PTFO - Why Trump’s Road to the White House Runs Through His Four Black Athlete Friends
54:14 Share

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is. If I never saw Donald Trump and didn't know he was white, I would think that he was black the way they were treating him in the papers and in the press. Right after this ad. You're listening to Giraffe King's Network. A musician with technical knowledge can play all the right notes, but one who cares enough to play from the heart gives music souls.

At Truist, we believe the same is true for banking. Because when you work with someone who knows a lot and cares even more, you're unstoppable. Truist. Leaders in banking. Unwavering in care. Start feeling unstoppable. Visit truist.com slash care. Truist Bank. Member FDIC. Leading based on top 10 U.S. commercial bank.

So I believe personally that the single worst place to process the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump is the platform formerly known as Twitter, which is obviously exactly where I was on Saturday night, watching people grandstand and argue and generally use a horrifying shooting in Pennsylvania to spread conspiracies and rank propaganda. But there is one viral story that I came across from Forbes.com on Saturday that I want to tell you about here in particular.

because it provoked what I can only describe as a refreshingly and even inspirationally bipartisan level of disgust. The headline, quote, will surviving gunfire be Donald Trump's next appeal to black voters? Question mark. Forbes had published this story within hours of the shooting, and they then took it down the very next day after managing to insult both leftists and MAGA Republicans for the obvious reasons.

But the underlying premise here spoke to a story, a sports story, in fact, that had put us in the company of some of the greatest athletes ever. A story that we had been working on, actually, for more than a month, long before the chaos of this weekend. This was back when, you know, most of the headlines were about Joe Biden's alleged senility and/or Trump's felonies. And we started working on it because another enduring condition of American democracy

besides all the guns, is that for all the twists and turns of yet another one of the most batch election cycles of my lifetime, the actual outcome of this election may hinge, once again, on the question of Black voters, which is exactly why Joe Biden had a sit-down with BET scheduled to air tomorrow during the Republican National Convention, which is happening in Milwaukee, by the way, which the GOP chose in no small part, I presume because it is almost 40% Black voters,

And it is also why Hillary Clinton went on The Breakfast Club back in 2016. What's something that you always carry with you? Hot sauce. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Really? Are you getting information right now? Hot sauce. Hot sauce in my bag swag? Hot sauce. Really? Yes. Now listen, I want you to know people are going to see this and say, okay, she's pandering to black people. Okay. Is it working?

No, it was not. It was not working. It turned out. But for the record, Joe Biden did win the black vote in 2020 by a margin of 92 to 8. 92 to 8. It's an incredible blowout. The problem now being that Joe Biden in 2024 is so old that his own party is very understandably turning on him.

And Donald Trump, as a result, the eight in that aforementioned blowout, clearly senses an opportunity. Polling remains tight even now, but there is a reason that Trump recently held a rally in an unlikely borough. Right here in the Bronx. Who would think? Who would think? And I do want to be clear here.

Donald Trump is still the guy who repeatedly demanded the birth certificate of Barack Obama. He's also the guy who repeatedly demanded the death penalty for the Central Park Five, the five teenagers who were wrongfully convicted for assaulting a white woman who was jogging in Central Park 35 years ago. You better believe that I hate the people that took this girl and raped her brutally. You better believe it.

And it's more than anger, it's hatred. But suddenly Trump's strategy seems to be shifting. He's apparently gotten rid of his so-called platinum plan for Black empowerment, which flopped, obviously, in 2020. And the Trump campaign just told The Atlantic that, quote, suburban women might be less a priority than young men of color, end quote.

And so what I wanted to do today was sit down with a journalist, a journalist who had personally experienced Donald Trump's reimagined black outreach strategy, because what she found out that this new strategy is also an old story about sports.

Thank you.

Make today the day you kickstart a new healthy routine. So what are you waiting for? With 35 different meals and more than 60 add-ons to choose from every week, you'll always have new flavors to explore. Factor will help you crush your wellness goals this month with dietitian-approved meals and ingredients that you can trust. So make your day delicious and treat yourself to restaurant-quality meals that feature premium ingredients like filet mignon and shrimp and blackened salmon.

