around vladimir putin. when he wanted the g7 to be at doral, it s not just because he was in the hospitality business. it wasn
asset for the russian government. do you agree with him? yes, i do. and anderson, we re all prisoners of our past to a degree, our past experiences. and mine are largely with the russians. and i go all the way back to the steele dossier, which as soon as we heard about it, it rang absolutely true to me. because that s the way the russian security services do things. now, we may never know whether any of the salacious details are true because if a tape exists, for instance, the russians would have that under lock and key, under lock and key, under lock and key, because if it s compromised, it loses its value. so it seems that mueller is going after the money. that s where you can find hard business and hard trails. but also, there s an important distinction and you did just really make it. we re not talking about trump being a russian agent. in full cog znls of working for the russian federation. rather an asset. an asset can be someone who is
and i go all the way back to the steele dossier, which as soon as we heard about it, it rang absolutely true to me. because that s the way the russian security services do things. now, we may never know whether any of the salacious details are true because, if a tape exists, for instance, the russians would have that under lock and key, under lock and key under lock and key, because if it s compromised, it loses its value. so, it seems that mueller is going after the money. that s where you can find hard business and hard trails. but also, there s an important distinction and you did just really make it. we re not talking about trump being a russian agent. in full cognizance of working for the russian federation. rather an asset. and an asset can be someone who is being blackmailed, being bribed, doing something for ideological reasons, not the case with trump, i don t think. it can be someone who s not even fully witting. i think with trump s ability to
among other things simply to check to make sure that the irs is doing the appropriate job in auditing the returns. there s actually history on the irs not having done an appropriate job during the nixon administration, and it is quite understandable if your boss, your supervisor, is the returns you have to audit, you can imagine somebody might decide to go easy if you will. yeah. very good points. ones that i think voters may care about. when we go back to the safe, this infamous safe, what do you think is in there? do you have any evidence or knowledge to tell us why people are saying, yourself included, that trump should be nervous. i have no evidence of a physical safe. look at what the enquirer does, they collect secrets, publish, it is a salacious publication and secrets sell. whether it is digital safe or somewhere under lock and key.