Transcripts For MSNBC The Rachel Maddow Show 20240922 : comp

I was a nursing st and g, and, you know, hanging out and doing what most 20, 21yearolds do. And i was dragged to this club, and there was Lev Parnas. Gold chain and his cartier glasses and his Christian Audigier goldfoiled hoodie. He said he was in la to produce a movie. The evening went by. We were talking. We were relating. Me and lev are both immigrants from ukraine. Similar background, similar upbringing. The foundation, its still the soviet union. The next day, he shows up in a Stretch Limo in front of my house to pick me up for lunch. Its just a certain way that they produce people out of Russia And Ukraine thats different than anywhere else. He proposed four days later, and we were married within six months. All of our friends and family thought we were completely off our rockers. It was like, nobody matters. Nothing you say can stop us. Like, thats it. Its like beyonce and jayz, bonnie and clyde. Like, lets do this. Were going to conquer the world. I dont think you could have convinced me with anything that this is where we would be in 2024. Lev parnas. Lev parnas. Lev parnas. Lev parnas. Lev parnas. Parnas. The shady and indicted ukrainian Businessman Lev parnas. That he would be involved in one of the biggest scandals. President trump pressured the head of ukraine to pursue an investigation into Joe Biden. My call was perfect. Having to do with our birth country, ukraine, having to deal with President S of ukraine and of the united states. Parnas Is A recently indicted goon who worked with giuliani to help Trump Blackmail Ukraine into investigating Joe Biden. The impeachment of President Donald Trump is here. Lev parnas, he is now talking and he has documents to back up his words. Parnas implicated several top Trump Administration officials including the president himself. Were you relying on Lev Parnas to get rid of your ambassador . No. I mean, who does that . What happened . What happened . Lev happened. Democrats are really scraping the bottom of the barrel if they think that Lev Parnas is their star witness. Lev parnas, he Is A creepy, sleazy, selfserving super snitch. He will do and say anything he can. Think im crazy, but i really thought im going to get the medal of honor. Boy, was i wrong. [laughs] [whimsical music] so i was born in odessa, ukraine, february 6, 1972. My father used to own underground factories. During communism, you werent allowed to have your own business. People that were caught running these types of factories would get the Death Sentence. We emigrate to the united states in 1976 when i was four years old. We had friends and family that were all immigrating to a little Town Right by coney island. It was brighton beach, and we called it little odessa. [upbeat music] it was kind of like one big family. We all came from the same persecution. And we all wanted the same thing, which was the american dream. Certain individuals started leading and taking control of the neighborhood. People like my father that were businessmen in the soviet union, what you now call russian Organized Crime. When my father passed away, and i was 11 years old, i had to get more involved into that world. While other kids were going to school, i was on the streets hustling, and the girl i was dating, her uncle happened to be one of the leaders in that Organized Crime group. And i ended up working for him as a runner collecting money. So one day im in south new jersey, and im collecting. I had somewhere around 2 and 1 2, 3 Million in cash and checks sitting in the back of my lincoln town car. And an 18wheeler hits me and drives over the back of my car. [chuckles] so i remember calling my uncle and telling him im stuck and the cops are on their way. What do i do . Theyre like, whatever you do, dont open the trunk. Were on our way. At The End of the night, it was a bunch of fun and laughs at atlantic City Casino discussing how i almost got arrested with 2 and 1 2 million in cash. Then around 1989, there was a big boom in the russian community the Cold War might be over and there might be a lot of opportunity. So now fast forward. [tape whirs] i made some really good money over the next several years in russia. Import, export. I probably had every most powerful russian, ukrainian, exsoviet union businessman, mobster there to do business. At some point, it became too crazy. People were dying left and right and i saw it was my time to exit. One day, i decided to give my Cousin Oleg a call. Come on by, lets grab some sushi. I wanted to impress him. So here oleg is, pulling up in this red ferrari. Gets out in a pinstripe suit, looking like, you know, A Million bucks. And i look at him, i said, who did you kill . He goes, no, its called Wall Street. If anybodys seen the movie the wolf of Wall Street, that didnt do it justice. My first day in the office, i see guys doing lines on the table. You got guys smoking weed in the corner. Its just a bunch of young guys running around with headphones and screaming crazy numbers. That was my initiation into Wall Street. These were largely boiler rooms. They were lowlevel Brokerage Houses, not very well known. And lev was on the hustle. Three of the Brokerage Houses that he worked for had been expelled for violations of fraud. All of a sudden, everybody started getting arrested, and the news started coming up with the mob on Wall Street. My friends were going to prison, and i decided, you know, its time to exit. My Cousin Oleg was opening another office in boca raton, florida, and he was looking for people to work there. Boca raton, florida, here we come. [upbeat music] the palm trees, the oceans, the warm sunny weather it was a paradise. But there was also an opportunity for every fraudster in the world because you had a lot of retirees. I ended up working for the same Mobbedup Penny Stock mobsters doing the same shit we were doing in New York. [laughs] in boca raton, he had multiple cases of nonpayment of debts and being evicted from various places where he lived. He had been the target of at least nine court cases. 