From breakfast to dessert, stay fueled with easy, nutritious options. And here's the best part. You get to keep your kitchen time to a minimum because factory meals are ready in two minutes. No shopping, prepping, cooking, or cleaning up. Enjoy effortless support for your lifestyle by choosing from six menu preferences to help you manage calories, maximize your protein intake, avoid meat, or simply eat well-balanced. So

So go and head to factormeals.com slash pablo50 and use code pablo50 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next month. That is code pablo50 at factormeals.com slash pablo50 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next month while your subscription is active.

So, Kadia, the reason, by the way, thank you for coming into studio here. Thanks for having me. For commuting from D.C. to be here. I have many questions about a story that I find compelling, on some level surprising, on another level, the complete opposite. Because I don't know of somebody else who has this sort of story in their portfolio where it's like, guess who I talked to?

And the answer is, well, a lot of people who are very, very notable, to me at least, as well as lots of sports fans. Me too. So how did this assignment start? This assignment that I consider one of the wildest assignments for anybody who's covered the Trump campaign. So originally, I just set out to understand what the Black outreach was coming from the Trump campaign. As you know, there's this

polling that suggests black men are leaving the Democratic Party and like kind of slipping away to Republicans. It's not clear if it's Donald Trump or the Republican Party. When you talk to them, most of them say it's all about Donald Trump. So I just like went to look out

to understand what this was about. But also, like, as a New Yorker, growing up and remembering him from, like, the 80s and the 90s and having worked at Trump Tower, I was just like, yeah, I get it, right? Like, I understand why certain men would be attracted to this guy, Donald Trump.

Let me explore that. And I kind of approached the campaign that way. Yeah. Let me explore what you just dropped, which is that you worked at Trump Tower. Yeah. So we're both New Yorkers. I know Trump Tower from my childhood as the gleaming golden monument that was, you know, advertised, famous for being truly like this temple to wealth. Come and be dazzled. Trump Tower.

And where were you in that building? So I was on the second floor. I worked for Dooney & Burke, a leather handbag company. The company had two flagship stores, one on Madison Avenue and one in Trump Tower on the second floor. And you'd see Donald Trump all the time. It wasn't like a big thing to see him roaming around the city or just like in Trump Tower, his apartment building. A lot of tourists came because, you know, the attraction of Trump Tower,

It was just like always a joke to be able to sell them like a yellow Palomino handbag wallet and a keychain and match. It's just funny. So now, of course, I should say I shouldn't bury the lead here, so to speak. You're now a political reporter at Semaphore. So, oh yeah, that's what I do. From handbags to I cover politics. Which is all to say that this is a full circle kind of an assignment. All of this really has felt like jumping into a time machine, it turns out, for both of us. ♪

Okay, so you should know that semaphore reporter Kadia Goba and I are both from New York City. Kadia grew up in Crown Heights in Brooklyn. I grew up on the east side of Manhattan, not terribly far away from Trump Tower, actually. And both of us, importantly, were alive in the 1980s, the decade that most epitomizes America's spectacular capacity for greed and unsubtlety.

The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. The 80s were unapologetic. The 80s were cartoonishly absurd. And in New York, sports teams, not unlike the finance guys on Wall Street, were winning a lot. In 1987, for instance, the Giants won the Super Bowl.

And that happened less than three months after the even sadder sack Mets won the World Series. But what I just need the kids out there to understand here.

that the biggest avatar for this entire era, its bullishness, its bull , its glorious excess, would turn out to be the only US president ever born in the borough of Queens, New York. - It's, as you and I were discussing, it's become the number one attraction in New York, Trump Tower. The best hotel, casino anywhere in the world. - Finest transportation operation anywhere in this country. This has really turned out to be almost mystical. It's been great.

All of which is to say that when Kadia Goba started reporting the article we are here to talk about for Semaphore.com, a global news startup covering politics and business and media and technology, she got the idea to personally interview that guy, the owner of the Golden Tower, where she used to work, at the very moment when the Trump campaign just so happened to need some help from a demographic they had previously lost by a score of 92 to 8.

And so how do you reach out to the campaign? How does that conversation go? Take me inside how you even like go about completing, starting the assignment. Well, it's not my beat. I cover Congress, right? So, you know, in journalism, you get in where you fit in, right? So I know some people on the campaign and I just pitched them the story. And I remember like crafting a letter with my editors to kind of pitch them on this approach. I was asking for an actual interview.

With Donald Trump. Yes. I mean, why would they? That's a very coveted interview. Yeah, Kadia, come on in. That didn't happen. Right. So they said, you know what? I have a good idea. Why don't we connect you with some of, you know, the people he knew from back then in that era who he is still friendly with? And I was like, all right.

