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The Art of the Deal · I Believe

• 0:14
  SPEAKER_03: The shouts pass over the water to Lincoln.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_03: He sits there, silent, the man who, more than any other, overstepped his authority in a time of war.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_03: Habeas Corpus suspended.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_03: A nation half at arms.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_03: And the question underneath all of it, whether any nation so conceived and dedicated could long endure.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_03: He broke the limit.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_03: But he never pretended he was above it.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_03: He answered to the Congress, to the ballot, to the cost, and he paid that cost in the open for the only stake that could justify it.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_03: The Republic.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_03: Real power accepts its limits.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_03: Performed power breaks them and breaks the one thing we can't rebuild.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_03: Our power to say no.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Joel Douglas, and I believe in America.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for joining me.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Humidity on the night air.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: The statues of Washington and Jefferson and Lincoln and Roosevelt look down on the south lawn of the White House.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: There, a cage, a hulking structure of steel and chain link named the Claw.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Seven fights tonight.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Men punching and kicking and choking each other on the grass where children roll Easter eggs in the spring.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Steps from the Oval Office.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: A million-dollar restoration commitment waited for the grass, ruined by morning.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: The president comes out of the oval and down the colonnade beside the man who runs the fights.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Dana White is smiling.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Behind them, 4,000 people, cabinet secretaries, generals, the Secretary of Defense, the Vice President, Mark Zuckerberg, active duty troops in the seats.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: The Zack Brown band sings the national anthem.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: The blue angels and thunderbirds come over the house, low and loud, and the president raises his hand and salutes.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: A chant starts somewhere in the dark.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Usa U S A.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: The broadcast goes out on Paramount.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Closed captioning brought to you by Trumpcoins.com.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Limited quantities available now.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: It is the 14th of June.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: The Republic is 250 years old this year.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: The President is 80 years old today.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: He wrote a book about power called The Art of the Deal.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: In that book, the deal is the close.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: The handshake, the signing, the moment in the room with the cameras running.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: The deal is the thing they watch you win.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: The spectacle, the theater, the entertainment.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: There is an older book about real power.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: The loudest move on the board is the weakest one, and a man who has to show you strength has already lost it.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: The statues keep looking down.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: They knew the difference between the two books.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: It is why we carved them in stone.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_03: Act one.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_03: Two books.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_03: On the towers, on the stakes, on the water bottles, and the ties, on the airplane that brought him in.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_03: His letters.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_03: Big enough to catch the light.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_03: The thing was not his until his name was on it.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_03: Then it was his.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_03: Then all men knew it.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_03: That was the book he had written.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_03: The Art of the Deal.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_03: A deal was a hand coming out, a flash.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_03: Men leaning in so they would be in the picture.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_03: Hold it.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_03: There.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_03: That was the one.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_03: They hung the picture on a wall.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_03: But a picture on a wall is quiet.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_03: A quiet thing dies.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_03: So there had to be another one.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_03: Another hand.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_03: Another flash.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_03: Another tower.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_03: Another name in gold.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_03: The man was only as strong as the last picture.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_03: The last picture was already fading.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_03: So the man was always late, always running, always losing the thing he had just won.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_03: It was a loud way to live.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_03: Loud and bright and over.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_03: And it had to be seen.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_03: A handshake in private never happened.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_03: A name in the dark was no name.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_03: He knew this as other men know weather.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_03: He had never done a thing that did not need a witness.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: The other book had no gold on it.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: It did not shine.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: It was old and plain and small enough to put in a coat pocket.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Another book of art, of war.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: It did not ask to be looked at.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: He did not like that about it.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: He opened it and read a little.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: The words were old.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: They had crossed too much time to be in a hurry.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: They spoke of ground and water and waiting.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: They spoke of the fight won before the fighting.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: They spoke of not striking when the shape of things was already moving for you.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: He shut the book.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Outside the river moved below the house.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: He went down and stood on the bank.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: The water moved without hurry.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't strike the bank.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: It took the low places, it went around stone, it slid under the willow roots and carried leaves and silt and small sticks and the cold of the mountains.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: It was going the way he needed it to go.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: He could have let it go.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: There was no one there to see that.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: There was no flash, no hand to shake, no wall to hang the picture.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: The river made no speech.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: It did not say his name.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: He watched it and felt nothing happen.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: That was the trouble.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing happening looked like losing.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Long later than any man could live, the water would have the rock.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: It would not take it in one morning.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: There would be no sound of surrender.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: No one would know the hour.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: The rock would simply be smaller, then smooth, then the canyon would be there, and men would stand at the edge and call it beautiful.