Wow. Brutal. Sent from my iPhone
> On Jul 20, 2016, at 11:41, BILROJ via Centroids: The Center of the Radical > Centrist Community <[email protected]> wrote: > > > The New Yorker > > July 25, 2016 Issue > Donald Trump’s Ghostwriter Tells All > > “The Art of the Deal” made America see Trump as a charmer with an unfailing > knack for business. Tony Schwartz helped create that myth—and regrets it. > > By Jane Mayer > > > Last June, as dusk fell outside Tony Schwartz’s sprawling house, on a leafy > back road in Riverdale, New York, he pulled out his laptop and caught up with > the day’s big news: Donald J. Trump had declared his candidacy for > President. As Schwartz watched a video of the speech, he began to feel > personally implicated. > > Trump, facing a crowd that had gathered in the lobby of Trump Tower, on Fifth > Avenue, laid out his qualifications, saying, “We need a leader that wrote > ‘The Art of the Deal.’ ” If that was so, Schwartz thought, then he, not > Trump, should be running. Schwartz dashed off a tweet: “Many thanks Donald > Trump for suggesting I run for President, based on the fact that I wrote ‘The > Art of the Deal.’ ” > > Schwartz had ghostwritten Trump’s 1987 breakthrough memoir, earning a joint > byline on the cover, half of the book’s five-hundred-thousand-dollar advance, > and half of the royalties. The book was a phenomenal success, spending > forty-eight weeks on the Times best-seller list, thirteen of them at No. 1. > More than a million copies have been bought, generating several million > dollars in royalties. The book expanded Trump’s renown far beyond New York > City, making him an emblem of the successful tycoon. Edward Kosner, the > former editor and publisher of New York, where Schwartz worked as a writer at > the time, says, “Tony created Trump. He’s Dr. Frankenstein.” > > Starting in late 1985, Schwartz spent eighteen months with Trump—camping out > in his office, joining him on his helicopter, tagging along at meetings, and > spending weekends with him at his Manhattan apartment and his Florida estate. > During that period, Schwartz felt, he had got to know him better than almost > anyone else outside the Trump family. Until Schwartz posted the tweet, > though, he had not spoken publicly about Trump for decades. It had never been > his ambition to be a ghostwriter, and he had been glad to move on. But, as he > watched a replay of the new candidate holding forth for forty-five minutes, > he noticed something strange: over the decades, Trump appeared to have > convinced himself that he had written the book. Schwartz recalls thinking, > “If he could lie about that on Day One—when it was so easily refuted—he is > likely to lie about anything.” > > It seemed improbable that Trump’s campaign would succeed, so Schwartz told > himself that he needn’t worry much. But, as Trump denounced Mexican > immigrants as “rapists,” near the end of the speech, Schwartz felt anxious. > He had spent hundreds of hours observing Trump firsthand, and felt that he > had an unusually deep understanding of what he regarded as Trump’s beguiling > strengths and disqualifying weaknesses. Many Americans, however, saw Trump as > a charmingly brash entrepreneur with an unfailing knack for business—a > mythical image that Schwartz had helped create. “It pays to trust your > instincts,” Trump says in the book, adding that he was set to make hundreds > of millions of dollars after buying a hotel that he hadn’t even walked > through. > > In the subsequent months, as Trump defied predictions by establishing himself > as the front-runner for the Republican nomination, Schwartz’s desire to set > the record straight grew. He had long since left journalism to launch the > Energy Project, a consulting firm that promises to improve employees’ > productivity by helping them boost their “physical, emotional, mental, and > spiritual” morale. It was a successful company, with clients such as > Facebook, and Schwartz’s colleagues urged him to avoid the political fray. > But the prospect of President Trump terrified him. It wasn’t because of > Trump’s ideology—Schwartz doubted that he had one. The problem was Trump’s > personality, which he considered pathologically impulsive and self-centered. > > Schwartz thought about publishing an article describing his reservations > about Trump, but he hesitated, knowing that, since he’d cashed in on the > flattering “Art of the Deal,” his credibility and his motives would be seen > as suspect. Yet watching the campaign was excruciating. Schwartz decided > that if he kept mum and Trump was elected he’d never forgive himself. In > June, he agreed to break his silence and give his first candid interview > about the Trump he got to know while acting as his Boswell. > > “I put lipstick on a pig,” he said. “I feel a deep sense of remorse that I > contributed to presenting Trump in a way that brought him wider attention and > made him more appealing than he is.” He went on, “I genuinely believe that if > Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent possibility it > will lead to the end of civilization.” > > If he were writing “The Art of the Deal” today, Schwartz said, it would be a > very different book with a very different title. Asked what he would call it, > he