The first phone call I got was from Daryl Strawberry. I remember the person connecting the call didn't know who Strawberry was. This is a weird thing for me to have a moral objection to when it comes to the Trump campaign, but I'm disappointed in them. That's kind of indefensible to not know who Daryl Strawberry is.

So let me just give you the back of Darryl Strawberry's baseball card here for a second. Because the dude was Rookie of the Year at 21 years old in 1983. He was an eight-time All-Star. He was on the cover of Sports Illustrated eight times as well. He could hit, he could run. He had one of the prettiest lefty swings in baseball history. And yes, he won the 86 World Series as the right fielder for the New York Mets. Darryl Strawberry. Hello, Darryl.

He even had his own chant. And the chant continues, the taunt of Strawberry. A taunt that became immortalized in an actual cartoon. Daryl, Daryl. So yeah, in other words, an icon. I mean, just imagine it. Imagine being that young and handsome and famous in New York City in the 80s. It was only a matter of time before Daryl would cross paths with Donald Trump.

So I wanted to know how they met, what he was like back then. You know, did his friends talk to Donald Trump, like how approachable he was? And he just talked about him just being a regular guy. I just what I'm trying to wrap my brain around is the idea that anyone would describe Donald Trump as, quote, a regular guy.

This is New York City, 80s, 90s, right? Like, it was not inconceivable. If you could get into the right club, you might see him, you know? Like, or, you know, walking in the street. I was looking at some old clips the other day and how...

personable he seemed on David Letterman. And I was just like, "Oh yeah, I remember this guy." At the beginning of the show, I said you either love him or you hate him. Now, do you find that that's true, or does everybody love you, or does everybody hate you? Most people love me, and a few really have great distaste for me. And I know Daryl would go on to become a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice. Daryl, do you want to be fired? Yes.

I think of these guys and sitting back and watching their effort. Are you tired? Huh? Do you want to go home? So I know that they had stayed in touch, but did you get the sense that Daryl was now a Trump surrogate? Like, was he a guy who was happy, eager to talk about the campaign and politics? I want to preface all of this by saying the campaign was very specific about, like,

There was no suggestion that these are surrogates, that they're going to be talking to a bunch of people. They were giving Kadia this interview. His big point in our conversation was...

that he related to what Donald Trump was going through because he himself had been judged. At one point, he kept talking about, like, "Yeah, people judge me. They thought I was down." I'm here. I made it. And he just -- he identifies with this man.

So just to clarify what Darryl Strawberry was alluding to just then, the public opinion he says he had to overcome. In 1995, Darryl Strawberry tested positive for cocaine and got suspended 60 days by Major League Baseball. And then he got suspended again in 99 for almost the entire season after he got arrested on charges of cocaine possession and solicitation of a prostitute.

And one year after that, after his third positive drug test in five years, Strawberry got suspended a third time, this time for a full calendar year. It is also worth mentioning here that in the 90s, Strawberry had been arrested twice for domestic abuse after allegedly punching a woman and allegedly threatening his wife with a gun. And he also pled guilty to federal tax evasion at one point in order to avoid jail time.

He was additionally an admitted sex addict. And when Darryl Strawberry finally went to rehab, he broke a number of rules, which again led to another arrest, after which he did spend nearly a year in jail. Today, many years later, Darryl Strawberry is an evangelical minister. Glory, glory, glory to God.

But one of the relationships Daryl has preserved from his old way of life in the 80s is the entire reason he was calling Kadia in the first place. I'm getting the sense that you are getting a personal and exclusive tour through the world of Donald Trump's black friends. Yeah.

Yeah, you'd say that. Well, it starts with Darryl Strawberry. And the next person that you get to connect with ends up being who? So the next call is about coming to the New Jersey rally because Lawrence Taylor is going to be there. At the time, it was a big surprise. And I was like, oh, LT? Like, where's he been? I guess I would have to say Lawrence Taylor is the greatest defensive player ever.

Alright, so I should be clear about this. In the world of football, there was only one Lawrence Taylor, and he was worth every penny. His freakish athleticism and sheer relentlessness made him a new kind of… There are people for whom LT was the greatest football player ever. Period.

