[TRUMP, INC. THEME STRINGS PLAY]

ILYA MARRITZ: This is Trump, Inc., from WNYC and ProPublica. I'm Ilya Marritz. We're calling this podcast an open investigation. What that means is we show you our work. We share what we know, and you, dear listener, are sending us tips and suggestions. We think it's a great way to work — and we're not the only ones doing things this way.

In 2016, when The Washington Post assigned a reporter to fact-check then-candidate Donald Trump's claims that he gave a lot of money to charity, that reporter — David Fahrenthold — kept a pen-and-ink notebook. And, in that notebook, he — one-by-one — followed up with hundreds of charities, Tweeting out his progress as he went. (By the way, a lot of them said they never got a check from Trump.)

And this method of sharing his progress led David Fahrenthold to some pretty bizarre stories. Like the fact that, in 2007, Donald Trump purchased a six-foot tall portrait of himself at a fundraiser for a children's charity — and he paid for it with $20,000 from the Donald J. Trump Foundation. 

Now Donald Trump is president, and David Fahrenthold, the reporter, has moved on to cover the ways in which Trump may be profiting from the presidency. 

[MUSIC OUT]

MARRITZ: David, are you there? 

DAVID FAHRENTHOLD: Here!

MARRITZ: Welcome to the podcast. 

FAHRENTHOLD: Thank you. 

MARRITZ: And I also have Eric Umansky from ProPublica here. Hey Eric. 

ERIC UMANSKY: Hello. 

MARRITZ: You guys also use lists as reporting tools sometimes, right? 

UMANSKY: Yes. We also have readers, uh, help us with our reporting. 

MARRITZ: So here's how it's going to work today. We have been collecting questions from listeners — questions that you, David are uniquely qualified to answer, we think. And we're going to hear some of those questions, read a couple of them from Twitter — but before we get into that, I'm curious, can you tell us about the best tip you've gotten since he started on the Trump beat?

FAHRENTHOLD: You know, there's been a lot of great things we have been able to run down. My favorite one from the last couple of years since I've been covering the Trump Organization was the tip that led me to this fake Time Magazine cover that was hanging on the wall of a bunch of Donald Trump golf courses — at Time Magazine cover that his — he or his people or somebody at Trump Organization had made up completely that was all about how great Donald Trump was. And they hung it up along with the real magazine covers at Doral, at the Virginia golf course, at a bunch of different Trump properties. 

MARRITZ: And it just — it — it came from where? 

FAHRENTHOLD: So, we figured out there was a program that somebody had built — somebody, I think, like, in Thailand or something — had built as, like, a computer programming exercise. “Here's how to make a fake Time Magazine cover.” And somebody had found that — and you — we could tell, because it used the same fake barcode — and repurposed it to say, “Donald Trump,” you know, “He's hitting on all cylinders.” And they'd made a bunch of copies of them and hung it up all around at all these Trump clubs.

But here's what I don't know. I don't know whether Trump knew it was fake, or whether he's just so unexposed to the outside world that if you brought him a Time Magazine and said he was — his face with -- on the cover, he wouldn't know any different. And also, what was behind it? Was there a whole fake magazine behind that or was it just a fake cover they made? Uh, they took all the — the covers down off the walls. And I never actually found one in person that I could look at. 

[QUICK MUSICAL FLOURISH]

MARRITZ: Let’s go to our first listener question. This one came in as a voice memo. 

JOHN CALDERON: Hey! I’m John Calderon. I'm a resident from, uh, New York state, almost 20 years living here. Um, my main question was, since the inauguration, roughly how much money has the government spent on, um, Trump properties?

FAHRENTHOLD: Well, this is a question where you have to separate two things. There's how much money has the government spent getting Trump to and from his different properties and sort of protecting him and accommodating him while he's at his properties — which is quite a bit, in the millions and millions — and this is how much has it paid to Trump's businesses directly.

We spent a lot of time trying to find evidence of the government paying Trump's business. And it has done that! It’s paid for a couple of rooms at Mar-a-Lago at, like, $500 a night for Defense officials to stay when Trump visited once. It's paid for, uh, you know —  government officials have used their government accounts to pay for dinners at Trump's hotel in DC. But it's not a huge amount of money. 

The government has spent a lot on golf carts and airplane flights and other things to protect Trump and get him to and from his clubs. But most of that money goes to other businesses. It doesn't go to Trump himself. 

UMANSKY: So, David, I have a follow-up question that I've actually been wondering about myself, and that is, “Where does the Secret Service stay when Trump is at Mar-a-Lago?”