answered, “The Sociopath.” > > The idea of Trump writing an autobiography didn’t originate with either Trump > or Schwartz. It began with Si Newhouse, the media magnate whose company, > Advance Publications, owned Random House at the time, and continues to own > Condé Nast, the parent company of this magazine. “It was very definitely, and > almost uniquely, Si Newhouse’s idea,” Peter Osnos, who edited the book, > recalls. GQ, which Condé Nast also owns, had published a cover story on > Trump, and Newhouse noticed that newsstand sales had been unusually strong. > > Newhouse called Trump about the project, then visited him to discuss it. > Random House continued the pursuit with a series of meetings. At one point, > Howard Kaminsky, who ran Random House then, wrapped a thick Russian novel in > a dummy cover that featured a photograph of Trump looking like a conquering > hero; at the top was Trump’s name, in large gold block lettering. Kaminsky > recalls that Trump was pleased by the mockup, but had one suggestion: “Please > make my name much bigger.” After securing the half-million-dollar advance, > Trump signed a contract. > > Around this time, Schwartz, who was one of the leading young magazine writers > of the day, stopped by Trump’s office, in Trump Tower. Schwartz had written > about Trump before. In 1985, he’d published a piece in New York called “A > Different Kind of Donald Trump Story,” which portrayed him not as a brilliant > mogul but as a ham-fisted thug who had unsuccessfully tried to evict > rent-controlled and rent-stabilized tenants from a building that he had > bought on Central Park South. Trump’s efforts—which included a plan to house > homeless people in the building in order to harass the tenants—became what > Schwartz described as a “fugue of failure, a farce of fumbling and bumbling.” > An accompanying cover portrait depicted Trump as unshaven, > unpleasant-looking, and shiny with sweat. Yet, to Schwartz’s amazement, Trump > loved the article. He hung the cover on a wall of his office, and sent a fan > note to Schwartz, on his gold-embossed personal stationery. “Everybody seems > to have read it,” Trump enthused in the note, which Schwartz has kept. > > “I was shocked,” Schwartz told me. “Trump didn’t fit any model of human being > I’d ever met. He was obsessed with publicity, and he didn’t care what you > wrote.” He went on, “Trump only takes two positions. Either you’re a scummy > loser, liar, whatever, or you’re the greatest. I became the greatest. He > wanted to be seen as a tough guy, and he loved being on the cover.” Schwartz > wrote him back, saying, “Of all the people I’ve written about over the years, > you are certainly the best sport.” > > And so Schwartz had returned for more, this time to conduct an interview for > Playboy. But to his frustration Trump kept making cryptic, monosyllabic > statements. “He mysteriously wouldn’t answer my questions,” Schwartz said. > After twenty minutes, he said, Trump explained that he didn’t want to reveal > anything new about himself—he had just signed a lucrative book deal and > needed to save his best material. > > “What kind of book?” Schwartz said. > > “My autobiography,” Trump replied. > > “You’re only thirty-eight—you don’t have one yet!” Schwartz joked. > > “Yeah, I know,” Trump said. > > “If I were you,” Schwartz recalls telling him, “I’d write a book called ‘The > Art of the Deal.’ That’s something people would be interested in.” > > “You’re right,” Trump agreed. “Do you want to write it?” > > Schwartz thought it over for several weeks. He knew that he would be making a > Faustian bargain. A lifelong liberal, he was hardly an admirer of Trump’s > ruthless and single-minded pursuit of profit. “It was one of a number of > times in my life when I was divided between the Devil and the higher side,” > he told me. He had grown up in a bourgeois, intellectual family in Manhattan, > and had attended élite private schools, but he was not as wealthy as some of > his classmates—and, unlike many of them, he had no trust fund. “I grew up > privileged,” he said. “But my parents made it clear: ‘You’re on your own.’ ” > Around the time Trump made his offer, Schwartz’s wife, Deborah Pines, became > pregnant with their second daughter, and he worried that the family wouldn’t > fit into their Manhattan apartment, whose mortgage was already too high. “I > was overly worried about money,” Schwartz said. “I thought money would keep > me safe and secure—or that was my rationalization.” At the same time, he knew > that if he took Trump’s money and adopted Trump’s voice his journalism career > would be badly damaged. His heroes were such literary nonfiction writers as > Tom Wolfe, John McPhee, and David Halberstam. Being a ghostwriter was > hackwork. In the end, though, Schwartz had his price. He told Trump that if > he would give him half the advance and half the book’s royalties he’d take > the job. > > > > Such terms are unusually generous for a ghostwriter. Trump, despite having a > reputation as a tough negotiator, agreed on the spot. “It was a huge > windfall,” Schwartz recalls. “But I knew I was selling out. Literally, the > term was invented to describe what I did.” Soon Spy was calling him “former > journalist Tony Schwartz.” > > Schwartz