Donald Trump loved talking about Lawrence Taylor. In 1983, after failing to buy an NFL team, Trump wound up purchasing his own consolation prize, a franchise in the upstart United States Football League, the now defunct USFL. And his franchise was called the New Jersey Generals. And Trump, upon declaring that he was waging war on the NFL, wanted Lawrence Taylor, the king of New York football, to be his.

First, we have Mr. Donald Trump, who is the visitor from New York City and the New Jersey general's owner. I think the general way that you have been presented in the media is money. You have absolutely declared that you're going to compete. And so in 1984, when Lawrence Taylor found himself in a contract standoff with the Giants, Trump convinced LT to sign a six-year deal with the generals, a deal that came with a million-dollar signing bonus.

which immediately became this tremendous headline, except for the fact that the contract could not start until four years later, and also the fact that LT never wound up playing a single game for the Generals. Instead, of course, he went on to win two Super Bowls with the Giants in the NFL.

But here now in 2024 was Lawrence Taylor on stage in front of Kadia proudly campaigning for the boss he never had. I just want to say I grew up a Democrat and I've always been a Democrat until I met this man right here. Where is this in Jersey? What's the... Wildwood? Wildwood happens to be where I spent my after prom party.

Which is embarrassing in multiple ways now that I now realize. First rally I've gone to where the sand floor, that was interesting. Checks out. And I got to go backstage. For the first time I saw what they do back there. Yeah. It was just a line of probably donors, I would say, and probably influential New Jersey people. I remember a lot of law enforcement also, like local sheriffs and...

state police from New Jersey, all online for an autograph. Where do you encounter Lawrence Taylor? So he was one of the first people on the line. And after he took his picture with Trump. Oh, Lawrence Taylor wanted a photo. Yes. And then I got a few minutes with him backstage and I was just like,

Why do you support this guy? And he gave me this great story about him going down to Trump Tower because Trump had been trying to recruit him for his New Jersey Generals. I think that was the name. Oh, the USFL team. Yeah. Yes. Trump said...

Well, look in your bank account. And he said at the time I had like $1,300, $1,400 because I wasn't making any money. He put a million dollars in my account and said, listen, he wants me to play. And we've been friends ever since. And they golf and everything. That is a good way to start a friendship, I suppose. I would imagine so. Giving you a million dollars such that years later, I will still want to pose for a photo with you in line at one of your rallies. I thought it was interesting.

Well, that was interesting because I hadn't heard anything about LT supporting Trump. So that was kind of, I guess that was his big surprise that day. Okay, so just a couple of clarifications about Lawrence Taylor that are really worth making here. So one thing, one smaller thing, I suppose, is that because LT never wound up playing for the generals, obviously, he actually did have to pay that million dollars back to Donald Trump. It was basically a load.

But far more important to know is that Lawrence Taylor, not unlike Darryl Strawberry, also has one of those Wikipedia pages with a giant section entitled, quote, "Drug and lifestyle problems." - You write, "I'd go through an ounce a day. There were times I'd be standing in the huddle, and instead of thinking what defense we were playing, I'd be thinking about smoking crack after the game." - Well, like, well, you gotta understand, though,

- It didn't affect my play. - Lawrence Taylor tested positive for cocaine in 1987. He would later admit to smoking crack the day after his final game with the Giants, and again, the day that the Giants retired his number. Eventually, undercover cops would arrest Taylor for trying to buy crack twice

And that brings us to another section entitled Run-ins with the Law. Lawrence Taylor, NFL Hall of Famer, maybe the greatest football player ever, was charged today with third-degree rape and patronizing a 16-year-old prostitute. So to recap, Lawrence Taylor, a person the Trump campaign wanted Kadia to meet while the former president endorsed Lawrence Taylor at a rally where Lawrence Taylor endorsed him, is a registered sex offender.

Which raised another question that I had for Kadia. What did LT say about any of the larger context about Trump's criminality in the present? I asked him, did anything concern you when he delved into this political arena? And he said... He just, he gonna speak his mind. He doesn't care how it comes out. You know, he's not derogatory, but I mean, he is...

I like him. He's a man's man. And that he's a man's man aspect, um,

What did you interpret that to mean? This is something I repeatedly talk about in my piece, this suggestion that machismo or just being a man's man is very attractive to men, some men. And it doesn't matter if you are facing 34 criminal charges or anything like that, or you've maybe said some off-kilter things that offend people.

So, Kadia, who's the next person that you meet in this parade of friends that Donald Trump is sort of connecting you to? So then I talk to Mike Tyson.