FAHRENTHOLD: Where does the Secret Service stay? As far as I can tell, they stay at hotels on the mainland — meaning West Palm Beach, not on Palm Beach Island. Mar-a-Lago only has about nine, very gaudily-furnished guest rooms. And, from what I can tell, most of them seem to be filled with paying guests or, uh, VIPs, not with government employees.

MARRITZ: And do you know whether the Secret Service has a guide or a standard practice about staying at a Trump property? Like, are they — are they not staying there because they actually have — have a rule against that? Or is it just sort of, like, less affordable and it makes sense to be across the water in West Palm Beach?

FAHRENTHOLD: I don't know. I mean, there's so many of them that they couldn't all stay there anyway, but I don't know, actually, if you know, Trump has offered them a competitive rate with Hampton Inn and they decided to stay — [LAUGHS] they decided to not to stay there because of some of moral objection. I don't know the answer to that.

[BASS FLOURISH]

MARRITZ: Our next question is from somebody who I think we have on the phone, is that right? This is from a listener, Clarissa Wittenberg. Clarissa, where are you reaching us from? 

CLARISSA WITTENBERG: Washington D.C.

MARRITZ: Well, you're on the line now with David Fahrenthold. So what's your question? 

WITTENBERG: My question is, what does it cost us — and what does it profit Trump — when he visits Mar-a-Lago and these other places and holds parties like his Super Bowl Party? And what does he charge the people who attend his parties? I want to know what his profits are costing us. 

FAHRENTHOLD: Well, so getting him back and forth to Mar-a-Lago — that estimate we've come up with is that transportation, uh, the, you know, all the extra security and other things that have to come with him: it's about $3 million for one of his trips to Mar-a-Lago or down to Florida.

And then the … We talked earlier about how he — the government doesn't pay a lot of that money directly to Trump, but you're right that, by bringing him down there, we make it possible for him to make money. So he has this Super Bowl Party at Mar-a-Lago. I think the Super Bowl Party is — I don't have it right here, but I have the brochure for members this year, and I think I've seen it's over $100 to go to the — even if you're a member — to go to the Mar-a-Lago Super Bowl Party.

WITTENBERG: You do — you do have to be a member?

FAHRENTHOLD: You do have to be a member. I think members can bring guests — but guests are more likely to come if the President's there. So, yes. He is the mo— the biggest attraction of Mar-a-Lago, and the government is paying to convey him down there where his business can make more money. So you're right that it does enhance the value of his asset if he's there and we're paying him to get him there. 

MARRITZ: A hundred bucks doesn't seem like that steep to celebrate the Super Bowl with the President of the United States and maybe have some wings and free drinks. 

FAHRENTHOLD: Well, you've paid $200,000 for a membership and you've paid your dues. You know, your — what, it's like, you know, thousands of dollars of dues every year. So this is only — this is only on top of that. I think New Year's Eve was, like — in like, was in the several hundreds, but I think this party was cheaper. 

MARRITZ: Clarissa, thanks a lot for your call, and thanks for listening!

WITTENBERG: Thank you!

MARRITZ: And David, I know you were just in Mar-a-Lago — I think for the first time. Is that right?

FAHRENTHOLD: For the first time, that's right. My first and only trip to Mar-a-Lago. Hopefully I'll get to go back. 

MARRITZ: How was? 

FAHRENTHOLD: So I was there for this thing called the Trumpettes USA Bash. The Trumpettes are this bunch of people who, like, are sort of Palm Beach socialites. They love Trump and they have an event every year … Well, it’s — this was the first annual, but they're gonna have one next year. Where it — it looks like a Palm Beach charity ball, in that there's a lot of people and a band and everything, and it costs a lot of money — it was $300 a ticket in this case — uh, but there's no charity, it's a charity ball-like-event, but there's no charity. They just take the money they raise and they give it all the Trump. Uh, they just cover expenses. So Trump gets all the money that they bring in. 

UMANSKY: What do you mean, “Trump gets all the money”? 

FAHRENTHOLD: Uh, so the money then is paid to Trump's club for the catering and the broom rental and everything else. But Trump owns the club.

It's — the money goes to him. So I get to go see that. And I have to tell you, it's a nice ballroom, but if you've been to a hotel ballroom, it's like that. But the funniest thing was the salad. It was like someone had invented the salad ten minutes earlier. Like this was, like, the first salad someone had ever invented.

So imagine you've heard of it. You've seen a wedge salad before —

MARRITZ: Sure.