thought that “The Art of the Deal” would be an easy project. The > book’s structure would be simple: he’d chronicle half a dozen or so of > Trump’s biggest real-estate deals, dispense some bromides about how to > succeed in business, and fill in Trump’s life story. For research, he planned > to interview Trump on a series of Saturday mornings. The first session didn’t > go as planned, however. After Trump gave him a tour of his marble-and-gilt > apartment atop Trump Tower—which, to Schwartz, looked unlived-in, like the > lobby of a hotel—they began to talk. But the discussion was soon hobbled by > what Schwartz regards as one of Trump’s most essential characteristics: “He > has no attention span.” > > In those days, Schwartz recalls, Trump was generally affable with reporters, > offering short, amusingly immodest quotes on demand. Trump had been > forthcoming with him during the New York interview, but it hadn’t required > much time or deep reflection. For the book, though, Trump needed to provide > him with sustained, thoughtful recollections. He asked Trump to describe his > childhood in detail. After sitting for only a few minutes in his suit and > tie, Trump became impatient and irritable. He looked fidgety, Schwartz > recalls, “like a kindergartner who can’t sit still in a classroom.” Even when > Schwartz pressed him, Trump seemed to remember almost nothing of his youth, > and made it clear that he was bored. Far more quickly than Schwartz had > expected, Trump ended the meeting. > > Week after week, the pattern repeated itself. Schwartz tried to limit the > sessions to smaller increments of time, but Trump’s contributions remained > oddly truncated and superficial. > > “Trump has been written about a thousand ways from Sunday, but this > fundamental aspect of who he is doesn’t seem to be fully understood,” > Schwartz told me. “It’s implicit in a lot of what people write, but it’s > never explicit—or, at least, I haven’t seen it. And that is that it’s > impossible to keep him focussed on any topic, other than his own > self-aggrandizement, for more than a few minutes, and even then . . . ” > Schwartz trailed off, shaking his head in amazement. He regards Trump’s > inability to concentrate as alarming in a Presidential candidate. “If he had > to be briefed on a crisis in the Situation Room, it’s impossible to imagine > him paying attention over a long period of time,” he said. > > In a recent phone interview, Trump told me that, to the contrary, he has the > skill that matters most in a crisis: the ability to forge compromises. The > reason he touted “The Art of the Deal” in his announcement, he explained, was > that he believes that recent Presidents have lacked his toughness and > finesse: “Look at the trade deficit with China. Look at the Iran deal. I’ve > made a fortune by making deals. I do that. I do that well. That’s what I do.” > > But Schwartz believes that Trump’s short attention span has left him with “a > stunning level of superficial knowledge and plain ignorance.” He said, > “That’s why he so prefers TV as his first news source—information comes in > easily digestible sound bites.” He added, “I seriously doubt that Trump has > ever read a book straight through in his adult life.” During the eighteen > months that he observed Trump, Schwartz said, he never saw a book on Trump’s > desk, or elsewhere in his office, or in his apartment. > > Other journalists have noticed Trump’s apparent lack of interest in reading. > In May, Megyn Kelly, of Fox News, asked him to name his favorite book, other > than the Bible or “The Art of the Deal.” Trump picked the 1929 novel “All > Quiet on the Western Front.” Evidently suspecting that many years had elapsed > since he’d read it, Kelly asked Trump to talk about the most recent book he’d > read. “I read passages, I read areas, I’ll read chapters—I don’t have the > time,” Trump said. As The New Republic noted recently, this attitude is not > shared by most U.S. Presidents, including Barack Obama, a habitual consumer > of current books, and George W. Bush, who reportedly engaged in a fiercely > competitive book-reading contest with his political adviser Karl Rove. > > Trump’s first wife, Ivana, famously claimed that Trump kept a copy of Adolf > Hitler’s collected speeches, “My New Order,” in a cabinet beside his bed. In > 1990, Trump’s friend Marty Davis, who was then an executive at Paramount, > added credence to this story, telling Marie Brenner, of Vanity Fair, that he > had given Trump the book. “I thought he would find it interesting,” Davis > told her. When Brenner asked Trump about it, however, he mistakenly > identified the volume as a different work by Hitler: “Mein Kampf.” > Apparently, he had not so much as read the title. “If I had these speeches, > and I am not saying that I do, I would never read them,” Trump told Brenner. > > Growing desperate, Schwartz devised a strategy for trapping Trump into giving > more material. He made plans to spend the weekend with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, > his mansion in Palm Beach, where there would be fewer distractions. As they > chatted in the garden, Ivana icily walked by, clearly annoyed that Schwartz > was competing for her husband’s limited free time. Trump again grew > impatient. Long before lunch on Saturday, Schwartz recalls, Trump > “essentially threw a fit.” He stood up and announced that he couldn’t stand > any more questions. > > Schwartz went to his room, called his literary agent, Kathy Robbins, and told > her that he couldn’t do the book. (Robbins confirms this.) As Schwartz headed > back to New York, though, he came up with another plan. He would propose > eavesdropping on Trump’s life by following him around on the job and, more > important, by listening in on his office phone calls. That way, extracting > extended reflections from Trump would not be required. When Schwartz > presented the idea to Trump, he loved it. Almost every day from then on, > Schwartz sat about eight feet away from him in the Trump Tower office, > listening on an extension of Trump’s phone line. Schwartz says that none of > the bankers, lawyers, brokers, and reporters who called Trump realized that > they were being monitored. The calls usually didn’t last long, and Trump’s > assistant facilitated the conversation-hopping. While he was talking with > someone, she often came in with a Post-it note informing him of the next > caller on hold. > > “He was playing people,” Schwartz recalls. On the phone with business > associates, Trump would flatter, bully, and occasionally get mad, but always > in a calculated way. Before the discussion ended, Trump would “share the news > of his latest success,” Schwartz says. Instead of saying goodbye at the end > of a call, Trump customarily signed off with “You’re the greatest!” There was > not a single call that Trump deemed too private for Schwartz to hear. “He > loved the attention,” Schwartz recalls. “If he could have had three hundred > thousand people listening in, he would have been even happier.” > > This year, Schwartz has heard some argue that there must be a more thoughtful > and nuanced version of Donald Trump that he is keeping in reserve for after > the campaign. “There isn’t,” Schwartz insists. “There is no private Trump.” > This is not a matter of hindsight. While working on “The Art of the Deal,” > Schwartz kept a journal in which he expressed his amazement at Trump’s > personality, writing that Trump seemed driven entirely by a need for public > attention. “All he is is ‘stomp, stomp, stomp’—recognition from outside, > bigger, more, a whole series of things that go nowhere in particular,” he > observed, on October 21, 1986. But, as he noted in the journal a few days > later, “the book will be far more successful if Trump is a sympathetic > character—even weirdly sympathetic—than if he is just hateful or, worse yet, > a one-dimensional blowhard.” > > Eavesdropping solved the interview problem, but it presented a new one. After > hearing Trump’s discussions about business on the phone, Schwartz asked him > brief follow-up questions. He then tried to amplify the material he got from > Trump by calling others involved in the deals. But their accounts often > directly conflicted with Trump’s. “Lying is second nature to him,” Schwartz > said. “More than anyone else I have ever met, Trump has the ability to > convince himself that whatever he is saying at any given moment is true, or > sort of true, or at least ought to be true.” Often, Schwartz said, the lies > that Trump told him were about money—“how much he had paid for something, or > what a building he owned was worth, or how much one of his casinos was > earning when it was actually on its way to bankruptcy.” Trump bragged that he > paid only eight million dollars for Mar-a-Lago, but omitted that he bought a > nearby strip of beach for a record sum. After gossip columns reported, > erroneously, that Prince Charles was considering buying several apartments in > Trump Tower, Trump implied that he had no idea where the rumor had started. > (“It certainly didn’t hurt us,” he says, in “The Art of the Deal.”) Wayne > Barrett, a reporter for the Village Voice, later revealed that Trump himself > had planted the story with journalists. Schwartz also suspected that Trump > engaged in such media tricks, and asked him about a story making the > rounds—that Trump often called up news outlets using a pseudonym. Trump > didn’t deny it. As Schwartz recalls, he smirked and said, “You like that, do > you?” > > Schwartz says of Trump, “He lied strategically. He had a complete lack of > conscience about it.” Since most people are “constrained by the truth,” > Trump’s indifference to it “gave him a strange advantage.” > > When challenged about the facts, Schwartz says, Trump would often double > down, repeat himself, and grow belligerent. This quality was recently on > display after Trump posted on Twitter a derogatory image of Hillary Clinton > that contained a six-pointed star lifted from a white-supremacist Web site. > Campaign staffers took the image down, but two days later Trump angrily > defended it, insisting that there was no anti-Semitic implication. Whenever > “the thin veneer of Trump’s vanity is challenged,” Schwartz says, he > overreacts—not an ideal quality in a head of state. > > When Schwartz began writing “The Art of the Deal,” he realized that he needed > to put an acceptable face on Trump’s loose relationship with the truth. So he > concocted an artful euphemism. Writing in Trump’s voice, he explained to the > reader, “I play to people’s fantasies. . . . People want to believe that > something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it > truthful hyperbole. It’s an innocent form of exaggeration—and it’s a very > effective form of promotion.” Schwartz now disavows the passage. “Deceit,” he > told me, is never “innocent.” He added, “ ‘Truthful hyperbole’ is a > contradiction in terms. It’s a way of saying, ‘It’s a lie, but who cares?’ ” > Trump, he said, loved the phrase. > > In his journal, Schwartz describes the process of trying to make Trump’s > voice palatable in the book. It was kind of “a trick,” he writes, to mimic > Trump’s blunt, staccato, no-apologies delivery while making him seem almost > boyishly appealing. One strategy was to make it appear that Trump was just > having fun at the office. “I try not to take any of what’s happened too > seriously,” Trump says in the book. “The real excitement is playing the > game.” > > In his journal, Schwartz wrote, “Trump stands for many of the things I abhor: > his willingness to run over people, the gaudy, tacky, gigantic obsessions, > the absolute lack of interest in anything beyond power and money.” Looking > back at the text now, Schwartz says, “I created a character far more winning > than Trump actually is.” The first line of the book is an example. “I don’t > do it for the money,” Trump declares. “I’ve got enough, much more than I’ll > ever need. I do it to do it. Deals are my art form. Other people paint > beautifully on canvas or write wonderful poetry. I like making deals, > preferably big deals. That’s how I get my kicks.” Schwartz now laughs at this > depiction of Trump as a devoted artisan. “Of course he’s in it for the > money,” he said. “One of the most deep and basic needs he has is to prove > that ‘I’m richer than you.’ ” As for the idea that making deals is a form of > poetry, Schwartz says, “He was incapable of saying something like that—it > wouldn’t even be in his vocabulary.” He saw Trump as driven not by a pure > love of dealmaking but by an insatiable hunger for “money, praise, and > celebrity.” Often, after spending the day with Trump, and watching him pile > one hugely expensive project atop the next, like a circus performer spinning > plates, Schwartz would go home and tell his wife, “He’s a living black hole!” > > Schwartz reminded himself that he was being paid to tell Trump’s story, not > his own, but the more he worked on the project the more disturbing he found > it. In his journal, he describes the hours he spent with Trump as “draining” > and “deadening.” Schwartz told me that Trump’s need for attention is > “completely compulsive,” and that his bid for the Presidency is part of a > continuum. “He’s managed to keep increasing the dose for forty years,” > Schwartz said. After he’d spent decades as a tabloid titan, “the only thing > left was running for President. If he could run for emperor of the world, he > would.” > > Rhetorically, Schwartz’s aim in “The Art of the Deal” was to present Trump as > the hero of every chapter, but, after looking into some of his supposedly > brilliant deals, Schwartz concluded that there were cases in which there was > no way to make Trump look good. So he sidestepped unflattering incidents and > details. “I didn’t consider it my job to investigate,” he says. > > Schwartz also tried to avoid the strong whiff of cronyism that hovered over > some deals. In his 1986 journal, he describes what a challenge it was to “put > his best foot forward” in writing about one of Trump’s first triumphs: his > development, starting in 1975, of the Grand Hyatt Hotel, on the site of the > former Commodore Hotel, next to Grand Central Terminal. In order to afford > the hotel, Trump required an extremely large tax abatement. Richard Ravitch, > who was then in charge of the agency that had the authority to grant such tax > breaks to developers, recalls that he declined to grant the abatement, and > Trump got “so unpleasant I had to tell him to get out.” Trump got it anyway, > largely because key city officials had received years of donations from his > father, Fred Trump, who was a major real-estate developer in Queens. Wayne > Barrett, whose reporting for the Voice informed his definitive 1991 book, > “Trump: The Deals and the Downfall,” says, “It was all Fred’s political > connections that created the abatement.” In addition, Trump snookered rivals > into believing that he had an exclusive option from the city on the project, > when he didn’t. Trump also deceived his partner in the deal, Jay Pritzker, > the head of the Hyatt Hotel chain. Pritzker had rejected an unfavorable term > proposed by Trump, but at the closing Trump forced it through, knowing that > Pritzker was on a mountain in Nepal and could not be reached. Schwartz wrote > in his journal that “almost everything” about the hotel deal had “an immoral > cast.” But as the ghostwriter he was “trying hard to find my way around” > behavior that he considered “if not reprehensible, at least morally > questionable.” > > Many tall tales that Trump told Schwartz contained a kernel of truth but > made him out to be cleverer than he was. One of Trump’s favorite stories was > about how he had tricked the company that owned