All right. So, of course, the Trump campaign's third friend that they wanted Kadia to interview was going to be Mike Tyson. Because as big as Daryl Strawberry's Mets and Lawrence Taylor's Giants both were in the 80s in New York, no athlete on the planet was bigger than Mike Tyson. A very impressive young athlete. Please say hello to Mike Tyson. And Trump wasn't just around Mike Tyson in the 80s.

They were basically business partners because just as Trump once used the New Jersey generals to wage war on the Giants and the NFL, Trump started hosting some of Tyson's heavyweight title fights in another part of Jersey, Atlantic City, in order to wage war on Las Vegas, the boxing capital of the world. - This is the convention center on the famous boardwalk in Atlantic City.

where Trump Plaza plays host to a fight being billed as once and for all. Undefeated World Heavyweight Champion Mike Tyson defends his crown against another undefeated heavyweight with a claim to the title, Michael Sp- In 1988, Tyson would knock out an undefeated Michael Spinks in the first round of that title fight. And that same year, back again at Trump Plaza, Tyson TKO'd Larry Holmes in the fourth round.

All of which is how Mike Tyson's notorious promoter, the legendary Don King, also became friends with Donald Trump. Both Donald Trump and Don King bonded over this shared recognition that there was no economic stimulus package, quite like Mike Tyson, a genuine global sports phenomenon who happened to be from Brownsville, not that far from where Kadia grew up.

Your fellow Brooklynite, Mike Tyson. Yeah, fellow Brooklynite, who I never thought I would be interviewing. What did Tyson mean to you as a New Yorker

Growing up, existing at a time when, of course, he was one of the most famous people on the planet. Yeah, so boxing was, you know, it was very popular then, right? Of course. Rarely was there like a New Yorker and specifically a Brooklyn boxer who had reached the depth that Tyson had. I mean, I remember my friend's older siblings like going to fights with him and going to see him in Vegas. They were paying to go to like Vegas?

That's how that worked. I mean, they were probably not paying, but yeah, they were going to Vegas. I remember them getting dressed and putting on minks and going like, oh, that's fancy. Extremely, extremely 1980s. The entire scene of it.

There are real reasons to think like, hold on, let's have a sober-minded conversation about Donald Trump, right? Like the Central Park Five. This was a story that Donald Trump was all over and he got it wrong and people suffered because of it. And Mike Tyson, did he address this part of the conversation? Was that part of it? Unsolicited, actually. He talked about...

He just defended him and he claims of racism. He said he was not a racist without me prompting him. Do you ever clash with other black men that are celebrities like yourself about Donald Trump? Because you've been a supporter for a long time. Do I ever? Do I ever? Yes. The only thing they can say is that he's a racist. There can't be nothing more substantial than that.

So the pitch from Mike Tyson on behalf of Donald Trump, how would you summarize like what he is sort of... He's the same guy.

This is the same dude that we were all hanging out with. Don't cower now. He hasn't done anything he wasn't doing back then. What about like real, like just regular degular people who like, you know, just like black men? Do you ever, what are those conversations like when it comes to Trump? Street people? You talking about street people? Yeah, yeah. Yo man, I don't f*** with your man, but he loves you.

I would venture to say, Kadia, that you're the first person to say regular degular. Yeah, on a call during an interview. About a presidential campaign. I told you it got very Brooklyn. Listen, I'm the ordinary people's person. Who do you think voted in the office? Famous people? No. The ordinary people.

And so this is where we got to point out, of course, that Mike Tyson is yet another one of Donald Trump's friends who has a criminal record, not unlike Daryl Strawberry, and is also a registered sex offender, not unlike Lawrence Taylor. In 1991, Tyson was arrested for the rape of an 18-year-old, and he got convicted the next year in a high-profile trial. A

a trial that Donald Trump, his, again, business partner, was obsessed with. Speaking of fights, explain to me now what you were thinking about the Mike Tyson situation. Shortly after the verdict was announced that he had been convicted, he was guilty of the crime, you had a plan. Now, what were you thinking there? What was I thinking? I was thinking that as soon as he gets out, he's going to fight in my casinos. Trump, of course, has now been accused of sexual assault or harassment by at least 26 women

himself. And Trump was also found liable by a jury last year for sexually abusing the writer E. Jean Carroll at a department store in Manhattan in the '90s. All of which is to say that the Trump campaign's black outreach strategy does not sound coincidental in this fashion. In fact, if you go back to how Trump had been talking in the months leading up to his 34 felony convictions, the entire approach

Kind of sounds about as subtle as the 1980s themselves. These lights are so bright in my eyes that I can't see too many people out there. But I can only see the black ones. I can't see any white ones, you see. That's how far I've come. We've all seen the mugshot. And...

