►(ALL-IN #1 ) 聽聽盧特尼克說30年前跟川普的老故事, 還有巴拿馬運河的神奇直覺◄

Howard, thanks for being here. Thanks for joining myself and David Freeberg on the All In podcast. I want to take a step back before we talk about today and instead talk about your friendship with the president, how it started, how you guys got to know each other, and walk us through the moment when you, you know, frankly went out on a limb a little bit, stepped up, became the campaign finance chair, and then just that evolution. So I've known the president since I was 30 years old. So I used to go on the, call it, let me call it the charity circuit in New York. So there's basically a charity party every night when you live in New York. Like the rubber chicken dinner. Like literally the rubber chicken. And so sort of every night you go out. And so the boss of my company, Bernie Cantor, he got tired of going, right? So he didn't want to go. So he would send me with his wife and I would be her walker. You know, I'm the 30 year old CEO of the company and I'd take her to the party. And after the party, I'd put her in a limo and she'd go home and DJT would say, well, let's go out. And so we'd go out. It wasn't planned, but he was at the party. He's 45. I'm at the party 30. And we chased the same girls. And by the way, here's the thing about Donald Trump. He was the most famous, the most fun, the most interesting person 30 years ago, 33 years ago. I mean, here's the best thing. He's been on the cover of Time Magazine 59 times. And then he leans over to me and he goes, and 20 were good. But who can take that? I mean, who could take it? Like other people, when you have a bad cover of Time Magazine, you'd crumple, right? And be sand on the floor. And so he's like, bring it. Is it that he's just totally wired to understand that moment of being a public figure? Or what is it that's so unique about what constitutes the ability to navigate that over 40 years? I think it adds energy to him. So everybody else's energy, what they don't understand is people bring negative energy to Donald Trump. And they're just charging his battery. Your energy around him comes to him. So when I come at him with a lot of energy, he comes back with a lot of energy. It doesn't matter. He never steps back. He just sort of takes it like the centrifuge and then hurls it back at you. And he's been that way always. So this is not new. This is just who he is. This is who he is. So those other people who attack him, they think they're attacking him. They're charging his battery. They're literally charging his battery. So he comes back bigger, stronger, bigger, stronger. And once you understand the man, the most intuitive person that you've ever met. And people say, well, okay. So people who know me, I don't suffer fools. And they have all these derogatory, all my left liberal friends, all these derogatory statements about the guy. And they know me really well. And they'd say, well, how can you work for him? I'd say, how can I work for him? The most intuitive person, he senses it. He knows it. He calls me up and he says, Panama Canal. That's what he says. He goes, Panama Canal. It just feels wrong. And then he sends me on the quest to go. I didn't do anything. I just start the quest to look at it. The mouth that's East is a deep water port by the Chinese. The mouth that's West is a deep water port by the Chinese. They're building bridges over it. So our ships and our military ships should go under in our hemisphere, a Chinese bridge. So then I said, okay, let's go prove it. So I have a friend of mine, he owns a big shipping company. I said, take two iPhones, put them on a stand and just go through the Panama Canal. The Panama Canal, they sort of drag ships through like this. And I said, just go video both ways. Just video both ways. 70% of every letter is Chinese. Then I'm talking like the sides of container ships, the stores, like I'm not talking like- Signage. Just random signage, like you're riding on a road. It's all Chinese. And then I do the research and I call him back and I say the magic words between me and him. I have your path, which is I've done it. I've done the legal work. I've done everything. So when you start talking about it, you have a foundation. It's not just you talking. So people think he's just talking. He's never just talking. He has people behind them who bring him his foundational structural outcome. And then what does he do? He went and played golf that afternoon. He called me at seven in the morning. He said, what do you got? We talked from seven to eight. He went and played golf. And that afternoon, there's the American flag in the middle of the Panama Canal in some truth he puts out. And that's the fun part. So you work for the most intuitive guy, unbelievably smart, unbelievably thoughtful, who knows what he's doing. And it's so fun for me. Howard, let's just go back one second. So you have this deep relationship with him. You guys are friends. Scott Besant told us a story that about 18 months ago, though, he saw all this data about what was happening under Biden. And he was just so concerned that these deficits and debts were getting so out of control. He went to the president and said, how can I help? Can I help? That's a story. But was there a moment for you that was like rooted in something other than friendship? Like, was there something on the ground where you said, hold on a second, this is a train wreck and we need to do something? Because you were the finance chair for the campaign. Well, no, I wasn't the finance chair. I was the transition chair. So I ran transition, which we'll talk about. So let's go through it. So I'm friends with him. But I'm building my business. Young guy building my business. And then 9-11 happens. So I'm friends with the guy. I'm just friends with the guy. But then 9-11 happens. Kind, sweet, calls me all the time. Just a good human being. Nice, warm, caring, good human being. But then I'm knocked out. So what do I do next? I try to rebuild my company, take care of the families of 9-11. I lost 658 people who worked for me. And we had a policy. We want to work with people that we like. So when we had an opening, we didn't use headhunters. We would say to everybody at the firm, does anybody know anybody who'd do this job? And so young lady works for me says, my best friend is an HR person. They have to have capacity. But once they have capacity, imagine we hire that person. Now, what happens is it's not one big, happy family. But people really, really care about the company. And that's our company that's on the top five floors of the World Trade Center on 9-11 when the plane hits it. Kills everybody at the office. My brother, Gary, he dies at 36. My best friend, Doug, he dies at 39. I had just turned 40 that summer. I had a party. 65 couples. It's my 40th birthday. 40th birthday, yeah. Right? 27 people at my party get killed. Jesus. These are my friends. These are my friends. So I'm driven to take care of the families of the people who die. And I commit 25% of all of our profits. But the company is destroyed. So we go from making a million a day. I was a rich guy, right? What's the definition of a rich guy? No personal debt. No corporate debt. Cantor Fitzgerald, no debt. So how do you survive 9-11? You don't owe anybody any money. The only money you're losing is your money. Is your money. So we survive and we take care of our friends' families. And then we build the company back up. So you can see I'm a special guest on the Celebrity Apprentice, the first season of Celebrity Apprentice when Piers Morgan wins. Did he fire you? No, no. I wasn't a contestant. Oh, I was going to ask. I'm a little beyond being a contestant. That's what I figured. I was a special guest. I'd come in. If you see during the auction, I'm standing next to him at the auction and I'm helping him. I'm just his friend sort of as an extra all along the way. You kept the friendship going as you're rebuilding. We're friends all the way, but I'm rebuilding my company. Crumple. Crumple. Constitute. Constitute. Pearl. Pearl. Intuitive. Intuitive. Derogatory. Derogatory. Thank you for watching.