Holiday Inn into becoming his > partner in an Atlantic City casino. Trump claimed that he had quieted > executives’ fears of construction delays by ordering his construction > supervisor to make a vacant lot that he owned look like “the most active > construction site in the history of the world.” As Trump tells it in “The Art > of the Deal,” there were so many dump trucks and bulldozers pushing around > dirt and filling holes that had just been dug that when Holiday Inn > executives visited the site it “looked as if we were in the midst of building > the Grand Coulee Dam.” The stunt, Trump claimed, pushed the deal through. > After the book came out, though, a consultant for Trump’s casinos, Al > Glasgow, who is now deceased, told Schwartz, “It never happened.” There may > have been one or two trucks, but not the fleet that made it a great story. > > Schwartz tamped down some of Trump’s swagger, but plenty of it remained. The > manuscript that Random House published was, depending on your perspective, > either entertainingly insightful or shamelessly self-aggrandizing. To borrow > a title from Norman Mailer, who frequently attended prizefights at Trump’s > Atlantic City hotels, the book could have been called “Advertisements for > Myself.” > > In 2005, Timothy L. O’Brien, an award-winning journalist who is currently the > executive editor of Bloomberg View, published “Trump Nation,” a meticulous > investigative biography. (Trump unsuccessfully sued him for libel.) O’Brien > has taken a close look at “The Art of the Deal,” and he told me that it might > be best characterized as a “nonfiction work of fiction.” Trump’s life story, > as told by Schwartz, honestly chronicled a few setbacks, such as Trump’s > disastrous 1983 purchase of the New Jersey Generals, a football team in the > flailing United States Football League. But O’Brien believes that Trump used > the book to turn almost every step of his life, both personal and > professional, into a “glittering fable.” > > Some of the falsehoods in “The Art of the Deal” are minor. Spy upended > Trump’s claims that Ivana had been a “top model” and an alternate on the > Czech Olympic ski team. Barrett notes that in “The Art of the Deal” Trump > describes his father as having been born in New Jersey to Swedish parents; in > fact, he was born in the Bronx to German parents. (Decades later, Trump > spread falsehoods about Obama’s origins, claiming it was possible that the > President was born in Africa.) > > In “The Art of the Deal,” Trump portrays himself as a warm family man with > endless admirers. He praises Ivana’s taste and business skill—“I said you > can’t bet against Ivana, and she proved me right.” But Schwartz noticed > little warmth or communication between Trump and Ivana, and he later learned > that while “The Art of the Deal” was being written Trump began an affair with > Marla Maples, who became his second wife. (He divorced Ivana in 1992.) As far > as Schwartz could tell, Trump spent very little time with his family and had > no close friends. In “The Art of the Deal,” Trump describes Roy Cohn, his > personal lawyer, in the warmest terms, calling him “the sort of guy who’d be > there at your hospital bed . . . literally standing by you to the death.” > Cohn, who in the fifties assisted Senator Joseph McCarthy in his vicious > crusade against Communism, was closeted. He felt abandoned by Trump when he > became fatally ill from AIDS, and said, “Donald pisses ice water.” Schwartz > says of Trump, “He’d like people when they were helpful, and turn on them > when they weren’t. It wasn’t personal. He’s a transactional man—it was all > about what you could do for him.” > > According to Barrett, among the most misleading aspects of “The Art of the > Deal” was the idea that Trump made it largely on his own, with only minimal > help from his father, Fred. Barrett, in his book, notes that Trump once > declared, “The working man likes me because he knows I didn’t inherit what > I’ve built,” and that in “The Art of the Deal” he derides wealthy heirs as > members of “the Lucky Sperm Club.” > > Trump’s self-portrayal as a Horatio Alger figure has buttressed his populist > appeal in 2016. But his origins were hardly humble. Fred’s fortune, based on > his ownership of middle-income properties, wasn’t glamorous, but it was > sizable: in 2003, a few years after Fred died, Trump and his siblings > reportedly sold some of their father’s real-estate holdings for half a > billion dollars. In “The Art of the Deal,” Trump cites his father as “the > most important influence on me,” but in his telling his father’s main legacy > was teaching him the importance of “toughness.” Beyond that, Schwartz says, > Trump “barely talked about his father—he didn’t want his success to be seen > as having anything to do with him.” But when Barrett investigated he found > that Trump’s father was instrumental in his son’s rise, financially and > politically. In the book, Trump says that “my energy and my enthusiasm” > explain how, as a twenty-nine-year-old with few accomplishments, he acquired > the Grand Hyatt Hotel. Barrett reports, however, that Trump’s father had to > co-sign the many contracts that the deal required. He also lent Trump seven > and a half million dollars to get started as a casino owner in Atlantic City; > at one point, when Trump couldn’t meet payments on other loans, his father > tried to tide him over by sending a lawyer to buy some three million dollars’ > worth of gambling chips. Barrett told me, “Donald did make some smart moves > himself, particularly in assembling the site for the Trump Tower. That was a > stroke of genius.” Nonetheless, he said, “The notion that he’s a self-made > man is a joke. But I guess they couldn’t call the book ‘The Art of My > Father’s Deals.’ ” > > The other key myth perpetuated by “The Art of the Deal” was that Trump’s > intuitions about business were almost flawless. “The book helped fuel the > notion that he couldn’t fail,” Barrett said. But, unbeknown to Schwartz and > the public, by late 1987, when the book came out, Trump was heading toward > what Barrett calls “simultaneous personal and professional self-destruction.” > O’Brien agrees that during the next several years Trump’s life unravelled. > The divorce from Ivana reportedly cost him twenty-five million dollars. > Meanwhile, he was in the midst of what O’Brien calls “a crazy shopping spree > that resulted in unmanageable debt.” He was buying the Plaza Hotel and also > planning to erect “the tallest building in the world,” on the former rail > yards that he had bought on the West Side. In 1987, the city denied him > permission to construct such a tall skyscraper, but in “The Art of the Deal” > he brushed off this failure with a one-liner: “I can afford to wait.” O’Brien > says, “The reality is that he couldn’t afford to wait. He was telling the > media that the carrying costs were three million dollars, when in fact they > were more like twenty million.” Trump was also building a third casino in > Atlantic City, the Taj, which he promised would be “the biggest casino in > history.” He bought the Eastern Air Lines shuttle that operated out of New > York, Boston, and Washington, rechristening it the Trump Shuttle, and > acquired a giant yacht, the Trump Princess. “He was on a total run of > complete and utter self-absorption,” Barrett says, adding, “It’s kind of like > now.” > > Schwartz said that when he was writing the book “the greatest percentage of > Trump’s assets was in casinos, and he made it sound like each casino was more > successful than the last. But every one of them was failing.” He went on, “I > think he was just spinning. I don’t think he could have believed it at the > time. He was losing millions of dollars a day. He had to have been terrified.” > > In 1992, the journalist David Cay Johnston published a book about casinos, > “Temples of Chance,” and cited a net-worth statement from 1990 that assessed > Trump’s personal wealth. It showed that Trump owed nearly three hundred > million dollars more to his creditors than his assets were worth. The next > year, his company was forced into bankruptcy—the first of six such instances. > The Trump meteor had crashed. > > But in “The Art of the Deal,” O’Brien told me, “Trump shrewdly and > unabashedly promoted an image of himself as a dealmaker nonpareil who could > always get the best out of every situation—and who can now deliver America > from its malaise.” This idealized version was presented to an exponentially > larger audience, O’Brien noted, when Mark Burnett, the reality-television > producer, read “The Art of the Deal” and decided to base a new show on it, > “The Apprentice,” with Trump as the star. The first season of the show, which > premièred in 2004, opens with Trump in the back of a limousine, boasting, > “I’ve mastered the art of the deal, and I’ve turned the name Trump into the > highest-quality brand.” An image of the book’s cover flashes onscreen as > Trump explains that, as the “master,” he is now seeking an apprentice. > O’Brien said, “ ‘The Apprentice’ is mythmaking on steroids. There’s a > straight line from the book to the show to the 2016 campaign.” > > It took Schwartz a little more than a year to write “The Art of the Deal.” In > the spring of 1987, he sent the manuscript to Trump, who returned it to him > shortly afterward. There were a few red marks made with a fat-tipped Magic > Marker, most of which deleted criticisms that Trump had made of powerful > individuals he no longer wanted to offend, such as Lee Iacocca. Otherwise, > Schwartz says, Trump changed almost nothing. > > In my phone interview with Trump, he initially said of Schwartz, “Tony was > very good. He was the co-author.” But he dismissed Schwartz’s account of the > writing process. “He didn’t write the book,” Trump told me. “I wrote the > book. I wrote the book. It was my book. And it was a No. 1 best-seller, and > one of the best-selling business books of all time. Some say it was the > best-selling business book ever.” (It is not.) Howard Kaminsky, the former > Random House head, laughed and said, “Trump didn’t write a postcard for us!” > > Trump was far more involved in the book’s promotion. He wooed booksellers and > made one television appearance after another. He publicly promised to donate > his cut of the book’s royalties to charity. He even made a surprise trip to > New Hampshire, where he stirred additional publicity by floating the > possibility that he might run for President. > > In December of 1987, a