You know who embraced it more than anybody else? The black population. It's incredible. You see black people walking around with my mugshot. You know, they do shirts and they sell them for $19 a piece. It's pretty amazing. So while his pop culture legend is undeniable, Donald Trump's, I do want to get to the connecting of these two dots. On the one hand, here is Donald Trump on trial. This is when these interviews are taking place. And on the other hand, here are these black voters are trying to

reach out to and persuade to vote for the man who is, again, under various indictments. What is the argument when it comes to connecting those dots in the mind of both Donald Trump and in the mind of Mike Tyson? Yeah, so obviously this is not a blanket situation where all black men relate to his criminal past or criminal current, I should say, right? There is some sense where they relate to this guy who

He keeps saying that he is, you know, being persecuted and people relate to that. And then I got indicted a second time and a third time and a fourth time.

And a lot of people said that that's why the black people like me, because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against. And they actually viewed me as I'm being discriminated against. It's been pretty amazing. Mike Tyson, at one point in the conversation, we have this really interesting banter where he goes... If I never saw Donald Trump and didn't know he was white, I would think that he was black the way they were treating him in the papers and in the press. Mm-hmm.

Think about that. That's the way they treat him in court. That's the way they treat black people. You know, they're treating him like, they're treating him like, well, I'm not going to say what they're treating him like. And I said, no, it's fine. You can say it. And he said, you know, they're treating him like, I guess the N-word is what people say. Were you surprised that there was this interweaving of a, again, regular person struggle between

with the criminal justice system in Black America

Were you surprised that it was interwoven with the man who does seem to represent, as much as anything else, a caricature of golden wealth in America who is white? Yeah, I was. But this is what he is saying. This is what he says on the campaign trail. This is what Republicans are saying. Yeah, at a moment of crisis for the Democratic Party where it's like, how are we losing these people? Well, here is one theory, one hypothesis as to why.

And I still think that Black people are going to vote overwhelmingly Democrat. But this will be a tight race. And the idea of being able to peel off a certain group or just a small portion of a certain group, that is extremely valuable in a race this tight. And it also feels like we should point out that you did talk to somebody, a friend of Trump, who actually himself was trying to become a politician.

Oh, Herschel Walker, yeah. Yeah. So, okay.

Many moons before Donald Trump tapped Herschel Walker to run for Senate as a Republican in Georgia, where he ultimately lost a closely contested runoff election, Herschel Walker was something else entirely. The greatest college football player of all time. And after Herschel, there's a hole of five, 10, 12. He's running over people. Herschel Walker. My God almighty, he ran right through two men.

At the University of Georgia, Herschel Walker was a three-time SEC Player of the Year, a three-time unanimous All-American, the winner of the 1982 Heisman Trophy, and a national champion.

His athleticism, meanwhile, his fitness became the stuff of legend. A legend that I once asked him about myself years later in a particularly hard-hitting interview. I heard that you do 1,500 sit-ups a day. Are you still doing that? I am. I really do 3,500 sit-ups, about 1,500 push-ups every day. Journalism. Yeah. Anyway.

Herschel Walker also became famous for going to the USFL instead of the NFL right out of college. And the team he signed with, you guessed it, was the New Jersey Generals, the same team that Donald Trump wanted to pay Lawrence Taylor a million dollars to play for. What was your interaction with Herschel Walker like? He talked about Donald Trump coming to, you know, practices and bringing people

Don Jr. and him just going, I'm going to take you to Disney one day. And he said, like, one day they just came back and Don Jr. was like, hi, I'm ready to go to Disney. So they went to Disney. Wait, Herschel Walker took Don Jr. to Disney. Yeah. Then a couple of times, like, Trump would join them. I'm sorry. Trump Sr., Don Jr., and Herschel Walker are, like, riding the teacups together at Disney. They're at Disney. Yeah.

