Ex-Trump Org. executive says staff thought he had a 'deal with the devil' because he got out of trouble so easily

Former Trump Organization executive Barbara Res and Trump family expert Dr. Mary Trump joined CNN to discuss President Donald Trump's presidency for the next several weeks and the aftermath.

Dr. Trump explained that the worst thing someone could do in her family was lose and that the president is primed to fight to keep himself from looking like a "loser."

"So, Donald has avoided acknowledging his entire life that he's actually never legitimately won anything," she told CNN host Ana Cabrera. "However, he doesn't care about the process. He cares about getting a win in his column."

Dr. Trump explained that the president is well aware of what is coming, and it's a desperate attempt to save himself.

Cabrera reported that Trump phoned the governor of Georgia, demanding that he overturn the election. She asked Res if it was similar to how Trump once did business when leading the Trump Organization.

"He always had the leverage. He always had the ability to trade something people wanted, and that's why he was able to be somewhat successful in what he did. Would he go to the nth degree, would he reach out to somebody? Absolutely," said Res. "Even the most ridiculous thought, 'Well, maybe this guy will do this for me.' Of course, he didn't do it for himself back in those days. He sent someone like Giuliani to go make a fool of themselves, with the hopes that maybe, maybe, a one-millionth chance they could be successful."

Cabrera asked Res what it means if Trump is doing his own bidding himself now.

"He ran out of people," Res said. "That's exactly what it means. He has nobody that will do his bidding on that level for him except a guy like Giuliani. Of course, lawyers who are paid."

Dr. Trump agreed, saying that at this point in the process, it would take someone of great authority, like a governor, to act for Trump.

"I mean, Brian Kemp isn't going to listen to Rudolph Giuliani, I'm guessing," she said. "Much more importantly, we have to be really clear about what's happening. Although Donald is repeating the patterns of the past, he's also committing sedition against his own country. That, to me, is by far the much more important issue here."

She went on to say that she didn't think Trump would leave any stone unturned and would even stoop to doing illegal and unconstitutional things to protect himself.

Trump's most significant threat to prosecution has to do with his taxes. Cabrera asked Res how Trump has wiggled his way out of tax issues in the past.

"I don't know that he has," said Res. "Actually, he's been stretching this out with this so-called audit for many, many years. And so who knows what's going to happen with that. And I think he was stretching it out for a longer time also-- you know, even more, because of his lawyers and his accountants. He had big financial problems in the late 1980s and early '90s. The way he got out of it was simply the bank thought he was too big to fail, and so they let him get away with things that a person who had a mortgage would never, ever be able to do. The bank let him go ahead and keep a lot of his property and be the active developer on a very big project on the west side because they thought it would be worth more than him getting approvals on it than just selling it at a fire sale. He's always been very lucky in his life. We used to say among our crew that, you know, he had a deal with the devil. And even in that, he was lucky in that as they felt they needed to keep him afloat because, believe me, they did not want to. Those banks, oh, boy, they ran like rats from a sinking ship once this was over."

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