FAHRENTHOLD: — where they cut, like, a wedge of lettuce. This was, like, a disc salad. They took a head of lettuce and they cut, like, a one-inch thick disc vertically out of the middle of it, including, like, really hard stuff down by the bottom where the plant comes out of the ground —

MARRITZ: Uh-huh?

FAHRENTHOLD: — and they just laid that on your plate. And then sprinkled that with whole strawberries and a couple of pieces of goat cheese. That was it. It was like you had a plate and then you had a lettuce plate and, like, the actual salad was three strawberries and two pecans. It was very strange. It was really like they had — where someone was like, “You know what we should try? Salad. I've never had the salad before.” And they just — that was their first attempt at creating salad. 

MARRITZ: Did you buy a ticket? Did you pay, like, the $300 to get in? 

FAHRENTHOLD: I did. Yeah. The — The — The Post that I could pay $300, and I got a really good seat. 

UMANSKY: Did you explain to people — or did people recognize you — that, like, “Yeah, yeah. I'm the guy from The Washington Post who’s been reporting on Trump”?

FAHRENTHOLD: [LAUGHING LIGHTLY] Well, the Trumpettes misspelled my name, which made it a little easier to get in the door. Like, I didn't ask them to misspell my name, but they did. So I — if anyone was searching for my name, they didn't find it. Uh, and I was a little worried going in. Like, I had torn pages out of my notebook so I could fold it up and put it in my jacket pocket. It wouldn’t make a bulge. I wasn't sure whether people would be hostile to a reporter. But once I got in there, I started interviewing people, and everyone was — you know, they were very happy to tell their story, including the Trumpettes. A lot of them felt like, you know, they were from California or Massachusetts or South Florida. And they felt like they were sort of in a safe space with other Trump people. And they wanted to talk about how great that was.

[MUSICAL MOMENT PLAYS]

MARRITZ: Let’s go to the next question. This is from listener Avenowom Barral [SPELLING UNCLEAR]. He Tweeted us several questions about the Trump Organization. Quote, “I'm interested in understanding the current corporate structure of the Trump Organization. Who is CEO, COO, et cetera? Is there a board? Who serves on it? Who owns it? And how are the profits divvied up?” David, do you have, like, an organizational flow chart in your head? 

FAHRENTHOLD: [CHUCKLES] Yeah. Um, it's pretty simple. Right now, the President owns the business. As Eric and the ProPublica folks have reported, there's a trust which the President theoretically does not have day-to-day control over. But he still owns it. He can still withdraw money from it at any time.

Uh, the actual control of it is nominally in the hands of Eric Trump, the President’s son; Donald Trump Jr., the President's other eldest son; and, uh, Allen Weisselberg, who’s a very, very long-time Trump employee who — I think his title now is maybe CFO. 

In practice, as far as we can tell, Donald Trump Jr. doesn't do that much. Although, he's in India selling condos for the Trump-branded projects there. In general, Donald Trump Jr. doesn't seem to have very much operational control. It's mostly Eric Trump. Um, but you have to understand how the business worked before, which was that they had all these divisions where, basically, people whose name was not Trump would do sort of regular stuff: they’d run hotels, they'd run golf courses or whatever. And then there'd be sort of this amorphous layer above them that was Donald [Jr.] and Eric and Ivanka, where they had some kind of advisory roles. But they never really could explain who they supervised or what they did. And then there was Donald at the top — the President — and he made all the decisions.

And so Don, Eric, and Ivanka would sort of bring things to him or advise him. But the whole business is basically catered to Donald Trump's tastes. What does he like? Where does he go? What does he think is interesting? And you take that away, and now you have Eric Trump trying to run a business that is all this sort of, like, weird mishmash of things that don't really go together if you're not connecting them all to Donald Trump's personality. 

MARRITZ: How do you know that Eric is the one who’s, like, in control now? How can you tell? 

FAHRENTHOLD: Well, it’s — every time you hear of somebody who's dealing with the Trump Organization, having them make decisions, it always seems to be Eric. It never seems to be Don. Don, also — from what we can tell — seems really interested in politics.

I think Don Jr. really likes, you know, giving speeches and being kind of a right-wing political figure. And so I think he — he's normally on the board. I think he’s — in theory, has some role, but I haven't heard of anything until this India trip, which is really more like politics and public relations.

I haven't heard of any case where somebody said, “Oh, this was done because Don Jr. ordered it to be done.” It's always Eric. 