Yeah. That is a level of friendship that I did not anticipate. So Hersha Walker, who again, of course, ran, lost as a MAGA candidate for Senate in Georgia in 2022. How enthusiastic a political surrogate

is Herschel Walker now for Trump? I think you might see him on the trail, but again, he's a loser, right? Right. Because he didn't win that race, so... And why do you think Trump wanted you to talk to Herschel? What did Herschel have to say about, again, the candidate? Just an adoration for this man. Because I know the man. I know the man has got a great heart. Getting a through line here. These are people who love this guy. Yeah, this is...

someone who these are people who love this guy. And look, I don't want to keep belaboring this pattern that I can only assume you noticed a long time ago about the four horsemen that the Trump campaign connected to Kadia. But yes. So to date, Herschel Walker has been accused of and largely denied a list of allegations, which include stalking, frightening his ex-wife to the extent that cops confiscated his handgun,

threatening his ex-girlfriend that he would, quote, blow her head off, attacking another ex-girlfriend, paying his ex-girlfriend to have an abortion and urging her to have a second one, this despite becoming a staunchly anti-abortion candidate, and also being a deadbeat dad and a liar, according to his own son.

This despite being a family values conservative. I stayed silent as the atrocities committed against my mom were downplayed. I stayed silent when it came out that my father, Herschel Walker, had all these random kids across the country, none of whom he raised. And so on the subject of Black outreach specifically, I was curious what kind of advice Herschel Walker would have for Don Sr., his old friend,

and former employer. He said to like, he should like,

embrace the community and go to the community, engage with them, let them talk, let them hear him talk and, you know, engage with them. I keep on thinking about this clip in particular. Look at my African-American over here. Look at him. I suppose I don't even really have a question other than I also wonder if the man who was unseen on that screen, who was allegedly over there, Trump's quote-unquote African-American, was a real person that exists in life. Look at him.

Are you the greatest? Do you know what I'm talking about? Okay. So how does it happen where you finally get to meet Trump himself? I'd gotten home around 3 o'clock in the morning. I get this phone call later on that morning asking if I wanted to come down and actually do this interview. Now, I had thought I was going to go through maybe an off-the-record with him just to kind of warm up. That was kind of what the team was promising me, but...

They were ready to do the interview, I guess, after a series of, you know, monitoring my conversations with the other, his friends. Yes. So I hopped on a plane within an hour and a half and I was in West Palm Beach waiting to see Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago. So we are not allowed to play tape from Kadia's interview inside Mar-a-Lago with former President Donald Trump, just FYI.

But you can imagine why Trump calls the resort, which was originally built by socialite Marjorie Meriwether Post, his "Winter White House." Trump has hosted authoritarian world leaders like Hungary's Viktor Orbán — that was just last week — in addition to dozens of classified documents since seized by the FBI. Just listen to Trump's head butler while he was giving a tour to CBS years ago. This is the main entrance hall.

From 1927 on, this is the way you came in. You came in this hallway and came into what was known as the great room, the gold room, the grand salon, or as Mrs. Post would say, this is the living room. Do you think this is a little ostentatious, you know, for a six-week winter home? But more than anything, I think, and this is in keeping squarely with the theme of today's show, the place feels...

Like the 80s. It's like a Miami Trump Tower, right? It's, you know, palatial and bronze ceilings with wings, a stone walkway overlooking a pool area. Right. Did you see a pool full of gold coins or was that hidden somewhere else? No gold coins. Oh. Where are you waiting?

As you're waiting for Donald Trump. In the grand room. It's kind of like a living room setting. So there's like two sofa settings, a couple of like settees, I guess you would say, off to the side. And it's right next to the dining area.

Where he was going to be having dinner later on that day with a group of HBCU former and current students, as well as Michaela Montgomery. The gymnast? No, the young lady who went viral for hugging him at the Chick-fil-A in Georgia. I don't care what the media tells you, Mr. Trump. We support you. We love you. Okay, 4 p.m. We've been 4 p.m. Come here, let me give you a hug. Please do.

Trump is now yours for a time. For about 12 minutes. For about 12 minutes. And can you explain what that interaction is like? Both of us are standing. I'm interviewing him like I'm in the halls of Congress with a mic or a phone to his mouth like a mic. I'm talking fast. He's talking fast. You know, I preface all of this by saying, hey,

I'm doing a story on black outreach in 2024, both for him and Biden. And, you know, a lot of people are surprised that black people are, you know, look up to you. And I wanted to tell this story about like, why it's probably not that surprising. So and, you know, your campaign was nice enough to set this up. Here's my first question. How would you describe what Trump told you?