2008, the great recession hits, and my life goes upside down. I lose my wife, i lose my cars, i lose my business. I kind of started looking for a new path in life. I got approached by one of my friends that said, would you be willing to open up some Poker Rooms In Beverly Hills . The next thing you know, here i am, running illegal poker games on top of rodeo drive. Our clientele was the whos who. If you ever seen mollys game the movie stars, directors, and Business Titans they were going all in all the time. Thank you, molly. This is for you. Thats it. And that was us. At the same time, i was introduced to this hollywood producer, rudy durand. He discovered brooke shields. He was jack nicholsons good friend. And he had this script that he was dying to do. The main characters were supposed to be jack Nicholson And Mark wahlberg. Now here i am, running at Night Poker games and during the day running around with some of the most powerful people in hollywood, trying to put together a movie called memory of an assassin. I had no idea about the movie business, but i was a salesman. And i ended up going out there and finding investors. Hes always been someone that is doing a lot at the same time. Serial entrepreneur. Yeah. For sure. Serial father, too. [laughs] lev Is A super likable guy. You know what i mean . He makes a joke, and im like, ah. [laughs] oh, lev. Youre so crazy. [laughs] lev is kind of a lovable character. He is charismatic. Hes full of energy, full of piss and vinegar. You cant forget lev. Ive never met anyone that has not recalled meeting lev. While living the life of adam, i met a very special person. Little did i know that this person would end up being the love of my life. [coughs] excuse me. Im a little bit hoarse. Four days later, i dropped to one knee at 4 oclock in the morning, and i proposed to her with a jar of pickles. And she said yes. I was going to be Wife Number 3, but Baby Mama Number 4. It was like, ok, enough. You have kids. All of the kids are in florida. So for me, it was immediately, i have to move. I became an instant mom. I was a young woman. But then once you have three kids, instantly, you get really old really quickly. The Movie Deal fell apart back then in 2010. It would eventually be made later on without me, with liam neeson, called memory. We all have to die. Thats important. Thats what you do before you go. I got retained December Of 2017 to go after a character named Lev Parnas about a judgment. Tony andre. [laughs] Tony Andre Is A miami lawyer. A great guy. But he was the root of all my problems. He was retained by a gentleman called michael pues. Pues was an investor in the Movie Deal that i was doing with rudy durand. Mr. Pues lent money from the trust that took care of his elderly mother. Seven years later, hes still out his 350 grand, which is now 500,000, if you count postjudgment interest. He was like a real pit bull. Once he got Subpoena Power through the judgment, my life turned into a living hell. On paper, lev looked like a terrible collection, all the earmarks of a bum case. I think to call him a typical Miami Hustler would do the game a disservice. [laughter] now to the race for the White House. And after decades of very publicly flirting with the idea, billionaire Donald Trump says he really is running for president this time around. Watching him come out, going down those golden escalator. Theyre bringing drugs. Theyre bringing crime. Theyre rapists. I mean, ive never voted. Had nothing to do with politics. I was never registered. But he wasnt a politician. He was a New York hustler. And we could relate. Im working with a big Real Estate company. Were out in a restaurant. Robert pereira, i met for the first time that evening, he was a very, very wealthy businessman and also a powerful person in the republican party. And they had ties close to trump. At first, i was extremely excited to meet this guy because of my Real Estate project. So that night, we come up with this crazy idea, is were going to hold a huge fundraiser at roberts house. This is the la palas. I mean, its 140 Million house with golden chandeliers, golden doors. So while robert is basically figuring out how were going to raise this money for Donald Trump, im more excited about how im going to have 20 Robert Pereiras in the same room, where i could pitch my real Estate Deal to. Until all of a sudden, its breaking news. Trump Tape Bombshell Donald Trump caught on a hot mic months after marrying melania, making vulgar comments about groping women, saying, when youre a star, they let you do it. Its a shit show. People are canceling left or right. We were able to salvage it. And that was my very first donation, 50,000 to the Donald Trump campaign. But something happened that night. We were like two seats away from trump, and lev piped in and said something. And instantly, it was like, No One Else was in the room. And the two of them were just talking. The moment that really got me is when i asked him, i said, why are you doing this . And he looked out into the ocean, and then stared back at us and said, you know what . I dont need to be doing this. Im doing this for the regular folk, for the common people. Im trying to stop them from destroying our country. And at that moment, it was something that hit me. At that moment, i was mesmerized, cultanized, hypnotized i was trumponized. 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Putin, from everything i see, has no respect for this person. Well, thats because hed rather have a puppet as President Of The United States. No puppet. No puppet. And its pretty clear youre the puppet. After that, trump said, i want you guys with me on Election Night at the hilton in New York. [energetic music] it was such a Roller Coaster of a night. All, like, sitting there nervous, trying to pray our way to having trump win. For Hillary Clinton, one of the most stunning defeats in american political history. Donald trump will be th