MARRITZ: So it seems like there's sort of a vacuum in the organization. Like, Eric's trying to fill it, but there's a gap there. 

FAHRENTHOLD: Well, it's — Eric is — the question of Eric's leadership is really interesting because not only is he — is Eric is stepping into this vacuum, trying to fill a role that had been sort of created by this odd personality of Donald Trump.

But, also, Eric has put all these restrictions on himself. As y’all’s prior episodes have covered, there's a ton that Trump hasn't done, uh, in terms of separating himself from his business, but he has done some things, like taking on this “No foreign deals” pledge. And I think that seemed to be where the company was headed, if Trump had not won, for more licensing deals overseas. And Eric seems to be abiding by at least some of the pledges that he made. And so he's hemmed himself in further, and I think it's made us task even harder trying to figure out, “Well, what becomes of this company when Donald Trump isn't here day to day? And also the — the thing that we had sort of set out to do, which is expand overseas, we can't do anymore.” 

UMANSKY: I have this, you know, thing in my mind. So, you know, a few minutes ago you were pointing out that you have Don Jr., who's going to hawk Trump properties in India. And, simultaneously, you have Eric Trump sort of seemingly abiding by “No new foreign deals.” So, just, like, remind us — or tell me — how you think both of those things coexist at the same time. 

MARRITZ: And, actually, Eric, David — we have audio from Donald Trump Junior's recent appearance on CNBCTV India during his trip to that country. I think we should have a listen to this. So, just by way of setup, Donald Trump Jr. was there to promote these Trump-branded real estate projects. He was also there to give a foreign policy speech, which they later rebranded as a “fireside chat.” Here he is.

INTERVIEWER: Alright, $3 million in licensing fees — that has been reported as a figure from India. Is that correct? And now with more projects getting added, what could that number look like in 2018?

DONALD TRUMP JR.: Well, we don’t — we don't discuss those fees. I don't believe that's accurate. But, uh, we will do, you know, well in India. It's been an important market for us, but again, I think, uh, you know, there is the opportunity cost of the deals that we're not able to do that don't get discussed. So when people talk about it these days, it's, you know, “profiteering from the presidency,” and all this nonsense, but — “Wait a minute, I can't do deals? I’ve spent over a decade creating relationships,” to now, where we have five incredible deals that are all active and we can do so many more, and we're not doing those. But no one wants to talk about those kinds of deals. It’s — it's sort of a shame because we put on these impositions on ourselves, but essentially got no credit for actually doing that. [FADES UNDER]

MARRITZ: Okay. There's a — there’s a lot to unpack there. 

UMANSKY: I have never heard that before in my mind is somewhat blown. 

MARRITZ: [CHUCKLES] There’s a — there is a lot to unpack there. We have the $3 million licensing fee, which Donald Trump Jr. seems to refute but doesn't say what the real number is. And then we have this idea of, “We get no credit for not pursuing foreign deals.” Um, do you know what kind of — [LIGHT LAUGHTER]

UMANSKY: David?

MARRITZ: Anybody know what kind of credit he expects? 

FAHRENTHOLD: So, they've said they had a lot of deals in the pipeline: licensing deals, like the ones in India. So the ones in India — like many Trump properties around the world, Trump doesn't own those buildings. He's just licensed his name. I think he gets some cut of the — of the — of initial condo sales.

They have said, yes, they're not going to do any new foreign deals, but that means they can keep any deal that was in the pipeline, or that was agreed to before the election. So the India projects were all signed, agreed to, planned before the election. So was this tower in Uruguay, they're building in Punta del Este.

I do believe they have given up possible new deals since the election. I mean, do they deserve credit for doing the thing that they said they were going to do? That's up to somebody else. 

UMANSKY: The psychology of this is, um, just interesting, right? So what he's saying is, “Well, we don't get credit for limits that we've put on ourselves,” right? But, of course, the issue is, “Yes, you've put limits on yourself that are essentially voluntary,” right? There's no outside, you know, accountability for it. There's no transparency into it. I mean, it's just a — sort of a — it’s just a little fascinating moment. 

FAHRENTHOLD: This particular trip, uh, Don Jr. going overseas to give a policy speech in India with the prime minister of India, at the same time as he's hawking these Trump-branded projects in India — we've done some good reporting on it. The Times has as well. This is the most direct crossing of the streams that I've seen any of them do.

Eric has sort of, you know, had a — a second career as a political commentator, but he's never gone out and sort of sold a, you know, one minute and then been a representative of the President of the next minute in a foreign country. This — what Don Jr. is doing now is really unprecedented. Uh, and it's funny to see him doing that, and, at the same time, demanding that he be given credit for not doing more. 

