Over the past four weeks,
it feels like everyone has been talking
about Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh
every single day.
Like, if you took a shot
every time the news mentioned Brett Kavanaugh,
you would be Brett Kavanaugh.
(laughter)
So, for our own mental health,
let's take a break from this madness
and talk about something else-- Donald Trump.
(laughter)
I don't know if you guys know this,
but Donald Trump is the president of the United States.
He probably texted you about it today.
And one of the reasons... one of the reasons
he got that job was that he sold himself
as a self-made billionaire
who would do for America what he did for himself.
And yesterday, we found out more
about his amazing road to riches.
The president has always portrayed himself
as a master businessman, using the art of the deal
to turn a small loan into a global empire.
But now, a New York Times investigation claims
he was actually given a fortune
from his father's real estate company,
often through "dubious tax schemes."
I got a very, very small loan from my father many years ago.
I built that into a massive empire.
And I paid my father back that loan.
WOMAN: It's a story Donald Trump has been telling for decades.
I started with a million dollar loan.
I built a company that's worth more than ten billion dollars.
WOMAN: But reporters for the New York Times,
who say they examined more than 100,000 pages of documents,
claim it isn't true.
They report Donald Trump's father Fred actually lent him
at least $60.7 million.
Wait. What?
Okay. I don't know about you,
but I'm devastated right now,
because the one thing I knew about Donald Trump is
that he was a self-made billionaire.
And now you're saying that's not real?
Like, what's next? Are you gonna tell me
that's not his real hair? Huh?
That his natural complexion isn't sunset? Huh?
Because this exposes Trump's whole origin story as a lie.
And I mean, like, a total lie.
This is like finding out that Superman
was actually born in Cleveland and he can't even fly,
it's just an elaborate system of pulleys, okay?
Which is still impressive, but not the same.
And, now, look, let's be honest, let's be honest.
I don't think any of us really ever believed
that Trump was self-made.
We knew that his dad gave him a leg up in life.
But The New York Times has shown
that Fred didn't just give Donald a leg up,
he was basically all of his limbs.
Fred Trump was relentless and creative in finding ways
to channel his wealth to his children.
He made Donald not just his salaried employee
but also property manager, landlord,
banker and consultant.
He gave him loan after loan, many of them never repaid.
He gave him three trust funds.
He gave him shares in multiple partnerships.
And he gave him laundry revenue from his buildings.
He provided money for Donald's car,
money for his employees, money to buy stocks,
money for his first Manhattan offices,
and money to renovate those offices.
Okay, okay. This is just embarrassing.
Right? It's one thing to be a trust fund baby,
it's another thing to be a baby baby. Right?
You're a 40-year-old man, and your daddy is still paying
for your office furniture?
Like, did you do anything for yourself, Donald?
Huh? Did you actually bang those models in the '80s,
or was that your dad, too? Huh? Were you in that room like,
"Uh, are you gonna give it to me, Donald?"
He's like, "No, but my daddy will!"
(laughter)
So... Fred Trump was funneling enormous amounts of money
to Donald for decades.
And it all started before young Donny even knew what money was.
NEWSMAN: According to the investigation,
Trump was earning $200,000, in today's dollars,
by age three,
and was a millionaire by the age of eight.
By the time Donald was 17, his father had given him
part ownership of a 52-unit apartment building.
Wow. $200,000 as a toddler
and a millionaire by the age of eight.
That is not normal.
That's not a normal way to grow up.
Like, it turns everything upside down.
I bet Donald Trump never even got bullied,
because if they ever took his lunch money,
the bullies would instantly be in a higher tax bracket.
You know? They'd be like,
"I really want to give him a wedgie,
"but my accountant says it's not worth it.
"If we were in the Cayman Islands,
boy, you'd be getting it right now."
Now, usually, when your parents gift you
hundreds of millions of dollars,
you would need to pay taxes on that, right?
A lot of taxes. But these are the Trumps we're talking about,
and that's not how they roll.
NEWSMAN: The New York Times report that indicates
President Trump helped his father
cheat the federal government and avoid, for years on end,
paying millions and millions of dollars in federal taxes.
Fred Trump used a sham company to funnel tax-free money
to his children.
The Trumps manipulated the value
of their apartment buildings,
claiming they were worth millions of dollars less
than fair value.
NEWSWOMAN: He helped transfer more than $1 billion
of his parents' wealth to himself and his siblings,
a sum, they report, would have produced
a tax bill of at least $550 million.
But they say the family employed
a variety of tax dodges, cutting that to $52.2 million.
Sweet Jesus.
So according to the Times, Donald Trump--
the president, by the way, remember?--
stole half a billion dollars from the American government.
Yeah. It's like if you robbed a bank,
and then they were like, "You know what?
We're gonna make you the CEO. Yeah."
And you know the one part of this story that brings me joy
is that in order to pay less tax,
Trump had to pretend his properties were worth less
than they actually were.
That must have been such torture for him.
He'd be like, "So you see, I shouldn't pay that much.
"The properties are actually not that great.
"They're the greatest!
"No, they're not, they're not. Don't listen to me.
-Listen to me!" -(laughter)
So what this report tells us is that Donald and his dad
worked together to defraud the U.S. government for decades.
We also learned that Donald needed his father
to repeatedly bail out his failing businesses.
But as it turned out, Donald was so bad at business
that some of his dad's fortune wasn't enough.
He needed all of it.
At that crucial point in his life, 1990,
we found Donald Trump crafts, in essence, a new will
for his father.
And then he sends lawyers to his father's house
to have him sign it.
His father had no idea this was coming,
and flipped out.
His father looked at this and thought:
This is my son, who is in incredible trouble right now,
trying to get control of the empire that I built.
Okay, I've heard of the apple not falling far from the tree.
I've never heard of the apple falling off the tree
and then trying to take all of the tree's money.
I'm just saying, that piece of fruit is an asshole.
And you're probably wondering what happens now.
Well, I have bad news for you.
Because of the statute of limitations,
the worst that could happen to Trump is that he pays a fine.
But he will definitely not go to prison.
Which we should know by now.
Trump doesn't go to prison, you know?
That's not how the story goes. Like, there's a bigger chance
we'll all go to prison for Trump's taxes.
Yeah. We'll just be in the cell like, "I'm not gonna lie,
I did not see this coming, I did not see this coming."
And the worst part is, the Trump who blew through a fortune
and stuck his dad with the bill--
that Trump never went away. Yeah.
You realize that since Trump took office
less than two years ago, the projected national debt
has skyrocketed by $1.6 trillion.
So I guess what I'm saying is we're all Fred Trump now.