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: The river would not have signed it.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: He looked back at the house.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: The two books were still on the table.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: One had his name on it, the other did not.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: He knelt and put his hand in the water.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was colder than he thought.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: He closed his fist hard and stood.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: The water ran out between his fingers.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_03: Act two, the siege.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_03: There was a real river, and it was running his way.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_03: By the winter of that year, Iran was coming apart from the inside.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_03: The money was worthless.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_03: A man's wages on Monday would not buy his bread on Friday.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_03: The women walked bareheaded into the street.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_03: They had cut their hair and burned the cloth the state put between them and the world.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_03: Girls had done it too in schoolyards with the cameras watching and the men with guns close enough to come for them.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_03: The people went into the streets in numbers the country had not seen since the revolution that made it in every province.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_03: And the regime answered the only way it knew.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_03: And still they came back the next night.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_03: And the next.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_03: A government that must shoot its own people is a failing one.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_03: No one had to push it.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_03: It was going down on its own.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_03: And all we had to do was wait on the bank and watch.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_03: The night before the strikes, a man went on television and said the word peace.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_03: The talks had been running for weeks, led by Omen.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_03: A deal was within reach.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_03: On the table, Iran would never stockpile the material for a bomb.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_03: Inspectors would have the run of the place.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_03: The enriched uranium already in the country would be blended down and turned to fuel and made irreversible.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_03: It was not signed.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_03: It was a hand extended.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_03: The thing his own book is built on.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_03: A hand coming out across the table in the room.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_03: We did not take it.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_03: He reached into the water and he closed his fist.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_03: It came the next night.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_03: All at once.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_03: The Supreme Leader killed in his house.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_03: His family with him.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_03: While the smoke was still going up, a message went out to the Iranian people, telling them the hour of freedom was at hand, telling them to rise up and finish it.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_03: Regime change, announced from a podium, as a thing we had come to do.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_03: The regime that was falling on its own for free.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_03: We now had to knock down ourselves in front of everyone so that everyone could see who knocked it down.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_03: And then the water did to him what he could not see coming.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_03: Iran had cards left to play, and one was made of water.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_03: The Strait of Hormuz, a narrow throat, a fifth of the world's oil moving through it.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_03: They closed it.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_03: We ran a blockade.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_03: We sent the Navy to walk the ships through by force and called it Project Freedom.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_03: And the oil did not move, and the price of everything climbed, and week after week we spent another show of force to hold a thing that yielded nothing.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_03: The man who could not believe that power was water, was being beaten now by water, by a current he could not strike and could not reopen and could not sign.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_03: So he went to the table after all.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_03: Versailles.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_03: Iran set the terms.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_03: They handed us the plan in April.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_03: The nuclear question, the only one we ever said, mattered, unanswered.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_03: The toughest question set aside for later.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_03: We released billions of dollars for them.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_03: We agreed to help rebuild what we had spent the spring destroying.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_03: In exchange, they opened the strait they had closed.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_03: The strait that was only ever closed because we refused to wait on the bank.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_03: We had a better deal in February.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_03: We tore it up to get a worse one in June.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_03: And the man went out and told the crowd it was a big day for world peace.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_03: He held up his fist, dripping, to show them how much of the river he had caught.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Act three.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: It cost a great deal and bought almost nothing.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Iran is far away.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: They were never coming for us.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: The strait will open, and the oil will move, and the price of gas will fall, and you will forget the name of the war by autumn.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: You'll not lose any sleep.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing to keep you up.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: There is a room where they decide whether the country goes to war.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: The men who built it had just finished a war against a king, and they put the power to start the next one in the hands of the many, not the one, because they had seen what the one does with it.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: The room was empty.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: No one came to it before the bombs fell.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: No one stood in it and made the case to the people, the way you are supposed to make the case before you spend their sons.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: The president did not come.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the men and women who keep the room, whose whole job is to keep the room, let him go around it and said nothing and watched the water drain from his fist.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Later, when it was safe, they voted.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: The war was already lost.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: The thing was already done.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't vote on whether to do it.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: That vote would have had their names on it.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: They voted on whether to make him stop, a vote they had counted beforehand and knew would lose, and they cast it into the air where it could not land on anyone.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: And they went home and told their districts they had tried.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: So now the room stays empty.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: The next man knows the way around it.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: He watched.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Once we asked a man to be king, he had won the war, the crowd was his, he could have kept it.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: He gave it back and went home to his farm.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that is the only reason there is a country here to write about.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: He made himself small under the thing he served.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: The man on the lawn put his name in gold on the buildings and the stakes and the water and the plains.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: He looked for a thing big enough to stand under and could not find one.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Not even the republic.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: The next one is watching, taking notes.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: The grass is already ruined.