[MUSICAL KEYBOARD FLOURISH]

MARRITZ: Let’s take one more listener question. This is from Chris. 

CHRIS: I’m Chris and I'm from Philadelphia. My question is: I'm curious, who owns the debt on the buildings that Trump owns? In other words, who has the rights to foreclose on him?

MARRITZ: Super interesting question. David, I don't know — are any of his properties delinquent on their loans, or even close to foreclosure, possibly?

[MUSIC PLAYS QUIETLY UNDERNEATH DISCUSSION]

FAHRENTHOLD: This is my personal project for this year, is to understand Donald Trump's debt. I don't believe that any of them are delinquent or in danger of foreclosure — so far. We’re — we're really trying to do a deep scrub of all the debt that Donald Trump's buildings have.

If you look at his personal financial disclosure, he lists, I think, 19 different loans — some of them really small for individual houses, some of them, you know, $170 million, I think, for the Trump Hotel in DC. None of those give an indication that they're behind or anything else. It's interesting to look at who his creditors are — who Donald Trump owes money to.

The one that most people know is Deutsche Bank. This bank that’s had a really troubled history. It's had a lot of connection to Russian oligarchs in the past. Trump owes them a lot of money. There are people that would like the U.S. government to go easy on them, and they owe — the President owes them a great deal of cash.

There’s also something called Ladder Capital Finance, which is a New York firm that lends money to real estate projects — sort of a more risk-tolerant — uh, they tolerate more risk lender. They — he owes both those companies lots and lots of money. There's no indication that he is delinquent or behind. 

The thing that I would love reader ideas about — the — this sort of, like, Holy Grail of this kind of loan reporting — is something called Chicago Unit Acquisition, LLC. Have y'all ever heard of this? 

MARRITZ: No. 

FAHRENTHOLD: On Trump's personal financial disclosure, among all the sort of more standard real estate loans from Deutsche Bank and from Ladder Capital Finance, he listed a $50 million-plus loan — so the highest amount that, you know — the sort of highest bracket of debt, you can list on that form is $50 million-plus. So this is what he lists — this — it could be much more than that — from something called Chicago Unit Acquisition, LLC. 

Now, what is Chicago Unit Acquisition, LLC? It is an LLC owned by Donald Trump. And, so, if you look down in the financial disclosure, he should list that — putting aside why he would lend himself $50 million and pay himself interest — he should list that LLC — which is also his property — as having assets of at least $50 million, right? Because somebody owes $50 million. And he should list it as having income, because, according to the loan part of the financial disclosure, Trump is paying them, uh, 4.4% interest — so millions of dollars a year. I think it's $4.4 million a year in interest payments. But, in the asset part of the financial disclosure, Trump lists that LLC is having basically no assets and no income.

UMANSKY: Wait —

MARRITZ: [LAUGHS] So David, you can't see this, but Eric is making the, like, squinty incomprehension face right now. 

UMANSKY: Well, I just want to — I mean, I just — right, like, we've just run through two things that are kind of extraordinary and I — I’ve never heard before. So Trump borrowed money from an LLC owned by Trump, right? Am I — am I following this so far? 

FAHRENTHOLD: Yes, he borrowed more than $50 million from an LLC owned by him. 

UMANSKY: Okay. So — so, like, then there's the question — and maybe you've dug into this, I don't know, but, like — “What? Why would you lend yourself money? And how does that work?” 

FAHRENTHOLD: Or would you pay yourself interest? 

MARRITZ: Well, right. If it's called Chicago Unit Acquisition, LLC, I feel like that gives us a clue as to what it was for, ‘cause he has a tower in Chicago, right? 

FAHRENTHOLD: Right. 

UMANSKY: Okay, I mean, maybe there's a business reason. 

FAHRENTHOLD: Yeah, it could be totally on the up-and-up, but the math doesn't make sense. Right. If he owes it $50 million, then down below, when he claims it as an asset, it should have $50 million-plus in assets. And it doesn't. So why not? 

Did he just screw that up, which is always possible? Does it owe money to somebody else, such that it has no net assets? I have not figured out anything about that, but it’s — it’s unusual.

UMANSKY: So there are — there are — there are essentially two questions, right, on that specific thing. One is, “What exactly is the — sort of the deal with the deal itself, right? Why would Trump lend himself money?” As you say, maybe there’s, like, a totally reasonable explanation for that. And then there's the second issue, which is, “Okay, so, hey, if he lent himself money, why isn't he basically laying that out?” You would think, um, that he would lay that out in the financial disclosure forms and it's not laid out.