month after the book was published, Trump hosted an > extravagant book party in the pink marble atrium of Trump Tower. Klieg lights > lit a red carpet outside the building. Inside, nearly a thousand guests, in > black tie, were served champagne and fed slices of a giant cake replica of > Trump Tower, which was wheeled in by a parade of women waving red sparklers. > The boxing promoter Don King greeted the crowd in a floor-length mink coat, > and the comedian Jackie Mason introduced Donald and Ivana with the words > “Here comes the king and queen!” Trump toasted Schwartz, saying teasingly > that he had at least tried to teach him how to make money. > > Schwartz got more of an education the next day, when he and Trump spoke on > the phone. After chatting briefly about the party, Trump informed Schwartz > that, as his ghostwriter, he owed him for half the event’s cost, which was in > the six figures. Schwartz was dumbfounded. “He wanted me to split the cost of > entertaining his list of nine hundred second-rate celebrities?” Schwartz had, > in fact, learned a few things from watching Trump. He drastically negotiated > down the amount that he agreed to pay, to a few thousand dollars, and then > wrote Trump a letter promising to write a check not to Trump but to a charity > of Schwartz’s choosing. It was a page out of Trump’s playbook. In the past > seven years, Trump has promised to give millions of dollars to charity, but > reporters for the Washington Post found that they could document only ten > thousand dollars in donations—and they uncovered no direct evidence that > Trump made charitable contributions from money earned by “The Art of the > Deal.” > > Not long after the discussion of the party bills, Trump approached Schwartz > about writing a sequel, for which Trump had been offered a seven-figure > advance. This time, however, he offered Schwartz only a third of the profits. > He pointed out that, because the advance was much bigger, the payout would > be, too. But Schwartz said no. Feeling deeply alienated, he instead wrote a > book called “What Really Matters,” about the search for meaning in life. > After working with Trump, Schwartz writes, he felt a “gnawing emptiness” and > became a “seeker,” longing to “be connected to something timeless and > essential, more real.” > > Schwartz told me that he has decided to pledge all royalties from sales of > “The Art of the Deal” in 2016 to pointedly chosen charities: the National > Immigration Law Center, Human Rights Watch, the Center for the Victims of > Torture, the National Immigration Forum, and the Tahirih Justice Center. He > doesn’t feel that the gesture absolves him. “I’ll carry this until the end of > my life,” he said. “There’s no righting it. But I like the idea that, the > more copies that ‘The Art of the Deal’ sells, the more money I can donate to > the people whose rights Trump seeks to abridge.” > > Schwartz expected Trump to attack him for speaking out, and he was correct. > Informed that Schwartz had made critical remarks about him, and wouldn’t be > voting for him, Trump said, “He’s probably just doing it for the publicity.” > He also said, “Wow. That’s great disloyalty, because I made Tony rich. He > owes a lot to me. I helped him when he didn’t have two cents in his pocket. > It’s great disloyalty. I guess he thinks it’s good for him—but he’ll find out > it’s not good for him.” > > Minutes after Trump got off the phone with me, Schwartz’s cell phone rang. “I > hear you’re not voting for me,” Trump said. “I just talked to The New > Yorker—which, by the way, is a failing magazine that no one reads—and I heard > you were critical of me.” > > “You’re running for President,” Schwartz said. “I disagree with a lot of what > you’re saying.” > > “That’s your right, but then you should have just remained silent. I just > want to tell you that I think you’re very disloyal. Without me, you wouldn’t > be where you are now. I had a lot of choice of who to have write the book, > and I chose you, and I was very generous with you. I know that you gave a lot > of speeches and lectures using ‘The Art of the Deal.’ I could have sued you, > but I didn’t.” > > “My business has nothing to do with ‘The Art of the Deal.’ ” > > “That’s not what I’ve been told.” > > “You’re running for President of the United States. The stakes here are high.” > > “Yeah, they are,” he said. “Have a nice life.” Trump hung up. > > Schwartz can understand why Trump feels stung, but he felt that he had to > speak up before it was too late. As for Trump’s anger toward him, he said, “I > don’t take it personally, because the truth is he didn’t mean it personally. > People are dispensable and disposable in Trump’s world.” If Trump is elected > President, he warned, “the millions of people who voted for him and believe > that he represents their interests will learn what anyone who deals closely > with him already knows—that he couldn’t care less about them.” > > -- > -- > Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community > <[email protected]> > Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism > Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org > > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. 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