So I asked, you've been making the point to say that black people identify with the charges, you know, and what you're going through in the court system and the justice system. I'm being indicted for you, the black population. I said, is that going to be part of your campaign? And he said, no. Other than you asking me right now, I'm not going to make that a point. He said, but they identify with it. And then he goes on to say that.

That they identify with it. During that dinner he has with Michaela Montgomery, I talked to her after about like what they talked about. And she said, she told him, don't say that. Don't say that black men identify with your criminal background. Like, don't say that. And so basically this was like a help me help you scenario of like, hey, just FYI. Yeah. This is not a good thing.

Black outreach strategy. Essentially, yes. I thought that was interesting, right? Because these guys just met at that Chick-fil-A that we talked about. He makes lots of friends in various places, it turns out. Yeah, I mean, she'll probably be in the administration. Who knows? Yeah, it sounds like she's probably Secretary of Interior coming up. At one point, I asked him about... I told him, you know, your campaign has put me in contact with all these people. Why do you think...

that happened and he said, "Well, you know,

He started to do his Trump campaign pitch, right? Like, oh, they want, you know, safer borders and they want crime and stuff. And I was like, no, no, well, these guys are rich. And he goes, oh, I know. Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah, good point, Kadia. That was kind of the last question he kind of ended it with. Like, you know, I have a lot of black friends. And, you know, if they would, if they talk to me, that clearly means I'm not a racist. Hold on. So the last thing that Trump says to you, though,

On the way out, I just want to get this clear, is what? And I'm not racist. Perfect. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Something definitely said by somebody who is not a racist is, and I'm not a racist. In addition to, like, they wouldn't be my friends if I were a racist. And, you know, that is a trope we all hear all the time. And some people say it who actually don't have black friends, right? And here I am.

Here I am, like, telling a story about his black friends. So it's just like, ugh. What you found out, Kadia, is that Donald Trump has, in truth, a non-zero number of black friends who happen to be some of the greatest athletes in certainly the 1980s. Very big personalities. Who happen to have all had criminal records. Well, that's it.

So as I sit here wondering what it is exactly that I found out today, I do want to acknowledge that we have been living inside a time capsule this episode. A time capsule from the 1980s, most obviously, but also a time capsule from before this past weekend, from before the assassination attempt on the life of Donald Trump. And I think that perspective is instructive for understanding the rest of this election season.

It is instructive to revisit what Khadija Goba discovered at the end of her journey here into the heart of this campaign. Because when offered this new opportunity to simply address Black America, let alone a tone in any way for birtherism and the Central Park Five and any number of other things that may have lost him votes in this demographic, Donald Trump literally just said, I have Black friends.

And he pointed back to his favorite decade, which ended almost 35 years ago now, a decade when he met Daryl Strawberry and Lawrence Taylor and Herschel Walker and Mike Tyson, all of whom more or less affirmed that Trump is a regular, ordinary American. The ordinary people's person. Who do you think voted in the office? Famous people? No. The ordinary people.

And so I should also say that Kadia, in order to be totally fair to everyone involved here, did follow up with the Trump campaign for clarity when she was writing this story. And she did ask if there was any policy proposal of any kind that she should know about.

Which is all to say that what I found out today, inside of this time capsule,

Turns out to be very simple, because on the subject of Black outreach, Donald Trump doesn't want to do much more than have you know that he is not a racist. And that strategy really is an ordinary, regular, undeniably American thing to do. This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production, and I'll talk to you next time.

Thank you.

Make today the day you kickstart a new healthy routine. So what are you waiting for? With 35 different meals and more than 60 add-ons to choose from every week, you'll always have new flavors to explore. Factor will help you crush your wellness goals this month with dietitian-approved meals and ingredients that you can trust. So make your day delicious and treat yourself to restaurant-quality meals that feature premium ingredients like filet mignon and shrimp and blackened salmon.

From breakfast to dessert, stay fueled with easy, nutritious options. And here's the best part. You get to keep your kitchen time to a minimum because factory meals are ready in two minutes. No shopping, prepping, cooking, or cleaning up. Enjoy effortless support for your lifestyle by choosing from six menu preferences to help you manage calories, maximize your protein intake, avoid meat, or simply eat well-balanced.

So go ahead to factormeals.com slash pablo50 and use code pablo50 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next month. That is code pablo50 at factormeals.com slash pablo50 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next month while your subscription is active.