Photography by Landon Speers

The Full Nunberg

Going ape on TV after getting subpoenaed by Mueller is the best thing that’s happened to Sam Nunberg in a long time

Eve Peyser
GEN
Published in
12 min readJul 1, 2019

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This story is part of The Trump 45, a special package about Trump’s impact on individual lives.

InIn the basement of the Upper East Side Equinox Fitness Club, Sam Nunberg was grunting in agony, lifting 55-pound dumbbells in each arm, dripping with sweat. His face — bloated and red as a MAGA hat — contorted into various expressions of deep pain. Somehow he was chewing gum at the same time.

Nunberg paused for a moment between reps and held the weights by this thighs. “I can’t,” he groaned. “I’m having an asthma attack. I’m dying.”

“Do I enjoy your suffering? Yes,” Joe, his personal trainer, replied.

Joe is not the only one. Chances are, if you’ve heard of Sam Nunberg at all, it’s because of his March 5, 2018, media meltdown, a day that will forever be remembered by politics nerds as “The Full Nunberg.” Approximately a week after being subpoenaed by the Special Counsel’s office, Nunberg — the preeminent “failson” of the MAGA coterie — owned the news cycle for a full day. After proclaiming to the Washington Post that he would defy the order to appear before a grand jury, he rang up MSNBC and informed anchor Katy Tur that he would…

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Eve Peyser
GEN
Writer for

nyc native living in the pnw. read my writing in the new york times, nymag, vice, and more.