“Who would dream of the minute he becomes president,he starts dealing with other countries,sending his kids to do deals,real estate deals with other countries just to see if he can get away with it?” Pratt states on one recording.
“He knows exactly what to say and what not to say so that he avoids jail … but gets so close to it … that it looks like to everyone that he’s breaking the law. He won’t go up to someone and say:‘I want you to kill someone’. What he’ll say is he’ll send someone to tell someone to kill someone.
“Trump says,‘Would you go and tell that guy over there to steal for me?’ And so he can say,‘I never told the guy to steal’. And things like that is how Trump gets away with it. Most people don’t have the legal background and the sneakiness.”
On another recording,Pratt describes the ex-president as a ruthless operator prepared to poke out the eyes of a rival.
“Can you imagine how yuck it would be to poke someone’s eyes out in a fight? So he does that but in life … He’s shameless and fearless. He’s got incredible balls,” he says.
Pratt also recounts how Trump demeaned his own wife at Mar-a-Lago.
“Melania who was sitting next to him at dinner. He said,‘I asked Melania to walk around the pool in her bikini so all the other guys could get a look at what they were missing’.”
Trump says,on Pratt’s telling,that Melania had replied:“I’ll do that when you walk around with me in your bikini.”
Pratt appears to have worked assiduously to get close to Trump by purchasing a $200,000 membership at his Mar-a-Lago club in spring 2017 and then spending additional amounts to attend special functions there,sources say.
In a draft copy of a speech Pratt delivered to a Jewish group in late 2019,Pratt describes how he “became a member of the Mar-a- Lago resort” as a “strategic” play to secure access to Trump.
“My membership has given me a seat at the table where the president relaxes socially,and mingles with his guests … The key thing being a member at Mar-a-Lago has done has been that I see the president a few times a year.”
A line that appears crossed out in the draft speech states:“It’s definitely turned out to be a strategic decision – and a very good investment.” It is unclear if Pratt authored the speech or approved the redacted lines.
In another crossed-out sentence,the draft Pratt speech states:“President Trump is a very reciprocal man.”
The draft speech also describes how Trump’s business-friendly policies had not only paid huge commercial dividends for Pratt’s company but how Visy’s investment in jobs and manufacturing in “Ohio,a key battleground state in the 2020 election,ticked lots of political boxes” for Trump.
Pratt’s draft speech also states:“I also support Trump because he’s been the most pro-Israel American president in our time.”
Pratt,Giuliani and an expensive party
Other recordings capture Pratt claiming he paid almost $1 million to Giuliani in the lead-up to his 60th birthday in April 2020. The party was cancelled due to Victoria’s COVID-19 lockdowns,but Pratt describes how the payment led to regular contact with the controversial lawyer.
“I paid about a million bucks to[Rudy to] come out as a celebrity guest[but] it didn’t happen so now he calls me once a week,” Pratt says on a recording in which he also marvels at the ruthlessness of the Trump lawyer,the former president and media baron Rupert Murdoch.
“All these guys are like the mafia. Trump,Rupert,Rudy. You want to be a customer,not a competitor. And I am very aware of that.”
Pratt also explains on the tapes why he cultivated connections with influential figures. “What I’m trying to do is network with people who can be useful. Prince Charles said when he introduced me to Camilla,‘He’s[Pratt] been very useful.’ And I thought,that’s an insult. And then I thought,it is better than being irrelevant.
“Friend is the best. Useful is a silver medal. So I am looking for people like Rudy[Giuliani].”
In the recordings,Pratt says his relationship with Giuliani solidified over lunches and phone calls during the Trump administration,and after he lost power.
“It’s not all just seat-of-the-pants shit,I think that him[Trump] and Rudy are like that,and they are plotting all this out,” Pratt said of the pair’s efforts to stop Biden becoming president in early 2021.
Pratt described how his relationship with King Charles was carefully cultivated before his coronation.
“I see him as an undervalued political stock. It is just that he is a laughing stock now. But when he is king,[they] won’t be laughing.”
The tapes capture a hawkish Pratt claiming to have warned Trump that:“I think China is going to take over Australia.”
In a recent speech praising Foreign Minister Penny Wong,Pratt struck a softer tone on Beijing,stating:“It’s to your great credit that we’ve been able to break the ice between the Australian and Chinese government.”
The tape recordings also provide insights into Pratt’s ability to shift with the political wind as he described more recent efforts to ingratiate himself with the Biden administration.
Australian influence
In Australia,Pratt has cultivated both the Coalition and Labor,making generous donations to both parties.
The leaked documents detail an apparent $1 million donation he made to Labor in January which is yet to be publicly disclosed and which comes after reported donations in the 2021-22 financial year of $1.96 million to the ALP and $1.7 million to the Coalition.
After it was reported earlier this year that Pratt had donated $1 million to the Voice Yes campaign,he was asked by a journalist why he’d done so. Pratt referred the question to an adviser,who said:“It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”
But in private,this masthead has confirmed via confidential sources that Pratt claimed he made the donation only after his government relations adviser had held a private meeting with one of Albanese’s senior staffers and had asked if there was anything Pratt could do to help the Labor administration.
Pratt claims that the PM’s staffer responded by asking Pratt to support the Voice,prompting the donation.
The documents list “consultant” payments to Paul Keating of $25,000 a month and to Tony Abbott of $8000 a month after his hiring in June 2019.
Abbott did not respond to questions,while Keating said his decade-long stint as a consultant for Pratt was well-known.
“I do not advise Mr Pratt on commercial matters in Australia or abroad[or]... on government matters in Australia that may be relevant to him or his company. My advice is limited to big picture issues of the international kind,” Keating said.
Pratt’s cultivation of the media is also canvassed in the tape recordings,with the billionaire describing how he had pulled his $730,000 sponsorship package of Sky News programs hosted by Sharri Markson and Alan Jones after Albanese and Biden had been elected.
“I’m a big sponsor of Sky,we are the wallpaper of Canberra,” he states.
“I was Sharri’s big sponsor. I’m not any more because as soon as Biden and Albanese got in,I told Sky I only want to sponsor Sky in the afternoon,none of the talk shows,because it’s too right-wing.”
Pratt has advertised in,or run conferences on superannuation,recycling and his Global Food Forum withThe Age,Sydney Morning Herald andAustralian Financial Review,which are owned by Nine Entertainment.
He has also run advertisements and events with News Corp publicationsThe Australian andTheWall Street Journalfor his Global Food Forum.
Watch the 60 Minutesepisode here.
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