MARRITZ: Or it's half-laid out. 

FAHRENTHOLD: Or it's half laid-out, right? That he got the money, not that he gave the money.

MARRITZ: So listeners, if you know something about Chicago Unit Acquisition LLC. that you want to share with us and with David Fahrenthold, please click on over to TrumpIncPodcast.org. There's a full menu of ways that you can tip us. You can send us voice memos, documents, emails — securely — whatever. TrumpIncPodcast.org. [BEAT] Uh, David, do you have a couple more minutes for us? 

FAHRENTHOLD: Sure. 

MARRITZ: I’m really curious. Big-picture, since you're looking at — at all these properties and trying to track them as best you can, after year one, is the Trump Organization doing better or worse in terms of, you know, revenues as a result of Donald Trump becoming president? Can you tell?

FAHRENTHOLD: I can't tell. Uh, the parts that I can measure — which are mostly in the U.S., Panama, and in the UK: most of them seem to be doing worse. Uh, the retail value of the condominiums is generally going down. Uh, the hotels — that we can tell — the business is not doing that well, except for DC. The golf courses, when we can find data, we're not finding anything encouraging. A lot of the golf courses have lost tournaments. They’ve — the ones in Scotland and Ireland have lost a lot of revenue. There's bad news in a lot of these places. 

There's good news in a few, right? Mar-a-Lago doubled its entrance fee. It’s brought in all this business from Republican-aligned charities. The Trump Hotel in DC seems to be making a profit, because people pay twice as much for a hotel room there as they would at any other place in DC.

So there's parts of it that are doing better, but a lot of parts that are doing worse. But I feel like I've seen so little of their balance sheet I can't aggregate it up. 

MARRITZ: Right. And then, of course, we found out from — from this Forbes article by Dan Alexander a couple of weeks ago, actually, a lot of their revenues come from commercial rents and those are probably sort of stable because those are multi-year leases, but we don't have that much of a picture into what's going on there, either, right?

FAHRENTHOLD: Right. Dan’s story — and Dan's podcast — was really great. The thing that's going to be so interesting there is the turnover dates for those leases. So, you know, there's some of them that are really big that may turn over soon. And if — whether those people decide to stay, or go, or negotiate a better rate, or a worse rate, that’s going to be a huge impact on his bottom line. We're just starting to understand that. 

MARRITZ: David, before we let you go, is there anything else that you want to throw out as a request for tips? 

FAHRENTHOLD: I guess the main thing I would say — the project that I'm really interested in is loans, loans, and debt. If anybody out there knows anything about Chicago Unit Acquisition — but any other aspects of Trump's debt load, uh, at any of the properties, that's the thing that I'm really interested in. I feel like we know so little about it. I'm kind of groping around in the dark. Now, any help anybody could provide would be wonderful. 

[DRIVING PIANO MUSIC PLAYS]

MARRITZ: David Fahrenthold, reporter for The Washington Post, thanks so much for joining us. 

FAHRENTHOLD: Thank you. 

[MUSIC PLAYS UP FOR A BEAT]

MARRITZ: We’ll be right back.

[MIDROLL]

[OVER CREDITS MUSIC]

MARRITZ: Next time on Trump, Inc., 

EMCEE: I, Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear. 

DONALD TRUMP: I, Donald John Trump, … [FADES UNDER] 

MARRITZ: It might've been the most expensive party ever thrown in Washington, DC. Donald Trump's inauguration: who paid for it, and what they were paying for.

Speaking of which, I have a request for you. Did you attend President Trump's inauguration and go to events like the Victory Reception, or maybe the Candlelight Dinner? Were you part of the team that planned inauguration events? We are looking for tips. We want to hear from you. You can call us or text us via Signal or WhatsApp. The number is (347) 244-2134, or head on over to TrumpIncPodcast.org. 

Trump, Inc. is produced by Meg Cramer. Our associate producer’s Alice Wilder. The engineers are Wayne Schulmeister and Bill Moss. The editors are Charlie Herman and Eric Umansky. Terry Parris Jr. is ProPublica's Deputy Editor of Engagement. Jim Schachter is the Vice President for News at WNYC. Steve Engelberg is the Editor-in-Chief of ProPublica. We had research assistance from Katherine Sullivan. Original music by Hannis Brown.

[MUSIC OUT]

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